I Heart Farms

"Bye, Bye, Miss American Pie": Laura Ellen Hopper, Rest in Peace

I was stunned and shocked and disbelieving when I logged onto the front page of the Santa Cruz Sentinel. These words could not be true: KPIG's founder and program director, Laura Ellen Hopper, dies at 57.

It's been some years since I've seen Laura Ellen, but every day of my life, I think of her, and her husband, Frank Caprista, because of the Benevolent Pig who gazes down in our living room, pictured here above. She's been hanging there since 1998, when Laura Ellen and Frank came to our house for a rare occasion: I was throwing myself a birthday party. They brought the pig for me, and we cleared away the spot of honor for this beautiful ceramic deity.

You may have heard of KPIG, but I don't know how far away you are, or how much you can appreciate a small independent radio station has stayed on the air, true to the vision of its founder, stalwart and stubborn and not taking nothin' off no one.

Joe Fish.

Pictured here, some of Rebecca King's sheep out at Deep Roots Ranch, where I took an out-of-state visitor who found me online. I had  written this up, below, and forgot to post until I read Shuna's post here.

Wednesday, May 24, 2007

The day after I gave Russ Parsons a tour of some local farms, I spent a second perfect day in the company of one Joe "Fish" Cangelosi (no kin to Ms. Shuna Fish Lydon herself), and am publicly announcing that I am having to resist the impulse to propose marriage to him. Who is this guy? I had no idea myself, except that back in February, I got an e-mail from someone introducing himself as an admirer of my work, saying he was contemplating moving to California from Manhattan, and wondered if I'd mind if he tagged along with me on a farm visit. Being the private person I am (you have no idea about the things I omit from my writing), I was a little nervous about saying "yes." But his good-natured and forthright writing style—and some photos of a very intelligent, very bright-eyed, very handsome face—convinced me it was okay, and so we put a plan into place.

All Good News!

Pictured here: flowers at the Thomas Family Farm booth at the west side Saturday market in Santa Cruz.

Good, good news, and fun stuff.

1. My trolling for an invitation to the Google cafeteria produced results! I'll let you know more as it develops.

2. Someone truly wonderful and supportive is going to finance the production of a farmers market calendar, and someone else truly wonderful is going to let me sell them at the farmers market(s). And someone else truly wonderful (my ex-husband) is going to distribute some for me, as well, in local bookstores. I'll probably have some available online with Paypal...I'll keep y'all informed.

3. I have accepted a four-month part-time position with a local multimedia company, working on an educational project. I love the people, love the work, love the office (full kitchen, full bathroom, lots of light, great location), and am so happy for the opportunity to contribute to such a cool and worthy project.

4. I'm headed out to milk a sheep. This is a first.

Have a great weekend: I'm trying my best.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: You can't have everything. Where would you put it?" — Steven Wright

Thanks for visiting.

Russ Parsons Is a Big Ol' Copycat!

Take that, Farmgirl Fare! Think you're the only one with access to adorable lambkins? Huh? I think not! (This little one belongs to Rebecca King: I visited the ranch yesterday with a friend.)

I have been luxuriating in several days off from my part-time job as a web consultant....and I had two perfect days in a row this week.

On Monday, writer Russ Parsons came to town, promoting the book I've been shoving into everyone's hands at the farmers market. I've enjoyed our small correspondence over the years, since I first met him at eGullet. Before they kicked me off, that is. (Hi, Jason Furlough! I owe it all to you!)

The Capitola Book Café contacted me several weeks ago, asking if I'd like to help promote some of the upcoming readings they were sponsoring, and I jumped at the chance to work with Russ's book, just because of the esteem in which I hold him. Knowing his own fondness for farms, I wrote to invite him on a tour of some of the farms I love. He accepted, and that's what we did on Monday.

Things to Read

This is the utterly and always beautiful Lindencroft Farm, in Ben Lomond. I visited briefly yesterday with Logan and his mama. What an anxiety-buster.

So today, catching up on my weblog reading, I have two recommendations for you.

First is Sam Breach over at Becks & Posh, who writes about her experiment pricing produce from Safeway versus the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market. Like many people, Sam was stung by Carlo Petrini's twisted statements about her beloved market, but she put her money, quite literally, where her mouth is. You will enjoy reading about her discoveries.

Secondly, our boy Michael Ruhlman has two brief and biting posts up, "NAIS: Support and Strengthen Factory Farms" and the other about the murdering vegans in Atlanta. Both are worth reading.

That's all for now: I am very busy all day, and that's why I'm still in my pajamas at 1:15, waiting for the laundry to dry! (Nice work if you can get it, huh?)

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: “When the farmer can sell directly to the consumer, it is a more active process. There's more contact. The consumer can know, who am I buying this from? What's their name? Do they have a face? Is the food they are selling coming out of Mexico with pesticides?” — Jerry Brown

Thanks for visiting!   

How to Pick a Peach by Russ Parson: Get This Book

I took my copy of How to Pick a Peach: The Search for Flavor from Farm to Table to the farmers market this morning, and probably sold twenty copies of it for Mr. Russ Parsons, its author. I think this is the best book I've read in a long time on any subject: that it is also a cookbook is just icing on the carrot cake. (No, there is no recipe for carrot cake in the book. That's fine: I prefer chocolate.)

You can sense the patience in Russ Parsons (he reminds me a bit of Michael Ruhlman): he carefully and flawlessly entertains and educates. That he reconstructs the timeline of industrialized agriculture in our country is logical and fascinating. At times, he's poetic, like when he contrasts the modern grocer's produce with "a perfect peach."

The agriculture business has gotten very good at keeping food as fresh as possible along the way, but there is no arguing with time.

As growers and marketers try to come up with ways to beat the aging process, one favorite technique is picking fruit earlier. To understand why they do this let's look at one surefire way to pick a perfect peach. All you have to do is go out in your backyard, find the one on the tree that is at the most perfect point of maturity and ripeness, pluck it gently from its branch, cradle it gingerly in your cupped hands and then walk quickly to your kitchen. Don't run—you might jostle it. A peach like this is a treasure, a taste to remember all your life.

The book is useful and beautiful: my favorite combination. The cross-referencing is brilliant. How to Pick a Peach opens with this dedication: "For all the farmers who work so hard so we cooks don't have to." Well, ya gotta love that.

Slow Food Responds, & I'm Still Not Satisfied

Pictured here: Eureka lemons from Betty Van Dyke, a living goddess farmer here in Santa Cruz, and I will be visiting her orchards again soon.

I got something in the mail last night from a Convivium leader, passed down from Erika Lesser, who stood to translate for Carlo Petrini at CUESA when some farmers/growers of the San Francisco Farmers Market were angered at the portrayal of their market in Petrini's fictionalized anecdotes in his just-released Slow Food Nation book.

I had, upon reading some excerpts at the Rancho Gordo blog, gotten pissed off. Then I read about the actual meeting at CUESA, which Steve Sando (aka Rancho Gordo) attended (and abruptly left), and I got more pissed off. (It'll pass.) The short story is that Carlo claims something was lost in the translation: the poetic nuances and wisdom of his vast and benevolent soul, no doubt. But the fact remains: SOMEONE wrote those words, and SOMEONE smeared the farmers...I'll print this again, because I want to drive it in just what lies these are [emphasis mine]:

Petrini wrote: "The former [of two farmers], with long hair and a plaid flannel shirt, held his lovely little blond-haired daughter in his arms and told me, in a conspiratorial tone, that he had to drive two hundred miles to come and sell in that market: he charged incredibly high prices for his squash, it was “a cinch,” in just two monthly visits he could earn more than enough to maintain his family and spend hours surfing on the beach."

1) While it is true that some people may drive 200 miles, those people would be inland, and not surfing at all. Santa Cruz is about 75 miles from San Francisco: the farthest coastal city, I believe, located on the CUESA map of farms. (How cool is that map?)

2. The "conspiratorial tone" really bothers me. It's a really ugly word, isn't it? Coming from a Latin word meaning "to breathe," it implies secrecy and evil...whispers of deceit or illegalities. Someone approved that word in conjunction with an organic farmer.

3. "In just two monthly visits": what a lie. The implication here is that this guy just casually gathers his crops (which magically grow themselves, because who wants to bend over and get dirty doing actual work?) and shows up for Gravy Train twice a month, bilking all the "actresses" (I wonder, do they all dress like this up in San Francisco?) who are prancing around with their "jewels" ("peppers, marrows, and apples"), and then laughing all the way to the bank.

The day after this scandal (and it is a scandal) broke, I received an invitation from Slow Food USA to attend an event in San Francisco. For $50, I could attend a festival featuring "top Italian indigenous & regional wines" and receive an "engraved wine glass" ("etched" is more likely). Well, I wrote them back immediately, pointing to Steve Sando's blog posts, saying this:

Slow Food has lost my membership, thanks to Mr. Carlo Petrini's remarks in his book, Slow Food Nation. (I was probably not going to renew it anyway, but his lies about the farmers were the last straw.)

Also, I do not support events or restaurants that feature all-Italian (or any all-imported) wine lists. That carbon footprint is unnecessary, especially given the abundance of wineries within 100 miles of San Francisco.

Ciao, Slow Food! (You could do it better without Petrini!)

Shortly thereafter, I received a response from Erika Lesser:

Dear Tana,

I am very sorry to hear that you were upset by Carlo's comments.  We are sorry to have lost you as a member.

Please know that it was absolutely not Carlo's or our intention to denigrate or attack the farmers of the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market. I hope that you will consider the range of Slow Food projects that the organization has created and sustained over the past twenty years as a testament to the deep admiration we feel for the farmers who grow sustainably and depend on the direct market economies of farmers markets, both in the United States and around the world. 

I appreciate your feedback about local wines, and agree that local sourcing is important. We would always be happy to welcome you back.

Slow regards,
Erika Lesser

At the Slow Food dinner I photographed last month, Heidi Schlecht (one of 1000 chefs around the world invited to attend the Terra Madre in Italy last October) said something really wonderful, but it's something I've never heard again from anyone in Slow Food...she said Petrini says that we shouldn't have all the importing and exporting, that each region should treasure its local farms and artisans. If that's true that he said it (and I believe her completely), then why all the folderol about bringing Italian wines to San Francisco? (I know, they taste good. So do California wines.)

Having said all that, here is the letter sent out by the head of Slow Food USA, Erika Lesser. I don't envy her position right now, having to do damage control about such a distorted account about some really good people. I have to think that SOMEONE needs to come clean, and say, "God, how awful that we let such things get printed: we didn't have any reason to doubt Carlo's words, because who would ever do such a thing? Gosh, we're sorry. Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa."

The Bee's Knees

Pictured here: a little visitor to the Live Oak farmers market that takes place on Sunday in Santa Cruz. The strawberry is from Windmill Farms, grown by Ronald Donkervoort.

I called my mother on Mother's Day and I was sorry to hear she'd been listening to one of the Gloom and Doomers, a.k.a. "Bible-ists" there in the Deep South....my brother-in-law had told her some bullpucky story about the Apocalypse and bees. He said Einstein said, "When the bees start to die, humanity will perish in four years."

This is why I don't like calling home.

Just kidding, Mom....but don't listen to them. (About anything, please.)

Russ Parsons, who can be trusted to get to the bottom of anything he sets his mind to, has written a piece for the L. A. Times: "Bees are going missing, yes, but the crops are just fine." He told me this morning that the Einstein quote had been debunked: there is no proof he ever said it.

Speaking of Russ, check out his new book (which I'm getting this morning): How to Pick a Peach: The Search for Flavor from Farm to Table.

I was supposed to be at the Cooking for Solutions events yesterday and today, on a press pass from the Monterey Bay Aquarium, but real life (and my part-time job) eclipsed it. I hate it when that happens, but hopefully the part-time gig will turn into something more permanent.

And that's all for today.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: "I have a rock garden. Last week three of them died." — Richard Diran

Or, as I say to the farmers: “You plant seeds. I bury them.”

Thanks for visiting!

"Surfing Farmer" to Carlo Petrini: "Whatevah!"

THIS POST IS AN EDITED VERSION OF ONE THAT APPEARED PREVIOUSLY.

Steve Sando, known as "Rancho Gordo" to his legion fans, wrote in more detail about the flap centering around Carlo Petrini, "President for Life" as Sando referred to him, of Slow Food International. Petrini fictionalized, in an unflattering and rather dishonest fashion, some farmers up at the Ferry Plaza market in his new book, Slow Food Nation (no Amazon link: I ain't pimpin' for Petrini). Over at his weblog, Rancho Gordo, Sando published the excerpt referring to a farmer who surfs: Petrini implied that it is the farmer's usurious pricing that allows him to work two weekends a month and surf the rest of the time. (What he was trying to accomplish with this fiction is really beyond me.)

Petrini wrote: "The former [of two farmers], with long hair and a plaid flannel shirt, held his lovely little blond-haired daughter in his arms and told me, in a conspiratorial tone, that he had to drive two hundred miles to come and sell in that market: he charged incredibly high prices for his squash, it was “a cinch,” in just two monthly visits he could earn more than enough to maintain his family and spend hours surfing on the beach."

UPDATE: May 17. I talked to "Surfing Farmer," who had left a comment in response to this statement by Petrini. Surfarmer was, at the time, able to laugh but was still a little bugged by it, because he's sort of well-known as being the surfing farmer up at the market in San Francisco. As he told someone on the phone, "Even if it's not me, people think it's me." But in hindsight, he asked that I remove the comments, which I admit I made worse with my own attempts at thumbing my nose to the person who would write such things about my friends who farm.

So I removed it, because as he further revealed to me, Surfarmer is about to announce his candidacy for President of the United States, and wants all evidence of his goofball sense of humor eradicated. Oh, if only Google would comply.

About Petrini's fiction, as I think of it: I could not understand how he who in his own words never finished college, could call farmers "dropouts." I left a comment on the Rancho Gordo blog:

The remark I found most offensive was about the "young dropouts-turned-farmers." Most of the farmers I know have college educations: many have graduate degrees. I would be willing to bet that Bay Area farmers are among the most educated in the world, if only because the University of Santa Cruz's farm apprentice program has been turning out organic farmers for forty years. Many of the graduates, of whom Surfarmer is one, stay close by—because the support is here. We do love our farmers, don't we?

I'm sure the maelstrom will continue when Steve Sando publishes his account of his meeting with Carlo Petrini at CUESA. I'm sure he will keep an eye on the situation.

And that is all for today.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: “I prefer fact to fiction.” — Richard Attenborough

Thanks for visiting.

Food "Movements"

Pictured here: a mother and her child peer at goats and sheep at a farm next to TLC Ranch, where I spent the afternoon on Wednesday. All photos in this post were taken at TLC Ranch on that tour.

I'd been invited, along with Ms. Christina Waters, whose coverage of food, wine, art, films, and more in Santa Cruz (and far beyond) is one of my more entertaining weekly reads. I hadn't been aware that it was a tour especially for families affiliated with the Weston A. Price Foundation. (If I'd known that, I wouldn't have brought beer to the picnic lunch.) There must have been twenty kids—the oldest of whom was eight, and with several toddlers in the crowd.

We walked over a mile, for three hours, looking at the littler pigs, the chickens, the roosts and boxes where they lay (children gathered eggs), and the whole tour culminated in one lusty, unmistakable display of the prowess of the biggest boar on the ranch, affectionately and accurately called "Assmaster," who took the opportunity to jump on a sow (pictured above, "dead center," so to speak) who hadn't realized just what "piggyback" really meant until that point. Yes, Mr. DeMille, he was ready for his close-up. I'm talking CLOSE UP: ten feet in front of the amazed crowd. "Daddy, what is THAT? What's he DOING?"

Ahem. Onward. (Christina, there were other comments I'm too chicken (ga-hilk) to post here, but I'll fill you in soon.)

For the record, the reddish guy on the right, who is touching a tree on both ends, is the boar in question.