By Holly Madrigal

For those who have never had the pleasure (sarcasm) of filling out an online dating app, let me reveal some of the experience. In addition to summarizing your whole essence in a pithy yet intriguing paragraph, you are given the opportunity to answer prompts so that others can get a sense of your personality. These are questions like, “If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life ...,” and “If you could have any superpower ...,” and my favorite: “My zombie apocalypse plan is ...” To this point, my apocalypse plan is, quite simply, community. It is the connective bonds of neighbors helping neighbors, of trust and reliance on those other than yourself, that will see us through whatever challenges we face.

This issue is full of stories that highlight the many ways in which we take care of one another. Feeding others is a fundamental expression of care, and the crew at El Mocajete does so with style, serving up delicious Mexican food in eye-popping platefuls to ensure that even the most ravenous appetite will leave satisfied. The Caspar Community Center has elevated community connection to an art form, serving a scrumptious monthly breakfast that goes above and beyond mere pancakes (Feeding Casper).

Further up the coast, Janie Larsen-Notmeyer is busy growing food for the soul. She coaxes the most luxurious dahlia blooms out of her small farm— Janie’s Dahlias—and offers those colorful bursts of joy through the farmers markets she attends. And down in Point Arena, Jaqueleine Strock of Roots Apothecary has a deep background in and passion for traditional plant medicine, providing customers with tinctures, teas, salves, and other remedies made from herbal ingredients to ease what ails them.

This issue looks at two community efforts—the Mendocino County Food Guide and the North Coast KelpFest!—that are caring for important local resources. The food guide lets you know what your farmers are growing and where you can buy it, increasing revenue for local farms and improving our health and food security in the process. The kelp festival educates folks around the devastated bull kelp forests off of our coast, as well as the different efforts to restore them. If you’ve never tasted purple urchin, or if you want an update on current research and restoration results, or even if you just want to dress up like a sea creature in a parade, this event is for you!

All of us at Word of Mouth take great pride in sharing these stories. To know about the work and care people pour into our food system—from growing the food to making something delicious with it before serving it to you on a plate—is to recognize its value. By connecting our readers to the restaurant down the street, the farmer across town, or the herbalist around the corner, we are strengthening each other. My apocalypse plan is to weave my own gifts into this vibrant tapestry of generosity.

Holly Madrigal
Co-Publisher & Managing Editor

Photo by Alecsander Alves courtesy of Unsplash.