Feeding My Passion

Day 21v2 – A Direct Line From Field to Table, aka Dao of Nature

Posted in Another 30 days, California, Cooking, First Edit, Food, Photo Essay, Photoj Class, Santa Cruz on April 7th, 2010 by Colin

Day 2 on Shumei’s Santa Cruz Farm, where they use natural methods to grow produce that is beyond organic, at least organic as it is known and certified now. The friend I visited Santa Cruz with, Kamila, is a part of the Shumei organization, and I was fortunate enough to gain access and make pictures there for one of the four sections of my photo essay that is a kind of visual companion to The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan.

: Masaharu looking at the dry erase board and figuring out what to do today during the daily staff and volunteer meeting.

: Masaharu taking freshly picked Swiss chard to be washed.

: Washing the mizuna, a Japanese green, for the community supported agriculture boxes.

: Star holds up a bunch of carrots he’s about to wash for the CSA boxes.

: Rosan distributing the bounty into the CSA boxes.

: Rie makes a Japanese turnip and vegetable soup with a dashi base, garden salad, and a pasta sauce, all made fruits, vegetables, and legumes grown on Shumei’s Santa Cruz farm.

: Hiroka feeds a nori and rice roll to Yuto, Rie’s son.

: Rie, cooking lunch, and Shogo, Masaharu’s son

: Rie making the garden salad. Masaharu’s wife, (name to come), made the shiro (white) miso in the plastic tub, from soybeans they grew on the farm. Rie used the miso to make the salad dressing.

: What, another picture of the miso? This is homemade miso people, and while it’s relatively easy to make, it has to age a full year. Aka (red) miso ages three years.

: And it’s incredibly delicious, and good for you too. I ate it with a spoon! So here’s a 3rd picture!

: It’s a little late in the season for carrots, that’s why they’re a little pale, but they were sweeter than candy and had incredible flavor.

: Lunch is almost ready and the workers start to circle the bounty.

: Masaharu, the head farmer at Shumei’s Santa Cruz Farm, seems happy and proud to see lunch served, almost all of which came from his fields.

: Brandon, one of the WOOF’ers (part of an organic and natural farming organization), gets the jungle-gym treatment from Shogo and Hiroka while Yuto looks on.