I Heart Synchronicity

Pictured here: some of the exquisite bouquets from Blue Heron Farm, yesterday at the downtown Santa Cruz farmers market.

A few days ago, I took my laptop to the Saturday west side farmers market, to show some friends photos that will be in the calendar. I noticed Todd Smith, who usually works the Frog Hollow Farm prepared foods booth, surrounded by a whole lot of shiny new stainless steel, in the form of a gleaming new coffee cart.

And speaking of gleaming, how's that for a bright smile? He's only 23, and he has started a new business that everybody's pretty excited about. "Shady Todd's Coffee Company" will be at all three Santa Cruz farmers markets, offering tea and coffee to shoppers. But it's not just tea and coffee. (And frankly, don't you think he should call it "Steamy Todd's"? All the girls at the market think so.)

Todd wrote me: "After getting into the coffee world we realized that finding a organic, shade grown, fair trade coffee beans that also tasted great was harder than we thought. So with the help of Pacific Espresso Co. we are developing the produce that promotes organic, shade-grown fair trade coffee. As of now all of our coffee is organic as well as our teas and most carry a fair trade cert or is a direct relationship coffee beans. Although there are a number of noble certifications that exist, there is not one that encompasses all social, econonical and political causes that Shady Todd's Coffee Co. would like to represent. So we are in the process of developing the product that we will carry [with Pacific Coffee Company]."

Todd's well-attuned to the plight of the farmer "getting the raw end of the deal," as he said: his uncle is "Farmer Al" Courchesne (pronounced "cor-SHANE") of Frog Hollow Farm, pictured here at the same market downtown.

Al's wife, Rebecca (a gifted pastry goddess) is Todd's aunt. And who is Todd's sister, the very beautiful Miranda, marrying in September? That would be Mr. Joe Schirmer of Dirty Girl Produce, who ain't takin' those sunglasses off for nobody.

Not being a coffee drinker myself (I have probably two cups a year, and usually regret them—coffee makes me feel like I'm being tailgated at my own desk), I asked about the tea. I told him, "I love tea, but I don't want to drink it out of paper cups."

"You shouldn't have to. I got some nice porcelain cups, and people can take them to the tables with their breakfast." (Photos of cups to come. I saw them: they're cute.)

I asked what kind of tea he's going to sell, and he said they're still working on that. So I told him I'd do a little research and see what I could find...organic...fair trade...you get the idea.

A couple of days later, I got a short email from a Dave Smith (two Smiths!) saying simply:

Hi Tana,

You share my love of small farms and farmers. Great to discover your site. I think you'll like ours also.

Dave Smith
OrganicToBe.org

I clicked on the link and glanced at the name and faces of the team blogging at OrganicToBe, and to identify the man who'd written me. Well, one look at his face, and I fell in love. (I do that, readily and easily.) What bright eyes! What a great smile!

Then I got intrigued, and then I got a little nosier. What I found out the DOH! hard way is that this Smith was once part of Smith & Hawken. Doh!

I recognized another face in the group: Greg Atkinson had escorted Marion Cunningham to a dinner I'd photographed a few years back, in honor of Alice Waters at (cue the spooky music) Frog Hollow Farm (see above: Al Courchesne, Todd Smith).

Dave and I had a flurry of short e-mails, and found ourselves resonating over anything and everything. I loved what he said:"I don't know if you've skimmed my book, but I use organic farmers as our models for how to live and work and call them Creative Action Heroes."

And then he sent me a link to a blog he'd been doing before OrganicToBe: MulliganStew. (For those too young to be familiar with hobo culture, "mulligan stew" is pretty much "anything goes": whatever was available, went into the pot.) This is the post I read first, and I loved it. And then...well, you know how you just click something and BOOM?

Look what appeared in front of my eyes.

Organic, biodynamic, fair-trade tea.

Yoo hoo, Toddddddd?

Anyway, life is full of that kind of wondrous thing right now: I am very clear about my purpose in life (matchmaking, hooking up, finding, resourcing—all related to good people and good things).

• • • • • • • • • • •

One more tidbit to leave you with: there was a great article in last week's Santa Cruz Sentinel about Severino's Community Butcher, and it's written by my friend, a great writer, Steve Billings. Well worth a read. I should be heading out to TLC Ranch soon: they've got new baby piglets. Awwwww.

More good news on the horizon, so I'll keep you informed.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: "What others think of us would be of little moment did it not, when known, so deeply tinge what we think of ourselves." —Paul Valery

Thanks for visiting.