A typical workday for Eric Skokan might go something like this.
He wakes up at his family’s Boulder County farm and restaurant, Black Cat Farm, where diners will gather that evening to enjoy views of the foothills, and the mountains beyond, from one of seven cabanas on the property. Then he heads out the door to get to work, directing a team that maintains plots of beans, wheat and leafy greens, as well as tends to pigs and sheep, here and at two other parcels encompassing 500 acres.
After lunch and some more farming, he shifts his attention to the restaurant’s kitchen, where, since last October, he has been devising a weekly multi-course menu using vegetables harvested and foraged on site. By 6:30 p.m., the grey-haired Skokan is fidgeting outside the kitchen cottage next to the cabanas, flip phone in hand, to keep tabs on his farmhands, watching a menagerie of starter plates — artichoke flan and truffle mousse in an egg shell, watermelon and purslane salad with goat milk curd, a ricotta galette with a pistachio crust — go out the door.
A plate slips off a server’s tray and shatters. Skokan winces. He quickly regains his composure, his mind already on to the next task at hand. When operating a farm and restaurants and managing a crew of about 40 employees, a little chaos is common…