Every season brings different cuts, different cravings, and different reasons to gather together around a great meal. So we asked a chef we trust to cook with us through each one. 

Introducing Chef of the Season: a new series where a chef we admire takes over our kitchen for a few months, sharing the recipes, techniques, and stories that inspire them to cook the way they do.

First up is Sara Saez, aka @cheffysurfs. She cooks over fire, sources like a detective, and has a way of making people put their forks down mid-bite to ask, "Wait, what is this?"

She's with us through the holidays, so get ready for some feast-worthy meals that will have everyone wondering where and when you went to culinary school. 

Simple ingredients with big flavor.

Sara's cooking starts from a belief we share: when the ingredients are right, you don't need much else.

"Simple, clean ingredients lead to the most nutritious, flavorful dishes. Know where your food is coming from and create from what you have available."

That doesn't mean her food is plain. Far from it. Sara builds each dish around one or two ingredients that change its whole expression. A squeeze of something sour. A chile you've never heard of. A spice blend picked up halfway across the world. These are the details that make a meal stick in your memory long after the plates are cleared.

And she's not precious about rules. If a flavor from a trip excites her, it's fair game. Inspiration, to Sara, is something you collect, not something you copy.

Fire, travel, and whatever's in season.

Ask Sara to name her cooking style, and she'll tell you it depends on who's coming over. But there's one constant: she loves cooking over fire. We have that in common, too. 

Her favorite cuisines are Mediterranean, Peruvian, and Malaysian. That's a lot of passport stamps for one plate, and that's the point. After years of traveling, Sara is drawn to dishes you don't usually find where she lives. She doesn't try to recreate them, though. She borrows their flavor bases and builds something new with what's in season locally.

"Cooking in season guarantees the freshest, most nutrient-dense meals."

The result is food that tastes like somewhere far away, made with ingredients from close to home.

She wants to know the rancher and how they ranch.

Plenty of people want to know which farm their food came from, but Sara goes further.

"I want to know not just which farm my food comes from and the names of the people tending to the land, but how they're doing it."

She looks for food grown and raised without synthetic chemicals, on land tended with regenerative practices. Her reasoning is simple. When ranchers work with the land instead of against it, the soil stays alive and rich in nutrients. More of that nourishment ends up in the food, and on the plate.

It's the same question we ask of every ranch we work with. So it's no surprise we got along from the start.

How Sara found The Honest Bison.

Sara loves food that feels wild. Having friends who hunt helps, but a friend's freezer isn't exactly something you can plan a dinner party around, let alone a catering job. So she did her homework and called a long list of companies selling beef, bison, and elk under the banner of "regenerative agriculture." Then she got on the phone with our founder, Sean Lenihan.

"I ended up having the best conversation with Sean. The name The Honest Bison really shines through getting to know him and the way he leads this company."

Since then, Sara and Sean have hosted several events together. She's had the opportunity to hear firsthand how we nurture our relationships with our Grazing Partners, and how each one gets vetted.

The dish that started it all.

Sara's been cooking for other people since high school. Back then, her go-to was her favorite Peruvian dish: lomo saltado. Think seared steak, onions, tomatoes, and soy sauce tossed together in a hot wok with crisp fries, served over rice.

It's still the kind of thing she loves making for the people closest to her. And of course, once people taste it, they want to know how to make it. And part of how she teaches is sharing where the ingredients come from — that discovery changes the whole dish.

An explorer by nature.

The "surfs" in @cheffysurfs isn't just for show. When Sara's out of the kitchen, she's chasing waves or carving down a mountain. Surfing and skiing are intense, she says, and they take her to some of the most beautiful places in the world.

Those places tend to have something else in common: great food, and the people who obsess over it. That's where a lot of her flavors come from. A post-surf meal in one country. A mountain-town dinner in another. They all end up in her cooking somewhere.

What Sara's cooking this holiday season:

Sara's first season with us is one designed to impress. Over the coming weeks, she'll share holiday recipes centered on two of our favorite showstoppers: Whole Bison Tenderloin and Bison French Rack roasts. Expect bold flavors from her travels, a little fire, and the kind of dish that gets your guests asking for the recipe.

Follow along with Sara at @cheffysurfs and keep an eye on your inbox for her recipes as they drop.
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Welcome to the table, Sara. We're glad you're here.