FROM OUR KITCHENS
FARM TO TABLE, DELIVERED
With a chef's passion and a gardener's discipline, a GLCI grad launches Fresh Life Meal Prep from her Kingsley farm.
NEVADA YETTER
WHEN NEVADA YETTER enrolled in NMC’s Great Lakes Culinary Institute as a step toward her goal of opening a restaurant in her native Traverse City, her future business prospects seemed rosy.
Then came COVID-19.
Indoor dining rooms closed. Restaurants pivoted to curbside pickup and delivery. Menus turned into QR codes. “I knew I had to change my business plan,” says Yetter, 34. But she already knew how to pivot—in 2016, she had bought a farm
and since adopted a health-conscious, sustainable lifestyle, prioritizing her own diet and fitness.
MOROCCAN CHICKEN LUNCH
Makes 2 servings
MACROS: 25.3 g carbs, 9 g fats, 58.2 g protein
Serve chicken over orzo, accompanied by cucumber salad.
CHICKEN
2 6 oz chicken breasts
1/8 tsp garlic powder
1/8 tsp cumin
1/8 tsp chili powder
1/8 tsp sea salt
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Sprinkle seasonings over chicken and rub. Place chicken on oiled sheet pan and bake until internal temperature reaches 165 degrees.
ORZO PASTA
1 cup cooked and chilled orzo
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp chopped fresh parsley
1 tbsp crumbled feta
Pinch sea salt
Any vegetables desired
Put all ingredients in a mixing bowl and mix well. Chill for 30 minutes.
CUCUMBER SALAD
1/2 cup cucumber, washed and quartered, sliced thin
4 cherry tomatoes, quartered long ways
1/2 tsp white vinegar
Pinch sea salt
Pinch cracked black pepper
Put all ingredients in a mixing bowl and mix well. Chill for 30 minutes.
Her ethos and education, not to mention a Business Development Certificate (also from NMC), led her to create Fresh Life Meal Prep, a meal kit subscription service. Fresh Life’s calling card is locally grown ingredients—Yetter’s aiming for 60 percent from her own half-acre garden—and macro-based menus, where customers choose their meals based on protein, carbs and fats per serving.
“They’re really conjoined, the farm and the meal-prep business,” Yetter says. “The whole point is fresh sustainable food, not bigbox. That’s what we’re trying to showcase.”
Yetter is as much an entrepreneur as she is a chef. Last year, Fresh Life won a pitch night at TC New Tech. (She bought a new fridge with the prize money.) She brims with ideas, including plans for a podcast, pop-up dinners on the farm, a petting zoo, on-farm classes such as foraging and canning, and even franchising the Fresh Life concept, which NMC is also advising.
“I feel like I’m ready for more,” she says. N
▶ Find out more or order online: freshlifemealprep.com