The Cook and the Farmer: A Day with Olivia Chase & Steve Sprinkel

JUMP TO REGISTRATION

Please join me on Sunday, November 10, for a tasty and enlightening day with Olivia Chase and Steve Sprinkel, co-founders of the renowned Farmer and the Cook organic café and grocery store in Meiners Oaks. Olivia will introduce her latest cookbook, Farmer and the Cook: recipes and farm stories from Ojai, California. The book includes organic, Mexican recipes from her popular vegetarian café and a collection of recipes inspired by the farm-fresh vegetables grown by her partner, farmer Steve Sprinkel.

The gathering will begin with a visit to Farmer and the Cook’s 9-acre farm. The farm is located on the grounds of the old Honor Farm, near highway 33 and Old Baldwin Road. At the farm you will have an opportunity to meet Farmer Steve and, dependent on rainfall and weather, help pick the ingredients for the afternoon’s cooking demonstration and food tasting.

Then we will gather in one of the kitchens at Farmer and the Cook café in Meiners Oaks. Olivia will give you a glimpse into the journey taken as she and Steve bootstrapped the popular café — side by side for the past 23 years — and shine a light on a core group of talented cooks and bakers at the heart of the kitchen with whom they have co-created the café.

The cooking demonstration and tasting will include your participation in the preparation of a salad using the ingredients you picked in the morning. The actual salad will be determined based on what is available in November. You will get to taste a sampling from the cookbook: Nutloaf with Shiitake Mushroom Gravy and Roasted Kabocha Squash along with the fresh-from-the- farm salad. Afterward, Olivia will have books on hand for sale and signing.

ABOUT OLIVIA CHASE:
Olivia grew up in a large Colombian-American family near the beach in Ventura and in that somewhat chaotic environment developed the patience to run two successful restaurants.

Inspired by the early nutrition guru, Adelle Davis, she rejected the modern convenience foods of the 60’s and began cooking for her family as a rebellious 16-year-old. She went to college for a Masters in Nutrition all the while avoiding her destiny as a cook or maybe waiting for the cooking scene to become a place where a passionate, untrained cook might have a chance.

Olivia returned home to Ventura and opened the City Bakery-Café in 1988. While running the café she purchased organic vegetables from Steve at the Ventura Farmers’ Market and, a decade later, they fell in love at the Ojai Farmers’ Market, again while she was buying vegetables, this time a kabocha squash.

On a trip to San Francisco they bought a seven-dollar organic tomato(!) and thought if they had both a farm and a store, they could save people a lot of money. What if she could rehab the broken-down grocery store building in Meiners Oaks into a café and Steve could sell his farm vegetables indoors instead of on the hard pavement of various farmers’ markets? And so the Farmer and the Cook came to be!

The cost for the workshop is $75/person, payable in advance by personal check or on PayPal (see below). All food and recipes are included. The PayPal price includes their fee of $3.11 for a total of $78.11.  If you prefer, when you register you can request instructions for mailing a payment of $75, as long as there is still time for mail delivery. No dogs or smoking, please.

REGISTRATION

Please REGISTER HERE FIRST before completing payment below.

TICKETS

If you haven’t already up above, please REGISTER FIRST before completing payment below.

Note: Online payment includes a PayPal fee of $3.11. If you prefer, when you register you can request instructions for mailing a payment of $75, as long as there is still time for mail delivery.

Cancellation policy: I will refund your payment if you notify me up to 72 hours (3 days) before the start of the event. After that I will make every effort to fill your space (and I’m usually successful) but cannot guarantee.