Last Chance for Harvest Festivals

Summer is long gone, fall is in full swing, and winter is coming soon. Berries, corn and other summer season staples are already pretty much gone from farmers' markets. The last of the tomatoes will soon be gone. Farm harvest festivals started in late September and early October, and there are are a handful left. These farm-hosted events are great family-friendly events and provide opportunities to meet the people that grow our food, see the land where our food is grown, and celebrate the bountiful summer and fall.

Here are a few last harvest festivals that I know about:

• Sat, 10/30, 12-4pm, City Slicker Farms in Oakland (non-profit that helps grow and get affordable fresh produce to West Oakland)
• Sun, 10/31, 3-6pm, Full Circle Farm in Sunnyvale (non-profit co-located with a middle school in Sunnyvale that provides education and produce to the local community)
• Sat, 11/6, noon-3pm, Green Oaks Creek Farm in Pescadero (local family farm, education and retreat center)
• Sun, 11/7, noon-sunset, Freewheelin' Farm in Santa Cruz (cool local family farm that delivers their CSA shares by bicycle!)
• Sun, 11/14, Potrero Nuevo Farm in Half Moon Bay (local family farm hosting a fall festival to showcase the farm and provide information about their CSA)

Community | Garden | Salsa

I very much enjoy cooking, but I'm not great at it. And I make salsa regularly now, but it's not something super practiced (I hadn't even had salsa until I was 21 and introduced to homemade salsa by my friend Ernesto's family friend Madeleine). But none of this stopped me from entering the SF Food Wars "Salsa Champion-Chip" on 9/12. My schtick... "community garden salsa" - a heirloom tomato, white corn salsa with tomatoes all grown with at our community garden in Mountain View.

It was a gorgeous Saturday afternoon at the Ferry Plaza in San Francisco, and the competition was stiff. I did not have high expectations, but I was pleasantly surprised by the positive feedback on my salsa and the reaction to the idea of actually knowing where the food came from. Tomatoes, garlic and cilantro from our community garden. White corn from G&S Farms in Brentwood. Red onions from Full Belly Farm in Guinda. Jalapenos from Happy Quail Farm in East Palo Alto.

People were attracted to the personal connection with the food. They visibly perked up when I said that I and my daughter grew the tomatoes - that they were actually talking to the person who grew what they were eating. They took an interest in what a community garden is - and seemed somewhat surprised that people like you and me could growth their own food. They asked about the other farms that I bought the other ingredients from - and I happily told them about how I regularly see the folks from Fully Belly and Happy Quail at the Palo Alto farmers' market, and about the first time I was offered a sample raw white corn from G&S and how it tasted like candy, just like they said it would. Hooray for the opportunity to connect people to their food!

Connecting Friends With The Food We Eat

In my own personal exploration of connecting with the food that I eat, sharing that connection with my friends and family has been an equally interesting and inspiring experience. At my daughter Kaiya's 3rd birthday party, I laid out a spread of local farm sourced sandwiches, snacks and fruit, and provided labels so people would know what they were eating and where the food was coming from.

Plenty of my friends and family commented on how good the food tasted, and I often replied that it all came from farmers' market vendors I had come to know and trust. Others noted how pleasant it was to know where the food was coming from. And when a friend jokingly said he wouldn't eat anything unless I grew it in my community garden, I shot back that I may not have grown it in my garden, but I do know and have shaken the hands of the farmers that grew the tomatoes, potatoes, apples and pears, etc. that we were eating. It felt good to spark discussions and to engage people just by spending a few minutes writing down names of a few fruits, vegetables and farms.

Here was the lineup of the food:

• Tortilla espanola bocadillos, with russet and purple potatoes from Specialty Produce and onions from Phil Foster Ranches / Pinnacle Organic, both in San Juan Bautista (along with baguettes from Panorama Bakery that sells at the Downtown Palo Alto farmers' market)
• Chorizo bocadillos with chorizo from G Service who sells at the Downtown SJ farmers' market
• Cherry tomatoes from Veggielution in East San Jose and Full Belly Farm in Guinda
• Chips and salsa, with heirloom tomatoes from Veggielution in East San Jose and white corn from Specialty Produce
  
• Crackers and cheese, including a goat cheese chevre log from Laura Chenel in Sonoma and garlic quark from Spring Hill Cheese in Petaluma
• Gala and fuji apples from Mellow's Nursery & Farm in Morgan Hill
• Warren pears from Phil Foster Ranches in San Juan Bautista

A Sad and Inspiring Day

For the last few years, I have loyally bought pasture-raised pork from TLC Ranch. It started as a social/political/lifestyle choice - I wanted to shop at my local farmers' market in Mountain View; I wanted to buy meat raised in an environmentally sustainable manner; I wanted to support a local farmer. The choices became easier after I discovered how damn good the pork chops were. It became fun when Loren, their "farmers' market dude", started recognizing me and gave me advice on how to best roast that shoulder or prepare that pork belly. It felt great when I took my daughter then 2 yr old daughter, Kaiya, to a TLC Ranch "farm day" where she ran with the piglets, played in the chicken coop, and met Rebecca the farmer. It felt inspiring when I read Rebecca's article titled "Do you have the balls to really change the food system?"

And now I'm sad. TLC Ranch is closing. As Rebecca explains it, making a living at sustainable farming is hard. So I'm sad. I will miss having a convenient purveyor of sustainable pork at my local farmers' market. I will miss the early Sunday morning rush to see what Loren brought that particular week (pork belly? bacon? soup bones?) or if there any free-range eggs left (they sold out fast!). I will miss taking Kaiya to "Rebecca's farm", as she called it. And I will miss those delicious pork chops, that in the words of anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss via Michael Pollan, were good to eat and good to think.

Yet I'm inspired. Connecting with the food I eat has a greater purpose. I think I do have the balls to really change the food system. I know I have the power to make choices as a consumer of what I eat and who I buy it from. And I can make choices (and do my part in compelling others to make similar choices) that enable small family farms like TLC Ranch to be viable, thriving parts of our communities and everyday lives. I'm sad that it's too late for TLC Ranch, and inspired about what I can do about it today and going forward.