Marissa LaBrecque’s interview with Jennifer Reichardt, author of The Whole Duck: Inspired Recipes from Chefs, Butchers and the Family at Liberty Ducks (Abrams, 2022).
“What is your role with Sonoma County Poultry?”
[long pause]
“Daughter,” she responds.
And indeed my interviewee on this day is the daughter of Jim Reichardt, founder of Sonoma County Poultry, renowned producer of “Liberty Ducks.” Jennifer Reichardt is also cofounder and winemaker at Raft Wines, and the author of The Whole Duck: Inspired Recipes from Chefs, Butchers, and the Family at Liberty Ducks, published by Abrams in the fall of 2022.
If you have dined out in our area in the last couple of decades, you have seen Liberty Duck named on a menu. The company grew up alongside what is now known as “California cuisine.” “Because we have always sold directly to our customers and have never used distributors, we have strong relationships with a lot of chefs,” Jennifer says with pride. These relationships are the meat of her book, alongside the birds themselves.
The Whole Duck was a Covid-born project. When restaurants started to taper service or close down entirely during the pandemic, the Reichardts decided it was time to start selling direct to consumers for the first time since the company was launched in 1992, but they knew that many home cooks would be intimidated by the idea of cooking duck themselves. The Whole Duck is intended to be a bridge, offering a wide variety of recipes from their community of chef-friends, written for the home cook.
“Once we decided to do it, we made a very long list of those that we wanted to include. Everyone was so supportive,” says Jennifer. The list includes Chris Cosentino, longtime Liberty Duck customer and champion. “Duck is an amazing animal that I consider the unicorn of birds,” he says in his foreword for the book. From duck fat fries to duck caramels and everything in between, the whole meal is covered in the book. Recipes range in difficulty from your average Wednesday night to New Year’s Eve.
“We created a section at the front with all the fundamental skills needed to cook the bird, render the fat, cut it. Once you’ve got those things done, you can handle any recipe in the book,” Jennifer assures me.
Did dad provide any recipes? “Nope, but he did do the butchery part,” says Jennifer. “I always prepare duck the same old way,” dad Jim adds with a laugh.
Jim Reichardt has been and is still an integral part of a community that dreamt food could remake the world in a more connected and loving way—well before “farm-to-table” became “the thing.” In fact, this community made it “the thing.” Jennifer carries that dream forward. Yes, they are farming ducks, but they are also connecting chefs with land and life cycles; they are bringing narrative to the center of the plate; and they are doing the work of maintaining diversity in the food system. They are also ambassadors of Sonoma County, bringing the ethos of this place to kitchens around the world.
The Whole Duck contributes to the father and daughter’s shared mission of extending this community from the hallowed walls of Chez Panisse to chez vous, the contributions of the new generation of duck farmer as generous and endearing as the prior’s. And it doesn’t hurt that she can also provide the wine.
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