Artichoke Photo: MarySue Stevens, Food Foto Bank

For those who like to get lost in the vast world of heirloom fruits and vegetables, the first National Heirloom Exposition, held mid-September in Santa Rosa, Calif., didn’t disappoint. The three-day event — which drew seasoned farmers, seed savers, edible educators, and backyard growers — included an exhibition hall filled with an impressive array of heirloom produce from farms and gardens around the country, including rare and exotic pumpkins, tomatoes, melons, and peppers. The expo also featured heritage farm animal breeds, chefs demos, expert speakers, heirloom food tastings, and a seed exchange.

For the innovators behind a soon-to-launch project called Pollin8r, it was the perfect place to get the word out. This two-pronged project will include both an open-access photo bank of heirloom produce, dubbed Food Foto Bank, and Pollin8r, an inventive new web-based project building on the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) model, that promises to connect heirloom-produce loving eaters to farmers willing to grow heritage produce — all with just the click of a mouse.

Why the push to protect heirloom produce? These plants predate industrial agriculture and are the result of open pollination, seed saving, and careful selection by farmers and backyard gardeners. Heirloom varieties are often suited to the climate or location where they are grown, though they can be trickier to grow than modern hybrid crops.

Still, heirloom fruits and vegetables have been making a comeback in certain food and farming circles, where they’re revered for their unique qualities and distinctive, complex flavors. And at a time when just five big biotech businesses control the global seed market through closed-pollination (which doesn’t allow for seed saving), trademarking, or both — this heirloom renaissance is a welcome addition to the food landscape.

In contrast, large-scale commercial farming has greatly diminished crop variety in order to maximize produce consistency, productivity, and its ability to withstand mechanical harvesting and cross-country transportation, as well as tolerance to drought, frost, and pesticides. Genetic diversity isn’t much considered, and flavor is often a secondary factor. Consider the average, supermarket tomato — devoid of taste but firm and long-lasting — as exhibit A in the argument to preserve the heirloom.

Mixed peppers and tomatoes Photo: Anne Nester, Food Foto Bank

Heirloom produce meets Kickstarter meets CSA

Pollin8r co-founder Kyra Pincheira, a consultant to nonprofit organizations who is currently living on a farm in Boonsboro, Md., envisions Pollin8r as a potential win-win for consumers and farmers.

“I love seed catalogues and the idea of growing my own food,” says Pincheira, who worked for years as the director of learning for the environmental education nonprofit EarthEcho International. “But the reality is I have modest skills as a grower. There’s a long list of foods I like to eat that require a level of skill I don’t have. That’s where Pollin8r comes in.”

Pinchiera views Pollin8r as a natural progression from the standard CSA, where consumers essentially buy into a farm by paying growers in advance for regularly scheduled boxes of seasonal fruits and vegetables. Only in a traditional CSA, farmers choose the crops.

While some farmers base some planting choices on consumer input, Pincheira says she hears from many who struggle with crop variety decisions. As she sees it, Pollin8r could take some of the guesswork out of the equation and offer new economic opportunities for farmers. It could also give customers a bigger say in the crops that their local farmers grow. And, like all CSAs, growers wouldn’t have to assume all the risk for planting crops.

Hopi Red Corn Photo: Anne Nester, Food Foto Bank

If things go as planned, the site will allow farmers to notify local consumers about a brief period of time to pre-purchase “shares” so they could “pollinate” a crop, and in the Kickstarter manner of funding, a certain number of shares would need to be sold before a crop was s0wn. Farmers would then alert shareholders when a crop was ready for harvest. Pollin8r is also a way for eaters and growers to figure out what does well in their local communities. Consumers would be invested, though that investment, in monetary terms, would be a small one, around $15-20 per crop.

The team of 10 behind Pollin8r includes California farmer-educator Liz Snyder, photographer Anne Nester from Westminster, Maryland, and permaculturist Michael Judd from Frederick, Md. Gardener-web developer Jeff Aldrich in Buffalo, Minn., who grew up on a farm, co-founded the project with Pincheira, who attended the recent Slow Money Third National Gathering in the hopes of securing financial and other support for the project.

The Pollin8r site likely won’t be up and running until later this year. But in the meantime the group plans to launch the Food FotoBank. The free online service offers gorgeous photos of heirloom and obscure crops from around the country, many taken at last month’s Heirloom Expo, where Pincheira and a crew of six snapped hundreds of images of antiquarian peppers, pumpkins, tomatoes, and other older varieties of fruits and vegetables to stock the start-up site.

Gardeners who grow heirloom produce will be able to add their own photos to the collection down the road. Judging by the interest at the expo, the site should find an audience. “We met farmers and gardeners looking for images for their websites, an author in need of photos for an upcoming book, teachers who need pictures to compliment classroom instruction, and a seed packet manufacturer who wants photos for his packets,” says Pincheira, who’s confident the photo library will whet the appetite of crop lovers around the country for Pollin8r.

Pincheira hopes both projects spark local community partnerships with farmer groups and heirloom enthusiasts. “Seventy-five percent of most people’s diet comes from eight staple crops, but there are literally tens of thousands of different varieties of fruits and vegetables to choose from,” she says. “This gives consumers more options to savor while it preserves the diversity of the food that ends up on our plate.”

This post originally appeared on Grist. You might also like:

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Heads up, green thumbs struggling to offload excess edibles: Aid is out there. A growing movement, designed to help people eat well, save money, and get to know their neighbors, is planting seeds in communities around the country.

Crop swaps – meet ups where people exchange surplus backyard bounty – are thriving from the San Francisco Bay Area to Boston in city and suburban enclaves and online, too.

Of course, there’s nothing particularly new about this phenomenon; who hasn’t been the beneficiary of the guy next door’s abundant squash plot or the woman across the street’s surplus spinach bed? Informal, low-key fruit and veggie trades have gone on since humans began cultivating crops.

But these days, with the economy and the environment on many people’s minds, bartering food in a systematic manner is making a comeback.

These weekly or monthly gatherings attract edible garden growers for different reasons. Some simply want to give away excess produce and, in exchange, get a little more variety in their diet. For others, including Transition Town movement members, crop swaps are part of a survival strategy, a way to build more resilient local communities to withstand not just financial hard times, but also energy shortages, climate change, and global warming. For some, it’s simply a positive way to socialize with fellow residents.

Transition Berkeley organized the city's first Crop Swap. Photo: Christina Diaz.

“We hope this will be a place for people to connect with others in the community who grow produce and exchange ideas about growing food and recipes, too,” said Carole Bennett-Simmons, co-organizer of Transition Berkeley‘s two crop swaps that started this summer, which attract about 30 to 40 locals. A retired public school teacher, she tends a plot at a local community garden, where she grows Swiss chard, bok choy, and beets.

Each local crop swap has its own way of working, but they all tend to run on a similar philosophy: No cash changes hands. Some spell out that produce must be homegrown, organic, or pesticide-free. Some are produce only, others include honey, eggs, and flowers. Still others, like the Boston Food Swap, accept prepared foods, such as pickles and preserves, along with foraged foods and backyard bounty.

Some crop swaps run just during the prime produce season, while others exchange goods all year. Since it’s high season for harvesting around the country, crop swaps are currently doing a booming cash-free business. During the winter and early spring, when crops are less abundant, some of these groups exchange seeds or starters.

At a recent Berkeley crop swap, people perused two folding tables and a couple of blankets loaded with freshly harvested produce, then filled their baskets and bags with plums and purple potatoes and gave away basil and beet greens. True to their roots – along with kitchen staples such as carrots, strawberries, and rosemary – Berkeley growers showed up with some less well-known produce including loquats, grape leaves, and angelica. It was all very civil and low-key.

The hour-long gathering seemed like a truly hyper-local affair with people walking or biking their fruits and vegetables over, visiting with friends and neighbors, and swapping recipes with fellow traders. “How do you cook beet greens?” asked one. Another, who took home a stalk of angelica, picked up a tip to add the herb, which has a flavor similar to cilantro, to the batch of ice cream she planned to make.

Eggs, lavender and rosemary in the mix at a crop swap. Photo: Christina Diaz.

Three years ago, the group behind the Oak Park Crop Swap of Sacramento, California, took back a blighted park that was a haven for negative activities like panhandling, drug dealing, and prostitution, and turned it into a positive gathering place where people feel safe, explained Kara Thomson, who organizes crop swaps there during the summer months.

Participants at Oak Park Crop Swap sign in, weigh their produce, listen to a featured speaker, and then start trading.This year, crop swappers have heard from a beekeeper, a worm composter, and an irrigation expert. “This was a challenging neighborhood, but now the crop swap and a farm stand that followed have turned it into a civilized social scene,” Thomson observed. About 20 local residents swing by each week, she said. Those with shady yards swap blueberries and leafy greens with residents whose sunny plots produce heirloom tomatoes and watermelons.

In the Internet Age, it’s not surprising that some crop swaps start out as virtual exchanges, the online food tool equivalent of Craigslist. “Tons of Leeks,” “Garlic Galore,” “A Bumper Crop of Beans” announce typical entries on such sites as the recently launched Massachusetts Food Trader and Portland Food Exchange, which allow produce suppliers and seekers to find each other online first before making their own arrangements to trade in person.

The Massachusetts Food Trader (which allows excess CSA or Community Supported Agriculture box trades) also promotes local real-time events hosted by Boston Food Swappers and the Somerville Trading Post. The site has 40 registered users since it started in July, though many more may check out what’s on offer.

Some come to website trading after limited success with classifieds and community bulletin boards. “I’ve been trading extra garden vegetables and veggie starts for a few years now and felt that we really needed an easier way to exchange food,” said Brian Connelly, on the Portland Food Exchange site. “This is a simple, yet very effective, means for people to barter food in our community.” And some people just prefer to swap with a local grower, Connelly maintained, than frequent a large supermarket stocked with produce from around the globe.

Comparing and sharing baskets of produce. Photo: Christina Diaz.

There are challenges – at the first Berkeley crop swap an overabundance of lemons comes to mind – to these local produce trades. Thomson said she’d like her events to attract a more diverse crowd, but hopes that word of mouth and flyer distribution will help with that. And, of course, few other parts of the country are blessed with as long a growing season as California. Consumers who opt to exchange with growers they find online are advised to meet in a public place, at least initially, for personal safety, though no issues have emerged on this front to date.

For those with concerns about food safety, it’s a “trader beware” situation, say swappers. This concern is raised more often in relation to preserved foods, where the liability lies between the two parties involved in the trade, according to Jake Benner, who co-runs MA Food Trader. Consumers should check preserved foods and produce for contamination and spoilage, he advised.

As interest in growing food increases around the country, crop swaps are likely to sprout in other locations. Some communities hope to take matters a step further, by running canning and preserving workshops in community kitchens so people can prepare for lean seasons and make full use of summer and fall’s abundance. Stay tuned.

This story originally appeared on Shareable and was republished on Civil Eats.

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Vegan speed daters smile for the camera. Photo: Karine Brighten

What, pray tell, does one wear to a speed dating event for vegetarians, vegans, and the veg-curious (there’s a punch line waiting to happen) searching for their perfect match?

This reporter flirted with donning her son’s “Meat is Murder” T-shirt, which felt a tad obvious and then promptly opted for her typical uniform (jeans, shirt, boots, all sans slogans) and headed to the vegetarian Saturn Café, the site of the meatless speed dating meetup.

Since said reporter is both 1. single and 2. vegetarian (as long as you don’t count the occasional lapse in her mostly plant-based diet of some 30 years), it made sense to go undercover.

Can you imagine how awkward it would be for speed daters to have a reporter with notebook in tow chronicling, for public consumption, their attempts at meeting a soulmate over vegetable taquitos?

The Veg Speed Dating night was hosted by Berkeley-based Karine Brighten, 29, a vegan who met her husband (also vegan) online. Brighten believes that finding a partner who shares the same politics of the plate is one of the keys to a happy relationship.

“I don’t have meat in my home, go to zoos, wear clothing made from animals, or eat at restaurants that serve meat, so it’s important to me to have a partner who shares my lifestyle choices,” said Brighten, who specializes in vegan events. “Then there’s no explaining or defending to do, you’re both on the same page.”

The Saturn Cafe's Space Lounge awaits the arrival of speed daters. Photo: Karine Brighten

Wednesday night’s meetup was aimed at heterosexual adults 21 and over, though Brighten hopes to hold events for gay folks in the future. Early birds paid $25 to attend. For those who left “looking for luv” to the last minute, tickets at the door cost $35.

Brighten worked hard to keep the genders evenly balanced, capping female sign ups until more men bought tickets. In the end, there were a couple more guys than gals in a group of about 40. Two women dropped out because they’d found themselves in relationships since they purchased tickets. Lucky them.

The assembled crowd, mostly Caucasians in their early 20s through to early 60s from around the Bay Area, mingled over appetizers in the Space Lounge, an area separate from the restaurant.

(A word on the food: mostly fried and fatty, with salsa laden with raw onion. In short: Overwhelmingly unimpressive and not particularly dating-friendly. Raw onion? Some folks eyes lit up at the end of the evening when vegan cupcakes came out, others begged off saying they avoid sugar or that the treats were too sweet.)

But folks weren’t there for the food. If you’re unfamiliar with speed dating, here’s how last night’s worked: people wore name tags and were given a sign up sheet. After some preliminary schmoozing, the women were asked to sit on bench seats and men sat opposite. Each “pair” had a chance to chat for three minutes. A bell signaled when it was time to move on. After the allocated time, each male slid down a seat and a new conversation began. Every guy got to meet every girl. At the end, each guest could jot down the names of any person/s of interest, which were then passed on to Brighten.

In the event that two people each picked the other, contact details are passed along via email. What happens next is up to the two individuals.

As a neophyte to the speed dating scene, who knew what to expect?  It turned out that the men and women at the event were mostly kind, curious, and thoughtful during the brief interactions.

In the name of research both professional and personal, this writer did check out some speed dating tips in advance. Fresh breath and easy on the booze. (Really? Check.) Accentuate the positive and don’t interview or interrogate. (Professional hazard alert.) Off-limit subjects on one list (work, politics, religion) were given the green light on another. But, no worries, if these topics were even broached they were dispensed with quickly.

Dating expert Anna Hennings offered tips at the Veg Speed Dating event.

The event featured a self-described dating expert, Anna Hennings, 25, who has co-authored articles on the subject and counts among her credentials being raised by sex educators/therapists. (One of the younger speed daters asked me if Hennings was available. Unluckily for him, she recently found her own match.) Hennings speech was brief, upbeat and encouraged folks to keep things light.

This participant learned a few things. Talking to 20 men, three minutes apart in rapid succession can make your head spin, throat parched, and keep even a professional listener on her toes. When meeting a fella who announces he works for the Oakland As, it’s probably not a dating-savvy move to blurt out, “Seriously? My son would love that.” And telling a yoga instructor that you stopped practicing after herniating a disc in class can make a conversation falter. Also: keeping a mental tally of how many of the male participants are grad students and/or young enough to be your offspring is probably not what the organizers had in mind.

It turns out I wasn’t alone in my thinking. The gal sitting next to me agreed on the food, age range, and acoustics (really difficult to hear), while acknowledging the need for opportunities for like-minded singles to meet. The organizers plan to tweak the format for future events.

“From a romantic-partner perspective, it seems like a waste of time for a 63-year-old to be mingling with a 22-year-old,” concurred Henning. Brighten said she plans to offer events with narrower age ranges down the track. As for grumblings about too many dates to meet and not enough time to talk, the old adage comes to mind: you can’t please everyone. That said, Brighten claimed the night a success with 24 tabulated matches.

The event also made me ponder how much a prospective dating partner’s dietary preferences really matter in the realm of relationships. It was clear in a crowd that contained many vegans that finding a match who labelled themselves as such was a motivating factor for attending the event, as Brighten predicted. But non-vegans didn’t seem as concerned about finding a perfect match on the food front.

Vegan cupcakes: A sweet end note to the speed dating event. Photo: Karine Brighten

Speed dating is not confined to people who identify with a certain way of eating. The Jewish community has long offered such match-making mixers for singles and the San Francisco Public Library recently ran its first literary speed dating events for 20- and 30somethings, one for straights and one for gays, as reported in the San Francisco Chronicle.

Speed dating opportunities for people who are secular, slender, tall, 50+ and a variety of other niche groups are run by private companies.

What to make of these first impressions? A 2005 study at the University of Pennsylvania based on multiple HurryDate events found that most people made their choices within the first three seconds of meeting.

And issues such as religion, previous marriages, and smoking habits were found to play much less of a role than expected. The research did not address eating choices.

Intriguingly, Malcolm Gladwell’s book on split-second decision making, Blink, includes the work of  two professors at Columbia University who run speed-dating events. These doctors found, from having participants fill out questionnaires, that what people said they wanted in an ideal mate did not match their subconscious preferences.

Could that mean that chemistry can top health-environment-animal-rights-ethical concerns? Is it possible for a committed vegan to fall for an unabashed omnivore and can such mismatches last? Can a rabbit-food loving lass hook up for life with an offal-loving lad? Or is a locavore who subscribes to a CSA doomed if his love interest favors fast food joints?

What say you readers: do our dietary preferences factor into our love relationships and what happens when opposites attract?

This post originally appeared on Berkeleyside and was republished by The Bay Citizen.

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It’s that time of year when the abundance from a backyard vegetable garden can be a tad prolific. How many zucchini squash can one family eat? Or perhaps your produce problem comes from human error: you simply planted way too many onions and not enough greens.

Help is on the way. Beginning tonight the people behind the newly formed grassroots group Transition Berkeley invite residents to share their harvest at a Crop Swap in the public park next to the Ohlone Greenway on Sacramento Street.

It couldn’t be simpler: you show up with your freshly harvested lettuces or lemons and share or swap them for some plums or potatoes. That’s it. No money changes hands.

Berkeley is just one of a grassroots network of more than 300 transition towns around the globe organizing their communities to become more resilient, self-reliant and sustainable. In keeping with that philosophy, the Berkeley coalition, which numbers 80 members and counting, encourages locals to lower their carbon footprint, grow food close to home, pool resources, reduce their use of fossil fuels and foster community. Such behaviors are critical, transition advocates say, to facing challenges such as climate change, oil dependency and depletion, and a persistent economic downturn.

The nascent group, which held its first meeting at the Ecology Center in February, has co-sponsored a garden building day, conducted an emergency preparedness workshop, and hosted a potluck film screening. Members hope to work with local government, business, and community leaders to achieve its mission. One defined goal: to help the city cut greenhouse gas emissions 80% by 2050, as mandated in the Climate Action Plan.

But back to the far easier matter of exchanging excess fruits and vegetables. Gardeners who grow their own food have always shared their surplus with neighbors. Who among us hasn’t been the beneficiary of spinach, rhubarb, or cucumbers from the avid grower next door? Or, as Leah Garchik recently noted in her Chronicle column, arugula and cilantro, the Berkeley equivalent of summer surplus.

The Crop Swap simply invites fellow urban food farmers to trade kale or carrots beyond their block. Similar swaps are already under way in Albany and Oakland.

“We hope this will be a forum for people to get to know others in the community who grow produce and exchange ideas about growing food,” said co-organizer Carole Bennett-Simmons, a retired public school teacher, who tends a plot at the Peralta Community Garden, where she’s currently harvesting Swiss chard, bok choy, and beets.

Folks are encouraged to walk, bike, or catch public transit and come share their homegrown, ripe goods, including fruits, vegetables, herbs, and flowers. Plans are to run the Monday meet-up through October and then return in the early spring with seeds and starts for garden planting.

Share food, save money, eat well. Sounds like a Michael Pollan-inspired recipe for success.

Crop Swap takes place on Mondays, starting July 18, from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m., in the public park next to the Ohlone Greenway on the east side of Sacramento Street at Delaware, across from the North Berkeley BART station

This post originally appeared on Berkeleyside.

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I recently rediscovered the humble spud. Last week my friend Felicity boiled up some small, freshly harvested Yukon Golds, we slathered them in butter, ground pepper, and a dollop of green garlic pesto, and I was smitten all over again.

Today I feel the need to come to this vegetable’s defense.

A blogging buddy, Charmian Christie of Christie’s Corner, forwarded an inane press release designed to encourage bloggers to dis the potato in favor of a food-like product in a box made mostly from refined flour, high fructose corn syrup, and salt. When I read this missive I started to boil like those wholesome, nutrient-packed baby tubers.

This is one misguided marketing campaign, signed off by the blogger outreach manager (who knew such positions existed?) and an example of so much that is wrong with food culture in this country.

In comparison, a couple of weeks ago I attended a talk by Peruvian chef Gaston Acurio, owner of several seafood restaurants including La Mar in San Francisco (another U.S. location is opening in New York soon). He waxed rhapsodic about the range and diversity of potatoes grown in his homeland (there are thousands of varieties) and explained that at his restaurant in Lima he serves unadorned, boiled potatoes as an appetizer. He also invites the potato farmer to talk with diners about his harvest, which is highly valued in Peru.

Back to the matter at hand: I don’t want to give these foolish flacks (also known as P.R. people), their company, or their product an ounce of extra publicity, so they will remain nameless in this post. If you want specific details and a peek at the press release in all its misguided glory, mosey on over to Liz Snyder’s blog I Eat Real after you’re finished here.

I will say the corporate food conglomerate behind this is a major player who’s name rhymes with “daft” and “graft.” The product: Never heard of it, since I don’t, as a rule, buy mass produced, highly processed, edible food-like substances. Let’s just say the marketing gurus were pushing this glop as an exciting alternative to the “boring” (their branding) potato.

Didn’t these marketing mavens learn from their parents that it’s rude to promote yourself by criticizing something else? How uncivilized and uncreative, this un-potato campaign, as these hired hands dubbed it.

It gets worse, the release goes on to instruct bloggers on exactly how to shill for the company at the spud’s expense — and even offers a whopping $100 gift certificate in a contest for those who do it with style. Sadly, there must be a market among a segment of the blogging community for this kind of hack work or the corporations wouldn’t bother.

The release maintains that all that’s needed is a sense of humor (they cite the satirical mag The Onion as an example) but there’s nothing ironic about what they’re asking of cyberscribes.

These kinds of press releases don’t typically clog up my email inbox. When your blog is called Lettuce Eat Kale it’s probably safe to assume that I’m pretty pro produce.

Or maybe it’s because I don’t think there’s anything funny about encouraging people to eat crap by bad mouthing a natural crop. That’s how I see it. What say you?

This is not sponsored content. This writer did not receive compensation from The Potato Association of America, United States Potato Board or Mr. Potato Head for penning this post.

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Sophie Hahn, founder, Berkeley Edible Garden Initiative.

Should city dwellers be allowed to sell their backyard bounty?

Sophie Hahn thinks so. The North Berkeley resident wants to share the abundance from her residential produce plot and offset some costs she incurs maintaining her edible garden.

But Hahn ran into hiccups with the city last year trying to get her idea off the ground. “I had no idea it would be so complicated,” she says. “It’s actually easier in Berkeley to have a pot collective than to have a vegetable collective,” a frustrated Hahn told  a New York Times reporter in August.

Or pretty much any other home-based business. That’s because Berkeley’s zoning codes prohibit selling or otherwise conducting commerce outside a house in a residential neighborhood. Never mind that many residents (this writer included) toil from inside their homes. City codes allow for small, low-to-moderate impact home businesses, such as piano teachers, explains Dan Marks, director of planning and development for the city.

But outdoor activities where cash changes hands remain a no-go. The laws are designed to protect the quality of residential communities from traffic and parking problems, as well as offensive or objectionable noise, odors, heat, or dirt.

Fair enough. Still, Hahn was hardly about to set up a produce stand and solicit customers via a bullhorn in her sleepy, leafy corner of the world. Her forty-by-sixty foot micro farm produces only enough food for about five or six families. She just wanted to charge a weekly fee for a basket of food, modeled along the lines of what local farmers do with Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) boxes, where residents pay a subscription in return for regular deliveries of fresh, seasonal eats.

Willow Rosenthal harvests a Berkeley backyard garden./Photo: Sarah Henry.

Hahn and her supporters find it ironic that such obstacles to urban agriculture exist in a city that included building a local food system as part of its long-term Climate Action Plan.

An attorney by training, PTA president at King Middle School, and former City Council candidate, Hahn wanted to go the legitimate route. She did approach city officials about what it would take to get an exemption to the current code, but decided that the cost, public hearing, and wait period was prohibitive.

For Hahn, putting the land behind her home to good use was a no-brainer. Still, it’s not cheap: there’s the initial set-up costs, including garden bed construction, drip irrigation, animal, seed and plant purchases — in addition to ongoing payments for the two farmers who tend the garden.

Since Hahn is not a green thumb herself, she hired urban gardener Willow Rosenthal to turn her terraced, sloping backyard of ugly sod into a thriving produce garden. Eight planter boxes boast leafy greens like chard, lettuce, and kale, root vegetables, and herbs. There’s a compost bin for green waste, a chicken coop, a dozen or so hens — and more food than Hahn’s family of five can eat. It’s a clean, green, quiet, productive plot.

Plenty of other local residents grow veggies, raise chickens, and keep bees for their own use, of course, and some admit to bartering with neighbors or selling surplus on the sly to friends and acquaintances — or even to local food businesses and restaurants.

But Hahn, a longtime Berkeley dweller, is the first of a new breed of Berkeley D.I.Y. urban homesteaders to cultivate controversy by challenging what she sees as an arcane law.  Needless to say, changing city code is a lengthy and complex process, but not without precedent. In San Francisco a similarly restrictive zoning code was recently overhauled, after an outpouring of support for Little City Gardens, which ran into pushback there when it tried to expand.

Elsewhere around the country, cities including Detroit, Kansas City, Mo., and Seattle have recently relaxed bans on produce selling by farmers.

Guerrilla gardener Novella Carpenter./Photo: Sarah Henry

Following a citizen complaint, ghetto grower, Farm City author and Berkeley business owner Novella Carpenter was recently singled out by officials in Oakland for selling chard without a business license at her pop-up farmers’ market stand at her Ghost Town Farm and keeping livestock (rabbits, goats, and chickens) without a conditional use permit.

A community outcry ensued for the iconic urban farmer. As of yesterday, revised Oakland city codes no longer prohibit Carpenter from peddling her greens.  But selling chickens, ducks and rabbits is still illegal, since the new laws don’t apply to livestock. (Carpenter has previously made rabbit potpies available by donation.) The city will return to the issue in coming months and judging by comments on Carpenter’s blog, sympathetic press coverage, and support for the guerrilla gardener from allies like the Oakland Food Policy Council, officials can expect a healthy show of support during public comment.

Marks concedes urban agriculture code changes may be happening faster in other Bay Area cities because of community backing for high-profile cases. There’s simply not been that kind of outpouring of support in Berkeley, says Marks, adding there are no plans to tackle the matter any time soon as it remains a low priority for his department.

Such sentiment doesn’t sit well with Hahn. Berkeley’s residential gardens are a significant untapped resource for the production of fresh food for the the community, she says. Hahn has founded the Berkeley Edible Garden Initiative to put pressure on the city to update codes so small-scale ventures like her own can operate. Hahn has the support of fellow residents, including councilmember Jesse Arreguin, author Michael Pollan, and the Ecology Center, whose magazine Terrain first reported on her dilemma last Spring.  Supporters can register online on behalf of Hahn’s cause.

“I value and want to protect the residential quality of our neighborhoods,” Hahn says. “I think we can do that while still allowing reasonable economic activity associated with a social good — in this case growing fresh food to share.”

For now, Hahn gives her excess greens to grateful neighbors for gratis.

This post originally appeared on Berkeleyside.

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Nick Christopher, produce manager at Berkeley Bowl, knows a thing or two about fruits and veggies. Photo: Sarah Henry.

Nick Christopher moved out West in the early 90s, drawn to the punk-rock scene here he toured with a band and hung out with Green Day.

These days Christopher spends more time thinking about perfect produce than the perfect tune, as an organic produce buyer for Berkeley Bowl. He started at the Bowl as a dishwasher, and quickly worked his way through various departments, including the deli and bulk section, before rising to supervisor status.

Owner Glenn Yasuda personally trained Christopher in the fine art of selecting fruits and vegetables. The Bowl has a reputation for its large and extensive produce selection, including exotic finds like durian, carambola (star fruit) and horned melon.

Before a sister store, Berkeley Bowl West, opened in June 2009, the original market was legendary for parking rage and long lines — an independent store everyone loved but few actually enjoyed visiting. Now that there are two locations, shopping at the original is reportedly much more manageable.

Christopher lives in North Berkeley and has worked for the Bowl for 12 years. He divides his time between the first store, housed in a former bowling alley, and the modern, warehouse-like market on the west side, which boasts wide aisles and ample parking.

The 36-year-old is featured in the pilot of the forthcoming Kiss the Cook and the Farmer Too, a planned television series on cooking and sustainable farming. We met at the recent Ecofarm Conference, where the program was screened, and chatted last week in the community room at Berkeley Bowl West.

Produce for sale outside Berkeley Bowl West. Photo: John C. Osborn

What is your biggest seller?

Bananas. If people understood the environmental impact, including the amount of fossil fuels it takes to get bananas from a plantation (formerly the jungle) in Ecuador or Costa Rica, and ship them here, they might think twice about buying them.

If it was up to me, I wouldn’t sell bananas and I don’t eat them myself. But my job is to keep the store stocked for customers. I’m providing a public service. I don’t judge, I just provide what people want.

What tips do you have for customers?

Buy seasonally, sample, and ask questions. I tell people that the “baby” carrots in the bags are just regular-sized seconds that growers shave down. The large individual carrots are grown for ease of mechanical harvesting. I recommend the smaller, bunched carrots with their greens still attached, which come in a variety of colors, and tend to taste sweeter.

Have you had any requests for produce that are hard to fulfill?

Lots of people ask us for organic jicama. Apparently, it’s really hard to grow, it’s very susceptible to disease. I still haven’t been able to source that. And once we had an entire cooking class ask us to stock organic cilantro with the roots intact. I guess the roots are used to make curry in Thai cuisine. I talked with the farmer and we were able to accommodate those customers. I’m happy to take requests. People can email me: nchris@berkeleybowl.com

We get our share. But mostly people are grateful; we’re fortunate here in Northern California with the sheer variety and quality of produce. If people were better educated about seasonality, availability, and the effect of the weather on crops I’d field less questions like: “Why is so much of the produce from Mexico now?” Or: “Why can’t I buy eggplant now?” Or: “Why aren’t these peaches as good as last year’s?”

One woman left a voicemail telling me she opened a package of blueberries labeled organic and she could smell the pesticides inside. Another wanted me to verify that everything in the produce section was GMO-free. I can’t make personal guarantees beyond the certification and standards that farmers must adhere to. There has to be an element of trust.

People have had a love/hate relationship with the main store. Do you have a story that speaks to that?

I was the supervisor in charge on a day leading up to a holiday, the main store was packed, and it was right before closing. A woman in line was frustrated at the guy in front of her — I think he was kind of slow getting his things out of his cart — so she threw a piece of produce at his head.

It was an assault — by avocado no less — so I had to call the cops. She had a child, so the husband had to come down and get the kid. Those kinds of incidents are rare, though.

The award-winning contemporary design of Berkeley Bowl West conceived by architects at Kava Massih.

What have you learned from owner Glenn Yasuda?

He’s passed on his philosophy of providing Berkeley with a huge variety of quality produce, similar to what you can find at the farmers’ market, at affordable prices. He’s dedicated to doing that and has been since he opened his doors in 1977.

Glenn has an incredible work ethic; he’s in his 70s and still going to the wholesale markets six days a week at 3 a.m. He’s taught me that consistency is key and when to push certain produce in the market while it’s at its peak. He doesn’t like to waste food, both from a business and personal perspective, so I always have an eye on inventory with that in mind.

Glenn is fair but firm with farmers. He can tell by taste when a supplier has pumped water into his peaches to get them up to size for sale. He can bite into a cherry and know if a grower has too much gypsum in his soil, which makes for a hardier fruit but can impact taste. He’s always sampling and he’s taught me to do the same.

How important are your relationships with farmers?

They’re everything. Produce is a very sensitive commodity. I need to be able to depend on my suppliers to bring me the best possible looking and tasting fruits and vegetables. Americans have been spoiled, they want their produce to look a certain way, most people still buy with their eyes, and that’s true of organics too.

Do you have favorite fruits and vegetables?

I juice a lot of beets, carrots, and ginger. I’m a fan of kale, particularly dinosaur kale. We have a new packaged salad mix of organic kale, carrots, and red cabbage that, when tossed with a sesame dressing, is really good. I’m also big on Tokyo turnips roasted with other root vegetables. The green garlic, spring onions, and California asparagus are at their best now.

I’m still blown away by the different kinds of citrus and apples that are available here. Even more than varieties, I’ll choose my fruit by farmer. The apples from Cuyama Orchards — Fuji, Pink Lady, Arkansas Black, Winesap, Gala — are grown in a valley near Santa Barbara and are some of the best I’ve tasted. In the summer I eat the dry-farmed tomatoes from Tomatero Farm in Watsonville.

As for fruit, when I can get them, Chandler strawberries, a smaller, more fragile, super sweet variety, are great. I used to be a Satsuma guy but now I’m partial to a really good navel orange. I like blood oranges too and this hybrid called a Sumo (not organic), which is the size of a navel, seedless like a mandarin, bumpy like a Mineola, and has hints of all these citrus in its flavor.

This post originally appeared on Berkeleyside.

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Dafna Kory discovered the delights of jalapeno jam during pre-dinner nibbles at a Thanksgiving gathering. She went out to buy a jar, couldn’t find the mighty spicy condiment anywhere, so she began experimenting with making her own. It became an instant hit among her posse.

At first the self-taught preserver thought her D.I.Y. hobby would just make nice gifts for friends and families. The she moved from San Francisco to South Berkeley, saw the abundance of plums, apples, and lemons growing in her new backyard, and a jamming business was born.

She foraged fruit in a hyper-local fashion. She made batches of jam in her home kitchen. She personally delivered by bike. Demand for her jams grew by word-of-mouth.

Friends who had friends who owned stores began encouraging her to branch out beyond her inner circle. So she started shopping INNA jam (the name is, indeed, a playful pun) to local places like Local 123, Summer Kitchen, Rick and Ann’s Restaurant and The Gardener.

About a year ago, with orders coming in a steady stream, it became clear that Kory, now 28, needed to either gear up and focus on turning her after-hours pastime into a fully-fledged business or scale back and remain a hobbyist. She decided to take the plunge.

Photo: Courtesy of INNA jam

A freelance commercial video editor, Kory hasn’t looked back. She began working in a commercial kitchen in North Berkeley, selling her pickles and preserves at events like ForageSF’s Underground Market and the Eat Real Festival, and offering workshops for other D.I.Y.ers.

The UC Berkeley graduate now spends nine months of the year working full-time on her budding food business, and supplements her income in the winter months with editing gigs.

In a year she hopes to devote 100 percent of her work day to INNA jam.  Kory also pickles, though that product line is on hiatus while she ratchets up production to meet demand for her increasingly popular jams.  She delivers locally by bike, ships interstate, and offers an annual, seasonal subscription (a 10-ounce jar retails for $12).

Last year, Kory was featured in a photo spread of local food artisans in the New York Times Magazine Food Issue. Not too shabby for a relative newbie.

A child of Ukrainians who emigrated to Israel, Kory has childhood memories of playing in fields and picking fruits like pomegranates and apricots in the small village north of Tel Aviv she called home. Although she now considers herself a California girl, moving to Orange County at age 10 was a huge culture shock.

She went from being a straight-A student to dropping out of high school. She dabbled in community college down South, and eventually found her way to UC Berkeley, where she designed her own major and began making documentary films before graduating in 2004.  She feels at home in the Bay Area.

We met last week on an unseasonably balmy February afternoon chat in the courtyard at Local 123, where there was ample parking for her bamboo tricycle.

Photo: Courtesy of INNA jam

What do you like the most about preserving?

I like transforming raw fruits or vegetables into something totally different while maintaining their essential taste. I find most jams too sweet and most pickles too salty; I like to work with the essence of the produce itself.

There are several local preservers — June Taylor, Blue Chair Fruit, and Happy Girl Kitchen — come to mind. What’s unique about what you do?

I focus on single varieties sourced locally; other local jammakers tend to mix fruits with other ingredients. I’m really trying to pull out the complexity of a variety, whether it’s a Polka raspberry, Seascape strawberry, or Blenheim apricot, and let its uniqueness, natural subtleties, and bright flavors shine.

That’s why when I first started and I foraged a lot of my own fruit, I’d name the jars after their location, like Russel Street Meyer Lemon Jam. The taste of these jams reflected the locations they were grown in. I think you can taste the difference.

And locally I deliver by bike, either my bamboo tricycle or the road bike hitched with a cargo trailer. I think I’m the only one who does that.

It’s a coup to land in an outlet like the New York Times Magazine so early in your career. How has that impacted your business?

Well, let me say first that I just happened to be in the right place at the right time and was fortunate to be included in the shoot with all the other local food artisans the magazine featured. It was an awesome nod to up-and-coming Bay Area food producers. But it wasn’t like it was a profile of me or my jams.

So, in that sense, I see more of an impact on business when a magazine like Sunset features my product in a photo and write up that says “this is good, buy this jam, now.”

What challenges have you faced launching a business in Berkeley?

It was hard to find a commercial kitchen with enough space for what I do. Making jam takes up a lot of room; you need a place for all those jars, space to prepare fruit, and the pots are big. That’s why I work from 5 p.m. to midnight when I can have the kitchen to myself and spread out.  I found a place on the Ohlone Greenway, so I can bike there, which is key.

Do you have a local food hero or mentor?

I have a lot of respect for June Taylor, she really set the stage for the rest of us. She elevated the art of jam making and eating jam as something of value and importance in this community.

Where do you like to eat out around town?

I enjoy eating at the counter at Summer Kitchen; that’s my go-to place for a meal. Their dinners are so good, like their fried chicken. You get a complete meal for a good price and everything is balanced, there’s mashed potatoes and market vegetables with the meat. I probably eat there once a week.

My favorite hole-in-the-wall Taqueria La Familia on Shattuck at Ashby. It’s totally Baja-style beer battered fish tacos. There’s nothing glamorous about the place but the food is good.

My boyfriend and I like to go to Jupiter and sit out in the courtyard on a nice day. We have pizza, salad, and beer — they have good micro-brews on tap.

Photo: Courtesy INNA jam

Who are your favorite food purveyors here?

We shop at the Tuesday Farmers’ Market because it’s near home and at Berkeley Bowl. I like Berkeley Bowl East because it’s downhill on the bike on the way home. My boyfriend likes Berkeley Bowl West because there’s more space and no people with clipboards out front.

Acme is my local bread of choice; it’s airy, crust, and super fresh. I like the baguette, whole wheat seed, walnut, rye — all of it. I can smell the bakery when I’m cycling by late at night (or early in the morning) from work. It’s a great accompaniment to my ride home.

Kory will teach two Meyer lemon preserving workshops at Local 123. Learn how to make Meyer lemon jam and traditional Moroccan preserved lemons Friday February 25 or Friday, March 11 from 5:30 p.m.-8:30 p.m.

This post originally appeared on Berkeleyside and was republished on Civil Eats.

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Here’s what I planned to bring with me for a four day getaway in the snow earlier this month:

1. Baked butternut squash (to make wontons and/or as a base for soup)

2. Prepped pan for baked French Toast (a sweet treat, learned from my friend Lisa)

3. Parsley-walnut pesto (perfect on pasta for a carbo load after a day on the mountain)

4. Granola (fast and filling breakfast that holds you until lunch)

5. Hummous (for apres-ski nibbles)

Here’s what I ended up making: Zippo.

Here’s what my pal Katherine was able to rustle up for the trip:

1. Banana-walnut muffins

2. Salsa

3. Hummous

4. Butternut squash and apple soup

5. Roast chicken

What is wrong with me? I seem to have the toughest time carving out time to actually cook. It’s not like we didn’t eat: But I did find myself in the kitchen most nights helping fix something fast for a crew of hungry mouths.

So much for my 2011 food intentions. So far I don’t think I’ve cooked a single new dish or cracked a new cookbook for ideas.

Until now. What better way for busy folks to start the cookbook giveaways this year than with Fast, Fresh & Green: More Than 90 Delicious Recipes for Veggie Lovers (Chronicle Books, $24.95)? It’s written by Susie Middleton, former editor and current editor-at-large for Fine Cooking. (Astute readers will note that I never got around to a giveaway post for January. Another missed goal.)

Middleton and I seem to have similar tastes on the veggie front. I like the sound of Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Orange Butter Sauce, Gingery Braised Brussels Sprouts (I do love these cruciferous veg), Roasted Turnips and Pears with Rosemary-Honey Drizzle, and Sauteed Carrots with Warm Olive and Mint Dressing. And by the time this contest is over I’m determined to report back on how one or more of these dishes tastes, too.

The chef and recipe developer walks readers through nine different techniques, such as braising, sauteing, and stir-frying, and includes a diverse range of recipes for each category of cooking. A few bonus slower-cooking dishes are included in the mix for the simple reason that Middleton adores them. Who can argue against Warm Parmesan Fava Beans with Shallots and Mint or Slow-Roasted Heirloom Tomato Gratin?

Read a review in The Boston Globe. Check out the author’s site six burner sue.  Find recipe excerpts at Fine Cooking. (A note for vegetarians and vegans: A few dishes include meat ingredients that can be omitted. There’s also butter, cream, and mayonnaise in these pages.)

And, if you’re like me and similarly stretched for time to cook, you might find some solace (and recipes too) in this story from my local paper last week, where Chronicle food writer Amanda Gold concedes that cooking after having a child is a tad more challenging than in her pre-baby days.

To win a copy of Middleton’s cookbook leave a comment below about what veggies you’d like to add to your repertoire this year and why, or feel free to pass on a tried and true tip for getting food on the table each night. Katherine’s (see above): Devote a part of one day to whipping up a couple of sauces, spreads, and sides, while you bake or roast in the oven.

Entries must be received by Thursday, February 24, by 10 pm PT.

Winner chosen at random.

My job: I’ll announce the winners on Friday, February 25 and contact the lucky entrant via email. Will mail out shortly thereafter.

Your job:  You’ll have exactly one week to claim your prize. After that, I’ll find an alternate home (also at random) for the book.

Update: The cookbook goes to Kelly T. Thanks to everyone who submitted an entry and check back next month for another giveaway.

Berkeley native Lois Porter took a beloved family recipe and developed a sweet potato filling that takes some of the time out of cooking with these nutritious tubers.

Under her Mamie & Makhi’s Sweet Potato Pie label, Porter makes pie batter that can be used as a base for biscuits, pancakes, fritters — even ice cream — and, pie, of course.

With the seasonal shift to fall and Thanksgiving around the corner, her perishable product is finding homes all around town.

Her tubs of creamy sweet potato filling have been picked up by both Berkeley Bowls and make their debut tomorrow at the Beehive Market. The mostly organic product is also available at Piedmont Grocery and hits the aisles soon at Whole Foods in Oakland.

Until this time last year, Porter made her pie filling mainly for family and friends. The 44-year-old, who has a background in marketing and advertising, decided to test the market and held a launch party at The Wooden Duck. Two months ago, she left her job as a director at Aquatic Park School to focus full-time on her small batch batter business.

The single mom, who has an adult daughter, lives with her young son in South Berkeley. We talked earlier this week at Sweet Adeline’s Bakeshop.

How did you come up with the name for your business?

My father came to live with me about eight years ago because he was sick. He had high blood pressure, kidney failure, and heart problems. He wanted me to cook his favorite dishes, things like greens with ham hocks and fried chicken. I told him he couldn’t eat like that anymore. He wanted recipes that his mother, my grandmother Mamie, used to make. So I found the recipe for her sweet potato pie and I started making it for him. It made him so happy.

I was pregnant with my son at the time. When Makhi was a baby I used to make pie for his grandfather and scrape the sweet potato filling out for him.

My father was so proud of that pie and so enamored with his new grandson. He was delighted to help me develop the product. We named it after Mamie & Makhi. My father, son, and I all went together to get sweet potatoes (actually yams) from Art Davis, the older African American farmer at the farmers’ market. I’d experiment with different ingredients and different ways of making the batter. My dad died eight years ago at the age of 68. He’d be thrilled I started this business.

Did you ever consider calling yourself Lois the Pie Queen?

Oh, no, there is already one of those and she is legendary. Though, funnily enough, that’s what kids called me in school — and I didn’t bake pies back then.

How is your product different from the sweet potato pie your grandmother made?

It has only eight ingredients: sweet potatoes (and/or yams), nutmeg, vanilla, eggs, cream, butter, sugar, and salt. Everything is organic, except the cream, which is now actually evaporated milk, it helps with the consistency of the product. My new labels will reflect that change. I also bake my sweet potatoes, which allows the natural sugars in the vegetables to come out, so I don’t need to use as much sugar as my grandmother, who boiled the tubers, did. And I use Beauregard yams because I find they give me the texture, color, and taste I want.

What was it like growing up in Berkeley in a biracial family?

I feel blessed to be biracial. At the time my parents got together, they couldn’t marry; my mother was white and my father African-American. When my parents split up, my father moved around the corner, so he was always a presence in my life growing up.

My mother, who died of cancer at 58, told my sisters and I: “You are young, black women. That’s how the world is going to look at you.”

She wanted to make sure she gave us a solid black experience growing up, even if it was through her white eyes. She took us to black ballet performances, we wore dashikis, grew Afros, and took Afro-Haitian dance class. There was a lot of talk at home about Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, and Harriet Tubman. But we also went to see our white relatives in Massachusetts and spent time in the summer on Martha’s Vineyard.

We attended St. Joseph’s, a black Catholic school that went to the 8th grade. I didn’t feel black enough. The kids down the street used to chase us and call us zebras.

It wasn’t until I got to Berkeley High School that I had to decide whether I was white or black. I chose to identify as African American.

Where do you see yourself going with your new food business?

I want to build my business by focusing on distribution. And I want to start a Mamie & Makhi’s Foundation, to help young women, particularly young African-American women, develop their own food products and pass on family recipes and food traditions. I want it to be a community kitchen, like La Cocina in San Francisco, which mainly serves Latina women.

[This post originally appeared on Berkeleyside.]

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