We admire the golden raspberries and candy striped beets strewn about the pages of the glossy food magazines. We marvel at the kinky little lettuce leaves in our salads when we vacation in California. Then we get our aprons in a knot trying to find the same ingredients back at home. If we are lucky, we end up paying an outrageous price for jet-lagged produce packed in minuscule plastic tubs. But mostly, we just don't find these ingredients at all. This is frustrating enough if you are a home cook flying to impress your dinner guests. If you are a chef whose trademark is California cuisine, the situation is more serious. Just ask Anne Milne. The lack of new and unusual produce as one of the first concerns 37-year-old Milne had to address when she assumed her position as executive chef at Vancouver's Pacific Palisades Hotel in 1990.

The recently renovated hotel was aiming for a feeling of casual elegance, and management was fully behind Milne's intention to take the menu of its new restaurant, Monterey, beyond the realm of hotel stuffy. Milne, however, new that her plans would present a supply problem: exceptional food requires exceptional ingredients. A few local suppliers were dealing in the fresh herbs and unusual garnishes she wanted, but she was only one of many chefs banging on their door. Her solution: to grow her own garden. However, this is more easily done if your establishment is a pastoral country inn, not a high-rise hotel in the heart of the city. Milne's only recourse was to claim [or cultivation a large, second-floor rooftop with a view of the boutiques and traffic of Robson Street. The area was flat, spacious and fully exposed to the sun - perfect for a roller skating rink; equally ideal for a rooftop container garden. And so she set to work. A local seed was brought in to help with the design and to supply the seeds for the plants Milne coveted: arugula, rhubarb chard, mache, lamb's lettuce and red and green shiso, to name a few. Easy maintenance would be key to the garden's design. The 50 or so shallow planter boxes were built from weather-resistant, pressurized lumber and raised to countertop height. An irrigation system was connected to an automatic timer. Arbors were built to shade the more tender plants, and from these Milne hung baskets of edible flowers such as fuchsia, nasturtium, anise hyssop and pansy.

The recipes she designed for our sunny patio luncheon incorporate the pick of Anne Milne's rooftop garden.

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