Gather for the Planet Recipe & Chef Spotlight

Gather for the Planet Chef Spotlight – Maria Clementi, Dooryard Provisions

Tuesday, August 20, 2024

As part of this year’s annual fundraiser, Gather for the Planet, AIM has teamed up with local chefs to spotlight what makes the farmers market so special—delicious, locally grown food, the farmers and artisans who produce it, the communities it sustains, and the land from which it comes. Each chef has crafted a recipe inspired by one of AIM’s nine certified farmer’s markets, showcasing the flavors and producers that give shape and culture to their local market. We recently sat down with Maria Clementi, owner and chef of Dooryard Provisions, to discuss her personal food journey and her hyper-seasonal, Point Reyes-inspired recipe for Gather for the Planet 2024.

Maria’s take on AIM’s Point Reyes farmer’s market is a wild-foraged wakame seaweed salad with hazelnut and parmesan crusted roasted Toscano Family Farms heirloom winter squash and Wild West Ferments seasonal kraut. Her recipe is thoughtfully crafted, carefully considering availability, seasonality, how to showcase local Point Reyes producers, and how to represent the culture of the market.

In September, winter squash is just coming into season, signaling the beginning of Fall, and the seaweed foraging window is nearing its close. Once Fall hits, shorter days and a more violent ocean bring an end to the seaweed growing season. Maria’s wakame seaweed salad takes advantage of the last weeks of seaweed season and showcases an ingredient that’s emblematic of the Pacific coast and yet often goes underutilized.

“I think about the exact date and what’s going to be available at that time, the peak of those ingredients, and how to make them the spotlight of the dish.”

Maria, who grew up in the Midwest, remembers savoring fresh and seasonal food from an early age. It was the difference in flavor between seasons and the food’s connection to the land that stuck with her and continues to inform her culinary practice to this day.

“When I was young, my mom had a garden and I remember learning that tomatoes from the garden taste nothing like tomatoes from the store, or blackberries that we collected when visiting Northern Wisconsin were nothing like what you could get in a plastic clamshell. I began kind of recognizing how special these things were and their relation to where I was living,” Maria recalls.

Her recipe keeps the ingredient preparation intentionally simple to highlight the rich flavor of each component, harvested and prepared at its seasonal peak. She savors the challenge of creating delicious meals with minimal resources and focusing on what is seasonal and local.

One of Maria’s first jobs out of college was for a nonprofit organization in Flagstaff, Arizona. She led groups of volunteers on conservation projects in and around the Grand Canyon.

“My boss said to me, the only way we can pay these people for their work is by what we cook for them. Whatever you want to cook—use the money wisely, but just make something beautiful.”

That experience sparked a joy of and satisfaction for creating food for people and her knowledge of the land around her helped her feed people using wild-grown ingredients.

“We were using freshly roasted hatch chilis and napale cactus purchased in town, and making teas with wild herbs.”

Maria brings this creativity and resourcefulness into her recipe representing Point Reyes, showcasing the flavors of the coast alongside freshly harvested local produce. Much like the Point Reyes farmers market itself, Maria marries sea and soil on the plate, honoring a rich legacy of local agriculture and seaside culture.

When crafting her recipe, Maria deeply considered the culture of AIM’s Point Reyes Farmers Market and the farmers and producers that steward its flavors. Her inclusion of Wild West Ferments was intentional—their business and products are a staple of the farmer’s market.

“I really wanted to have [Wild West Ferments] be part of the dish because they’re such a huge representation of local, seasonal, health focused food in West Marin and Point Reyes in general. Their store is so special—I sell my products in their store and a lot of other vendors from the AIM farmers market do as well.”

Maria is intimately familiar with the Point Reyes markets and the producers and artisans that gather there every season to sell. She was an AIM vendor for three years, selling locally made and sustainably produced products at many of AIM’s farmers markets throughout the Bay Area, including Point Reyes.

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Dooryard Provisions and its products are a result of Maria’s culinary curiosity and creative experimentation. While Maria was working at a fine dining restaurant in Marin, Covid hit, and she had time off for the first time since high school. Her fascination with flavor, season, and using the fruits of the land around her led her to spend her time playing with food and ingredients, crafting jams, spice blends, and dried seaweed products. From this experimentation, Dooryard Provisions was born.

“My packaging is compostable, and I had a glass return program with my jam—I was really just combining all my past experience into this brand. I was excited about focusing on the environment, seasonality, local food, supporting small businesses.”

Now, Maria has turned her focus to catering and private cheffing. This new chapter is a return to the passion and spark that moved her into food in the first place. These days, Maria spends her time growing and preserving food with her partner on their homestead and creating seasonal, sustainable menus for her private clients, weekend retreats and intimate dinners.

Maria’s approach to crafting menus and recipes is intentional and holistic, rooted in season, land, community and health, and deeply informed by her life experiences. Her journey becoming the chef she is today was not linear, but good food is a consistent throughline in her life and career. From conservation group leader to fine dining chef to business owner and forager—Maria brings the breadth of her experiences to the plate, showcasing thoughtful creativity and a deep knowledge of seasonality and flavor.

You can find Maria Clementi at dooryardprovisions.com for all your catering or private cheffing needs. While she no longer sells at the market or online, you can find her products at the West Marin Culture Shop in Point Reyes or Solstice Mercantile in Fairfax.

Join us at Gather for the Planet and get a taste of Maria’s delicious Point Reyes-inspired vision! Tickets are available for purchase through August 25th.