of the soil

An Intimate Evening with Mario Batali at the Seattle Art Museum

2011-11-29T09:44:00.000-08:00

They’ve cooked for the king and queen of Spain, the president of France, and a host of princes, princesses, and other dignitaries, but serving people in the culinary world feels different, confesses the Bon Appétit Management Company team at TASTE Restaurant and Events in Seattle. For a special fundraiser on Friday, November 4, for the Seattle Art Museum (TASTE’s host), Executive Catering Chef Paul Rosquita and Executive Restaurant Chef Craig Hetherington were serving the internationally renowned chef Mario Batali, so the pressure was considerable.

Batali is considered a gastronomic genius, one of the biggest names in fine dining. Glenn Drosendahl writes, “There’s big, and then there’s Mario Batali big.” With a restaurant empire, countless cookbooks, expansiveproduct line, several television shows, and a 2005 James Beard Foundation Chef of the Year Award, Batali has reinvented Italian cuisine and changed the way we understand food.

Who wouldn’t be daunted to cook for him? On top of that, there was a twist — the TASTE chefs were expected to serve dishes inspired by Batali’s own...

Read about the rest of this extraordinary epicurean evening here.

Recipe: Bon Appétit Chef James Edmund's All-Local Scallops, Chard, and Farro

2011-11-01T00:15:00.000-07:00

The Eat Local Challenge has become one of my favorite celebrations each year. While many of our usual holidays come with prescribed dishes, such as turkey and stuffing for Thanksgiving, brisket and matzoh ball soup for Passover, and cookies topped with red and green sprinkles for Christmas, the Eat Local Challenge menu is always different — year to year, chef to chef, and region by region. The challenge is to create an whole menu where every ingredient (except for salt) comes from within 150 miles. While this is no easy task, I also find the challenge to be encouraging. Whether a chef or an eater, it encourages everyone to explore unusual flavors – found on our local farm and range lands and in our forests, lakes, and oceans, to learn about new producers, and tap into our inner creative spirit.

I love that there’s no need for long flights home for the Eat Local Challenge – it’s a celebration of wherever you are. I wish that every holiday we celebrated would, whilst providing joy and an excuse to partake in a ritual out of the ordinary, challenge us to be more ecologically sustainable and locally rooted.

This year for the Eat Local Challenge, I went to Bon Appétit Management Company’s The Dish and The Fashion Bowl cafés at Nordstrom in Seattle, WA. A dish that won rounds of praise from our guests: seared scallops, braised rainbow chard, and cipollini onions with toasted whole-grain emmer farro, finished with Siegerrebe wine.

Check out Chef James Edmunds’s Eat Local Challenge Seared Scallops recipe here!

Duncan’s Summer Grappa Cocktail

2011-11-01T00:14:00.000-07:00

Okay. I dropped the ball on posting this earlier and now it's no longer summer. But there's always next year. Put this recipe in your back pocket.

How We Can Bee the Change: Pollination Panel Discussion at Seattle University

2011-09-01T01:09:00.000-07:00

Since I’m allergic to many bees and wasps, I fear getting stung. Once, my reaction to a sting was so severe that I went into anaphylactic shock in rural China and was saved by a perilous trip to a hospital nearby. But no matter how negative my body’s response is to bee venom, I want to live in a world with bees. Bees are the insects responsible for the pollination of many foods I love to eat: fruits, vegetables, nuts, spices, flowers, seeds, and beans. Roughly one-third of our world’s food supply is dependent on bee pollination. Our lives, in fact, depend on bees.

Recently at Seattle University, Bon Appétit Management Company and Slow Food Seattle cosponsored a free showing of the new documentary Vanishing of the Bees, which was directed by George Langworthy and Maryam Heinen and narrated by actress Ellen Page. An astonishing 350 people attended the showing and the panel discussion with local beekeepers that followed.

The film is an eerie and engaging portrayal of the mysterious “vanishing bee syndrome” called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). This occurs as the abrupt mass disappearance of honey bee (Apis mellifera) colonies. It is estimated that one-third of honey bee colonies in the United States have vanished without a trace. In some areas, honey bee losses are as high as 75 percent.

Check out the rest of my post here and see how you can bee the change below:

Raise awareness and spread the buzz. The first step to activate change is education. A great place to get updated information on bees and CCD is the Vanishing of the Bees Facebook Page.
Vote with your fork to support sustainable and organic production practices and those that maintain native pollinators. Originally war chemicals were used to kill people and today pesticides are used to kill insects. Chemical sprays remain harmful not only to people but also to beneficial insects. The bees that land on sprayed crops become disordered, confused, and fall off. Scientists believe that the pesticides affect the bees’ nervous systems.
Support organic honey production, your local beekeepers, and producers of rare honey. Organic beekeeping means that honey bees are raised without sugar syrups, artificial pollen, or miticides. Visit your local farmers market or co-op.
Use natural cleaners and pest remedies. These are safer, more effective, and less expensive than toxic chemicals, such as insecticides and herbicides.
Grow your own food and create bee friendly habitats. Maybe you want to plant an organic garden or simply grow flowers on your windowsill. Choose pollen- and nectar-rich plants, such as sunflowers, ferries, gourds, and lavender. Leave a tray of water out for the bees to drink. And for extra fun, float recycled wine corks in the water give the bees a place to land and rest as they drink.
Join The Great Sunflower Project. Help gather information about our urban, suburban, and rural bee populations. Plant Lemon Queen sunflowers, Bee balm, Cosmos, Rosemary, Tickseed, Goldenrod, and/or Purple coneflowers and track the quality of your yard’s pollinator service. This is a great way to contribute to research as well as learn more about what’s happening in your backyard.
Raise bees. Michelle Obama put in a bee hives at the White House Garden. This is a great way to help restore the environment and create a more diversified and thus stronger food system. Here are some of the upfront costs to factor in when starting a hive: Complete hive-setup should cost approximately $175-200, or $300 tops, depending on how all-out you go with gear. A beekeepers’ veil will cost approximately $20. Gloves, a smoother, two hive tools, plus bee brush will be approximately $100. Finally, a package of bees (three pounds of bees, including a queen) will cost $75-110, plus additional costs of feed and medication, if needed.
Get political. Sign Slow Food USA’s petition or write to the Environmental Protection Agency on your own to urge the Office of Pesticide Programs to help safeguard our food system.

Feeding our Soil and Communities: Visiting Shepherd’s Grain Co-op

2011-08-31T23:54:00.000-07:00

With Shepherd's Grain Farmer Paul of the Spokane Hutterian Brethren Colony

I just got back from my second trip to visit Shepherd’s Grain with Bon Appétit Management Company's Pacific Northwest chefs. Being with the chefs and farmers feels like coming home to family. Look past the tough personalities portrayed on Iron Chef and the rugged independence that stereotypically characterizes farmers, and you’ll find more depth than just knife or combine skills. For many of the farmers, it means the world to meet the people they feed, and for many of the chefs, the day they get to spend with their grain-farmer friends is one that they look forward to all year. Read about my trip here. Also, here are my photos from our annual dinner to thank the farmers and our visit to the Spokane Hutterian Brethren Colony. And don't forget to check out Shepherd’s Grain flour, especially if you live in the Pacific Northwest!

Advice for Young Farmers on Creating a Socially Just Farm

2011-06-24T09:38:00.000-07:00

In 1983, Jim Cochran (photo, left) started doing what everyone thought was impossible: growing organic strawberries on a commercial scale, in Davenport, CA. Then in 1998, inspired by one of his grandfathers, a union man, Jim made Swanton Berry the first organic farm in the country to negotiate a United Farm Workers contract. In 2005, Swanton Berry achieved yet another first: the first farm to create an Employee Stock Ownership Plan, which gives workers management authority, incentives to think like entrepreneurs, and the right to inherit and take ownership of the farm.

In a recent talk for Seattle Arts & Lectures, Wendell Berry told aspiring young farmers to “listen to the old-timers.” I decided to take the revered American poet, philosopher, and farmer up on his recommendation and track down a veteran farmer I know who is successfully navigating the tricky topic of farm labor.

In my latest post, Swanton Berry's Founder Jim Cochran and Human Resources Director Sandy Brown give young farmers advice on farm labor practices, one of agriculture’s more sensitive issues. Check it out here.

Swanton Berry employees Esther and Susana. Photo: Ansley West

Lucy's Rhubarb-Cream-Filled Brioche Doughnuts

2011-06-21T08:41:00.000-07:00

Lucy Damkoehler began baking way back in fifth grade, when she would help her father knead and shape dough for bread as a hobby. She’s now a distinguished pastry chef for Bon Appétit Management Company’s TASTE Restaurant in Seattle, where her desserts have captured the hearts and bellies of restaurant diners far and wide, including my own.

A few weeks ago, Lucy presented her latest doughnuts to a room full of chefs, farmers, and good food lovers at the Seattle Chef’s Collaborative Bakers’ Meet and Greet. Doughnuts cannot feign being a health food, but making them can be healthy for the community if the ingredients come from local, sustainable producers. Like the rest of the TASTE team (and Bon Appétit companywide), Lucy goes all-out to celebrate seasonal variety and bounty. She sources her organic pasture-raised eggs and bacon from Skagit River Ranch, butter and milk from the multi-species, “beyond organic” Sea Breeze Farm, and bread flour from Shepherd’s Grain’s no-till multi-family and -generational family farm cooperative. (See my post on my visit to their wheat fields here.)

Last summer, at the Olympic Sculpture Park Farmers Market, she made a different doughnut every week! Among them: red velvet (made with beets), corn fritters, and bacon brown sugar.

The rhubarb-cream-filled brioche doughnut I tried was delight at first bite. I couldn’t help asking Lucy to share her recipe with us. If you have a springtime sweet tooth, culinary ambition, and inspired sense of adventure, this one is for you. Otherwise, next time you’re in Seattle, stop by TASTE and sample her dessert menu.

Feed your ambition and check out Lucy Damkoehler’s Rhubarb-Cream-Filled Brioche Doughnut recipe here!

Hungry for data: My thoughts on the Inventory of Farmworker Issues and Protections

2011-05-06T13:06:00.001-07:00

A growing number of eaters now care where their food comes from, but it’s still uncommon for even conscientious consumers to also consider who planted, grew, picked, packed, and cleaned that food. Even most food industry professionals don’t look too deeply at this part of the food chain.

Meanwhile, the conditions that farmworkers face in the everyday course of trying to do their jobs are grueling, often dangerous, and sometimes even abusive. It's the age-old "if a tree falls in the forest" riddle: if these problems are invisible to most Americans, do they really exist?

The answer is yes, of course they do. And I am proud to have worked on a 65-page report about farmworker employment issues that documents them.

Released March 31, on César Chavez Day, the Inventory of Farmworker Issues and Protections in the United States is a joint effort of the United Farm Workers and Bon Appétit Management Company Foundation, with input from Oxfam America (a unique for-profit/non-profit partnership).

Bon Appétit came to this project believing that the first step to improving farm labor conditions and driving substantial, positive, long-lasting change is to know what’s happening. This is why Bon Appétit Vice President Maisie Greenawalt charged me and the other two Bon Appétit Foundation Fellows to work with UFW and Oxfam to figure out first what questions needed to be asked about farmworkers -- and then how to answer them.

Check out the rest of my post about researching for the Inventory: Hungry for Data: My Thoughts on the Inventory of Farmworker Issues and Protections

More coverage:

New Farmworker Report Paints a Big, Grim Picture, Civil Eats
Startling New Report Shines Light on Farm Labor Conditions—and They Ain’t Good, Grist
Scott Shafer talks to Bon Appétit VP Maisie Greenawalt and others about farm labor conditions for KQED's Forum

Lessons from the old grove: Industrial and humane agriculture do not mix well

2011-03-30T00:51:00.003-07:00

Read about why the Inland Orange Conservancy inspires me. Check out my latest post about the downside of industrial citrus production and what these farmers are doing to create a more humane agricultural system.

Thinking about hunger, farm workers, and women in the fields

2011-03-11T14:24:00.001-08:00

To read my post on hunger, farm workers, and women, see here.

My concern with the human rights of all farm workers, and especially female farm workers, was the foundation of the talk I gave at Seattle University's Hunger Banquet. This past Tuesday was International Women’s Day, and April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month. Let’s continue to celebrate the work of farm workers and, as we do, let us also consider women’s often unappreciated and undercompensated contribution to our food system. We need to break the cycle of abuse and silence.

Creative Growers Organic Farm is just your average innovator

2011-03-01T15:23:00.001-08:00

As Bon Appétit’s West Coast Fellow, I’ve been traveling to some of our 1,000 Farm to Fork partners to understand their on-the-ground practices and challenges. I met farmer David Hoyle in between attending the Food Justice Conference in Eugene and presenting Stories from the Fields, about farm worker issues, at Lewis & Clark College. Dave and I chatted for a while in the rain on his farm, Creative Growers, tucked away in the back roads of Noti, Oregon. To learn more about my visit, see here.

On the forage for fungi with Bon Appétit Willamette University staff

2011-03-01T14:45:00.005-08:00

We heart flannel

This fall, I went to the woods to forage mushroom with walking encyclopedias, mycologists, geographers, and culinarians, Bon Appétit Willamette University Chef Paul Leiggi and Catering Director Chris Linn. Here's the link to my full post, which includes Chef Paul’s delicious wild mushroom mac ‘n’ cheese with smoked gouda recipe. I promise it's worth recreating! Happy reading, foraging, and tasting.

From rooftop to salad bowl: microgreens galore

2010-12-06T15:21:00.002-08:00

The Whitman Model Farm Project not only conserves natural resources and improves Whitman College’s environmental efficiency, but also happens to produce delicious food. I know because I just had an outstanding salad at Bon Appétit Management Company’s Prentiss Dining Hall at Whitman College in Walla Walla, WA for lunch. Now, post-meal, like a salad lover in search of her pot of gold, I’m off to find out where my microgreens came from. It turns out that in the rooftop greenhouse of Whitman College’s Hall of Science, salad grows.

Sweet pea tendril vines wind their way up from growing trays. Four students are planting and watering seeds. I am sweltering under the greenhouse’s captured sun, but still determined to learn more about my lunch.
You can read the post, including how to grow microgreens, here. Happy growing and eating!

Meeting Inland Orange Conservancy Farmer Bob Knight

2010-12-06T15:17:00.003-08:00

Inland Orange Conservancy Farmer Bob Knight lifts up a wooden crate, a field box that holds 55 pounds of oranges. “Let me offer you some perspective,” he goes on. “In the supermarket, consumers pay roughly $1.59 or $1.99 a pound for oranges. This means the supermarket gets around $100 per box. Guess how much the farmer gets paid for the same [box]?” One student guesses $20. “How about lower than that?” Another guesses $10, then $6. “How about lower?” Another guesses $4. “Lower.” Silence. “We are paid an average of $1 for each 55 pound orange field box.”

To read the whole post, click here.

Hungry? Let's eat local at the University of the Pacific afé

2010-12-06T15:10:00.009-08:00

Hungry? Join me for a virtual lunch at the University of the Pacific Café. I went there for Bon Appétit Management Company’s sixth annual Eat Local Challenge and it was an event worth experiencing – if only via your imagination.

Read my entire post here.

Shepherding the grain

2010-09-11T01:18:00.006-07:00

Once upon a time, Idaho, Washington, and Oregon farmer families began settling on the land. It’s now the end of a hot July 2010. I stand alongside Bon Appétit Management Company chefs and managers at the edge of a Hard Red Winter Wheat field. We are surrounded by hills covered with different kinds of wheat, garbanzo beans, and lentils.
Read about my trip to Shepherd's Grain here and the story of 33 farm families, 65,000 acres, and their transformation of the land to sustainable agriculture.

Swimming upstream for farm workers' rights

2010-07-12T15:53:00.006-07:00

A few months ago, a National Vice President of the United Farm Workers Union came to Bon Appétit’s office to discuss a potential collaboration between our organizations. In our conversation, we noted challenges we both face over the question: How can we institutionalize justice for farm workers? Vice President Erik Nicholson commented, only half jokingly, “Sometimes I wish farmworkers were salmon because then people might care enough to protect them.” His comment is worrisome because he may actually be right...

Click here to read the rest of my article, 'Swimming Upstream for Farm Workers' Rights' on Triple Pundit.

Is small the only beautiful? It is certainly beautiful.

2010-05-08T00:14:00.009-07:00

Inspired by my visit to Three Sisters Farm in Redlands, CA, I wrote an article reflecting on the question, "Is Small the Only Beautiful?" Here is the piece, I would love to hear what you think.

When commodities traders see tomato pickers in action

2010-04-04T12:12:00.015-07:00

In February I attended workshop on Farmworker Rights and Student/Farmworker Alliance at Strengthening the Roots: Food and Justice Convergence, held at the University of California Santa Cruz. Participants – students and their allies – were assigned to role-play a farmworker or consumer.

The workshop simulation was thoughtfully designed by California Institute for Rural Studies Research Associate, UC Davis alumna, Alida Cantor; UC Irvine and Real Food Challenge graduate, Hai Vo; and UC Davis Student and Student/Farmworker Alliance organizer, Liz Fitzgerald.

It is weeks later, and I am still thinking about my experience. I want to share it with you. I wrote about it on Triple Pundit, a business sustainability blog: “When Commodities Traders See Tomato Pickers in Action.” Here is my post.

I am posting this article because, first, I see this simulation as acreative, thought-provoking tool that promotes awareness aroundfarmworker rights. Second, I believe it is important to generate moredialogue around farm labor issues. Or, at the very least, simply acknowledge and respect their work.

Adrian of Montebello Farm

2010-03-01T22:46:00.006-08:00

East Coast Fellow, Carolina and I visited Montebello Farm, where we met Adrian Albor, a young farmer. He told us about what he learned working as a farmworker after coming to the United States from Michoacán, México. Today, he is the farm manager of 18 acres of diversified organic vegetables. Check out my vlog about Adrian.

Strawberry hands, bent backs, uncertain futures

2009-12-25T21:32:00.012-08:00

Photo taken by Ansley West

On the website homepage of one of the largest fruit and vegetable producers and marketers in the world, a blond woman wearing a pink shirt appears, smoothie in one hand and bowl in the other. As the page loads, strawberries fall from the sky, landing effortlessly into her bowl. As the viewer, I wonder where I am to assume these strawberries came from. The strawberry-shaped hot air balloon overhead? Green rolling hills in the background?

This is beginning of my post on Triple Pundit, part of a series on the Business of Sustainable Agriculture. This article was inspired by strawberry fields in the California Central Coast and a photojournalism project I am working on with photographer, Ansley West. We hope to continue to bring awareness to the situation of migrant workers in the United States. To read the full article, click here.

Beginning as Bon Appétit's West Coast Fellow

2009-12-03T08:46:00.011-08:00

I just started my fellowship with Bon Appétit Management Company after completing a farm apprenticeship at the University of California Santa Cruz. In my first vlog, I talk about what I take away from my time at the farm and what's exciting to me as the West Coast Fellow. Thanks for watching and I hope you'll stay tuned throughout the year! Here's my vlog.

Onions + Poetry

2009-11-10T17:00:00.010-08:00

Onion Haiku, Vera Chang

the unexpected

romantic, the onion has

made me obsessed

My obsession with onions began while exploring the world of poetry for morning harvests read-alouds in the Down Garden at the UC Santa Cruz Farm and Garden.

Why onions? Traditionally thought of as a poor person’s food, onions feed rich and poor alike. They span the world’s cultures and grow in the hottest and the coldest climates. Onions bring out flavor in foods and are a consistent staple in our diets. Though featured less than such other vegetables as potatoes, broccoli, or carrots, onions are a part of our history and our lifeblood.

Onions are some of the oldest vegetables known to humans. 5,000 years ago, onions were grown in gardens in China and were written about in old Vedic writings in India. Back to 3, 500 B.C., the Egyptians worshiped onions and they became the only vegetable image made out of gold. Onions were used as a currency to pay the workers who built the pyramids as well as buried with Pharaohs, attached to the thorax, ears, eyes chest, pelvic regions, soles of the feet, and along the legs. The Egyptians saw the centric rings and spherical of onions as symbols of eternity, the universe, and strength. They believed that the antiseptic qualities, strong scent, and magical powers of onions would provide breath in the afterlife.¹

The Greeks and Romans also revered onions. In Greece, athletes consumed large quantities of them, believing that onions “lighten the balance of the blood.” Similarly, before fighting, Roman Gladiators used to get rubbed down by onion juice to ‘firm up the muscles.’ Catalogued by Pliny the Elder, the Romans believed in the efficacy of onions to cure vision, induce sleep, heal mouth sores, dog bites, toothaches, dysentery and lumbago.²

Today it is understood that onions are good source of vitamin C, potassium, dietary fiber, folic aid, calcium, iron, and protein. High in quercetin, an antioxidant compound that help delay and slow the oxidate damage to cells and tissue of the body, onions help eliminate free radicals and regenerate vitamin E. Onions are used in preventative care against cancer³ breast, colon, ovarian, gastric, lung and bladder; cataracts; cardiovascular disease; osteoporosis⁴; coronary hearth disease; gastric ulcers; atherosclerosis; cardiovascular disease; heart attack; and stroke.⁵

Why poetry? Try roasting cipollini onions drizzled with a tinge of balsamic vinegar, red wine, honey, and olive oil; a pinch of sea salt and black pepper; and with sprigs of rosemary. Close your eyes, eat them, and try to describe the thoughts and feelings it brings to mind. Poetry might be appropriate. Onions not only taste divine but also speak loudly as metaphors; poetry is a wonderful way to set the cadence for the day – a fantastic combination. Here, let me share several of my favorite onion poems:

Ode To The Onion, Pablo Neruda

Onion,

luminous flask,

your beauty formed

petal by petal,

crystal scales expanded you

and in the secrecy of the dark earth

your belly grew round with dew.

Under the earth

the miracle

happened

and when your clumsy

green stem appeared,

and your leaves were born

like swords

in the garden,

the earth heaped up her power

showing your naked transparency,

and as the remote sea

in lifting the breasts of Aphrodite

duplicating the magnolia,

so did the earth

make you,

onion

clear as a planet

and destined

to shine,

constant constellation,

round rose of water,

upon

the table

of the poor.

You make us cry without hurting us.

I have praised everything that exists,

but to me, onion, you are

more beautiful than a bird

of dazzling feathers,

heavenly globe, platinum goblet,

unmoving dance

of the snowy anemone

and the fragrance of the earth lives

in your crystalline nature.

The Traveling Onion, Naomi Shihab Nye

When I think how far the onion has traveled

just to enter my stew today, I could kneel and praise

all small forgotten miracles,

crackly paper peeling on the drainboard,

pearly layers in smooth agreement,

the way knife enters onion

and onion falls apart on the chopping block,

a history revealed.

And I would never scold the onion

for causing tears.

It is right that tears fall

for something small and forgotten.

How at meal, we sit to eat,

commenting on texture of meat or herbal aroma

but never on the translucence of onion,

now limp, now divided,

or its traditionally honorable career:

For the sake of others,

disappear.

Excerpt from Fruits and Vegetables (1971), Erica Jong

I am thinking of the onion again, with its two O mouths, like the gaping holes in nobody. Of the outer skin, pinkish brown, peeled to reveal a greenish sphere, bald as a dead planet, glib

as glass, & an odor almost animal. I consider its ability to draw tears, its capacity for self-scrutiny, flaying itself away, layer on layer, in search of its heart which is simply another region of skin, but deeper &  greener. I remember Peer Gynt; I consider its sometimes double heart. Then I think of despair when the onion searches its soul & finds only its various skins; & I think of the dried tuft of roots leading nowhere & the parched umbilicus, lopped off in the garden. Not self-righteous like the proletarian potato, nor a siren like the apple. No show-off like the banana. But a modest, self-effacing vegetable, questioning, introspective, peeling itself away, or merely radiating halos like lake ripples. I consider it the eternal outsider, the middle child, the sad analysand  of the vegetable kingdom. Glorified only in France (other- wise silent sustainer of soups & stews), unloved for itself alone-no wonder it draws our tears! Then I think again how the outer peel resembles paper, how soul & skin merge into one, how each peeling strips bare a heart which in turn turns skin...

1 Rogers, Mara R. (1995) Onions: A Celebration of the Onion through Recipes, Lore, and History. Addison-Wesley Publishing Co.

2 Fell, Tanya J. Director of Public and Industry Relations, Onions Historically Healthy, National Onion Association, Greeley, CO as cited in Magic Valley Growers, About the Onion. Retrieved November 10, 2009 from http://www.magicvalleygrowers.com/history.html

3 Galeone, Carlotta, Claudio Pelucchi, Fabio Levi, Eva Negri, Silvia Franceschi, Renato Talamini, Attilio Giacosa & Carlo La Vecchia. (November 2006) Onion and garlic use and human cancer, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 84 (No. 5, 1027-1032) Retrieved November 10, 2009 from http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/abstract/84/5/1027

4 Science News. (April 11, 2005) Onion Compound May Help Fight Osteoporosis. Science Daily. Retrieved November 10, 2009 from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/04/050411112150.html

5 National Onion Association. (2008) Onions for your Health. Retrieved November 10, 2009 from http://www.onions-usa.org/about/healthy.php

American farmworkers

2009-10-21T11:05:00.007-07:00

Here is an article I wrote for UC Santa Cruz's Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food System's (CASFS) Community Supported Agriculture newsletter (9/7/09):

Labor Day is symbolic of summer’s end, a chance to travel, an excuse to grill. The holiday was created to celebrate ‘the strength and esprit de corps of the trade and labor organizations’ across the country and recognize the contributions of American workers to the strength, prosperity, freedom, and well-being of our country. [1]

In honor of Labor Day, I helped organize a trip to a mid-sized farm near Santa Cruz to work alongside trabajadores del campo – farmworkers. I appreciate the farm manager’s invitation to our farm apprentices to join the farmworkers for work, an opportunity many conventional growers might not have extended. This farm is exceptional because it offers hourly wages as opposed to piece-rate pay and practices organic growing methods.

As I picked strawberries, Marta[2] asked where I am from, how I traveled to Santa Cruz, how long my flight was, how much my ticket cost, and how I purchased it. When I asked Marta these same questions, she told me she is from a town near Oaxaca, México and came to California by plane, plus three days of walking, and finally by car. She is here picking berries, she said, because there is no other way to feed her family but she wants to return home soon.

Marta’s story is not uncommon. Seventy percent of agricultural workers in the United States are undocumented[3] and, consequently, are often anonymous and unprotected. Trabajadores del campo may be invisible but their work is crucial to American agriculture. They cut our country’s organic salad greens, pick Brussels sprouts, hoe broccoli fields, trim back raspberries, and package strawberries. While doing so, many hope to remain employed, be treated fairly, and live with their families.

Working alongside farmworkers for the day raised a set of provocative questions. This Labor Day leaves me wondering – Who and what does Labor Day celebrate? Can we be proud of the contributions American workers have made to the strength, prosperity, freedom, and well-being of our country if our farmworkers lack the protections that other laborers have won? Can we imagine and celebrate a Labor Day that appreciates the labors and contributions of farmworkers in this country and sees them as they are – American workers?

[1] The History of Labor Day. http://www.dol.gov/OPA/ABOUTDOL/LABORDAY.HTML. Retrieved 10 September 2009

[2] Pseudonym

[3] Based on industry estimates. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14509724&ft=1&f=5310549. Retrieved 12 September 2009

Farming as a motion picture

2009-09-23T21:29:00.027-07:00

Living on this farm often reminds me of living in a motion picture. It is a well done film, featuring a diverse set of people who create a community rooted in its shared passion for farming, gardening, and good food.

In this movie, I feel lucky to know the main characters.

There are 46 apprentices plus staff, summer students, and guests on the UCSC Farm and Garden, so there are always multiple scenes being shot at once. Sometimes there isn’t time to wipe our faces before the camera gets rolling. The public is invited anytime, whether or not we’ve made it to the outdoor sink to brush our teeth or taken time for a quick lunch. This is the kind of a movie where bloopers, outtakes, and raw footage are included in the finished product.

What’s farming to the average American? Words that come to mind might be dirt, sweat, hard labor, and early rising. As a kid who grew up in a city, my farm-themed Melmac plates led me to imagine farming as static: the cartoon horse drank from the same trough day and night. Farming, though, lends itself to a movie because it is about constant change. And as this change is occurring, sweat and hard work are located in a context of great beauty. Beautiful soil yields beautiful crops, roots are as striking as flowers; brown overalls are as stunning as black dresses. Farming is like a symphony, with each element contributing to the music. In this movie, the unglamorous is actually gorgeous.

The motion picture about the 2009 UCSC farm apprenticeship is almost at its last scene. The season will be ending and the credits will come up soon. This film of the imagined farming genre is one of many; other films like this are being made on farms around the world. As the farm apprentices graduate in October, we will go to other cities, towns, and farms and create new stories to share. I love this genre and am excited to watch the lives of my fellow apprentices continue to evolve after we disperse at the end of the growing season.

I may not farm for the rest of my life, but I will always be enamored by any story that features farmers. As the people who feed and take care of us and our land, farmers are the most beautiful workers among us, inside and out. In this picture that we are creating here, farmers are the celebrities who richly deserve the credibility and respect that honors their beautiful and complex contributions to our lives and their fundamental importance and in the world.

My love of seaweed

2009-05-25T21:56:00.032-07:00

Update: Added Sea Vegetable Miso Soup recipe below
Various types of seaweed, including Wakame (Alaria marginata), Dulse (Palmaria palmata), Nori (Porphyra perforata), Kombu (Laminaria dentigera) and Giant Kelp (Macrocystis pyrifera)

My love of seaweed began as a young child. I was often found munching on sheets of roasted nori, enveloped by the food pantry, green flakes scattered around me. I proclaimed seaweed my favorite food and dreamed about how to include it in every meal.

I remember when my mother visited my preschool for show-and-tell. She brought in jars filled with different varieties of seaweed and laid them out in the middle of our cross-legged circle on the floor. My mother explained that sea vegetables are plants that grow in the ocean. As we tasted each salty red, green, and brown seaweed, we learned that yes, they are edible and wow, they are delicious.

In second grade, I was chosen to read a poem aloud on the school loudspeaker. I was nervous because everyone – teachers, older students, and even the principal – would be listening to my voice. My poem was about what the world would look like if life were a parade, its floats made of edible mock duck and its confetti of seaweed.

Also in elementary school, my love of seaweed met with disdain. I was told I was eating “green paper” and so took a hiatus from including seaweed into my meals. My lunchbox was kept to a more normal peanut butter and jelly sandwich, granny smith, and juice box.

During high school summers, I returned to my favorite childhood food. I spent a week each summer assisting with field research on Roseate and Common Terms on Great Gull Island, off the coast of Niantic, Connecticut. Living without a refrigerator and with limited water brought in by boat from the mainland, researchers ate most meals from cans. In search of fresh food, I broke up the long, hot days of trapping terns and weighing chicks with dips in the Long Island Sound and seaweed harvests along the rocky shore.

Now post college, I continue to seek new ways to eat and harvest seaweed. I recently signed up to cook for the day at the farm – three meals for fifty farmers. On the menu for dinner was miso soup with green onions, tofu, fresh dulse, wakame, nori, and giant kelp. Matthew, Nicholas and I journeyed to the coast, just a few miles north of Santa Cruz.

We tried out various harvesting methods. We went in up to our waists dodging waves, cutting at the seaweed sandwiched between mussels along the rocks. We collected seaweed washed up on the beach tangled in the poisonous Feather Boa Kelp (Egregia menziesii), the only poisonous sea vegetable in the area. We bent over to harvest from the tops of rocks in tide pools, our last location where we had the most success. In the process, we made sure to harvest as sustainably as possible: leaving the mussels undisturbed; moving sites frequently as to take only a little from any given area; using clippers to allow the remnant attached to rocks to regrow; harvesting on a cooler day at low tide to minimize plant stress; collecting mostly from seaweed washed up on the shore; and taking only what we would use. In preparation for our harvest, we made sure to choose a site without agricultural water runoff.

This recent trip flooded me with nostalgia and reminded me of how my appreciation for seaweed has developed over the years. Seaweed remains one of my favorite foods perhaps because of its strong flavor, unique textures, and the nutrients it feeds my body. High in fiber, enzymes, nucleic acids, amino acids, and trace elements, seaweed is nourishment. Gram for gram, it has 20 times more minerals and vitamins than land vegetables or any other class of food (Cousens, 1992). In thinking about it, it makes sense that seaweed is part of my own life narrative and a part of our world’s cultural and culinary history since the beginning of humankind

Wakame (Alaria marginata) in tide pools just North of Santa Cruz

Giant Kelp (Macrocystis pyrifera) on the drying rack

Sea Vegetable Miso Soup
8 minutes total, serves two

Ingredients
4 cups water
1/3 cup miso
3 green onions (scallions), sliced
1 cup tofu, small cubes
1 cup any seaweed, soaked

Directions
Dissolve miso and seaweed in water overnight and leave in the refrigerator. This will rehydrate the seaweed (if dried) and allow you to cook the miso for less time, preserving its live cultures. Add the tofu and scallions. Cook and stir on low heat cook for a few minutes. Serve in a beautiful bowl and eat it warm.

Variations
Miso soup is often best prepared simply. As always in cooking, exact measurements and ingredients are subject to change. Leeks substitute well for scallions. Shitake mushrooms would be a good accompaniment to the soup, as would a teaspoon of diced ginger. Perhaps a dash of either tamari or sesame oil would go well. Such leftover as noodles or vegetables can always be added. Enjoy these ideas and any other inspiration and ingredients that come your way.

References:

Cousens, Gabriel (1992). Conscious eating. Patagonia, AZ: Essence Vision Books.

For more information on harvesting seaweed sustainably, see http://www.oceanvegetables.com/harvesting-seaweed.html

For more information on miso soup, check out http://www.wildfermentation.com/

Backyard chickens, homescale agriculture

2009-05-16T11:50:00.022-07:00

I continually seek to discover ways in which we are all farmers and growers in some capacity. No matter how spatially or climatically challenged or strapped for time and money we are, there are small things we do to connect us to our land and our food. These include windowsill herbs, fermented kimchee, homebrewed beer, a small patch of kale in our garden, a worm bin, or collecting mushrooms that grow in our neighborhoods.

The UCSC farm is one of the most inspiring places I’ve lived. There is a strong sense of place here. Things work well because of years of experimenting and reorganizing. There is rich biological diversity and much beauty in the landscape and small details of everyday life.

But equally inspiring is seeing people farming who do neither consider themselves farmers nor aspire to be farmers. A few friends in town – overworked graduate students in oceanography, planetary science, and geology – have just begun to raise chickens. They remind me that farming is not all or nothing. With a do-it-yourself attitude, it is possible for everyone, in one way or another, to practice homegrown agriculture.

Here’s what Kelsey writes about his household’s backyard chicken project:

Thanks, Vera for the opportunity to guest-blog. I would like to share a bit about my household's experiences thus far with urban chickens. First of all, chickens are incredibly easy to raise as maybe shouldn't be surprising given their widespread distribution among the peoples of the world. With a population of 24 billion and status as the world's most populous bird, they (and we) must be doing something well.

City chickens may seem like a huge can of worms, but in our small house and backyard we hope to keep everyone happy and healthy. We got the birds from a local farmer as 1-week olds and for their first week with us they lived in a large cardboard box in the living room. Now at the end of two weeks they have moved to a cardboard fortress in the garage, and at the end of a month they move a final time to the small red coop in the backyard.

As a first-time chicken herder, all you need is a bit of initial investment and some small space and then its smooth sailing. We visited the local feed store the same day we got the chickens and picked up: a big bag of food, wood shavings for the box, and a kit that included a heat lamp, feeder, and water container. The next week we designed and put together the coop mostly from scrap lumber. While chickens are not too picky, they need the backyard bunker to repel barbarian raccoons, cats, weasels, and dogs. I'll hopefully be able to write again further into the city-chicken experiment.

For More Information, check out:

Just Food’s Ninth Annual CSA in NYC 2009 Conference

2009-05-03T07:19:00.021-07:00

A couple months ago I attended Just Food’s 9^th annual CSA in NYC Conference, which took place in Manhattan, NY (3/8/09). Each year, the conference brings together over 100 Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) enthusiasts: regional growers, members, and community leaders to strengthen the city-to-farm connection in New York. The conference workshop and discussion topics included agricultural policy issues, farmland preservation, running a CSA, CSA best-practices, and preserving CSA bounty. Although this post is late and I am not currently living in area, my mind often wanders back to the amazing initiatives in New York that I plan on getting more involved with in the future. Here’s a taste of what I took away from the day at the Just Food conference.  

What is Community Supported Agriculture?

Like all forms of civic agriculture, Community Supported Agriculture fosters strong connections between growers and eaters. Food consumers (i.e., eaters) may become members of a local farm by purchasing a share before the start of the season. Through financial commitment, eaters provide a no-interest start up loan for producers.

Why should I join a CSA?

Without CSAs I could not be here. - Zaid Kurdeih at Norwich Meadows Farm (Norwich, NY)

Once you come out to the farm, to taste it, you feel it. Then you own it and you are the best spokespeople. - Black-dirt farmer and MacArthur “Genius Award” Winner, Cheryl Rogowski, of Rogowski Farm (Pine Island, NY) on CSA shareholders

The upfront support in Community Supported Agriculture allows farmers to concentrate on growing and harvesting instead of marketing, especially taxing in small-scale production (it costs around $600 to have a farmers market stand for one day in New York City). In return, eaters receive fresh local, organic produce throughout the harvest season. Community Supported Agriculture is important all over the United States, including the Northeast, where farms and farmland has been threatened by commercial development. Community Supported Agriculture links agriculture with community social and economic development.

How can I join Community Supported Agriculture in New York City?

For a full list of vegetable CSAs in New York City, check out the Just Food website, there are 22 neighborhoods served in Manhattan alone.

Is Community Supported Agriculture only for vegetables? What are other forms of Civic Agriculture?

The Expo at the CSA in NYC 2009 Conference exemplified the diversity in Community Supported Agriculture initiatives and types of civic agriculture. Based in the Hudson Valley, Winter Sun Farms partners with local farms to offer winter CSA shares – vegetables from the root cellar and frozen whole raspberries, strawberries, summer squash, and corn. 8 O’Clock Ranch in DeBalb Junction, NY offers monthly CSA deliveries of organically raised, dry-aged beef, lamb, and pork. Pure Indian Foods of Princeton Junction, NJ, makes and sells a grass-fed, organic ghee, or clarified butter used primarily in Indian foods and believed to stimulate digestive fire (or Angi) according to Aruyeda. In Ithaca, NY, Cayuga Pure Organics grows a variety of dry beans (i.e., pinto, black, soy, navy, red) and grains (i.e., spelt and hard red spring wheat) and sells to such restaurants as Moosewood Restaurant and Candle Café.

Local drinks can be produced civic minded as well. On the North Fork, Long Island, Castello de Borghese Vineyard and Winery and Martha Clara Vineyard each offers CSA memberships for local, sustainable wine. The Harlem Brewing Company, founded in 2000, produces boutique beer, Sugar Hill Golden Ale, inspired by Duke Ellington and his jazz standard, Take the A Train (To Sugar Hill). Harlem Brewing has yet to turn profit, but Celeste Beaty, saxophone player and founder, still donates 10 percent of the company’s income to charity, usually jazz organizations. An article in Uptown Flavor reports, “she once wanted to save the world… but now says she just wants to give everyone a beer.” I can’t argue, she’s working both.

Finally, carrying orders of civic-minded organic foods, Revolution Rickshaws provides fleets of human powered tricycle rickshaws. In 2008, City Harvest replaced one of its large trucks with three Revolution Rickshaw vans, now transporting over 23,000 pounds of food a month!

What advice did I gain from the conference as a young farmer?

[Farming] one of the most demanding things you’ll ever do, the most rewarding thing you’ll ever do. Go in with your eyes wide open. - Cheryl Rogowski with advice for young farmers

We are addicted to our land and taking care of it. It is a passion beyond passion… but it becomes a challenge when [working with] people who are not used to the physical labor, [farming] is not a romantic thing – Amy Hepworth of Hepworth Farm (Milton, NY)

Although brief, the CSA in NYC Conference illustrated how a lot of passion, persistence, and planning in conjunction with community can bring civic agriculture to life, even – actually, especially – in a big city such as New York.

Farm apprenticeship series: growing soil and people

2009-04-18T17:57:00.012-07:00

“Western way of learning: what is it? why? and how do you do it?

Native American way of learning: watch, listen, and do.”

-Lucy Parker, Yosemite Native American

We apprentices are here to serve as a roving band of horticulturalists, to help bring the garden into an Eden-like state. We will learn about the creation of magical ambiance out of a higher form of chaos; how to double dig deeply, to cover crops, and to grow not only food but also soil. We are being trained to be independent, self-directed actors through engagement in the three-dimensional world.

Many of these words I heard from Orin Martin, manager of the Alan Chadwick Garden. His morning lecture before our work session seems stream of consciousness, a reminder of why wheelbarrowing-filling, moving around piles of horse manure, and a sweaty brow is work to be proud of – because is has importance beyond its physical exertions and effects. I came to the UCSC Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food System because production is only important -- in the context of education.

The real test of work here is the health and the beauty of the crops. But the most important crop, Orin reminds us, is the crop of people produced. Through this harvest, the food on our plates, the number of teachers, leaders, and agricultural projects will increase exponentially, in quantity and quality alike. Good training begets good soil. Good soil begets good food. There is an old proverb, As the garden grows, so shall the gardener.

Some apprentices at UCSC arrive with fifteen or more years of experience on farms, orchards, or ranches. Others, such as me , have less hands-on experience, and in past lives were community organizers, film makers, chefs, or investment bankers. Orin’s morning instruction reminds that we are all beginners again. It is humbling to start fresh, side by side with other farmers in the same movement, learning how to rebuild our soil and fed our communities. He stops speaking abruptly, as I hear he does often. It’s time to begin a day of weedwacking, chopping, and clearing the garden for the season.

Farm apprenticeship series: UCSC farm and garden apprenticeship begins

2009-04-12T16:57:00.009-07:00

On Monday April 13th , I will begin my Apprenticeship in Ecological Horticulture at University of Santa Cruz’s Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems.

CASFS is a research, education, and public service program dedicated to ecological sustainability and social justice in the food and agriculture system. The Apprenticeship is six month and provides hand-on training in organic farming and gardening to forty apprentices each year. The program supports a 25-are farm and 2-acre Alan Chadwick garden for food and flowers. The program’s curriculum covers such topics as social management, composting, pest control, crop planning, irrigation, farm equipment, marketing techniques, and Community Supported Agriculture practices. Founded in 1967, the CASFS apprenticeship is one of the longest running and is internationally recognized.

I applied for the apprenticeship because it blends experiential learning with traditional classes, has both theoretical and practical instruction, and is local and international in its focus. I plan to use my training to support community agriculture development in urban and rural areas in the United States. I am looking forward to cooperative living that is part of the program. We will eat meals communally and many apprentices, including me, will live in tents on the farm (check out the CASFS Grow a Farmer Campaign to build tent cabins next year).

Although my access to computers will be more limited during the next six months, I will periodically write about my experiences, so stay turned!

Cows, colleges, and contentment

2009-04-07T20:40:00.011-07:00

I wrote another article for Civil Eats, this time for the City Slicker Eats Series about the transformation of the food system in my favorite town. I spent three-plus years in Northfield, Minnesota, the town that sparked my passion for communities and food justice. Though a 1,000 word-essay cannot do justice to the many initiatives and drivers of change in this town, I took this opportunity to illustrate an example of how small changes in small towns create exponential impacts on the whole system. Here is my post.

Farming the desert

2009-03-20T06:35:00.016-07:00

I wrote a post for Civil Eats' Young Farmers Series. It's entitled Farming the Desert and is about farmers in the Kunene Region of Namibia. You can read the post here.

Butternut squash bread: art and science in my kitchen

2009-03-08T17:35:00.011-07:00

My friend from college, Lindsey and I baked a squash cake for our housemate’s 23rd birthday. Team baking alongside others who also love trying new ingredients and combinations is a joy. Food making becomes an artful science and culinary experiment, and whether the end product tastes good or bad, the process is always informative and conclusive. However, experimental baking is practical only if you have the memory of an elephant or you write down what you’ve learned. My memory is sub-elephant and I have forgotten the ingredients we used. Since then I’ve been on a quest to recreate The Perfect Vegan Squash Cake.

Months later, Lindsey, Emma, and I created another squash cake, this time for a Food Truth event at Carleton. We danced around the kitchen and, with our ingredients, poured out an afternoon’s worth of creative energy. Atop with walnuts, our cake was artful but it had a strange rubbery, spongelike texture. A few more art-science-baking projects later, I succeeded and post the recipe on my blog so that we'll all know how to do it again. I do think know the world would be a better place with more squash bread.

This recipe was inspired by and partially adapted from the Post Punk Kitchen’s pumpkin bread. Bake and enjoy it. There are no dairy products or egg used. Besides being healthful, it is sweet, moist, and flavorful and you will like it. This squash bread recipe is dedicated to my mother, Susan who taught me the art of experimental cooking.

Believe-It-Or-Not Butternut Squash Bread

Ingredients

1 cup baked and mashed butternut squash
2 cups white spelt* flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 cup earth balance
1/2 cup grated carrot
1/3 cup coconut milk
1/2 cup chopped pecans

* Although spelt is my baking flour of choice, feel free to use another kind. It’s an ancient strain of wheat that traces back before less nutritious wheat hybrids were invented.

Directions
1. (Some hours or night before) Cut one small butternut squash into quarters and bake until a fork goes into it easily. When the squash is cool enough, scoop out the meat and mash it. Set aside one cup of squash meat for the bread. The rest, perhaps mixed with some cinnamon and maple syrup, can be enjoyed for dinner.
2. In a large bowl, stir together the spelt flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, nutmeg, and cinnamon.
3. In a separate bowl mix the butternut squash puree, oil, coconut milk together. Then add to dry mix until all of the flour is absorbed.
4. Pour into a greased 8” x 4” loaf pan (or alternatively 8” x 8” cake pan)
5. Fold in pecans, saving some to sprinkle over the top.
6. Bake for about an hour or until toothpick inserted in the center comes out cleanly.
7. Revel in your creation and share generously with friends.

Variations

Hooked on Believe-It-Or-Not Butternut Squash Bread, I've had a hard time motivating myself to bake anything else. Recently, I made one with agave nectar instead of refined sugar. The proportions between crystallized sugar:liquid sugar are generally 2:1. Instead of using pecans, I mixed chunks of Ida Red apples. Then, before putting it all into the oven, I placed apples slices and sprinkled cinnamon on top. The bread came out even moister and almost pudding like. I highly recommend trying this (especially the parts with the apples!) or anything else that sounds delicious to you.

Visiting Quail Hill Farm in the last weeks of winter

2009-03-06T06:38:00.028-08:00

There are several joys that came with going to East Hampton off-season when I made the trip to visit two friends from college -- waves crashing on the snowy shore, sanderlings weaving in and out alongside each other, and powder white sand dunes. Visiting Quail Hill Farm, the 30 acre 200 family CSA in Amagansett, where my friend Zach Hyman worked for a couple of seasons, is impressive as well.

There was almost a foot of snow on the ground, but the farm is a living organism with its own special vitality in the winter. I had met the head farmer, Scott Chaskey at the December 2008 Young Farmers Conference at the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture in Westchester County, NY. In addition to being the Quail Hill Preserve Manager, Scott’s business card identifies him as a poet farmer. Scott talks much like his writing -- lyrically and infused with his strong connection to and understanding of the land. He is the author of This Common Ground: Seasons on an Organic Farm, where he writes, “I have learned to cultivate crops and poetic meter but wild nature is parent to each.”

Scott speaks to us about his surprise and delight at the overwhelming response of applicants for an apprentice this year, the curious shift in applicants’ age, which is now up to 27 years, and how he maintains his life out of doors on the farm in addition to work in the office.

Like Scott, I, too, feel the pull towards the field. So we’re soon collecting afternoon eggs. The birds flock around us and peck at the snow on our caked boots. We’re then enveloped by the warmth of the greenhouse. Although covered in a thick round blanket of snow, the salad greens inside are alive, tender as ever. This is the first time our friend, Will, has harvested greens from the ground. No matter the age or background of the person, first harvesting experiences are magical and seem to almost emit sparks. Will says he’s doesn’t think he’s eaten a salad, a real salad. We graze the tender purple and white bok choys cilantro, rainbow chard, red Russian kale, red leaf lettuce, clayton, arugula, and mustard greens; we marvel at the magic of a winter hoophouse; and we go home to make lunch.

Vera's Quail Hill Inspired Salad:

-Use a variety of salad greens

-Add thinly cut pieces of carrots and/or beets for color

-Sprinkle pine nuts and cut up candied ginger on top.

-Using a blender to mix ingredients make a salad dressing.

-Try olive oil, balsamic vinegar, apple cider vinegar, lemon juice, honey, soy sauce, ginger puree, red chili garlic paste, sesame oil, roasted garlic, and roasted peanuts.

Grow girl! Women and agriculture

2009-02-25T09:39:00.023-08:00

On February 18, Northfield and Carleton Food Truth women gathered after dinner for a dessert potluck and discussion on women and agriculture. Students shared homemade fudge bars while community organizers, cooks, farmers, and mothers shared their views and experiences. What are the joys of farming as a woman? What are the challenges? What would you pass down to the next generation of farmers?

Women farmers are not so different from their male counterparts. They are strong farmers and hold a wealth of food and farm wisdom. These women are passionate about nourishing those around them and passionate about food. They describe nourishment from ‘hands in the soil to plate’ as a most rewarding life work.

The farming world, like the larger society, is not free of gender biases. Women have historically been less acknowledged and visible than men farmers. Further challenges have resulted from the growth of farm size in the United States because the importance of agricultural machinery has grown and continues to be engineered to fit men. It would be great if, in the future, machinery were tailored to fit women, as they do men.

Laurie Hougen-Eitzman of Big Woods Farm

Farming does not have to require big and expensive machinery. In fact very little machinery is necessary, depending on the type of farming you choose to do. Rae Rusnak, widow, mother, and farmer of L&R Poultry and Produce, stated at the Minnesota Sustainable Farming Association Annual Conference (2/21/08) that people of all shapes and forms can farm. It is true – different people will think about and approach farming differently but in the end, anyone can grow food and grow it well. There are many ways of farming -- with small hand tools and more human labor -- that can reinforce more sustainable practices and an even closer connection with the soil and our food.

Indeed, woman farmers are becoming prominent movers in our country’s agricultural revolution. The evening gathering ended with activism. We collectively wrote a letter urging Michelle Obama to make the creation of a more sustainable food system and White House Victory Garden a priority. This will signal our country’s potential to grow locally and change our food policy.

The evening was wonderful because it was intergenerational, a passing on insight from generation to generation, from woman to woman, from seasoned to aspiring farmer. Oral culture has and will always be a part of agriculture – it is the best way to capture the nuances and experiences that come along with working and living on the land. It also creates the sense of community that makes farming both an individual effort and collective enterprise.

Women Lead a Farming Revolution in Iowa

The Floridita eat-In: defending Manhattanville's soil and soul

2009-02-14T15:28:00.021-08:00

February 14, in the spirit of the holiday, I gathered with almost 200 local Manhattanville residents to eat and petition for the preservation of a cultural space and a family-owned community food establishment.

Floridita Restaurant and Tapas Bar has been serving Cuban Food in West Harlem, right next to the 125th Street Broadway subway, for over forty years. Floriditia is prized for its authenticity, personality, affordability, and for the unbeatable yuca, tostones con mojito, frijoles negros, y arroz con leche. The restaurant is part of the soul of Manhattanville, a largely minority, mixed-use community, in which I grew up.

The Eat-In was a joint effort of university students and the local community to show their love for the local eatery that contributes to the character, culture, and fare of the neighborhood. The Eat-In was a rally against Columbia’s plans to expand its Morningside Heights university real estate into Manhattanville. Stop by the neighborhood and support Floridita!

Columbia Spectator: Love, War, and Floridita

Coalition to Preserve Community

EAT-IN.org