I Heart Farms

The Table Awaits (…and a Guessing Game)

Saturday was beautiful. I walked between the raindrops all over downtown Santa Cruz, looking for a client/friend who was hiding at one of three holidays fairs in an 8-block radius. I found her too late, and in a room too dark to photograph her wares. (More on her soon. She is Heidi Schlecht, former owner of the River Street Cafe & Cheese Shop (now owned by the talented Claire Palazzo), and Heidi has renamed her incredible preserves with the Plumline label.)

I headed over to Chocolate bistro next to Bookshop Santa Cruz, hoping to see my friend, the owner and chef, David Jackman. He was there, and we talked about the usual: friends, food, Wikileaks, our involvement with the internet and then…he was leaving. David owns a second restaurant called Backstage Kitchen, next to the Rio Theater. Originally started as a lunch-dinner venue, Backstage now only hosts private parties—absolutely delicious fare, as you can expect from David and his talented team.

THE EVENT

Before leaving, David gave me some news, and invited me to an event that was happening that night. A new enterprise in town is Lightfoot Industries, who hosts "Supper Club" events in a pilot program for at-risk teens. The students get to train in a real restaurant, learning not only professional skills that will serve them in life, but equally important: about sustainable foodways, community, family, and excellent communication. David has generously offered his restaurant for staging the events: professional guest chefs are employed to do the cooking. The work that falls to the teens is as you'd expect: set-up, service, and so on. But it goes further than that.

The Scoop Around Here

Pictured here: dried beans at Dirty Girl Produce's booth at the Sunday farmers market in Live Oak. Don't they make you want to run your hands through them?

I have no good reason for not writing in so long, except to say that life has been complicated and more than a little tough. We lost custody of our precious little grandson, Logan, last month, when he was restored to his parents. Fortunately, we will be having a shared custody situation again, with Logan's father, for the foreseeable future. Meanwhile, Logan has started kindergarten, and absolutely loves it. He's happy, he sings all the time, and frequently says, "Wherever my Poppy goes, I'm going, TOO." Here he is pictured in our corn patch, sitting on a stepladder.

He helped grow that corn, he'll have you know.

• • • • • • • • • • •

"Grow a Farmer" Summer Soirée: Downtown Santa Cruz, June 24

Click here to download and print the 1.1 MB PDF of this poster for your business window. Or your refrigerator!

Wednesday, June 24, after the farmers market next week, is a fine time to be in downtown Santa Cruz. Amy Padilla of Feel Good Foods (my personal favorite caterers in town, if not anywhere) is preparing fabulous appetizers (local, organic, seasonal, ya, you betcha) for the "Grow a Farmer" Summer Soirée. The party will take place at 101-B Cooper Street, underneath the NextSpace offices.

Wine, good food, good people, and probably live music. We hope to meet a lot of new people from the Downtown Santa Cruz Association, and look forward to hooking up farmers with new friends.

We are VERY close to making our original goal of $250K, and the Board of Supervisors will present a UCSC Farm representative with the official proclamation that "June is 'Grow a Farmer' Month in Santa Cruz County."

All proceeds benefit the campaign to build permanent housing for the UCSC Farm apprentices during the six-month residential program.

More details and ticket sales here. 

I'll have more news on that soon…it's been a very busy six months for me, but it's the best thing I've ever been involved with. 

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: (I'll trot out Barbara Kingsolver again: this is one of my favorite sentences, ever.) 

“Whatever lofty things you might accomplish today, 

you will do them only because you first ate something 

that grew out of dirt.”

 — Barbara Kingsolver

It doesn't get any more elementally true than that. 

Have you made your plans to see "Food, Inc."? Variety magazine says, "[D]oes for the supermarket what 'Jaws' did for the beach." BWAH!

Thanks for visiting!

Where I've Been Since April 8 (Part 1)

Pictured here: our neighbors' darling baby boy, Julian, who occupies a little of my time nearly every day. Because babies are church.

The short answer is that I've been working really, really hard for the "Grow a Farmer" Campaign, on an almost daily basis. The good news there is that we (the board of directors for the Friends of the UCSC Farm & Garden, and the staff and everyone affiliated with CASFS) have very nearly reached our first goal of $250K. The next goal will be to replace the funds that we took from our resources, which is not like robbing Peter to pay Paul—those funds were for general use, such as scholarships and other needs for apprentices. 

It feels FABULOUS to be in this position, especially given the severity of emotional turmoil surrounding our little grandson's broken leg. (He is fine, after nearly four months in casts, a metal boot, and being careful.) Coming up: swimming lessons for a boy!

I have had several great adventures, including turning fifty (April 30), something I had dreaded badly—turned out to be one of the best birthdays of my life. 

So here's installment #1 of "Where I've Been Since April 8."

April 13: a visit to Love Apple Farm, to meet up with the wonderful Harold McGee, who arrived seeking advice for his new garden in San Francisco. It's been three years since we had dined under redwoods on foraged food and wild boar, and it was a great visit. Cynthia chose some tomatoes especially for his climate (and palate), and he in turn autographed our "McGee" books. 

Any day that one can spend at Love Apple Farm is a blessing, a de-stressing. This was a fine day, indeed, especially because the sweet peas were tall and fragant.

On April 24, I got to do one of my favorite things in the world, which is to cook for the apprentices at the UCSC Farm. This is the annual reception, a couple of weeks after they've arrived. So many new faces, and so much great experience among them. 

I just walked around and met a few folks before heading over to the kitchen to help my darlin' friend, Forrest Cook, get things prepped. Our team (other board members and volunteers) shelled ten pounds of fava beans, peeled 11 dozen hard-boiled eggs, and made a whole lot of other stuff. 

Also got to see Brent Walker (Tennessee's loss, California's gain: he stayed after his apprenticeship last year), who came down from Oakland to make hush puppies for the party. These aren't your mother's hushpuppies: he made some with rye, and some with jalapeños and peppers...best hushpuppies I've ever had. And the only hushpuppies some people have ever had. Brent's now managing the farm for the People's Grocery in Oakland, and is loving it. (Lucky them!)

The very next day, Matthew Sutton, co-president of our board, hosted a pizza and beer fundraiser with some other former apprentices. Some hundreds of people turned out for Matthew's famous wood-fired pizza, live bluegrass, and more: the event raised over $1500 for the "Grow a Farmer" Campaign.

A little later in the week, I headed up to SFO to bring Sam Miller back to Love Apple Farm. Sam's hoping to move from England to start up a farming venture of his own—something that would make a huge number of people I know very happy. We came down coastal Highway One, stopping in Pescadero. First stop: Harley Farms Goat Dairy, where the goats were just coming in to be milked. Well, not this little kid.

There is only one place to eat in Pescadero—rather, only one place worthy of consideration—and that is Duarte's Tavern. And there is one thing that I order every time, weather permitting, and that is the combination bowl of cream of artichoke and cream of green chile soup. Served with fresh, warm bread and butter…

Sam had never had calamari, so we shared a steak sandwich and agreed that it wins Best of Show for All Breeds of Seafood Ensconced in a Perfect Roll. A little beer, a little wine, and that was Pescadero in April.

Coming up next: my birthday, some farm visits, some food-centric happenings, Big Sur, and more.

TWO QUICK ANNOUNCEMENTS

1. If you're going to be downtown Santa Cruz after the farmers market next Wednesday, June 24, see about getting a ticket to the "Grow a Farmer" Summer Soirée. Appetizers and wine, great people…all proceeds benefit the campaign. Also: the Santa Cruz Board of Supervisors will present the "Grow a Farmer" Month proclamation for the month of June. It should be a fine event, and there will be more news about our progress in raising the funds for the apprenticeship housing project.

2. Want a direct way to support a local farm? TLC Ranch (my friends and heroes) are trying to buy the house they've been renting before it gets sold out from under them. For a limited time, you can purchase egg shares at a substantial discount: visit their website for details. 

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: "I work during my leisure time, and play while I work." —me

Thanks for visiting. More soon. (And thank you, O Generous Blog Sponsor!)

"Grow a Farmer" Campaign? Food Bloggers, C'mon Down!

Pictured here: Adrea Tencer, a former apprentice at the UCSC Farm & Garden's six-month residential program for training in all aspects of sustainable agriculture.

So, for six weeks beginning in mid-February, I did not take a day off. I was working on three websites: two directly related to today's BIG WONDERFUL & EXCITING NEWS post. I'm here to introduce the "Grow a Farmer" Campaign, a nationwide project to raise $250K for permanent housing for the apprentices who live on the farm during their residential program.

For forty-plus years, the apprentices have lived in tents on the periphery of the farm. Last year, they were told this is no longer an option, and UCSC began accepting bids for permanent tent cabins. One was accepted, and then costs for labor and materials went up—the result being that the bid rose by $250K. The Friends board worked on finding solutions, and in a frenzy of inspiration, the "Grow a Farmer" Campaign was conceived and born over a two-week span in January.

The response has been amazing. Newman's Own Foundation gave $50K, which is their maximum donation. The Obaboa Foundation and Olivia Boyce-Abel have created a $20K matching grant challenge (read more below).

The campaign is asking farm-loving chefs to support the cause in a couple of ways...either by hosting a benefit dinner, as Chez Panisse is doing on May 6 (among others whose number is growing daily), or by donating $10 a day for the Merry Month of May. That $300 will make a restaurant (or any business) a Partner, to be listed on the website.

Businesses like Earthbound Farm and Johnny's Selected Seeds are donors. Other business opportunities include holding "Community Day" and donating (for example) 5% of the day's sales to the campaign.

Non-profits and other organizations who can't hold events still have opportunities to participate, even by merely spreading the word via a mailing list, or making a donation. These people are Pollinators, and will be linked on the website.

There are other ways for individuals—including, hello? you former apprentices—to have fun Growing a Farmer. You can host a fundraising event—a farm tour, a house or garden party—and we'll have materials for you that will help your event succeed.

And then there are yet other creative ways to help this campaign, the most inspiring of which so far is the incredibly generous offering from Chef David Kinch and Manresa Restaurant. Concerned that a "mere" cash donation wouldn't maximize the potential to help raise the funds, the chef instead is offering up two Chef's Special Tasting dinners, with wine pairings. These dinners will be awarded to the highest donors in the Obaboa Foundation's matching grant challenge.

In the words of one of my personal heroes, Beth Benjamin, who co-founded Camp Joy Gardens, spreading the word to a local publication:

I have been involved in organic gardening, farming and seed production since 1967 due to my life-shaping apprenticeship with Alan Chadwick at the garden at the University of Santa Cruz. I worked at my own farm, Camp Joy, then with Renee Shepherd, and now am on the board of the Organic Seed Alliance. As farmers are the very base of all the fabulous food we cook at home or eat in restaurants, and the flowers that are such an important part of most of our lives, maybe this would make an interesting story, especially since the Garden and Farm is the mothership for so many of our local farmers – past, present and future. We need as many good farmers as we can get, and the training program in Santa Cruz has been training and inspiring folks all over the country and the world for over 40 years.

This is the website that was just launched for nationwide Grow A Farmer month in May – we are fundraising for permanent apprentice housing at the UCSC Farm and Garden. Living on site is an essential part of the program and the University has given us until June to raise the money to start actually building the shovel-ready project. I have been racking my brains for like minded businesses or individuals that might be able to contribute in any way. I’m sure your organization has subscribers who’ve been trained or inspired by the Farm and Garden or its offshoots, so I thought perhaps you might be one of our business contributors, or maybe write something up about our efforts. Please take a minute and look at our website, as it is a great way to explain what we are working on.  If there is someone more appropriate that I could speak to in person, please give me the contact information.

There may be a way you can help by going to a dinner or shopping at one of the participating businesses or restaurants, making a donation, or passing the publicity on to someone else or connecting us with someone who would like to be part of this exciting campaign – please go to the brand new site and see what you think!  Events will be added to the website as they are scheduled. 

So that's it, in one very large, very aromatic nutshell.

Do these apprentices a BIG favor: use Facebook, Yelp, and Twitter it up! Spread the word, spread the energy, and come on board. I'm counting on food bloggers to help here: we will arrange personal farm tours if you want to come visit. And we'll add YOUR blog to our website, both as a Pollinator and as a Blogging Partner.

Use LocalHarvest for Networking Events

If you're looking for a restaurant near you that supports local farms, start with LocalHarvest.org. Plug in your zip code, and see what pops up. Or contact us on the Grow a Farmer site: we might be able to put you in touch with former apprentices in your area who can hook you up.

If your restaurant IS going to participate, please get a free member listing at LocalHarvest and add your event to the mailing list called "Keep Me Posted." LocalHarvest's newsletter goes out every Wednesday morning to over 45,000 people, and they are the premier website in the world for their niche: guiding people to local food and eating well.

And that's the news across the nation.

Sorry to have been missing in action: this is the biggest project of my life, and by far, the best. Yes, we can!

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: "Farmers are the only indispensable people on the face of the earth." —Ambassador Li Zhaoxing

Thanks for visiting. Will you be a Cultivator?

Oooh, last treat: Check out the website I designed for my friends at TLC Ranch: they're now the largest pastured egg production operation in the country! (Sun graphic on the site by Monika Wolff.)

Happy springtime, everyone!

Hi, Dan Barber!

I know, long time no post. Explanations later: this is urgent because Somebody is going to be looking at my blog, or perhaps already has, and I need to look like I've been busy. Which I really have, but on a big project involving my favorite farm. Details to come.

This photograph is of Chef Dan Barber, serving people fortunate enough to attend a farm dinner at the not-completed Blue Hill Stone Barns, back in 2003. It is rare to see a chef serve tables, so this was particularly cool, according to the chef friend I went with, who studied at The French Culinary Institute, where Dan graduated in 1994. (Google is my friend.)

I can't resist the temptation to paraphrase Eve Babitz, in Eve's Hollywood, who has a chapter in her book called "I Met Cary Grant today." The entire contents of the chapter?

"I met Cary Grant today. He looked just like Cary Grant."

Well, I met Dan Barber today. He looked just like Dan Barber.

It wasn't the first time we'd met, but his fame now is meteoric, and deservedly so, because the man can speak.I just hoped he would remember me.

This will be brief, and more is coming tomorrow.

I traveled down to Farmer's Mecca today: the Ecological Farming Association's 29th annual conference, known to one and all as Eco-Farm. It's the best place on earth to be, in my book: part reunion, part college, and as busy as a beehive with networking and excitement. Having eaten last night at Gabriella Café (first time in a long time: there's a new chef there who is really talented and nice), I persuaded owner Paul Cocking (also a friend) to go down with me to hear the Plenary Session, presented by three chefs known for their love and support of farms.

The session?

Celebrity Chefs Raise the Profile of Food System Sustainability
Dan Barber, Blue Hill Restaurant at Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture, Pocantico Hills, NY
Annie Somerville, Greens Restaurant, San Francisco, CA
Judy Wicks, White Dog Cafe, Philadelphia, PA

In short, it was a cosmic blast for me. Dan is brilliant and funny and entertaining. He's like Woody Allen if Woody Allen had a molecule of cute. (Dan has several.) Lucky for me, I'd never heard the particular presentation he gave, though one version is available on YouTube. If you've never heard him speak, try these:

1. Dan Barber at Taste3 Conference in Napa
2. Dan Barber on carrots and castration, also at a Taste3 conference
3. Dan Barber on the transformative power of foie gras

After the presentation, Paul and I wandered down to the exhibition tent, and there was Dan. And a whole bunch of people I know, naturally, including Don Burgett, a fellow member of the Friends of the UCSC Farm & Garden's board of directors. He told me that Dan had called the farm yesterday and gotten a hasty tour of the farm from Leon Vehaba and Bill Leland, also on the board. (Dan likes us, he really really likes us!)

There is more to come, but let me just whisper something VERY exciting to you all. The project is for the USCS Farm & Garden's apprenticeship program, and you can read all about it here very soon. And Dan Barber is involved.

Meanwhile, Dan...welcome to my little corner of the blogging globe. You're in these pages, and I'll write more soon. Thank you so much for the laughs and the brief chat today. I hope you enjoy your visit: check out the photos, please. That's really where my heart is.

This has been one perfectly perfect day, culminating in the most beautiful liquid gold, gasp-out-loud sunset (we were cresting on a hill with a view of the shimmering and calm Pacific ocean) I've ever seen in my life—and I didn't even reach for my camera. Imagine that. The moment in my heart is ineradicable.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: "Nature is a collective idea, and, though its essence exists in each individual of the species, can never in its perfection inhabit a single object." —Henry Fuseli

Thanks for visiting! I'm glad to be back, and so excited about the next big news. You'll love it.

EDIT: All kinds of formatting with the new Typepad made things difficult. Tried to clean things up, but oh, dear. And oh, well.

A Month of Sundays: Where I've Been

Pictured here: squashes and pumpkins at Love Apple Farm, where I've been visiting lately. There are many reasons I've not been writing—all of October, even. Foremost, I've got some steady part-time work, and second to that, we've had more visitors and socializing in the last three weeks than in the past ten years. Some other projects and interests have popped up—not the least of which has been the birth of a baby boy in the house next door, and I've been (self-)appointed Court Photographer. I'm behind in e-mails and in other areas of life.

I only have time today for three brief announcements of some events very soon, and maybe you can avail yourselves of them. And then I hope to get back in the saddle with blogging. Much is happening on the local farm scene, and most all of it is wonderful.

Slow Food Notion: I Don't Think So.

Pictured here: a bouquet created by the apprentices up at UCSC's Farm & Garden (aka "CASFS") for a dinner last night. I shopped, chopped (500 cherry tomatoes, eight pounds of yellow wax beans), cooked (the beans), and prepped for eight great hours.

SLOW FOOD NATION 2008

So, unlike tens of thousands of people in San Francisco who are paying $58 and up for the privilege of suffering through traffic and parking and being crammed into buildings like sardines, I am absolutely committed to avoiding all things under the Slow Food umbrella this Sunday. Slow Food Nation: Come to the Table 2008 starts tomorrow.

When I first heard about it, it sounded exciting. But I realized I was Having Thoughts about it, and that most weren't pretty.

Turns out I'm not alone. (I might not be in the majority, but that doesn't matter.) With her usual graciousness and aplomb, Jennifer Jeffrey (who lives in San Francisco) wrote her plus-minus take on the event. She manages to find the possible positives, which honestly would have eluded me.

High Ground Farm's Open Space Alliance Farm Dinner

Set atop the rolling hills near a slough in Watsonville, beautiful High Ground Organics farm is a vision within a vision. I'm having trouble finding words to describe it, so here are some photos from a visit a couple of years ago.

High Ground Organics partners with Mariquita Farm in a robust CSA, and one of the charming things High Ground brings to the table (so to speak) are all the varieties of flowers they grow, which make the farm itself exceptionally beautiful.

On August 17, you can have the chance to dine on the farm: Open Space Alliance is hosting a farm dinner with Chef Jozseph Schultz (formerly of India Joze). About Jozseph's food: he catered the sit-down dinner at my best friend's wedding a couple of weeks ago for 150 people. The food, with all its Pan-Asian influences, was fantastic. See his menu below, and read the press release from Open Space Alliance: one of my favorite groups and causes in the county.

How to Spend a Perfect Birthday

A call for help from outgoing president of the Board of Directors for the Friends of the UCSC Farm & Garden, Jeffrey Caspary, come to my in-box last week. He needed people on Wednesday to help cook for the class of student apprentices that had arrived in late April at the farm. So I thought, "That can't be a bad way to spend part of my birthday."

I had promised a 2:00-6:00 shift, but when I checked in yesterday at 11:00 in the morning, I found that I was needed sooner than later. So I loaded up my Indian spices, my new mortar and pestle*, and several ingredients of promise, into the car, and arrived at the farm at noon.

Walking to the kitchen was a joy: a hillside of bright orange California poppies were blooming under fruit trees, surrounded by tall red clover, also in bloom. (No pictures except one, below: I was too busy and time was tight.)

"Many hands, light work." Is that a Shaker or a Quaker saying? I don't know, but it's one of my favorites, and Jeffrey himself said it as we started to shell some of the seventeen thousand pounds of fava beans he ambitiously had blanched. He then busied himself with other tasks as Edna, also on the board, tried to master the art of shelling favas. She admitted defeat early on, saying, "Never has a vegetable gotten the best of me so quickly," which left me to shell them for the next two hours, until my neck and shoulders could take no more.

* Both Jeffrey and Edna wanted to order one after working with this wonderful kitchen tool.