NYC photos...

My trip was mostly spent at work...but I got to spend many meals with good friends, although I'm so bad at taking photos of those meals. Here's a few snap shots of my trip.

The best music room in NYC. & the best music teacher

the 5 year olds of today already know so much more about the environment than we do.
and they know that we're wasting their planet. My favorite poster. Ever.

I do love to dance though I don't do it nearly enough. On this night I danced with Q-tip on the tables and a few of his special guests.

Let's just say lots of people with lots of consonants in their names stopped by.

All my meals were delicious...
A killer happy hour and dynamite agedashi tofu: Ipuddo
A cozy spot with homemade pasta, my first grilled (not fried)calamari, hard to find wines, all for cheap: Malatesta
A japanese macrobiotic meal that makes you feel SO good: Souen
A seasonal, local brunch in the best little spot--they have lots of Greens! on their menu, so I was sold immeadiately: Flatbush Farm & Bar(n)

NYC Bound, Redux.

Until Saturday late night...But first, a weekend all out of order.

A new discovery in GGPark, the rock bridge.

Hello beautiful fava babies!

Presents

Sundays are good picnic days

Hidden wonders in the botanical gardens

It's always the N at the end of the night...

PS: I planted a Seckle pear tree. What a beauty...pictures to come...

All Flims Food, Farming & Enviro

This list of ag/enviro films inspired me to make a list of my own favorites...

Eat at Bill's: the man and the market behind the Bay Area's local food revolution. Bonus points: the director is an ojai pixie tangerine farmer.

Greenhorns: not yet finished, but it will be an epic tale of the new farmers of America.

The Market by Ana Hausman: a beautiful art short about people pawing produce at farmers markets and the beauties of food processing.

Ruth Stout's Garden: the woman of the 70s in her 70s who inspired no till farming. Never seen a better film about gardening.

How to Cook your Life: you won't think of bread baking the same ever again, and the man with the great laugh, Edward Espe Brown

I like Killing Flies: a documentary about a restaurant and a cook that could only exist in NYC. I want some of those mac & cheese pancakes.

Manufactured Landscapes: no ag/food tilt here, nope, it's all about waste. A do not miss beautiful, heartwrenching film.

New & Old

New blog to love: Smarts & Crafts because of their beautiful little pinboard, brilliant!

And and old blog to share: I'm Mad and I Eat This blog has kept me inspired for years, the photos, the local produce, the transition from cook to gardener, the irreverence. Can't. Get. Enough.

food miles...

Beautiful Image by Henning Wagenbeth from the NYT.

A weekend of firsts...

First Felled Tree (see previous post)

First Latke Party -- I brought my roasted beet + goat cheese salad and it was a Feast with. a capital F.

First Community Garden Plot -- just got the acceptance email to White Crane Community Garden!!!! Oh the possibilities!!!

First trip to Rainbow Grocery. I know, it's ridiculously overdue--for the queen of all things local, organic and good food I should've made my way there before. And, it is, quite simply, heaven. Well, the bulk section is anyways. I didn't make it far past the bulk...My vision was blurred by the bulk spices, the bean flours and seaweeds, the raviolis, the oils and honeys and syrups. All in the beauty of bulk, take as much or as little as you want. All with perfect, beautiful little jars for purchase. W.O.W.

On the quote wall...

Spent a few hours at the Garden this Saturday and heard a few quotable quotes...

(BTW I felled my first tree, how often do you get to use that phrase. I'm milkin it! My tree was about 10-12 feet tall, already showing signs of weakness and death. I took a saw to it's tall spindly branches, then thick trunk, then I started digging and digging and digging it up by it's taproot. This beast was no joke. It is fitting that something with so much life should be so hard to kill. I'm still sore)

Here's those beautiful quotes...

"If only people cared as much about making soil as they did about vegetable gardening"
"If only people cared as much about making soil & growing vegetables as they do about making money. Wouldn't it be a different world?"

And finally...a great quote from a beautiful little book gifted to me: The Acorn House Cookbook. The Acorn House is to London what Chez Panisse is to California.

"There's an old saying that the family that eats together will stay together. I say that the community that composts together will survive together." Amen brother.

The first weekend of the year...

Highways - 8 Transit - 2

Highway spending beats out transit every time--for every dollar you spend on the gas tax 80% goes to new roads and highways while only 20% goes to public transit. It's time to break this cycle in the new administration and in the new federal transportation bill coming up this session.

This NYT editorial says it better than I can here.

Soil is sacred...

Two powerhouses of sustainable agriculture--the leaders of the movement before it was a movement--Wes Jackson and Wendell Berry talk of a needed change in our farming practices. in the NYTimes here. They talk of the precious resource that is soil and of a new farm bill for the future...

"we also need a national agricultural policy that is based upon ecological principles. We need a 50-year farm bill that addresses forthrightly the problems of soil loss and degradation, toxic pollution, fossil-fuel dependency and the destruction of rural communities.

This is a political issue, certainly, but it far transcends the farm politics we are used to. It is an issue as close to every one of us as our own stomachs."

Community Gardening = Food for all...

In South Africa, community gardening is a new lifeline for survival. Check out this article here.

Hello New Year!

Brought in the new year with an amazing meal of roasted veggies (including the often overlooked delicious parsnip) and frisee salad with mustard vinaigrette and a poached egg...mmmm.

Toasted the new year with my love at Alembic. Slow food and slow cocktails made with care and character. An easy walk from the apt. Drank fabulous Old Fashions and ate Hazelnut Cake with Spiced Air. Yup, that's spiced air.

The view from AZ

She has my heart. Now crawling & clapping & so much more.

Neverending big sky...

Oddities that are my suburban history.
The scene from one of many of Dobson Ranch's lovely man-made wonders...

Shocking.
The Elk head looking out over my father's kitchen. This thing is bigger than me...

Decaying citrus for miles.