Young Leelanau farmers 'bare-knuckle' it on the road to their vision

The end of the growing season in early November finds Jess Piskor and Abra Berens in a chilly lock-in on a farm near Northport, chopping pork shoulders.

This is not the most glamorous part of farming, considering that just a few weeks earlier they were rubbing shoulders in a Chicago-area restaurant, Vie, with Iron Chef America contestant Paul Virant, who cooked a meal with food grown on their Leelanau Peninsula farm.

But this is the way Piskor and Berens work, sharing the load between just the two of them on their nascent agricultural enterprise, Bare Knuckle Farm. No machinery, no hired hands, except the friends who drop by now and then to help out. Most of the work is done by the two 28-year-old business partners. Today they are cutting the meat they raised last summer, so Berens, the chef of the partnership, can cure it into bacon and sausages for six local families.

Their enterprise was hatched in the halls of the University of Michigan, which they both attended; amid the aromas of Zingerman's Deli in Ann Arbor, where they both worked; and on the 100-acre organic farm of Ballymaloe Cookery School in County Cork, Ireland, where Berens first learned about linking a restaurant to a specific piece of land.

"I think restaurants serve a pretty important role in our lives, and I wanted one that was really linked to a community and a specific area," Berens says.

This philosophy is becoming more common, Berens says, but still is not the norm. She mentions chef Dan Barber of Blue Hill Farm in New York as a model for what they're attempting at Bare Knuckle Farm, bringing the principles of good farming directly to the table.

But, for now, Piskor and Berens are only partially there. They made a pact when they first entered this adventure. Three years into it, they would evaluate the situation and see if they were on track. This past season was year two. Next spring, Berens will take the lead on launching a catering service based on food grown on Bare Knuckle.

That, Berens says, could help them earn a reputation for being able to do "real good food that's really intriguing and focused on what this region can produce."

To achieve that, they believe Bare Knuckle would need to produce more than half the food at their future restaurant, and form partnerships with other farmers producing the rest.

In making those connections, it helps that Piskor's family has been farming on the Leelanau for more than 100 years. It is Piskor's grandfather's land that he is farming now.

"I think that has helped us quite a bit because people do recognize my grandpa's name," Piskor says. But the most pleasantly surprising thing, he says, is how welcoming the neighbors are.

"A lot of the other farmers around here specialize in large-scale tractor work and big orchards and there is this sense of, are these kids coming in and trying to show these old farmers how to do it, and we've been really careful about that, but it hasn't been a problem at all. All the other farmers are excited and people stop by to see what we're doing. That's really been the most inspiring thing."

Berens and Piskor are working on a 55-acre farm. About half of that is taken up by a cherry orchard farmed by somebody else. Another quarter is forest and a small chestnut orchard. The rest is open field, except for their small vegetable farm. They also raised about a dozen pigs this year with their neighbor, who wanted to have pigs run through his orchard to eat fallen fruit and help control bugs.

And while the pigs have done their duty, it's only the beginning for Piskor and Berens. They'll close up the farm for the winter to go their separate ways, then come back with even more additions in the form of chickens, ducks and geese.

It's the same homegrown ethos that's behind the farm's name. When they told friends where they were moving, they'd hold up their hand as a map the way Michiganders do and tell them it's in the "knuckle of Michigan's pinkie." Bare Knuckle Farm was born, with its logo of an old-time boxer holding up a bushel of carrots.

Berens and Piskor are well on their way to their dream of becoming not only farmers, but also restaurateurs and employers. Each step they take toward achieving that goal is another marker of their success.

"It's a way to give back to the community that supported us," Berens says. "Providing jobs, and good jobs, jobs where people can earn a living wage and enjoy their life. In my eyes, that's one of the biggest ways you become part of the community."

Howard Lovy is a Traverse City based freelance writer who specializes in technology and innovation. He can be reached via email.

Brian Confer is the managing photographer of Northwest Michigan's Second Wave.