Urban Organica

farm math :: the best part

Before the lil' heads can conduct business behind the table...

they gotta learn their product line,

learn standards & distinguish which of their commodities...

are sold by the bunch

the basket

& the pound.

They have to practice greeting, adding fractions & bits.  Give totals.

Pick their favorite produce.  Be patient.

Compost is both a loss & a treasure.  A chance to re-invest.

There is marketing to do, products to display.  It must be beautiful & true, easy-to-see.

 

Then they tell their mamas what to make for dinner.  

At our house?  I was told very clearly to make a "sweet pepper-basil torta with feta & one dozen eggs.  A side of green beans.  With lots of butter.  Lots."  And so it was.

***

Every day at 3 my downstairs turns into a small emporium with chalkboard menus, baskets of walnuts, play produce & football helmets for sale.  The local kids charge siblings between $1-1000 for any given item, but they've learned in their play that giving change is easier when dealing with whole, small bills.  Yesterday they were all wearing Fez hats from Egypt & running a cafe that sold fish tacos.  There are still no limits apparently.  I so treasure this age, the final glimpse at the dreamscapes of their toddler-selves before they begin asking for allowances & creating websites of their own.   

good humus farm :: 1/2

set up by farmer annie, jammaker jen + the kids

 

 molly

culling apples for juice + cider

organic farming = layered ecosystems, building habitats for pest predators

snack time :: dried apricots, cherry tomatoes, hard-boiled eggs, melon

field workers getting to know heirloom berries by taste, size

apples, once-pressed by the children

zach, firefighter, farm-boy picking his lunch

midwives for our entire country's produce (muchas gracias, sweet madre!!)

 a chair, a shingled porch after an honest day.  what more do we really need?

I have a 3-inch binder packed with eloquent, heart-melting letters & delicious recipes from Jeff & Annie Main, purveyors of Good Humus Produce.  We just met on their property for the first time: those letters are 2-page bits they deliver to all of their farm members, & came in our weekly CSA-treasure boxes for several years.  I adore the farmer's market & co-op, so we stopped getting the boxes, but I have missed the perspective on those sheets.  Yellowed & broth-stained, they have been a constant source of grounding & consciousness for our family for about 9 years.  

Annie is the original authentic blogger in my mind.  I have memorized quotes from her inquiries regarding true community/individual sustainability & been jaw-dropped at an organic farmer's actual wages.  (Yes, we need to pay our teachers more.  But farmers.  They are the invisible heroes in this world.)  She taught me how to gratin kohlrabi, how to prep dark greens & passed me a favorite soup of thin onions, coconut milk, peas & cilantro.  She doesn't know any of this.  But I can actually feel my heart swelling with gratitude.   Once Jeff gave a nail-biting account of the morning's delivery when the area had been flooded.  As he recounted the condition of their van & his calculations of what was needing to be delivered & the impact of if he didn't make it, or even make it home at all (!) brought to mind the mailman's creed.  Not Wind Nor Rain Nor Sleet or Snow...

We had a chance to spend a couple of days with them, their jam maker Jen & their son Zachary.  It was nothing less than epic.  The kids ran scavenger hunts looking for treasures - like water, compost/soil, habitat & insects before doing skits right there in the orchards.  They made connections about the systems of the farm while weeding,trimming, making ice cream, compost piles, pressed apple juice, garden stones & dinner from produce they picked themselves.   My son, who hates peppers came out of the field chewing a long, neon-red chili pepper that turned out to be bright & sweet.  Before leaving, they found their new "class pet:" Tiger Eye, the biggest, prettiest caterpillar I have ever seen.  Big, like, oh, 3/4" thick & 7 inches long with a red horn on it's acid-green bum.  Apparently they eat tomato crops, so they must go.  And so must I go to sleep.  But the best part of trip was just...Oh, the best...

i heart strawmelon ice cream

straw-melon ice cream

There are many things I Heart.  Ice Cream from fresh fruits.  Family.  Creative Expression.    

 shopping w/ my brother franz + nik, forever sleeping at parties, dave chapelle, us cuz', w/ mos def, me, franz + nik years ago, we sistas

Recently the genius Dave Chapelle had my real-life cousin open with her show, I Heart Lola.  Nikki frequently opens for him, but this is the first time she did her one-women show about losing our Lola's to dementia.  Lola means Grandma in Tagalog.  Really it was about her Lola, but the story is the same.  

Our Grandma Estrella was brilliant & crazy as long as we knew her.  Our Dad's moms were lovely & domestic & fed us ice cream.  And they totally lost it while we were adults.  It sounds harsh to say that, but it's just true.  We both wish we could scoop up our lola's & serve them sweet treats 24/7.  Mine is gone now, & I so miss her, but laughing helps.  It always helps.  

I cried & giggled through the show, but laughed hard going home.  Back stage a very sweet Mos Def was gracious with me while I said silly things like, "I know you, don't I?"  "Are you from San Francisco?"  "No, New Orleans, ever been?"    I had no idea who he was.  Mega-star that he is.  I thought for sure we used to hang as teenagers.  

Fair Warning :: You can work in the entertainment industry, but if your home is media-free, you are in for some embarrassing moments.

Nikki  inspired this recipe.  Marvel at her city-charm in Mickey-D commercial & I Heart Lola trailer below.   

Straw-Melon Ice Cream

8 small strawberries

1 large sweet melon that's soft at the ends

1 cup heavy whipping cream

1 cup raw honey

4 T powdered organic sugar

Blend all.  Pour into ice cream maker.  For fun with the littles, save a few bits of strawberries & cut circles out of a thin melon slice.  Let them decorate & take pics of their desert.

We are so lucky to live in a part of the world with so many fruit trees, good soil & and access to organic dairy.  I wish I could tell you what kind of melon this is, but I can't.  My 10 year-old friend Oliver & I were sharing seeds as I set up our soil trays & I didn't think to label which plants went where.  So our garden has been a complete surprise this past season.  All I know was that this was a big-a** neon yellow melon with a mango-like flavor.    I am all about hard ice cream with a bit of milk to make crystals while D & the boys crave gelato with it's frozen milk-shake consistency.  Even with other melons, this recipe makes a cloud-fluffy cream that is somehow icey and really smooth & creamy.  It makes for a nice family walk around the block.  

***

 

i heart nicole maxali.  join me at her show this month!!

tapioca dress

This is a little sample (sans impeccable embroidery) made Wednesday for our wonderful craftswomen friends in Fond de Blancs, Haiti.   Exquisite stitching is their specialty, so I left that piece for them.  Hopefully the lotus root will end up on the pocket, but who knows!   I trust those mamas to make it their own.

Mamas have a way of doing the right thing their own way.  I just think we should all walk around, trusting the mamas.

The colors & bubble layout were done by my girl Poppy Peach.  I love it!  5 years ago D was in knots outside of the Golden Boat Waldorf daycare, realizing he'd have to go in & get our son.  There was another mother there; her daughter was inside, but her son was needing to be picked up from kindergarten.  She sat there & cried on another mom's shoulder, while  D sat there & cried inside before retrieving our own sweet boy.  That was Poppy.  We've had a similar road, she & I.  Northern California hippy girls married to our dream boys from more conservative families.  She homeschooled for a few years & lives in a village community that's pretty much the Garden of Eating.  I mean Eden.   Now we share meals together as often as possible while our kids take turns being way too wild in the hammock.  This week she came over to pick up some sewing skills.    Poppy's also just trying out the blog thing, & I'm delighted because she's a thriving & beautiful wellspring of herbal, gardening, whole foods cooking & Waldorf educational knowledge.  Not to mention an open & generous heart who makes me laugh & laugh.   I'm hoping she gets into it, & so maybe you could peek over to her blog with an encouraging hey?

grateful, simple foods

mud pie by our oldest & his buddy Molly

galanga ginger, lemongrass, vietnamese cilantro & lemongrass pulled from my stock

kale & celery swimming in an infused pool of coconut milk, baby oyster + enoki mushrooms fried in a batter of rice flour, curry, toasted sesame seeds & anise stars 

Today I was hoping to surprise my brother at the airport with his 3 nephews.  Instead we chatted online, me at my kitchen counter & him in a southeast asian hospital bed with the dengue fever.  This morning I sobbed over my stove & made him a risotto with dino kale, garden scallions, garlic, thyme & insane amounts of provolone. He wasn't there to eat it, but it was comforting, nonetheless.   He wanted to fly out with his son in a couple of weeks, anyway, for his first big flight, so this is just right, I suppose.   He's strong, my brother, very literally a warrior. I'd much rather meet them all at the airport, my newish nephew Ravi & my sister in-love whom I've never met in person, but I know without a doubt she is my sister like my very best girls are my sisters.  

So it's about 3am now & I just finished designing a dress pattern for our dear Haitian mamas to make.  According to my computer it's 6 in New Hampshire, so I guess I'm no longer on East Coast time since I haven't gone to sleep yet.  Back to my old habits as a West Coast night-owl.  The light is soft at this hour. It's warm but the air smells like Fall.  I'm feeding my heart chocolate, my eyes layered fabrics in cherry & persimmon, my hands the nubby drape of linen & my ears the hum of the freeway & downshifting of big rigs.

When the house sleeps it's actually quiet enough to notice what I'm really feeding myself, my heart, my eyes, hands & ears.  It's a good reminder to be gentle on myself & others.  To watch what I "eat," & what I dish out.

Oh yeah, I love you Elrik.  I hope you get to go home today.  Mai

winemaking with children

Back home in California...we were invited out to the foothills for the kids to make some dizzy juice.  This is probably our equivalent of being towed on the ice behind someone's car; a distinct regional opportunity that not everyone partakes in, but it's thrilling & special & feels grown-up.  When I was a kid we'd go to a small farm owned by one of my Pop's fellow firefighters, Bob, his lovely wife & son.  We were inner-city kids.  His place was a totally handmade fantasy-land, filled with awesome & unlikely things like  goats, sunflowers, hammocks & a jacuzzi tower.  The grown-ups would spend the day picking grapes & fussing over the potluck spread, while us kids ran all-over the barn, climbed the loft & ogled at the treehouse where someone was actually living. (!!)  At night there'd be a band & we would get to siphon wine from the barrels into bottles through a tube that required one big nasty/naughty suck to get started.   It was sweet. 

One thing I love about intergenerational communities is the opportunities for diverse experiences like this.  The bittersweet part it how it's always a unique experience, never to be recreated.  Bob now has Alzheimer's, his son is of course, grown, & his now ex-wife is caring for him from her property across the way.  In my mind, the band still plays, & a part of me is still running through the fields, hands full of grapes & crackers.

This family has been making wine for several years & was committed to having the kids experience every part of the process.  The learning in this kind of setting is so mind-boggling to me: Quite separate from the science of measuring the grape sugars, learning the fermenting & disinfecting processes, exploring the gears & machinery & the art of taking turns, is the chance to play with learning mentors.  To engage with elders playing full-out at something they're really into, & have been into for a while is a rare opportunity in our country.  We were watching the couple who invited us & their dear friend dialogue over whether or not to press the last bit of "cake," if there would be too many tannins at that point to make good wine.  

I asked the husband, "Was she a hot homesteader when you met her?"  He replied with the biggest smile ever, "Yes."

And there you have it.  Another lesson of what it looks like to be in love.  Sheesh.  I could just go on & on about that.  To be in love with a hobby & in love with the land & in love with your family & in love with your partner.  It doesn't look like an easy life.  It looks like a good life.  I'm paying lots of attention.

food styling at squam art workshops

 

Nina, Bea of La Tartine Gourmande + Christine of Lavender & Limes

    
 
  

Thea knew what to ask, upping the photography lessons to the next level.  If you want a happy cry for a minute, check out her family portraits, here.

       
 
   

Mentor session with Liz, Kirsten, Bea + Thea

 
 

Brittany of Whatever & Stuff having a personal playdate with the dough & apples.  5 kids, this one has, including 20 month-old twins.  She always makes it to Squam to make sure she has something to give back.

 
   
 

Somehow Elizabeth has taken my love affair with woods + water & sent it completely over the top by adding an apron party with cameras, cooking, pregnant bellies & over-full mamas.  With a brilliant food stylist (with more than a touch of star quality) showing us exactly how she makes her perfect pictures & a brilliant photographer shadowing her every move, asking her just the questions I didn't know to ask.  After making us cry with her beautiful story about why she started creating, of course.   Because women like to cry together & we also like watching French women talk about food & style while we cook.  At least, this group did.  My roomie Eileen & I got to whip up these savory tarts & then bring home sweets to our cottage.  That's when I realized I was actually at camp.  At Camp!!.

Appliqued Hemp Floor Mat

 A gift for our friend Hans featuring the logo from his most fabulous A Store in Albuquerque, NM.  We picked up a coffee sack from a local cafe & lined the back with a length of sticky shelf liner.  It's a bit tricky to pull through the machine with all that stick, so I had to pull the foot all the way up.  So satisfying, & worth it to see all that color against the shimmery pale-grass weave.  Inspired by all the life in his shop... 

    

 
 
 

women of 1620

   rigging: exquisite, black & tarred, massive

one way to get to shore...   

 crow's nest

  

a calendar? a compass? a game?  if you know, please share! 

  these woolen layers would put any waldorf teacher to shame. lined wool knickers over salmon jersey thigh-highs.  knit salmon knee highs with grey tie + poppy socks and handmade leather mary-janes to boot.  on a colonial man, to boot (again).  

     

   

 
 

I never knew the women of the Mayflower stayed on board, to care for the ill & dying while the men built their shelters.  That they had lost half of their loved ones on the way over.  I didn't realize how small the ship was - way too small for over 100 people, let alone men, women & children all buzzed or drunk because they had to drink beer for hydration.  I didn't know the ship & crew had planned to return home, but it was too cold for the colonists to survive, so they remained as home base.  I'm seeing for the first time that the Pilgrims were people suffering from shock.

I'm reminded of the triumph it is that we continue to build our lives when we each have felt the texture of trauma. That we continue to accept, long for & melt into our loved ones when we have all experienced great loss.  Or if we haven't yet, we've heard the crack in our mother's voice or seen the vacuous glance of our grandfather as he got up from his chair.  They've been there.  And yet we continue to be hopeful & hope-filled.  And life comes through.

I'm also reminded of the reality of sequencing.  History has been handed to me in a linear, masculine sequence.  Men built things, & the landmarks of their lives continued to be built upon by the decades of those that followed them.  We don't know what we build here, ultimately.  We just build, take in the contributions of others & hopefully give everything we possibly can.  

As women, our lives move in a spiral sequence.  Each phase of our lives is a rounded movement, touching on what's happened, what's coming & what's always been there.  Or maybe it looks like sequencing work or children or marriage while spinning the plates of everything else we are accountable for, everything we are up to & everything life throws in.  And here now I am spinning memories for my children & I find signs of these women - baskets, bedding, clothing, food - & I feel like I can hear crying, see them smiling.  Feel their bravery.  Some kind of weird hug across time & space.  (Or maybe I'm just picturing Laura Linney in John Adams?)

I wonder how the women of the Mayflower felt about the Indigenous women they found here, with their established home lives, surrounded by their children, men & sisters, capable & clear on their roles in their communities.  Did they wish to learn from them, join them, know them & love them as women innately do?  Did they feel thwarted in those longings by their community culture, their own beliefs, their grief or the locals themselves?  Or were some meaningful relationships established - if only meaningful to themselves?  What futures might have been possible if those heart strings had been able to become the foundational threads of this country?  If only I had been handed that history.  The dance of women. 

going forward...

tool, Patuxet Village, Plimouth Plantation

It's time to head forward to school.  Yes, school.  Sure we could go back, since we were there,  March-through-June.  Going "back to school" is exciting, an adventure into the daily faces of friends & beloved teachers, a chance to tackle new & interesting material.  That happens, & would be the case for us.  

As life-learners, we are looking at this Fall as a totally new experience, & it is.  We've never done something like this, walked into a class of kids a bit older, but still all about the same age with the same general developmental needs.  It's interesting!  And I think each Fall will be new, with new faces on the same people, new interests, new capacities.  Let us always go forward, why don't we.

Are we still homeschoolers?  Yeah, we are.  We call it the "long class" each morning.  We still belong to our local homeschooling bookclub, though it takes place during "school hours."  We will faithfully continue our "family curriculum" of cooking, marketing, growing, making, finding, drawing, tasting, discovering, dancing, assembling, dismantling, field-tripping, music-making & whatever else falls our way. 

And the Waldorf curriculum is one of those things.  I had always intended on homeschooling the boys when they were older.  When our oldest was one,  I found our local Waldorf school during a year-long Early Childhood Training at Rudolf Steiner College.  We fell in love with it & with the Early Childhood teacher.  Not so much with the kindergarten & now we have found a great 3rd-grade community.  The teacher also has three boys, is a farmer & a nurse, & she homebirthed & homeschooled, as well.  So we have much in common, & she's an elder I can learn from.  And learning is the commitment for us.  That, & surrounding our children with people who have diverse values - but values that support life.

 leather "lacrosse" for catching on sticks

There's been issues, nothing to go back about.  Like hyper-competitive parents.  Bullying.  Kids thinking they can only play with one age, or only one gender.  But these are not issues in the grand scheme of things.  I'm so grateful that every moment is a chance to move forward towards more connections.

 
 beautiful 

 "score!"

 

*****

Speaking of making connections...

This village, Patuxet, is one of the first Native villages where no one made it, due to diseases introduced by colonists.  I have so many questions I want to ask some of the folks I saw there, but they are  personal ones, & we are advised not to ask those.  But coming from a colonized culture myself, & a community of community servants, I'm so curious: "Do you consider yourself an activist?" "Does being here during the day shift how you live at home?"  "How do you feel about the colonists given that you work in partnership with the recreated colonial village?"

But we aren't to ask questions like, "What percentage Native are you?"  I understand that.  Although people ask me that kind of question at least once a month.

We can't go backwards, & a part of me wants to.  Everything there is a great reminder of the possibility- the past, present & future great possibility of letting our product - what we make - be the wellbeing of our communities.  Imagine.  More chances to forward connections.

(The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight has wonderful ideas on how to integrate the past & the present in a way that supports our global home & community.)

Moving on...

 

 longhouse

 dolls, canoe, games

 burned-out canoe, paddles, fish-drying station

 grinding maize

 an elder messing with the kids & showing off her bear

 inside a longhouse

women-made mats as walls