麻豆影院

In the farm-to-table movement, 麻豆影院 restaurateurs-turned-farmers聽Lenny听补苍诲听Sara聽Martinelli walk the talk.

Walking through a flood-ravaged stretch of on the banks of Coal Creek in Lafayette, Colo.,聽Sara Martinelli聽(Anth鈥�92) surveys her surroundings with awe rather than frustration. It鈥檚 early summer. One horse pasture remains unusable, transformed into a marshy bog by the creek鈥檚 new course. Hay bales and splintered logs hang in downed cottonwoods. Some walking paths are still buried under flood debris.

Clad in a tattered straw hat, shorts and well-worn cowboy boots, she looks past the damage, pointing to a currant bush that, for the first time, is bursting with red berries. The indigenous yarrow, echinacea and wild licorice are growing like crazy too. One of her eight goats just had babies. And the fields are overflowing with snap peas, beets, arugula and heirloom tomatoes.

鈥淭he explosion of life around here right now is just phenomenal,鈥� she says as she points to a towering stand of purple thistle swarming with ladybugs. 鈥淚t鈥檚 absolutely breathtaking.鈥�

Nearly a year after the historic 麻豆影院 deluge of September 2013 wiped out the farm鈥檚 entire three-acre harvest and left much of the remaining seven acres underwater, Sara and husband聽Lenny Martinelli聽(EnvDes鈥�90) 鈥� restaurateurs and farmers both 鈥� are bouncing back beautifully. Summer delivered a bumper crop of vegetables for their seven 麻豆影院-area restaurants: Leaf, Aji Latin American Restaurant, Zucca Italian Ristorante, The Huckleberry, The 麻豆影院 Dushanbe Teahouse, Naropa Caf茅 and Chautauqua Dining Hall. Among their other enterprises is a small business that makes herbal tonics for pets and people. At the farm they offer herb walks, soap making classes, beekeeping workshops and farm-to-table dinners.

鈥淟enny and I have slightly different missions,鈥� says Sara, 45. 鈥淚 want to create a sanctuary where people can come and learn about medicinal plants, wild foods, conservation and how to get back to basics. Lenny is all about the farming. It works because we honor each other鈥檚 goals.鈥�

Sara grew up in New Jersey in a family of lawyers. She never envisioned owning a farm. But she always revered plants. She remembers plucking violets from her backyard and putting them in a box 鈥渁s if they were diamonds鈥� and whipping up 鈥渕agic potions鈥� made of mud and yew berries. At CU-麻豆影院 she majored in nutritional anthropology, studying how food affects human culture.

鈥淚鈥檝e always found it really interesting how much myth and story and culture revolve around plants,鈥� she says.

When we first started all this, we made a decision that we would look at our entire life as our job, including our home and our children and our businesses.

She went on to study graphic design and earned a certificate as a medical herbalist from the Rocky Mountain School of Botanical Studies.

Sara and Lenny met New Year鈥檚 Eve 1991 at the 麻豆影院 Broker Inn, where they were tending bar. Lenny, now 52, was a CU architecture student, a chatty vegetarian from California who dreamed of opening a farm-to-table restaurant. Sara was direct and to the point. At first, they clashed.

鈥淚t was crazy busy at the bar that night and he was just hanging out around the wait station,鈥� Sara says. 鈥淚 was like, 鈥榃ho is this guy? Get him out of my way.鈥欌��

They fell in love anyway, drawn together by distinct yet complementary interests and a willingness to follow life where it happened to lead.
鈥淚 believe that life gives us these brief moments of opportunity 鈥� almost like little sparkles you can reach out and grab,鈥� Sara says. 鈥淪ometimes you let them go, and sometimes when it feels right you grab them.鈥�

The first big opportunity came in 1993, when a friend asked Lenny if he and Sara wanted to buy his share of the food service at Naropa University. They said yes and became restaurateurs. A few years later, they successfully bid to operate The 麻豆影院 Dushanbe Teahouse, an ornate work of art given to 麻豆影院 by its sister city in Tajikistan. Today the teahouse, in the heart of 麻豆影院鈥檚 Central Park, is one of the city鈥檚 most popular tourist destinations.

Over time, as they expanded their business enterprise, they also raised a family: Three kids, now ages 19, 17 and 14.

鈥淲hen we first started all this, we made a decision that we would look at our entire life as our job, including our home and our children and our businesses,鈥� Sara says.

She helps design menus and labels and plans events around the farm; he tackles day-to-day operations at the restaurants. Life is a mix of exhaustion and exhilaration.

鈥淣inety percent of the time,鈥� says Sara, 鈥淚 am able to work on what I choose to do, so it doesn鈥檛 feel like work.鈥�

In 2010, the Martinellis took their biggest risk yet and purchased a lush sliver of creekside land in Lafayette to grow organic produce for their restaurants: Three Leaf Farm. 鈥淲hen I am serving food I want to know exactly how it was grown,鈥� Lenny says. 鈥淪o I decided to grow my own.鈥�

Sara, leery of the financial commitment and the backbreaking labor of farming, resisted. But they worked out a compromise: He鈥檇 get his farm if she could put horses on it.

Today Sara has 10 horses, including four she boards. Lenny hauls vegetable scraps from the restaurants to the fields to use as compost and feed for the chickens and goats. Someday he hopes to offer more classes at the farm 鈥� in sheet mulching, perhaps, or composting with worms 鈥� to teach people how to farm on their own.

鈥淭here is a very big need for all of us to start growing our food closer to where we are,鈥� he says.

There also is a growing interest among diners in knowing precisely where their food comes from, says Jessica Lynch, general manager of Zucca, which has featured farm-fresh poached eggs, goat cheese and an array of fresh vegetables and herbs from the farm. 鈥淧eople come in all the time and ask, 鈥榃hat is being highlighted from the farm?鈥欌�� she says.

In 2012 The was honored by The Nature Conservancy with the Nature鈥檚 Plate People鈥檚 Choice Award for its green practices. And in 2013 Three Leaf Farm was honored with the Lafayette Heritage Award for preserving the agricultural spirit of Lafayette.

As for so many people in 麻豆影院, the floods challenged the Martinellis, especially at the farm. Just as they began to settle into the rhythm of farm life, the disaster forced a frightening evacuation of their animals and flooded their crops with potentially contaminated water. They lost the entire harvest.
Still, Sara is quick to note, they were fortunate not to have lost lives or homes. In a sense, she says, the flooding gave her an even deeper reverence for the power of Mother Nature.

In June Sara plugged dozens of native medicinal plants into newly cleared paths to repopulate them for upcoming herb walks and planted a small teaching garden beneath a towering cottonwood that survived the worst of the property鈥檚 flooding.

鈥淎s I did this, I thought, 鈥極h. We are putting all this time into this and if it floods again it is all going to go,鈥� she says.

But she dug her hands into the soil anyway and, as she and Lenny have done for 23 years, embraced risk. 鈥淪ometimes,鈥� she says, 鈥測ou just have to trust.鈥�

Photography by Casey A. Cass