We are delighted to welcome Community Table back for 2022. This beloved event brings a renowned chef to our farm to design an ecological meal around our four seasonal rotations (market garden, milpa, berries, cover crops). By bringing these culinary artists back to the source, we give them an opportunity to connect with new ingredients, find fresh inspiration in our bioregion's historic foodways, and discover the rewards of relationship with the land.

CHEF Michael Vera

A veteran of the culinary industry, Michael Vera worked his way up from pizzeria dishwasher to chef at fine dining restaurants such as Carlsbad’s Jeune et Jolie. Early in his journey, he became fascinated by fermentation—making in-house charcuterie, preserves, and pickles taught him how to enhance the flavor of certain foods by preservation, and developed his appreciation for the philosophy behind this traditional technique. Tasked by an executive chef with growing his own ferment starters, Chef Michael found an opportunity during the 2020 lockdown to begin selling small batch ferments produced in his home kitchen. Today, he divides his time between running West Coast Koji, a small-batch fermented foods business, and catering private events with dishes that draw inspiration from Nordic and Japanese cuisine to highlight ingredients sourced from local growers, foraged from the wild, and fermented with a variety of traditional techniques.