Kristine Jensen

Growing up in Northern New Mexico with a health food-minded family, Kristine’s early memories of food are of her mother baking whole grain breads, growing vegetables in the calichi soil, sourcing “seriously fresh seafood from a guy who flew in from Seattle once or twice a month,” choosing the pig that their neighbors would raise for them to share, and getting raw milk delivered to their doorstep. “At the time it was a bit of an embarrassment.” Kristine would eye her friends’ Lota Burgers and French fries with envy. Later, she realized these small experiences shaped her understanding of how food comes to our table, and shaped her entire professional life.

As a veteran food industry professional, Kristine has owned her catering company, Gallery of Food since 1990. She has been committed to farm-to-table cooking, sustainable farming and eating from the local food shed for most of her time in the kitchen. Throughout the years, Kristine has had multiple restaurants in small unusual venues — Gallery of Food as her pilot restaurant in Downtown Tucson during its “drunken and disorderly period (downtown, not the café!),” The Temple Café serving themed buffets for the patrons of the Arizona Theatre Company, and currently Café Botánica in the heart of the Tucson Botanical Gardens where the entire menu is almost entirely locally sourced.

Kristine studied Physics at University of Puget Sound in the early 80’s and found herself always returning to food to relieve the stresses of school. She waited tables, managed the student-run café and explored Pike’s Place Market to play with the exotic seafood she discovered. “And then there was the blissful high (she) got off that new drink called espresso at the original Starbucks.” It was here that she became aware that her calling lay in food, not academia.

Kristine cooked, waited tables and served wine at many high-brow and low-brow food establishments during her college years and through her 20’s. At some point she decided that she enjoyed cooking with her own ideas, and thought it would be smart to have her own place. With “a bit of foolish optimism, some pots & pans and some cash” she got from catering a wedding, Kristine opened her first restaurant/catering business. Since that time, she’s gotten “a bit more serious,” learned what true hard work entails, and has had many successes, a few failures, and is still committed to making great food. She just has “a few scars and calluses from the journey.”