Renee Baughman - F.A.R.M. Cafe

The most difficult part of being a chef at F.A.R.M. Café is that you don’t really get to be a controlling chef at F.A.R.M. Café, you cannot be that kind of person that is known in the industry, who is promoted in the industry, who gets all the pats on the back, or “I want it to be this way every time, if it’s not this way we’re going to throw it out and start all over again. I need you to do exactly what I tell you to, and if you can’t do that, can’t perform at this level, then I’m going to have to get someone else.” You can’t have that kind of rigid personality. So you have to be able to be flexible about what you’re doing, and at the same time know that there’s a quality that you want. The difficult part, too, is you’re feeding people for free on a daily basis so your budget is not huge, and at the same time, things like food costs are a different animal. We don’t think about food costs the way maybe someone else does. So the challenge part is, how can you make really good food, how can you produce it efficiently, and for me one of the biggest challenges is how can I incorporate a lot of local food, at a small budget, and get it into this daily routine of cooking.