Me, age 2 1/2, helping water Grampa Rollie’s garden, Arroyo Grande, California, March 1962.

Gardening

Gardens were a big part of my childhood. As long as they were alive my great-grandparents, Rolla and Ora Goodman, had a bountiful garden. Lucky for me they both lived until I was in my teens. The garden I remember the most, and spent the most time in, and ate the most food from, was the one they had at their modest little home in Orcutt, California, along the Central Coast of California. Each visit my sister, Traci, and I would spend hours down in the garden; eating strawberries right off the vine, pulling up carrots for the mid-day meal, helping Grampa Rollie water or weed. I learned a tremendous amount about gardening from them, and from helping out in their garden.

When I was around eleven or twelve my mother let me plant a few rows of vegetables in our backyard. We were living in San Luis Obispo, also on the Central California Coast, not far from my great-grandparents, and I wanted to apply what I had learned from them. I think I planted some zucchini, Swiss chard and tomatoes, maybe a few other things. And I believe I was able to get a small harvest from it. Our neighbors, across Pismo Street, were Mr. and Mrs. Tanner, and he was quite the gardener. I spent a lot of time with him in his garden. He had the touch; his plants were healthy and very productive. He sent me home with zucchini, tomatoes and any other surplus he had each time I crossed the street to visit him. He also came over and offered his advice about my fledgling few rows. After my first few successes, and after eating my own home grown vegetables, gardening really got under my skin.

Then I grew up. I went to live in Europe, then San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles. Gardening quickly took a back seat to living life in the big city. To work, school, and a busy social life. I lived in apartments not in houses with yards; there was no real property to plant a garden. I currently live in a condo with little available outdoor space. A poor excuse, I know that many people find ways to plant vegetables in very small areas but it’s my excuse nonetheless. I replaced ‘garden fresh’ with ‘farmer’s market fresh’ and at least I had that. Enter Auntie Em’s Kitchen in Eagle Rock, California — a mere 4.2 miles, 12 minute drive from my home in Atwater Village.

Auntie Em’s Organic Produce and Dinner Delivery

Auntie Em’s is quite the food enterprise. Located on Eagle Rock Boulevard, there’s a cafe and bakery that serves fresh, healthy food using ’seasonally available fruit, vegetables, meats, poultry and fish’. The cafe menu and bakery items offered change according to what is seasonally available. My kind of place! They also have a marketplace that offers cheeses, condiments, sweets, Auntie Em’s frozen dishes, tableware and gift baskets; and they offer full catering services. Their newest venture is a farmer’s market produce delivery service: ‘Auntie Em’s Organic Produce and Dinner Delivery’. The service brings ‘locally grown, organic, seasonal produce and heatable meals and baked goods to your doorstep’. I am in my third week. And I love it.

They go around to local farmer’s markets, gather whatever is fresh, seasonal and wonderful, and deliver it to my doorstep once a week. The produce they have chosen has been top notch: fresh and full of flavor. It lasts longer than anything I buy in a grocery store. Some of the local farms that the produce comes from are Wieser Farms, South Central Organic Farms, McGrath Family Farms, K and K Farms, Jiminez Farms, Tutti Frutti Farms and Finley Farms. My delivery arrives on Monday afternoons but on Sunday an e-mail arrives with a list of the items to expect; often there are notations about a specific item, a way to prepare it, or store it. Usually there’s a suggested recipe for one or two of the items. Have I said I love this? It’s almost like having my own garden — okay, okay, I did say ‘almost.’ Another reason I like it is I had been finding it difficult to get to my local farmer’s market on a regular basis depending on what else was going on in my life. It has been a perfect solution. I have yet to try the reheat-able meals and baked goods as the produce is more than enough to feed me for a week but I will try them soon.

Last week’s e-mail had an additional touch: a story written by Auntie Em’s owner, Terri Wahl, about her gardening trials and tribulations over the years. I found it so interesting and charming that I asked her if I could re-post it, and she agreed. As you will see gardening is not always easy but as both Teri and I know it is immensely satisfying. When the carrot you put in your dinner salad comes out of the garden your hands planted, there’s no feeling, or taste, quite like it.

In Terri Wahl’s own words…

I have such a giant respect for farmers — especially organic farmers after the trials and tribulations with my own garden. I have had a garden every year, in every apartment, duplex and now the house that I live in. When I was eighteen, I moved out of my parent’s house, into a 4-plex. I was on the second story. I started a little garden in pots on the balcony. Herbs, cherry tomatoes and carrots. The carrots didn’t do too well, the herbs did pretty well, and the cherry tomatoes grew like weeds. My mother was always an avid gardener. She had compost piles before it was the cool thing to do. She explained to me that the things that I planted in pots would do much better if they were in the ground. More nutrients, more water, more sunlight. I dug up parts of yards in rented apartments to plant my little gardens (boy were the landlords pissed). I tore out the ugly perennials the gardeners planted in front of another apartment I lived in and planted away (not enough sun there). But I never gave up.

There were successes along the way, even great veggies that I grew. Back then if you saw mold on the leaves of a zucchini plant or motes on the underside of the leaves of a tomato plant, it was fine to blast them with some crazy toxic anti bug spray. Back then it was also fine to sprinkle everything with some kind of powder that would make everything grow huge. But over the years we have all learned that these pesticides and sprays were harmful, and not the proper way to garden or eat. In the house my husband and I live in now I have had an organic garden plot in four or five different places on our hillside backyard. One place was too shady, one place smack in the way. THEN three years ago, the attack of the gophers. I really thought I’d found the absolute perfect spot. My pastry chef, Michael, and I dug it over, added organic Amend and compost, measured out the perfect rows, and planted every row from seed: heirloom carrots, heirloom beets, Easter egg radishes, leeks, Little Gem lettuces, and rows of different herbs.

I really thought that this was going to be the best and most prolific garden yet. We did everything right. I had plans to use all the produce at the restaurant, and to eat from the garden at home and not buy produce for months, and then we would turn the soil and rotate the crops! Oh yeah, I had it down. I thought I was such a pro. The garden was growing beautifully. Giant green carrot fronds; the beet greens above ground looked so tender and tasty. Then all of a sudden there were two or three carrots, or radishes gone from the end of the rows. The next morning more were gone. I thought my dogs might be digging them up but there were no digging holes. I picked some of the other carrots to see what was up, and all that came out were the green fronds — no carrots attached. Same with the beets and radishes. SOMETHING was eating them from underneath. My mom came over and saw the little gopher hole about five feet away right away. I got a hose and filled up every hole with water. Flood them out! To no avail. I went online and looked up ‘humane’ ways to trap them. Not one thing worked. I was so pissed that I stormed down to Home Depot and bought six packs of these crazy big fire cracker-looking things that you’re supposed to light and shove down the holes to smoke them out. I would stop at nothing to get them. I paid some ‘gopher guy’ hundreds of dollars to trap them. Nope! Nothing worked. It was definitely a ‘Caddy Shack’ situation in my yard. I sadly let my garden die from no water. They were not going to have my lovely garden.

Two sad years went by, and I refused to plant a vegetable garden. This year my husband suggested a new location up and away from all the gopher activity. So I planted another garden. Skeptical at first, but I took the precautions just in case they decided to come up hill to have a nibble on my new garden. I wrapped roots in wire mesh, and the garden started to grow. I had the humane trap guy come back (I negotiated a lower price) and set kill free traps. SO far so good. The score is even though. They ate a zucchini plant and eggplant plant. They literally sucked the whole thing underground, top leaves and all. Gone! But when they started to nibble on two tomato plants, I caught them. I covered their holes, and ruined their tunnel. So I saved those. Everything looks like it is thriving. I check daily (sometimes two or three times). So a tip of the hat to the organic farmers that do this for a livelihood. They battle this problem a hundred fold and have to use non-commercial, humane and organic ways to deal with all pests. It’s hard and frustrating. They always seem so positive and upbeat, and I am always so excited to taste and see their bounty.

Reprinted courtesy of Terri Wahl, Auntie Em’s Kitchen, Eagle Rock, California

My Status: it’s still hot in Los Angeles – upper 90s, summer is really here; enjoying all the summer produce; writing, cooking, blogging and eating!

Upcoming Posts: The Wedge Salad: a recipe, the origins of the salad and of Iceberg lettuce. Review: ‘The Barcelona Cookbook’. Pimientos del Padrón: a recipe and pictures from a weekend pepper cooking session with my Galician friend, Júrgio.

An homage.

If I could be a beekeeper I would be. I love bees, always have. Not sure why exactly. I’ve been stung numerous times. I’m not afraid. I have two books on beekeeping, ‘The Shamanic Way of the Bee’ by Simon Buxton and “Beekeeping – A Practical Guide’ by Richard E. Bonney. One day I hope to have a few hives of my own.

I also like what bees produce: Honey. My love affair with honey dates back to my childhood. My great-grandparents lived on a 17-acre parcel of land in Arroyo Grande, California that everyone called ‘The Ranch.’ Grampa Rollie raised sheep, chickens and Angus beef; they grew vegetables and had a few fruit trees; and Gramma Ora had a beautiful flower garden. They lived quite comfortably off this piece of land. The next door neighbors, the Van den Meters, had beehives and sold honey to my great-grandparents.

Traditions with Honey

Somewhere along the line, when I was probably four or five years old, a tradition began with my great-grandfather, myself and my younger sister, Traci. Traci and I would sit at the kitchen table with Grampa Rollie. He’d have a stack of toast on a plate, butter, and a jar of the neighbor’s amazing clover honey. He’d break off a piece of toast, put a dab of butter on it, spoon on some honey, then pop it into one of our mouths. Then he’d do it all over again for the other mouth. Back and forth, one in my mouth, one in my sister’s, until all the toast was gone. It was as if we were his baby birds and he was feeding us. Each visit required this ‘feeding’, and he always obliged. It’s a memory that I cherish to this day. I also remember the flavor of that clover honey. Fresh, unadulterated, like the clover fields the bees collected pollen in.

Mexican Honey

A year ago almost to the day, Robert and I were on a 10-day tour of the Yucatán Peninsula. While in Mérida we stopped in to see my friend, Chef Jeremiah Tower, who now makes Mérida his home base. One afternoon he took Robert and me to the local public market as he wanted us to try the Yucatán delicacy cochinita pibil – citrus marinated pork slow-roasted in banana leaves. The market was a wonder to behold. An assault of smells, sounds, and colors. Every type of food item from the area available. After a tour of the market, Jeremiah led us to a small stand that specializes in cochinta – his favorite purveyor of the pork dish. He ordered us a round of tacos and we sat at a little ceramic table in the middle of the market to eat. By the time we left I had eaten three cochinita tacos – each one topped with a sprinkling of crunchy chicharrón, or pork rind. They were amazing. He was right. I’ve had cochinta before but this was a notch above.

The reason I tell this story is that as we left the market Jeremiah stopped at another vendor, grabbed a plastic bottle of honey and told me I had to try it. So I did. I bought the bottle, a small plastic water bottle repurposed as a container for the amber honey. I managed to get it home to Los Angeles without getting caught at customs and have been eating it for the last year. And now, sadly, it’s gone. By the time we finished it off, it was all sugary and crystallized but still edible. And it was wonderful.

The flavor and color of honey is affected by the flowers that the bees collect pollen from. I was used to the more common clover and orange blossom honeys that are available in California. The kind I grew up eating at my great-grandfather’s knee. The Yucatán honey was a different experience completely; amber in color with a nice herbal bite to it. It’s flavor was sharper, more complex than what I was used to but I learned to love it. And I am very sad it is gone. A return trip to the Yucatán may be in the offing.

Local Honey

So to replace the Yucatán honey Robert and I went to the Atwater Village Farmers Market a couple weekends ago, and I bought some new honey from Aunt Willie at her little stand. I opted for avocado this time to see what that tasted like and it’s delicious. The flavor is less sweet with molasses and butterscotch overtones. It’s a nice replacement to my plastic-water-bottle-Mexican-honey.

Aunt Willie has beehives where she collects her honey around the Los Angeles region: in La Habra, Fallbrook, Moorpark and San Bernardino. All roughly within 1o0 miles of Los Angeles. She explained to Robert and me that the bees, the farmers and she have a symbiotic relationship. They need her bees to pollinate their crops, and she needs their land to house her hives. Without bees to pollinate crops we wouldn’t have produce. They are a necessary component of our food cycle. Aunt Willie told us that bees via pollination can double a farmers yield. Even backyard beehives, like the ones I may eventually get if Robert will allow it, contribute to the food cycle.

French Honey

One final note: another honey that I learned to love, and have already blogged about, was the miel de sapin that I ate when I lived in France. The pollen is collected from the pine trees in the Vosges Mountains of Alsace – it has a distinctive, sharp, and piney taste to it.

I love bees, and I love honey.