Chefs on the Farm: Recipes and Inspiration from the Quillisascut Farm School of the Domestic Arts

With the rising interest in organic and locally grown food, there is also an increasing interest in connecting the farm to the table. Chefs on the Farm describes the seasonal workings of Quillisascut Goat Cheese Farm, a small, family-run business in northeastern Washington state. There, owners Lora Lea and Rick Misterly started a "Farm School for the Domestic Arts" where every summer, professional chefs, culinary students, food writers, and others live and work on the farm. Cooking only with ingredients they find on the farm, students learn to be connected to the food they work with.

Learn more about the Quillisascut Goat Cheese Farm at Quillisascut.com.

SHANNON BORG is a Seattle-based writer, editor, poet, and wine educator. She writes about travel, food, and wine for regional media, including Seattle, Northwest Palate, Wine Press Northwest, avalonwine.com, and citysearch.com. She holds certificates from the International Sommelier Guild and she has taught wine tasting classes for the Blue Ribbon Cooking School and been a guest sommelier for the PONCHO Wine Auction.

A former board member of Slow Food Seattle, Shannon is currently the communications manager for Chefs Collaborative, a nonprofit organization committed to promoting sustainable cuisine. She has taught both poetry and food writing courses at a variety of institutions, including the Richard Hugo House, and holds an MFA in poetry from the University of Washington as well as a PhD in poetry and literature from the University of Houston. Her poems have been published in The Paris Review, London Review of Books, Poetry Northwest, Gulf Coast, Cranky, Indiana Review, Antioch Review, and other journals; her first book of poems, Corset, was published in March 2006.

LORA LEA and RICK MISTERLY purchased land near Rice, Washington, in 1981, inspired in part by Lora Lea's upbringing on her family's dairy farm in Leavenworth. Six years later the Misterlys received a license from the Washington State Department of Agriculture to produce farmstead cheese and started the Quillisascut Cheese Company. Today they still make cheese with the milk from their herd of 35 dairy goats. The pair had a dream that they would one day be able to share the farm lifestyle with others, an idea that evolved as chefs and food lovers began to visit the farm. In 2002 they founded the Quillisascut Farm School of the Domestic Arts, with a focus on teaching culinary students and professionals about the farm-to-table connection. Now, more than 80 student and professional chefs visit their farm each summer.

Sustainable Northwest, a Portland, Oregon-based organization, named Quillisascut Farm a "Founder of the New Northwest" in 2003, and the following year Lora Lea and Chef KAren Jurgensen developed a small book with practical tips for cooks on sustainable practices, called Rethinking the Kitchen: The Sustainable Kitchen Handbook.

Lora Lea is also a member of Tilth Producers, Rural Roots, Washington Sustainable Food and Farming Network, Chefs Collaborative, and Seed Savers Exchange. She is a founding member and leader of Slow Food Upper Columbia, as well as a team member for the Northwest RAFT, Slow Food's Renewing America's Food Traditions project.

CHEF KAREN JURGENSEN grew up in the heart of wheat country near Republic, Washington, and her inspiration to cook came from her grandmother who took her foraging in the region and showed her the adventures of working in a kitchen. Jurgensen is currently the Chef Instructor at Quillisascut Cheese Company's Farm School and at Seattle Culinary Academy teaching farm-to-table practices and philosophy to professional chefs, culinary students, and agricultural professionals.

Karen spends winters as the catering chef for The Ruins and serves as president of the Seattle chapter of Chefs Collaborative. Active in the broader food community, she also sits on the WSDA small farm and direct marketing advisory board, is an advisory board member for the regional Food Policy Council, a member and mentor of Women Chefs and Restaurateurs, and a member and civic agriculture project mentor for Les Dames de Escoffier. She is the co-author of Rethinking the Kitchen: The Sustainable Kitchen Handbook.

Jurgensen was recently invited to sit on the board for Slow Food's RAFT project, identifying endangered foodstuffs and food traditions of the Northwest. This is a collaborative project, headed by writer Gary Nabhan and supported by Slow Food, Seed Savors Exchange, Chefs Collaborative, and the Kellogg Foundation. She also has been invited to prepare a course at the Women Who Inspire Dinner for the Women Chefs and Restaurateurs National Conference.

HARLEY SOLTES was a staff photographer at Seattle Times for twenty two years. For eight years he was the staff photographer for the newspaper's Sunday magazine, shooting nearly 300 cover stories both in the pacific northwest and around the world. In addition to his work at the Times, Harley has photographed both self-generated and assigned stories for LIFE, Sports Illustrated, TIME, People and The National Geographic Society. He also photographs projects for corporate clients looking for a journalistic approach and I has collaborated with artists, dancers and authors to produce images that promote their work.

Harley has received regional and national awards for photography from The Society for Newspaper Design, Society of Professional Journalists, The NFL Hall of Fame, The Associated Press and from the National Press Photographers Association. His photographs of the WTO riots in Seattle were part of a staff entry that was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize.

Learn more about his spectacular work on his website. harleysoltes.com