Kale-aboration

Only in Berkeley can you find a brassica-themed Vanilla Ice reference. Oy. This town is too hip for me....

The (incr)edible schoolyard

Welcome to Day 1 of my week-long California adventure. This morning found me back at Alice Waters' original Edible Schoolyard project. It was amazing to revisit this most beautiful and extensive school garden, tucked away in Berkeley. Having worked in the field for nearly six years since Ollie and I passed through here on our cross-country bike tour, I was even more impressed than I was the first time around. Imagine that!

I picked up my visitor's badge in the school's main office a bit after 11am, then wandered out to the garden to poke around. When I asked them a couple of questions about their interaction with the green space, two middle school girls hanging out at the garden's long picnic table proceeded to give me one of the best garden tours I've ever had. After tasting some delicate yellow raspberries growing near the entrance, the girls walked me past the espaliered apple orchard and excitedly told me about pressing the fruit into cider the previous autumn. We strolled past the in-ground beds of swiss chard and brassicas, with a stop to admire the gorgeous dahlias (my new favorites) as we made our way to see the chickens cavorting around the straw fort students had helped to construct in the far corner of the outdoor space. We continued on to the chicken coop to check for eggs, admired the orderly tools around the shed, and then explored the greenhouse, where I examined the remnants of last week's seedling sale on tables that students had built.

My impromptu guides led me next to the bee hive, apologizing that the usual veil and gloves were not around for me to borrow so I could take a closer peek. (Yes, kids are invited to check out the honeybees on their own. Pretty awesome!) After that, we meandered to the school-built outdoor prep tables and stone pizza oven, where eighth graders annually prepare and bake their own pizzas. The young people have become much more involved in garden work and construction than seemed to be the case during my last time through, and they sure are proud of this... as they should be!



As if I wasn't enamored enough, my teenage guides led me next through a tunnel of grape, kiwi berry, and passion fruit vines. "Certainly more prolific than my own school garden's vining fruit," I muttered, mostly to myself. California weather and four garden teachers certainly help things thrive around here. Still: impressive. We ended our loop back near the entrance, where I admired the outdoor worm bins and rustic kitchen setup.



With a friendly wave, my guides were off to class, and I was left wondering if one of my own gardens might be as impressive one day. Something to ponder during lunch tomorrow at Chez Panisse with my friend (and kind local host) Colin....

Things that go clackety-clackety-tok-tok-brrrrr-click in the night

[If Bill Bryson were writing this, it might be entitled "A Walk in the Sands."]

So I think I've mentioned that I didn't grow up camping. It's true. My friend Mike taught me how to pitch the tent I bought from him a few weeks before I left DC. I had a funny conversation with my mom a few months ago during which I explained how to pee in the woods. (Then I changed the subject before things got really personal.) Last night was my first time doing "backcountry camping." I had no choice: there were no campgrounds along the 120 miles I would need to traverse on my way East before the next town. What this means is I registered with the ranger station and told them roughly where I'd be and then, so long as I was a mile from the road, I was free to camp where I liked. Packing in my food and water, packing out my trash. And, yes, peeing in the...sand. Not a decent sized tree in sight to preserve my modesty.

Let me tell you, backcountry camping in Joshua Tree is amazingly peaceful. Nobody around for miles and miles. Which is good, because I could strip down and rinse off a bit with no worry of curious passers-by. It is also terrifying. Take the holes I kept seeing all over the sand as I dragged a fully loaded Ollie uphill (of course it was uphill...) for about half a mile (sorry Mr. Park Ranger, but I about died trying to slog through the sand with Ollie's tires sinking about 3 inches deep the whole trek, I couldn't make it a whole mile) before making camp. What the heck lives in them? From photos I'd glanced over at the visitors' center 40 miles back in civilization, there were many possibilities. Were they inhabited by:

a) kangaroo mice
b) rattlesnakes
c) hairy scorpions
d) tarantulas

Eep. I looked for a clearing without any of these mystery holes, but the best I could do was about a 6-foot radius of clearance. After pitching my tent and cooking up a hearty dinner on the beercan stove -- some artichoke hummus I'd picked up at the morning's Joshua Tree farmers' market mixed in with boiled quinoa, sprouted legumes, and broccoli (much better than tonight's cheese and cracker dinner) -- I crawled into my tent. I read for a bit, wrote a few postcards (including yours, Sean), and decided to hit the hay. I'd sit out and look at the stars, as it was a beautiful night, but you know, I was nervous about whatever was in those holes -- and they were everywhere! -- coming out of them. As I began to fall asleep, I was jerked back into acute alertness when the mystery clackety-clacking started.

It went on for quite some time and there were definitely multiple clackers. Were they plotting my imminent demise? Or were they simply trying to figure out a way into my tent to get to the food bag? Maybe they were discussing my masterful tent pitching skills. I hoped it was the latter. And I hoped it was option "a" on the multiple choice. I'd seen a few kangaroo mice at the Black Rock Canyon campground the previous night. They were actually pretty cute. But I don't recall any clackety-clacking then.

My only run-in to date with a scorpion was a couple years back when I was hiking through Nicaragua and decided to spring for a night at an Ecolodge. (For those unfamiliar, an "Ecolodge" in Latin America means "a place where hippie tourists pay more for a room" and the only difference I could discern, in retrospect, between this and a regular hostel was the lack of cutting the grass to a reasonable height, which led to more critters being around.) When I went into my little bathroom to use the loo, a giant grey scorpion as long as my forearm was scuttling about in the sink. I yelped and bolted back to the front desk, at which point the owner nonchalantly strolled back to my room (with me scurrying behind at a safe distance), picked the writhing monster up by the tail with a pair of scissors, and tossed it into the (tall) grass not 20 feet from my door. I don't think I slept that night.

Later on during the same backpacking trip, I had my first encounter with a tarantula. I was on a night hike through the Amazon jungle in Ecuador and my guide pointed it out, perched on a banana tree not 50 feet from my cabin. I should mention the door to the cabin had a good 2-inch gap at the bottom. I didn't sleep that night, either.

Last night, like an old school Sicilian grandmother, I slept with the chef's knife close at hand. By the time I awoke -- or, rather, emerged from my tent at sunrise, as I'm not sure I slept all that much -- there was no trace of the nocturnal marauders, whomever they were. All that remained were the mystery holes.

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Veg-powered

Amid the pouring rain, my plans to work with a young farmer starting up a CSA in Santa Barbara fell through last weekend. The fields were soaked; I was bummed. When a door closes, though, a window often opens -- in this case, my new friends Joel and Becca guided me toward Ojai, CA, where I was to experience an amazing farmers' market, spend time with John and Jody's wonderful family, discover an innovative school, and learn about diesel engines powered by vegetable oil. Did I see any of this coming? Nope. But I'm so glad Joel set things in motion when he stood in the pouring rain outside my tent at El Capitan State Park to invite me to have a cup of coffee last Friday morning....

As I sat in their warm, dry trailer for a spell and scarfed a bagel and cream cheese, Joel and his wife Rebecca invited me to join them for a jaunt into Santa Barbara. In town, Joel introduced me to John, who runs Java Jones (an organic, fair trade coffee joint), and who, over a lovely cup of joe and a chat about what I'm up to, told me about his daughters' school in Ojai that focuses on creativity, conflict resolution skills, and environmental education. Well, there's a lot more going on at Oak Grove School, but I was most excited to learn of these elements as well as the garden plot each class nurtures and the school's local, seasonal, fresh vegetarian food served daily. (Michelle Obama's school lunchroom dream come true.) Three days later I found myself in Jane and Maisy's second grade class giving a talk. The kids were awesome, enthusiastically asking me about everything from how many miles I bike per day to what I do when it rains to if I ever get tired to how I do my laundry. We talked about food, too. After a tour of their garden, I joined the class for a delicious lunch at the covered picnic table area and we continued to chat about cycling, camping, nutrition, and some of our favorite foods. Those were some sharp, veggie-powered brains. Here's a post-lunch shot of Ollie and I with the class.

Many have made compelling arguments for vegetarianism, and it is a core value espoused by Oak Grove School. Even setting aside Jonathan Safran Foer's argument about the inherent cruelty of meat production, authors from Michael Pollan to Eric Schlosser posit that it requires less energy to produce vegetables and grain in comparison to raising animals for meat. This is one of the points I've often heard raised by environmentally and socially-motivated vegetarians. (I'm still hoping to get my hands on a used copy of Jonathan Safran Foer's latest -- "Eating Animals" -- and not just because dad told me about a hilarious interview he recently did on the Colbert Report involving bacon. I've been wanting to read it for a few months now.) Collectively, Americans would all do well to cut down on our meat consumption, in terms of both portions and frequency. But this is not a post extolling vegetarianism. There are other ways we can embrace a more plant-based existence, and one of these ways may pleasantly surprise you.

If you haven't been living under a rock for the past 20 years, you've no doubt heard the catchphrase "Reduce, Recycle, Reuse." Most people think this refers to cans and bottles and plastic bags. And it often does. But what about fuel? As folks are crippled by how much it costs to fill up their Volkswagens these days, many are saying it's about time we started supporting alternative means of transportation (public transit, bike lanes) and promoting alternative fuel sources. One of the coolest solutions I've come across recently involves making fuel out of used vegetable oil.

It's not science fiction. Joel and his wife have been converting diesel engines to run on veg for about a decade: www.vegpoweredsystems.com. One day he looked at the back of a bottle of vegetable oil and noticed the "contents may burn" warning and he got to thinking.... He's successfully converted thousands of vehicles, I learned during a series of conversations over the past few days, and he's darn good at it. (He's proud of his work without being pompous.) I get the impression he's been wielding a wrench pretty much since he could walk and he may be the only person I have ever met who knows the intricacies of engines as well as my car-obsessed brother. As I understand it, the converted engines work much like a hybrid, allowing drivers to easily switch between diesel and vegetable oil fuel tanks en route. Only veg-powered systems are more efficient than ethanol, and cleaner burning. And the trucks are fast. (No, really. They race 'em.) And the systems recycle used restaurant vegetable oil that, at least as far as I know, would otherwise just be dumped.

Free fuel! Recycling! Less carcinogens! I'm in! I'm certainly Ollie-bound for the foreseeable future, but down the line if I go looking for a car, you'd better believe I'll be looking for a veg-powered system.

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Making the grade

So, I am pretty new to cycling. I'm still undecided on the correct pronunciation of "panniers"; I still get nervous that I'm going to tip over at a stoplight clipped in on a loaded bike. On the other hand, I have been excited to be the one helping someone else change their tire tube (lord knows I have experience wielding a tire iron); I've been the one lending maps to cyclists going in the opposite direction and recommending campsites. I'm getting there.

In spite of the number of miles under Ollie's tires, I am still learning the language and culture of the biking world. And the math. If my bike computer tells me I'm biking at roughly 12mph, why do I only make it about 7 miles in an hour? Oh. Right. The snack breaks. And the hills. One thing that I'd heard seasoned cyclists talk about often when I was back at the bike shop during the weeks leading up to my departure from DC was this or that "insane climb for x number of miles at an x% grade...." What the heck was "percent grade"? 2 miles at 8%? I had some vague sense that this was meant to be impressive, perhaps something I should know before setting out. I was too shy to ask.

Not long after I departed, I believe it was somewhere early on in my battle with the Appalachians, I began to recognize these truck-pointing-downhill signs. (Usually the signposts were back over my shoulder, facing traffic heading down a hill I had just dragged a fully loaded Ollie up.) More recently, I learned that percent grade simply refers to the slope of a hill. So a 7% grade means a rise (or fall) of 7 feet for every 100 feet of forward travel. That doesn't sound so bad, right? Except that it is. (Ollie, back me up here.)

My god, if I ever meet the man who designed Highway 1, or any of his descendants, I'm going to punch 'em in the nose. The 5-mile uphill stretch going into Redwood National Forest back in northern California? 6-7% grade. How about Big Sur? Ditto, with screaming downhill lengths cramping my brake-gripping muscles as intensely as the narrow, twisting, murderous uphill stretches wore out my legs. I mean, who *does* that? Didn't anyone think about the math?

Say a cyclist bikes 13.5 miles uphill on an unknown but constant grade (x), and 2.5 miles downhill at a 7% grade. Assuming equal elevation at the starting and ending points (total distance biked is 16 miles -- that's the bottom of your triangle), what was the uphill grade?

You know how real life math problems are all the rage in education? This is a real life example: even without taking into account the unflagging headwinds or knowing exactly how much weight I was hauling the ride south from Lompoc 2 days ago was intense. My question is: how intense? There was a cute, sweater-vested math teacher at the school where I used to teach whom I might've asked if I'd come across this problem a year ago. Since he's not around, I'll ask my fearless readers. Go on, break out your pencils and your calculators. How intense *was* it? Whomever posts the correct answer for the percent grade on the way up that thirteen-and-a-half-mile-long incline gets a postcard from Joshua Tree when I get there. (And if math isn't your forte, fear not. I used to tell my students to do their best. If they couldn't think of the right answer, if they could make me laugh I'd give them partial credit.)

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An inconvenient question

I've grown up debating. It's part of how my family works: in the midst of every major life decision, whether it's where to go to college or whether to take a job abroad or why the heck I am leaving a paying job to bicycle myself around the country, there's been a debate. Before engaging in any of these discussions, I learned quite young to come with my points and my evidence and my answers to anticipated questions. And there were always multiple sessions with follow-up questions and character witnesses, between which the courtroom participants broke for snacks and deliberation. Anyone speaking up for another family member being grilled on the witness stand -- usually the dinner table -- was accused of being a public defender. Mom used to say I should've gone to law school. (Now she's proud I didn't.)

The other night included yet another chapter in a series of phone debates between dad and I on the importance of sustainable food. Dad gets most of it -- less chemicals; better treatment of land, animals, and workers; mindful water use -- but I have yet to convince the judge why it's important to change our behaviors to support a better food system. How our individual choices make a difference. The item on the evening's docket: seafood. Dad had read my post on the Seafood Watch guide and while he's not out to actively destroy the planet he made some strongly worded points about the inconvenience of shopping and eating sustainably. "How am I supposed to know how the tuna on the menu was caught?" he argued. "Do you really think the guy at the Giant knows where the shrimp came from?"

"Well," I answered, "Ask. If they can't tell you, choose something else."

Now, let me reiterate here that I am not a purist. I eat things sometimes that are not local, not in season, and, yes, even sometimes not sustainable. Am I to turn down the friendly offer of barbecue from the next campsite over? No. But I do try my best, especially when I am paying for it. If there's something on the menu or at the store that might be questionable, I ask about it. If I don't get a good enough answer and there is another option, I choose something else. "Is the chicken local? Is it free-range?" or "Do you know where the shrimp come from? Are they wild or farmed?" If there's no option to have a free-range turkey at Thanksgiving, consider me a vegetarian.

I can't unlearn what I know, and I cannot (and would not choose to) divorce what I am learning from how I live my life. I actually get physically anxious throwing something that could be composted into the trash when I'm at someone else's house. (It's true.) There will no doubt be growing pains as I continue to become a more knowledgeable consumer. If dad's happy about how inexpensive steak is at the supermarket, or how cheap Alaskan crab legs are on sale this week, how do I explain without coming across as self-righteous that food *shouldn't* be that cheap? That supermarket chains are not charging us for the true (health and environmental) costs. That if we paid a fairer price for more humanely produced meat, it would cost more. Too expensive? Eat less of it. Look at how relatively inexpensive organically grown kale is. (And I know you love that massaged kale salad....)

I am not a doom and gloom kind of person -- ask anyone -- and I actually look at making more positive food choices as something joyful. Instead of looking at food and grumbling about what you're passing up, how about reveling in what you can happily enjoy with your conscience as well as your tastebuds? "Yay, strawberries are in season again!" or "Maybe I should try a glass of this organic cabernet and sample some raw, local sheep's milk cheese." or "Oh, look, farmed oysters are in the 'enjoy' column on the Seafood Watch guide. Another reason to indulge in oysters." I can go on like this all night....

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Something fishy

I've spoken with a good many people recently about "the true cost of food." Often, the topic comes up during a conversation with someone I've met along my journey who is new to the idea of sustainable food, and I, in an attempt to explain what the heck it is I'm doing (and why), invariably bumble about trying to articulate what "sustainable" even means. It's a definition in progress, to be sure, but it takes into account not only the production costs (seed/animals, water, labor, equipment) but environmental (chemical runoff, soil health, erosion), distribution (petroleum-based, usually), and human health costs as well. It's all related, sure, but as I headed further down the California coastline I was about to discover how our food-related behaviors impact not only the land but our oceans as well (and the amazingly diverse undersea world that inhabits 3/4 of the earth covered by water).

After a day and a half in Salinas (the self-proclaimed "salad bowl for the world" where I curiously had a salad made from local Earthbound Farms' romaine lettuce imported from Mexico) getting over a cold, Ollie and I made our way to Monterey Bay with the hope of checking out the fabulous Aquarium. Back in Seattle, where I had started researching sustainable seafood, I'd come across Seafood Watch -- a guide put out by researchers at the Monterey Bay Aquarium that clarifies which varieties of fish and shellfish should be enjoyed and which should be avoided. The recommendations are based largely on the methods used to catch the animals, but also take into account things like if a species is being overfished or if there is a high likelihood of heavy metal consumption. (I'm not talking tuna listening to Iron Maiden, mind you. Mercury, mostly.) I had the good fortune to meet with Alison, one of the members of the Aquarium's communications team who had been involved with the publication of the Seafood Watch guide. A lifelong ecology educator, she gave me a bit of background on the program and pointed out a few key exhibits pertaining to sustainability and food.

As Alison departed for an afternoon meeting, I wandered over to the "Real Cost Cafe," where I was both entertained and educated by the interactive diner exhibit. Each menu item on the touchscreen monitors prompted a brief mini video montage about the costs behind ordering wild salmon, farmed shrimp, oysters, and more. I learned, for instance, there is something called "bycatch" that refers to the unintended victims of a fishing haul. Methods like "long-lining" -- which employ sometimes multiple miles of lines with baited hooks dragged behind a boat -- capture bycatch animals (other fish, sharks, sea turtles, even birds) and drag them for hours until the line is hauled back in and the undesirables, now dead or crippled, are tossed aside as waste. Considering four bycatch per one intended catch is not unusual, these reckless fishing methods -- and long-lining is just one of them -- wreak havoc on our sealife. There's also overfishing, where the consumer demand for *more* is pushing some species to the brink of extinction. And it's not just wild species, either. Irresponsible farm management, like the shrimp farming that has permanently decimated coastal areas, has turned formerly flourishing waterways into a stagnant pit where nothing can survive. (I saw evidence of this a few years back on my way through Costa Rica and it is shocking. And the stench!) The allure of short-term money has trumped long-term repercussions for too long. We need to do something. And we can.

Until fishermen and restaurants cease to have a paying market for things like codfish or long-lined tuna or eel (a sushi favorite these days), they will keep doing whatever it takes to get these fish to our plates. There is a powerful opportunity we have here with our collective individual choices -- by what we spend our seafood dollars on -- to change the system. Get yourself a copy of the Seafood Watch guide. They're free and downloadable from the Monterey Bay Aquarium website. (There's even an iPhone app for it...if you're into that kind of thing.) There's a guide for each region of the country, and a new version that's hot off the presses this January specifically for sushi (I just sent you a wallet-sized hard copy of this one, my sashimi-loving little brother) that lists which kinds of the raw delicacies should be enjoyed freely, which are good alternatives, and which should be avoided. And don't be sad about avoiding the unsustainable "ebi" (eel): some sushi joints have started getting creative, serving "fauxbi," which is made with different fish but mimics the texture of the original and of course has the same delicious sauce. (It's way more convincing than, say, fake bacon.)

It was in the company of my lovely new friends Mack, Joan, and Clay on my way through Los Osos last night that I again had an opportunity to enjoy some fish tacos. This time -- unlike the unsustainable codfish tacos last week -- they were Alaskan salmon, wild-caught by a friend of theirs, and notably in the "enjoy" section of the Seafood Watch guide. I'm not sure if it was because they were really fresh, made with love, washed down with a cold beer, or because I knew that I was enjoying something sustainable, but they were almost impossibly delicious. It may have been all of these factors. (Oh, and the inclusion of 11-year-old Clay's secret fish taco sauce. I would bathe in the stuff if I could: it was that good. If I ever write "Bikeable Feast: The Cookbook" some day, that recipe will be in it....)

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Could be worse...

As I sat by a roaring campfire roasting marshmallows with my new friends Adam and Dave last night -- finally, other touring cyclists! -- one of them turned to me and asked if I was capable of negativity. Oh my, yes. Not often, but yes. Today, for example....

This morning I'd turned down the guys' offer to join them for omelets. I'd woken up early and had packed my stuff and scarfed the better part of a pot of 7-grain cereal (aka gruel thinly disguised as food by the addition of dried cranberries, some walnuts, and half a banana) by the time they emerged from their respective tents. I wanted to get a jump on today's biking and try for a 60-miler. As it turns out, I made it exactly 34 miles to one of the lamest campsites ever. But I'm getting ahead of myself....

So: Big Sur. Beautiful, but I'm fairly certain it means "Biker Purgatory" in another language. The hills! Not even a mile into today's ride, I found my legs tired. Half a mile up the first hill I had to hop off and start pushing. After a mile of dragging Ollie, I stopped -- still on the same [censored] hill -- to get a cup of coffee and a carrot muffin (with cream cheese frosting). I downed the coffee in about two gulps, deciding to save the muffin as a reward for reaching the Miller Library, which was only about another mile and a half ahead (the first half of which was, you guessed it, straight uphill). Arriving at the museum, I was surprised at the proliferation of posters sporting negligee. Odd, I thought. I started chatting with the lovely archivist who politely pointed out that I'd stopped at the Henry (not Arthur) Miller Museum. That explains it. I ate my muffin and contemplated. Not quite the literary stop I'd imagined. I'd never really cared for Death of a Salesman anyway. The day was not lost. Yet.

I biked all day. There were some breaks in the headwind but the hills never stopped. What did stop was the appearance of open campsites and/or places to refill my water bottles. By 20 miles I'd gone through most of my water; by 25 miles I was ready to pitch a tent on the next scrap of grass near a fountain; by 27 miles I came to the 3rd closed campground of the day; by 29 miles I almost cried reading a "water at next campground: 5 miles" posting. At 34 miles, well short of my usual average, I wobbled into a campsite proffering potable water. But no showers. Or handsoap. Or electricity in the restroom. (Raise your hand if you can guess whose headlamp battery just died this evening.) And those stupid sinks that won't stay on so you have to freeze one hand at a time (because, of course, they only run cold water). Seriously? People pay to camp here? It was not one of my finer moments. I think I may have even dropped the f-bomb once or twice under my breath. (Sorry, mom.)

[I am reminded of a scene in Young Frankenstein when Dr. Frankenstein and Igor are shoveling the frozen ground and then laboriously dragging a corpse out of a grave in the dead of night. "Could be worse," Igor mutters. "Worse?? How could it POSSIBLY get any worse?" Doctor F hysterically shrieks. (I love Gene Wilder.) "It could be raining," Igor suggests. Cue thunder. And rain.]

I can't help wondering if this might be some kind of karmic payback for ordering codfish tacos last night. For some reason I'd thought cod were in the "good" category of the Seafood Watch guide I'd picked up earlier this week at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Turns out they're in the "avoid" column. I should've gotten the salmon. And more detailed information on campgrounds. I called them "death tacos" once I realized my error, but I ate them. Sending them back would just be wasteful.

On the bright side, at least the tunes on the mental mp3 player were good ones today: a mix of CAKE hits. And I dipped into the emergency goodie reserve tonight to comfort my (stinky and grumpy) self with a dinner of sauteed zucchini and shallots with basil olive oil (thanks Alessandra) and garlic salt (thanks Mark) to go with my macaroni and cheese. (I'd no butter or milk, but I'd picked up a cup of plain organic yoghurt yesterday by chance and I think Brown Cow's "cream top" variety might be my new favorite macaroni addition. Try it. You'll never go back.) What I wouldn't give for a hot bath and a nice glass of Pinot Noir right about now. And, oh look, it's starting to rain. Dammit.

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How can ewe resist?

1 bottle + 10 lambs = hilarity. And there are over 100 little lambies at Becky's....

During my time at Monkeyflower Ranch, there were 5 or 6 lambs being born each day. Plenty of mouths to feed meant I got lots of hands-on experience. I loved it. Honestly, the little guys were so cute, waggling their fluffy tails as they nursed, that I hardly noticed the mud, poop, milk, and straw that permeated my clothes from being around them 3 or 4 times each day for the past few days. (Until I caught a whiff of myself when I was leaving the farm on Monday morning, that is. I may need to fumigate a few clothing items before putting them in the wash....) They're smaller in stature than the calf brood I bottle-fed back in Foxboro last June, but they're just as voracious (and hilarious).

I'd first heard of Becky's sheep operation from my friends Laura and Barry a few weeks ago. The artisan cheese maker had worked at a goat dairy years before, been trained as a professional chef, worked for awhile at the Bay Area's fabulous Cowgirl Creamery (whose dairy wares at the DC location frequently captured a sizable chunk of my paltry teacher's salary back in the day), all the while wanting to be on a farm... running a dairy seemed like a natural next step. The former Gabriella Cafe chef had decided she wanted to get into making raw aged sheep's milk cheese -- a delicacy not readily available in this country, though popular in Europe. So a few visits with cheese makers in France and Spain were in order -- sounds like my kind of research! -- and then it was time to get started.

Like the folks at Uplands Cheese (where I'd stopped overnight on my way through Dodgeville, WI and met the cows behind the stunning Pleasant Ridge Reserve -- one of my all-time favorite cheeses), Becky believes that the quality of her Garden Variety Cheeses comes down in large part to the quality of the milk, which in turn depends on the quality of life of the animals, which ultimately comes down to the quality of the pasture. Yep, good grass. With access to lots of fresh water and an open-air shelter for when the weather turns nasty, Becky's flock of milkers -- around 50 ewes -- spend most of their time out on pasture. Because of the relatively mild climate in Watsonville (or, technically Royal Oaks, but try and find *that* on google maps), it turns out that the best grass is available during the drizzly winter and spring months, so Becky slated the first lambing season to begin in December. This way the sheep have prime grazing spots during milking season.

As Becky and I crumbled and salted a batch of cheese, then pressed the crumbles into molds, I learned quite a bit more. I came to understand that sheep produce less milk than cows or goats -- 2 quarts for an average ewe per day in comparison to about 4 gallons per cow -- and their milking season is shorter, averaging about 6 months. Thus she is only making cheese for 6 months of the year. Is this enough to support the farm? Becky's been working on some creative solutions to that very question. My favorite is her adopt-a-ewe project. This past summer, she advertised as follows:

"Ever thought about quitting your job, cashing in your savings and following your dream of starting a sheep cheese dairy? Want to live vicariously through someone who has? For $500 you can cover the costs to feed and care for an organically raised dairy sheep during the off-season. In return, you will receive $600 worth of farm products from January to June of 2010."

$500 for fresh lamb (or a wool comforter) plus weekly installments of fresh and aged sheep's milk cheeses for 6 months? Psh. I've probably dropped that much on cheese alone. Sign me up! If only I lived nearby.... (Don't worry, mom and dad, I'm not moving, but wouldn't it be rad to have something like this near DC??)

Becky says she hopes to make cheese 4 or 5 times a week during the half-year period when milk is available -- quite an accomplishment when one considers how much work goes into the process. Milking and equipment cleaning seem to take up much of the active time. And then there's the basic animal care. While relatively low-maintenance, having sheep is still work -- mostly in terms of milking, but they also require periodic hoof-trimming, hay to supplement their diet, and regular checkups. (And much more, I'm sure, that I didn't witness firsthand during the few days I was on the farm. Like setting up the fencing for the rotational grazing. A healthy pasture is key, remember.)

As I've been doing some thinking lately on farming in a way that is sustainable in terms of not only fuel and chemicals but also human energy, I found Becky's setup to be pretty reasonable, with tasks and shifts varied between 5 or 6 paid staff over the course of the week. It's a long day -- the first milking and lamb feeding shifts start around 7am and the last shift ends around 10pm -- but it's manageable. There's still time for fun. After Saturday night's dinner party (and final lamb bottle feeding of the night), a few of us watched "Black Sheep" -- not the Chris Farley comedy, but one of the more ridiculous horror films out there, about genetically-modified vampire sheep who take over a farm in New Zealand. At least I think that's how it ends... I fell asleep about an hour in, just past midnight. (I'd been up since I helped out with the 7am lamb feeding session. And to think I used to be a night owl.)

I hope that more folks start up small dairy operations like this. The cheeses are downright delicious -- what, you thought I'd not tried any? -- and the lambs... I mean, HOW CUTE are the lambs? Sure, they're awkward and kind of clueless and try to nurse on your elbows and each other and the backs of your knees, but how can you keep from smiling around these little guys? I sure couldn't.

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Cultivating success

A friend recently forwarded me an article in the Atlantic Monthly that made me really angry. I was all kinds of disgruntled and indignant after reading "Cultivating Failure: How school gardens are cheating our most vulnerable students" -- an attack on Alice Waters and the whole idea of incorporating food and garden experiences into the public education system. (Want to get me all worked up? Just make some snide remark about how reading is more important than weeding. Please. It's not an either/or scenario, people.) This woman must have had a bad experience involving a garden snake or a brussels sprout as a child. (I feel bad for her own kids.) Are hands-on activities that cultivate curious, joyful, well-rounded young people interfering with training them to be good standardized test takers? Goodness me, somebody sound the alarm.

I've continued to think about -- and visit -- food-related education groups quite a bit along the bikeable feast. Life Lab (which, like me, has been around since the late 70s) is the kind of program model I adore. If only I could help to replicate something like this on the east coast. (Yep, I'm still an East Coast Girl, all told, though mom and dad are convinced I'll find somewhere new to call home before I make my way back. The people and food around Santa Cruz are putting in a pretty strong bid. Must...resist...chantrelles....) On the UC Santa Cruz site, there's a demonstration garden, outdoor kitchen, beautiful walkways and signs and plants, and a small staff of knowledgeable, personable educators who clearly love what they do and love to share what they know. The space itself is a dream. Walking through for the first time during a brief sunny spell last Monday afternoon in Santa Cruz, I noted a wide variety of things to observe, taste, smell, and learn about. I found myself giddily counting the number of different fruit tree varieties, prancing over to the human sundial, enumerating the plants in the pizza garden...and daydreaming about working with a similar program back in DC. When I returned to the garden on Wednesday afternoon -- I, um, happened to be there around the same time as a group on a pre-conference field trip for EcoFarm -- I learned more about the fantastic Life Lab and UCSC Agroecology program that houses it from John and Whitney. It turns out that in addition to daily tours (except in the winter, when it drops to 2 tours per week) with school groups, Life Lab's UCSC Garden Classroom program (which works primarily with elementary school kids) and Food What?! (focused on high schoolers -- I wish they'd gotten back to me, I have tons of questions) offer all kinds of workshops and farm/garden/kitchen resources to educators across Santa Cruz county and beyond. They've partnered with local schools to start gardens and develop lessons in line with CA state curricula. I know I've maligned standards-based education on the blog (and to anyone within a 100-foot radius of my person) a few times, but using a garden and/or kitchen to round out the book learning can only be a good thing, it seems to me.

Speaking of farm-and-garden-oriented youth programs, I am just now realizing I neglected to mention another awesome organization I had the good fortune to learn about: Berkeley Youth Alternatives. Well, gardening is just one piece of the nonprofit's work, which also includes after-school tutoring, counseling, and teen job placement. (I was reminded of the program when I bumped into the garden manager, Kim, at an EcoFarm workshop last Thursday. Small world.) The 2 gardens comprise a rather small part of the overall organization, but the opportunity to learn about the natural world, to grow food for themselves and for donation to a local food pantry, to have a peaceful green space in the midst of the chaos that is an adolescent's daily life make the BYA gardens an indispensable part of the counseling and mentoring program. Developing the *whole* person -- what a concept.

Oh, my, look at the time. Speaking of nurturing young ones, I need to get back outside and help Becky feed the baby lambs.... Yep, you read that correctly. More details on adventures in bottle feeding lambs and making sheep's milk cheese to come....

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A berry nice place to work

When one thinks of a farm owner, one generally thinks of a powerful man (or woman) pitted against any individual or group that might lobby for better wages, benefits, and working conditions for those doing the labor. I've taught Steinbeck; I've read a bit about Cesar Chavez. Farm laborers have a long history of powerlessness and disenfranchisement. They have more often than not been treated as replaceable cogs in a larger, profit-driven machine. This is simply not the case at Swanton Berry Farm, the country's first production scale certified organic berry farm. Don't let the name fool you: they don't just grow berries. But then, this is no ordinary berry farm.

Amid sporadic rainstorms on Sunday afternoon, I spied a welcoming "Jam Tasting ->" sign along Highway 1 and ducked into the Swanton Berry farmstand to see about picking up something to go with my jar of peanut butter and 2-day-old bread. I was soon distracted by other, more appealing gustatory options. (I did eventually purchase a jar of olalliberry-strawberry jam for a later sandwich.) I was also fortunate to have an opportunity to learn about the innovative farm from Barrett and Forrest. Over a slice of velvety pumpkin pie and a steaming cup of fair trade java -- I felt a small degree of pressure to have the berry cobbler, it being a berry farm and all, but Swanton grows pumpkins, too, and I stand by my scrumptious, whipped cream laden choice -- Barrett gave me a rundown on the history of the farm and its progressive owner, Jim Cochran.

Started back in the 80s with a modest berry crop, the farm's 2 original managers -- Jim and Mark -- rented a few small farm plots and began to experiment with organic methods. Success was slow but steady as they refined their methods, paying attention not only to their growing market but the land as well. They discovered, for example, that strawberries planted in areas where broccoli (and other brassicas, to a lesser degree) had been grown the cycle before were significantly less vulnerable to the common but pernicious verticillium wilt, the bane of berries in the region. At the time, few folks were interested in organic methods, so no formal research was conducted. Years later, a small group of researchers at UC Santa Cruz heard about the brassica-verticillium theory and did a little research.... Today the broccoli-strawberry crop rotation is fairly well accepted as an organic management practice -- John even mentioned it during one of the activities on yesterday afternoon's tour of the UCSC student farm. (More details on UCSC's Agroecology Center and the amazing Life Lab program to come in a later post.) Swanton's willingness to do things differently extends beyond crop rotations, however.

As we chopped brussels sprouts (and then feasted on creamy brussels sprout soup with Forrest who invited me to stay for a delicious, impromptu lunch), I learned that Swanton Berry was the first farm in the state to *invite* the AFL-CIO to meet with its workers back in the 90s. For over a decade, farm workers have had the option of signing a union contract. Working here, employees enjoy regular pay raises, diversified work tasks, a modest housing option, vacation time, and other benefits virtually unheard of in the farm world. It's also the first agricultural small business that I've ever heard of to offer its employees stock options. (Now, don't get all worked up -- this stock is in addition to regular pay, not in place of it, which is important in an industry more prone than others to extreme fluctuation.) The Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP, for short) allows farm workers to put money toward retirement, kind of like a 401(k). At least that is my very basic understanding of it. (Having worked in an office for more than 3 years with a gaggle of innovative financiers in a former job one would think I'd have a firmer grasp of finance and investment matters, but alas, I don't.)

Swanton Berry Farm has a lot going for it, but the most important difference I sense here is the value placed on the workers. The business strives to make itself a good place to work, where folks want to return each year. It's not perfect, but it's heads and shoulders above most of the competition.

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Pie in the Sky

During my time in the Bay Area, I had the opportunity to swing by Mission Pie to enjoy not one but three of the cafe's tasty offerings. (Well, two and a half: I was eating a divine walnut tartlet when my friend Colin arrived. I got up to advise him on a pie choice as he stood in line and when I returned to my table there was a scruffy, red-eyed, beer-scented gentleman eating the rest of my pastry. Welcome to San Francisco. I told him he could finish it, and when I returned with a new cup of coffee, and Colin, and Colin's two slices of pie, he was gone. Is this commonplace? Nobody seemed to notice.) Near the end of the sweet and savory feast, one of Mission Pie's founders, Karen, graciously came over to tell me a bit more about the eatery's philosophy and collaborative projects with other local businesses: Mission High School, New Door Ventures, Swanton Berry Farm, Pie Ranch, and others. Each of these groups focus on creating positive work environments and cultivating successful new farmers, bakers, or entrepreneurs. Very cool. One of the students was working at the front counter when I had ordered -- very professional -- and I'm telling you the pies they make are delicious.

A few days later, after a stop at lovely Potrero Nuevo Farm in Half Moon Bay, Ollie and I pulled into Pie Ranch, where many of the local, organic ingredients for Mission Pie are produced: berries, potatoes, pumpkins, wheat, eggs, and more. Yum. What I was really excited to learn more about, though, was the work Jered and Nancy -- who run the farm/non-profit -- have been doing with students from Bay Area high schools. Unfortunately, because of the inopportune timing of my visit, I didn't get to see the high school program in action on the farm. However, I did have the good fortune to have a personal tour of the grounds with Nancy in the afternoon during the Saturday community workday, at which point I learned about the monthly, year-round farm workdays and week-long intensive spring break and summer campouts with a diverse population of youth. Students build confidence, cultivate friendships, and work in the vegetable gardens during their time on the slice-of-pie-shaped property. (No, seriously, the farm's geography inspired its name; its collaborator, Mission Pie, came later. I've heard rumors about partnering with a local dairy to create another entity, A la Mode. Love it!) Some of the farm-savvy teens have gone on to work part-time at Mission Pie in the city, continuing to develop their job skills at the other end of the food spectrum.

I left the farm on Sunday morning with a belly full of scrambled farm fresh eggs and made my way toward the site of another of Mission Pie's collaborators, Swanton Berry, where I was to feast on pie and coffee and soup while I learned about organic berry production and farm worker unions. Well, this journey is about food, after all. A post on Swanton Berry's inspiring work is coming soon....

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I rode through the desert on a bike with no name

Okay, so my bike has a name -- Ollie just cast a disgruntled look in my direction from where she's leaning against a fence post -- but I'll be damned if I could get Neil Young out of my head as we cruised first through West Oakland and then around Hunter's Point last Tuesday. (The mp3 player stopped working about a month ago, so things that get stuck in my head are harder to get out than usual. At least it wasn't Whitney Houston this time.) We were making our way through serious food deserts and noting the odd proximity of these to other parts of the city I've been lauding as Food Mecca. It was kind of surreal.

Have you heard the term "food desert"? It's been bandied about by food and social welfare advocates quite a bit lately. It generally refers to an area, often a low-income neighborhood, without access to fresh food within a reasonable commute on foot or public transit.

During our last day in the Bay Area, Ollie and I rode over to the YMCA in West Oakland to help pack the weekly grub boxes with Jason -- another dynamic food activist and People's Grocery staff person -- and 3 other volunteers. The produce bags were loaded with all kinds of goodies, many of which, earlier in the season, would've been grown on the Grocery's farm outside of town, but which now largely come from Veritable Vegetable -- the area's largest distributor of organic produce whose bulk buying allows groups like PG to offer quite a bargain to its patrons. Like Growing Power's market baskets, the People's Grocery grub boxes provide a cornucopia of fresh, local (as much as possible) fruits and veggies each week to folks living in a veritable food desert. Odd that there are so many relatively inexpensive, delightfully diverse fresh organic produce options in the Bay Area -- I'd checked out Berkeley Bowl, Monterrey Market, and the slightly pricier Rainbow Grocery -- but none are within a reasonable walking distance for most people in this area. As we packed avocados, kale, garlic, kiwis, and sweet potatoes, Jason told me about his organization's varied efforts to not only provide an affordable option for fresh food to folks in the economically depressed area through these optional weekly bags, but to educate about the importance -- and the joy -- of eating well. The Tuesday night cooking classes have become so popular there's a waiting list. At the same time, PG is hoping to get the word out to more people and expand their weekly box distribution, currently just under 100, to 250. It's going to take some outreach -- many folks aren't aware, for example, that they can use food stamps to cover the cost of their grub boxes -- but education and advocacy are among PG's strong suits. Some day, Jason hopes that the group's original dream of an actual People's Grocery market will be a reality. It's very much needed in West Oakland.

After a trip on BART to get back to the other side of the Bay, Ollie and I stopped at Rainbow Grocery to pick up some nibbles for lunch and stock up for the next day's departure from the city. Then we made our way through another major food desert to get to Hunter's Point. With Neil Young still pulsing through my brain, Ollie and I cruised through what I think must be the poorest part of San Francisco, where we saw not a single grocery store or cafe, not even a gas station quickie mart, and the only 2 places where we saw any sign of life for multiple miles were both liquor stores. It was amidst this setting that we came to the local Boys & Girls Club. Here, Rachelle and Maddy helped me stash Ollie somewhere safe and showed me around the beautiful facility. I learned that the after school program here includes elements of an Edible Schoolyard. With cooking lessons in the kitchen 3 days a week while the other 2 days incorporate garden activities, it's not as extensive as the program at MLK Middle School -- the original Edible Schoolyard -- but it is inspiring. And beautiful. And offers an alternative to the potholed asphalt jungle outside. The kids here seemed safe and happy, I noted as they devoured the afternoon snack of oranges and sunflower seeds. I wondered, though, if this might be the only healthy food they eat each day. In many cases, Rachelle told me, it was.

As I left the youth center just before dark, Maddy (another avid cyclist, it turns out) was on her way to Whole Foods to give a presentation on the Boys & Girls Club kitchen and garden program. We biked part of the way together before I split off to make my way back to Erica's place in the Mission District. As I rode, I couldn't help but marvel at the comparative plethora of coffee shops and markets the further I got from Hunter's Point.

It was an interesting end to my Bay Area experience, and though I know there are dozens of programs I didn't have a chance to work with this time around, I am excited to know they exist. For while San Francisco and Berkeley sport some of the finest food in the country, many folks here don't yet have access (or even know that they might want it) to fresh, healthy food. Including the man who ate part of my pastry during my visit to Mission Pie a few days earlier, but that is a story for another posting....

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How dry I am

No, this isn't a posting to mourn my 10-day stint on antibiotics on my way through the heart of California wine country. I'm talking about dry farming.

I'd first heard of the concept while at a wine tasting that my friend Rei invited me to during my time in Seattle. The wines I sampled at The Truffle Cafe weren't "local" -- the grapes were grown and fermented in Spain by a charming older Italian gentleman -- but the farming principles were very much in line with my research on sustainable agriculture more generally, so I happily attended. As we sampled a bevy of delicious wines, the Parmi vintner showed a small group of us photographs of the vineyard, with grapes growing quite literally on top of a shale cliff. Right out of the rock! No chemicals or watering. Ever. Water conservation, land stewardship, no synthetic pesticides or other chemicals... these are a given in France, Spain, Italy, but only practiced by a few grape growers here in the States. It turns out that the rare organic American wines (or, more accurately, wines made with organic grapes) have a lot to learn from many generations of European winemakers.

[Aside: I recently read that grapes are among the "dirty dozen" of fresh produce: items most commonly laden with chemicals that, especially if you have young kiddos, you should either buy organic or avoid altogether. What? No, I don't anticipate having kids soon, but so many of my friends are cranking out offspring these days that coming across "meal planning for toddler" books and articles seems a more common occurrence these days.]

The way dry farming works is that plants are forced to develop deep roots that tap into the aquifers (or water table). The plants are intentionally stressed, so a smaller number of them survive, but those that do are pretty hardy. (Darwin would be proud. The principle also applies to some of the house plants under my mother's care, it seems.) Okay, so it works for grapes in Spain. But can the methods apply to other fruit and vegetable crops? I wondered....

On my way through California, I'd heard rumors of dry farming other crops. It turns out, I learned from Suzie and Seth as we chatted one morning at their farm in Half Moon Bay, that dry farmed tomatoes are something of a rage here in west central California. (What! How had I never heard of this food fad?? I love food. Maybe it's a west coast thing.) "The tomatoes are smaller," Suzie explained, "But the flavor is more concentrated. People rave about them." There are generally fewer tomatoes as well, which makes the price per pound more than their larger, juicier counterparts. But local aficionados are willing to pay a pretty penny for them. There's some talk of trying out a few dry farmed crops at Potrero Nuevo Farm, I learned from Seth, for the 25-share CSA starting up this spring. After all, not just fancy pants chefs should have access to the tastiest tomatoes. (And not only west coasters, I say, if I have to start dry farming them myself in my parents' back yard. Come to think of it, I think they have the right kind of soil for it....)

I hope my travels bring me to a farm or two that have been doing some dry farming so I can learn more about some of the practical challenges and tips for successful dry farming. And I'm not going to lie, I'm dying to try some of the tomatoes. You know, for purely educational purposes.

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One of those days

This past Thursday was one of the strangest on the bikeable feast so far. Mind you, I learned a lot and ate well, but I can't help marveling at the strange juxtaposition of fine dining and shoveling poop....

7:30am: bike ride across Oakland and Berkeley
9:30am: tour of the Edible Schoolyard
Noon: lunch at Chez Panisse
1:00pm: shoveling horse manure

I'd gotten terribly, frustratingly lost in the Oakland hills the night before -- 2 hours of poorly lit streets and maddeningly steep, leg-numbing inclines -- so Barry offered to bike with me into Berkeley on his way (sort of) to work. (He joked that I was still suffering from PTSD the next morning. I very well might've been. I haven't gotten *that* lost since the episode in Kutztown, PA, back in early June.) We made it without a hitch, and even had time to stop in for egg sandwiches and coffee at the lovely new, biker-friendly Actual Cafe on the way.

I was somewhat giddy touring Alice Waters' original Edible Schoolyard site at Berkeley's MLK Middle School. I'd been reading about the program for a few years now and marveled at the beautiful kitchen and garden spaces. The 14-year-old, foundation-funded program focuses on community building as much as food appreciation, and tries to link math, science, and humanities lessons with hands-on experiences to complement traditional classroom learning. I learned that the 2 chefs and 3 gardeners on staff are in the process of working with the 6th, 7th, and 8th grade teachers to more formally align the Edible Schoolyard lessons with public school standards. I hope this move means that it can be more easily replicated in other schools, and that it doesn't squash the unusual, beautifully organic nature of the program (as standards-based learning tends to do).

Following the tour, I had a chance to chat with my guide, Shaina, about some of the technical aspects of the Schoolyard. When I told her a bit more about my research, she suggested that I take myself to Chez Panisse for lunch. I countered that it wasn't in the budget. "Ibti," she pointed out, "You just biked yourself half way around the country. You're researching sustainable food. You can't pass up a chance to eat at Alice Waters' restaurant. Treat yourself." Twist my arm. I had been scoping out the famous eatery's online menu roughly once a month for the past year, after all. Ollie and I biked over and I got the $25 lunch special: salad, fried oysters with chicory, and the most divine candied orange icecream with caramel sauce. All seasonal and all relatively local. Afterwards, I talked my way into the main kitchen. Alas, the creator of the ice cream was not present or I very well might have kissed her (as I once did a pastry chef in the south of France who supplied me with an indescribably delicious chocolate mousse). It's not like I generally consider myself a dessert person. Or a kisser of cooks. But, oh, that ice cream alone was worth the splurge.

An hour later I found myself shoveling fresh horse manure into the back of a pickup truck with Max and Josh of People's Grocery. As we drove between the horse farm in the hills outside of town and one of their urban farms at 35th & Chestnut, the guys told me a bit about the Oakland-based food justice nonprofit. The program focuses on 3 main areas: small business development, urban agriculture, and education/advocacy. From nutrition and cooking classes to job training to grub boxes (reminiscent of Growing Power's weekly "market baskets"), People's Grocery works with other area groups -- like Food Not Bombs, where we stopped to chat for a few minutes, and other local social justice and greening organizations -- to address West Oakland's food deserts. They are one of many activist groups here in the Bay Area making a real difference in the community. I look forward to helping out at a few more places during my time here, so stay tuned for another posting soon!

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Be the change you wish to see

I'd first heard about the Noyo Food Forest at the food security conference in Des Moines this past October, but I didn't manage to chase down the NFF folks in the midst of the hundreds of people I encountered while I was volunteering there. As it happened that Ollie and I would be passing right through the NFF headquarters on our way down the California coast, however, I realized I would have a second chance. I was excited for an opportunity to meet with the grass roots gardeners and community activists so I got in touch with the program's founder, Susan, who warmly invited me to check out the program. A few weeks later I found myself staying at the Grey Whale Inn -- a beautiful bed & breakfast in Fort Bragg and site of one of the Noyo Food Forest edible gardens. (Thank *you*, Katrina, for setting me up at officially the nicest place I've stayed along the way. Though there have been some comfy futons.) The innkeeper, Michael, and I feasted on local duck and a load of fresh veggies from the garden my first night there, and after an amazing raw food meal at a restaurant run by a Mormon Korean lady across town my second night, I was surprised with some of the best food of the trip. For a sleepy little town, Ft. Bragg could be a destination in itself. But back to the reason I came to visit....

The Noyo Food Forest was started a few years ago by a small group of dynamic women who had looked around themselves and been frustrated by a general lack of access to fresh local food while unused green spaces abounded. (It's not that there was nothing, but there wasn't much: a modest food co-op, one CSA, one small school garden.) Further, the decline of industry in this former mill town meant that many folks were disconnected from each other and the land. Morale was low in this isolated area. Taking Gandhi's mantra to heart, these gardening activists became the change they wished to see in the world: they began to build community gardens.

The first was the Learning Garden, which cultivates a plot of land behind the local public high school, utilizes buildings donated by the Mendocino County Office of Education, and is run by a small crew of devoted garden educators on the shoestring budget Susan cobbles together from sales and donations each year. Winding down its third growing season -- I learned from Sakina, the garden coordinator, as she showed me around -- the space has grown considerably from its humble beginnings, slowly expanding each year. It offers learning opportunities for adolescents and adults, supplies fresh produce to the school cafeteria and the farmers' market, and has been a point of pride for a number of high schoolers in the gardening class -- a well-attended elective -- who nurture the green oasis.

From the high school, Katrina, Susan, and I zipped over to the Head Start garden, where lunch and snacks are grown for the low-income-based preschool education program and an NFF staffmember runs weekly activities for youngsters and their parents. (Unfortunately, the timing of my visit didn't coincide with a lesson, but it sounds like a great program from what I can tell. Incidentally, improving child nutrition continues to be one of the strongest elements of Head Start programs across the country. It seems fitting that the tots and their parents learn how to grow and eat fresh, healthy veggies here.) Next it was over to the Come-Unity Garden, where we checked out 11 community plots and nibbled on apples as we admired the orchard under development. Then, after a brief walk around the town's only CSA (not an NFF project, but, really, it's all connected on some level and it was pretty impressive), we hotfooted it back to the Learning Garden to harvest fresh veggies and make a big salad for lunch. I needed my energy for the talk I was giving to the high school gardeners at 2pm.... They were a nice bunch, and asked lots of questions (mostly about the biking, though the adults sitting in prompted more questions about the farming and sustainable food pieces of my project).

Something that really impressed me during my time learning about the Noyo Food Forest was its amazing success with partnerships. This is partly because the need for pooled resources (money and land) brings NFF to the table with local groups -- schools, the Head Start program, the senior center (which I didn't have a chance to see), the Grey Whale Inn, Thanksgiving Coffee (site of the Come-Unity garden) -- but it is also because there are natural connections between gardening and so many aspects of community development. The gardens are sowing seeds of hope and awareness in Ft. Bragg: during one of our cooking sessions in the Inn's kitchen, Michael described the building of the garden at the Grey Whale as transformative, how neighbors had begun to stop by and admire the garden, complimenting the innkeeper -- who, until the garden, felt that he was considered an outsider here -- on its progress. He admitted to experiencing a quiet joy when immersing himself in the green space from time to time, sometimes incorporating the garden goodies into the Inn's offerings.

The Noyo Food Forest is working to empower folks to feed themselves, but the gardens are, in the process, fostering healthy communities as well. And not just here in Ft. Bragg. They have links to groups in places as nearby as Willits (30 hilly miles east) and as far away as Kenya (where a sister garden was started). It's the kind of program that could be replicated in many other places, adapted for different communities while maintaining its core philosophy. Gandhi would be proud.

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From the ground up

Eddie's worked on organic farms for many years. He's a darn good farmer (and a good cook, which always wins brownie points in my book) and I am indebted to my friend April for putting us in touch: I learned a lot working with him last week. He's a thoughtful observer, a meticulous record-keeper, and has a reputation for being a tireless worker. As I worked (and cooked) alongside Eddie for a few days on my way through northwestern California, I came to understand that for this inspired (and inspiring) grower, urban farming is as much about building community as it is providing fresh, healthy food to that community.

Prior to starting his own operation, Eddie had managed the nearby POTAWOT organic farm -- a local garden that provides fresh fruits and veggies to the Native American health clinic in Arcata. (Yes, a program directly linking healthcare and healthy food -- what a concept. Are you listening, Senators?) One morning when the ground was too frozen to harvest, and after we'd weeded the greenhouses, Eddie suggested that Ollie and I cycle over to check out the garden, health center, and hiking trails on the POTAWOT property. We did and I must say that it was pretty rad. Over the years, Eddie has continued to be an active member of the Arcata community and has fostered longstanding relationships with many in the small college town. So much so that when he decided to start his own farm, many of his CSA members were referred from the waiting list of another CSA farmer friend in town. (Farmers as collaborators rather than competitors -- not quite the conventional model, is it?)

When he started Deep Seeded Community Farm a year ago, Eddie explained, he could have found land further out of town for less money, an existing farm with developed soil and structures in place. But the most important element of the year-round CSA was for it to be accessible to its members -- who live and work in town -- so he's built it right in the thick of things, starting quite literally from the ground up. To Eddie, it is critical for families and friends to be able to connect with their food and each other. On CSA pickup days, Eddie chats easily with each of the 93 winter share members and their kiddos, exchanging recipe ideas, getting feedback on the quantity and variety of veggies, commenting on the unusually cold weather. They come by the urban farm each week to pick up their produce, sometimes also cutting fresh flowers in the spring or picking juicy strawberries in the summer. I overheard a few folks commenting on how they had finally gotten the hang of planning meals around the weekly boxes to use up all the produce, how they enjoyed the freshness and flavor of the new varieties available each week, and how glad they are that Eddie decided to offer a winter share (which, incidentally, was oversubscribed, but the farmer managed to produce enough to accommodate a few more people, as was the case with the popular regular season shares.) The farm and the food had become a part of their weekly routine.

I must say that the work itself seemed more manageable than some farms I've been to -- more sustainable in terms of human energy. At the end of the day, I was tired but not wiped out. Granted, it is the beginning of winter, so things slow down on farms everywhere. Eddie also confessed that he needed to maybe tone down the intensity a little in the farm's second year, that he'd put in ridiculous time and energy up until now. (I'm no slouch, but I was glad not to be banging on the frozen ground and sloshing around in rain as I had done at other farms prior to this one.) Still, he and the others I met while there seemed content and proud of their work. I enjoyed my time with the farmer and his part-time staff -- Jess, Scott, Rachel, and Will -- as we weeded, harvested, and washed produce. They were thoughtful and engaging conversationalists, passionate about food, energetic. At least two of them spoke of having their own farms in the not-too-distant future, I learned as we dug up carrots and snapped leaves of chard for the CSA. (Seriously, Will, I am going to look you up on my way through Mississippi.) During the slower cold months, in addition to evaluating the year's production and planning for the spring planting, Eddie is tinkering with the internship requirements for next season -- field work paired with an hour-long weekly seminar on a variety of topics. There is a lot of interest in local, sustainable food in Arcata, I would say (and not only because of the well-established and impressively stocked local co-op). The demand is here, the groundwork is being laid... Eddie is not only growing good food and a community of conscientious eaters. He's also helping to cultivate new farmers. Right on.

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