What makes a great teacher?  It’s not “mysterious nor magical. It is neither a function of dynamic personality nor dramatic performance. Teachers who do well in America have a history of perseverance—not just an attitude, but a track record and a passion for long-term goals.”

That quote from a recent Atlantic Magazine article on successful teachers applies equally well to chef Dan Barber of Blue Hill at Stone Barns.

Barber is the chef and owner of several restaurants, including Blue Hill in Manhattan and Blue Hill at Stone Barns in Pocantico Hills, New York. How celebrated are his artistry and integrity? When the President wanted to take his wife out dinner in New York City, they went to Blue Hill.

Food and Wine, TIME, and the James Beard Foundation have all singled Barber out for praise and honors. He was invited to speak at the 2010 TED Conference about his efforts to keep fish on the menu as wild stocks dwindle. So in addition to being smart and appealing and enormously talented, he’s environmentally responsible—and absolutely committed to sustainability.

Even critics are wowed. Ed Levine of New York Magazine wrote:

“Blue Hill at Stone Barns is the most important and gutsiest restaurant in America right now (emphasis theirs). Barber has taken the ideas of locavorism, nose-to-tail cooking, and farm-to-table to groundbreaking places, and in so doing he is laying the foundation for a truly different kind of restaurant-going experience with far-reaching implications.”

The Best Teachers Inspire You to Learn

Running a restaurant is a nightly sprint but running Blue Hill is a marathon that demands true grit.

Think, for example, of the perseverance and passion it took to convince a wealthy benefactor, David Rockefeller, to convert a sizable piece of property in Westchester County (NY) into a four-season farm and education center.

Or to attract an equally passionate farm manager like Jack Algiere, as well as the hundreds of people who educate us day and night at Blue Hill at Stone Barns.

Dan Barber has made the dining room his classroom and the kitchen his laboratory. Because of his reputation, I was glad of the opportunity to attend that classroom for a four-hour seminar earlier this month.

When the first course came out—a series of spring vegetables arranged on a picket fence with a crust of salt—I was charmed. Great flavor for sure. Subtle textures. More than that, that construction makes you stop and observe, and consider the vegetablea in front of you. Indeed, if you’re not too hungry, to marvel.

It’s All A Question of Scale

An architect I met recently said when you see something “in miniature,” you re-see it. Our relationship with the object has changed because we have seen it in a new way. He was talking about the importance of scale in art and architecture. He continued, “Seeing something like a toy reduces the real world down to our scale—an understandable scale—and, in the end, a world that we too, can participate in.”

All this from a vegetable or two the size of your pinky? Absolutely. There is something truly spectacular and worthy here: a direct connection between the soil, the farmer, and the chef—who is confident enough in his produce to present something with little or no pretense.

And that gets you thinking about big and little things—like taking the time to really engage. To make your own connections to texture, taste and how things can be. To consider what can be done with less, not more. To inspire in others what Dan Barber and his family at Stone Barns can achieve with a single course.

The staff brings out many ingredients ahead of time to show you what they are like in the natural state. A parsnip that has been underground all winter is compressed into a brick-like “steak” of and served with a red cabbage ketchup. Stinging nettles, which gardeners and hikers steer clear of, is converted into a puree. The invasive Japanese knotweed is paired with bluefish, a strong, oily protein that challenges even the most sophisticated chefs, into something delicate. And it all works.

Farran Adrià, the chef of Spain’s acclaimed elBulli restaurant, in his profile of Barber for the TIME Magazine 100 said the following:

“One of the ways humans communicate is by way of the kitchen, and this is what Barber, 39, does through his dishes. But he is something more than just a chef. His ethics—conservation, the use of vegetables and animals that are grown and raised within the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture—are a model for all chefs and all those who love good food.

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