Jan Buhrman

Hi There, I am Jan Buhrman I have been learning and teaching about foods, growing practices, farming, fishing and how to live closer to our food sources.

I have cooked my entire life and I have had the pleasure of being with and learning from many great teachers and chefs. I have practiced great recipes and techniques, but it has been the farmers, fishermen, growers, my own father, and my two mothers, who have given me a foundation for ever evolving curiosity to understand our food systems.

 To question approaches and understand processes has tweaked my wonder. 

I am a teacher and have offered cooking classes, and farm tours for many years.

Since COVID hit, so many of you reached out for recipes and that changed my teaching. 

Virtual cooking classes became the way. Cooking with you in your kitchen from my kitchen became the way we learned together.!

The classes have brought me much joy and also I have learned so much from you, my participants. Your questions have taught me what to focus for the classes. Your attention has inspired me to examine recipes, compare notes and determine the best approach for each ingredient.

I know that we can only be healthier if we know where our food comes from and we pay careful attention to how it is raised, who raised it, and how to prepare it! And that is where deliciousness comes in.

All animals, chicken, cows, lamb, fish should be raised right, have had a good life and be humanely caught and slaughtered. Our environment is precious and the only way to preserve it is to practice restorative farming practices. There is no room at our table for glyphosates, and other chemicals and poisons or farm workers who were not paid a fair wage. We are all in this together! We learn from each other, we find compassion from knowing about each other and we come together around meals. May you find joy and laughter at your table and may you learn deliciousness in your life!

So here we are- from my and heart and stovetop to yours!

COOKING CLASSES : Jan combines her passion for food with a love of teaching to enhance people’s understanding of their food through farm tours, cooking classes, and nutritional workshops. All programs are designed to connect people with local food systems.

PRE-COVID: We were running cooking classes, culinary experiences and farm dinners. Jan has continued to stay with the times and reinvent the way she does things as Jan has discovered a new way to reach and teach:

“Since COVID hit, so many of you reached out for recipes and that changed my teaching. 

Virtual cooking classes became the way. Cooking with you in your kitchen from my kitchen became the way we learned together.!

The classes have brought me much joy and also I have learned so much from you, my participants. Your questions have taught me what to focus for the classes. Your attention has inspired me to examine recipes, compare notes and determine the best approach for each ingredient.

I know that we can only be healthier if we know where our food comes from and we pay careful attention to how it is raised, who raised it, and how to prepare it! And that is where deliciousness.”

Martha’s Vineyard Culinary Experiences: Reinventing the Way People Experience Food. She believes sourcing good food is key to the health of the planet, our community,  and ourselves. Martha’s Vineyard’s premier locally sourced, farm-to-table wedding caterer leads culinary experiences, offers food and farm tours and sells delicacies at the farmer’s market, and come winter teaches about food and nutrition across the world. An invited chef at Rancho La Puerta, Jan has cultivated decades of food knowledge from the farm to the herbal pharmacy. She is a walking encyclopedia of every kitchen angle.

“Even with a perfect diet, the combination of many things—including our depleted soils, the storage and transportation of our food, genetic alterations of traditional heirloom species, and the increased stress and nutritional demands resulting from a toxic environment—make it impossible for us to get all the vitamins and minerals we need solely from the foods we eat. Add to that the large-scale deficiencies of nutrients in our population—including omega-3 fats, vitamin D, folate, zinc, magnesium, and iron and there is just so much. to pay attention to. Each lesson focuses on aspects of health to consider.”

A self-taught chef, her farm-to table catering company prided for its diverse staff and nod to sustainability, farmer’s market shop, and butcher courses have been voted “Best of the Vineyard for island wedding catering,” “Best take out,” “Best Caterer of Cape and Islands,” “Best Clambake,” and “Best Lobster Roll.” Her innovation to local food culture has  been written up in The New York Times, The Washington Post, New Englad’s Yankee Magazine, The Martha’s Vineyard Times and The Vineyard Gazette and her work in food rights led her to colleagues Abby Rockefeller, Dan Barber, Alice Waters, Jose Andres, Adam Kay, and many other giants in the movement.

When not at the helm of food entrepreneurship, Jan teaches courses on butchering, fermenting, nutrition, composting and hosts farm dinners, tours, and more. She has been raising pigs and teaching workshops on slaughtering and butchering to chefs for 20 years. For over a decade she has belonged to the organization Women Chef and Restaurateurs. According to Jan, “these are my sisters,” especially Elizabeth Falkner, Kim Bartman, Carrie Summer of ChefHackBayCity.com, Jamie Leeds of Hank Oyster Bars, Nell Newman, and The Kitchen Sisters. 

With nutrition great, John Bagniulo, she teaches courses internationally on Keto diets, gut health, eating for anti-inflammation, and more. Together they founded Diaeta Way, a food transformation 21 day plan. With an MA in Education, a former librarian, she is an excellent teacher and has offered lessons on her local island, in Costa Rica, at Kripalu, and beyond. She is always teaching in some form, and knows nutrition inside and out.

In 2004 she joined Slow Food and quickly became involved in the Martha’s Vineyard chapter.  “Myself and chef Kathy Walthers led the slow food movement on Martha’s Vineyard as President and Vice President, form several years” she tells. “We bought speakers, authors, chefs and master food personalities to Martha’s Vineyard to speak at our annual potluck. Among the speakers that I personally organized to speak at our annual meetings with more than 350 attendees: Michael Pollan, Sandor Katz, Jessica Harris, Joan Nathan.” Jan attended the international conference in Turin, Italy in 2006, 2008, and 2012 where she befriended Carlo Patrinie, touring Bra Italy where the Slow Food Movement all began.

Locally she walks her talk, and talks her walk. She is integral to Island Grown Initiative, promoting local food culture and addressing issues and challenges facing the local food system. “The mission and goals of this organization holds true to my heart,” she says. To increase local food production. To reduce and redirect food waste. To expand access to healthy food for all islanders. 

Partial to this mission are her intimate ties to Allen Farm, “through them I have come to understand the natural rhythms of seasons and farming,” Morning Glory Farm, Mermaid Farm, “my dear and adored neighbors with whom I work closely in  addressing farming needs and inequities. When Allen Healy wanted to raise cows, I suggested that I buy two cows to ensure that he could begin his career as a dairyman. Once established, I suggested yogurt making and lassie (from my days in India) as Value Added Products that he could see off his farm.”

Prided for her humanely raised poultry and meat, and sustainable fishery sourced seafood, she has been catering locally sourced farmer friendly food on Martha’s Vineyard since 1998. For Kitchen Porch, her vetted company, “Recycling is a priority in the disposal of waste. We raise pigs off the kitchen compost. We pay attention to how far supplies travel to get to our kitchen and weigh the cost with the need.” When not cooking for private events and massive oceanside weddings, Jan leads culinary experiences, nutrition and diet education retreats, and teaches locally about sourcing good ingredients and the importance of finding balance in how we live.

“I am continually asking myself if I am contributing to the depletion of natural resources, to animal endangerment or to mono-crop abundance,” says Buhrman. “My mother founded the LeLeche League and fought Nestle in Africa and my father supported Rachel Carson on the DDT fight. I come from a large family and dinner around the table was always the most important part of the day. I have been working closely with farmers and fishermen and chefs who continually share and teach their wisdom.” Jan lives in Chimark, MA, in the house she and her husband built. They raise pigs and chickens, and harvest their own food year round.