Over the hills, through the fields, into a magical corn patch we went. The corn grew red and green and handmade fresh tortillas were served to us in the field between shucking and tossing! Thank you to our badass friends who grow real, beautiful food and invite us to partake in work parties that hardly feel like work at all. I went home with a belly full of tacos and local wine with the smell of bonfire in my hair. Another day in the good life.
Many thanks to everyone who helped us harvest the Oaxacan Green dent corn in Potter Valley on Saturday! We had 15 wonderful people from all over the county join us on a beautiful fall afternoon. Everyone was extremely helpful and we harvested about half of the Oaxacan Green corn. The Abenaki Calais flint corn did not produce so great, so we didn’t bother with it.
What better way to celebrate our right to choose non-GMO food than to harvest open-pollinated heirloom corn. Corn is one of the most widely planted GMO crops in this country. We have always been passionate about promoting non-GMO food and farming. In 2003/2004, Adam was an active campaigner for the successful “Yes on Measure H” campaign to ban GMO crop cultivation in Mendocino County. He has fond memories of collecting petition signatures and organizing his first fundraiser dinner! Although, while we can petition and vote…
We are in the final stretch of the year and when people ask how it’s going right now, my response is that these last three months may be the hardest yet, and on some levels I’m totally over it. It’s harvest season and, yes, food is abundantly available and we’ve gotten really good at sustaining ourselves. But, the life of a locavore isn’t simply about the season or the food supply.
Most of the things we do are relatively easy, such as these examples from the past week:
Overcoming my fear of canning and turning 30 pounds of tomatoes into sauce
Devising a fruit fly catcher to deal with the population boom due to the above
Making pickles & yogurt before the cucumbers and milk go bad
Figuring out how to extract salt from seawater
Finding the first wild mushrooms of the season
Even dealing with the “too many mothers” in our virtual kitchen who constantly assume that I am doing everything wrong and destined to get botulism.
Next week I’ll be harvesting bay nuts and corn and making corn tortillas from scratch with our friends at Mendocino Organics. As I’ve said many times before, no single undertaking is inherently difficult. Whatever we are making/doing usually just requires time, some basic equipment, and enough will to triumph over the lazies. I love making, foraging and problem-solving and this is all really fun (aside from the stress and fatigue) and I feel like a domestic ninja when things work out. Every single meal is an accomplishment, and the joy of working so hard for your survival is unparalleled.
The not-so-easy things:
The difficult part is integrating all of this into the rest of life and work, at a pace that is not built for living from scratch. Traveling for work last week I survived on nuts, cheese and apples for a few days when I didn’t have time to cook nor access to a kitchen. But it’s all doable, and with a little more planning and prep, I could have been well-fueled. Why wasn’t I? This gets to the core of it – I don’t want to. Not every day, not all the time. Not all by myself. And, I miss green tea and chocolate and tequila.
While living closer to the land and food has been tremendously grounding and empowering, it has also been isolating and lonely. When I signed up for this, I didn’t want to eat 3 meals a day by myself for 365 days. Community has been built through the project, but it has also been disruptive and alienating to have such an extreme diet that means I can’t eat at restaurants, meet people at a cafe for a hot beverage, or eat the food at a wedding or a birthday or go on a normal date. Sometimes I make dinner with/for other people, or bring my own food to group meals, but the food often feels like a barrier between me and the situation. It becomes the focus of conversation when sometimes I want to enjoy the warmth of other human bodies and connect about things beyond sustenance. I know, it’s also totally amazing to be so connected to food, and be talking about real food with people every day. That’s the point of this. On a more basic level, I am sick of cooking all the time, and I don’t always want to plan ahead or take so much responsibility for every darn thing I put in my mouth. Plus, I have been largely stranded in Mendocino for six months without a car, which makes connection and community exponentially more difficult in a rural area.
All said, limits are extremely revealing and the Eat Mendocino project (along with the near-death experience this year) has allowed me to take a big, deep look at my existence. And I think that all the “hard things” really come down to one hard thing, which is the hardest of all: being vulnerable. This year, more than ever before, has made me realize how much we need each other – as neighbors, friends, and links in the food chain. Communities were created around the food supply, and now, food exemplifies the disconnectedness of human society. We don’t need each other to survive. We don’t need to know where anything comes from, or where it ends up. We don’t need to plan ahead, we don’t need to get along. We can just go to the store and buy food from strangers. It’s convenient, and it’s cheap-ish, and it’s simple. But, the costs of our fossil-fueled culture of ease are enormous.
I watched this video today by one of my favorite speakers, Brené Brown, who has dedicated the last ten years to studying vulnerability. I want you to watch this video, all of you (and her other videos, they are fantastic). But, if you don’t here’s what she has to say about the ills of a society dominated by an avoidance of vulnerability:
“We numb vulnerability. Evidence of the numbing: We are the most addicted, we are the most medicated, obese and in-debt adult cohort in human history; we’re numbing. And this doesn’t even include busy-ness […] Because we just stay so busy that the truth of our lives can’t catch up.” – Brené Brown
I think she’s so right.
People often ask me, “What are your goals are with the project?” There is a compelling list of social, ecological, political and spiritual reasons behind our mammoth undertaking. But now, I simply say this:
My goal is for people to become more intimate with their food.
To me, it’s all about intimacy. Whatever this means, for whoever you are, wherever you are. It doesn’t have to mean eating local. It’s about slowing down and getting one giant step closer to your food, whether that means making dinner with your kids, cooking something from scratch for the first time, or buying too many strawberries or peaches and throwing some into the freezer to forget about them and rediscover them in a few months. It means doing something that you are afraid to do and not worrying about whether it works out, reading the labels and asking questions about the ingredients, or picking an apple from a tree. This is one thing we can do to un-numb ourselves.
To me, this greater intimacy is the direct path to awareness which ultimately leads to being more vulnerable in life, and with each other. On this path, how can we deal with our vulnerability, and lean into it (even when we’re tired, frustrated, or scared)? This is what Brené Brown advises:
1) Practice Gratitude
I have mad gratitude for every seed and hand that has fed me this year, and I will try to remember to say thank you daily – especially when I want to whine. I have never been so grateful for the gestures of others; there is simply no higher act of love than feeding me. Thank you to Sisterwife Elizabeth for making me this yummy dinner last week at the end of my big work trip. I would so marry you.
Elizabeth also shares some really good advice about How to remember the good in a recent blog post, which boils down to writing down the compliments that people give you. When I want to numb, I need to remember the incredible things that strangers have said to me about how we have inspired them to think differently about their food; there is truly no greater compliment.
2) Honor Ordinary
It’s true, we often overlook the ordinary, waiting for the next big thing. When we get closer to our food, and really stop to taste it, an apple becomes extraordinary. By turning off our monkeyminds to notice the ordinary beauty in the world (like this beautiful golden chanterelle we picked yesterday) we get closer to what is always right before us.
3) Fill Your Reservoir with Joy and Love
There are countless ways to fill up with the good stuff. Take the time to do that. For me, tonight, it was writing this post, and knowing some eyes out there would read it. Love to all. – S
In the words of Elizabeth, if there is only ONE THING that you are putting away for the winter, it should be tomatoes. Here’s her advice on how to get it done.
When I research recipes for preserving food, I find so many refined options. And by refined, I mean complicated. They call for a long list of ingredients and a zillion steps. While I appreciate that these exist, and that people exist who like to make them (people that I wish would feed me their delicious creations), I’m just not that kind of cook. I like to take 50 lbs of tomatoes and turn it into 10 quarts of sauce in 2 hours.
I believe that these complex recipes overwhelm many people, making them feel like they couldn’t possibly put up cans of food worth eating. To those people, I have some refreshing news: NONE OF THAT COMPLEXITY MATTERS. Sure, you still have to follow the rules to safely preserve the food, but what’s inside those jars doesn’t have to take hours to prepare.
The second installment by sisterwife Elizabeth, pictured here with me at the Mendocino County Fair this weekend. Because sometimes we are not in the kitchen and also, you are never too old to get your face/body painted.
Preserving Food, Part II: Can It!
Canning is not as hard as people think it is. It can be time consuming depending on what you’re making, but it’s not a difficult process. I didn’t even start canning by myself until this year, but I already feel like a natural.
Last time, I wrote about making pickles. To make those pickles shelf-stable, follow these simple directions. (Not short, but simple.) Note that some foods are not safe to process in a water bath and need to be done in a pressure canner to be shelf-stable. Always check a recipe (or three) to find out if what you want to make is appropriate for the water bath method.
You will need:
A big pot
A canning rack or something that fits in the bottom of your pot (a round roasting or cooling rack often works). This is to protect the jars from the bottom of the pot and reduce the possibility of them exploding.
Some Mason/canning jars (Ball, Kerr, Golden Harvest)
NEW canning lids (lids must be new or the seal might not form)
Rings to adhere the lid to the jar (can be old)
Jar tongs
Here’s how you do it. This applies to everything, not just pickles.
1) Prepare a water bath. Take your biggest pot and fill it so that the jars will be covered by at least 1 inch of water. Put the canning rack in the bottom, cover, and bring to a boil.
2) Put all your lids (not the rings) in a small saucepan with some water, and turn it to low heat. This loosens the rubber and helps form a better seal. These should sit in hot water for at least 10 minutes, but keep an eye on them – you don’t want them to boil.
3) While the water is heating up, prepare the pickles. Note that many recipes instruct you to first boil the jars – you certainly can do this, but as long as the jars are clean it’s not necessary since they’ll be boiled (and therefore sterilized) momentarily. (There is some wisdom to the idea that hot jars are less likely to crack/explode in a boiling water bath, but often by the time I take my jars out of the hot water and fill them, they’re cold before I put them back in anyway.)
4) Once the jars are filled with goods and you’ve added the brine (see Part I), use a chopstick to try to dislodge any air pockets. Add more brine if necessary.
5) Remove the lids from the saucepan (I have a little magnetic wand, but you can just drain them). VERY IMPORTANT: Before you put the lids on the jars, wipe the rims with a wet cloth. If there’s anything on the rim, it might prevent a seal. (Vinegar probably won’t mess it up, but sugar definitely will.)
6) Place the lids on the just-wiped-clean rims, add the rings, and tighten until they’re on pretty well but not so tight that your grandma couldn’t get them off.
7) Turn the heat on the water pot down so it stops boiling. This will help you not get burned.
8) Using jar tongs, gently place the jars in the pot. It’s okay if the jars touch, but you don’t want them to be so crowded that they won’t be able to move a little under the boiling water. If you have more jars to can than room in the pot, just do a second round.
9) Bring the heat back up to high, cover, and wait for it to boil again.
10) Once the water is boiling, set the timer. Some recipes will tell you 10 minutes, some 15, some 20 – I usually do pickles for 15, but you can do a quick Google search for whatever vegetable you used to check the recommended time. (Fruit and bigger jars take longer.)
11) When the time is up, remove the lid and turn off the heat. Leave the jars in there for 5-10 minutes (if you take them straight from boiling water to room temperature, the jars are more likely to break).
12) Remove the jars using tongs. I always line them up on a towel on my counter. Wait for the delightful “ping!” noise that tells you a jar has sealed. (This sound never gets old.)
13) A few hours later or the next day, press down on the tops of the jars. If they don’t bounce back, congratulations! You made shelf-stable food. Remove the rings and gently lift the jar off the counter a few inches by the edge of the lid just to make sure the seal is good. Store without the rings (so they don’t rust) in a cool, dark place. Conventional wisdom is that these are good for a year, but I’ve had 2-3 year old canned goods that were just fine. Always inspect newly opened jars with your eyes and nose when you open it. If it looks fine and smells fine, it’s fine. Do not open jars with bulging lids – this is a sign of botulism, which is very rare. This is a good resource for more on canning and food safety.
14) If the lids do pop back when you press down, it’s ok! Just stick them in the fridge. There are many reasons a seal might not form, and none of them means the food is bad.
If you have jars that break during the water bath, that’s a bummer but it’s not the end of the world. It happens sometimes, usually due to a scratch or other imperfection in the glass. It’s only ever happened to me once. All the other jars of food are still perfectly good, so remove them, let the rest of it cool, and then deal with it like you would any broken glass.
This might seem like a lot, and at first it IS a lot. Think of it like playing Risk or Settlers of Cataan or some other complicated board game. The first time, it’s better to play with someone who’s done it before. But after a few times, you know exactly how to play and probably even feel comfortable teaching others. Also like a board game, canning is a lot better with friends.
I’m happy to answer any questions you might have, and if you live in Mendocino county, come over any time for a lesson. I’ll also be teaching a canning class in Ukiah in September.
The recipe below was graciously provided by my canning mentor and sisterwife Elizabeth, also author of the My Ukiah blog. I have been making another version of this recipe which involves lacto-fermenting the pickles before putting them in the refrigerator. Will share that soon. But for now, let’s start with the most basic of the basics (which is great if you’re afraid of canning, like I am).
Preserving food doesn’t have to be hard. I recommend starting with pickles because:
1) They’re easy to prepare and hard to screw up
2) The brine is mostly vinegar so acid isn’t a problem
3) They’re delicious
4) You can pickle everything
First, pick your recipe. There are a million books and websites to choose from. The most important thing from a food safety perspective is having enough acid in there to prevent bacteria from growing, which is not a problem given that pickles are packed in brine. For non-pickle preserving, most fruits are naturally acidic enough, though surprisingly tomatoes are not. This is a pretty simple fix and most recipes tell you to add lemon juice.
Right now I have jars of pickled zucchini, carrots, beets, radishes, eggs, and yes, cucumbers in my fridge. You can skip the canning process by putting pickles right in your fridge. They don’t last as long and they aren’t great for carrots which benefit from being cooked, but they’re ideal for zucchini which do not like the heat (key ingredient when pickling zucchini: cumin). It also make for an extra crunchy cucumber pickle.
There are lots of variations on pickles, but here’s a basic recipe:
Whatever vegetable you’re pickling (or fruit, though I’ve made enough gross pickled fruit to shy away from it at this point)
Apple cider vinegar and water in a 1:1.25 ratio (many recipes call for 1:1 – it’s up to you).
About 1 tsp salt for every cup of vinegar. (Most recipes call for canning salt but I always use sea salt. Also, some call for up to 1 TBSP/cup, so use more if you like saltier foods.)
Whole peeled garlic cloves
A mixed pickling spice or any combination of bay leaves, mustard seeds, whole black peppercorns, whole allspice, coriander seeds, and dill seeds. (For sweeter pickles, you can also use cinnamon sticks and whole cloves, and add 1/3 C sugar to the brine for every 1 C vinegar, or more if you like really sweet things.) (NOTE: California laurel is a lot stronger than standard culinary bay, so use 1/3 to ½ of a leaf in each jar instead of a whole one.)
Combine the water, vinegar, and salt in a pot and bring to a simmer. Cut your vegetables however you want them (slices or spears, or even whole). Drop 1-2 cloves garlic plus the spices you want in the bottom of clean ½ pint, pint, or quart jars (I usually use pints and use 5-6 peppercorns, part of a bay leaf, and sprinklings of everything else). Pack your veggies in, including thin slices of onion if desired. Sometimes it’s easier to lay your jars on their sides and pack them horizontally. You want to leave about ½ inch of clearance between the top of your veggies and the top of the jar.
Once your jars are filled, pour the hot brine over them, leaving ¼ inch headspace at the top of the jar. I use a wide-mouth funnel so I don’t spill, but you could also transfer the brine to anything with a pour spout.
Assuming these are refrigerator pickles, close them up with a lid and a ring and stick them in the fridge. Most pickles will be ready in 24 hours, but will continue to get better after a few days.
In the interest of CYA/safety, most recipes say pickles only keep for about a week in the fridge. That is ludicrous! Some pickles will keep for months. If you find that your pickles are getting too strong, simply dump out half the brine and replace it with water. (Same goes if it’s too salty.)
Tune in for Part II on how to actually can these suckers.
How August did fly! Summer’s trials are the inverse of winter’s; instead of putting all of our energy into searching for food, you must deal with the overwhelming abundance of fruit, cucumbers, squash and tomatoes. I learned how to do a bunch of new things, out of middle-of-the-night fear that anything would rot in my home. I made fruit leather, compote out of every kind of dangerously ripe fruit I could get my hands on, lots of pie, fermented pickles, fermented beets, zucchini chips, gallons of goat milk yogurt, and shoved a bunch of stuff in the freezer. Yet, things did go bad, and I feel the weight of every un-canned tomato and un-pickled cucumber in my bones. When I don’t have time to process things, I frantically try to consume everything. Waste feels sinful when I think of last winter… I’ve been eating an entire melon every day and feel like a little sugarplum fairy. We are certainly putting on our winter coats for the sparer days ahead.
On the last day of the month, I celebrated my 30th birthday in the best possible way; by someone else doing the cooking! Nicholas Petti agreed to be the chef du jour and hosted my birthday dinner party at the Mendo Bistro. This has long been my favorite place to dine out on the coast, and truly, there is no better man for the job. The event required a week of collaboration and shuttling ingredients his way, including salt, apple cider vinegar, olive oil and goat milk. We met at the Mendocino Farmers’ Market the day before to shop for the produce and make some final decisions. A few days before, I actually felt guilty about putting someone else through all this work, and wondered if I should have just cooked the meal myself. Then I realized that I don’t even have a dining table, nor enough plates to feed ten people. And, that I wouldn’t have to do the dishes. Plus, that Nicholas is a CHEF and this is what he loves to do. So I decided to let it happen and enjoy. It certainly was five courses of love.
My parents arrived that afternoon, and I wanted to put them right to work in true locavore style. My mom insisted that we open presents first, and then we moved all the wrapping paper out of the way to make two batches of fermented pickles, chop fruit for a peach-berry compote and make lavender goat milk ice-cream for birthday dessert. Of course I wore my new red apron and sassy birthday hat all the while.
Birthday Menu
Broccoli Soup, Broccoli Carpaccio
Roasted Carrots, Carrot-Honeycomb Puree, Carrot Chips, Carrot Top Agrodolce
Zucchini pasta and Meatball
Roasted Beets, Grilled Kale, Feta Dressing, Beet Top Pesto
Turning 30 doesn’t feel particularly significant, but it was a wonderful and delicious day. Click below to view a slideshow of the day in pictures.
Shopping at the Farmers’ Market
Chef Nicholas Petti
birthday gift from my brilliant and talented sister-wife Gowan! love love love
I may appear pretty domestic, but my bday hat has the f-bomb on it. Because my mama knows me well.
The locavore’s parents, bearing pomegranates from their tree
When you have this much fruit, you have to make fruit compote to top your ice cream.
Making lavender infused ice cream with milk from Gowan’s goats for bday dinner
The menu
Broccoli Soup & Broccoli Carpaccio
Pops & Elizabeth
Navarro Pino
Amaing carrot dish. Never enjoyed carrot tops before!
Zucchini pasta with meatball using pork from Inland Ranch Organics
One of the favorite dishes. Roasted beets (grown by Farm O’Copia), grilled kale, feta dressing (made with Shamrock Artisan Goat Cheese Feta), beet top pesto
Plate-lickin’ good. Ezibath baked the epic cake, so she can do whatever she wants at the dinner table.
Truly, I have missed all of you. I needed a little break after July’s blog-a-thon so I spent a couple days alternatively doing a deep clean of my apartment and watching the entire season of Firefly. And now I feel so behind; it’s amazing how much can happen in just a couple of days in the adventures of a locavore.
Over the weekend it was verified that I have to spend a lot more time with goat udders before I am going to be able to coax milk out of them. It was also confirmed that taking the goats on a walk to pick blackberries is super fun and wonderfully symbiotic: they browse on the thorny leaves while the humanfolk go for the sweet fruits.
Yesterday I met up with sisterwife Melinda in the Anderson Valley to make a series of stops for milk, butter, plums, apples, walnuts and corn and a little wine tasting at Goldeneye.
As we were heading to the river for a sunny dip before return, Melinda suddenly says, “Our day just got more complicated,” and she looks into the rearview mirror and pulls over to turn the car around.
I assumed we had a cop on our tail. Nope, I should have known better; the “emergency” was an elderberry bush on the side of the road and obviously we couldn’t just drive past such an opportunity. We dug out a cardboard box from underneath glittery high heels and feathered boas in the backseat of the burlesque-mobile to do some impromptu gathering.
With this haul of elderberries, I will be making elderberry syrup and drying some for tea (recipes forthcoming). A cautionary note on elderberries: eating large amounts raw is very dangerous because they contain high levels of cyanide. So snack on a few while picking and cook the rest before enjoying. The most surprising roadside treasure is yet to come, though.
Today while I was walking my dog in downtown Mendocino, I saw a check laying on the side of the road. It was written for a very, very, very large sum of money, but unfortunately not made out to me. Sigh. I picked it up like any benevolent neighbor would (with the theme song of Firefly playing in my head). When I got home I tracked down the number of it’s rightful owner and called to let them know it was in good hands. It’s a small town, but I didn’t know the guy. I explained that I was the eat local girl and he recognized me from my article in the Real Estate Magazine. He said he had picked it up at the Navarro Store and once he started reading it, he sat down to read the whole thing there. Turns out that he and his partner have been growing a lot of food in Comptche for decades and they have everything from veggies to apples, peaches and AVOCADOS right now. I told him he could feel free to bring me some of this goodness, and he said, “I owe you one, I’m going to bring you food for a month.” So, I picked up a lost check and didn’t strike it rich, but I’m going to get local avocados, which is basically the same thing.
I must be doing something right, because I got the best mail today. After a long, full day at the farmers’ market, I went by the post office to mail something and was surprised to find two packages awaiting me. When I opened them, this is what I found:
The first package held some hand-sewn cloth “pockets” which are like an apron/fanny pack combo. Our lovely graphic designer, Jen Barbato, came up with this signature design when she became a mom and needed more places to put things. She sewed a custom jar with a heart on this pair for me. Love love. Jen says that these pockets are for “mothers, artists, gardeners, travelers and do-ers,” and she makes them in pretty patterned prints, or solid colors. I’m infamous for rocking an AARP look by wearing my fitover sunglasses and a fanny pack and some of my friends will be much relieved when I sport these adorable pockets instead. Here’s a better look.
The second package came from Chico, mailed by a friend and Mendocino native, Isa. (Funny how we’ve swapped hometowns!) She send an issue of the Edible Shasta Butte magazine, pointing me to an article about the Chico Seed Lending Library. Very cool concept which allows people to borrow and return seeds from the Butte County Library!
“Here’s how it will work. Home gardeners check out donated seeds, plant them, let some plants go to seed, and return the seeds to the library collection. No obligation, no fines – just opportunity.”
How awesome is that? We have a few great seed and scion exchanges around the county every year, but it would be wonderful to extend the concept into an organized library, available year-round. So many good ideas… but, a locavore’s got to make time to mop the floor and fold the laundry, too (which is exactly what I decided to forgo all other plans to do.) While flipping through the rest of the magazine, I found this poignant quote, which was photographed at a local dairy farm.
Then, my email inbox dinged. A friend forwarded me a message about a very clever online Farmers’ Market Recipe Generator from the New York Times.
“The Recipe Generator is essentially a one-armed bandit of ingredients and techniques, offering more than 50 combinations of things you’re most likely to find in a market or your C.S.A. basket, with recipes that make wonderful use of them.” – NYT
You start by choosing your produce item, or cooking method, or herbs, and it will concoct a recipe accordingly. Or you can select “randomize” and it will do all the thinking for you. It’s really fun to play with, check it out!
Seems to me that all of these little surprises are the law of attraction at work. The deeper we get into this year, the more good news seems to arrive on our door steps. Food connects all of us, so by getting closer to our food, we are getting closer to each other. When these little packages show up, or when strangers introduce themselves at the market just to let me know that they have been seriously moved by what we are doing, it is a concrete reminder that we are operating within the universal vein. And, when you tap into that, abundance is the law.
Tonight culminates the end of the seventh month, and marks the end of my daily blog challenge. I wrote almost every day in July and as a result I haven’t been to bed before midnight all month. But, it has definitely been worth it, and the writing will not stop here. Hopefully Gowan will trade off so that I can get some more sleep, like taking turns to check on the baby at night.
During the past month, our project has transformed into something much bigger than I could have predicted thirty-one days ago. I am tired, but I am filled with gratitude and awe at how this eating local project has unfolded…
10 things I am really, really grateful for:
1. Farmers
Bottom line, you are keeping us alive. The farmers in Mendocino County also tend to be the most radical, stubborn, soulful and loving of their breed. Thank you for feeding us, hugging us, inspiring us, and making us laugh.
2. The Seasons
Living so much in the moment means being entirely present with the flavors, smells and textures of each season. The conventional diet literally prevents us from tasting time. Summer feels like a honeymoon and the first few months of this year now seem like a distant Soviet past. But, each season yields many lessons and many gifts.
3. The SF Chronicle
The recent article in the SF Chronicle, flawed as it was, has stimulated a spirited and essential discussion about access to local food in our county. Unfortunately, it grossly misrepresented both the family it focused on and the entire county. Yet, it gave us the opportunity to contribute to a conversation that has reached people all over the country and beyond. Most importantly, it has hit home here in Mendocino. Today, the woman profiled in the article, Irma Barragan, invited us to interview her so that we can tell her real story. It is an honor to be a voice for this community, and the second largest newspaper in California helped broadcast our voice beyond our imaginings.
4. Living (and drinking) in a small town
This is what happens when a small-town locavore orders a drink…
Me: Can I get a glass of Mendocino red wine?
Bartender Alex: Yup, I’ve got Zinzilla.
Me: Are you sure that’s local?
Alex: Sarah, I know what you’re up to and I’m NOT going to F— it up for you
5. The Mendocino Farmers’ Market
Managing the Mendocino Farmers’ Market has been a lifechanging endeavor (which got much better once I hired someone to help with the signs). I am grateful to hang with the vendors (all of them are total characters) and community members each week. It’s an honor to be part of an essential link in the local food system, and to help it grow. Plus, grocery shopping at the Farmers’ Market is the best.
6. The MTA bus drivers
As a bus-pass carrying rider, I am grateful for the bus drivers who act more like chauffeurs and know their riders by name. The bus schedule in a rural area is severely limited and inefficient, but I have to be grateful that it exists at all.
7. The freezer
Thank you to my freezer for saving me from the guilt of fruit gone bad. Part of seasonality is sudden bounty, which doesn’t coincide with one’s schedule. And, most likely I will forget about 1/2 of what I put in there, so I’ll be in for some sweet summer treats when I dig them out in the winter.
8. My sisterwife Gowan
Thank you for having this visionary idea and for entering into an extremely intense, intimate, and all-consuming endeavor with me. Thank you for your calculated pragmatism, Germanic efficiency, and fiercely beating heart. I love every meal we share together and every crazy idea we dream up.
9. Everyone who made it this far in the list
Seriously, thanks to all of you who actually want to read what we have to say. In other circumstances, it would be creepy how many people introduce themselves by saying, “I’m following you,” but it is a huge compliment that you share your time with us. Thanks for all the ‘likes,’ comments and support. We love you.
10. Bacon
Tonight we ate bacon for the first time in seven months thanks to Adam & Paula Gaska from Mendocino Organics. It was a very special occasion; I am pretty sure we both have bacon-sized holes in our mighty little hearts. Thank you to the land and pigs that make bacon – and happiness – possible.
Today I found out that we actually got the ear of the much discussed SF Chronicle writer, and she published a response to readers regarding her story, which includes a direct link to our post. I’m not going to comment on her calculated response; I have said enough!
I do want to invite you to have dinner with us. It’s about time that we did this. We are hosting a community potluck and everyone is invited to break bread with us. We will also discuss the upcoming Farm to Table Dinner at the end of August,, so if you’d like to volunteer it would be wonderful to have you there. Pick something up at the Farmers’ Market, or bring something from your garden. Be sure to check out the rules, so that your dish is “legal.”
We will have local sea salt, herbs, chili pepper, olive oil and apple cider vinegar on hand in case you need some help in the flavor department. This will be a casual event with good food, good people, and possibly a trouble-making baby goat. Families are welcome!
What better way to celebrate our right to choose non-GMO food than to harvest open-pollinated heirloom corn. Corn is one of the most widely planted GMO crops in this country. We have always been passionate about promoting non-GMO food and farming. In 2003/2004, Adam was an active campaigner for the successful “Yes on Measure H” campaign to ban GMO crop cultivation in Mendocino County. He has fond memories of collecting petition signatures and organizing his first fundraiser dinner! Although, while we can petition and vote…
Eat Mendocino 