Meet
Kate Sylvan

I grew up at the elbows of Tias and my grandmother, making tortillas & pie crusts. Holidays were a multi-day affair of boisterous cooking & I learned from a young age to feed people is to love them. I started working in kitchens as a teenager and worked with naturally-leavened wood-fired bread baking, pizza, Viennoiserie and pastry. I farmed in California and Vermont; working both in the fields and writing recipes and managing restaurant sales. After some time, I went back to school and got my degree in Conservation and Resource studies with a focus in Agricultural Ecology & Ethnobotany from UC Berkeley. I have had the good fortune to travel & work on farms in Spain, Uruguay, at a Boucherie near Dijon, walk the Pyranees with traditional shepherds & in West Marin.

I am drawn to farms revitalizing traditional food ways, expressing this celebration through food & cooking. My spiritual practice infuses what I do- I found my way into residential life at multiple Zen centers. For me, the act of craft, work & care for other humans is a deep expression of my practice. I am grateful live on ceded Coast Miwok land, known as Bolinas, where I get to surf, garden, explore, forage & dream.