Welcome to Dancing Poly Farm. You will find us in the heart of the big valley, nestled near Clear Lake and in the sunrise shadow of the Mount Konocti. We came to Lake County with years of professional food, hospitality and business experience. We chose this place as our home simply because we loved it and felt we could be a part of a food forward movement here. Our catering and Poly on Wheels food truck will bring remarkably delicious food to you. Or stop by the farm for a hands-on, small-group cooking class. The land that surrounds us will produce veggies and fruit for our kitchen and for sale at the wonderful local farmers markets. We look forward to meeting you at Wine & Chocolate, the Pear Festival and all the wonderful summer events in between.
About Poly
Poly is a nickname for her full name of Polyhymnia, the Greek Goddess of many harmonies and sacred songs. She was welded out of the recycled remains of a cement truck; she’s been with us nearly 20 years and has lived in three states. When it came time to name our new business and farm and home in Lake County, well, all we had to do was look out the window and be reminded that we could use a lot more harmony in the world these days. Polyhymnia seemed a bit long for a farm and one morning, the sun came over Mount Konocti, landed on Poly and we could see she was dancing. She makes us smile every day.
About Us
Bess Giannakakis, co-founder, co-owner, chef and all around handyperson of Dancing Poly Farm, has been a professional chef for more than 30 years. She has worked in some of the best restaurants in Minneapolis MN and founded the Colossal Café featured on Diners Drive-ins and Dives. Most recently she was the chef at our Gateway Guesthouse in Austin TX, creating extraordinary dishes and events for our guests. Now she brings her culinary talents directly to you.
Though she fuses American, French, Greek, Italian, Moroccan, Turkish, Spanish and Mexican flavors and techniquesin her dishes, her food is often billed as ‘straightforward’, ‘authentic’ and ‘honest’. This eclectic mix is born of her heritage, history and world travels. The culinary results spring from Bess’s heartfelt belief in real food, for real people.
In addition to her chef and restaurant ownership experiences, Bess is sought after to deliver fine cooking lessons and demonstrations. She has been Food Safety Certified for more than 20 years and is often consulted regarding the many concerns of food safety within the real world environment of cooking for the public.
Blaise Bahara is co-founder, co-owner, operations and creative director as well as the farmer for Dancing Poly Farm. She studied Performing Arts in college, fell into the emerging Silicon Valley computer science of the mid-80’s and eventually made her non-fortune in running and consulting in Operations Management with Fortune 500 big dogs. In the meantime, she owned her own events management and interior design firms because, as her friends say, she either does not sleep or there are two of her.