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.

Congressman Sam Farr: Representin'!

On Friday, I had the utter pleasure of attending an event that was one of the highlights of my year. Originally intended to be a part of the annual UCSC Farm Harvest Festival, a ceremony honoring Representative Sam Farr (my local congressman) was moved to Friday, due to a conflict in his schedule.

Thank goodness. Moving the event from the happy clamor of hundreds of people—many of whom are not yet waist-high or possessed of the ability to remain silent for ten minutes, let alone an hour or more—into the calm and quiet of the middle of a workday, high on the hilltop that is the UCSC farm, was a stroke of serendipity and a blessing to those of us who attended. All of us really wanted to be there, and all of us really relished the opportunity to savor in this small celebration.

It was a small celebration for a very big reason: without this man's vision, and his commitment, and his ability to move mountains (of bureaucratic b.s., for one thing), the UCSC Farm simply would not exist at the level it does, if at all.

Growing Goodness: I Hope You Heard It Here First

I have been sitting on a delicious secret for a while now, waiting for the right time to reveal something that is truly and utterly wonderful. I've also been experiencing guilt pangs at keeping something like this all to myself, but the timing has not all been mine.

Some weeks ago, I got a comment here saying:

Growing Goodness™ is a community-based broadband TV network for viewers with extremely passionate interests—beyond what cable television can provide.

Our mission is to create more public awareness and active interest in our local farmers markets.

• Explore the U.S. farmers market world
• Generate farmers market awareness and active interest
• Increase understanding of community affairs and events
• Foster lifelong skills for good living
• Spotlight excellence in goodness

Farmers Market Channel™

Hosted by the community members our Farmers Market Channel™ spotlights farmers, locally grown produce and neighborhood farmers markets.

good food. good health. good life.

Enjoy!

Justin Severino: Community Butcher

I've written many times here about the partnership between TLC Ranch and Justin Severino. Justin's culinary school education launched him into the kitchens of:

• Casbah restaurant in Pittsburgh ("That's where I learned more than any other place")
• Stokes Restaurant & Bar in Monterey
• Bernardus Lodge in Carmel
• Bouchée in Carmel
• Manresa in Los Gatos
• L'Auberge Carmel

Recently, his dream to open his own restaurant serving all locally sourced foods was eclipsed by the realization that he has a higher calling. “Do what you love and the money will follow” is no mere cliché from self-help books: in Justin's case he went from making slave’s wages (about a hundred dollars a day for grueling and long workdays) to making an actual living for himself.

All because he found the right ranch, raising pastured animals in the healthiest conditions.

So today, I drove down to the Feel Good Foods kitchen, where Justin is renting time and space, to check out his operation. (Warning: a photo of pig skulls is coming up. Already cooked, not bloody.)

Lindencroft Farm: “To Grow and Share Is All That I Need”

One of the biggest problems with being a writer/photographer is the balance between looking and listening. And frankly, just being. When I'm at a farm, especially one as beautiful—orderly, healthy, happy, humming—as Linda Butler's oasis, Lindencroft Farm, I tend to dial down the volume on my work. I just want to hang out with the farmer and look at the pretty things growing. Or pet the kitties—Linda and her husband, Steve, have four. (And about ninety-seven bird feeders, so I wonder how that works out. Stay tuned: she answers my question.)

What I'm saying is that I tend to bliss out and forget to write things down. Luckily, Linda will fill in lots of gaps—wait until you see the list of what she's growing.

I had visited earlier in the summer, following the advice of Cynthia Sandberg, who had surprisingly (to me) taken Linda as a partner in the farmstand at Love Apple Farm over the summer. The variety and quality of produce grown at Lindencroft Farm was a good match for the hundred or so varieties of heirloom tomatoes Cynthia was growing. Cynthia had told me then that Linda was CCOF (California Certified Organic Farmers), and that her vegetables were gorgeous.

Linda says: ”Twenty-five years ago, I went to San Francisco City College for a degree in ornamental horticulture. In a bedroom of my third-floor flat, I grew hundreds and hundreds of plants from seed.  I longed for a garden of my own. I spent the next 18 years trying to grow under the shade of the redwoods, on a hill, in the densest clay on earth. Finally, I find myself standing in the sun, on the top of a small mountain (really a only a hill) surrounded by forests, and all manner of wild life, and I know that this is heaven on earth for me. I started growing all kinds of vegetables and finding that everything I pulled from the earth tasted like nothing I'd ever brought home from the grocery store.  The beauty of tomatoes and peppers and asparagus and eggplants is astounding but nothing compared to the taste of these beauties freshly harvested. I never looked back. To grow and to share what I grow is all that I need.“

One Potato, Two Potato, Three Potato, NOT: Sorry, “Healthy” Mr. Potato Head

Pictured here, new potatoes at Happy Boy Farms’ booth at the farmers market.

If I had to pick a favorite vegetable for Miss America, it might be the humble potato. You can dress her up, you can dress her down: she is both Most Talented and Miss Congeniality. I have never tired of potatoes. and jones at the farmers markets when they are unavailable.

Getting an organic potato is VERY important—I wouldn't knowingly eat a conventional potato. Not just because, according to Pesticide.org, “14 of 41 commonly-used potato pesticides are classified as carcinogens by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Pesticide residues on potatoes are common; 83 percent of potatoes sampled recently by the U. S. Department of Agriculture were contaminated with pesticides.” One farmer told me that these pesticides are so toxic that farm workers can't even go into a newly-sprayed field for two entire days. That's toxic.

The Cheese School with Wil Edwards and Alex Fox

Expectation: very high, and exceeded. Wildly.

Invitation: attend Farmstead Cheesemaking cheese tasting and cheese making class, featuring Wil Edwards, recently of Harley Goat Farms Dairy, with Alex Fox, wine director at Myth restaurant in San Francisco.

Jubilation: seven amazing cheeses, all but one farmstead, paired with five or six or seven (who's counting?) wines chosen by a gifted sommelier.

This event was presented to me courtesy of my new friend, Marcia (rhymes with "Garcia") Gagliardi, aka tablehopper, who was working with Tutti Foodie, a new presence in my foodie world. They're doing good stuff—finding products and writings and events that they share with their subscribers. Of which I am one,  and think you should be, too.

Weighing in on "Artisanal": Part 1, The Cheesemakers

Pictured here: Andante Dairy cheeses at River Cafe & Cheese Shop in Santa Cruz.

Michael Ruhlman, respected food writer (and a favorite of mine), left a comment on my blog yesterday that was thought-provoking.

He said:

This is not exactly on topic, but Tana, would you give weigh in with a definition of an artisan farmer/producer, whether it be cheese or pork or beans?

I'm doing a local article about independent grocery stores that can and do source local products. To distinguish themselves from the Giant Eagles and Safeways, they often claim to bring artisan products in. A grocery store owner I talked to yesterday said his Carr Valley Cheddar from Wisconsin was just such a product. But when i called the company, they told me they do about 4000 pounds of cheese a day and have annual sales of $12 million. That's not artisan, to my mind. But they claim to have a branch of their company that works on experimental hand-crafted cheese. So maybe part of them is.

My question is, and I asked an artisan farmer this as well: how do you define artisan? Is there and actual number of pounds you produce beyond which you're not artisan? Obviously no exact figure. But what would you say? When you start moving beyond XX pounds of XX dairy product (or XX pounds meat product), you're no longer artisanal. Is Paul Bertolli no longer an artisanal sausage maker?

I did some research yesterday, and am tackling Michael's questions in three parts. The first post, today, will address what I know about cheesemaking.

Michael, You RUHLman

(The caption on the photograph is Rulhman-written.)

I knew this day would come.

Michael Ruhlman is blogging. (And he owes it all, well, a little molecule or two, to me.)

Why do I love Michael Ruhlman? Because he is a fine, fine writer with sensibilities I respect and with which I resonate. He supports the production of food that is both sustainably grown and humanely raised. Because he is ardent and articulate in his deconstruction of idiotic policies (like the ban of foie gras) that take the focus off the true atrocities in American agriculture and factory farming.

Whatever he turns his attention to is something worth knowing about: not just food, but his books on his house, the craftsmanship of making wooden boats, or saving children's lives (I admit I have not read it—I'm too squeamish, and especially about babies)...he is a thoughtful man.

Simultaneously, Ruhlman is not above a certain kind of King Henry VIII gluttony when confronted with the opportunity to do a faceplant in some pork belly confit—you can hear it on the podcast by Hungry Magazine. (Have some wine while you're listening...he does!) He seems to enjoy puncturing the veil of his choir-boy persona. (I knew guys like Michael Ruhlman in school...innocent faces, teacher's pets, and oh, could they instigate.)

More on E. Coli: Bullsh-t Alert

Back in June, I wrote about the contamination of produce that is organic, and the likelihood of it affecting people. I had seen a pretty irresponsible article in the Sacramento Bee, and it motivated me to make some phone calls. Here is what I wrote then.

By the way, if you need a username and log-in for the Bee, use BugMeNot.com: just put the link location in, and see if you get a combo that works.

• • • • • • • • • • •

As he had done in January on the Eco-Farm tour, Jeff Larkey talked about the quest for, and the importance of, compost. He's willing to pay a lot for high-quality compost. I asked about an article I'd read in the Sacramento Bee, written somewhat irresponsibly, I think, by a writer named Gwen Schoen. Why irresponsible?  Read this:

"I do not use organic produce," says the Natomas resident [Pat Henegar]. "I haven't quite convinced myself that there are enough safety measures in place to make organic safe."

Henegar's concerns?

"Well, they use raw materials for growth fertilizers and pest control, and I am not comfortable with the processes used for cleaning and sanitizing. Particularly for things you eat raw, like strawberries. Just giving them a quick rinse isn't enough.

"I'm just fine with the regular produce I find."