Farm-Based Food Artisan
- Date Posted June 21, 2014
- Location Paonia, CO
- Category Agriculture / Culinary
- Job type Full-Time
Job description
This is an excellent opportunity to deepen one's experience in locally-sourced, bioregional cuisine and certified organic product development. Our farm specializes in fruit in apricots, cherries, peaches, plums, asian pears, pears, apples and tomatoes.
Our Food Artisan puts up food for winter for our food community, provides foods for current consumption and also prepares foods to be resold including preserves, dried goods, canned goods and freezing.
We look forward to our Food Artisan preparing specialty farm products for our CSA members, farmers markets and for online direct sale to customers in our state.
We have an existing set of recipes for preserves created by a farm-to-table chef now working in Austin, Texas. He is available to provide guidance by phone as needed.
It is also hoped that Food Artisan will coordinate new product development including testing and costing. Food Artisan may participate in marketing and pricing to the extent desired.
Food Artisan may work alone or may have a crew depending on other farm needs at the time. So Food Artisan needs to enjoy working alone, yet also be able to instruct and guide a sometimes daily crew of farm interns, apprentices, staff and others. Members of a particular day's crew will have varying degrees of cuiinary knowledge; many will be seeking to learn. So the Food Artisan is also a food educator to extent there are willing ears to learn. Foremost, the Food Artisan coordinates production and ensures QA/QC while being a kind and thorough superviser of their crew.
Ideal Candidate will meet the following requirements:
- Culinary School and/or considerable natural foods experience in a professional setting and/or deeply held knowledge gained in childhood setting where grandmothers/grandfathers and mothers/aunts and others cooked within a particularly refined culinary tradition where the growing season is long and the spices and herbs abundant!
- Canning Experience
- Serv-Safe Certificate
- Product Development Experience
- Seasonal Cuisine Experience
- Travel and culinary residential experience in Southern Europe, South America or Central Asia where ingredients are similar to those we can grow on the Colorado Plateau.
In addition, Food Artisan must be:
- Bioregionally savvy; wise in the culinary traditions of intact food systems around the globe; nutritionally balanced, calm and pleasant.
- Able to track a budget, adapt to harvest and storage variability.
- Able to create and maintain culinary workspace that optimizes work flow.
- Able to make articulate recommendations to farm management.
- Able to take direction from farm management
- Able to work creatively with, easily problem-solve with and share resources with Kitchen Manager.
IF DESIRED
Food Artisan coordinates menus, preparation and food service for special events and workshops on the farm.
Food Artisan works closely with the farm's Community Kitchen Manager/Cook to support vibrant meals on the farm. Kitchen Manager/Cook and Food Artisan provide mutual assistance in rhythm with core farming activities. Food Artisan contributes to community meal preparation with specialty items like yogurt, kefir, meusli, nut butters, ferments, cheeses, ghee, buckwheat crepes, ravioli, samosas, sushi, kombucha, herbal teas and hydrating drinks, salad dressing, infused oils and vinegars and more. The Food Artisan also coordinates the preparation of all baked goods on the farm for good health and optimal showcasing of our fruits and other produce. Baked goods might also include healthy pies, turnovers, tarts, cakes, power bars, healthy cookies and granola.
Food Artisan preps pizza dough and orchestrates our weekly Saturday evening pizza making celebration centered around our outdoor oven.
ABOUT OUR FARM
White Buffalo is Colorado's oldest organic farm. USDA organic. It's an amazing place to be on a half mile of river! If you are highly-organized and inspired to blend your skills with those of others, we welcome you into an environment with much potential. We continue to transition into new farm-based ecovillage model (organic market farm with micro-enterprise, agrotourism, and non profit). www.whitebuffalofarm.org
CULINARY SETTING
We offer an artful, farm-to-table kitchen studio space for kitchen apprentices, farm interns and guest chefs. the farm's community kitchen is a hexagon built in the 1970s. It is funky. We have two other farm home kitchens avaiable for artisanal food production and hope to build another with time. It is also possible for us to rent certified kitchens in our valley.
Our Kitchen Manager ensures a stable, organized, and well-stocked kitchen. Our farm practices sustainable eating utilizing what we can grow and what is available locally. Our farm is not a vegan, raw or paleo farm. We expect Food Artisans to work with eggs, milk and wheat.
POSSIBLE CULINARY OUTREACH and EDUCATION COMPONENT
We also welcome someone interested in developing a White Buffalo Farm cookbook with other farm staff for year end gift giving and fundraising. Ideal candidate will enjoy working with our CSA Coordinator on seasonal food preparation suggestions for our CSA member newsletter and even enjoy organizing occasional demonstration workshops for our CSA members and others.
This a great opportunity to experience first-hand, farm-to-table living in valley fully-steeped in the local foods movement.
Compensation
this position is:Application instructions
Deadline
no deadline