March at the Ranch

Farm Sweet Home

A little over a week ago, I bade farewell to San Francisco and my generous friend Meg, who had hosted me for a yoga-filled four days in that great little city, and set off North for the unknown. My new home, American River Ranch, in Rancho Cordova, awaited me at the end of a journey that included three trains and a pick-up truck, but took just around three hours.

What I found at the other end of the trip is just about the best new home and job I could ask for. American River Ranch is a forty-acre farm with about five acres in vegetable production. It’s in a blue-collar suburb of Sacramento, and is nestled between a residential neighborhood, the sports fields of a local park, and a twenty-five mile-long bike path, which runs along the American River into Sacramento, fifteen miles west, and Folsom, ten miles to the East.

I live here with three other apprentices, with whom I share a common kitchen, bathroom, and living space, in an old field hand bunkhouse next to which our 10’ by 10’ canvas tents are set on platforms. Four other staff--the second-year apprentice, the Farmer/Educator (our supervisor), one of the youth job corps leaders, and the assistant farm manager--share a duplex ranch house two hundred feet away, and just between is the farm manager’s cabin. The organization’s main offices are in a house here on the property, too, so there’s a good-sized group of fifteen to twenty of us here most days.

We work from 8am-5pm (7am starting next week), with an hour break for lunch (which is cooked for us and which we eat together around a long table outside in front of the office), and every day so far, besides setting gopher traps in the morning, our work has been different. The four of us are equally excited to be learning how to graft fruit trees, dig garden beds, harvest and sort oranges and grapefruit (Oh, California!!), and build a mobile chicken coop, and spend our off-hours marveling to each other about what a great life we’ve got.

Our “teachers” are four young farmers, between one and four years older than me. They are very smart, laid back yet efficient, and very patient, humble, and kind. They explain clearly and quickly, then hand the reins over to us, making it clear they are available to clarify and correct. It is humbling to be so green and exposed before these experienced peers, yet they make it as comfortable as could be expected.

I’m still in the honeymoon period, for sure, (“for sure” is a favorite phrase of my new Californian friends) but I’m breathing it in deeply. With the sun making a moving masterpiece of the landscape each day, I can’t imagine the post-honeymoon could be so bad.

Don't Mess With It

I’m in San Francisco, on the second leg of my three-part journey leading me to Soil Born Farms in Rancho Cordova, California. I left nearly a week ago, last Thursday, from New Haven. It worked out that my parents were leaving around the same time from JFK to fly down to southern Chile, to do their own version of the Torres del Paine hike that I so loved when I was there last April. We were able to drive to the airport together and wish each other “Bon Voyage.”

And then I was off to Austin, for the first leg of my trip, to visit one of my best friends from college, Lily, in the city she has called home for the past three years. It took me the full four days of my visit to get used to seeing people in shorts and flip-flops in February, but I loved my first visit to Texas. She toured me around the city, bringing me to some of her favorite spots, like the Alamo Drafthouse, an awesome movie theater and restaurant, where, as we watched the Oscar-nominated animated shorts, I ate a delicious black bean burger and drank one of the theatre’s draft beers, locally-brewed 512 Pale. (The first film, Madagascar, Carnet du Voyage, a beautifully-drawn travel journal from the artist’s trip to Madagascar, was far and away the best). We “hiked” around Barton Springs in Zilker Park, checked out the crazy cowboy boots at Allen’s, and I ate way more than my fair share of cheese and sour cream, as Mexican food is everywhere.

Now, I know it was a brief visit, but I made some observations about Texas, or at least, Austin, that I wanted to share:

1) People are SO friendly! Smiles flow like water, patience is the default reaction to inconvenience, pleasantries between customers and clerks extend far beyond the cursory. What a lift such simple gestures bring!

2) Texas is all about Texas. The state name and outline is incorporated into store names and logos ALL OVER the place. I’m not sure about the rest of the country, but I know there aren’t many businesses using CT pride to sell their products! (“Don’t mess with Connecticut?”)

3) Austin is serious about the casual dining experience. Neon-signed Mexican and barbeque “joints” are everywhere, in both classic and hip-kitsch forms. The food cart/food truck revolution has hit the city in a big way, with not one but several outdoor “food courts” scattered around the city: parking lots full of picnic tables and rows of taco, waffle, Thai food trucks and retrofitted Airstream trailers.

4) Vintage is huge. From the kitschy glow of neon signs to the vintage stores on every block, the city is a retro treasure trove. Would love to return when I'm in more of a nesting mode.

5) UT is so big it's scary.

I got a good introduction to Austin, and more importantly, I got to spend four full days in relaxed, never-ending conversation with one of my favorite people. It was sad to leave, but SO good while it lasted. Thanks, Lily!

California, I'm coming home.

This is where you will find me for the next eight months, beginning March 1. I'm packing up and moving to California. Sacramento, more specifically, or rather, to this farm right outside of Sacramento. I'll be working as a farm apprentice there for the upcoming season, until the end of October. I'll be living in a tent and getting paid close to nothing, but I couldn't be happier. This adventure combines a number of goals I've had for the past few years:

1) Live on the West Coast;
2) Work for a full season on a farm;
3) Get involved with a project that's improving food access for low-income populations; and
4) Live simply.

I had had two previous interviews for this position before the final phone interview last Tuesday, so the possibility had nestled itself comfortably into my brain as just that: a possibility. I had pretty well decided that it was a long-shot, too, because I was unable to go out and visit for a working interview, as had the other candidates. So it was a bit of a shock when I found out, a few hours after the interview, that I had been offered the position, and then decided soon after to accept. It was a quick transition from "life as usual" to "moving across the country in a month."

So, is farming my Job? I'm not sure. People keep asking me what's next, after the apprenticeship is over. I don't have a clue, which is fine. I'm still getting used to the first next, which will be upon me in just three weeks. If I love this, then perhaps I will continue farming and gardening in some capacity. I don't see myself becoming strictly a commercial farmer, but working with a non-profit, educational farm could be great. Maybe I'll realize that a backyard garden is about as much "farming" as I care to do. I know myself well enough to know that I won't know until I do it, and "next" will remain a question mark for many more months. At the end of the day, this apprenticehip might be a career move, but that's not necessarily the point.

So now, I'm getting organized. I'm gathering and sorting and purchasing things that'll prepare me for eight months on a farm. I feel like I'm going abroad again--I keep having to remind myself that it's okay not to bring everything; I'll be able to buy what I haven't brought once I'm out there. California only seems like a foreign country.

And, I'm trying to prepare psychologically for the change. I've had about the coziest winter of my life this year, doing crafts and cooking daily in my parents' comfortable home, reading classic literature by the fire while watching the snow fall. Though it's hard to imagine exactly what it'll be like, I know for sure that nearly all of these comforts won't be a part of my life come March 1. So the challenge will be to maintain the Zen contentment I've got going on here amidst a much more demanding, more dynamic and hopefully fulfilling, lifestyle. Now, however, I've got to get back to my knitting.

What is my Job?

I've been thinking a lot these days about jobs. I currently have one, thankfully, but I'm looking for another one, and trying to figure out what kind of job I want. I find the most difficult aspect of this is sifting through and reconciling "The Way Life Is Supposed To Go" with "What I Want." These two things, I'm realizing, may not overlap so much. Twenty-eight years of subtle and explicit cultural and societal messages about ambition, success, career, education, etc. have become a mountain atop the latter, which I am now trying to unearth, slowly but surely.

I read something today that helps. It's by Jon Kabat-Zinn, a Buddhist teacher who wrote the book Wherever You Go, There You Are. I read one short chapter every morning before meditating. It is an excellent and accessible guide to meditation and mindful living. The passage I read this morning is called, "What is My Job on the Planet with a Capital J?" I want to share a small part of it:

Rarely do we question and then contemplate with determination what our hearts are calling us to do and to be. I like to frame such efforts in question form: "What is my job on the planet with a capital J?", or, "What do I care about so much that I would pay to do it?" If I ask such a question and I don't come up with an answer, other than, "I don't know," then I just keep asking the question. If you start reflecting on such questions when you're in your twenties, by the time you are thirty-five or forty, or fifty or sixty, the inquiry itself may have led you a few places that you would not have gone had you merely followed mainstream conventions, or your parents' expectations for you, or even worse, your own unexamined self-limiting beliefs and expectations.

...[Asking this question] may not mean that you will change what you do, but it may mean that you may want to change how you see it or hold it, and perhaps how you do it. Once the universe is your employer, very interesting things start to happen, even if someone else is cutting your paycheck.

Kabat-Zinn also talks about Buckminster Fuller in this chapter, and about how, from the depths of depression, Fuller decided to live his life from then on as if he were an employee of the universe, basing his actions on the question, "What is it on this planet that needs doing that I know something about, that probably won't happen unless I take responsibility for it?" He says that Fuller also liked to point out that, for the honey bee, it's all about the honey, but in its pursuit of honey, it becomes nature's (or the universe's) pollinator.*

It's still not easy to figure out whether I want to be a farmer, a baker, a social worker, or something else entirely, but it's reassuring to know that no matter what job I find myself doing, if I approach it right, it will be my Job.

*from Kabat-Zinn, Jon. Wherever You Go, There You Are. New York: Hyperion, 1994.

The Power of Vulnerability

I've known about TEDTalks for a while, but I've only recently started watching them regularly. Here's one of the many reasons why. Posting on my blog makes me feel vulnerable.

Rainy day soup times

It's cold and rainy here, and I am home alone for the weekend. Though there are higher priorities on my to-do list, I've been itching to make butternut squash soup for a while. With New Haven Restaurant Week looming next week, which means I'll be working double shifts every day from Sunday to Thursday at L'Orcio, and then the half-marathon in Richmond next Saturday, the weather just seemed to confirm that today is the day for soup.

This is not a food blog, and I am not nearly consistent or accomplished enough as a cook to highlight the dishes that I lovingly, if clumsily attempt. BUT, this particular recipe turned out to be pretty delicious, and makes for a pretty picture, too, so I thought I'd share.

More importantly, it gives me a chance to talk a little bit about CitySeed, the New Haven organization I have been volunteering with for the past several weeks. CitySeed's mission is "to engage the community in growing an equitable, local food system that promotes economic development, community development and sustainable agriculture." They run five weekly farmers' markets around the city and run programs to increase access of New Haven residents to fresh, local food. I've been helping them sell artisanal bread at their Wednesday downtown farmers' market and to implement a food access survey.

This Butternut Squash-Peanut Soup, (which I modified slightly, because I can't seem to stick to a recipe without putting in my own two cents), came from the bilingual cookbook that CitySeed created, called New Haven Cooks/Cocina New Haven, which features recipes submitted by New Haven residents, and which is being distributed for free to low-income residents in exchange for completion of the food access survey, and will also be sold to raise funds for CitySeed's programs.

It has been a great experience to get to know the CitySeed staff and volunteers and some local farmers and to begin to get involved in the vibrant and growing food movement in Connecticut. I love being around people who are so passionate about supporting small farmers and helping to improve access to fresh food. It helps me a lot as I try to figure out how I can best contribute to this movement. And unexpectedly, though perhaps not surprisingly, I have begun to get to know my own home state for the first time; I feel far more connected to Connecticut (ha!) than ever.

Okay, without further ado:

Peanut and Butternut Squash Soup*

1 medium butternut squash, peeled, halved lengthwise, seeds removed
1 1/2 Tbsp. vegetable oil
1 cup onion, chopped
6 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 tsp. salt
3/4 tsp. cumin, ground
3/4 tsp. coriander, ground
3/4 tsp. curry powder
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
4 cups vegetable broth
1 1/2 cups water
1 can cannelini, garbanzo, or other beans, drained
3/4 cup natural peanut butter, chunky or creamy
2 Tbsp. tomato paste
1/2 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
1/4 cups fresh cilantro, chopped
1/4 cup squash seeds


1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Place two halves of squash facedown on a baking sheet in about 1/2 inch of water. Place on a middle rack and roast for about 35 minutes, until tender but not too soft.

2. Remove squash from oven and cut into 1-inch cubes.

3. Heat vegetable oil in large pot over medium-high heat. Add onions, garlic, cumin, coriander, salt, curry powder, and cinammon. Cook for 5 minutes or until onion is translucent, stirring to coat with spices and to prevent garlic from burning.

4. Add broth, water, beans, peanut butter, tomato paste, and pepper flakes; stir well. Cover the pot and bring soup to a boil. Reduce and simmer.

5. Scoop out about half of the soup, equal parts vegetables and liquid, and transfer to a blender. Puree and then pour back into the pot.

6. Simmer for five more minutes, uncovered. Meanwhile, heat a small cast iron frying pan over medium heat. Add rinsed butternut squash seeds. Allow water to evaporate; sprinkle with salt and curry powder and toast, stirring frequently, until dry, crunchy, and browned.

7. Ladle soup into bowls. Top with chopped fresh cilantro and toasted squash seeds. Dip some fresh bread into it, if you have some. I've been eating it with slices of Asiago boule, which is one of the loaves we sell at the CitySeed stand.

*This recipe is a modified version of "Peanut and Butternut Squash Soup" found in New Haven Cooks/Cocina New Haven, A Project of CitySeed, Developed by Tagan Engel