welcome to the kitchen garden.
An Urban Farm.
No chickens (yet), but 30,000 happy bees, and canning jars full of tomatoes.
A Modern Herbarium.
Keeping the garden, the neighborhood, and the kitchen in sync with nature, plus making sure there’s always something on-hand for the tea pot.
A Gentleman's Potager
A potager as an old-world kitchen garden; supplying us with fruit and vegetables all year long, specializing in produce one can’t just grab at the market. Balancing productivity with beauty, and using the garden’s produce to inspire the menu. Plus you should try the honey…
I’ve spent my life in the gardens of my mother, my grandmother, and my aunts, all whose stories are so elegantly told by the plants the grow and the designs they create. I’ve been fed by their gardens for so long that when we moved from verdant Michigan to the heart of Chicago, the first thing I needed to do was figure out how to create a green space.
With a limited practical budget and even more limited space, it’s a constant Master Class in horticultural cleverness, learning the intricacies of the microclimates that the urban environment creates, but I’ve reached a point after four years that it’s truly a special and successful garden space.
As a formal chef and culinary educator, I've built my professional life on creating great food, and training other professionals and hobbyists to do the same. Now, my passion lies in re-tooling the "formal education and practice" into something that can encourage, inspire, and increase the confidence in everyone who hopes to turn simple ingredients into exemplary meals, using and preserving old traditions and homesteading skills.
With extensive training and experience in culinary education, master gardening, food safety, and a certified sommelier to boot, my passion is to unify these skills into something that I can share with you to help you achieve your goals of health, sustainability, comfort, creativity, and kitchen prowess.
Through lessons, discussion, personal coaching, and ideas, I hope to inspire everyone to utilize their space and grow and make wonderful things, finding mindfulness in their practice, and a closer connection to their nature and food.
Looking forward to seeing you in the kitchen garden!
T