Salad Days

One of the Valley’s premier suppliers of organic produce, Blue Sky Farms in Litchfield Park, has called it quits. The upscale operation was simply too expensive to handle, with rising transportation and labor costs, says owner David Vose. The final straw came when a hailstorm flattened the farm’s last lettuce crop.

How sad. Blue Sky was 120 acres of salad salvation, every field weeded by hand, every plant lovingly fed a nourishing diet of blood meal and bat guano, every leaf cleaned and picked over by a real person. Specialty greens included spinach, red chard, rainbow chard, collard greens, Italian dandelions, red rib dandelions and romaine.

Blue Sky was a preferred supplier for many of the Valley’s high-end restaurants, like Rancho Pinot Grill and Vincent’s, which happily paid $4.25 a pound for baby arugula and $4.30 a pound for baby spinach. Unfortunately, it seems there just weren’t enough eateries dedicated to such superior salad quality to keep the farm functioning, Vose laments.

Vose says he isn’t giving up yet — he’s looking for new financing. In the meantime, diners need not be scared about what’s on their salad plates — Valley chefs are relying on another favorite organic purveyor, Duncan Family Farms in Goodyear.

Chuck It: Sir Charles Bar-B-Q Pit has closed. But not for long, hopefully. Word on the street is that the Texas-style rib joint will be reopening soon somewhere near Cave Creek, possibly as a larger, fancier enterprise.

Regulars will remember Sir Charles’ motto: “Good food ain’t cheap. Cheap food ain’t good. Our food ain’t cheap.” And the stuff that “Sir” Charles Taylor cooked up was good — beef brisket, pulled pork, smoked turkey, Texas sausage — chamber smoked with pecan wood.

Be on the lookout for Charles’ resurgence. In the meantime, diners craving a fix will have to smoke their own meat, dressed with Taylor’s mild and hot barbecue sauces that can still be found at their neighborhood AJ’s.

Or, they can cruise over to Dusty’s BBQ, just opened on the corner of Tatum and Shea, and grab some awesome baby backs, pulled pork, sausage — even prime rib and trout.

Just don’t look for plates here. The meat is carved to order, by the pound or by the slice, wrapped simply in white butcher paper and handed over. Guests take their little bundles to the picnic tables, spread out on the checkered tablecloth, slop on the sauce and make their own sandwiches. It’s good, sticky fun for the whole family.