I Heart Farms

Eighty Kinds of Pumpkins & Squash!

I met up with three farmers today out at High Ground Organics farm, next to the ramshackle Redman House in Watsonville. The occasion? Jerry Thomas's nephew, Steven Pedersen, had planted EIGHTY kinds of pumpkins and squashes on a pretty small piece of land—like an acre or less. The vines had gone nuts, some of them twenty feet away from where they'd been planted, and Steven and his assistant, Joanna Johnson, were out there to see if they could make order of chaos.

It was like trying to detangle three hundred garden hoses.

Fall Farm Art Show Benefit

Just a quick heads up for anyone who's going to be in Santa Cruz county on Sunday, November 5. Farmer Amy Courtney, pictured here, is throwing a party at Freewheelin' Farm. There will be live music, silk screening, food, drinks, and farm-inspired art and photographs (not mine).

DETAILS BELOW.

Whey to Go!

Thanks to Marcia Gagliardi at Tablehopper, I learned that my favorite city on earth has a new culinary institution: The Cheese School of San Francisco. What a fabulous idea!

(The photo here is a sample cheese platter at River Cafe & Cheese Shop, one of my clients here in Santa Cruz.)

Also, not about farms, but someone dear to me, Suvir Saran, earned a Michelin star for his restaurant in New York City: Dévi. If you want to have some of the best Indian food of your life, go there. Here are some photos I took last May. Executive chef Hemant Mathur, and his beautiful wife, Surbhi, present the most wonderful, inventive, delicious dishes. (She is the pastry chef. Try the Earl Grey Chai Panna Cotta.)

That's all for today: I'm swamped with life again.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: “I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read, and all the friends I want to see.“ — John Burroughs

Thanks for visiting.

Justin Severino Ought to Be Committed

...and he IS!

He's so committed to the humane and sustainable practices out at TLC Ranch that he gave up a position as executive chef at The Ol' Factory Cafe* (which I encourage you to boycott—see below) to open his own butcher shop.

I had the pleasure, again, of spending time with Justin at the ranch on Friday. He said he was taking the weekend to go up to Napa, but when I spoke to him this morning, he said he hadn't gone. Further evidence of commitment? He'd spent the weekend at TLC Ranch, learning how Jim Dunlop cares for his pigs, so that Justin can help care for them this week while Jim and Becky are off at Terra Madre in Italy.

"Hands in the Curds": More about Artisanal Cheesemaking

Yesterday was filled with coincidences that tied right into the discussion of what constitutes "artisanal" cheese.

Bob and I went with some friends out to Crystal Bay Farm, where CAFF was sponsoring a farm dinner with a roasted pig from TLC Ranch. I have worked with CAFF before—most of the photographs in their Eat Local Guide are mine. I love the organization.

Sitting at our table happened to be Anya Ferald, one of the program directors for CAFF. She is headed today to the Terra Madre consortium with ten Hmong refugee farmers from California.

Weighing in on "Artisanal": Part 1, The Cheesemakers

Pictured here: Andante Dairy cheeses at River Cafe & Cheese Shop in Santa Cruz.

Michael Ruhlman, respected food writer (and a favorite of mine), left a comment on my blog yesterday that was thought-provoking.

He said:

This is not exactly on topic, but Tana, would you give weigh in with a definition of an artisan farmer/producer, whether it be cheese or pork or beans?

I'm doing a local article about independent grocery stores that can and do source local products. To distinguish themselves from the Giant Eagles and Safeways, they often claim to bring artisan products in. A grocery store owner I talked to yesterday said his Carr Valley Cheddar from Wisconsin was just such a product. But when i called the company, they told me they do about 4000 pounds of cheese a day and have annual sales of $12 million. That's not artisan, to my mind. But they claim to have a branch of their company that works on experimental hand-crafted cheese. So maybe part of them is.

My question is, and I asked an artisan farmer this as well: how do you define artisan? Is there and actual number of pounds you produce beyond which you're not artisan? Obviously no exact figure. But what would you say? When you start moving beyond XX pounds of XX dairy product (or XX pounds meat product), you're no longer artisanal. Is Paul Bertolli no longer an artisanal sausage maker?

I did some research yesterday, and am tackling Michael's questions in three parts. The first post, today, will address what I know about cheesemaking.

The Artistic Farmer

The first time I met farmer Barry Koral of Koral's Tropical Fruit Farm was in May, 2005, when I visited the Sunday farmers market in the Hillcrest neighborhood of San Diego. (My old stomping grounds!) Not only did he have beautiful fruit, but his signs caught my eye as being both artistic and heartful.

I was in San Diego again at the beginning of the month, attending an Outstanding in the Field farm dinner at another farmer Barry's place: La Milpa Organica Farm, belonging to Barry Logan. My companions, Nikki and Koray, the newlyweds, took me to the farmers market again. I admit to being disappointed that the hand-lettered signs were not adorning Koral's booth, but that was the only blue note (and a minor one, at that).

I inquired about the absence of the signs, and met for the first time Barry's beautiful companion, Beate, who told me she'd being designing new signs (with a wealth of information) on her Macintosh. Barry told me that long before he was a farmer, he was (and is) an artist—he'd attended the Art Institute of Chicago, and had eight years of formal education. That intrigued me—being a calligrapher and artist myself—and I asked if I might visit.

My Mother, the Car-ol (Not about Farms)

No, this is not the happiest couple in the world: they're my parents on their wedding day in 1957. Despite the wedding being held in February, Andy loved to tell people they married on "Hitler's birthday." What a card.

Surviving my father—she left him a month before my third birthday—was just one of the things that made my mother realize her strengths. (Whoever says "Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger" is full of it. Sometimes whatever doesn't kill you makes you depressed, scared, angry, imprisoned, and just damned tired.)

The prognosis is guardedly good, and I have few facts at hand. She has a hereditary condition called "spinal stenosis," which is a narrowing of the spinal canal. It crowds the nerves that run down the spine, and my little sister, Kristen, described the intrusion of bones through her spinal column ss "two sharp nails pointing at each other in a garden hose, growing closer together every day."

My Mother, The Babe

Pictured here, my mother, Carol, at age 17. She has black hair and blue eyes, and in my mind, is a combo of Keely Smith and Elizabeth Taylor. The haircut she gave herself...remnants of Gina Lollobrigida. She was different, which in Georgia (as well I learned) can mean falling off the clear path to perfection. Not achieving a society's assumptions for you—did I mention she was a coloratura soprano?—can be deadly.

In Carol's case, she lost her gorgeous voice at college, which caused financial aid to dry up, so she had to turn to other directions.

If any of you have any inclination to say some prayers or send good thoughts tomorrow morning (Friday, October 13), my wonderful mother is having some difficult surgery on her neck/spine. They are repairing a hack job done a few years ago by a surgeon in Atlanta—the damage was so vast that recent X-rays caught it in time so she wouldn't be paralyzed for the rest of her life.

The surgery then was so difficult that they pretty much had her spine out of her body for eight hours. She, a Druid if anything, was in the worst pain imaginable, and clinging to life. Not a religious person, she saw her two youngest daughters standing on either side of her bed, holding hands and sending love and prayers her way. Once again—not a religious person, nor one to hallucinate, she saw a gold circle of light joining them and surrounding her.

She pulled through. She credits prayer.

Michael, You RUHLman

(The caption on the photograph is Rulhman-written.)

I knew this day would come.

Michael Ruhlman is blogging. (And he owes it all, well, a little molecule or two, to me.)

Why do I love Michael Ruhlman? Because he is a fine, fine writer with sensibilities I respect and with which I resonate. He supports the production of food that is both sustainably grown and humanely raised. Because he is ardent and articulate in his deconstruction of idiotic policies (like the ban of foie gras) that take the focus off the true atrocities in American agriculture and factory farming.

Whatever he turns his attention to is something worth knowing about: not just food, but his books on his house, the craftsmanship of making wooden boats, or saving children's lives (I admit I have not read it—I'm too squeamish, and especially about babies)...he is a thoughtful man.

Simultaneously, Ruhlman is not above a certain kind of King Henry VIII gluttony when confronted with the opportunity to do a faceplant in some pork belly confit—you can hear it on the podcast by Hungry Magazine. (Have some wine while you're listening...he does!) He seems to enjoy puncturing the veil of his choir-boy persona. (I knew guys like Michael Ruhlman in school...innocent faces, teacher's pets, and oh, could they instigate.)