I'm Excited About Food Systems, Ecosystems and Agriculture
Earlier this year my mom gifted me Padma Lakshmi’s memoir “Love, Loss and What We Ate”. I devoured it, reading every chance I got while Stasi napped or late at night during my golden “me time”. Between the familiar story of growing up between cultures and expressing love through food, to the gripping tales of her relationships and personal struggles, I couldn’t put it down. I finished the book in two days and promptly started following Padma on Instagram.
Last week Padma posted a quote about paying attention to the things that excite you, that these are all signs pointing to your purpose. Of course I know this deep down, but her post encouraged me to really take note of the topics I google endlessly, the ideas that loop through my mind before I fall asleep, the concepts that make my heart skip a beat. And so, without too much overthinking, here is a list of what excites me in our pandemic Spring of 2021.
I’m Excited About Sourdough
Just like everyone and their brother, I discovered sourdough during the pandemic.
I’ve always enjoyed baking and making bread, but had never explored natural fermentation until the hoarding-induced shortages of the early pandemic made it impossible to buy yeast (or bread, or flour in anything less than 25-pound bags - perhaps it’s no surprise that we ended up opening a microbakery!)
Anyhow, sourdough became my main obsession for much of 2020, and we’re still going strong in 2021. I learned how to establish and maintain a starter, how to mix dough without kneading, how to shape different loaves, how to get our home oven to mimic a commercial one, and all about the fascinating science behind fermentation and how to use time, temperature and hydration to manipulate the flavor and texture of your bread.
For most of the last year I committed baker sacrilege and didn’t measure by weight, rather eyeballed it and winged it and used my hands and eyes and intuition to tell me when my ratios were right. When we opened KITCHEN 409 I relented and finally bought a digital kitchen scale so I can ensure consistency in my recipes. It’s been revelatory to bake according to weight, but I’m also glad I started without following any metrics. It allowed me to understand the dough and the process in a unique way, one that hopefully makes me a better baker.
I’m Excited About Fermenting
My excitement about culinary microbes goes way beyond sourdough. Once I understood how the process works, I went down the fermenting rabbit hole and made sauerkraut, cucumber and cauliflower pickles, preserved lemons, and a very memorable batch of fermented garlic that turned aqua blue (yes, it happens and the explanation is fascinating; no, it doesn’t mean things have gone wrong). I also started a ginger bug and regularly make us bubbly delicious homemade sodas (also memorable thanks to the hard-learned lesson that you need to “burp” the bottles lest they explosively fountain their contents all over your kitchen at 2am).
I’m Excited About Sustainable Local Food Systems
Unpacking local South Florida organic produce, March 2020.
Again part of this was the result of the grocery shortages at the beginning of the pandemic, but I’ve never been so interested in where our food is sourced, how to support local food systems, how to reduce food waste, and how to make sure the “green trash” we do produce gets put to good use.
I’ll never forget the day in March 2020 when our first local organic produce box was delivered to our door. I literally wept. I’d been to Publix the week before and the produce section was bare except for some turnips and shallots, the sad/expensive remnants passed over by the panic purchasers. I went online and found a local CSA with availability, but when I signed up I didn’t actually believe it would arrive because of the craziness of those early pandemic days. But then, to my immense relief it did, and the value of local food sourcing was forever imprinted on my soul.
We go through a TON of produce in our household. To be specific, we generate around 25 pounds of organic waste per week. How do I know? Because we participate in a composting program run by an awesome lady with a worm farm. When we moved to West Palm Beach from California, we realized there is no municipal “green bin” for compostable waste. It felt criminal to put our produce scraps in the regular trash. Now thanks to Let It Rot, we fill a giant bucket with our peels and pits and they come pick it up twice a month, keeping all that waste out of the landfill, generating organic fertilizer, and supplying us with wonderful nerdy statistics about how much green waste we produce.
I’m Excited About Foraging
Foraged starfruit, sapodilla, mangoes and avocado from our neighborhood in West Palm Beach.
When we moved to South Florida in 2019, my love for tropical fruits and plants was reawakened. I’d gawk at the ubiquitous mango trees and coconut palms lining the streets, delight in spotting new-to-me species like noni fruit, sapodilla and cacao casually growing in people’s yards, and breathe in the lush greenery all around. There’s something about being in the tropics that feels like home, never mind the fact that I was born and raised in a desert.
One of my favorite things to do is walk around our neighborhood with Stasi and Roberto and forage for fruit. We know where all the trees are that are on public property or overhang the sidewalk/street, and I’m always amazed at the quantity of fruit that is literally left to spoil. I wonder why more people don’t forage? Our part of town is blessed with many mature fruit trees, in particular mangos - in fact, the first fruit-bearing, grafted West Indian mango tree in the United States was planted just a few blocks from where we live! We also have an abundance of sapodillas nearby, with one block literally lined on both sides with trees that bear fruit year round.
I’m Excited About Identifying Flora and Fauna
Whenever I see a fruit tree or an interesting looking plant, I immediately want to know what it is - not just for foraging purposes, but to satisfy my curiosity. What is that waxy-looking fruit growing in the alleyway that looks similar to a cashew apple? How many different types of palm trees are there around here? Same with the animals we encounter locally. I want to know what kind of fish and sharks hang out in the Intracoastal, what type of parrots occasionally fly overhead in green flocks, what those curly-tailed lizards are that run across the sidewalks everywhere.
I use two strategies to identify these plants and animals: Google a physical description that includes location (e.g. “tree with dark purple fruit looks like olive West Palm Beach”) or turn to my collection of vintage field guides. I find both methods equally satisfying, and depending on what I’m looking for it’s sometimes more efficient to use the old-school method rather than the internet.
I’m Excited About Climate Designations
See that little bit of blue along Florida’s southeast coast? That’s us in West Palm Beach!
It’s not just tropical fruit that thrills me, I’m also into tropical climate, specifically climate zone designations. I discovered that here in West Palm Beach we are in USDA Zone 10B and Koppen climate zone Af (Tropical Rainforest), a rarity in the United States. The fact that I live somewhere that has the same climate designation as Belém do Pará at the mouth of the Amazon excites me.
The fact that parts of the San Francisco Bay Area are also Zone 10B and yet couldn’t feel more different than South Florida climate-wise (in fact one of the main reasons we moved was the constant cold and fog of Northern California!) - well this also excites me, or rather confounds me. How can two places with the same designation be so utterly different?
I’m Excited About Syntropic Agriculture
Growing food crops at different levels in conjunction with trees is a hallmark of syntropic agriculture.
My enthusiasm about climate zones and plants and fermentation is just the tip of the iceberg, really. Maybe it’s the fact that it’s finally spring and I have plants and regeneration on the brain, but I’m obsessed with the concept of Syntropic Agriculture, also known as Syntropic Agroforestry. This video says it all:
I was first introduced to syntropic agroforestry by my friend Siria, who lives next door to my family’s homestead on the Italian-Slovenian border, and where we have roots going back 400 years. I find it incredibly poetic that an Italian introduced me to a concept made popular in Brazil by a German - this is the essence of Origins and Routes!
Siria is in the process of transforming their backyard into a syntropic food forest. This is what I hope to do on our property as well, one day in the future, when we’re able to spend a good part of our time over there. For now though, because of the pandemic and an ongoing quest to get our Italian citizenship recognized, we are here in Florida full-time and I’m left asking myself what to do with all my excitement about regenerative agriculture when I can’t get my hands in the soil yet.
The answer? Study, study, study. Although I spent 5 years working with agricultural projects in Mozambique, I’m definitely a novice and know there will be a giant learning curve ahead. For now, I’m researching and watching YouTube; hopefully one day I’ll be able to take a course in syntropic farming.
There is so much more…
I started writing this post in March 2021. Now it’s September and I’m finally publishing it while sitting in Croatia of all places. I imagined that by now I’d have a series of posts, a robust blog. But no. I have one entry and a shell of a site. But it is a beginning, and like I find myself saying all the time these days, an imperfect beginning is worlds better than failing to start. No matter how messy. So here we are. May these seeds grow into something fruitful, for me and for others.
