It takes a lot of great people to make Squash Blossom Farm run smoothly! Let us introduce you to some of our key staff:
Olivia came to us last year to help with baking and pizza nights. She is so capable, kind, hardworking and talented! She has learned so much, and now she frequently makes the dough, forms the loaves and bakes the sourdough --and her breads are beautiful and delicious. This summer, she has taken over the hot and intense job of baking the pizzas in the wood-fired oven on Summer Sundays. If you are one of our tart or scone fans at the Farmers Market, chances are they were made by Olivia. And she is also a terrific gardener, when we can spare her from the kitchen!
Tracey has been a valued volunteer at the farm for six years, since our first year opening the commercial kitchen! She is nicknamed the "Pizza Diva" because she runs the front of the house so professionally on pizza nights. This year, after she retired from her teaching job, she agreed to become a paid staff member. Besides ordering your pizza toppings from her, you will also see her at the Farmers Market and in the Mead Tasting Room.
We are delighted to have a fabulous Chef this summer! Travis has oodles of food experience and has a wonderful way with sauces, seasonings and making delicious dishes also look irresistible. He loves to cure and smoke meats, and some of our offerings have featured his delicious house-cured meats. He is preparing the menu every Saturday for our Mead Tasting Room, and has received rave reviews on every dish he has prepared.
Shannon is Travis's partner in life and in the kitchen- we are lucky to have such a great team. Besides having a knack for organizing and keeping track of details (invaluable in a place like this with so many simultaneous enterprises going on), she is a great gardener! The beautiful, well-tended gardens around the farm are the result of her meticulous, hard work. (The less-well-tended ones are the gardens she has not yet gotten to tackle!)
Zoe helps with pizza nights, returning from last summer. When not making pizza, Zoe is pursuing computer animation - expect an academy award one of these days!
Andrew is also returning for pizza nights after last summer. We have also put him to work this summer with glamorous tasks such as mulching the food forest, moving fences and cleaning animal poop. He is a student at Macalester College during the non-pizza season.
We are happy to welcome Kris this summer as a pizza runner! It is a hot, exhausting job, but she does it with great energy and a genuine smile and everyone is thrilled to see her when she delivers their pizza to them!
We are so grateful to our awesome Squash Blossom team this summer!