The line between farmers and chefs is getting more and more blurry as restaurants source ingredients from their own gardens and chefs and farmers have more direct interaction. The close relationship between chefs and farmers is not a new trend - Chez Panisse (and others) brought the traditional interdependent relationship to California from Europe in the 1970s - but now even more restaurants in the U.S. are inviting their customers to enjoy a fine meal and take a walk through their farm or garden. The French Laundry in Yountville and the newly opened Farmstead Restaurant at Long Meadow Ranch in Napa to name a few.

And then there are the chefs who might not have a garden or farm directly attached to their restaurant, but make it a policy to buy their ingredients directly from farmers that they know and, in some cases, learn and work alongside. Programs like the Farm and Garden Apprenticeship at UC Santa Cruz's Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems and conferences like the Ecological Farming Association's conference, aka EcoFarm, attract organic farmers and gardeners, but chefs, like Jesse Cool, say it's important for the people who cook food to take part as well. Cool owns a group of restaurants, including the Flea Street Café in Menlo Park, and the catering company, CoolEatz .

Since she started as a restaurateur in the Bay Area in 1976, she's made it a point to know the local farmers she relies on for fresh and sustainably grown fruits and veggies. (Fat Cabbage, a fledgling farm in Pescadero started by graduates of the UCSC program, is one of these farms.) Cool has also been on the EcoFarm Board of Directors for 26 years and attended this year's conference with a newer chef from the Flea Street Cafe, Carlos Cañada. Cool explains that knowing exactly who grows her food and the farm it comes from is a way to complete the circle from soil to table. And now it's important to her to introduce younger chefs, like Carlos, to this idea.

While Cool does not have a farm attached to any of her restaurants, she's an avid gardener and is always looking to grow something unusual to share with her customers. She sees it as another way to take food from beginning to end and to recognize how people who grow and cook it both fit into that loop.

To hear more about the importance of conferences like EcoFarm and the chef and farmer relationship from Jesse and Carlos, click here:

Jesse and Carlos at EcoFarm.mov

Article and Video by Ariana Reguzzoni