Knowing What You Eat - Part I

Awareness of knowing where our food comes from has been on the rise - farmer's markets and CSAs are blowin' up; more and more grocery stores are labeling specific produce varieties, who produced it and where it was grown; books about local and sustainable food top bestseller lists (some of my favorites: Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan, Fast Food Nation by Eric Scholsser, Plenty: Eating Locally on the 100-Mile Diet by Alisa Smith and JB Mackinnon); the American version of Torino's Slow Food Festival (http://slowfoodnation.org/) arrived in San Francisco last fall; and more and more restaurants are choosing to note what farm or area ingredients come from on their menus. 

Knowing What You Eat - Part I: Restaurants

As I have been caught up in and following this interesting wave of sustainability, I had a particlarly enlightening day of understanding where food we eat comes from, and interesting "new" models of how we can better understand where it comes from, especially as it relates to eating out: 

1. Early spring vegetable gardening class at Love Apple Farm, a farm in the Santa Cruz mountains where Cynthia Sandberg provides much of the vegetables used at Manresa, Chef David Kinch's critically acclaimed and 2-Michelin star restaurant in Los Gatos, CA.  http://loveapplefarm.typepad.com/ and 
http://www.manresarestaurant.com

2. Dinner w/ my wife, Wendy, at Parcel 104, Bradley Odgen's restaurant in Santa Clara, CA that strives to provide high-quality seasonal farm-fresh food.  http://www.parcel104.com/

It was completely inspiring to spend all day at Love Apple Farm - among the beautiful beds of sustainably-grown broccoli, arugula and lettuces; picking and tasting leaves of watercress, fava and frisee directly off the plant; and hearing directly from the farmer talk passionately about what she does, why she does it and the the basics of how to start carrots/lettuces/vegetables that I had never heard of like kohlrabi.   On a basic level, it was fun just to learn more about the nuances of different seed varieties, how to amend soil and how to take the next step with my fledgling community garden plot (starting in on year 2 now; year 1 was mostly about weeding and experimenting with easy stuff like summer squashes).  

On a more big picture level, it was a bit mind-blowing to hear about the really cool partnership Cynthia has developed with David Kinch of Manresa.  Before I got there, I knew the basics - a few years ago, David Kinch thought about starting his own farm so he could get a dedicated source of locally grown produce that he could trust, smell and have some say in what grows there, but instead found Cynthia Sandberg, a kindred spirit in the sustainable ag/food movement who was on board with transforming her farm into Manresa's own vegetable garden.  That story in-of-itself was pretty cool.  http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/05/30/FDG8OQ12761.DTL

But hearing more details of the story of how the restaurant/David interacts with the farm/Cynthia is even better.  Love Apple Farm grows 100-200 varities of vegetables that Kinch works into his seasonal menus on a day-to-day / ad-hoc basis.  She grows what he wants but also throws in new and interesting varieties to surprise him and see what he thinks (if he likes it, he can incorporate it into his menu that day).  He comes to the farm several times a week to not only pick up freshly picked vegetables, but also to walk the garden and see what is going on.  When thinning patches of carrots and beets that need more space to grow, Sandberg can also give the young carrots and beets (that taste surprisingly like mature carrots and beets) to Kinch who can use incorporate them into his inventive dishes (otherwise they would go to waste/compost).  And since he's not paying a distributor by the pound for just the fruit (i.e. fava beans), he can use all the parts of the vegetable (the sweet leaves and flowers of the fava as well).  

So high-end restaurants like Manresa and Parcel 104 are leading the way to source produce from locally owned farms and have their menus dominated by seasonal ingredients.  But it begs the question of what will it take to make this more mainstream? When will the taqueria around the corner from me start using locally grown tomatoes and cilantro in the salsa, and maybe even local grass-fed beef for the carne asada?

I know groups like Om Organics are trying to make a dent through alternative distribution channels (http://omorganics.org/page.php?pageid=73&contentid=52#dist), and restauranteurs like Jesse Cool are trying to bring the same philosophy to a more casual restaurant setting like JZ Cool (http://www.cooleatz.com/jzcool-eatery/index.html) but even these are a far cry from mainstream and affordable to all. 

Now that I am inspired, what can I/we do to continue to push this movement forward, so that it expands and more restaurants and consumers care about where our food comes from?