Today, Collins, 53, is the largest endive grower in the country. At 5 million pounds a year, his California Endive Farms in Rio Vista—two hours northeast of San Francisco—produces 99.9 percent of the state’s endive for customers that include Alice Waters, Thomas Keller, and Whole Foods. “Early on, we had epic failures: our entire stock rotted,” he recalls. Though he spent nearly a year apprenticing with farmers in Belgium, Holland, and France, Collins endured three discouraging years of losses before turning a meager $7,879 profit in 1986. He admits it took ten years on his own before he finally nailed it. “In farming, you have to wait a year to adopt the lessons you learned the previous year. Like everything, the devil is in the details,” he says.

The key was learning how to grow and store a strong chicory root. In the growing process, which begins in the open field and ends in a pitch-black room where the roots are forced to grow sans photosynthesis, Collins can attest that there are “at least thirty steps where you can screw it all up.” But after years of practice, the tables have turned: European endive growers are visiting Collins’ farm. And they are impressed by, even jealous of, the quality of his crops.

This Thanksgiving, Collins celebrates 30 years since his first harvest. You can count on there being endive on the dinner table, cooked in butter and braised with chicken stock, finished with a whisper of nutmeg in a nod to chef Vickers—a tasty tribute to the man and dish that inspired it all.

Rich Collins has cornered the endive market this side of the Mississippi through his dogged insistence on making a living selling a vegetable that is one of the world’s most challenging crops to grow.