Kristin Hamaker
(651) 231-4356
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"It's always a pleasure to come home
to smell what you've been cooking."
-Donna |
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Ask anyone who knows me and they’ll
tell you how steadfast I am about cooking food that is wholesome
and free of preservatives, additives, and chemicals.
I go to great lengths to only use produce that is either
in-season and/or organic and foods that are locally produced
and farmed, whether it be apples, honey, chicken, or flour,
I know exactly where it comes from and how far it has traveled,
hence farm to fork.
I wanted to start at the beginning with food, so I became a farm
hand on a local organic CSA farm for an entire season. (A Community Supported
Agriculture farm depends on its members buying shares of the
farm annually. In turn members receive a box of produce each week of
the growing season).
Here I
learned how to sow seeds, maintain the soil, harvest the crops, and was lucky
to bear witness to the effects of the relationship between farmer and consumer.
It always gave me great pleasure to encounter a family on a pick up day and
discuss what to do with all of that kohlrabi in their box.
As a result of
my time on the farm, I developed an eye for quality, organic produce; I am
a real stickler to this day. More than anything though, my experience on
the farm nudged me into becoming a real advocate for organic, local, and
seasonal foods.
Prior to this time I’d done a few stints in restaurant kitchens outside
of Chicago and in southern Oregon. But the majority of
my kitchen experience has been at Tanpopo in lowertown, St. Paul where we
would prepare home-style Japanese meals using many organic and local ingredients.
In the spring of 2005, I decided to try something altogether unusual and
went to Europe to a tiny culinary school in the southern part of Ireland
called the Ballymaloe. I gained certification and tightened my skills through
the summer immersion program.
The school is
unique in that it functions on its own organic farm where we would plant
and harvest much of the vegetables we would use in the kitchen.
We fed the
chickens our kitchen compost and in turn they provided us with incredibly
delicious eggs. I participated in milking the cows, did some butchering,
and fished for periwinkles in the frigid Celtic Sea only a half-mile away.
It was in Ireland that I decided I wanted to go it alone and begin a business
as a personal chef where my imagination wouldn’t be stifled
and where I would have a place to channel my desire to
share real food with others and to make connections between
people and the food they eat.
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