About

Welcome to Cooks & Poets.
The kitchen was my refuge at a very early age. I fell in love with baking when I was nine and found myself working in a private kitchen in Los Angeles, serving Hollywood’s elite my blueberry pies by the time I was nineteen. But the film industry’s allure was too strong, and I ultimately chose that path which set forth a career and trajectory that some would say was just too good to be true.
However, in last couple years, I have emerged back into my kitchen because ultimately baking and cooking are a labor of love. When I was baking early on, I had no idea about what I know now in regards to fresh ingredients and the power of plants. So I get to take that new knowledge back into the kitchen and start experimenting from a new place. In addition to my other work, I served as a creative director alongside my husbands business. He has taught me about what constitutes great design, or should I say he has drawn out of me — my eye for design that was always there.
I keep the kitchen minimal but surrounded by tools and pieces that I have collected along the way — using cutlery designed by world-renowned architects, porcelain on permanent display at MoMA, and handcrafted one of kind bowls and tools, not because they look pretty but because these tools are functional and made to last for generations to come. In that way, they have environmental sympathy. I wanted to find a way to share my passion for food and the functionality and beauty of good design together in one place — and that is how the Cooks & Poets shop came about.
Nature informs many of my choices as a human being and over the last few years we have been searching for a piece of land to grow our family. In late 2020, we finally found that place situated in rural mid coast Maine and began a journey to steward and cultivate beauty alongside Mother Nature. The concept for Cooks & Poets was born in January of 2020 during a trip to England with my daughter, and just before the pandemic and the passing of my Papa.. So I had no choice but to pour my heart into this idea, to get through it all last year. I buried myself in my loft and began creating and shooting Cooks & Poets while watching the world and my own, unravel.
The shop proceeds will help support the farm and field restorations.
If you have any questions don’t hesitate to send an email or DM, I respond to all of them. Thank you for stopping by.
Founder,
Kristen Roland c. 2021
