Chef Ian Pecoraro started Cellar Door Cooking to bring local, farm-fresh meals directly to tables all around the Palouse. 

Pecoraro has spent the last 15 years working in professional kitchens around Seattle, including the James Beard Award-winning  Sitka & Spruce. 

At Sitka & Spruce, the menu changed every day and was based entirely on farmers, Pecoraro said. Farmers would go in and unload crates of vegetables with dirt still clinging to them. The menu that day would be based entirely on what seasonal vegetables were brought to the restaurant. 

“As a young cook, it was the most amazing thing ever,” Pecoraro said. “You feel very removed from the source of your ingredients and the farms working in the kitchen, but this opened up how it actually works.” 

Two years ago, Pecoraro moved from Seattle to Moscow so that he could be closer to the source. He wanted to be within walking and driving distance of all the farms and have a personal relationship with every farmer that grows his ingredients, he said. 

Pecoraro opened up Cellar Door in early 2021, right in the middle of the pandemic, he said. While some people thought it was strange to open up a business during that time, instead, he felt it was the perfect opportunity to do what was always in the back of his head. 

Cellar Door offers farm dinner kits, which include a three-course dinner made from the best seasonal ingredients grown by local farmers in the Palouse.

Each dinner kit has easy-to-follow assembly and cooking directions with tips from the chef to elevate your cooking skills. 

“Everything’s ready within 10 minutes following my instructions, and you have a three-course menu telling the story of the ingredients that week,” Pecoraro said. 

Many of Pecoraro’s dishes are inspired by his extensive travels through France and Italy, he said. 

The latest menu in his dinner kit started with a warm salad of beef fat roasted carrots, with a pea shoot-feta pesto and preserved wild onion blossom, he said. The entree consisted of an heirloom Anasazi bean stew with whey braised heritage pork shoulder, paired with young spinach and red kale. Lastly came dessert, which was a Fromage blanc sorbet with single-origin Madagascar chocolate ganache and red wheat-almond crumble. 

Farm dinner kits are $49 per person and are picked up every other Friday starting April 1st all the way through the first frost of winter in November. 

Along with dinner kits, Pecoraro includes a “chef’s choice” option for $59 per person that includes an additional fourth item inspired by whatever is in season, he said. For example, the bonus item may be freshly baked bread, pastries, preserves, fruits and jams that are provided as a snack to have throughout the week. 

Pecoraro operates outside the Pederson Barn on the outskirts of Moscow, he said. The pick-up location for meal kits is in his backyard with commercially certified storage units where he stores finished and packaged food. 

While opening up his own business has brought its challenges, he said honing in and finding people who are in alignment with his vision has been something he has cherished. 

“Right now, I have 80 subscribers, and I get to cook for 80 local food-loving people every other week,” he said. “I get to spend all day in communication with these local farmers and be able to cook with these beautiful ingredients.” 

There are currently 10 open spots left at Cellar Door Cooking for subscribers to join and get delish farm-to-table meals. 

Pecoraro wants to continue growing Cellar Door in a way where he can feed even more people who are passionate about local food and continue supporting local farmers.