Garden Eats – Tales of how our garden’s produce makes its way to the kitchen table

Fall is the season that most reminds me why I love living in California so much. The days are still warm, the markets are still loaded with summer favorites (eggplants, tomatoes, zucchini), right up next to the cool-weather crops that are just starting to emerge. I get lost in still believing its summer, until BAM! – daylight savings. As the long hours of evening darkness descend, I do my best to embrace it instead of feeling sad that my daylight play hours are getting cut short. This year, a surprising figure aided in my transition to recovery: the persimmon.

A few Saturdays ago, I walked past a house downtown with a loaded persimmon tree. A woman had set up a table with a wheelbarrow full of Hachiya persimmons next to her, selling them 3/$1.oo. I picked out three, and she told me not to eat them until they were completely softened  (Fuyu, another variety, should be eaten when its relatively hard). For a week, I checked them every day for texture. And then finally- the first was soft! I  put it in the refrigerator, and that afternoon I timidly sunk my teeth in… and was completely blown away by the explosion of flavor in my mouth! Cold refreshing sweetness, no mushy grainy-ness, just pure juice.  And ever since, my heart lifts a bit every time I see a persimmon.

Santa Barbara has many wonders, but I am constantly surprised by the number of what I would have previously thought of as “exotic” or at the very least, somewhat rare, fruits and vegetables that are grown here. Citrus, avocado, passion fruit, persimmons, and… pineapple guavas! Somehow the pineapple guava (also known as  Feijoa) made its  way into “ornamental plant”  category, as there are bushes all over town lately dropping fruit, free for the taking.  The flowers are stunning (and edible!!), and the fruit is both sweet and tart. We do actually have a bush in our yard – last year we had a great harvest, and this year for some reason we  got zero!

Last, but not least… this past weekend Matt and I hosted our neighborhood’s monthly garden exchange. There is usually at least one exchange going every weekend, somewhere in the city. People come with anything from their garden – vegetables, fruit, succulent clippings, flowers, herbs, eggs, etc – and then take whatever they like from the accumulated pile. Kind of like a mini-farmer’s market. We had a great turnout – probably around 30 people! We had a worm bin demo, and  Oscar of Healing Grounds plant nursery brought a ton of vegetable starts. I  made to-die-for carrot cake  (recipe disclosure pending), and our exchange table was pretty loaded for being November!

There are still a few plants from the summer hanging around our garden, but we’ve mostly transitioned into cool weather stuff -  lettuce, broccoli, cabbage, bok choy, cilantro, kale, strawberries, celery, cauliflower, onions, potatoes, beets, carrots…They’re still small,  so there isn’t a huge harvest going on. But there’s enough to keep the creativity going, and to keep me excited for the winter months to come…

Over Memorial Day weekend, I had the chance to go to Alice Water’s acclaimed restaurant Chez Panisse in Berkeley. A friend had given me a gift certificate for Christmas (thanks Jo!), so I have been waiting for the opportunity to come up – since we live in Santa Barbara, it would have to be on one of our visits up north to the Bay Area. We had lunch in the Cafe, and it was everything I had imagined, and more! We shared a salad of arugula with kumquat and seared duck breast, Matt had a dish of chickpeas and fava with poached eggs and harissa, I had ricotta and wild nettle pizza, and we finished with blueberry peach cobbler with almond ice cream. Oh, and a glass of lemon green tea that was perfect. Delicious!!!

What is so special about this particular restaurant, you ask? Well..

Alice Waters was one of the first people to use locally-grown ingredients in her restaurant. Back in the 70′s, I guess this was unheard of in the fine dining world, so she was a bit of a revolutionary. She only serves what is in season from farms in the Bay Area,  and all of their meat/poultry/fish is also locally sourced. The menu is somewhat limited and changes daily – dinner in the restaurant is one fixed-price menu of several courses, while the cafe has an a la carte menu.

In addition to the restaurant, Alice Waters has been a major force behind the Edible Schoolyard project, which works to get local fresh food into school cafeterias and teaches students how to grow food and how to prepare it. It seems so common sense, and yet if you look at the way students are fed in the schools today, you can see how far we’ve gotten away from buying and eating food grown close to home. To learn more about Chez Panisse, click here, or go visit the restaurant yourself the next time you’re in Berkeley (but call for reservations first!).

And on a local Santa Barbara note, I visited the Burger Bus last week for lunch. Owners Cheryl & Michael retrofitted a short yellow school bus into a mobile burger stand, which they park at a different location each weekday. They use ONLY local ingredients – bread from Our Daily Bread, cheese from Spring Hill Cheese (my personal favorite at the farmer’s market -their garlic cheese curd is to die for!), beef from Shalhoob’s that is 100% grass-fed, hormone free, and vegetables fresh from the farmer’s market.  They also have homemade falafel for those of you not into burgers. I didn’t even have time to take a picture of our burgers we devoured them so fast! So check out their website to see when they’re at a location near you, and support this innovative new local business.

The other day I literally watched my garden grow before my eyes. When I went out at 8 am, I saw a few bean sprouts arched and ready to break free of the soil. By 3 pm – they had emerged and were unfurling their glossy leaves. And I thought to myself… I have really got to start my blog!

There are actually many reasons why I’ve wanted to start this blog, though I don’t want to go into them at length just yet. But put simply, they are:

First: My husband Matt and I have spent a lot of time cultivating our yard to become our very own “food forest”

Second: After a few year hiatus from photography,  I’m starting to get into again, and my main focus has been documenting what goes on in the garden (as noted above- it changes every single day!)

Third: Those who know me know that I LOVE to cook. So I wanted to start photographing and sharing my culinary creations that I’ve made using our garden bounty (or whatever other local ingredients I happen upon)

There has been a lot of talk recently in Santa Barbara about growing “food not lawns”, which I think perfectly describes what we’re trying to do. I think everyone can agree that a homegrown tomato tastes infinitely better than those found in a supermarket. The same is true for anything else you grow at home.  I really like the idea of an “edible landscape” where you are cultivating a yard full of plants that not only smell and look great, but can also feed you! And in eating food that is grown closer to home, you’re reducing your environmental impact – whats not to love?  I want to touch on this more later because locally-grown food is something I feel really strongly about.

So… welcome to Garden Eats! Soon I’ll be posting what I’ve done over the last few weeks to catch up, so check back frequently! The garden never stops growing (and we never stop eating it).