Blessing the Hands that Feed Us (28 page)

One of his biggest suppliers is the very Georgie Smith who shares his stand.

Georgie is a big, bosomy, ruddy-cheeked no-nonsense woman who decided to put five-plus acres of her family's rich bottomland in production when the economy sank and took her ten-year job as a marketing director at a small import company with it. Her farmer's capacity to improvise solutions and her dad's ability to cobble together anything needed from old parts has made her business flourish. She grows many kinds of vegetables but specializes in heirloom dried beans and a variety of potatoes and onions. I strapped a ten-pound bag of potatoes to my bike carrier, added some onions and a bag of beans to the saddlebag, paid gladly, sauntered over to the Island Apiaries booth for my February honey, and then pedaled home. Even with all that weight on board, I got up the hill and into the garage. When I hung my net bag of potatoes on the unused garage door tracks, I felt a bit like a hunter who'd arrived with a dressed deer strapped onto my Land Rover's roof.

Later in the fall I called Mike for a home delivery of several squash, which I proudly displayed above my kitchen cupboards as if they were Grandma's fine crockery. I had several of my own mystery squash up there as well. They had grown to basketball size on sprawling squash plants from seed someone had given me. If I wondered how I'd fare in the winter, I just needed to look up there, calculating two meals a squash, and look at the bag of potatoes, calculating about twenty meals per bag, and open my onion drawer or check my garlic bowl or, of course, look at my jars of Belinda's chicken. I could open my freezer to check on the two local chickens resting silently beside a beef roast and some liver. My stores were limited, yes, but they were THERE.

Then I discovered Georgie's neighbors on Ebey's Prairie, grain growers Georgina Silby and Lauren Hubbard. Grains meant—if I would grind them—everything bread-y and pasta-y and cracker-y. Grains, I now realized, having lived largely on vegetables, meant stick-to-your-ribs, solid-in-the-belly food. I understood for the first time the elegance of grains, a calorie-dense, nutrient-rich, easily stored and transported food, and, in fact, the foundation of civilization. I was ready to stock up.

Georgina Silby sold me two pounds of Tibetan purple barley—hand-packed in recyclable brown paper bags. The price per pound was high, but the integrity in that grain was priceless. Even when I see her in jeans and a threadbare shirt, her long neck, porcelain skin, and beauty make me think of lawns and manors, not fields and manure. Georgina grew up in Wales and landed on Whidbey because her godparents live here. Her commitment to grain farming has many roots, so to speak. She's steeped in earth-based spirituality. She was a leader in the anti-GMO movement in the UK. She believes—and teaches—that food is medicine, and she has a broad knowledge of herbalism. You can almost taste all this in her barley. A small bowl is filling and delicious and something else intangible: a felt sense of nourishment.

Lauren Hubbard, who also grows grains on the Prairie, graduated magna cum laude from Washington State University, where she had been an award-winning communications, women's studies, and soil science major, but instead of making a career in those professional fields, her path led her back to the fields on Ebey's Prairie with her husband, Clark Bishop. The Bishops are one of the key farming families on Ebey's Prairie, and by marrying Clark Bishop (the sixth generation on their land), Lauren married into a future of agriculture . . . if they as a couple wanted that life. A stint in the peace corps in Moldova working with farmers in the former breadbasket of the Soviet Union, where the fall of communism fragmented the agricultural system, convinced them that they did. They saw the farming system spin into a nosedive, with too little land and too many regulations wringing the life out of the people. Lauren and Clark realized they were privileged to be able to farm his family's land and surprised themselves by returning to the prairie—grounded in science and ready to muck in the dirt as farmers. So here they are, bridging from the farming style of Clark's parents to the consumer preferences for local organic food. I bought ten pounds of her emmer (a precursor of wheat), intending to both grind it for breads (with my Good Cheer thrift-store find, a new-in-the-box, bolted-to-the-counter hand grinder) and eat it in pilafs.

With just barley, emmer, and beans added to my stores of squash, chicken, beef, potatoes, and onions, I had enough basic food to fulfill my 50 percent commitment.

I learned some tricks for cooking these grains and beans from scratch. I soak the beans for at least thirty-six hours, changing the water a couple of times (like when I notice). That cuts the cooking time by 60 percent and also sprouts the beans, which increases the nutrition. I then rinse the beans, cover with water in a pressure cooker, bring them to a boil, drain, rinse, and then cover with water again, pressure-cook the beans for five minutes at five pounds of pressure with a piece of kombu seaweed, which takes the toot right out of them. I soak the grains too for a day or two. Sprouted grains are more digestible and nutritious. Same really quick, slick pressure-cooking, though a little longer. They are so nutritious that half a cup fills me up.

I checked with Tricia about what she could provide in the winter. She really didn't have eggs to spare, but on a tour of The Goose Community Grocer I found John Whitney stocking local Skymeadow eggs. He gave me an earful about eggs, and by now I was absolutely fascinated by all things edible and local, so we lingered for half an hour between the dairy case and bulk food aisles as I grilled him. To sell at the Goose he had to provide a bottomless supply of eggs a day, washed and packed according to the USDA Egg Products Inspection Act and the Washington Wholesome Eggs and Egg Products Act. His operation must be licensed and insured and records must be kept in detail for two years. I haven't met a small businessman who really likes regulations and licensing, but John had run the gauntlet and made it work. He and his wife, Else, had ramped up their egg production to be able to meet the standards of quality and quantity that the supermarkets require.

“Why not organic?” I asked.

“The annual inspection alone is one thousand dollars. I can't afford it. And the record keeping is way too much for us. Our eggs are as good as organic, but we just can't make the certification work.” I heard this story again and again. To the dismay of many of the pioneers whose blood, sweat, and tears enshrined the National Organic Standards in the USDA, small-scale local producers with loyal customers are not investing time and energy to get certified. Local meat and dairy on a rural island like Whidbey may well not be
certified
organic—and may not even be licensed. Another lesson is the dual system for trusting our food: I need to either look in the eye of the farmer or look at a label that is backed by rigorous requirements, testing, and verifications.

I was grateful that John and Else had jumped through all the hoops necessary to get local eggs into my local market. I'd have eggs in February! It's not easy for small farmers to provide sufficiently plentiful and reliable products to merit shelf or bin space in the supermarkets.

Several weeks later, after the 10-mile pressure had simmered down, I met John and Else at the farmers' market. They'd been there all along, but my need for eggs hadn't been great enough for their presence to make much of a difference. Else and I chatted egg business knowledgeably, me drawing on that detailed conversation at the Goose, and by the end she shared a little secret. The bigger eggs wouldn't fit in the egg cartons without cracking, so she sold them from a little fridge on her porch for a tad less. More for less. That sounded like just my cup of tea. Once I had her address, I had my egg supply for the winter and beyond sewn up.

There would be no cheese from Nina, though, and Vicky Brown's girls would be nursing their kids in the late winter, but I could get Mt. Townsend Creamery cheese across the water on the Kitsap Peninsula, or default to anywhere cheese and count it in my 50 percent nonlocal. Likewise other essential exotics, like nuts and nut butters.

There! I was prepared for a fairly peasant-y February. Then, as D-Day (diet day) approached, I met Jess Dowdell.

Jess is a wiry, redheaded chef who worked at the time at Ca'buni, a café in the large foyer of a warehouse that is primarily a coffee roaster and occasionally a performance space for live jazz, blues, and comedy. It's in the woods, down a bumpy, only partially paved road, but that doesn't stop a loyal following from eating, drinking, and being entertained there. Ca'buni means casa (home) in the boonies.

Jess is committed to serving a local menu. She is our local version of Alice Waters of Chez Panisse in Berkeley and Judy Wicks of the White Dog Café in Philadelphia, women chefs who have pioneered the growing trend of restaurateurs' becoming agents of change in local food systems. Many chefs, responding to a demand for local food on the menu, will buy whatever is fresh from farmers through the back kitchen door, but these women also drive the market. They are quantity buyers, and when they add a dish to their menu they become volume buyers.

Jess explained this over Numi tea one day at Ca'buni. After a rapid-fire critique of the industrial food system using a tone reserved for really rotten movies, she revealed her suppliers and strategies for serving a local menu every day to a steady stream of customers.

She gets her pork from the original heritage breed pig at Chia, a small family-owned and -operated farm in Clinton, the first unincorporated town on the island, right off the ferry. Her beef comes from 3 Sisters Cattle Company at the north end. The three sisters are the daughters of Ron and Shelly Muzzall, fourth-generation farmers on Whidbey Island, who built the business of supplying quality USDA-approved beef—grass-fed grain-finished steers that pasture in the summer and eat grain grown right on the farm over the winter.

Jess gets her chickens from Skagit Valley just north and east over the Deception Pass Bridge.

Her vegetables come from Quail's Run Farm in Clinton, where Loren and Patty Imes custom-grow for Jess's annual menu. She gives them a list of seeds they need to buy, pays them as if they were a CSA (which they are, but for a restaurant, not a family), and gets a steady supply of vegetables from spring through fall.

This is a boon to Loren and Patti, but still does not cover expenses for a family of four. Like most small farmers, they need a second income to make ends meet. Loren does Web design to support the family, just like Britt and Eric need her income from nonprofit work to survive. Tricia's farm income is only one small part of her and Kent's household income, with his job as a teacher being the main source of green stuff.

Sprouts come from Ferry View Farms in Clinton. Chanterelles come from the forests and the oysters from beds right in Holmes Harbor.

Jess gets her heirloom pumpkins from another grower and her eggs from my very own supplier, Skymeadow.

What tomatoes Loren and Patty can't provide year-round Jess gets from small organic family farms in Mexico.

She visits as many of her farmers as she can at least twice a year. She wants to see the cows and visit the chickens and know the families and be sure everything—from land to animals to vegetables to children—is well loved.

“It's not just where your food comes from. It's who grows it, and how sustainable their lives are.”

The coffee, of course, is Mukilteo, roasted right in the warehouse. Owner Gary's ethic mirrors Jess's. He buys direct from farmers around the world and likes to go to the farms and meet the growers.

For tea Jess picked Numi, a fair trade company, which we were drinking as we chatted.

And some of what doesn't grow on the island grows in our fifty-mile food shed. She loves shopping at the Ballard farmers' market in Seattle and clubbing afterward—and it helps that provisioning for Ca'buni requires trips to the mainland.

“Come with me,” she offered.

“For sure,” I said, very keen to expand my repertoire for February.

Ballard is the old Scandihoovian (“Scandinavian” in Ballardese) fishing neighborhood of Seattle, now filling with standard jeans-and-fleece young families types, topped with ever more hip coffee shops and bars. This farmers' market, like many other flourishing ones, is a feast for the senses. There are ethnic-food stalls, baked goods, foraged fungi from the forests, music, and handcrafted gifts. Jess directed me to her favorite, Nash's from Sequim on the Olympic Peninsula. They had a large stand with tables heaped high with greens, cabbages and Brussels sprouts, roots, grains, squash, and potatoes. Not everyone pounces on parsnip, but I have relished them roasted and mashed ever since discovering them wild in cow pastures in Rhinelander—and stocked up. I got some greens, cabbage, and Brussels sprouts (another delicacy when roasted), all the while chatting with the young woman farmer in a watch cap and frayed hoodie about my 10-mile diet and upcoming 50-mile experiment. She liked my story and threw in a free bag of rye berries with my order. From another stand I bought two more five-dollars-a-pound chickens for the freezer.

When I was a global eater, ten miles was a struggle. Compared to that, fifty miles—with roots and squash and flour and barley and beans and winter greens—was heaven.

I was stocked and stoked, ready for February 1. I could have as many exotics as I wanted as long as 50 percent of my nourishment stayed within a few hours' drive. Ready. Set. Eat.