I Heart Farms

Meder Street Farms, Redman House Farmstand

Friday morning, I took a breather from a design job and spent time with Logan, who'd spent the night. To distract him from the upset of his Poppy (Bob) leaving, I asked Logan if he'd like to visit a farm. He went straight to the door, jabbering all the things he jabbers when he knows we're going to a farm. I had hoped to visit Windmill Farms, and told Logan, "Maybe the farmer will have strawberries." He pointed his fingers into his open mouth, as if to say, "Put 'em here, woman, what are you waiting for?"

What's Wrong with This Picture?

The headline is exciting, to be sure. In today's Santa Cruz Sentinel, the top story is this: County crop values soar. It's great news: "Even though it’s the second smallest county in the state, Santa Cruz County crops were worth $450 million in 2004, giving the county the distinction of ranking among the top 20 most agriculturally viable and putting it on the same financial footing as such wine-making powerhouses as Napa and Sonoma."

But look closely at the photograph at the link I provided. Riding that tractor is a worker in a strawberry field, wearing protective gear while fumigating the rows....most likely with methyl bromide. (The photographs on this page are ones I took last week while driving around Watsonville with Logan. I was in shock at seeing the protective gear, I guess because I tend to ignore ugly conventional farms in my quest to find the pretty ones that are growing sustainably. I have a kind of blinders on, but this sight penetrated my myopia and stunned me enough to slow the car down to take a photograph.)

Now, I am not a purist about too very many things, but I will no longer buy or eat a berry that is not organic. (And neither should you.) If your own health doesn't matter that much, how about the health of the people who worked on a farm using nerve gas to grow those berries?

Saturday and Sunday Markets, and Some Happy Happenings

Wednesday wasn't enough. I had had to miss Thursday and Friday markets due to rain and work, so early on Saturday morning (early for us, that is), Logan and I headed to the Saturday farmers market at Cabrillo College. It's a pretty big market, with eight lines (four rows) of booths. I took no photos, as he was quite the little handful. We came home with some fabulous red-skinned potatoes with yellow flesh, aptly called Red Gold, that I later smashed up with truffle oil and a little sea salt (no pepper needed), and served with salmon and the squash I also got from the Thomases. Logan and I visited with Mike and Annaliese Keller at Malabar Trading Company, and she thoughtfully sent me home with two new tea blends (fancy Earl Grey and a fragrant apricot green tea that smells like a great choice for iced tea).

A Bit of the Market, a Few Thoughts

I got myself downtown on Wednesday, badly needing a dose of farms at the farmers market. We'd been to Reno for a couple of days, and I was jonesing for local produce.

'The Best Organic Tomatoes in the World'

I am on the mailing lists of dozens of companies and websites, subscribed to newsletters and bulletins of all kinds. Last night I got one from an importer of Italian foods who does business in a very attractive storefront in San Francisco.

The subject line is "The Best Organic Tomatoes in the World." I was puzzled and ultimately a little galled. A 700ml jar of these tomatoes, imported from Italy, costs $12 plus tax (add another 95 cents). When you factor in the energy it takes to ship them 7000 miles, that's another hidden cost (to the environment). Maybe it's worth it.

On the other hand, here in the San Francisco Bay are, we are surrounded by farms growing what surely must qualify as some of the best tomatoes in the world. Right here in my house, I can look into our back yard and see a dozen heirloom tomato plants, gearing up for the season with buds, flowers, and fruit. Some of these will make it into meals I cook: many will be eaten with nothing more than the barest touch of salt. A perfect tomato needs no improvement: I'm probably preaching to the choir when I say this.

Bobolink Dairy, and New Photos Added

NOTE: I have uploaded some new photos to the Farmers Market, New Visits to Small Farms, and the Glorious Food albums.

I haven't had a chance to write about Bobolink Dairy Farm, which I visited back East last month, but I want to direct you to a piece written by the young man who was our guide. Tse Wei Lim seemed to know so many things about all the cows, and I was surprised that he'd only been there three days. Jonathan had asked him to take us around, and told us that three of his interns were currently blogging. (I have not seen their blogs, nor met them, so I feel particularly fortunate to have met Tse Wei on our visit.)

"Green is good for the eyes." —Hans Christian Andersen

The Garden State? Who knew? The butt of many jokes about how awful it is (usually by New Yorkers, I believe), New Jersey's nickname, "The Garden State," meant little to me until I visited there at the end of May. It was wall-to-wall green, and the green extended to every road and highway we traveled throughout the Hudson Valley and the Berkshires, until we got into the big cities. Well, one big city (where the farms aren't), anyway. Unless you've lived in California for a while, so that the sameness of every day makes you hunger for a different kind of weather, you might not know what I am talking about.

The Valley Table: What a Wonderful Thing

I'm still traveling back East, and yesterday brought a wonderful discovery. Betsy and I drove up to Warwick, hoping to get some more cheese from Bobolink Dairy. Alas, they are closed on Tuesdays, so we contented ourselves with taking some more pictures of the cows.

We stopped in at the Warwick Valley Winery to do a tasting, and I loaded up with some pamphlets and a magazine about the local tourism. We also left with a bottle of their Black Dirt Red (for the label if nothing else), chardonnay, and a wonderful port for Pete. The young man who served us, Matt, brought over a newspaper clipping about a local farmer, Cheryl Rogowski, who'd won a 2004 MacArthur "Genius" grant: a $500,000 "no strings attached" fellowship. She is the first farmer ever to receive this award. (Story linked below). We didn't find her, though: I should have done more research.