Charlie Granquist is all things culinary when it comes to Slough Farm. As culinary director, his job really runs the gamut. Slough Farm’s three-part mission covers food inequity, regenerative agriculture, and education. It is committed to integrating small-scale, sustainable farming, and the arts, through place-based educational programming.
I met Granquist at a recent event Slough hosted for the Martha’s Vineyard Cultural Council. The farmhouse, with its kitchen and communal space, is glorious. The food was delicious, so I wandered over to introduce myself. I learned that Slough Farm extends its hospitality to Island nonprofits and farm-related groups for discussions, strategic planning sessions, fundraisers, continuing education, board retreats, and gatherings. And guests are treated to Granquist’s sumptuous fare, from light bites to full dinners.
“Our director Julie Scott’s mantra is all about collaboration with as many groups as possible,” he tells me in a follow-up conversation. Its biggest one is with Island Grown Initiative (IGI). While the two had been working together for years, its official large-scale partnership began in October 2020 with a grant to IGI for the costs of containers, products, administration, and other expenses associated with the distribution of prepared meals. Slough Farm has provided food for more than 45,800 meals distributed by the Island Food Pantry to Hospice of M.V., the M.V. Boys and Girls Club, the M.V. Councils on Aging, and Island Healthcare.
Education is an essential element of Granquist’s job. He works with middle-school students at the Charter School: “We keep it seasonally focused. I try to introduce kids to vegetables they would not necessarily know about, or flavor profiles that are new, to challenge them a little bit without scaring them away.”
Students might learn about making pasta, sushi with local fish, or pickling and fermenting: “We do pizza with all sorts of fun toppings, and local cheeses they may not have had access to. We are going to have a pork chop and steaks class. I’ll have them taste grass-fed meat next to grain-fed meat, to experience the difference. I usually see what has just come out of the gardens. We could be making squash fritters, or bread.” Always a favorite, of course, is when Granquist lets them make donuts.
He also teaches hands-on cooking from the Boys and Girls Club for eight to eleven-year-olds. For instance, he might show the kids ways to use honeynut squash and pumpkin, such as cooking ravioli or baking pumpkin bread. “I’m not teaching kids culinary techniques, but introducing them to foods they will be excited about.” The children will also learn about where food comes from. “This is something we want to promote. Some of these kids don’t know that the chicken walking around outside the farmhouse is the same one that’s going to end up on our plate later. We unabashedly try to teach them about food systems, and where something comes from.”
Granquist runs adult classes, too, which are technique- and produce-based, noting, “I don’t use recipes. I will gather meat and vegetables from the farm, which will change depending on the season. Then I teach people how to approach and think about those different items. People will always ask, ‘Will this go with that?’ And I say, ‘Sure. Do you like it?’ I don’t like to give them definitive answers about what’s going to mix and match, because it’s more fun to figure out together what to do.” Sample classes include butchering, cooking tacos and tortillas, plating, and alpha-gal cooking.
Granquist came to this broad understanding of cooking through a robust career. After college, he worked for free at night in kitchens around New York: “I’d always cooked, but on an amateur level.” He was immediately hooked at his first restaurant, Chanterelle, in Manhattan. “I loved it. I saw one of my Brussels sprouts that I had literally just cleaned go out on a plate. I thought, ‘Oh, my God. Somebody is paying a fortune to eat my little Brussels sprouts that I just cleaned.’” Granquist moved on, continuing to work for free, including at Savoy. “It was my first intensely farm-to-table restaurant. I got really psyched there.” He then got his first paid line cook position at Blue Hill, decided to attend culinary school, and became increasingly involved in local sustainable cuisine.
Along the way, Granquist worked for the Food Network, initially as a food stylist, then culinary producer, and finally in its new business development wing, where he created Food Network–branded restaurants in stadiums and airports. At one point, there were 25 venues in different cities, each with its own sourced local ingredients and flavor profiles.
After more roving adventures, Granquist ended up with his family on the Vineyard for the summer in 2018, and just hasn’t left. He ran the Katama General Store for three seasons, and taught at the FARM Institute and Slough Farm, coming on full-time three years ago. And the rest, as they say, is history. “It all worked out beautifully.”
“As we grow and hone our mission, we find more and more places where we can be helpful,” Granquist says. “That means I get to have fun projects coming down the pike at any given time, which is pretty cool.”
For more information about Slough Farm, visit sloughfarm.org.
