Lisa Becklund

I started the Living Kitchen Farm & Dairy in 2005 after a lifetime in the restaurant business in Seattle. I came to Oklahoma to learn how to farm and decided to stay, to continue on with the great friendships I’d developed and to put what I learned into practice on my own farm.

I hosted the first farm table dinner in the dining room of my small house on a seven-acre farm near Heyburn Lake in the summer of 2006. In 2009 Linda joined me and we decided to lease the Oakley Farm in Depew, a 400-acre property with a rustic cabin hidden in the woods, built by hand by Shelby & Pam Oakley.

We’ve tried a variety of ways to make a living as farmers, but the one thing that endures is the farm table dinner tradition. People from all over Oklahoma and surrounding states have met our goats, walked the garden and sat at our table for a dinner prepared using ingredients from our farm or other local farms.

Our business has grown as we welcome more and more people to our table. In August 2020, we opened our restaurant FarmBar, located at 1740 S. Boston Ave. in Tulsa. And, in 2022, we opened our Italian restaurant, il seme, in Tulsa’s downtown Deco District at 15 W. 5th Street.

We extend to you our heartiest welcome to come to our table and eat. Come enjoy our agricultural cuisine of Oklahoma.

Linda Ford

I didn’t grow up on a farm in my hometown just south of Kansas City, but I grew up surrounded by them. After many years of living and working in large cities around the world, I found myself disconnected from the natural world. A move to Tulsa in 2006 offered me the opportunity to start fresh and make sure that whatever life I led here would involve plenty of time outside, connected to the natural world.

I found the Living Kitchen in 2007 when I volunteered to join some friends who were going to farm-sit for Lisa and give her a much needed break. Something shifted over that long weekend. I knew I wanted to farm. I helped out at the Living Kitchen any chance I got. It didn’t matter what I did, cleaning out barns, milking goats, harvesting peppers, planting potatoes, every minute I spent on the farm healed something deep inside me.

In 2009 I moved out to the farm to live. In 2021, I left my career in higher education and association management, to join the business full time, caring for animals, working in the garden and working with Lisa to provide a unique experience for people from all over Oklahoma and the surrounding states. Nothing satisfies more than watching people leave after a farm table dinner, relaxed, renewed, full of good food, and engaged with new friends.