For this edition of Chef Speak we head northwest of Los Angeles to the beautiful Ojai Valley. Approximately eighty miles from downtown LA, Ojai has long been a mecca for nature lovers, spa enthusiasts and foodies alike. One of the area’s most interesting restaurants is The Farmer and The Cook , owned by long time Ojai resident Olivia Chase and her husband Steve Sprinkel. If Chase is the “cook,” Sprinkel is most definitely the “farmer,” growing much of the produce that Chase uses in the kitchen and sells in the “marketplace” section of the eatery. A trained nutritionist, Chase found it much more satisfying to cook healthy food for people than to stand around in a lab coat discussing the nutritional benefits of vegetables. After stints in San Francisco and Seattle, she returned to Ojai and opened the City Bakery-Cafe in Ventura in 1989. After much success, she opened The Farmer and The Cook in 2001, and it has since evolved into a community hang out where locals regularly gather to sample her fresh farm-to-table cuisine and a truly stunning array of baked goods. Doubling as a marketplace, the restaurant features homegrown produce and specialty ingredients (preserved meyer lemons and chipotle lime salt are among the perfectly packaged offerings), leaving diners with full bellies and overflowing shopping bags if they so desire. Heather Taylor: When did you think to yourself that you could make a career out of cooking? Olivia Chase: I became very interested in food while eating street food as an exchange student in Mexico. How could tortillas, beans and coleslaw on the beach in San Blas taste so good? The answer became our mantra today at The Farmer and the Cook – local, organic and scratch cooked. HT: So you’re the cook and your husband is the farmer?

Read the original here Heather Taylor: Chef Speak: Olivia Chase