Applications cycle February 23 @ noon EST through March 6, 2026 @ 5pm EST
PURPOSE
This 5-day program is designed for aspiring, beginner, and intermediate cooks and food justice workers of Black, Indigenous, and Latine heritage to gain skills in culturally-rooted, whole-foods cooking and preservation. By the end of the program, you will have the knowledge to harvest seasonal ingredients, plan menus, make value-added products, and create your own dishes inspired by your heritages, as well as the tools to align a professional kitchen with a more sustainable food system. As with all our programs, it is our hope that you will also deepen your connection to land and take steps toward your personal food sovereignty.
Farm-to-Table Skills
Participants will leave having practiced many of the following skills:
- Cooking
- Knife Skills
- Washing and Storing Produce
- Using Kitchen Equipment
- Basic Cooking Techniques
- Intuitive Cooking
- Whole foods processing
- Gathering, preparation, and organization
- Recipe Development
- Menu Planning: per meal, per week, for year ahead
- Menu Translation: ancestral dishes using local in season ingredients
- Substitutions
- Climate Resiliency: adjusting for drought
- Harvesting
- Hands-On: when and how to harvest
- Integrating menu with farm planning and harvest lists
- Collaborating with Farmers/CSAs
- Preservation
- Fermentation
- Drying
- Freezing
- Jams
- Value-Added Products
- Managing a Kitchen
- Organizing tasks and roles
- Waste Reduction and Compost
- Health and Safety Protocols
- Certifications
- Insurance
- Medicine Making
- Learning the Medicine of a Plant
- Growing medicine
- Harvesting
- Basic Techniques: infusions, decoctions, elixirs, tinctures, salves
- Mushrooms
- Growing & Harvesting
- Cooking and Preservation
- Stocks and Broths
- Extraction
- Chickens
- Selecting
- Processing
- Cleaning and Breaking Down
The learning will take place in an affirming environment that centers Afro-Indigenous cooking and food preservation practices and histories, and uplifts the collective wisdom of the group. Together we hope to build a stronger network of land-loving cooks and food sovereignty chefs regionally and nationally.
Program Details
Please review the detailed description before applying.
PROGRAM DATES
August 16 – 21, 2026
TIMELINE
2/23 – Application launches at noon EST
3/6 – Application deadline at 5pm EST
5/1 – Notification by 11pm EST
We are committed to making the program affordable to everyone. The REAL cost of one participant’s attendance at the Farm to Table Immersion is around $1500, yet most participants pay much, much less than that. We welcome contributions to help offset the costs to run this unique and transformational program.