Straight from the Farm

What did you do to celebrate Earth Day? 
I planted a couple baby Metasequoia (redwood) trees. 
Fun!
(that’s not a metasequoia above; it’s a magnolia)

I wanted to alert you all to a great contest being held this month over at Jugalbandi.  Bee and Jai put on a great monthly photo event called Click!, a contest I’ve been fortunate enough to win in the past.  But I’m even more excited this month because 1) it’s all about showcasing fresh raw ingredients and 2) they’ve asked me to be one of the judges. 

Now, as a judge, I’m allowed to make an entry that won’t be up for winning any of the awards but is meant to illustrate the month’s theme with pizzaz.  It took a lot of humming and hawing on my part to finally pick which photo to enter, but I finally went with yesterday’s shot of the fiddleheads.  They’re just too cool to pass up.  But, as you might all realize, this little blog of mine is all about au naturel so there were many photos that qualified.  I decided to post a few more here to celebrate the theme in coordination with Jugalbandi and Click! contestants.  

If you have a good au naturel food photo, be sure to get it entered in the Click! event.  The last day for entries is April 30th.   Photo-to-enter or no-photo-to-enter, be sure to visit Jugalbandi to look at all the great entries already streaming in.   

Okay, I’ll cease with all the teasing and secrets keeping, although in my defense, I didn’t mean to keep you in the dark.  I’ve just been absurdly busy.  In any case, things will be looking a little different around SFTF from this point forward.  There will be a brief period during which I will be begging your forgiveness for posting less frequently (but still a couple posts a week, I hope).  But after these growing pains, I think you’ll be very delighted with what’s to come. 

I am changing careers.  And with this change of careers, I’m shifting the focus of this blog just ever so slightly, to include more grower’s information and fewer recipes.  Don’t you fret!  There will still be recipes and food photography.  After all, we still need to eat, don’t we?  I just anticipate having at least a post a week now dedicated to photos and discussions of some plant I’ll be growing, starting with discussions in the near future about designing a productive vegetable and ornamental plot.

Oh, you want to know more about the career change?  Well, I’ve left my marketing position with an engineering firm to pursue my passions:  urban greening/farming and sustainability efforts.  I’m now working towards becoming a bona fide horticulture professional, while at the same time starting up my own consultancy to write about and promote local and national sustainability movements and organizations.  Cool, huh?  I thought so.  But it does mean I’m busy between taking classes, going through an intensive apprenticeship at the world-renown Longwood Gardens (this and the previous post’s pictures are from there), and doing my freelance work, which includes writing for Green Options (check out this great sustainability blog). 

Whew, I’m getting tuckered out just thinking about all of it.  But!  But, I do desperately want to share all of these wonderful experiences and the helpful knowledge I’ll be picking up with you.  Urban farming, and Weavers Way Farm in particular, will still be a part of this blog, but I will now be growing my own plot as part of my apprenticeship and plan to use what I grow there almost exclusively in my recipes.  I am excited to learn a lot more technical information about plant identification, culture and habits; horticulture/landscape design; and permaculture/sustainability practices in the field of horticulture. 

So to summarize, in addition to local food and recipes, SFTF is now going to be a resource for growers and would-be-growers too who are looking for inspiration and information.  What do you think?  Sound good to you?   I hope so!  I’ve really grown to love writing this blog over the past year and getting such a great community going.  If you want more recipes and less plant talk at any time, just say the word and we’ll get back to our previously scheduled programming.  But for now, please don’t adjust your monitors!  Instead, stay tuned for some cool plants and how to grow them!

Big things have been happening for me this week.  I can’t wait to share more of it with you in greater detail, but with limited time and internet access this week, I’ll just tease you with some pretty pictures…

Amidst my browsing of the pleasantly cluttered and charmingly disorganized shelves of Walk A Crocked Mile Books, previously touted here on SFTF, I stumbled upon what may be the best cookbook to ever be printed.  Well, really, let me refine that brash statement.  Tassajara Cooking, printed by Shambhala Publications in 1973 for the Zen Center of San Francisco, may just be the best ever cooking philosophy book that happens to also contain some excellent recipes and practical how-to for the beginner and intermediate cook.
 
You read right: this is a book about the philosophy behind cooking.  I find it utterly fascinating to flip through its pages at bedtime as it has such a wonderfully relaxed approach to preparing food that nourishes not only bodies, but also souls.   It’s all very “zen.”  Sadly, I think this original version is out of print, but if you have a lovely used book shop near you, perhaps good karma will yield you your very own copy.

It was this tidy summary on the back jacket of the book that prompted me to lay out the princely sum of three dollars that was needed to make it mine. “This is a book to help you actually cook – a cooking book.  The recipes are not for you to follow, they are for you to create, invent, test.  It explains things you need to know, and things to watch out for.  There are plenty of things left for you to discover, learn, stumble, upon.  Blessings.  You’re on your own.  Together with everything.” 

You’re on your own…together with everything…I love it!  The first chapter, entitled “Beginning”, does indeed outline how to begin: “You follow recipes, you listen to advice, you go your own way.  Even wholehearted effort sometimes falls short, the best intentions do not insure success.  There is no help for it, so go ahead, being and continue: with yourself, with others, with vegetables…The way to be a cook is to cook.”  

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