Kindred Farm Salad
"The primary crop we grow on Kindred Farm year-round is a type of lettuce called salanova. When we harvest it, we remove the leaves from the core and mix it all together to create our Buttery Sweet Sa...
Kindred Farm: Cultivating Connection
Through farm dinners, a farm market, and now a book, Christine Bailey and Chef husband Steven cultivate a life on 17 acres in Santa Fe, TN
“One of my absolute favorite things? Picking dinner. Are you even a farmer if at some point, you haven’t harvested something, strapped it in, and let it ride shotgun in the truck back to the house?”
This wholesome question is posed by Christine Bailey – farmer, writer, dreamer. A former music industry gal turned social entrepreneur turned sustainable produce and flower farmer, Christine is currently growing deep roots (in addition to food) with her chef husband and two young daughters on their seventeen-acre farm in the hills of Santa Fe, Tennessee.
Christine didn’t always choose the farm life but the farm life sure chose her… eventually. An Italian American Jersey girl, she left the northeast to attend college at Belmont University in Nashville. Immediately following, she worked in the Christian music industry for several years on tour promotions, new album releases, and films. Upon meeting her husband, Steven, Christine moved to Dallas and pivoted to help found an Africa relief non-profit called Mocha Club, which equips African leaders to develop stronger communities.
In 2009, she and Steven became interested in the local food movement and started Urban Acres, an organic produce co-op that grew to over 2,400 families, along with a market and urban farm. In 2015, she and her family began their own farming journey when they moved to Tennessee to start Kindred Farm and have been welcoming people to the land and their table at unique farm-to-table events called Kindred Dinners, using food they have grown.
Now, she’s penned her debut book, The Kindred Life: Stories & Recipes to Cultivate a Life of Organic Connection. It is a rally cry for connection in a time when we need to reclaim what’s been lost in the chaos of busyness, distraction, and isolation; it’s an invitation to cultivate the things that have fed our souls since the beginning of time: a life of simple beauty, delicious nourishment, and rich community.
In The Kindred Life, Christine discusses what it means to nurture a rich, nourishing life, whether it is fostering a less busy, less chaotic schedule, finding beauty amid life’s uncertainties, or reclaiming boundaries around your family’s time. “Whatever we’re doing to nourish something in our lives—a garden, a calling, a family, a dream—changing and transforming and reclaiming won’t be easy, but the richness of what is grown in that soil is so, so worth it,” says Christine. “The fact that deep connection and true, staggering beauty is created out of the dirt and mess is a lesson I keep learning over and over again.”
For more information on their farm dinners, family-friendly dinners, and farm market, follow them on Instagram @thekindredfarm and visit thekindredfarm.com. Find Christine's book and share in her adventures and inspiration on her website, ChristineMarieBailey.com.
Related Stories & Recipes
Recipes from our Fall Farm Dinner at Katharos Farm
Recipes created by Chef Stephen Miller of Whole Foods and his creative team.
