COCOON

COCOON Reminiscing about the tables created this past year and the joy of the food, people and places. A cocoon holds you while something changes, then lets you go. That’s the idea, and something I seem to be doing a lot of in my life. Getting to cook and gather people and share this work is a dream come true. Thank you to all who have made it possible. 💚🧡 And on to the next adventure…(for now).

If you haven’t seen it yet, @jessiebaca and I were featured in Table Magazine! This piece is a really beautiful reflection on the small, human ways we mark new beginnings. It centers around a good-luck menu for the new year. Citrus drinks for prosperity. Lentils that look like tiny edible coins. Hibiscus-dyed tamales just because color and joy matter. And something close to my heart from my Dutch heritage. Oliebollen. Slightly messy, sugar-dusted fritters I remember eating as a kid on New Year’s, usually with cold fingers and a lot of excitement. I’ll be honest, I don’t love the pressure we put on ourselves to “start fresh” right in the middle of winter, when everything in nature is asking us to slow down. But I do believe in creating warmth during the dark winter. In making a little joy and calling in luck. That’s what food does so well. It becomes a bridge between seasons and between cultures. It gives us a reason to come out of our cozy winter cocoons to gather. No big resolutions required. Just a table, a few symbolic dishes, and the people you want beside you as the year unfolds. Grateful for the chance to share this work and this way of gathering. Link in bio to read the full piece and access the recipes! Also more to come in collaboration with @tablemagazine 😏 Menu/Food: @marijkeuleman Styling/Table: @jessiebaca Story: @juliapleonard Photography: @tirahowardphotography Place: @theridgesantafe

I’ve been in a winter cocoon, reflecting on a year that asked a lot of me, and gave a lot back. If I pull tarot on it, it’s The Empress and the Wheel of Fortune. Feeding people. Feeding myself, sometimes beautifully, sometimes poorly. Creating from the body instead of force. And then movement. Travel. Risk. Momentum. Learning to build the plane while flying it. Losing my footing. Finding it again. The Empress lives in the tables. In the meals. In the way food slowed people down long enough to actually see one another. She reminds me that food is not content or product or output. It’s care. It’s connection. Feeding people is serious work, and it’s also deeply joyful. The Wheel taught me to stay present while everything was moving. To let joy and fear coexist. Travel. Risk. Momentum. Learning to build the plane while flying it. Moments of deep alignment followed quickly by moments of “what am I even doing?” And somewhere in that movement, I found myself. This year Cocoon traveled, returned to Ghost Ranch for a third year, grew into a 50-member supper club, and landed in Table Magazine. I’m grateful for all of it. And even more grateful for the people who built these moments with me. As winter settles in, I’m resting. Letting the soil replenish. Trusting that what wants to grow next is already gathering strength beneath the surface. Here’s to full plates, shared tables, and beginning the year fed. Stay tuned.

On Friday, November 7, we’ll gather around the table for a special night of food, wine, and story. In partnership with @pmwinedistribution , we’ll welcome Darek Trowbridge, winemaker and farmer behind @oldworldwinery , one of the Russian River Valley’s most soulful natural wine producers. Darek’s wines have been quietly weaving through Cocoon tables all summer long, and now we bring the story full circle to share them and his stories, together. Darek’s approach to winemaking is soulful and honest, rooted in minimal intervention and deep respect for the land. An ethos very much in line with Cocoon. “I want my wine to be art — provocative, interesting, and true to the raw materials.” Join us in sharing a seasonal Cocoon menu paired with a curated selection of Old World wines. Expect soulful food, honest wine, and good company. 🎟️ link in bio!

As the seasons turn, I’ve been slowing down to take it all in. This summer, I brought my work back home to California wine country, to the place that raised me, even before I understood what that meant. For so long, I didn’t really know how to make sense of my path. I just kept following what felt alive. Food. Art. Connection. The way a meal could shift something in a person. I used to think I was chasing too many things at once, but now I see I was collecting pieces of the same story. Coming home this summer showed me that. 
I cooked under the same skies where I once dreamed about doing something that mattered. I picked lemons from the trees, gathered apples and herbs from the land, worked with friends old and new. And for the first time, I felt like I wasn’t chasing the dream anymore. I was living it. It’s funny how we can spend years trying to figure out our story, only to realize we’ve been writing it all along. Each table, each risk, each moment of not knowing was part of it. Now, when I watch people gather around the table laughing, softening, tasting, remembering. I see myself in that too. The part of me that’s still learning to trust the process, to savor what’s right here. As the days cool and the leaves turn gold, I’m holding onto that gratitude. The knowing that dreams don’t arrive fully formed. They ripen, slowly, in their own time. 📸: @michelle_k_min 🍷: @reichwage_winery

This year at Blossoms and Bones @ghostranchmusicfestival we weren’t tucked away. We were right in the middle of it all. No longer the festival’s best kept secret, Cocoon became part of the heartbeat of the weekend. The weather seemed to dance with us, punctuating each moment of the experience. A sky full of double rainbows, shifting light, and wind that carried the scent of rain. Have you looked up lately? It was magic. 🌈⛈️✨ In the midst of music, laughter, and festival noise, we asked: what does it feel like to truly drop into your senses? To find stillness and connection, even when the outside world is buzzing. That is the Cocoon. A place to gather, to soften, to play, and to taste life with full presence. This festival is special. The land is special. The community is special. It is an honor to be part of it. My deepest gratitude to the ones who made this possible. @jessiebaca and @levcara , you are the backbone and brilliance of production and experiential design, and the steady, caring strength that holds this Cocoon together. We make the best 3-legged stool. 💚 @saradelavie , you are the best sous chef I could ask for, holding down the kitchen with quiet force and the best ideas. To my FOH crew @fatsaltsugar @cassius.x @jessejhavi @constellations.will , you light up the table with your sparkly energy, making every guest feel extra cared for. Way to bring it! @iggyonthego , you have the gift of seeing the magic as it unfolds and capturing it so others can feel it too. @saint_john__ , your soundscape pulled the daytime Cocoon into harmony creating one more sensory layer for guests to delight in. @johannafrenz and @tcubedproductions , none of this would have taken root without your belief three years ago, and because of you it has blossomed into something bigger than I ever could have imagined. And to every guest who sat with us, leaned in, and trusted the journey, you are the reason we show up to the table. Until next year!

Ghost Ranch Music Festival is where Cocoon first grew its wings. ✨ And I can’t wait to be back there tomorrow with my team! Three years ago, this festival gave me a place to play, cracking me open into awe, where my art found its footing, and where my whole life began to change. That first year, I had no idea what I was doing. I just knew I wanted to see what could happen if food was more than food. I showed up with tomatoes in every form I could dream of, and somehow it turned into magic. People laughed, cried, opened up. I realized I was onto something, even if I didn’t have the words for it yet. The second year I came back more sure of myself. I let the New Mexico landscape lead the way. It was a love letter to this place and its bounty, and I felt myself rooting deeper into the work. This year I return again, and it feels like everything I’ve learned is coming together. It’s the most amplified, sensory, alive experience I’ve ever created. A table that asks you to show up with all of yourself. I can’t wait to share it with you under these desert skies. 🌵✨ If you feel like joining, we have a few spots for the Saturday lunch left. Shoot us a DM for info!! Otherwise, see you soon @ghostranchmusicfestival 📸: @alexmakesmedia

Ghost Ranch has a way of leaving its mark on you🌙 For the third year in a row, Chef Marijke is bringing Cocoon back to the festival mesa for 3 experiences of flavor, connection, and wild desert beauty. 🏜️✨ Guests will gather at a long communal table under the stars, sharing seasonal and local dishes cooked over open flame.💫 It’s a night of sage and smoke, of passing plates and pouring wine, of conversations that stretch late into the night. Trust us, you’ll want to be there🍷🤍 Visit ghostranchmusicfest.com to save your seat🌻

Still landing from Saturday. I brought Cocoon home. To Sonoma County. To the place that taught me how to eat, how to pay attention, how to love food. We cooked with ingredients grown by people I got to meet in the dirt and on the farm. We served dinner in the middle of a vineyard @reichwage_winery . People sat among the vines, passed plates, told stories, and tasted the place. It felt surreal and deeply right. This has been a quiet dream for a long time. To take this thing I’ve built on the road and bring it to the place that built me. I’m full. Grateful. Tired in the best way. Thank you to everyone who helped make this happen. Thank you to the land. Thank you to the little kid version of me who would’ve been proud of this. Special thanks to: @swampgirlpottery @max.reichwage @classicculinaire @lifeispunny @singingfrogsfarm @michelle_k_min @katstrophy @genzfineart

Don't miss this lovely occasion to celebrate the season. Tickets on Eventbrite, sales end Wednesday.

For July Supper Club, my “backyard” turned into a garden, and not just because of the food. We had Okra growing wild, pineapples with hats, a wild strawberry spying on nature, more tomatoes than a farmers market, an avocado from Mexico, and even one perfectly humble potato (the backbone of any feast). Colorful plates were passed, ribs got messy, sorbet melted faster than we could eat it, and the conversations stretched long past sunset. A soundtrack of laughter and crickets playing throughout the night. Picnic vibes, but turned up a notch. 🧺 If this is what a garden of humans looks like, I want to plant another one next month. 🍓🥑🌶️🍍🍅🥔🍋🍏🫐🍒🧄🥕🍑 🍽️ Join us again August 16th, only a few spots left! 🎟️ link in bio Thank you to all who came and to my collaborators @marielouise522 and @jessiebaca

this season feels like coming home. 🥕🍅🫜🍑🥒🌽 sun golds. basil. carrots. and so. many. tomatoes.
the markets are bursting with color and scent.
i can’t stop filling my baskets. can’t stop tasting everything.
yes, i’m the one grinning like a kid leaving with a flat of sun golds from @freshiesnm no regrets. it pulls me back to the bay area, where my love of food began.
With my mom at the Berkeley farmers market, picking up our Full Belly CSA box.
opening it felt like unwrapping a gift from the earth—tomatoes still warm from the sun, stone fruit perfuming the whole kitchen, greens i couldn’t yet name. those mornings taught me something:
food isn’t just what we eat. it’s how we belong.
to the seasons. to a place. to each other. that seed became Cocoon.
before supper clubs and festival dinners, Cocoon was just me exploring the magic of one ingredient at a time. the very first dinner? tomatoes. juicy, messy, turned into course after course, shared with a handful of friends. that feeling is still the center of everything.
dinners built around what’s fleeting. what’s worth savoring.
what reminds us to slow down and taste our lives while we’re living them. this summer, that same spirit is at every Cocoon table—from the vines of Sebastopol to the Pecos river to the high desert of Ghost Ranch. if you’ve been waiting to join us, this is your moment.
the food is abundant. the tables are set. tickets + supper club memberships are in my bio