Cooking Through the Seasons at Toluma Farms
What does one do when life gives you cheese? If you’re Jessica Lynn MacLeod, you get cooking. MacLeod was volunteering at Tomales’ Toluma Farms, helping out at the barn with the many goats and sheep and doing odd jobs as part of the farm’s crew. It was a big step away from the rapid-response tech company MacLeod helped found.
“The drive from Mill Valley to Tomales was a gift in and of itself,” she says. But it was the armfuls of cheese that Tamara Jo Hicks, the farm’s co-owner, gave MacLeod in exchange for her volunteer work that led to Feasts on the Farm, a cookbook coauthored by MacLeod and Hicks.
In addition to running the 200-head goat and sheep dairy farm with her husband, David, Hicks operates Tomales Farmstead Creamery, the source of eight seasonal cheeses that made their way into MacLeod’s Mill Valley pantry. Inspired by the cheese bounty and the wealth of the Marin and Sonoma foodshed, MacLeod crafted family meals with the goat, sheep and mixed milk cheeses. (Jersey milk is sourced from Tomales’ Silva Family Farm.) “I’m not a chef,” MacLeod says. “I am a home cook. I cook for friends and family.”
Photos of the dishes MacLeod prepared were sent to Hicks leading Hicks to a revelation: “Besides grating cheese on pasta, I wasn’t making amazing dishes with our cheese,” she says. “I wasn’t thinking ‘What can I make with this tonight?’ Jessica’s work was eye-opening.”
From there, MacLeod’s family cookbook became something bigger. MacLeod prepared family meals for the farm crew utilizing each cheese as it came into season. The seasons offered a natural way to organize the book. Coast Miwok names—Atika, Teleeka—grace many cheeses, reminders of whose unceded land the family farm occupies. Dishes such as Autumn’s Harissa Roasted Root Vegetables with Koto’la, a feta-style sheep milk cheese, were inspired by crew members—in this case by Tina Trevino, who managed the farm’s herd from 2019 to 2024. “Her feedback was so specific around wanting more big, earthy veggies in the dish,” says MacLeod.
Vegetables also feature prominently in Jessica’s lentil soup, upon which a round of breaded and fried Liwa, the farm’s fresh goat cheese, melts beautifully into the bowl. Liwa is also the star ingredient in Autumn’s Goat Cheese Tatin, which was contributed by Left Bank Brasserie restaurant’s co-owner and chef, Roland Passot, and adapted for home cooks. Regular creamery customers such as Chef Val Cantu of San Francisco’s Californios, Chef Daniella Banchero of San Francisco’s Piccino and Chef Seth Stowaway of San Francisco’s now-closed Osito contributed recipes. Recipes from the Hicks family archive as well as from farm staff were tested and perfected for the home cook.
Yes, most recipes in this cookbook feature cheese but more than that: It is a love letter to the farm and to Marin. Marin’s stunning landscapes are a prominent feature, thanks to photographer Katie Newburn. Vignettes and short stories focus on the diverse characters who helped shape Marin and the Bay Area’s landscape. Sprinkled into each season/chapter are shoutouts to the cultural context of cheese from Head Cheesemaker Nick Campbell, a meditation on fire by philanthropist Terry Gamble Boyer, a reminder that farmers are conservationists from Marin Agricultural Land Trust Executive Director Lily Verdone and plentiful thanks to the vast community that supports the farm and creamery, including generations of land stewards of all backgrounds and faiths and the many farmers’ market customers who have purchased cheeses directly from David. Regenerative agriculture is baked in.
Twenty years into the farming business and 12 years into the cheesemaking business, Hicks found the cookbook an opportunity to reflect. The sense of place, the welcoming of the broader community to the farm and its bounty, the delights of the local foodshed set the context for each recipe.
The taste of place is palpable. MacLeod loved experimenting with bay laurel, a locally abundant tree whose leaves season many dishes. After tinkering with bread and scone recipes, she wanted an autumnal dessert you could eat with a spoon. She prepared Bay Laurel and Fig Clafoutis as part of a staff lunch. Made with local eggs, milk and laurel, its flavors are grounded in the agricultural heritage of Marin.
You can find Tomales Farmstead Creamery cheeses at AIM farmers’ markets, including Marin Civic Center (Thursdays + Sundays), Point Reyes’ seasonal farmers’ market and stores and shops around Marin and Sonoma, including Oliver’s Markets, Petaluma Market and the West Marin Culture Shop.
Join Jessica and Tamara Jo at Black Mountain Ranch in Pt. Reyes on October 4 for Gather for the Planet—a benefit in support of the AIM farmers markets where they will be featured chefs. GatherForThePlanet.org
One part meditation on the grounding beauty of agricultural life in Marin, one part paean to the joy of cooking with cheese, Feasts on the Farm nudges readers to consider the provenance of their ingredients while savoring the bounty of the local foodshed. With contributions from professional chefs and Tomales’ Toluma Farms’ many home cooks, each recipe is designed to maximize the flavor of what is at hand and in season. Feasts on the Farm is written by Tamara Jo Hicks and Jessica Lynn MacLeod (Chronicle Books, August 2025). Photography by Katie Newburn. Available at major booksellers.
