Summerhill Pyramid Winery Add Culinary Talent To The Team
We just returned from the Okanagan, and didn’t get a chance to visit Summerhill Pyramid Winery this trip, but once we read our email this morning and received news that Chef Mara Jernigan has joined the winery, we are certainly going to make sure we get there in February when we return. I first met Mara in the Cowichan Valley at Fairburn Farm, the first Water Buffalo Farm in Canada, where she was running a bed and breakfast and cooking school and I’ve followed her majestic culinary adventures around the world ever since then. Jernigen is super passionate about local, sustainable food and was the past president of Slow Food Canada. The farm has now sold and is no longer operating as a guesthouse.
Jernigan wrote “I am very pleased to report I have found a new home in the Okanagan Valley of BC. It’s a vibrant lakeside region with over 300 wineries and lots of amazing seasonal fruits and vegetables. Here I have returned to work with dear friends, owner Stephen Cipes, and pioneer winemaker Eric von Krosigk at Summerhill Pyramid Winery. ” We’re big fans of Summerhill Winery and have got to know the Cipes family during our visits to the Okanagan and recently had dinner with Ezra Cipes and his wife Rie at The Table at Codfather’s in Kelowna. Rie Cipes made Michael’s bow-tie that he wore for our wedding this April.
Jernigan will assist in managing the winery and bistro, and will also offer culinary programs in the Estate House, the original Cipes family home. She’l be offering three day culinary weekends starting in late May and all through the summer season, through to the Canadian Thanksgiving in October. “With fabulous biodynamic gardens on site I will spend the summer cooking and teaching as I love to, farm to table, all paired with organic Summerhill wines” Jernigan stated.
Jernigan will also offer 10 day Culinary Trips to Sicily and has rented 2 beautiful villas, one in the north west, between Trapani and Palermo near the beach and Lo Zingaro Nature Reserve, the other outside of the beautiful town of Noto. These trips will include easy day trips to culinary and historic sites with a private driver and lunches out, and she will cook dinners back at the villa. She only has 6 spaces (based on double occupancy) available from Oct. 24th to Nov 3rd.
She’s also putting a trip to Belize together in late November/early December,, a country she knows well as she moved here in 2011 spent many years here, as a consulting chef.
You can follow Mara Jernigan’s tasty adventures on Instagram @marajernigan
