I Heart Farms

Paging CASFS, Paging CASFS: Come In, Do You Read Me?

The man pictured here is well known to a great many of my friends, and I am reluctant to name him, as he doesn't seem to seek the limelight. I think he'd rather you look at the things he grows than at him, and I understand that.

But because of his 30-year dedication to teaching hundreds and hundreds of people how to farm sustainably up on the UCSC farm, I immediately thought of Orin Martin when I received the following series of communications from one Fred Freid in Missouri. I would like to be respectful of Mr. Freid, but my golly, I'm having to bite my tongue right now.

I am just going to post Fred's comments to a separate page, and beg Orin and anyone involved in sustainable farming—people who give their very lives to DO THE RIGHT THING—to address Fred's beliefs.

I feel so deeply that the farmers I know are the true heroes on this planet, because they do REAL work—backbreaking work, sweating work, dawn-to-dark (not dusk) work—and nobody I know is gettin' rich from it.

Jim Dunlop Speaks His Mind about NAIS: "Bring It On!"

If there is anything in the world sweeter than standing amid 200 chickens underneath flowering apple trees on one of the most beautiful farms I've ever seen, I don't know what it is. This was taken a little more than a week ago at Everett Family Farm, here in Soquel, just a couple of miles from our house. These chickens belong to Mike Irving and Teresa Kurtak (pictured below), who met each other at last year's Eco-Farm conference, just as today's guest author, Jim Dunlop, met his beautiful wife, Rebecca Thistlethwaite.

The idea that sights like this might become imperiled if NAIS (National Animal Identification System) is implemented on a mandatory basis continues to alarm me. The response I got from the people I know who raise animals has been consistent: they're cheering this post.

I try very hard not to take anything beautiful for granted—I'm aware that there are people who read this site who may never in their lives have the chance to visit California, or even to visit a farm. My long-stated hope in visiting farms is that I might awaken in someone far away a curiosity about where their local farms are, and their local farmers.  I think any small farm should give a visitor the feeling of an oasis: water in a society parched for real, lasting beauty. At least, that's what they do for me.

"The Only Leverage We Have": Jeff Fiorovich of Crystal Bay Farm

Pictured here: beautiful squash blossoms, held by Lori Fiorovich of Crystal Bay Farm.

On Monday morning this week, I got a phone call from a farmer friend, Jeff Fiorovich, who runs Crystal Bay Farm with his wife, Lori. He asked for my help, and he's getting it.

Jeff is about as down to earth as anyone alive: his trade is building, but he farms out of love for the land. Originally, Jeff's mother leased the small farm to conventional growers (if, by "convention," you mean "the tradition of poisoning the earth and its inhabitants with toxins unnecessary for the health of the produce or the consumers"). Jeff began to reconsider this arrangement, and eventually, took over the land to grow organically. Specialities include culinary squashes and pumpkins (which turn into a wonderful pumpkin patch at Halloween), as well as giant strawberries, some of which are dipped in organic chocolate and sold at their roadside farm stand.

Guest Author: Myriam Kaplan-Pasternak DVM

I first met Myriam Kaplan-Pasternak at a farm dinner in Petaluma last July. She and her husband, Mark, who own and operate Devil's Gulch Ranch had provided the rabbits which were most excellently prepared by Chef Nate Appleman, of A 16. Being a veterinarian, Myriam maintains the excellent health of all the animals raised at Devil's Gulch. (That would be rabbits, pigs, and sheep.) A 16 is only one of many chefs serving Devil's Gulch Ranch meat: other restaurants include The French Laundry, Chez Panisse, Bouchon and more.

In January, the bus tour for Eco-Farm brought the Pasternaks out to TLC Ranch, where I was visiting and photographing. Myriam told me she'd recently been to Haiti, participating with Mark and their two young daughters in a farmer-to-farmer program, training the Haitians to raise rabbits and improve their standard of living.  I offered to publish her account of the trip here, so please let me introduce, with great pleasure, Myriam Kaplan-Pasternak, DVM. (She's in the blue shirt, above.)

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.

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.)

Very Important from the Vanilla Queen

Once again, we hear from Patricia Rain, known all over the world as the Vanilla Queen, whom I see about once a month at our farmers markets. In her unending desire to keep real vanilla growing in the world, she has a new project. She is seeking donations of laptop computers to send to a small group of vanilla farmers in Africa (Somalia, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda), to help them stay connected to the Google group she founded: the Tropical Farmers Network.

If you have a working laptop that you could donate, you can e-mail Patricia at rain@vanilla.com. She can't give you a receipt for a tax deduction, but maybe you'd be content with feeling good about helping someone you'll never meet continue to do good work. UPDATE, noon today: Patricia told me that she found a local non-profit to provide receipts for anyone who donates.

Also, if you have a mind, send good thoughts Patricia's way: she is enduring chemotherapy for advanced breast cancer. I'm amazed at her constant smile and the unfaltering radiance she always displays, but that's Patricia.

Feel free to link to this post on your own blog to spread the word, please. Surely there are five laptops out there that want to experience life in a tiny village in Africa? (And wouldn't it be nice if they were Macs, so the poor farmers don't have to worry about getting a virus?)

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That's all for now. What am I doing up at this ungodly hour? Wait, all the farmers I know have been up for an hour at least.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: “Thought is a kind of opium; it can intoxicate us, while still broad awake; it can make transparent the mountains and everything that exists.” — Henri Frederic Amiel

Thanks for visiting.

Michael Ruhlman Weighs In: 5 Things to Eat Before You Die

Pictured here: Logan picking strawberries at Crystal Bay Farm. I posted it already in his photo album, but I just love it.

I heard back from Michael Ruhlman, who wrote his list of Five Things You Should Eat Before You Die, which is circulating the food bloggers' world now. Not surprisingly, pork and foie gras figure prominently in Mr. Ruhlman's happiest food fantasies:

1. Oysters and Pearls at The French Laundry: a truly unusual dish mixing the luxurious adult pleasures of caviar and cream with the juvenile comfort of tapioca, mediated by the Dr. Seuss element of the oyster. I never tire of this exquisite dish.

2. One whole roasted foie, eaten with friends.

3. The tomato out of my mom and dad's garden behind the garage in Cleveland, circa 1970, the first one I'd ever picked and eaten right there: it was hot from the sun, the best tomato ever, a revelation, biting into something familiar and finding something completely new.

4. Deep-fried pork belly confit, with a baguette and a big zin, as can be had at Le Pichet in Seattle or in your own home if you go to a small amount of effort, eaten in greedy solitude.

5. Home-cured bacon from an Amish hog in central Ohio, eaten with my wife Donna.

How do you know if a hog is Amish? Do non-Amish hogs have motorcycles?

Thanks, Mr. Ruhlman: I look forward to the French Laundry someday myself.

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Roxana Robinson on pigs, Michael Ruhlman on pigs and chefs

One of my favorite denizens of Readerville.com is Roxana Robinson, who writes so beautifully in the Gardening Lit thread. (I linked there to a post about her vegetable garden.) I begged her permission to reprint this little piece about pigs, which she graciously granted me.

She writes: More news from the rural countryside.

Nina Planck: Second Helpings, Helping Farmers

(Pictured here, ten little piggies at TLC Ranch. Jim and Becky have already sold all their shares in this litter, and are expecting a delivery of fifty more pigs next week. It goes without saying that these are the cutest damn things I ever saw. Below, further down, are pictures of George and Weezy, the twin calves, and some of the new baby chicks.)

Nina Planck, at right (photo by Craig McCord), whose words appeared here two days ago, had more to say in conjunction with NYC's Greenmarket, from which she was fired, as well as offering up some tips to farmers in general. I had read the following first at a food forum that I used to support, and asked Nina's permission to share her words with a larger audience. Farmers might find this information very useful: at least, I hope so.

Read on.