Author Bio

My first culinary creation was collecting berries in my neighborhood for “frisbee stew.” The berries were chosen for their bright colors and ability to pop open and release gooey juice.  Although it was so satisfying to prepare I never got to enjoy eating these poisonous meals. I wouldn’t learn the pride found in foraging until I was an adult.

As a child, my Cuban Abuelita was my summer babysitter. In this role she became my culinary template. She embodied an attitude of a full kitchen takeover whenever food needed to be prepared. Her meals were full of comforting rice and beans, as Congri or yellow chicken and rice. They were always sized to feed multiple family’s. I wanted to cook like grandma!

My first proper job was as a hostess at a fast-food joint, in Duluth, MN handing out balloons and mini ice cream cones. My actual career began on the Gunflint Trail, where I prepped by day and bartended by night. Neither were glamorous. After graduating from UMD with a degree in Anthropology. I moved out to Eugene, Oregon when I learned not to cry over an  mushed foei gras pate roulade and to whisk a foam by hand. 

Next I jetted off to Costa Rica with my four year old in tow.  I returned home,  found a house on the beach and  stumbled into a restaurant, it seems, I am never able to fully leave. I was 25 years old when I first started working a the Cafe.  It’s fair to say I did a lot of maturing between those walls both as a chef and as a human.  My daughter grew up catching the school bus down the street and spending afternoons doing homework in the bar. At Sara’s Table Chester Creek Cafe shaped both of our lives.

What started as a simple line cooking summer job soon became my life’s work 

After my daughter graduated high school and flew off to Oregon for college, I felt free to start traveling again. During the pandemic, I headed down to Mexico for a few years. I had a lot of time on my hands and needed a way to process all the changes I had experienced.  I decided it was time to take that dream of writing a ASTCCC cookbook and make it a reality.

It’s been a long road, one I am not sure I would have started had I known the amount of work it required! It put my skills to the test while also teaching me many new skills. As the project nears completion I reminisce on all the joys and life events and delicious foods I have eaten at the Cafe over the years. My hope is that the physical work preparing and creating the menus over the years and my brain work of translating those dishes for the home cook have created a book that brings joy to people.

I now find myself back working at the restaurant. It’s a new world in the food industry, one I am slowly rediscovering.  So come on by and taste the new menu or order your old favorites, theres always a mix of the old and new. Don’t know where to start?  Try the Hippie Farm, it  really is the best!
 
Provecho! 
Jillian