Young Ginger

A Farm-to-Table Story at Wonder Garden and Kitchen

By David and Maddox Joachim | Photos By Olaf Starorypinski

AT WONDER GARDEN

By David Joachim

On a stormy June morning, Mei Xiang enters her greenhouse, kneels down, and caresses the tender green leaves of her fledgling ginger plants. Furrowing her brow, she stands up and says, “It’s too cold,” impatient for the symmetrical rows of rhizomes to grow. “Ginger is the hardest crop for us,” she confides. It’s the most important crop, too, essential to Mei’s Chinese cooking. Young ginger is essential to their success.

FROM THE CITY TO THE FARM

In 2016, Mei and her husband, Yiting Hu, moved with their (then) 11-year-old son from Beijing, China, to Pennsylvania. “We stayed with my cousin in New York City for a couple of months,” says Yiting, “while searching for a suitable property.” In Beijing, Yiting had been a successful safety engineer, but after 12 years he grew tired of the office-computer life. “I wanted to work outside. I moved to America to become a farmer,” he says with a twinkle in his eye. “We wanted to change our lifestyle,” adds Mei.

In 2018, the couple purchased and started farming a 200-year-old, 23-acre farmstead at 3565 Reservoir Road in Hellertown, within walking distance of the Saucon Valley Farmers Market. Called Wonder Garden, the property includes three outbuildings, the largest of which is a slate-roof barn that Yiting and Mei restored into a welcoming farm store offering their farm-fresh produce. Inside Wonder Garden’s rustic, wood-beamed barn, wicker baskets brim with fresh Chinese eggplant, bunches of carrots, green onions, asparagus, potatoes, bok choy, daikon, and other produce grown less than 500 feet away on the farm, all certified organic by the USDA.

Organic farming in Pennsylvania was a learning curve for a middle-aged engineer from Beijing. But it didn’t take long. Yiting’s analytical, organized, and precise mind served him well in building greenhouses, installing an irrigation system, and planning year-round crops. “We also searched for classes on how to farm,” says Mei. “That’s how we found The Seed Farm.” Located in Emmaus, The Seed Farm is a 42-acre nonprofit farmer training center affiliated with both Community Action Lehigh Valley and the local Second Harvest Food Bank.

For a year, Mei volunteered at The Seed Farm to learn and practice everything that she and Yiting would need to do to grow organically year-round in the Lehigh Valley. They learned how to improve their soil fertility with composting, mulching, crop rotation, cover cropping, integrated pest management (IPM), and organic fertilizers.

FROM FARM TO FARMSTAND

In the fall, the Wonder Garden bins overflow with the farm’s organic young ginger, pumpkins, bitter gourds, Napa cabbage, purple cauliflower, and more. What Mei can’t sell fresh, she’ll cook, or she’ll pickle, preserve, and dehydrate for the colder months. The Wonder Garden farm store also sells small jars of freshly made ginger powder, garlic powder, ground turmeric, and red pepper flakes. Mei and Yiting keep chickens and ducks on the farm, selling fresh eggs from a glass-doored refrigerator, which also displays bundles of vibrant Asian greens such as spring tower, pea shoots, water spinach, and chives, as well as freshly bottled Wonder Garden ginger beer and turmeric beer—both of which taste light-years ahead of most bottled sodas. In the freezer case, you’ll find pink rose ice cream in springtime and buttery ginger ice cream year round.

In the spring, Mei and Yiting also transform their organic rose garden into ruby rose syrup and fragrant rose petal jam, neatly displayed next to rows of jarred Wonder Garden condiments like ketchup, chili sauce, spaghetti sauce, sun-dried tomatoes, sushi ginger, ginger preserves, lemon ginger marmalade, and kumquat ginger marmalade. Some of Mei’s new crop of young ginger will end up here, but most will be used in her homestyle cooking.

If you decide to visit the farm store, don’t blink—you could drive right past it. Lower Saucon Township limits the size of business signage in the area to preserve the area’s bucolic setting. The Wonder Garden sign is tiny. When you enter the barn, you also won’t find anyone inside. The store operates on the honor system, much like the smaller farm stands you see all over the region. But Wonder Garden is bigger and payment options are more sophisticated than a metal cash box. You can pay by Venmo, PayPal, cash, check, or credit card. All the necessary information and payment terminals are right on the wooden checkout counter. You’ll also find a notebook and pen if you care to leave a handwritten note about what you bought or a comment about Wonder Garden.

FROM THE FARMSTAND TO THE COMMUNITY

The farm store’s personal touch is one of the ways that Mei and Yiting encourage people to develop a closer relationship with the food they eat and the regional community in which that food was grown. “We’re trying to get people to eat more local,” says Mei, “and to share our culture with the community.”

Ginger is such a huge part of that culture and Chinese cuisine in general. “We’re growing 300 pounds of ginger this year,” says Mei. “We only harvest young ginger, which is more mild and tender than mature ginger.” The couple plants towel gourd, long beans, and water spinach as well. And their farm store bins are just as likely to feature typical Pennsylvania crops like tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, peppers, broccoli, peaches, plums, watermelon, and pawpaws.

“It’s so much work,” says Yiting. The entire farm is run solely by Yiting, Mei, and their 15-year-old son, Tianchun (Trevor). Their goal is to sell as much of their own produce as possible in order to sustain the family farm. In winter, they grow produce in two greenhouses. “That’s where we keep our spinach,” says Mei. “Have you ever had spinach grown in the winter?” she asks. “That’s real spinach. It has more flavor. And better texture,” she says. “Baby spinach in springtime is too mild and flimsy.” I nod in agreement, and Mei continues, “The best part of the spinach plant is the part between the bottom of the leaf and the bottom of the root. The thick stem part. It’s so sweet!”

Food quality matters to Mei and Yiting. At The Seed Farm, the couple made connections with an extensive network of like-minded growers and agricultural organizations, absorbing all the native knowledge they could with the goal of producing high-quality, healthy food that would benefit the community. When Wonder Garden opened, Mei and Yiting began selling organic produce not only at the farm store, but also to local chefs and restaurants such as The Shelby, Social Still, Jenny’s Kuali, and the Hampton Winds Restaurant at Northampton Community College.

After the second year, though, “We found it hard to get enough money to support our family just through farming,” says Mei. Their son would soon be going to college. They needed to sell more produce if they were going to realize Yiting’s dream of making a living in America as a farmer.

THE JOURNEY FROM FARM TO TABLE

Luckily, one Seed Farm connection bore sweeter fruit: It was there that Mei met Jenny Lim, the chef-owner of Jenny’s Kuali, a popular Malaysian restaurant in the Southside Arts District of Bethlehem. Both ardent supporters of local food, Mei and Jenny grew close, and when Wonder Garden opened, Jenny began buying Mei’s produce for her restaurant. Mei’s interest in connecting local growers to local restaurants deepened, so Jenny invited her to come work at Jenny’s Kuali. Peeling ginger together side-by-side, Jenny confided in Mei that she was looking for someone to buy her restaurant. After 10 years running Jenny’s Kuali, she and her husband, Roy, wanted to retire. Would Mei be interested in taking over the restaurant?

“Absolutely not,” said Mei. She could see how much work it was to run a restaurant. And their to-do list at Wonder Garden was already a mile long.

“Are you sure?” asked Jenny.

At home that night, Mei stir-fried some vegetables in her wok for the family meal. “Could I run a restaurant?” she thought to herself, as she minced young ginger on the cutting board. “No, it’s just going to be too much.” She and Yiting were already working so hard. There must be another way to help her husband realize his farming dream.

Mei threw the ginger into the hot wok, and a plume of aromas wafted back to her nose. The familiar sting sharpened her senses, quickening her mind. As she scraped and tossed the vegetables in the wok, the smell of ginger awakened a subconscious place in her soul. It was as if the wok hei, the savory, smoky aromas of a thousand meals cooked on the same blazing hot metal, had released the wisdom of the elders from the recesses of Mei’s mind.

That fall, in October 2022, Mei and Yiting bought the restaurant from Jenny and opened Wonder Kitchen.

FROM THE WONDER GARDEN TO THE WONDER KITCHEN

By Maddox Joachim

WALKING INTO WONDER KITCHEN feels like walking into almost any other hole-in-the-wall restaurant. Amidst the aromas of frying garlic and ginger, you would never guess how many trials and tribulations transpired to get these doors open. You’d have no way of knowing Mei and Yiting’s life journey before their latest adventure. The restaurant they purchased sits on the corner of 4^th and Adams Streets in bustling South Bethlehem, near Lehigh University’s campus and other local eateries such as Rakki Ramen and La Lupita. Only steps away, the Bethlehem Farmers Market operates every Thursday.

Up the steps and inside the doors, wooden four-top tables occupy the center dining room with booths near the front windows (great for people-watching), and two-tops line the perimeter to the back service counter. It’s a modest space that seats about 40 guests. The walls are sparsely adorned with artwork of various herbs, shelves of potted plants, and a small TV in the corner that is, thankfully, not turned on during dining hours. Brightening the wall to the left of the service counter is a red Wonder Kitchen logo, an ancient Chinese pictograph that simultaneously means “food,” “to eat,” and to “provide food for others.”

The lower counter shelves are filled with Wonder Garden products, including candied ginger, apple ginger butter, and trays of ginger cookies with variations like chocolate, raisin, and oat. Mei or Leni, the restaurant’s “best helper and friend,” will warm up the cookies up before serving them on a plate. Mei is often in the kitchen but also works the service counter, where Wonder Garden’s specialization in young ginger is on full display. Everything from pickled sushi ginger to ginger marmalades is made and packaged by Mei and her team at the restaurant, including bottles of Wonder Garden ginger sodas in a nearby glass refrigerator. “We’re switching to cans next year,” notes Mei. “Less chance of breakage.”

The housemade local food products, hardwood floor, and lived-in wooden chairs create a cozy environment at Wonder Kitchen. There’s a Zen feeling to the space, an understated charm that complements the high-quality ingredients that go into everything on the menu. “We use as much of our own produce as we can,” says Mei. Broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, corn, edamame, eggplant, kohlrabi, okra, peppers, potatoes, pumpkins, and tomatoes grown and harvested less than 15 minutes away all show up in various stir-fries, soups, and off-menu specials at any given time of year.

When potatoes are in season (like right now), they become Kering Potatoes, Leni’s recipe for Indonesian shaved potato slices lightly fried and tossed in a spicy-sweet-salty glaze. In the spring, red roses get turned into an aromatic fizzy pink beverage and ice cream. Most seasonal specials are not listed on the menu, so be sure to ask for them. “At first, we wanted to change the menu every three months,” says Mei. “But we had to figure out what is coming up at the farm and what is popular here. Now we change the menu every four to five months.” Her goal is to cook with what’s growing locally each season.

This is the true embodiment of a “farm-to-table” restaurant. That phrase gets abused in restaurant marketing because, technically, all food goes from farm to table. But Wonder Kitchen is doing the real thing: serving what’s growing now, at the peak of freshness and flavor. If a dish on the menu calls for ingredients that aren’t yet ready at Wonder Garden, Mei buys local produce from other farms such as the Monocacy Farm Project in Bethlehem and Groovy Greens in Springtown. It’s not just about bringing the Wonder Garden to the Wonder Kitchen. For Mei and Yiting, it’s about strengthening the local grower network and getting more people to enjoy the amazing variety of food grown in the Lehigh Valley.

There’s a lot of incredible food in this region—sometimes too much. A surprising amount of local food goes to waste. A couple of years after Mei and Yiting opened their farm, food waste started to weigh heavily on the couple’s conscience. Crops that didn’t make it into the baskets of hungry shoppers or to the walk-ins of local eateries eventually went bad and had to be composted, donated, or discarded. “We wasted 500 pounds of tomatoes last year,” says Yiting. “We tried to compost them, but the animals ate them within two nights.” It is devastating to see all their time and care, not to mention the delicious produce, go to waste. That is one reason Wonder Kitchen exists: to support the farm and help reduce food waste by serving locally grown food on the restaurant’s menu.

“For me, it’s farm first, then the restaurant,” says Mei. “I’m not a chef.” A chef might modernize the menu, but Mei’s simple home-style cooking lets the fresh local ingredients shine. On the Wonder Kitchen menu, you’ll find purple butterfly pea flowers transformed into beautiful Butterfly Lemonade. The farm’s mildly pungent young ginger flavors a variety of menu items such as the Korean-inspired fried Gochujang Chicken. It’s an essential seasoning in Mei’s stir-fry sauces for Mee Goreng, the popular Indonesian stir-fried noodle and vegetable dish, and for fried noodles with vegetables, which can be made vegan or vegetarian—or carnivorous with the addition of chicken or shrimp. These dishes are great examples of the pan-Asian influences on Mei’s menu.

Plenty of Wonder Garden’s seasonal, organic vegetables shine brightly in dishes like Malaysian-style Curry Veggies with Tofu, and in Nasi Goreng, Indonesia’s popular fried rice served with a sunny-side-up egg and optional shrimp or chicken. As a showcase for the best produce from the farm at any given time of year, Mei’s sautéed veggies might feature fresh green asparagus in spring, sweet snap peas in summer, vibrant orange cauliflower in the fall, or deep green spinach in winter. Her Napa cabbage may find itself fermented and then sautéed in the comforting Kimchi Fried Rice, while her broccoli and other vegetables make their way into the Curry Mee Soup with a house-made Malaysian coconut-curry broth, tender egg noodles, chicken, and shrimp.

But forgive us if we stop for a moment to focus on the Wonder Ribs. Her gently steamed and ridiculously bright green baby bok choy sits happily in the glaze of what is arguably the restaurant’s best dish, the Wonder Ribs. The braised ribs, each just a couple of inches long, cook slowly in a sweet and savory gravy, featuring dark soy sauce, black vinegar, soybean paste, cinnamon, garlic, and—you guessed it—ginger. Wonder Ribs taste like a warm embrace on a cool evening. The cinnamon and ginger hug you like a blanket, while the acidic black vinegar brings a highly enjoyable burst of flavor to the sauce, with its notes of licorice, malt, and smoke. The crisp baby bok choy adds an earthy element—along with a way for the leftover sauce to still make it to your belly.

“We grow more ginger than any other crop,” says Yiting. It’s clear that this subterranean spice forms the backbone of both Wonder Garden and Wonder Kitchen. “The most important thing,” adds Mei, “is that we sell everything that we plant.”

While many people think of farm-to-table cuisine as a style of “New American” cooking, Mei and Yiting serve farm-to-table Chinese and pan-Asian cuisine at Wonder Kitchen. It’s a singular but significant approach that will hopefully enhance and increase the sustainability of the Lehigh Valley’s complex food system for years to come. •

Wonder Kitchen | Bethlehem | 610.849.2682
Wonder Garden | Hellertown | 3565 Reservoir Road