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Aaron Holt works to prepare food in the kitchen. Holt owns Catering by Doolittle Farm near Story City and also works as a culinary consultant.

STORY CITY/ALTOONA — Life has come full circle for producer Aaron Holt whose farm-to-table catering and personal chef business relies on his family’s farm to grow the food he then serves to others as an award-winning chef.

As a child, Holt fondly recalls learning how to cook from his mother.

“My mother was a fantastic cook who made everything from scratch. We had a large garden and it was just ingrained in me to grow and eat what’s in season,” Holt said. “I can remember standing on a chair as a young boy over a pot of hot oil as we were making our own doughnuts.”

A love of the land grew out of gardening with his mom, so it was only fitting that Holt take over his family’s farm where he grows the produce he uses as a chef and culinary consultant.

Holt’s culinary journey blossomed from his family’s kitchen to his first jobs working in the service industry.

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Several plates of salads, perfectly arranged to whet the appetite, are ready to be served.

“I gained a passion for cooking while working at an Italian restaurant called Lucculans during my time at Iowa State University in Ames. I ultimately dropped out of college to pursue my career in hospitality and being a chef. I landed my first ‘chef’ job at 21 years old,” Holt said. “I was a culinary specialist for Sysco Foods for four years during COVID and left my corporate chef job at the start of 2023.”

Today, Holt owns Catering by Doolittle Farm and works as a culinary consultant. Doolittle Farm LLC happens to be his family’s 60-acre farm near Story City, which was established by his great-grandparents on his mom’s side, William and May Doolittle, in 1905.

“Although my family worked the land in the late 1800s, it wasn’t until 1905 that the house was built and the abstract started documenting. As a fifth generation Iowa century farm, this is where we grow our food,” Holt said.

Holt’s catering business uses a commercial kitchen located in Johnston through a sponsorship with Fareway Meat and Grocery, and is able to use its corporate kitchen at Catering by Doolittle Farm as the home base for prepping and making their food. Holt’s office is located in Altoona where he lives with his family.

“Ultimately keeping the Doolittle Family Farm in my family is the main goal. I’d love to hand down an Iowa heritage farm to my two daughters,” Holt said. “In 30 years, at 150 years old, we would be a heritage farm. There’s not many of those left in Iowa.”

A young couple lives on Holt’s farm for free in exchange for caring for the gardens and cultivating mushrooms from 10 acres of timber on the property.

“We grow organic fruits, vegetables, microgreens and edible flowers, utilizing some of the techniques my ancestors did to preserve food, including smoking, curing, fermenting, canning, jarring and pickling to make sure we don’t waste any products when we have large harvests,” he said, “and it also allows us to bring back an ingredient later in the season.”

A passionate advocate for locally sourcing ingredients and sustainable agriculture, Holt’s menus are customized to fit the season and what’s growing locally.

“We also build menus to the hosts’ liking if it’s a private event and take into consideration dietary restrictions,” he said. “Supporting local is so important to me and my team at Catering by Doolittle Farm. First, local farmers and producers are giving you the best of what’s in season. They aren’t packing and shipping the ingredients across the country. The ingredients tend to have more flavor and contain more nutrients which makes for a better more substantial completed dish. Also, supporting your local economy helps keep your money in your area. The term ‘limiting food miles’ is something that hits home for me. It’s the amount of miles a product has to be transported before it reaches your plate.”

Holt’s talents in the kitchen have been lauded by others. He’s been named the Iowa Restaurant Association’s Chef of the Year, received the Morsel Combat People’s Choice Award and earned the 2022 Taste of Elegance Award.

He and his crew cater more than 100 events each year through Catering by Doolittle Farm.

“We do ticketed dinners open to the public at locations all over Iowa. Examples include Rose Farm in Norwalk, Bochner Farm in Indianola, Lone Oaks Farm in Winterset, Grade A Gardens in Earlham, Grand View Beef in Clarion, Harvestville in Donnellson and Middlebrook Farm in Cumming,” Holt said. “We also do large street dinners for the Ames Farmers Market, Earlham Harvest Dinner and similar events in Creston and Maxwell. Think long table down Main Street with twinkly lights and live music.”

Catering by Doolittle Farm also offers in-home private dinner parties.

“We come with everything needed, from plates, silverware, glassware, pots and pans and servers. We then cook in front of you and your guests, bringing the restaurant experience to the comfort of your home. Best part is we leave no trace when we leave. We take our own trash and clean up everything before we leave,” Holt said. “We also are at a number of catered weddings every summer and corporate appetizer parties, lunches, brunches and pretty much anything food related.”

Another example of Holt’s dedication to sustainability is the ongoing maintenance of the Doolittle Prairie, which originally was a part of his family’s farmland. In the 1950s, when Interstate 35 was being built, it sliced his family’s farm in half.

“Without access to our fields on the other side of the interstate for grazing cattle, my family did a land auction for a majority of the land we couldn’t access. My grandfather, Wesley Doolittle, donated a large amount of that land to the state in the 1960s with two stipulations: one — it will always be named Doolittle Prairie, and two — it can never be tilled,” Holt said. “To this day, that land has never been tilled and only is used for grazing cattle. Then for the last 75 years, it has been a natural prairie. It is open to the public and a great spot to locate Iowa’s flower — the wild prairie rose.”