FJ HOUSE Advocates: The Farmer and the Cook, Ojai, CA (pt. 1)

This weekend the Food Justice House took a trip to Ojai to visit the Farmer and the Cook restaurant and it's accompanying farm, Rancho Del Pueblo. Ojai, a quaint town located halfway between L.A. and Santa Barbara, quickly won the hearts of the FJH with its delightful town center and impressive scenery. However, it was the people we met that will ensure our return!

"E"

I don't know much about the issues of FOOD JUSTICE outside of cities (Los Angeles to be specific), but that doesn't mean the farmers in Ojai don't know a lot about the problems here in LA. We spent the morning with Steve Sprinkel, the farm's manager and, as far I can tell, spokesman. Steve was quite the character, and it didn't take long for us to realize that he knew a great deal more than us about LA food politics. Wow, I thought we were the experts! I could go through and make a list of all the tidbits of knowledge we gained that morning, but I won't. Instead I recommend our readers take a trip to Ojai themselves and visit Mr. Sprinkel.

At the farm we spent the morning helping out Steve with farm chores. Picking chard was fun, but I got the most out of trimming back the lettuce. Wilting and parasites is something we struggle a bit with at our garden, so it was useful to see what these problems look like at a commercial level and to learn some solutions to dealing with these issues.

As we picked lettuce Steve discusses the woes and problems of mono-cropping, the corruption in organic foods, and his thoughts on Monsanto (which were for the most part fairly negative). Steve himself is a really interesting guy with a fun past. Today, Steve and his wife run the Farmer and the Cook, a restaurant in Ojai. The food at the restaurant is grown by Steve and is delivered fresh daily. Wow talk about vertical integration! Steve also supplies food to farmers markets, CSAs, and grocery store distributors.

Fun fact: he was also once a potter. Does this make him a Renaissance Man? Hmmm, I didn't see him A) Riding a horse or B) using a bow so I can't make a fair assessment. Either way, his farm, and Ojai in general, is worth a visit. Us at the FJH support organic food, but even more importantly, being informed about where our food comes from and who is involved in improving our access. A big thanks is given to Steve and his family and we hope to be back soon.

Rancho Del Pueblo is always looking for volunteers; if you're interested, check out their website.  Look forward to part 2 of our double header as we talk about the restaurant side of the Farm and the Cook!

Other titles I considered for this article :

One Sprinkel you won't find on a doughnut!

Sugar Free Sprinkels!

Sucka Free Sprinkels!

Ojai, a Land of OJ! 

Ojai, a Land of Milk and Sprinkels!

Oh Hey Ojai!

Sprinkels over Pringels!

Garden Update!

Hi.

Long time member of the house, first time blogger Noah Donnell-Kilmer here. You might no me from my cameo's on Beer of the Week, or from you're neighborhood wanted posters:

Anyways, I am here to tell you all about the new developments of our wonderful garden! Last weekend, we replanted most of the garden, pulling out the nasty old and putting in new exciting plants. Almost all of our lettuce bolted and became bitter, eww. So that went in the compost, along with our bolting broccoli, sad looking spinach, and aphid infested purple lettuce. It was quite an ordeal pulling all of it out, trying to salvage some, and amending the soil with compost from FEAST. After double-digging this in, we were ready to replant! On Friday, Dan and I traveled to our favorite nursery, Bellafontaine in Pasadena. The man there knows who we are an what's in our garden. You couldn't get that kind of personal love and service at a corporate store like Home Depot. Go local businesses!!!

We've been making slight changes to the garden all semester, but this was our first overhaul. Some of the previous changes were:

New raised bed (Augustus Ceasar):

New side bed where an ugly bush was:

Three New Tomato plants including the greatest producer in the world!

Strawberries and thyme!

For the overhaul, we consulted master gardeners who visited our Cooking and Gardening class on what was best to grow for the summer. After speaking with them, we were ready to get our hands dirty.
Here's what we got!

Asian and Armenian cucumbers:

Goodbug attracting flowers:

Eggplant:

Hot and bell peppers:

Zucchini:

Our garden is shaping up to produce a very plentiful harvest this summer! I am extremely excited to be staying in the area and eating all these great veggies. In addition to these new members of our garden family, we have some older plants coming to fruition, including radishes, carrots, and basil. Exciting times indeed folks!

We are in the process of proposing growth in the front yard of the house. This space will include such attractions as fruit trees, sunflowers, large garden bed, and an herb wheel! If only we can get the suits to agree with our wonderful new plans!

Stay posted for new developments and tasty veggies!

New Native California Plants Garden at the FJH #xeriscaping

This weekend us at the FJH planted a new garden in our back yard. Accomplished with the help of Occidental College's Dr. North and students Sean Sasaki and Alex Broad, this garden features few truly edible plants and instead is focused on xeriscaping.

Definition: Xeriscaping refers to landscaping and gardening in ways that reduce or eliminate the need for supplemental water from irrigation. It is promoted in regions that do not have easily accessible, plentiful, or reliable supplies of fresh water, and is gaining acceptance in other areas as climate patterns shift.

Wow thanks Wikipedia!

Hey FJH, is xeriscaping right for my garden?

Answer: Hey great question. I would say that our new garden looks great. However, it all depends on what you are trying to accomplish. If you want to supplement your food then no, why would you ever do this?!!?? The only plant we have that is edible is the Manzanita which produces berries for cider. But, if you want to beautify your back yard with out destroying the planet then xeriscaping could be gr8 4 u! 

Here are some of the plants we used:

A Manzanita: This is the common name for around one hundred species of chaparral shrub that grow in the Los Angeles basin. They have cool bark! They can be pruned to stay small, but I particularly like the gnarled look they get as they age.

Aloe vera: this plant will save us from our greatest perils and woes! It holds the cures for everything, from sun burns to normal burns! Our Aloe vera is pink, exciting!

Ceanothus: pronounced: see-I-Know-this! Wow, helpful hint. Secret: rub the flowers between your hands and you will get soap. Wow! This is a terrible photo and makes our back yard look bad.

And Hollywood Cherry too! This may look like an Oak, but it is not!

The Los Angeles Basin Ecology: In California we live in a Mediterranean climate, which means despite our somewhat wet winters we have dry summers. The plants that grow here are adapted to live in at least one of the micro-climates found here in Los Angeles.  LA is also surrounded on three sides by mountains, the only place on the west coast to feature this type of topography, and makes our water situation here fairly unique.

While you can xerispace with plants native to one of the many deserts in the southwest U.S., if you live in LA why not try using plants native to this area? This is a great alternative if you want to xeriscape, but don't particularly like succulents or cacti.

I hope this helps, and remember, never garden alone. Several people hurt their foreheads each year on rakes, shovels, and other advanced tools. Try to always take a lesson on advanced tools from your local nursery and keep yourself updated on the latest hazards from pitchforks.

 Thanx Sean!

#Back To Business

Okay, guys, let's get back to business.  I don't know what's been happening here at FOOD JUSTICE, LA, but it's been getting pretty weird.  The post-ironic era?  What is that?!?  Lana Del Rey?  Personally, I like Adele much better.  She won so many Grammys after all!  And what ever happened to Tea of the Week?  Sylvia wrote to me the other day and was very upset that there hadn't been a single tea featured since February.  This blog used to be a FOOD JUSTICE!  Now I don't even know what it is about!  FOOD JUSTICE is real!  Let's get back to talking about it!

That is what FOOD JUSTICE means to me.  Look at those plants!  Say good bye to all of them though; this is the last of the FJ HOUSE Fall/Winter crop.  It's springtime now, and that means a whole new batch of vegetables are going into our garden.  Come and listen and learn to what we're planting, what we're eating, and what we're doing in the garden in upcoming posts.  I'm excited...I hope you are too.

-Ben "The Best" Tuthill

WORM FARM II

I've been getting a lot of flack for not following through with my WORM FARM creation. This is because every one is jealous that it is the most viewed post on the food justice blog. Well, since it's spring break, I've decided to deliver. Here it is: How To Build Your Own Worm Farm (maybe, because I don't know if the worms are going to live or not.)


First, you have to get a container for the farm. You can do this in a big plastic tub, or anything else. I used this weird old wooden shelf that was in our back yard. Previously, it was full of dirt, so I dug it out.

Then, for no real reason, I put some cardboard on the bottom. I think it was because I was afraid the worms were going to try and escape. 

Then, because I thought the cardboard would be harsh and scary for the worms, I put some dirt on top of that. 

Apparently worms really like newspaper. I don't know why worms like newspaper. But I ran over to The Cooler to get a stack of old New York Times to accomodate them. We had recently taken out the recycling and didn't have any just lying around. 

So then you have to to tear the paper in to strips. About one inch thick, but no one is measuring, so don't be exact about it. In the beginning, I tried cutting with scissors, but that was too hard and made my hand cramp, so I would definitely recommend tearing. 

Wet those paper puppies down. They need to be damp, so the worms' little bodies don't dry up, but you don't want them to be too too wet, either. That could attract gross smells and maybe kill the worms. I don't know, but they're just not supposed to be super wet according to what I read. When putting them down, make sure they're fluffed up and not just a big mush of last friday's top news stories. 

Concerned that the worms might get homesick for their previous lives, I put a little bit more dirt in. This is also supposed to be good because it puts a bit of grit in to the worm's system, makes them tough.

Once again, I added some more newspaper. In all, it took me about nine New York Times, so if you plan on doing this at home, start saving your papers more than a week in advance.

And now, I reveal to you; The Worms:

I spent about two hours digging these suckers up. I'm not a worm expert, nor do I pretend to be, but I think there are three different types of worms in the FEAST garden, at least that I saw. The first are red and when you pick them up they squirm like crazy. The second are really gross looking, like a yellow/green color and just curled up. And then the third are standard earthworms, some of which were incredibly massive. I heard the red ones are supposed to be the best at composting, but I also thought that it would be nice to have a diverse worm population, so I just threw the whole bunch in a wished them luck. 

The worms need food, and the best way to do this is to add your food scraps. Be mindful, however, that worms really do not like onions, citrus, or anything else that is sting-y, since their whole bodies are very sensitive. Also, don't put meat in with the worms. Meat is universally agreed to be something you don't put in compost. As you can see in the picture, there are some carrot peelings, but later I threw in some gross blueberries after making a pie. 

Next, you have to put a top on it, to keep the moisture in and the heat out. I just used some cardboard and rocks.

After this, you just leave your worms to stew, occasionally putting in more food and adding a little bit of water. Worms eat about half of their body weight in a day, and reproduce pretty quickly, doubling their population in a month, so as time goes on, make sure you keep adding food. I don't know what to do with the worms once they're ready to be farmed, or how to gather their waste, but when I get to that point, I'll let you know what goes down.

Hopefully you are now prepared to make a worm farm of your own. If not, just use google. There are plenty of sites with advice much more expertise than my own.

HOT SAUCE JUSTICE

Hey there, Food Justiceers!

So, this is somewhat late, but I thought I'd hit the blogscape and tell you guys about an awesome little experience we had making... HOT SAUCE!!!

You may not know, but we have a habanero bush growing in our garden. As Ben related in an earlier post, habanero peppers are HOT! Like, really hot! And, having a bush, we have a ton of habaneros! All the time! Like, fifty habaneros! Like, seventy-five habaneros! Like, a hundred habaneros!

But actually, though, we had a whole lot of habaneros, and it seemed that the best way to use a bunch of 'em up in one fell swoop would be to make hot sauce. Lots of hot sauce! In fact, when Ben and I sat down to plan out our hot saucing itinerary, we decided we'd need a full twenty (20) fresh, home-grown habanero peppers. And that was hardly half of what was on the plant! (Disclaimer: Jordan actually pioneered the hot sauce movement when he made his famed "Holy S**t Hot Sauce," with lovely peaches mixed in with the peppers. I wasn't there for that event, though, so he'll have to tell you about it sometime!)

We found two recipes on the interwebs (what a lovely place) that were almost identical, except for the ingredients that made them each unique: both had habaneros, onions, garlic, and shallots, olive oil and sugar. But one was flavored with white wine vinegar (we used red) and cocoa powder (mole style!) while the other used lime juice and zest for a nice tangy flavor.

Once we'd gotten all our other ingredients prepared, we threw our habaneros (with the seeds still in for extra spice) into a food processor and let 'er rip. When we opened that puppy up, I've gotta say, the fumes started to get to me. BE CAREFUL WITH HABANEROS, FOLKS. Not only can you seriously hurt yourself if you, say, touch your eye after playing around with these peppers, but they really fume up a room when chopped and/or cooked. Just ask our housemates! Anyway, here's what came out of the food processor:


So then, following the directions of course, we split the peppers into two separate pans, and threw those ingredients together. The fumes only got more intense as we cooked the peppers down. We got several complaints—Clarissa even barricaded her door with pillows to stop the evil hotness from getting in! I, for one, was coughing and tearing up quite a bit. Again, be CAREFUL!

Here are the sauces being cooked:


When we'd finished, we cleaned everything very thoroughly (but apparently, not thoroughly enough: a couple days later, Noah used one of those pans to make some eggs, and residual pepper oils started fuming up the kitchen again! Remember folks, CLEAN THIS STUFF WELL!) and put those sauces in jars. We had to water them down a bit, as they were sort of thick, but it wasn't an issue. We tried them, of course— they are SPICY. Like, seriously, really hot hot sauce. But flavorful as well! The verdict seemed to be that, while both are very good, the chocolate was more interesting, and the lime more versatile. Have fun with both varieties! Or find your own recipe, and tell us about it! At the rate that bush is growing, we'll be having to make a lot more hot sauce as the months wear on.





Until next time,

Gabriel


Oh, and here's where we got the recipes. Credit where credit is due!

SALSA JUSTICE

Have you heard of this stuff? It's called salsa and it's CRAZY good! It's refreshing but fiery hot at the same time. I'd never tried it before, but we at FOOD JUSTICE HOUSE thought we should make some...

FUN FACT: Salsa means SAUCE in Spanish.

In the FOOD JUSTICE GARDEN we grow peppers. Most of our crops died this summer, but the peppers survived the summer. This is a pepper:

Peppers are SPICY! We grow two types of peppers, jalapenos and habeneros. Jalapenos are spicy, but habeneros are SUPER SPICY.

FUN FACT: The habenero pepper is 10 to 30 times hotter than the jalapeno pepper.

Not that kind of Pepper!

We've been harvesting jalapenos for awhile, and we've just started to pick habeneros.  We thought it would be fun to make some of this super spicy salsa stuff.  We made our own recipe because we're smart and cool!  It's pretty spicy, be warned!  But it's super refreshing and has a delightful lime aftertaste.  Here it is:

SALSA FRESCA (this means FRESH SAUCE: this means no cooking, all the ingredients are just FRESH)

3 tomatoes, quartered

1/2 habenero

1/2 onion, cut in half

a handfull of cilantro

1 lime, juiced

1 clove garlic

salt to taste

Blend everything but salt in the food processor of your choice.  Be very careful when cutting the habenero...wash your hands after...don't touch anything after touching it...if you touch your eyes you could go blind or die...yikes!  Blend it to the consistency you prefer.  Salt to taste.  Serve chilled.  Yummmmmmm...

It should look like this:

Haha, jk, that would be strange!

It looks more like this:

Did not take this picture!

SALSA is cool and a great way to do justice to peppers.  MAKE BANKS PAY...for SALSA!

Experiments in Food Justice, Vol. 2: Sun-dried Tomatoes

Hello, friends of the movement!

Today's story begins with a really great thing turning horribly wrong.

Fay has a pretty nifty internship at WORKS (Women Organizing Resources, Knowledge & Services). Sometimes, they send her home with big bushels of vegetables, which is really great, because then we get to eat them without ever paying a cent.

One week, Fay came home with a gigantic flat of cherry tomatoes. And at first, it was good. We were very excited to have all these tomatoes, and we were thinking of all the amazing things we could do with them. But then we realized how many tomatoes we really had on our hands, and, well, we were a bit overwhelmed. There were, like, five pounds of tomatoes. Ten pounds of tomatoes. Maybe even fifteen pounds of tomatoes, but probably not.

We tried to use them in a lot of delicious dishes, such as salads, and a pretty fantastic fresh tomato sauce made by yours truly. But there were just too many. Due to lack of space in our little kitchen, we had the flat on top of the fridge, and every time we pulled it out, a swarm of fruit flies went zooming around. Tomatoes were going bad, turning to mush. Things were getting really ugly.

Then, a miracle. Noah "Got-Arrested-In-A-Bank-Protest-Maybe-You-Recognize-Him-From-The-Cover-Of-The-Oxy-Weekly-Or-CNN" Donnell-Kilmer came up with the clearly genius plan of SUN-DRYING the tomatoes.

While he never actually explained the mechanics of it to me, my impression is that the process was pretty simple. He halved the tomatoes, laying them out on baking trays, open side up. He threw some oregano and salt on those things, to make them extra tangy and tasty. The recipe apparently called for cheese-cloth to keep the bugs off, but Noah, the inventive madman that he is, made do with coffee filters. Then he set them outside in the sun, to dry. You know, sun-drying.



After a few days of diligently moving those trays to follow the sun over the course of the day, Noah had himself a batch of certified, grade A sun-dried tomatoes! We still haven't quite wrapped our minds around the possibilities of what we can make with them, but needless to say, we're excited.