NARRATOR: The following program was produced in the Dr. Keiko Miwa Ross WPSU Production Studio in University Park, Pennsylvania.

[music playing] TAMRA FATEMI-BADI Food, a basic necessity.

We all need nutrients to survive and thrive.

Whether your meals come from the field, the fridge, the treasured family recipe, or the takeout menu, something special happens when we come together to share a meal and a common bond.

Culinary Connections is where we celebrate the people and places that use food to connect with the world around them.

Today, we head to downtown Johnstown, Pennsylvania, and meet Amanda Artim and Dallas Pursley, who run Balance Restaurant.

Sometimes I want a burger and a beer.

Sometimes I want a salad and a water, and our menu kind of encapsulates that whole concept.

Whenever we put the kale in there, we start to sweat it down.

TAMRA FATEMI-BADI And later, Chef Dallas will show you how to make your very own Balance Bowl.

I'm Tamra Fatemi-Badi, and welcome to Culinary Connections.

NARRATOR: Culinary Connections is made possible in part by The Rockwell Foundation, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, supporting the arts, science, technology, and education, and a proud supporter of local programs on WPSU, the Allegheny National Forest Visitors Bureau, and the DuBois Area Endowment for WPSU.

And by viewers like you.

Thank you.

TAMRA FATEMI-BADI: Our story takes place in a city known for hard work, grit, character, and perseverance.

A city that's been built and rebuilt numerous times, including after a historic flood in 1889 that caused a path of destruction.

The people of Johnstown, Pennsylvania have banded together for generations to create and recreate stability, much like one area resident has done.

Meet the co-owner of Balance Restaurant, Amanda Artim.

I love living in Johnstown.

People are so kind, and we're hard workers.

We work hard, and I take great pride in that.

TAMRA FATEMI-BADI: When Artim abruptly lost her job in 2016, she was presented with an opportunity to rebuild her career and open a restaurant, despite never having worked in food service.

I didn't have a restaurant background.

I never worked a day in a restaurant.

Not one second.

But I understand the importance of how to treat people.

And where do you live?

Oh, do you?

The Columbus is such a nice area.

Personal connection is everything.

Whether it's your employee, your guest, whomever it might be.

I had a passion, and I ran with it.

TAMRA FATEMI-BADI: In 2018, Amanda and her business partner opened Balance Restaurant in the heart of downtown Johnstown.

My vision at Balance was to create a space that people felt welcome, that they felt at home, and honestly, that they felt that they were kind of removed.

Walt Disney is a huge role model of mine.

When you go to Disney, every space that you go to, you feel like you're in a different space.

And I think one of the biggest compliments I ever got when we first opened was people were saying, I feel like I'm in Seattle.

I feel like I'm in DC.

That was exactly what we wanted to do.

Awesome.

Best risotto ever.

People will ask me all the time, why did you go downtown?

Downtown Johnstown has something incredibly special.

When you look at these buildings and you understand the history of them, you can't deny the fact that there's something really, really important here.

When our guests arrive at Balance restaurant, it's all about family.

And we have so much history here, like every family does.

So let me show you around.

This picture, for example, was taken from a building two doors down.

And this is what Johnstown looked like in 1936.

Sometimes people think about Johnstown and they think about the 1889 flood.

This wall survived the 1889 flood, and it's a huge part of our history, our community's history.

Here at our bar, if you look up, you can see tiles that date all the way back to 1867.

When we went through the renovation, we found these up in the ceiling and had them refurbished, and they are beautiful.

This wall here-- the story is told that after the flood, there were so many bricks in the street, they actually built this wall utilizing what they could find.

And that is why they are all different colors, and it's almost a mosaic.

Prior to us purchasing Balance, it was RJ's, and before that, though, it was Johnny's.

The name Balance came to me in the middle of the night-- I won't lie, because I don't sleep much-- and that's how I want to live.

If you have to create your own balance in life, sometimes I want a burger and a beer.

Sometimes I want a salad and a water.

And our menu kind of encapsulates that whole concept.

Executive Chef Dallas has done an amazing job in doing so.

The risotto has been on the menu since day one.

It's definitely been our number one signature item.

Now that we have gotten our Wood Stone oven, we've definitely been enjoying creating pizzas and making fresh dishes for all those that can enjoy.

Our Bowls are super popular.

We do a couple different salad bowls.

Our Balance Bowl is our biggest hit.

It's one of our best vegetarian, vegan options that we have.

We got a mushroom risotto, add two salmon, got a Hawaiian chicken bowl, a side of Brussels.

We've become locally famous for our lemon parm Brussels sprouts.

It was one of those items that Chef Dallas put on the menu, and I was like, really?

Why?

He's like, just trust me.

I said, OK.

I would say probably 90% of our tables, when they come in, they order Brussels sprouts.

TAMRA FATEMI-BADI: By day, Balance is a popular lunch spot for business and community members.

By night, it's a cozy place to gather with friends.

We've been here from the very beginning.

We come here at least once a week, if not more.

It's just our place to come downtown.

Anything else that you need right now?

I think we're good.

Enjoy.

Thank you.

Sure.

I like that it gives us a place to go to get food that we can't get anywhere else here in Johnstown.

This is my first time.

All of the appetizers were fantastic.

It's really a great place for lunch or dinner.

Everything's farm to table.

Everything's fresh.

They buy a lot of the vegetables at the farmers' market.

I think this is my vibe.

It's like a chilled environment.

You can just hang out, talk with your friends, and the food is really outstanding.

I got a balance bowl of chicken, and I got a balance bowl with two pieces of salmon.

I have salmon.

My favorite thing is the Greek pizza or the Mediterranean salad.

[laughs] I got the mushroom risotto with grilled chicken, and it's fantastic.

There's such a good portion, I'm going to have leftovers.

Another favorite is our Remy wrap.

I'd have to say the Remy wrap is probably my favorite.

Herb Remy.

Remy wrap is amazing.

AMANDA ARTIM: You can choose burger or chicken, but it has caramelized onions, and tomatoes, and lettuce, and cheese.

But it has a special sauce that we call Remy sauce.

We actually sell it by the bottle.

We have really good steaks here.

We were actually voted best in Johnstown.

Two fillets, Brussels sprouts, bacon, eggs.

All the protein you need.

Very flavorful.

AMANDA ARTIM: If you're coming here for a burger, like a quick bite, we could do that.

If you wanted a nice little evening sit-down meal, we're also really great for that.

We were considered a tapas restaurant in the beginning, which was really exciting because there's nothing like that here in the area.

And then we really had a line out the door every night.

TAMRA FATEMI-BADI: And the people of Johnstown love Balance, naming it Best Of in a number of categories nearly every year since the restaurant opened.

There's something special on our menu.

It's called kitchen love, and that's to recognize the back of the house.

What they do is hard work back there, and it just shows how much they're appreciated.

Walking in.

We have five times kitchen love.

Congratulations.

[cheering] [bell dings] It didn't feel like that much but it felt like a lot.

[laughs] TAMRA FATEMI-BADI: The popularity of the food and the concept produced another opportunity-- expansion.

With a larger kitchen and an outdoor dining space, there are now more ways to serve the area, including catering, private parties, and special community events.

She keeps expanding, and I keep on being impressed.

The growth has been more people coming to downtown Johnstown because they have more space now to take more customers.

AMANDA ARTIM: We've done cooking classes.

We have bands come in.

Downtown had a culture crawl, and we had local art vendors set up in the Mission Inn, and it was a huge success.

Connection to the community means everything to me.

We wouldn't be who we are without them.

When you look back at our progress of everything that we have accomplished over the last few years, it's an incredible journey, and without the community, we would not be where we are.

Johnstown is a resilient, amazing place.

The food is great, the service is great, and you always see other people from Johnstown.

It's a small city.

Johnstown's very close-knit, and there's a lot of layers in which people interact, and it's a really nice thing to have that connection with people.

It's not just running the restaurant.

They reach out, support other agencies and other fundraisers, and they're really not only great people in the restaurant, but at the community as well.

It gave a sense of, yes, it's possible to be successful in a post-industrial city that has struggled for decades.

And what you see around town now, today, was driven so much because they took a chance to make it here.

Hello.

Hello, how are you?

Good.

How are you today?

Oh, I'm doing great.

Just two?

Yeah, just two.

OK, sounds good.

I really enjoy the working environment here, for sure.

I enjoy the customers that come in.

I enjoy my coworkers.

Amanda is an amazing boss.

I take pride in customer service and making sure that all the customers are happy, and talking to them, and being friendly with them, and knowing who they are.

I work really hard, and I love working for her.

I graduated from Cambria-Rowe Business College.

After I graduated, I worked there for 22 years.

It was a very rewarding experience because we gave people chances.

I think back to the time when somebody felt like they had zero hope, and you gave them an opportunity, and to me, that was precious.

She's created an atmosphere of welcoming, and it just rubs off on all of her employees because she doesn't look at the employees as employees.

It's like having a second mom or just like you're working for your best friend.

I'm David Moore.

I used to be the dishwasher here.

I had just got released from prison, and I was going around and I had submitted like 20 applications in different places.

It was like, they're hiring over Balance.

Go over there and see Amanda and Dallas, and the rest is history.

After 36 years of incarceration, I got my first paycheck.

It was like 99 bucks.

OK, after making $0.41 an hour, I was ready to do a cartwheel.

I look back at when we first started this, and I had all these big visions of what things were supposed to look like.

It's OK to change.

It's OK to adjust.

We used to have this smoothie bar out front.

Well, if I'm a diner and I'm dining in and I can hear the juicer, that's not an enjoyable dining experience.

I could hear it down the block.

So it's just one of those things that I was like, no, that's got to go.

Even though it was what I envisioned in the beginning, it didn't make it wrong, but it wasn't what we needed.

You have to be willing to adjust.

It's when we went through COVID, every one of my team members decided they were going to be delivery drivers, and we never even did takeout.

We knew nothing about it.

And honestly, at the beginning, it was a disaster.

And now, our takeout business is huge.

And I reflect back on the fact that they all stepped up and they said, we're going to help you.

This is more than a restaurant to me.

These people work so hard.

I had a dream, and they're helping me bring it to life.

And that really means something.

It is not my restaurant.

This is our restaurant.

100%.

Amanda and Dallas, welcome to the Culinary Connections kitchen.

Thank you so much for having us.

We really appreciate it.

Thank you.

We had a delicious time when we were at Balance.

Well, we really appreciate you coming to the restaurant as well.

We had a great time.

Thank you so much.

AMANDA ARTIM: Thank you.

So Dallas, what are you going to do for us today?

Well, today we're going to actually do our balance Bowl.

It's one of our most popular dishes at the restaurant.

What's that consist of?

The balance Bowl consists of a complex carbohydrates of red Jasmine farro grains.

We have some kale, sweet potatoes, and beets, all homogenized together to create a sweet and savory bowl for many to enjoy, from vegetarian to vegan.

If you like some proteins, we can also serve them with proteins as well, in which we will be demonstrating today.

TAMRA FATEMI-BADI: So today you're going to do it with some salmon?

Yes, so we have some fresh farm-raised salmon.

It is a little more expensive to get wild-caught, so that's for the farm ways.

The farm raise-is definitely a nice, still eco-friendly way to do so.

So I put some olive oil in the pan, I have a little flake sea salt, and then I have a little fresh ground pepper.

And so, as that sizzles, I'm going to turn up the heat a tad bit to keep things moving along.

While that's seasoning, I'm going to go ahead and start out our saute mixture.

So I have a little fresh garlic and ginger-- not ginger-- shallots.

And I'm going to start with the shallots first because they have a lower burn flash rate than the garlic does.

TAMRA FATEMI-BADI: OK. DALLAS PURSLEY: And then, do a little garlic and move that around a little bit.

Grab some tongs here.

What makes a shallot a better option for this than say, an onion or something?

So shallots are a little bit sweeter.

OK. And so it just creates a little more well-rounded flavor.

I have some fresh kale here that I've tried to chiffonade or shave really thin.

Try to remove the stem because it is a little bitter.

And then by doing so, whenever we put the kale in there, we start to sweat it down.

When you're actually consuming it, it allows the body to digest the kale a little bit better than having big giant chunks.

So that's going to sweat down a little bit.

I'm going to turn the heat up.

I'm going to move it around.

At this point in time, I do have some already par-roasted beets-- beets and sweet potatoes.

Simple method of doing so.

I'll show you that as we go ahead and pop this in the oven with our salmon.

So let's go ahead and flip the salmon.

You want to make sure that you're getting a nice little color between the-- about halfway cooked up.

And then hopefully, this works out perfect TAMRA FATEMI-BADI: So beautiful.

It is turning just fine on us.

Last thing you want is that the fish to stick.

And so by doing so making sure that you have a nice dry protein, will allow that to happen.

OK.

So if we want to, we can go ahead and slide on in.

Pop this one in.

I'll grab the beets and sweets, and then we can go back to here.

Let me turn that just around a little bit.

All righty.

That'll take about three to four minutes, and then it'll be pretty much ready to go.

So you're just charring the top and bottom of the salmon, and then it's going to actually cook more in the oven.

Yes, and you know what?

I apologize, I did miss one thing, which is adding a little white wine to your salmon.

OK.

Which will allow added moisture as it's cooking and not completely stick to the bottom of the pan as well.

So now that we got that, we're going to use the white wine also on our sauteed kale and reach that over here.

And then I have my precooked farro and red Jasmine.

The smell of that was amazing.

It just kind of sizzled up, and I got that smell.

It's great.

DALLAS PURSLEY: So that's that.

And then we're also going to go ahead and add our golden raisins at this time.

That's going to add our sweetness to it.

TAMRA FATEMI-BADI: So what you were saying was the Jasmine rice and the other-- DALLAS PURSLEY: Farro.

Farro were part cooked?

Yeah, I've already precooked these.

OK.

So that way you're obviously not cooking everything.

You're doing it more as a fast process, more for the a La carte with inside the restaurant.

Well, right.

So in the restaurant, how many of these balance bowls would you say you typically do in a day?

It's easy upwards of 15 to 20 on an average day.

It is very popular.

The best part about it, too, is it's super health-conscious.

It is that sweet, savory balance.

And like I said, you can get it gluten-free.

So if you were to use just the red Jasmine, which we offer the option of doing either or, then you'd have the dish completely gluten-free as well.

So at this point in time, I'm going to go ahead and add some vegetable stock to this as well.

It'll help steam it a little bit more, and then also just by adding more vegetable flavor and impacting more of an umami bomb.

Right.

Now, one of the main ingredients of this dish is beets.

I'm not super familiar with beets.

I think I grew up thinking that beets tasted like dirt, but-- Sweet dirt.

Sweet dirt, that's what I call it.

Tell me a little bit more about beets and what you do with those.

So I'm going to move this out of the way.

And then, so what I like to do is we'll do a partial-- and we're almost like braising them, but without searing them at first.

So we'll actually put them into a pan half-filled with water, so they're about half covered.

And then cover them completely, put them in the oven at 400 degrees for about an hour and a half.

You want to make sure that they're fork-tender when they come out, so that when you pull the fork out, it won't continue to stick.

Yes.

And so one of the methods that-- and a reason why I have gloves on is because beets are very stain friendly.

They will stain everything that you have-- your clothes, your teeth-- Including your cutting board.

Your cutting board, exactly.

But at that point in time, after they come out, and you can run them under cold water, and to avoid having to wear gloves, you can simply do this process under the running water.

And the outside just peels right on off.

And then at that point in time, we would come back and dice them, much similar to you saw earlier.

Would you like a piece of sweet dirt?

Sure.

They are so beautiful.

I don't understand why people don't like them because they literally are apples of the dirt-- out of the soil of the Earth.

That's true.

They taste very earthy, but you're right, they're very sweet.

I think at this point in time, we could probably go ahead and start-- we'll check in on that, and we might be able to go ahead and plate it up as we speak.

TAMRA FATEMI-BADI: That sounds great.

I can't wait to give this a try.

Yeah, that salmon looks perfect.

So at this point in time, we can go right into plating up.

Got a little excess moisture in there, but that's OK because it's going to continue to be absorbed by the grains that we already have in there.

TAMRA FATEMI-BADI: Amanda, why don't you come back over with us, and we'll talk a little bit more about how this works at Balance.

AMANDA ARTIM: Absolutely.

So I do have a little beet balsamic vinaigrette that we'll pour on the top.

I'll top it with the rest of the goodies that we just baked off.

And then Amanda, at this point in time, whenever we're at the restaurant, this is where Amanda takes over, and I pass off to the expert station because that's during dinner service and things of that nature, that's where she resides.

She's like the quality control queen and makes sure that everybody gets the exact same thing.

And she's so amazing with the customers.

I watched her interacting with the customers when we were there, and she has such a great rapport with everyone.

This is something that's on your menu all the time at Balance, but you do also offer some seasonal bowls, right?

Yes, we do.

So for instance, we just switched from our spring/summer dish.

We did a Hawaiian chicken bowl, and that had pineapple, poblano peppers, chicken, and then a sweet Thai sauce.

But we just switched to a fall/winter menu and we are doing an apple cider glazed chicken bowl.

And that has your roasted pears, carrots, and then an apple-- Is it just an apple balsamic or apple dressing?

It's an apple cider-- AMANDA ARTIM: Apple cider dressing.

--sauce that we created.

And what were these?

Are these-- And so these last two ingredients that we're topping off with are candied walnuts and a little feta cheese.

AMANDA ARTIM: And again, that adds that sweet-savory factor to the dish.

DALLAS PURSLEY: Nothing wrong with a little garnish of some fresh chives as well.

TAMRA FATEMI-BADI: Oh, Yeah.

DALLAS PURSLEY: So that's our balance bowl.

TAMRA FATEMI-BADI: Thank you so much for coming in.

We loved having you here.

AMANDA ARTIM: Thank you for having us.

TAMRA FATEMI-BADI: Balance has built a strong connection with another Pennsylvania business.

Big Springs and Balance Restaurant has spawned into this amazing partnership, which we have drinks on our menu designated just for Big Springs Distillery because it's an amazing local product, and that's what we're about too.

I'm a bartender here at Balance, and a few philosophies that we have are to just have well-rounded and balanced cocktails using fresh ingredients.

And if someone doesn't like something on the menu, we can tailor something especially for them.

Martinis are pretty popular.

The grilled pineapple margarita is also very popular.

We do have a blackberry peach old fashioned that is pretty popular as well.

We take pride in creating our own original cocktails.

I created one called the Bronze Star, which Honors my grandfather, Matthew.

He served in World War II and he earned a Bronze Star by saving his troop.

It is pear juice, tea syrup, and wheat whiskey.

And it also has a rosemary pear jam spread on the interior of the glass.

TAMRA FATEMI-BADI: Whether it's the drinks and the food, or the service and the atmosphere, the people of Johnstown and beyond now have a place where they can go to create and enjoy balance for themselves.

I'm Tamra Fatemi-Badi.

Thanks for watching Culinary Connections.

NARRATOR: Culinary Connections was made possible in part by The Rockwell Foundation, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, supporting the arts, science, technology, and education, and a proud supporter of local programs on WPSU.

More episodes of Culinary Connections and a full menu of local programs are available at video.wpsu.org or on the PBS app.

And to experience a whole world of international cuisine, check out World Kitchen at wpsu.org/worldkitchen.

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