Meet Mirasol Gomez Nicole Carrillo | Field to Table Boutique Catering Company, Lady Chefs

We had the good fortune of connecting with Mirasol Gomez Nicole Carrillo and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Mirasol Gomez, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
The thought process behind starting our own business was really born of our desires to forge our own path as women business owners. At the time just before we started our business we were each individually ready to find a way to do things our own way, and began a dialogue about what it would look like to do it together. We had been close friends for a long time already and so we knew we had a very similar and special feeling that we wanted to foster into a larger platform of a business that could grow with us. We were looking to unify all our of our shared skills cooking, gathering, managing, farming, aesthetics, and feeding community into one place where we could share it with other people. By the fall of 2018 after years of imagining what it would look like to create something together we decided to take the leap.

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
We are a field to table, boutique catering company based on the Western Slope of Colorado. We utilize the land around us, our cultural backgrounds, and our shared love for feeding community as an inspiration for who we are as a business. We believe that what sets us apart in many ways is our deep connection to the raw ingredients of the food we make, through growing it, harvesting it, foraging it, and preparing it. When our ingredients are not coming from Deer Tree Farm and Agroforest, Nicole and Aj’s Farm, we are fortunate to have a community of many local producers that live in this valley whom we can support. We really love that we are able to utilize and showcase all of the different producers through what we do as a business, places like wineries, cheesemakers, bakers, flower growers, ranchers, and the list goes on. We knew that when we started out we would say yes to everything. We did more than we had time for. We put our hearts into our business. We wanted to reach as many people as possible. We wanted to build a reputation for ourselves that would be well known to this community and therefor help us grow beyond. There have been many lessons for us along the way in building this business, from our first year of saying yes to everyone, we have come a long way in finding and knowing our worth. We have learned when to say yes and when to say no, so that we always feel energized by our business. We have learned to continuously stay true to ourselves and to let the business inspiration change as we do to keep it relevant to who we are as a pair. We have learned to let our business be an artful expression of what gives us joy in this life and that is what makes it worthwhile to us. We want to inspire people to slow down. As we gather, prepare and serve, we strive to make an experience that reaches into the lives of the people we feed and create a long lasting change on how they think about the food they eat and where it comes from.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
We would absolutely love to show a friend around this place! We would first show them Farm Runners, the local grocery stocked by all of the farmers in the area, where they could always get snacks and fresh baked goods. We would obviously have to show them all the wineries in the area, like The Storm Cellar, for wine tastings and great conversation. We would take take them on all of the amazing surrounding hikes. We would take them to eat at our favorite places, like Root and Vine for Brunch, or Mountain Oven for fresh Pizzas. We would have to show them all of our favorite farms like Zephyros and Thistle Whistle. We would take a day and rent paddle boards from western slope up and go paddle boarding at the local lake. The week would be filled with all our local spots and people!

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
As a business and pair we would like to shout out our families for all of the love and support they have given us as we started this endeavor and we continue to grow it. All the family tables we ate around that fed our bellies and our life inspiration to cook for others. And to our friends who have encouraged us and helped us all along the way, never having a doubt. Nicole would like to shoutout Connie Keogh-Dwyer owner of Shawnee Gardens – her former employer/fairy godmother who encouraged her to cook, adventure and follow the beat of her own unique drum – and her husband AJ who supports her unconditionally, and collaborates with her on her farm which serves as a huge inspiration for all of the meals we make and things we do in our business. Mirasol would like to shoutout her first employers in this business Amy and Heidi who own Feel Good Foods Catering in Santa Cruz, CA, who saw and encouraged a spark in her and showed her that women can do anything, and do it better. A special mentor and friend of hers, Grant Buchanan, owner of GB Culinary in Boulder, whom without she wouldn’t be where she it. And her father, Hector, who taught her about the love of cooking with fire.

Website: foragesisters.com

Instagram: @foragesisters

Facebook: Forage Sisters

Image Credits
Sora Digital – Jess Fierberg Summit and Company – Kailyn Haynes Mirasol Gomez