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:
Three mushroom soup with portabello, brown buttons, shiitake mushrooms from Far West Fungi in Moss Landing (sold at the Mountain View and Palo Alto farmers' market)
