Eat Mendocino is kind of like that game where you try to make a meal out of the random stuff left in your pantry when you’ve been procrastinating going to the grocery store. It’s also like when you’re backpacking and every bagged dehydrated cup of noodles meal is the best thing ever because you’re hungryContinue reading “Hunter’s thoughts”
Category Archives: Musings
preciousness and scarcity
One of the things I learned from this project last time is not to let preciousness trap us into scarcity. Open some special jars, right at the beginning. Make some favorite meals even though they’re more work. Do as much in advance as possible. Have food ready before you get too hungry. So far, sinceContinue reading “preciousness and scarcity”
Thanksgiving 2022
It’s Thanksgiving morning, and the table is full of thick slices of winter squash sitting on trays like fat golden half moons. They smell like cantaloupe. We are taking the squashes with dings and bruises that will not cure down for winter and roasting them into puree for the freezer, and juicing them for pumpkinContinue reading “Thanksgiving 2022”
What is Eat Mendocino?
This is a question I’ve been asked multiple times in the last couple of weeks of posting prepping process photos and that question alone shows me how much time has passed. A significant number of people I know and love now in the County weren’t around back then! Eat Mendocino is the name for aContinue reading “What is Eat Mendocino?”
seven weeks to go
The canner on the deck has been bubbling for days. In the rain the steam billows, and the hot jars sit on the wet wood, cooling and pinging. The top of the wood stove is clustered with warming jars. I like using the wood stove to warm clean jars, because the thickest part of theContinue reading “seven weeks to go”
About that book…
About that book… Dear readers, While I can hardly believe that over six years have gone by since we completed the Eat Mendocino project, in a way the experience has never been more alive or relevant as the world slows way down, stocks up on dry beans, and joins the great pandemic sourdough bread bake-off.Continue reading “About that book…”
The Solace of Food: 3 lessons from my year as a locavore
At the culmination of the year of eating local, I was invited to write a retrospective piece for a local magazine. Due to publishing delays, they invited me to share the article with you here. This article was written in January 2014. If you had asked me a year ago what I expected things toContinue reading “The Solace of Food: 3 lessons from my year as a locavore”
Fan mail: Thanks for the love. Plus, a big announcement…
It’s almost two weeks since the “end” of our project, and we’re still digesting the past twelve months. Gowan and I met for bacon bloody marys yesterday morning at Flow in Mendocino and it was the first time we’ve seen each other this year. We compared postpartum assimilation stories from the last two weeks (suchContinue reading “Fan mail: Thanks for the love. Plus, a big announcement…”
Baking pumpkin bread from scratch with mom’s recipe
Everyone wanted to know what we would eat when the year was over. We didn’t really know how to answer that question, or what to expect. The only way you can do something like what we’ve done is to give up on the alternative and stay singularly focused on the day and the meal directlyContinue reading “Baking pumpkin bread from scratch with mom’s recipe”
Day 365
The biggest feeling I have today is one of normality. Its not anti-climatic, this has been a big year with lots of small triumphs and major struggles. Its just that this year hasn’t been a process of working towards a goal or running out a clock. This isn’t the peak of a mountain, or ifContinue reading “Day 365”
Eat Mendocino 