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Imagine the burst of flavor from a fresh-picked, farm-grown vegetable, a taste so vibrant it makes you question everything you’ve ever bought from the grocery store. For Chef Instructor Steven Nalls and his family, this is not just an occasional treat but a way of life. Steven and his wife own and run Three Sisters’ Farm and Ranch in Wellington, Colorado, where they are raising their three daughters.
Steven remarks, “I didn’t ever think that I would have kids just picking up random weeds and putting them in their mouths…that’s really what it’s all about, is them growing up in this kind of pastoral environment, learning where their food comes from and learning what it takes.”
But this wasn’t the future Chef Steven could have predicted at the outset of his career, when a broken ankle and a fading interest in mechanical engineering changed his course.
Ultimately, a growing passion for farm-fresh flavor and the love of his life would lead him to the farm he now calls home. How does an ordinary kid from Texas go from a fast-food worker to a champion of sustainable agriculture and farm-to-table values? Let’s find out…
Mechanical Engineering to Culinary School
Steven grew up in Texas, and when he needed to afford a car to get around as a teen he started working in restaurants. He first worked at Burger King, and then found his way into more traditional restaurants, eventually working front-of-house and bartending.
Steven was studying mechanical engineering at Texas A&M University, but while recuperating from a broken ankle, realized his heart wasn’t in it. What he really wanted was to go to culinary school.
Chef Steven’s farm property came with a lot of infrastructure already in place, like this traditional barn. Here it’s being used to dry harvested garlic.
“Once my leg healed up enough that I could move around, I asked the restaurant that I was bartending at if I could spend some time in the kitchen,” Chef Steven recalls. “And it was an entirely Spanish-speaking kitchen at this Mexican restaurant, but I really enjoyed the whole scenario. So I decided to bite the bullet and go into culinary school and moved out to Southern California.”
Finding A Culinary Passion
Steven attended the California School of Culinary Arts in Pasadena, California. Going to culinary school near the movie industry provided some unique opportunities to cook at events where celebrities would turn up, and to help cater for big events.
At first, he was interested in pastry arts and thought he wanted to get into chocolate work. But the savory kitchen really called to him instead. Once he experienced the high-paced energy of the kitchen, he knew he was hooked. And he knew he wanted to use cooking as a vehicle for travel.
A Farm-to-Table Seed is Planted
Steven moved back to San Angelo, Texas to complete his externship at the Chicken Farm Art Center. A collective of potters, painters, and stone carvers, the Chicken Farm Art Center is a community hub, bed and breakfast, and art commune.
Steven was inspired by the closed loops on the farm, and the way the center brought local art and food to its community.
A buff orpington rooster at Three Sisters Farm eyes the camera with suspicion.
They offered a prix fixe menu, with a weekly steak, poultry, seafood, and vegetarian option, depending on what was available or fresh. “I got a job working in the kitchen, and the potter made the plates for the restaurant and we had a little garden. We changed the menu every week. It was my first real farm-to-table experience, before farm-to-table was kind of a buzzword. It really sparked my interest in that farm-to-table thought process.”
The Road to Culinary School Instructor
Despite the inspiration of the Chicken Farm Art Center, Steven wasn’t ready for his own project. And he still wanted to travel.
“After a while I ended up moving to Hawaii to work in the resort scene on Maui for just about a year and then moved back to Texas for a girl…and I knew I could cook anywhere.”
After that, the couple moved to Colorado, where Steven worked at a breakfast joint, a microbrewery, and then at Colorado State University dining services. But once Steven and his wife decided to start a family, he wanted to find a job with more family-friendly hours, and he applied to Escoffier to become a chef instructor. He got the job and started teaching.
A Dream Farm is Born
In his early days as a chef instructor, Steven relates that the Farm-to-Table curriculum wasn’t yet as developed as it is now. But he says that in those days, Escoffier would take the students on producer tours on the western slope [of the Rockies]. These field trips really piqued Steven’s interest in agriculture.
“I’d always gardened and I knew that the flavor is way different from the tomato on the vine in your backyard as opposed to the grocery store…I just got the bug for local agriculture.”
The entrance to Three Sisters Farm welcomes you to a rolling prairie farmstead.
Steven decided he wanted to dive into the world of food as a farmer. With his wife’s support, the couple began looking for the right piece of property.
It took them a few years to find the right place, but in 2011, they closed on 80 acres of rolling hills in northern Colorado the same week their twin girls were born. Steven’s parents even moved to the property with them to help take care of their girls.
Three Sisters Farm: Family-Centered Market Farm
With a new piece of land, Steven set about creating the sustainable farm-to-table enterprise he dreamed of. “Three Sisters” refers to Steven’s three daughters, Quinn, Alexis, and Nora, but also to the traditional Native American companion planting technique of growing corn, beans, and squash together.
This traditional interplanting allows the three species to enjoy a symbiotic relationship while growing: the beans fix nitrogen in the soil to help fertilize the corn, the corn provides a natural trellis for the beans and squash, and the squash provides a living mulch by shading the soil with their broad leaves.
Interplanted corn, beans, and squash, called “The Three Sisters” are the namesake of Steven’s farm.
Steven uses the farmland to pasture his own Highland cattle, Icelandic sheep, goats, alpacas, chickens, and heritage turkeys. He also grows vegetables for farmers’ markets and his own family table.
Having his daughters grow up on a farm has been a particularly heartwarming experience. “Ultimately, the best part of it all is seeing kids of that age eating vegetables of that caliber and, and seeing them eat them up on a plate…”
Chef Steven feeds one of his Highland cattle by hand at Three Sisters Farm and Ranch.
Sharing Farm-to-Table with Escoffier Students
Not only does Steven have a personal passion for growing local food and contributing to a local-agriculture movement, he also loves sharing his passion for high-quality food made with care and skill with Escoffier students at the Boulder campus.
Steven teaches the whole range of culinary classes at Escoffier, everything from Foundations to World Cuisine. But he really lights up when he shares the final class in the curriculum, the Farm-to-Table® Experience.
Chef Steven demonstrates creative uses for farm-raised meat at an Escoffier Farm-to-Table tour at Three Sisters Farm.
“We talk about sustainability and utilizing our resources appropriately, not only in agriculture and what we’re sourcing, but in the kitchen as well,” he says. “We go through whole animal usage. We get a whole hog and we use it from nose to tail in the program. We focus on the whole vegetable as well. We don’t just throw those carrot tops away, or those beet tops away, we find a way to turn those into a value-added scenario.”
He also shares that in this part of the program, students are asked to get creative with a basket of ingredients, to get practice using what’s available and in season.
The Value of Quality Food and a Better Food Future
For Steven, developing his farm and teaching at Escoffier is a way to contribute to the conversation about food quality and sustainability.
“I want to have restaurants that actually produce good quality food in the future, and I’m noticing that good food and good service are becoming harder and harder to find. I feel like we need people out there making better food and serving it well. And it’s not just for the Boulders and San Franciscos and the New Yorks. We need to take that to Topeka, Kansas and wherever. And not just for the white tablecloth, but for the impoverished.”
Chef Steven tends to a bed of beets at Three Sisters Farm in Wellington, Colorado.
He goes on to say that, “The mediocrity in the American food system is just so prevalent. I’m hoping to see that change, and if I can inspire one student per class, I feel I’m doing it.”
Get Inspired by Farm-to-Table Cooking
People everywhere are sourcing their food from farmers’ markets and health food stores and seeking a more sustainable relationship with their food. At Auguste Escoffier School of Culinary Arts, we love to introduce our students to the power of connecting diners with their farmers. A 6-week Farm-to-Table Experience is a core part of the curriculum in all of Escoffier’s culinary arts programs and encourages our students to use food with an environmental ethic.
If the idea of preparing food with locally grown, sustainably produced ingredients lights you up, reach out to us to learn more about how an online culinary arts degree or diploma or from our ground campus in Colorado can help you practice a Farm-to-Table ethic in your life or career.
