'I Care About Food and Connection'

Photo by Matthew Liteplo
Ishii, top, is known for her talents as a vegan chef, but she’s also adept at cooking vegetarian and omnivore meals.
Juniper Turgeon and Alex MacKay-Smith, owners of Juniper Farm (top right) like to think of themselves as veggie-forward, but not vegan or vegetarian. They are careful to say that they believe in the merits of regenerative agriculture that integrates animal husbandry. “We definitely need the animals to help us to fertilize in an organic and biodynamic way,” MacKay-Smith says.
Caroline Ishii (above and shown bottom right feeding Bunwich) is now at the helm of Juniper Farm’s culinary program, which includes a takeout window featuring a farm fresh menu of giant salads and sandwiches and sometimes, “Ishii stone bowls” full of the fields’ yields that week and presented throughout the height of the harvest.
As soon as she arrived at the farm, she became the heart of the food program.