Hive Mind
The Surprising Mental Health Benefits of Beekeeping
by Ben Seal
Tucked away in the shaded corner of a community garden in New Haven, Connecticut, a beehive awaits. Seven teenagers are here to check on their beehive’s health, but before they do, they need to prepare themselves for the moment. Gathered beneath a bountiful oak tree, they pull on their bee suits—pink and white and pale green— and don protective gloves and face coverings to avoid any risk of a sting.
They bathe in the fog that spills out from a handheld smoker filled with burning white pine needles. It will mask any pheromones the bees emit and keep them calm during the inspection. The teens take a breath, steady their nerves, and approach the hive.
These are beekeepers-in-residence with the Huneebee Project, a nonprofit that offers youth beekeeping training in a therapeutic context, focused primarily on those with experience in the foster care system. Since 2018, the organization has graduated 11 cohorts from its 15-week program, which helps teens develop job skills and build community— with humans and insects alike—while tending to a hive.
Lead beekeeping instructor Tim Dutcher guides the youth as they visit a hive they painted and installed last week, kept in wooden boxes about the size of file cabinets. As their fears subside, they take turns holding frames they built themselves in the program’s first month, now draped in thousands of industrious bees that have begun to fill them with honeycomb. The queen is healthy, the brood— the new eggs, larvae and pupae—are emerging, and all is well.
Ray, 16, perhaps the group’s most gregarious and enthusiastic member, looks down in awe as he picks up a frame. It’s his first time meeting the bees and already, he says, he finds them “calming.”
Huneebee founder and board member Sarah Taylor, a licensed clinical social worker with a background in child and family therapy, says the process helps the young beekeepers navigate and heal from the depression, anxiety and trauma many of them have experienced during often turbulent childhoods. The interconnectedness of the bees seems to strike a chord, she says.
“There’s something hopeful in beekeeping,” Taylor says. “There’s something uniting and wholesome.”
Taylor says she has seen profound change in those who complete the program, many of whom are referred by therapists who hope that a hands-on practice can support their mental health. For some, like Ray, talk therapy can feel like the wrong tool for the job.
The youth at Huneebee aren’t alone in finding beekeeping to be a helpful alternative or complement to more traditional therapies. Last fall, an Army veteran turned scientist published early research showing reductions in anxiety and depression and improvements in overall health among military veterans engaged in beekeeping as a recreational therapy. Another study found a positive effect on stress and well-being among college students who took part in beekeeping.
These findings support longstanding anecdotal evidence that the buzz of a beehive can help people address dislocation and disconnection and have catalyzed the emergence of a new therapeutic model that’s already making a difference for the teens in New Haven and many others.
“They can have all these worries, all these big burdens they’re carrying with them, and then what happens when they go and open up a beehive is that those worries and burdens fade into the background,” Taylor says. “They have this moment of peace and amazement and appreciation.”
When Adam Ingrao was medically discharged from active military duty, the return home was jarring. He was prescribed a steady diet of opiates to deal with his ankle, knee and back injuries, which he used alongside alcohol to numb the pain of his disability and quiet the survivor’s guilt that followed him everywhere he went. In a bid to reshape his future, he went to college to study plant science. That’s where he met the bees that changed his life.
The first time Ingrao entered a bee yard, “it was transformative,” he says. “I knew this is what I wanted to do.” Among the bees, he could step away from his daily stressors while developing a reciprocal relationship that taught him the skills to live a more harmonious life. More than a decade later, he has a PhD in entomology and has shared his experience with over 15,000 veterans who have taken part in Heroes to Hives, a nine-month program that combines beekeeping education and training with mindfulness and therapeutic practices.
Last fall, in collaboration with the Manchester VA of New Hampshire and the University of New Hampshire, Ingrao published the first evidence-based findings on beekeeping’s benefits for veterans in Therapeutic Recreation Journal. The research documented the beneficial effects on mental health of a program run at the VA by recreational therapist Valerie Carter, including reductions in feelings of anxiety and depression, as well as increases in positive feelings regarding overall health.
The therapeutic program built on other animal therapies that have come before it, such as equine therapy. Over the course of 16 weeks, participants worked with a recreational therapist and volunteer beekeeper to learn the ins and outs of an apiary and engage in a range of mind-body practices, including diaphragmatic breathing, yoga, guided imagery and five-senses mindfulness.
In Connecticut, Huneebee’s youth conduct grounding exercises before approaching a hive to get in touch with themselves. These practices prepare the beekeepers for the sensory experience of being among the bees, including the sound of a hive in motion, which an apprentice once described to Dutcher as “a choir of bees singing.” In the process, the beekeepers develop the mindfulness required to care for the bees safely.
“If you’re not focused on your bees,” Ingrao says, “they’ll let you know.”
For individuals dealing with trauma, he suggests, the hive demands a level of presence that can be powerful in overcoming the instinct to hide. Traumatic experiences and other mental health challenges often leave people feeling fragmented and isolated, but beekeeping can serve as an antidote of sorts by encouraging people to connect with the community in their midst, says Amelia Mraz, a former Temple University student.
While studying undergraduate psychology and struggling with mental health challenges including anxiety and depression, Mraz says, she signed up for a semester-long beekeeping course and quickly fell into it. The practice was meditative and therapeutic, she says.
Five years later, now with a master’s in public health, she opened an apiary in Philadelphia, Half Mad Honey, to help bring therapy out of the clinical setting and into nature. Today, she shares that experience with community members in search of their own healing.
“It’s amazing to be connected to the hive mind,” she says.
Last year, Mraz co-authored a paper that described a pilot study that found beekeeping in a therapeutic context helped reduce college students’ stress and improved their well-being. She and Olivia Ciraulo, a graduate student at Saint Joseph’s University, published the research in the journal Occupational Therapy in Mental Health.
For the teens involved with Huneebee, there’s a sense of kinship and community to be found in caring for a hive. Dutcher, the beekeeping instructor, sees it this way: Relationships can be fraught for people who have had complicated experiences with other human beings in the past. But connections with non-human beings can be simpler and set the stage for growth. The organization keeps their cohorts intentionally small, between five and seven members, so everyone has the opportunity to build a relationship with the bees if they’re interested.
Beekeeping also offers a sense of purpose, which can be empowering for anyone going through transition, Ingrao says, whether that’s returning from military service or navigating a tumultuous experience at home. “Beekeeping is an identity,” he says. “You are a beekeeper. And it’s recognized by the public.”
New Haven resident Alex Guzman started as a beekeeper-in-residence at 14 and soon found that taking on a new identity had a galvanizing effect. Bullied from a young age, she was socially anxious and struggled to maintain friendships. She had attempted suicide multiple times, and was just beginning to understand trauma and the ways it can reverberate through a life. Then her therapist handed her a flyer for the Huneebee Project. Connecting with the bees offered her an opportunity to decompress and ground herself. Around the hive, she could find her breath and clear her head.
“Through beekeeping, I started finding more importance in other things, too—the importance of actually going outside, the importance of taking care of what’s around me,” she says.
After completing the program, she stayed involved with Huneebee and is now a junior beekeeping instructor—a role that allows her to work with the hives in addition to visiting schools to educate students about bees. She never could have spoken publicly before becoming a beekeeper, she says. Although she still sees herself as a work in progress, the progress is evident. Now 21, she’s preparing to manage a hive of her own. Beekeeping may be work for her, but it’s also a form of therapy, she says.
In caring for an entire community, beekeepers are often presented with opportunities to connect over profound life experiences they might not otherwise have, Taylor says. She recalls the first time she and Guzman opened a “deadout” together in early spring—a colony whose members had all died in winter’s cold. It felt crushing, she says, to see the end of all those bees they’d become attached to.
But the experience opened up conversations about the purpose of the hive and the comb that remained. Within a few weeks, they knew, the hive would be repopulated by new bees that could continue the work of the collapsed colony. Feelings of pain and sadness gave way to a sense of hope and optimism, a sense of healing and renewal.
“Bees are a perfect example of what a community should look like,” Guzman says. “A bunch of people getting together to make something better and bigger than themselves that other people can keep building on.”
This story was originally published by MindSite News, an independent, nonprofit journalism site focused on mental health, and Reasons to be Cheerful, a nonprofit publication about solutions. Sign up for Reasons to be Cheerful’s weekly newsletter and the MindSite News Daily newsletter on their websites: reasonstobecheerful.world / mindsitenews.org
Ben Seal is a freelance journalist based in Philadelphia who writes about our relationships with one another and the world around us. More of his work is available at ben-seal.com.
Molino Campo Noble
Japan’s First Tortillería
by Dawn Emery Ballantine
In today’s fragmented world, I find it comforting to look for the things that unite us. We all breathe air and drink water, we all hope and strive for a better world for ourselves and our loved ones—and hopefully all on the planet— and we all must eat. Though many cultures’ cuisines are highlighted by their differences in flavor, texture, and heat, there are basic underpinnings which link them. Take, for example, the flatbread. Around the world, it has myriad manifestations—the Indian chapati, Southeast Asian roti, Turkish and Middle Eastern pita, Italian pizza and focaccia, Ethiopian injera, Venezuelan arepas, and the humble Mexican tortilla. They all serve as a scoop or a dipper or a base for great deliciousness heaped upon them. It’s hard to imagine any country’s cuisine that doesn’t have some form of “something simple, warm, and nourishing held in your hands,” as Geovanni Beristain says.
So imagine our surprise and delight when we learned of Geovanni Beristain and his Japanese tortillería—Molino Campo Noble—featuring heritage Mexican corn and located in Chiba, Japan. Mexican national Geovanni and Reiko Matsumoto, his Japanese partner, launched Japan’s first 100% corn tortillería in Japan in 2019.
After having immigrated to Japan and lived there for seven years, Geovanni realized that he deeply missed the textures and flavors that he grew up with in Mexico. “Food is such a powerful connector,” he says, “and I realized I wanted to stay close to my roots while living here, especially through the food I love most. That’s where the spark for Molino Campo Noble came from.” He also saw a clear opportunity to introduce corn as a third staple in Japan—staples one and two being rice and wheat—but he particularly wanted to showcase the nixtamalized corn, corn which has undergone a process of soaking in lime or ash, rinsing, cooking, and grinding. Nixtamalization has been in use for over 4,000 years in numerous Mesoamerican cultures, and it improves both the flavor, aroma, texture, and available nutrients in the corn.
“Molino Campo Noble is much more than just a tortilla business,” Geovanni explains. “Our mission is to unite two incredible culinary cultures, Mexican and Japanese, through one of the most humble yet powerful foods: the tortilla ... It’s a celebration of heritage, craftsmanship, and cultural exchange.” Molino Campo Noble is committed to working with Mexican farmers and using only non-GMO, native, heirloom corn for their products, supporting the farmers of Geovanni’s homeland while also promoting sustainable agriculture for a crop that has been tragically hijacked by the GMO seed racket. By doing everything from kernel to tortilla themselves, they are hoping to raise awareness about the experience of eating 100% real unprocessed corn, not powdered masa harina. Their hope is to both support their farmers while also introducing Japan to the “true essence of Mexican culture.”
Upon sampling their first attempts at creating their product, Geovanni recalls that “... the moment we took a bite, we were transported back to our beloved Mexico. The scorching Mexican sun, the laughter of family gatherings, the lively plazas in the early afternoon, and the captivating sound of mariachi songs—all of it came rushing back. Our Mexico had found its home in Japan.”
Curiosity and appreciation for their products is growing, and Geovanni notes that what catches peoples’ attention is the diversity of the corn itself, particularly the colors. Most people in Japan have not seen the brilliant red, pink, or black corn types, and they are fascinated to learn how they not only look different but also taste and behave differently.
Their primary focus has been wholesale business-to-business, working with restaurants, chefs, and small shops which value authenticity and quality. But their online sales have been growing steadily as the general public finds them on Instagram and their website (where you can see their popularity by how many of their products are currently “sold out”). They have also begun to collaborate with other food creatives during cultural events, helping them to introduce the tortilla experience to an expanded audience. I can only imagine the culinary experiments—and gustatory outcomes—marrying Japanese cuisine with the nixtamalized corn tortilla.
Geovanni explains, “We embarked on a remarkable journey to bring a slice of Mexico to the world, one tortilla at a time ... It’s a celebration of heritage, craftsmanship, and cultural exchange. Every tortilla we make carries a story, not just of where the corn came from, but also of the people, the process, and the connection between two parts of the world that you might not expect to meet in a tortilla.”
Molino Campo Noble’s future goals include addressing some of Japan’s own self-sufficiency challenges. Corn is already one of Japan’s primary agricultural products, and Geovanni is considering promoting the launch of homegrown Japanese corn for their products, with their ultimate goal being to support sustainable agriculture not only in Mexico, but also in Japan—a novel path, a bridge between cultures, by way of the humble tortilla.
Molino Campo Noble
molinocamponoble.com/en | Insta: @molinocamponoble
All photos courtesy of Molino Campo Noble
Growing Corn in the Desert, No Irrigation Required
This story originally appeared on Reasons to Be Cheerful, and is reprinted here with permission (reasonstobecheerful.world).
by Michaela Haas, Ph.D.
When Michael Kotutwa Johnson goes out to the acreage behind his stone house to harvest his corn, his fields look vastly different from the endless rows you see in much of rural North America. Bundled in groups of five or six, his corn stalks shoot out of the sandy desert in bunches, resembling bushels rather than tightly spaced rows. “We don’t do your typical 14-inch spaced rows,” he says.
Instead, Kotutwa Johnson, an enrolled member of the Hopi tribe, practices the Hopi tradition he learned from his grandfather on the Little Colorado River Plateau near Kykotsmovi Village in northeastern Arizona, a 90-minute drive from Flagstaff: “In spring, we plant eight to 10 corn kernels and beans per hole, further apart, so the clusters all stand together against the elements and preserve the soil moisture.” For instance, high winds often blow sand across the barren plateau. “This year was a pretty hot and dry year, but still, some of the crops I raised did pretty well,” he says with a satisfied smile. “It’s a good year for squash, melons, and beans. I’ll be able to propagate these.”
Dry farming has been a Hopi tradition for several millennia. Kotutwa Johnson might build some protection for his crops with desert brush or cans to shield them from the wind, but his plants thrive without any fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides, mulch, or irrigation. This is all the more impressive since his area usually gets less than 10 inches of rain per year.
In the era of climate change, the practice of dry farming is met with growing interest from scientists and researchers as farmers grapple with droughts and unpredictable weather patterns. For instance, the Dry Farming Institute in Oregon lists a dozen farms it partners with, growing anything from tomatoes to zucchini. However, Oregon has wet winters, with an annual rainfall of over 30 inches, whereas on the plateau in Arizona, Johnson’s crops get less than a third of that. Farmers in Mexico, the Middle East, Argentina, Southern Russia, and Ukraine all have experimented with dry farming, relying on natural rainfall, though conditions and practices vary in each region.
For Kotutwa Johnson, it’s a matter of faith and experience. Between April and June, he checks the soil moisture to determine which crops to plant and how deep. He uses the traditional wooden Hopi planting stick like his ancestors, because preserving the topsoil by not tilling is part of the practice. “We don’t need moisture meters or anything like that,” he explains. “We plant everything deep—for instance, the corn goes 18 inches deep, depending on where the seeds will find moisture.” His seeds rely on the humidity from the melted winter snow and annual monsoon rains in June.
His harvest looks unique, too. “We know 24 varieties of indigenous corn,” he says, showing off kernels in indigo blue, purple red, snow white, and yellow. His various kinds of lima and pinto beans shimmer in white, brown, merlot red, and mustard yellow. Studies have shown that indigenous maize is more nutritious, richer in protein and minerals than conventional corn, and he hopes to confirm similar results with his own crops in his role as professor at the School of Natural Resources and the Environment at the University of Arizona, and as a core faculty member with the fledgling Indigenous Resilience Center, which focuses on researching resilient solutions for Indigenous water, food, and energy independence. He earned a PhD in natural resources, concentrating on Indigenous agricul- tural resilience, not least to “have a seat at the table and level the playing field, so mainstream stakeholders can really hear me,” he says. “I’m not here to be the token Native; I’m here to help.” For instance, he attended COP 28, the 2023 United Nations climate change conference in Dubai, to share his knowledge about “the reciprocal relationship with our environment.” Kotutwa Johnson was born in Germany because his dad was in the military, but he spent the summers with his grand- father planting corn, squash, beans, and melons the Indig- enous way in the same fields he’s farming now, where he eventually built an off-grid stone house with his own hands. “As a kid, I hated farming because it’s hard work,” he admits with disarming honesty, followed by a quick laugh. “But later I saw the wisdom in it. We’ve done this for well over 2,000 or 3,000 years. I’m a 250th-generation Hopi farmer.” Unlike many other Indigenous tribes, the Hopi weren’t driven off their land by European settlers. “We’re very fortunate that we were never relocated,” Kotutwa Johnson says. “We chose this land, and we’ve learned to adapt to our harsh environment. The culture is tied into our agricultural system, and that’s what makes it so resilient.”
However, the Hopi tribe doesn’t own the land. Legally, the United States holds the title to the 1.5 million acres of reser- vation the Hopi occupy in Northwestern Arizona, a fraction of their original territory. Kotutwa Johnson estimates that only 15 percent of his community still farms, down from 85 percent in the 1930s, and some Hopi quote the lack of land ownership as an obstacle.
Like on many reservations, the Hopi live in a food desert, where tribal members have to drive one or two hours to find a major supermarket in Flagstaff or Winslow. High rates of diabetes and obesity are a consequence of lacking easy access to fresh produce. “If you’re born here you have a 50 percent chance of getting diabetes,” Kotutwa Johnson says. “To me, this is the original harm: the disruption of our traditional foods. By bringing back the food, you also bring back the culture.”
Traditionally, Hopi women are the seed keepers, and the art of dry farming starts with the right seeds. “These seeds adapted to having no irrigation, and so they are very valuable,” Kotutwa Johnson says. He is fiercely protective of the seeds he propagates and only exchanges them with other tribal members within the community.
In that spirit, he was overjoyed to receive 800-year-old corn ears from a man who recently found them in a cave in Glen Canyon. Kotutwa Johnson planted the corn, and about a fifth actually sprouted. He raves about the little white corn ears he was able to harvest: “It’s so amazing we got to bring these seeds home. It was like opening up an early Christmas present.”
From a traditional perspective, “we were given things to survive,” he says. “In our faith, we believe the first three worlds were destroyed, and when we came up to this world, we were given a planting stick, some seeds, and water by a caretaker who was here before us.”
He doesn’t believe that climate change can be stopped. “But we can adapt to it, and our seeds can adapt.” This is a crucial tenet of Hopi farming: Instead of manipulating the environment, they raise crops and cultivate seeds that adjust to their surroundings. His crops grow deep roots that stretch much farther down into the ground than conventional plants.
“Our faith tells us that we need to plant every single year no matter what we see,” even in drought years, he explains. “Some years, we might not plant much, but we still plant regardless because those plants are like us, they need to adapt.”
Dry farming is “not very economically efficient,” he admits. “Everything is driven towards convenience nowadays. We’re not trying to make a big buck out here; we’re here to maintain our culture and practice things we’ve always done to be able to survive.”
Kotutwa Johnson does not sell his produce. He keeps a percentage of the seeds to propagate and gives the rest to relatives and his community, or trades it for other produce.
But his vision far surpasses his nine acres. He wants to pass on his dry-farming methods to the next generation, just as he learned them from his grandfather, and he often invites youth to participate in farming workshops and communal planting. That’s why he recently started the Fred Aptvi Foundation, named after his grandfather, to focus on establishing a seed bank and a Hopi youth agricultural program that incorporates the Hopi language. Aptvi means “one who plants besides another,” Kotutwa Johnson explains. “It’s about revitalizing what’s there, not reinventing it.”
Michaela Haas, Ph.D., is a Contributing Editor at Reasons to be Cheerful. An award-winning author and solutions reporter, her recent books include Bouncing Forward: The Art and Science of Cultivating Resilience (Atria). michaelahaas.com
All photos courtesy of Michael Kotutwa Johnson
The Quest for Clean Water
Tackling the Plastic Pollution that Plagues Our Oceans
by Dawn Emery Ballantine
At the age of 16 while scuba-diving in Greece, Boyan Slat was appalled to discover that he could count more plastic bags than fish in the ocean. So with the fervor and impetuosity of youth, he decided to do something about it.
Slat went back to his high school in The Netherlands and put together a research project to develop a methodology for removing plastics from the ocean without harming the sea life. He became world-famous in a TEDx video in 2012, and in 2013, he founded The Ocean Cleanup, whose mission was “to develop technologies to remove plastics from our oceans.” Though many said that his dream was and still is impossible, 38,000 donors in 160 countries thought otherwise, providing Slat with 2.2 million crowd-funded dollars so he could begin to develop his ideas into reality.
The problem was huge, and the R&D process was time-consuming. In 2020, The Ocean Cleanup calculated that there were 7.25 million tons of plastics in the ocean which needed to be removed. And all of that debris refuses to stay in one place since the five rotating ocean currents, known as the gyres, move the plastic pollution around, poisoning sea life and, ultimately, the food chain.
Slat chose to place his initial focus in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, found roughly mid-way between Hawaii and California. The ocean currents themselves were viewed by many as a major obstacle to the cleanup. Predicting where the extrudable trash could be found and sending ships after it required constant re-calculations, not to mention fuel and person-power. But Slat eventually chose to use the currents as part of his solution. Initially employing a roving model of trash nets pulled by ships, he then decided to fix the ships, redesigned as platforms, to the seabed, letting the ocean currents bring the garbage to them. With their manta-ray shaped platforms, they hoped to capture more than 55 shipping containers of plastic per day. They planned to sell the captured plastics for recycling in order to recoup their operating expenses. Their lofty aim was to put themselves out of business by 2040 by removing at least 90% of the ocean’s floating plastic pollution.
Their early attempts were full of failures that Slat refers to as “unscheduled learning opportunities.” Only 60 bags of garbage were captured in 2019 before the fledgling system broke apart. They went back to the drafting board, and their next model collected more than 10 tons of garbage in 2021. An updated operating system was launched in 2022, liberating more than 153 tons of garbage from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. It may be just a fraction of the estimated 14 million metric tons of plastic waste that enters our aquatic ecosystems each year, but it’s a start.
The majority of the plastic pollution consists of single-use packaging, plastic bags, and cutlery, all of which eventually break down to microplastics. These tiny specks of plastic cause harm to wildlife and ecosystems, posing risks to vulnerable communities, the climate, the world economy, and to human health. Recent research posits that people could be ingesting 5 grams of microplastics per week— equivalent to the weight of a credit card! These microplastics and their components are not readily eliminated from the body. They have been shown to penetrate the blood-brain barrier and even the maternal/fetal placenta. Measurable levels of microplastics have been found in the bloodstreams of 80% of people tested, and recent autopsies show that human brain samples contained approximately 0.5% plastics. Plastics have been linked with a plethora of health concerns, impacting hormones, metabolism, and fertility, and contributing to neurodegenerative diseases, ADHD, anxiety, and depression, as well as cancers and heart disease.
In 2020, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) spearheaded a report which motivated nations around the world to tackle the plastics problem. WWF secured more than 2.2 million signatures on a plastics petition in order to present it to the United Nations and spur the world to act. According to WWF, “The unique potential of a global, United Nations-led treaty is to hold all countries to a high common standard on plastic consumption and create a clear path toward a future free from plastic pollution. This will create a level playing field that incentivizes and supports national actions.”
This petition, among others, was presented in March of 2022 to the United Nations Environmental Assembly in Nairobi, Kenya, which had convened to discuss the crisis of plastics. Their staff had spent five years exploring possible global actions to address plastic pollution and the elimination of marine garbage, and the result was the United Nations Environment Programme Resolution called “End plastic pollution: Towards an international legally binding instrument.” The resolution was adopted by 175 nations, who all agreed upon an accelerated timeline of implementation as early as 2025. The United Nations Development Programme described it as “the most important multilateral environmental pact since the Paris Agreement on climate change,” and that “the decisions made during these negotiations could radically transform the way we produce, consume and dispose of plastics.”
If you know anything about how these committees function, you know that it will likely take a miracle to see the implementation of this treaty to fruition. There have been many bumps and setbacks along the way, but the final negotiation will take place in late November 2024 in Busan, South Korea. While the resolution remakes the system to change the overall system around plastic production and waste management, organizations like The Ocean Cleanup are reckoning with the mess that our current systems have generated. In 2022, the same year as the Nairobi plastics summit, Boyan Slat and his team realized that cleaning up the ocean plastic would remain Sisyphean unless they could find a way to target plastics pollution before it made it to the oceans. So they set about identifying the rivers of the world which released the majority of plastics pollution into the sea, with the plan of launching a fleet of Interceptors to sequester that plastic before it reached the oceans.
The idea of an interceptor was initially developed by an environmental scientist and shipbuilder, John Kellett, who was commissioned by the Waterfront Partnership of Baltimore. Interceptors are stationary and semi-autonomous devices placed at the end of a river or stream to capture the waste that flows into and out of them. Kellett created and installed his prototype, Mr. Trash Wheel, in May of 2014. Mr. Trash Wheel is now joined by Professor Trash Wheel, Captain Trash Wheel, and Gwynnda the Good Wheel of the West, and they can be found in the creeks, harbors, and coves of Baltimore. They have been fitted with googly eyes, which have humanized them enough to turn them into social media celebrities. Powered with solar and hydro, and built to withstand large storms, they are designed to pull hundreds of tons of trash out of the water each year. Given the difficulties with recycling sorting technologies, however, the plastics still cannot be separated from the other trash, so it is all incinerated to create electricity.
The Ocean Cleanup expanded on Kellet’s model, deploying their own interceptors in targeted rivers in Indonesia, Malaysia, The Dominican Republic, and Vietnam in the middle of 2022. Those interceptors collected 840 tons of plastic before it reached the sea. With the tailwind of that success, additional interceptors have been launched in Thailand, Los Angeles, California, and most recently in Guatemala, where they extracted 272 tons of plastic (within 816 tons of trash) in the first three weeks of operation.
As of August 2024, The Ocean Cleanup has retrieved more than 35.3 million pounds of garbage from waters around the world. At its current rate, without drastic and immediate action, plastic pollution is projected to triple globally by the year 2040. With hard work and a lot of luck, the UN accords and the work of companies, governments, and individuals can help to make a difference in the manufacture, use, and proper disposal of plastics.
Some leaders have taken measures—or said they aim to—in the fight against plastic pollution. In March of 2023, President Biden announced a goal of replacing over 90% of petroleum-based plastics with bio-plastics over the next 20 years. In September of 2024, Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, signed into law a ban on all single-use plastic carry-out bags at grocery stores beginning in 2026.
The problem is big, but some of the solutions are small enough to be easily implemented. One of the most effective solutions was dreamed up by a 16 year old boy from The Netherlands. Imagine if the entire world decides to focus on the problem. One can only imagine that solutions will abound. Check the sidebar for some plastics facts and some proposed solutions for staying safer and healthier in a world full of plastics and their by-products.
Some Practical Strategies for Reducing the Impact of Plastics
• Avoid exposure reduce drinking from plastic bottles and use of plastics whenever possible.
• Reduce the use of BPA/BPS-lined cans.
• Utilize reverse osmosis filtration in your home water sources. (R-O removes 99.9% of microplastics from the water.)
• Avoid plastic-wrapped food, or wash well if unavoidable.
• Avoid heating foods in plastic.
• Avoid cooking with non-stick pans. Use cast iron, titanium, or ceramic.
• Avoid disposable paper products that are lined with plastics, e.g., to-go coffee cups. (The heat causes the plastic lining to break down more quickly.)
• Utilize re-usable ceramic or stainless steel mugs for your to-go coffee.
• Be aware of your salt source. Sea salt has the highest level of microplastics contamination; rock salt has the lowest.
• Use a HEPA filter to trap airborne microplastic particles.
• Wear natural fiber clothing and use natural fabrics when possible. (Synthetic fibers shed microplastics in the laundry and the world at large.)
• Avoid taking thermal receipts, which are chock full of BPA.
Ways to Help Reduce Plastics Harm in Your Body
Keep your liver healthy. Your liver absorbs, processes, and converts the plastic by-product chemicals into water-soluble forms for excretion in urine. These microplastics and their by-products have varied excretion time frames. BPA can be excreted in 6 hours; phthalates in 12-24 hours; PFAs in 2-5 years; and for some nano-particles, perhaps never.
Eat your cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli, cauliflower, etc., which are full of Sulforaphane (also available in supplements). This both helps to clear out toxins and to produce enzymes which bond to the chemicals, assisting with excretion.
Eat more dietary fiber, which binds to the chemicals in the GI tract and assists in excretion, thereby reducing absorption into the bloodstream.
Get sweaty. Exercise, sauna, and hot tubs all help to eliminate these chemicals and compounds from the body, reducing the toxic burden.
Learn more about The Ocean Cleanup at theoceancleanup.com. You can find the UN resolution at: wedocs.unep.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.11822/39812/OEWG_PP_1_INF_1_UNEA%20resolution.pdf
Dawn Emery Ballantine lives in Anderson Valley where she edits this magazine and is forever searching for her next favorite book.
Choosing the Extraordinary
Embracing Wine, Life, and Love in Italy
by Anne Fashauer
Alyson Morgan credits her extraordinary life to one of her high school teachers. Mrs. Huber, who taught Italian and Humanities at Fort Bragg High School, told Aly and her other students: “Don’t be ordinary. Be extraordinary.” And in search of the extraordinary, Mrs. Huber took Aly, her sister Ilse, her friend Melissa, and others on a high school trip to Europe, where Aly fell in love with Italy and decided to study Italian for three years in high school. Today, Aly is a winemaker who lives in Italy, Ilse lives in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, and Melissa lived in Italy and now is a professor of Italian at U.C. Davis. Life doesn’t get much more extraordinary than that.
Aly was raised on the Mendocino Coast in the town of Westport, and she attended and graduated from Fort Bragg High School. Her interest in wine-making started with her father, who made wine in the basement of their home, but she never indended it to be her career. Instead, influenced by Fran DuBois, another Westport denizen and a legendary figure in California agriculture who founded the Rice Growers Association, Aly decided to go to the school of agriculture at U.C. Davis. Aly spent six years there, first studying fruit flies and then grape genetics. While working at the fruit fly lab, Aly went on a trip to Napa to collect fruit flies from fermenting punch-down bins. During this trip she realized that it was imperative for her to live in a beautiful place and not in the Midwest working with corn, soy, and wheat genetics. So she decided to study grape genetics after she completed the research with fruit flies, and she got a job working for Dr. Andy Walker, the leading rootstock geneticist in the Viticulture and Enology Department.
Aly did her first wine internship in Anderson Valley at Edmeades in the late 1990s with Van Williamson, former winemaker for the Kendall-Jackson Edmeades label and current owner and winemaker at Witching Stick Wines in Philo. Aly said, “I owe Van so much. He took a chance on me and let me experience the harvest without pampering me or giving me special treatment. It was the most grueling job I have ever had physically and mentally, but it changed my life for the better. I learned so much during my time at Edmeades. I use those skills every day.” After her exposure to winemaking at Edmeades, Aly decided to double major in both Genetics and Viticulture and Enology, and in 1999, she successfully graduated with two Bachelor of Science degrees, one in each of those fields.
In 1998, Aly made her way back to Italy on a vacation, working in an interview with Tenuta di Arceno, an Italybased Kendall-Jackson winery. The interview went well, and she was hired to work with them after graduation. During this trip, Aly’s high school friend Melissa introduced her to Fabrizio Polloni, who invited a group of people, including Melissa and Aly, to his home for dinner. They immediately hit it off. Aly says, “During the evening, he touched my shoulder, and I could see our life together. It was surreal.” He asked her to have lunch the following day, but she was unable to meet him due to other commitments, and she had to fly home the day after that.
Fast forward a year later, after arriving in Florence for her new job: Aly and Melissa were walking down the street and happened to bump into Fabrizio. ”We ran into him out of the blue,” Aly exclaimed, still surprised. He asked her to lunch again, and they’ve been together ever since. Aly shared, “I had butterflies in my stomach, which I still have to this day when I see him.” A former professional soccer player, Fabrizio is now the coach of a semi-professional team in Florence, and he teaches sport science at a university for study abroad students. Aly continued, “From that moment we have been together. I do recognize that the love we have is rare. Not everybody finds their soulmate, especially on the streets of a city on the other side of the world. We are incredibly blessed with two amazing children [Niccolo, 15, and Gaia, 17] and our beautiful life in Tuscany. It really is just as romantic as it sounds.”
After meeting Fabrizio, Aly accepted a job at a different Italian winery, Villa Sant’ Andrea, where she spent a year setting up their lab. She worked for next three years at Azienda Uggiano in Chianti, where she held the title of winemaker but in actuality was in charge of bottling. While that may not sound like much, they were bottling 15,000 bottles a day, every day. After she left that job, she gained experience at three other Italian wineries, finally settling in where she is now at Podere Capaccia in 2012, first as product manager, then head winemaker. Aly’s cumulative experience—which included managing estates, building wineries, and creating brands, as well as making wine—prepared her for her current role at Podere Capaccia—as of 2015, she is the company’s CEO and manages the entire estate.
Sitting high atop a hill on the north side of Radda in Chianti, Podere Capaccia overlooks the Pesa River valley with spectacular views of Radda and Volpaia. The estate includes a Medieval hamlet made up of six buildings that date back to the 1200s, surrounded by six acres of vineyard, three acres of olive orchards, and 20 acres of chestnut forests for Belgian owner, Herman De Bode. The forest of chestnut trees, which surrounds the estate, produces chestnuts that fall to the ground in October. While some are kept by the estate to cook and enjoy over an open fire, they are shared with the people from the village of Radda, who come to collect the chestnuts every year.
Podere Capaccia is in the heart of Chianti Classico, and it is the home of Sangiovese. The 1500 foot elevation, the limestone, shale, and sandstone soils, the southern exposure, and the constant breezes and cool nights make Podere Capaccia the ideal site for high quality wine production. They make primarily Sangiovese wines, but also a very small production of a Supertuscan called Capaccia—50% Cabernet sauvignon, 25% Cabernet franc and 25% Sangiovese.
I met Alyson through my husband, Van Williamson, at her home in Florence, Italy, and it was one of the highlights of our visit. She made us the best meal of our trip and shared her incredible wines with us. Dinner was white beans cooked with large garlic cloves, spinach sauteed with olive oil and more large garlic cloves, polpettine (fried Italian meatballs made with ground veal and pork, parmigiano, bread, and egg—which are even more delicious than they sound), and a Fiorentina steak from the Chianina cattle local to the area. Aly’s cooking tip for the beans and spinach is to keep the garlic cloves whole, as this allows the flavor to stay very subtle.
The wines we shared from Podere Capaccia were the fruity, fresh, and smooth Chianti Classico DOCG 2021 made with 100% Sangiovese that is aged in large oak casks; the rich, concentrated cherry and balsamic Chianti Classico Riserva DOCG 2017 made with 100% Sangiovese from a very hot vintage that was aged in oak barrels and oak casks; and the Querciagrande IGT 2019 which is a vineyard designate 100% Sangiovese from 12 year old vines—smooth, elegant, and full of cherry, rhubarb, and wildberries that marry with soft oak tannins. The last wine, Capaccia IGT 2019, is a Bordeaux blend that has a powerful cassis nose with a clean and elegant palate. All the crisp, pleasantly acidic wines paired wonderfully with the rich flavors of the dinner.
Learn more about Podere Capaccia at www.poderecapaccia.com.
Landscape photo and Aly in barrel room courtesy of Podere Capaccia.
Anne Fashauer is a real estate broker working in Anderson Valley who loves mountain biking, travel, and amazing local wines.
Fight Back with Fungi
How Mushrooms Can Help Solve the Global Housing Crisis
by Burgess Brown of Healthy Materials Lab
Namibia’s diverse ecosystem is in trouble. The main culprit: Acacia Mellifera, better known as Black Thorn or simply ‘encroacher bush.’ This dense, thorny shrub is incredibly invasive and, over the last few decades, has smothered many parts of Namibia’s increasingly homogeneous ecology. Grassy savannas are being choked by the ever-expanding plant and turned into deserts. Namibia’s government has a plan to fight back. They’ve enacted a program to thin 330 million tons of black thorn over the next 15 years. The bush waste is chipped and turned into wood dust that can be used for fuel pellets and energy sources. As it turns out, it is also the perfect food for fungi.
MycoHab, a collaboration between MIT, Standard Bank, and redhouse studio, is leveraging this surplus waste and harnessing the power of fungi to address both food and housing scarcity in Namibia. Here’s the basic MycoHAB run-down: The wood dust from the Acacia Mellifera waste is used as a substrate to grow oyster mushrooms. The oyster mushrooms are harvested and sold to local markets, grocery stores, and restaurants. Then, the waste left behind from the mushroom harvesting, teeming with the rootlike structure of fungi called mycelium, is pressed and fired into blocks that the team plans to use to construct affordable housing. This may sound far out, but allow us to explain. To understand how we get from mushrooms to housing, it’s helpful to know a bit about the life cycle of fungi.
Fungi 101
First, it’s important to understand that while all mushrooms are fungi, not all fungi are mushrooms. Mushrooms are the fruiting body of fungi. A mushroom is like an apple growing on an apple tree––it’s the fruit, not the tree. In the fungi world the “tree” is called mycelium. Mycelium is the living body of fungi. It’s a rootlike structure that is constantly eating, expanding, and connecting in large filamentous networks underground or in rotting trees. Mycelium is the star of the MycoHAB project and the key to a future of fungi-based materials.
Nature’s Glue
On a typical mushroom farm, once the fruiting bodies have been harvested, the mycelium would be left behind or composted. At MycoHab, the fungi’s substrate, chock full of mycelium, becomes the foundation for a new building product. While the mycelial network is growing and eating, waiting to sprout mushrooms, it’s filling up any available space in the woody substrate and binding everything together. We spoke to Christopher Maurer, Principal Architect at redhouse studio and a Founder of MycoHAB, about how this works in practice. “The mycelium, which looks like roots basically, bonds with the Acacia Mellifera bush at a cellular level,” Chris says. “They create this cellular matrix of material that can be compacted and turned into a building material. It acts like cement or glue in different building products.”
Seeing other creatives working with mycelium materials, notably the mycelium materials company Ecovative in a packaging context, inspired Chris’ own fungi experimentation. “We always wondered, could this be something that could be structural as well? We thought about processes like the creation of plywood or MDF where small bits of wood are combined together either in veneers, like plywood is, or in pulp, like medium density fiberboard.” Chris and his team set about experimenting with heat and pressure techniques inspired by these composite materials and applied them to the mycelium blocks. The results are relatively strong. Chris says, “We relate our block to a concrete block. It has about the same mass. It has a similar compressive strength. But it also has insulation characteristics and has thermal mass to it.”
Constructing Carbon Stores
The potential of the MycoHAB blocks are impressive: they could be be stronger than concrete blocks, they are insulating, and they are made from waste two times over. If that’s not enough, they also sequester carbon. Carbon emissions are a massive concern for the future habitability of our planet, and the built environment is one of our worst offenders. The construction and operation of buildings is responsible for nearly half of global carbon emissions. And the materials we use in our buildings have a huge impact on those emissions. Just three materials: concrete, steel, and aluminum account for 23% of emissions worldwide. The situation is dire, and according to Chris, the materials we build with are the place to start. “We imagine a future where the building industry could be a net carbon store. Because of population growth, we need to double our building area size by 2060. If we’re using carbon emitting materials, that is going to be a huge problem. If we use materials that store carbon then we can actually start to reverse the impact that the building industry and architecture has on the environment.”
Inflate, Deflate, Repeat
In addition to being made from waste, Chris and his team are developing new, waste-saving building methods to assemble the future myco-block affordable homes. Here’s how it will work: inflatable arch formwork is erected on site and the myco-blocks are stacked on top. Once everything is in place, the arch is deflated and is able to be used over and over again. This saves a ton of construction waste because, traditionally, the forms needed to build arch or dome structures can end up creating about as much building waste as the final product.
Next, a mud-lime render is added to the blocks to protect them from the elements, and a roof completed. The homes are designed for disassembly and with end of life in mind. Chris says, “The block itself would be fully biodegradable. We designed the building with protective barriers on top of it, but if you were to strip those away and recycle those materials, then the myco-blocks could be broken down and used as compost to augment the soil. That’s the way we look at the life cycle of our project—from the earth and back to the earth.”
Fungi Futures
As things stand, MycoHAB Namibia functions as a vertically integrated operation, with profits from oyster mushroom sales funding block production. Chris says that patience in these early stages of the process is key. “As we’re getting started, we want to maintain control over the process and the building so that we can thoroughly test everything and make sure that the materials we’re making are used properly.”
But, according to Chris, scaling operations are not far off. “I don’t think it can be kept a vertically integrated system for very long. It will need to kind of branch out into these different endeavors, and then they could end up on the shelves of hardware stores around the world so that anybody can build with them.”
Widespread access and affordability of myco-materials will be key to realizing their potential environmental impact in the coming decades both in Namibia and around the globe. Chris and his team have crunched the numbers and calculated that if they use just 1% of the biomass that Namibia plans to thin from the encroacher bush, they could house 25% of the population currently living in shacks and informal settlements over the next 15 years. In that time, they would also be able to harvest 2 million tons of mushrooms and sequester 3-5 million tons of carbon dioxide in the process. That is the promise of fungi.
We hope that fungi-based materials like the MycoHAB blocks will become a standard rather than an exciting outlier. This innovative approach, looking at the entire life cycle and systems of making a material, while taking responsibility for its origins through to its disposal, is an excellent example for a healthier future of materials and the built environment. It took decades of research, innovation, marketing, and systems-building for petrochemical-based materials to take over our planet. That same energy, and patience, is needed now. Thankfully, the tide is turning and a healthier future is possible.
This article was originally published on Architizer website at:
https://architizer.com/blog/inspiration/stories/mycelium-fungiarchitecture-mycohab
Healthy Materials Lab is a design research lab at Parsons School of Design with a mission to place health at the center of every design decision. HML is changing the future of the built environment by creating resources for designers, architects, teachers, and students to make healthier places for all people to live.
Photos courtesy of MycoHAB
How Indigenous Nations are Rebuilding Food Systems
Local Food, Grounded in Cultural and Spiritual Values, Forms the Basis for a Growing Food Sovereignty Movement
by Richard Arlin Walker
Aaron Gilliam plants organic vegetable starts for Samish Nation elders in the summer of 2021. Many elders received vegetable starts and soil to plant in their own garden. (Photo courtesy of the Samish Indian Nation)
“We were thrown to the four winds.”
That’s how Francene Ambrose describes the fate of her people when, in 1954, the U.S. government terminated its relationship with the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde.
The U.S. had obtained Western Oregon by treaty a century earlier. Although Article VI of the U.S. Constitution states that treaties are “the supreme law of the land,” termination meant the U.S. no longer recognized Grand Ronde and sold the lands it had protected for the tribe by holding the title in trust. The people were forced to relocate.
The Grand Ronde fought to restore their status with the U.S. government. In 1983, they prevailed, regaining nearly 10,000 acres of their original 61,000-acre reservation. Since then, the sovereign nation has made great economic and cultural strides to rebuild their economy and restore their traditional food ways.
In fact, it was traditional food knowledge—knowing plant harvesting areas, seasons, and preservation techniques—that helped the peoples of the Grand Ronde survive the 29-year diaspora.
“During termination, we didn’t have the legal authority to harvest in our traditional areas, but we didn’t know that,” Grand Ronde Chairwoman Cheryle Kennedy said. “When I was growing up, we didn’t buy foods from the store. We fished for salmon and trout. We harvested huckleberries, wild asparagus, wild celery, wild strawberries, and camas. Western Oregon was rich with resources.”
Kennedy and others believe a return to traditional food knowledge is key to restoring physical Indigenous health and ensuring the survival of a cultural lifeway. That movement—called food sovereignty—shifts people away from corporate food systems toward locally grown, locally distributed, culturally appropriate foods.
“We would not have survived colonization without the food knowledge we have,” Kennedy said. “We didn’t have all the modern amenities we have now. We had to know ways of preserving the food that we gathered.”
Connecting communities with food
Many Indigenous nations are reconnecting to the traditional foods of their ancestors. The shift from a traditional diet to government-supplied commodities and processed foods is reflected in chronic diseases like diabetes. It’s a condition that was rare among Indigenous people before the 1940s. Today, the average life expectancy of Indigenous people is nearly seven years shorter than white Americans, according to a 2015 report by the National Institutes of Health.
Food sovereignty, by contrast, emphasizes the nourishment provided by traditional foods hunted and gathered locally, honored and shared in traditional ways. In the Pacific Northwest, those foods include an array of nutrient-dense plants, as well as salmon, bear, deer, and elk meat.
“Elders come out on the floor during our First Foods Celebration and share their favorite memories of tribal foods and their favorite stories about fishing, hunting, and harvesting while growing up,” said Ambrose, manager of Iskam MǝkhMǝk-Haws (“House where you get food”). Iskam MǝkhMǝk-Haws provides traditional foods to tribal citizens and hosts classes on gardening, cooking, and food preservation.
“Some of our families are from what I call the grocery store generation,” Ambrose said. “They’ve been disconnected from traditional foods, or they have a distant memory of a food but don’t remember what it was. Elders will say, ‘Oh, we used to make this. Could it be this?’ And then there’s sharing going on and reconnecting. Our elders are helping families regain knowledge of those foods—the traditional names of those foods, the locations and harvest times, and how to prepare them.”
New systems, old traditions
For years, elders of the Samish Indian Nation in Anacortes, Washington, met Monday through Friday for lunch in the elders building to socialize and enjoy a meal together. Then the COVID-19 pandemic struck, and elders could no longer congregate.
In response, the Samish Nation revamped the elders’ meal program into a food distribution system that incorporated traditional foods and other necessities. It took shape as a home delivery program that skirted supply chain issues by purchasing food from local growers.
“In the past, we would send out food items that were basic,” said Allison Coonc, Director of Samish Food Services. She said that changed in response to a food preference survey she included with a delivery.
“We gathered, dried, and prepared stinging nettles for soup and tea and foraged for mushrooms,” Coonc said. “We welcomed a gift of salmon caught by Upper Skagit Tribe fishermen and donated to Bellingham Food Bank. The food bank wanted to give the salmon back to local tribes, recognizing these are their ancestral lands and that the people have a deep and powerful connection to this place.”
The program partnered with Native-owned Long Hearing Farm for fresh produce. Elders received local, certified-organic produce in summer and fall.
In addition to salmon, cod, nettle soup, and fresh produce in their delivery bags, elders might find recipes, nutrition tips, cleaning products, and personal health care items. They may receive cultural items, such as a language activity book and a book to document their Samish lineage. Elders are encouraged to start their own gardens.
“We offered various organic vegetable starts, seeds, herbs, and natural and chemical-free soil,” Coonc said.
Take your ancestors shopping
Alaska’s First Peoples lived on the bounty around them: berries, plants, caribou, deer, moose, fish, seal, and whale. With the arrival of colonization, much of the knowledge of harvesting and preparing native foods was taken away as aboriginal Alaskans adapted to a Western cash-based economy. The result: dependence on store-bought processed foods.
The Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium is reconnecting Indigenous Alaskans to traditional foods through a program called The Store Outside Your Door that reintroduces Alaska Native people to a lifestyle of identifying and harvesting foods where they live. The program works with communities to build food-sharing networks that employ traditional harvesters and hunters and make native foods more available.
In the program’s instructional video series, Traditional Foods, Contemporary Chef, chefs go out with local Alaska Natives to fish and harvest, then return to the kitchen to prepare a meal. Viewers might learn to make Alaskan fresh roll consisting of salmonberry shoots, sea asparagus, herring eggs, rice noodles, and lettuce wrapped in a spring roll skin; halibut with a salmonberry reduction sauce; or rockfish braised with yarrow, wild parsley, and spring greens, topped with seal oil and seaweed accents.
Crossing treaty boundaries
In the years when Grand Ronde was terminated, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife had licensing authority over the tribe’s ability to fish and hunt. And when the federal government restored its recognition of Grand Ronde’s sovereignty, the state didn’t want to relinquish that authority. So the federal government gave the tribe a choice: Your land can be restored to you or you can have fishing and hunting rights. Not both. Grand Ronde chose the land.
Today, Grand Ronde comprises 11,662 acres, but tribal fishing and hunting continues to be regulated by the state. Senate Bill 3126, introduced in November 2021 by Oregon’s U.S. senators, Democrats Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, would change that by expanding the tribe’s fishing and hunting rights.
Meanwhile, Grand Ronde continues to bolster its food sovereignty initiatives through partnerships. The tribe receives salmon from hatcheries and meat from bear, deer, and elk culled by the state. The tribe’s cultural committee organizes trips to harvest plants on tribal, federal, and state lands. And some neighbors have made their lands available for harvesting.
“When we’ve opened the First Foods Celebration to the public and we’ve talked about these foods and where they grow, neighbors have said to us, ‘I have a pasture and I see those purple flowers everywhere. We didn’t know that was camas. Would you like to come and harvest from our fields?’” Ambrose said.
Ambrose collects recipes—she calls them “rez-ipes”—that are designed to make traditional foods easier to prepare. Ambrose uses bear meat in spaghetti and meatballs, elk meat in chili, and deer meat in meatloaf and stew. For younger generations raised on grocery store food, the rez-ipes can help make local foods more attractive.
Feeding body, mind and soul
Harvesting close to home is not easy for Indigenous people who live in metropolitan areas. Long Hearing Farm owner Elizabeth Bragg, who is Blackfeet/Cherokee/Gros Ventre, has a favorite saying: “When shopping for food, take your ancestors with you.” She credits Muckleshoot nutrition educator Valerie Segrest with that teaching.
“When shopping I ask myself, ‘What would my grandma want to see in her veggie box?’” Bragg said. “She’d like to see sweet corn. She’d like to see snap peas. She’d like to see tomatoes and lettuce and foods that she grew up eating. She might want someroasted beets. That would be exciting for her.”
This piece was originally published by Underscore News on April 3, 2023 as part of the Food Sovereignty Project, a special series that tells stories about traditional Indigenous knowledge and practices that honor and strengthen the relationship to the plants and animals that sustain all of us. The seven-story project was co-managed by Nicole Charley and Jackleen de La Harpe for Underscore News with generous support from The Roundhouse Foundation. Read the entire series at: https://www.underscore.news/work/food-sovereignty-project
Richard Arlin Walker, Mexican/Yaqui, is an ICT correspondent reporting from Western Washington. He writes for Underscore News, Hamiinat magazine, and other publications.
The Restaurant of Mistaken Orders
A Japanese Eatery Embraces the Serendipity of Imperfection
by Torrey Douglass
I had a business coach who would periodically remind me that mistakes are simply unavoidable while working on and in one’s business. It’s not whether mistakes are made, but how one responds when they inevitably are, that sheds light on a person’s grace and integrity. As a frequent mistakemaker, I’ve held that advice close for years.
It’s also why I am attracted to the Japanese art of kintsugi, also known as kintsukuroi, the practice of restoring broken things—often ceramics—in a way that highlights and beautifies its legacy of breakage. An example could be a shattered ceramic bowl that’s been reassembled with lacquer dusted with powdered gold (silver or platinum are also common). The shards appear outlined with shimmering ribbons dispersed randomly around the piece, calling attention to the cracks rather than using the more common repair methods that seek to make those cracks invisible. The restored dish has a spontaneous, completely original beauty, and speaks of hardships weathered and lessons learned.
It’s a creative way to roll with the punches, to embrace the fact that mistakes happen. Gracefully accepting the inevitability of errors is a form of protest against our times’ unrelenting pressure to 1) look and be perfect, 2) document and share said perfection, then 3) receive acceptance and approval in return. Of course we all want to do our best, but understanding that we’ll sometimes stumble can bring a sense of lightness and fun to life. This might be one reason why the Restaurant of Mistaken Orders is such a delightful concept, since detachment from perfectionism is one of its essential values, as is acceptance of whatever comes, perfect or not.
The idea for the Restaurant of Mistaken Orders originated when TV producer Shiro Ogun was working for NHK, a Japanese news outlet. One story covered a group home run by Yukio Wada that embraced a unique approach for its residents dealing with dementia, centering their humanity before their diagnosis, and recognizing that people with memory issues can still perform many tasks for themselves and others. At lunch during his visit, Ogun was served a plate of potstickers instead of the hamburger steak he ordered. He was about to protest when he noticed his companions happily eating their food, and realized accepting the situation was a much better strategy under the circumstances.
When health issues forced him to step away from TV producing five years later, Ogun reached out to Wada to see if he was interested in pursuing his unusual restaurant concept. Together they refined the vision—an eating establishment where all the serving staff were individuals with dementia. “We wanted to make a place where, when the customers come, they feel that it looks delicious and fun, and people with dementia just happen to be working there; a place to spontaneously interact with dementia,” Ogun said in an interview with The Big Issue Japan. “We didn’t want to depend on excuses like, ‘We’re doing a good thing, so even if we make mistakes, please forgive them.’ So the chefs perfected their cooking to almost Michelin-star level.”
The launch event was in September of 2017, and 300 people were served over three days. Mistakes were made aplenty—iced coffee arrived at one table instead of soda, one server needed assistance from the guests to manage the oversized pepper grinder, and another delivered food to the table before promptly sitting down to join the group. A video about the launch depicts a server asking which customer ordered the hamburger. “That was me,” says a young man. “Are you sure?” asks the server. “Because I’m not!”—and polite laughter and smiles blossom around the table.
In each instance of confusion or error, diners responded with lighthearted humor and gracious acceptance, which is the whole point of the enterprise. In a video promoting the project, Ogun explains, “Dementia is so widely misunderstood. People believe you can’t do anything for yourself and the condition will often mean complete isolation from society. We want to change society to become more caring and easy-going, so dementia or no dementia, we can live together in harmony.” By all accounts, the launch event was a success, with the restaurant sharing that “37% of our orders were mistaken, but 99% of our customers said they were happy.”
Since the launch, the project has published two books, The Restaurant of Mistaken Orders and How to Create a Restaurant of Mistaken Orders. They’ve held other pop-ups around Japan and won a number of awards, both in Japan and internationally. From the start Ogun hoped the idea would spread around the world, embraced by and adapted for each particular culture and community. So far, similar pop-ups have launched in China, Korea, and the U.K.
The restaurant is not an ongoing operation, but instead an occasional event. It’s an inspired example of creating community, including people of various capacities, and celebrating what’s possible rather than focusing on what’s missing. If we feel shame when we fall short of certain ideals, we miss out on a lot of the joy of life. Better to embrace it and find the beauty. All those cracks can be pretty dazzling when they are filled with gold.
More information can be found at mistakenorders.com/en/home.html
Kintsugi photo photo by JuDPjcutors courtesy of Unsplash. All other images courtesy of Restaurant of Mistaken Orders.
Rachel’s Farm
An Australian Actor/Director Turns to Regenerative Farming to Address Climate Change
by Torrey Douglass
There are events—sometimes tragic ones—that are the mental equivalent of blowing a fuse, a soft pop followed by a plunge into disorienting darkness. It can happen when we bear witness to more devastation than we are equipped to comprehend. Such was the response of the people of Australia and around the world when the bushfires erupted across that continent in the summer of 2019/2020. The disaster burned 26.4 million acres and killed or injured almost 3 billion animals, along with 34 humans. For many, what had been a disturbing but distant theory—climate change—shape-shifted into brutal, inarguable fact.
Actor and director Rachel Ward owns an 840-acre property in the Nambucca Valley, a gorgeous region of rolling hills, lush rainforest, and coastal beauty in the Mid North Coast of eastern Australia. She’s been married to actor Bryan Brown for 40 years, during which the farm served as a restorative escape for them and their three children. Their neighbor, Mick Green, ran cattle on the land using traditional ranching methods, a practice Rachel didn’t think to question until the fires raged along their property line, consuming nearby structures and threatening their own.
Their land was spared, but the fires left Rachel with a heavyhearted despair. What about next time? What kind of planet was she leaving to her new grandchild? What could one person do to reverse the ecological ruin brought about by climate change?
According to the United Nations Committee on World Food Security, at least 13% of the world’s carbon emissions are caused by agriculture and forestry. Learning that her ranch was exacerbating, rather than addressing, climate change did not sit well with Rachel, so when Mick suggested they change their livestock management practices from one that contributed to climate change to an approach that would help mitigate it, she was decidedly interested.
In previous years, land on the farm used for growing feed for the cows was treated with herbicide in order to kill the wild-grown plants, then tilled and planted with grass seed. But exposing the underground soil to air and light through tilling destroys its biodiversity, wiping out the community of microbes, fungi, plants, vertebrates, and invertebrates that live underground and create the ecosystem that provides nourishment to the plants above. Tilling also releases both moisture and carbon out of the soil and into the atmosphere, leaving depleted, lifeless soil behind, forcing the farmer to apply chemical fertilizers to sustain the new seeds.
In contrast, Mick suggested they switch over to regenerative farming, a collection of practices designed to mimic rather than override the natural processes that are already in operation, sequestering carbon, restoring soil health, and increasing its capacity for absorbing moisture, which reduces the impact of both droughts and floods on the land. While cattle are often portrayed as climate culprits, they can actually be partners in this approach, benefiting the land if they are intentionally managed. By dividing the grazing areas into small paddocks and moving the cows through quickly, the animals leave nourishing outputs behind to feed the soil without causing damage through overgrazing.
While her husband enjoyed spending time with the family on the farm, its operations and management were Rachel’s responsibility alone. So it was Rachel who dove headfirst into learning about regenerative farming, its challenges and its benefits, ultimately deciding to pursue it with the single-minded devotion of someone who knows there is no time to waste. Not one to pass by an opportunity to share good ideas, she decided to apply her storytelling skills and make a film about the experience, documenting the farm’s transition and interviewing experts along the way.
Rachel’s professional experience was primarily narrative film, so she attended the Melbourne Documentary Festival in the summer of 2020 to look for potential partners. It’s there that she met Bettina Dalton, an Australian documentary producer and director, as well as the Executive Producer and Principal of WildBear Entertainment. Bettina specializes in wildlife documentaries, and her projects have been produced for companies like Disney, National Geographic, and the Discovery Channel.
Bettina says that she realized the power of storytelling while working with David Attenborough early in her career, but she acknowledges that “Shooting those films without people gave an idyllic impression of the natural world so viewers thought everything was fine, whereas off screen there were significant environmental issues that needed attention.” As a result, Bettina includes what she terms “the human element” in her films. “I like stories where the protagonist shifts gears from being part of the problem to part of the solution,” she reflects. “And Rachel is a formidable, incredible individual.” Their meeting allowed the two women to combine their different skills around a shared passion, and the film Rachel’s Farm was the result.
Two significant scenes in Rachel’s Farm capture the soil tests performed by The Savoury Institute’s EOV (Ecological Outcomes Verification), both before and after Rachel and Mick enacted regenerative farming practices. Between those scenes, the film depicts the many struggles, stumbles, and successes they experience along the way. The transition is difficult, involving flood damage, serious injury, and compromise when an infestation of Buffalo flies torment the herd to distraction, requiring the use of chemicals outside of regenerative principles. At one point the expense involved forces the layoff of Mick’s ranch hand, with Rachel stepping into the role with considerably less experience and physical strength. But she is enthusiastic and undeterred, and Mick is patient and persistent, and together they experiment with a variety of measures that begin to yield results.
The film is sprinkled with reflections by various experts, including Charles Massy, an Australian rancher and proponent of regenerative farming who stopped using chemicals on his family’s farm in 2000. Since then, wildlife has emerged on his land that he never saw there as a child, a sign that nature is coming back into balance, a process he documents in his book Call Of The Reed Warbler: A New Agriculture, A New Earth. When Bettina reflects on the current lush abundance of Rachel’s farm—now achieved without chemical inputs—she quotes Massy’s statement that “We have to take our foot off nature’s neck” to allow the natural processes to work on behalf of the farmers’ goals.
When asked how Rachel’s farm is doing now, Bettina smiles as she comments, “It’s going gangbusters.” Rachel has been able to return to working on film projects, leaving the ranch management to Mick. Without the expense and labor involved in chemical inputs, he primarily moves the cattle between the small paddocks of lush grasses. The land is healthier, more resilient in the face of floods and fire, and cheaper to manage,* but getting there was not easy. For this reason, Bettina advocates for banks and insurance companies to provide interest-free loans to support farmers who are transitioning to regenerative farming. Considering that the land is more stable and productive, with less boom and bust—as well as less vulnerable to natural disasters—it would benefit these institutions financially to support regenerative practices in agriculture, not to mention how it would benefit all of us by addressing climate change.
Making a film is a lot of work, and after it’s released to the public, that work shifts from creation to promotion. Throughout this fall, Bettina and Rachel will be screening Rachel’s Farm across the United States, ending with a bipartisan screening in Washington, D.C., in December that coincides with the vote on the latest farm bill. The film screened at the Mendocino Film Festival back in June, but if you missed it, they are touring the West Coast in September and October 2023.
When facing the challenges of climate change, hope can feel a little thin on the ground. But with success stories like Rachel’s, demonstrating how farms can be profitable without damaging the soils on which they rely, long-term, practical solutions seem within reach. As Bettina says, “Nature has the power to recover. We just have to give it a chance.”
*See AusFoodFarming.com.au/regenerative%20agriculture.php for details.
Catch a screening of Rachel’s Farm during the film’s West Coast Tour in September and October of 2023. Details at theregenerators.org/rachels-farm.
Torrey Douglass is a web and graphic designer living in Boonville with her family. Her life’s joys include reading by the fire, cooking something delicious, and drinking good coffee with a friend.
Bettina Dalton photo by Torrey Douglass. All other photos courtesy of Rachel’s Farm.
Ireland’s Skellig Coast Hope Spot
Protecting the Ocean’s Health and Biodiversity
by Jack O’Donovan
Dr. Sylvia Earle
A large swathe of ocean off the southwest coast of Ireland has been added to a list of “Hope Spots” by the global marine conservation movement Mission Blue, led by legendary oceanographer Dr. Sylvia Earle. There are now 148 Hope Spots across the globe, which aim to inspire public awareness, access, and support for a worldwide network of Marine Protected Areas.
Hope Spots are special places that are scientifically identified as critical to the health of the ocean. Existing spots include the Galápagos Islands, the Great Barrier Reef, the Northwest Passage, and parts of Antarctica. Some locations are already formally protected, while others still need defined protection.
The Greater Skellig Coast stretches from Kenmare Bay in County Kerry to Loop Head in County Clare and covers an area of roughly 7,000 square kilometers of Irish coastal waters. It is home to critically endangered sharks, globally important seabird colonies, and animals threatened with extinction which rely on these areas for breeding and feeding.
The area has been championed by Fair Seas with the local support of Sea Synergy, a marine awareness and activity centre based in Waterville, County Kerry. Fair Seas has been campaigning for the government to designate a minimum of 30% of Irish waters as Marine Protected Areas (MPA) by 2030. The Greater Skellig Coast encompasses one of 16 “Areas of Interest” that they have identified for possible MPA designation.
Mission Blue was founded by American oceanographer, explorer, and author Dr. Sylvia Earle. She has been National Geographic’s Explorer in Residence since 1998 and was named the first Hero for the Planet by Time magazine. This Hope Spot and support from Mission Blue puts Ireland on the international map alongside 147 of the most important sights for marine conservation around the world.
Dr. Earle said, “This Hope Spot is being announced at a crucial time for Ireland because in 2023, new national Marine Protected Area (MPA) legislation will be introduced for the first time. Eighty-one percent of Irish people believe that we need to protect, conserve, and restore the ocean. This legislation will help achieve this very desirable protection.”
Aoife O’Mahony, Campaign Manager for Fair Seas, said, “It is incredible to see a small part of Ireland’s seas being recognised as critically important to global ocean health by Mission Blue, and joining the likes of the Galápagos Islands and other world-famous marine locations. The Hope Spot will help us to raise awareness and bring the public closer to the ocean as we work to safeguard the water and the marine life within. This global recognition is even more critical now as we finalise our own national MPA legislation in Ireland. We have one chance to do this right and we owe it to the next generation to do this well.”
If Marine Protected Areas are designated along with robust management and monitoring plans, they can have enormous added benefits to coastal communities and local economies alongside the recovery of coastal ecosystems and increases in biodiversity.
Minister for Tourism, Catherine Martin, added, “I welcome the news that a large area of ocean off the southwest coast of Ireland has been added to a list of ‘Hope Spots’ by the global marine conservation movement, Mission Blue, which is led by legendary oceanographer Dr. Sylvia Earle. Our small island of Ireland is not only draped in a wealth of natural beauty but it is also surrounded by an ocean filled with an assortment of marine life and a coastline which houses numerous colonies of birds and wildlife. This all contributes to the richness and attractiveness of Ireland as a destination for tourists and all of which needs to be preserved and protected. Announcements like this are also timely as we are currently developing a new national tourism policy. This new policy will seek to support sustainable economic development in communities throughout the country, whilst protecting our environment and natural resources.”
As part of the film Fair Seas: The Kingdom of Kerry, the organization met with Lucy Hunt, who has been championing ocean conservation in South Kerry for many years. Lucy is determined to help local people engage with and learn about the rich coastal waters right on their doorstep, saying, “I founded Sea Synergy in 2014 to help raise awareness of the importance of the ocean and encourage others to fall in love with the ocean and to help protect it. We have so much to be proud of when it comes to our coast and the Wild Atlantic way, from the wildlife to the views. It’s important we do everything we can to preserve and, where needed, restore it. We’re lucky that we can see dolphins, seals, and huge bird colonies from the shore, as well as experience a whole other amazing world beneath the surface, from kelp forests to jewelled sea walls. The Hope Spot designation confirms what we already knew in County Kerry and County Clare, that the ocean is critically important. It’s my wish that this designation will help inspire people to take a closer look at what the ocean offers, and that we will see more Hope Spots and action to live in harmony with Ireland’s ocean.”
It is truly an honour to have the southwest coast of Ireland and all its incredible marine life recognised on the global stage. This announcement is a great encouragement for all the hard work of the Fair Seas team, its partners and the public who have followed and supported the goal of protecting at least 30% of the ocean around Ireland by 2030.
Reprinted courtesy of Fair Seas. Photos courtesy of Fair Seas.
Jack O’Donovan Trá is the Communications Officer at Fair Seas. He is a marine biologist by training and moved into comms and campaigns in 2018, and has since worked with many large international environmental coalitions and campaigns across Europe.
Spontaneous Wanderlust
Kitchen Tips and Tricks from an Impromptu Excursion
by Holly Madrigal
April Cunningham can usually be found chopping vegetables and prepping delicious meals at the Caring Kitchen, a wonderful organization that provides nutritious meals for free to cancer patients. Last year, April and her husband Fred received a last-minute opportunity for what she described as “the trip of a lifetime.” April had made the acquaintance of Mara Jernigan twelve years back when they went to a culinary retreat at Fairburn Farm in British Columbia, spending each day gathering items for that evening’s meal. Mara was a Canadian representative for the Slow Food movement and an accomplished chef. April had continued to follow Mara on Instagram, so when Mara posted that she had an eleventh-hour spot on a trip to Sicily, April and Fred spontaneously decided to join her.
Mara has led annual tours to this region for many years. After a whirlwind preparation, they converged in Sicily with four other Canadian women and a guide from Torino. A villa had been rented in the town of Scopello on the northern top of the geographical football being kicked by Italy’s boot. The group settled in, often gathering on the terrace nestled amongst the hills with views high above the sea. Each day they would embark on excursions to quench their culinary desires. Mara and their guide explained the lay of the land, including a tour of Mount Etna. They hiked the edge of the caldera of this still-active volcano, which gives the island the soil to grow excellent wine and other crops. Visiting a pistachio farm, they tasted fresh ground pistachio butter and watched a shelling machine separate the pink-green nuts from their shells.
“Each day was a whirlwind,” says April. “They are so in touch with their food and where it comes from there. A visit to the market was required before dinner was decided each night. One day we visited a dairy where they crafted cheese for the town. It was amazing to see them making mozzarella and aged cheese, but the most incredible part was lining up with the townsfolk to have scoops of warm, fresh-made ricotta dolloped into our bowls,” she describes in reminiscent wonder.
Fred enjoyed learning about the history and culture of Sicily as they traveled. “One day we went out with a mycologist, Mario, and his truffle-hunting dogs. Mario was a big part of writing the foraging laws in Sicily to protect both the local fauna and the economy of the mushroom treasures to be found there.” Fred describes the scene: “We trekked through the forest, and you had to keep an eye on the dogs and hurry to dig up the truffles that they found so that they didn’t damage them. That day we made a warm salad with the mushrooms we foraged and sauteed, covering fresh greens that wilted under the mushroom’s heat. The only issue was that, at some point, I just couldn’t eat any more food,” laughs Fred. “I needed a break.” April agrees. “Each day our hosts would lay out the most amazing spread—locally cured meats, Castelvetrano olives that had been salt brined instead of lye, mandarin oranges, and prickly pears! And that was before we went out for the day,” she adds.
The education continued as the group traveled to Palermo at the southern end of the island, where fishing is more commonplace. They toured the fish markets, and Nicoletta, one of their local hosts, explained the local market culture to them: “When you visit the market, you find your favorite vendors and you become their patron. You are theirs and they are yours, it’s mutual. You choose them and they ensure that you are taken care of,” an idea that feels foreign to the western anonymity of the massive grocery store.
The group visited Planeta, an estate that makes olive oil, grows wine, and creates other foodstuffs. This business has been pressing oil for over 400 years. Seventeen generations of family members have played a part in its continuity. April and Fred marveled at the history of this place.
Along the ramparts of a seaport in Palermo, the group was invited to stay at Palazzo Langa Tomasi, the residence of a duke and duchess whose family helped restore the palazzo to prominence in the late fifties. The duchess created a culinary experience of sorts, where you stay in a collection of apartments in her Palazzo; she leads you on trips to the market, planning each meal; and then all retire to her spacious kitchen to learn from her mastery. April, who has worked in kitchens for North Coast Opportunities for decades and is no stranger to cooking foods at the peak of freshness, was tickled to learn a new method for making Trapanese Pesto (recipe below). This tomato pesto sauce is poured atop freshly cooked pasta, the heat from the pasta gently warming the sauce and helping to release the full flavors. Fresh parmesan was grated on top, and the group enjoyed an outstanding meal.
Aspects of Mendocino County are Mediterranean and similar to southern Italy, and a deep appreciation for produce at the peak of ripeness is shared here as well. “This was truly the trip of a lifetime” muses April. “I’m not sure I ever would have specifically traveled to Sicily, but I learned so much, so many culinary tricks that I plan to bring back to the Caring Kitchen in Ukiah. We are so lucky to get to have an experience like this.” There is so much to learn and implement from our neighbors across the sea to strengthen our connection to the food that we grow and eat.
Ruvidelli al pesto trapanese
Ingredients
1 lb Roma tomatoes
¾ c blanched almonds
Large bunch of basil
1 c unflavored breadcrumbs
Salt & fresh ground pepper
Extra virgin olive oil
1 lb Ruvidelli pasta
Instructions
Any sweet, ripe tomato with a thin skin would be perfect for this recipe. Put tomatoes, almonds, basil, salt, and pepper in a blender and start blending. Eventually pour the oil, little by little, until the desired consistency is achieved (I like it quite creamy). The sauce will be pink/orange in color. Pour half of the sauce in a serving bowl.
Bring plenty of water to boil in a large pot. Cook the Ruvidelli (or Busiate or any other short pasta, or if you prefer long pasta, Bucatini) until al dente.
For the breadcrumbs, heat 2 tablespoons of oil in a frying pan over medium-high heat and swirl it all over the bottom of the pan. Stir in the breadcrumbs with a wooden spoon. Turn them repeatedly until they get a golden brown color, 2-3 minutes. Take care not to burn the crumbs! Immediately spread the toasted breadcrumbs onto a plate, allowing them to cool, stirring once or twice.
Drain pasta and put into the bowl with sauce. Add the remaining sauce and toss well. Decorate with basil leaves and serve with Muddica Atturrata (toasted breadcrumbs).
Photos by April Cunningham
United and Determined
Survival in a Time of War
by Aimee Nord
Aimee & Brady Nord
My husband Brady and I first arrived in Ukraine in 2015 on a rainy autumn day, gray and dreary, perhaps matching the mood of the 50 other volunteers. We were Peace Corps’ first group back since pulling out during the Maidan revolution just 2 years before. In those first few days, we felt jet lag and the sudden chill of October in Eastern Europe, excited but also wondering what we had gotten ourselves into. We were completely mystified by the alphabet of squashed-bugs and rocket ships, vaguely taken aback by the poppy-seed buns that were decidedly not chocolate, and apprehensive about starting our fourth year of marriage living apart for three months, not to mention about the families we would live with, whom we knew nothing about.
But that melted away as quickly as the rain, and soon autumn enthralled us all, with our new lifestyle of walking down dirt sideroads on a runner of frosted leaves, enjoying sunlit afternoons under a bright yellow canopy. We discovered little gems each day in our new town: a performance in traditional embroidered dresses at the House of Culture, a military ceremony around a bronze statue adorned with flowers and candles in the town center, a box of puppies behind a tree, a bridge over a wide river with weeping willows on each side, a brightly colored playground of tires and metal, the view from the front steps of the library, the golden domes of the nearby orthodox church. And every house was covered in grape arbors over the path to the front door, dark rich soil sprouting root vegetables, kneeling women with headscarves in every backyard plot, and smoke hanging low in the cold air from the piles of burning leaves that lasted for weeks and made us choke.
Despite my limited language, I grew close with my host family members by sharing our days through charades every evening—snorting like a pig to share how my host dad was chased through his fields by a wild boar, now hanging in the cellar; vacuuming up my underwear and dying of laughter with my host mom when we realized; locking my host dad out of the house in his underwear on a chilly morning, as I went to class while he was just trying to feed the chickens. And my 12-year-old host sister, giggling with her friend when Brady came to visit, giggling at my notebook of Ukrainian lessons and trying to correct it, dressing up together in traditional embroidered vishyvankas and flower headdresses, doing exercise routines in the upstairs loft until we were exhausted. I cried the day we went to our permanent home, exchanging big hugs and telling my host mom, Ya loobloo tebe, and hearing it in return through her tears—I love you.
Today, 8 months into the war with Russia.
“New Message: Nosivka Family,” I read on a little banner on my phone. My breath catches in my throat. It’s been one day since the barrage of a reported 100 missiles were sent to every region of Ukraine.
My now 19-year-old Ukrainian sister, Dasha, speaks for the family, as her English surpassed my Ukrainian some time ago. She starts with “hello” and a Ukrainian smiley-face symbol after her greeting, but I can see the next word and something plummets inside me. “Unfortunately, yesterday I and Inna [her older sister] were in Kyiv.” Oh no, I think; Kyiv had been hit hard. “And it was all terrible, we did not feel such fear even when we were surrounded.”
My heart withers at this news. For months, their little village was occupied for miles on every side. While Nosivka was enough off the main roads that Russian soldiers weren’t stationed there, my host mom, a Labor and Delivery nurse, was operating on civilian gunshot wounds in the next town over. The whole family was sleeping next to the potatoes and beets on the cold cement floor of their cellar, wearing winter coats to supplement the blankets, only flashlights for comfort. That same cellar had so warmed my heart seven years ago when I first came to live with them, helping me to understand this family and people more than anything else had up to that point—a people who are connected to the land, the soil, all things that grow. Nosivka was surrounded for months, with news every day of the war crimes being committed in other occupied regions—rape and executions, torture as sport—following strict curfews lest they be next. I tried unsuccessfully during this time to send packages of food, which had disappeared from stores, to gently suggest they come live with us in the U.S., to get myself to sleep through the night instead of checking for updates, waiting for bad news.
Dasha continues about her time in Kyiv, a two hour train ride from her village: “I saw and very clearly heard 8 explosions, after which I went to shelter. There was no light in Kyiv until 22:00. It was very scary.” She sends pictures of smoke clouds over buildings, a dark video of a child with a cat, presumably in the shelter. The challenge of a second language adds an eloquence to Dasha’s short sentences: “A rocket fell in front of my university and destroyed the park.”
I later see pictures of Shevchenko Park, one of our favorite parks in a city of magnificent green spaces. This one is great for people-watching. It’s where the old men come to play chess every day, in a little sunken area with cement chess boards imprinted on the tables, packed with beards and focus and the energy of the weightlifting area of a gym. It’s big, and one part butts up to a beautiful, bright red building, one of the most prestigious universities in the country, Shevchenko University.
Dasha shares, “Yes, I study in the red building of Shevchenko University. Unfortunately, now there are no windows and doors.” I know the playground was also hit; I see pictures of puffy toddlers in mittens and hats, now playing in the enormous hole next to the jungle gym.
Dasha continues, “Now many people are leaving Ukraine again, because the lights are being turned off more and more often and it is cold everywhere because the heating does not work.” I think of how I did the math some months ago, that more than half of all children in Ukraine have been displaced. I read on, “Every day the prices are increasing, even eggs, which used to be bought for $1, now cost $2.50. Our Ukrainian products are becoming more expensive than those imported from other countries. It is difficult, but we have to survive it.” She ends with a grinning emoji, eyes closed they’re so happy.
I know they have not had meat for months, that they are surviving more now on their garden produce than ever before. She is the picture of Ukrainian strength and steadfastness, which I have seen in many posts from other friends. There is a saying right now, “Each fighting on their own front.” They are more knit together than ever before, to each other, to their land. This is their home, and survival is not a question.
I don’t know what to think about the upcoming winter months, as frosty autumn begins with rolling blackouts across the country. There is not enough energy to keep lights on over a dark winter, nor enough oil to keep warm. It will be difficult, I almost hear Dasha’s voice, but a happy thought hits me—someday, this will be over, and they will have grown to become the most prepared country in Europe, with months (please not years) of practice defending themselves in more and more advanced ways. They will be the most brotherly country on the continent, too, having had to come together like never before. Dasha’s last emoji makes a little more sense to me, though it still makes me want to cry.
If you are interested in delving deeper into stories of Ukrainian culture and way of life, please consider buying the Babusya’s Kitchen Cookbook, compiled by Peace Corps Volunteers over many years from their local babusyas, host mothers, friends and colleagues. Your $30 goes towards supporting mini-grants for Ukrainians running small projects to serve their neighbors during these hard times.
Brewing Beer on the Futaleufú
Building a Micro-Brewery at a River Rafting Camp in Chile
by Jakob Foley
The Futaleufú River is one of the best Class V rivers in the world. If you’re a kayaker, big water rafter, or even an avid fly fisher, you probably know of it. Being none of those things, I had never heard of it until I agreed, in a fit of adventure-seeking and likely influenced by a few beers, to go there to start up a brewery. Tucked away in the northwest corner of Chilean Patagonia, where the tops of the Andes exceed 6,500 feet, Futaleufú (the town and the river) are a 12-hour drive, including three ferry rides, from the nearest commercial airline destination in Chile. Located 15.5 miles outside of town, right on the river, is a camp run by Bio Bio Expeditions. It was through meeting one of the owners, Lorenzo, in the summer of 2013 that I found myself leaving a rather comfortable life doing IT work in Truckee to brew beer 9,000 miles away.
In all fairness, this wasn’t entirely a spur of the moment, beer-fueled decision. For months prior, not only had I been wanting to travel more, but I’d been more seriously entertaining the pipe dream of opening my own brewery. So when Lorenzo suggested I come down and start a brewery at camp for him, it seemed like an opportunity that I shouldn’t pass up.
Lorenzo had always wanted the camp to brew its own beer, in part because he wasn’t a fan of the mass market beers available down there and in part because he wanted to cut back on waste. There is a limited recycling program in Chile, so over the years the cans and bottles had really piled up, and the brewery was at least a partial solution to reducing waste. He asked me to come down, bringing equipment from the States that we would supplement with whatever we could find in Chile, and brew beer for a season (December to March, the South American summer, is their rafting/kayaking/fishing season).
I left in mid-December 2013, dragging along 50 pounds of clothing and gear and another 50 pounds of equipment and brewing ingredients, including hops (which I worried would be seized at customs). Three commercial flights and 12 hours of bus rides later, I found myself, with all my stuff miraculously intact, in one of the most beautiful river valleys I’d ever seen.
The river is less than 1,000 feet wide in some places, and 4,000' ridges rise directly up on either side, while 6,000' glacier-capped peaks jut out just beyond. Just north of the Magellenic temperate rainforest, year-round rain and snow keep the slopes below the snow brilliantly green. Even the grasses on the valley floor never seem to turn brown. Small farms are scattered about the valley, a legacy of early 20th century efforts by the Chilean government to consolidate its territorial claim by clearing the forest and sending its citizens there to homestead.
Of course, the main attraction is the river. The Futaleufú (“Big River” in the language of the indigenous Mapuche) starts in Argentina, but the fun begins in Chile, just outside of the town of Futaleufú. Boosted by major tributaries, there are 26 miles of Class III, IV, and V rapids before the river empties into Lago Yelcho. For rafters and kayakers, it is some of the most exciting white water on the planet, and for fly fishers, it is one of the few places where you can fish a section of flat water all morning, then pack up and run a Class V rapid to get to the next fishing hole.
It was in this amazing environment that I was lucky enough to set up my first brewery—Fubrew. I started out in the boat barn, a large open-sided structure that held rafts, bikes, and kayaks. It took many wheelbarrows filled with rocks from the unpaved main road to get me and my equipment out of the mud, but by Christmas I was brewing my first 5-gallon batches, and by mid-January I was trying to figure out how to get 10- gallon batches out of the tiny 12-gallon brew setup I’d started with.
It was the first batch of stout out of this tiny system that really got Fubrew’s reputation started. An imperial stout that checked in at 8.5%, it was the strongest I’d brewed to date. I released it one evening in the middle of a 5 day stretch of cold rain, and the staff and most of the guests promptly started putting away pints of the stuff. Toward the end of the night, the camp chef decided to drive himself up the hill to the cabins for internet access. After getting one truck stuck in the mud, he then jumped in an old Nissan pickup and made it up the hill. An hour later, one of the guides, who had walked up from the bar, decided to take it back down to camp for him, but failed to negotiate the sharp turn at the bottom of the driveway and rolled the truck over a small embankment. He was fine, but the truck landed upside down in some thick brush. All of the trucks at camp had names, and that Nissan was named “Felix.” And so, in recognition of the stout’s contribution to the incident, it was thereafter known as “Felix Stout,” available today in Willits at Northspur Brewing.
My first season in Patagonia ended up being the first of five trips there. We constructed a building and patio for the brewery and expanded every season except for season four, when the local police decided we were selling illegally outside of camp (we weren’t) and confis-cated some of our equipment along with full kegs of beer. I spent most of the rest of that season brewing on the deck of a small cabin hidden away up the hill from camp and well away from the main road. In season five, we finally received our commercial license and started selling West Coast-style IPAs to town and to other resorts in the area. But by then, my wife (whom I met in camp my first season there) and I had already started the paperwork for what would become Northspur Brewing in Willits.
In November of 2017, at the Mendocino Homebrewfest in Ukiah, my wife and I met Greta and Chris from the Book Juggler in Willits. They were interested in getting a brewery in Willits and knew a property owner who wanted one as well, so by the time I left for Chile that season, Northspur Brewing was already beginning to take shape. Between that build-out and COVID, I didn’t make it back to Chile until this past January.
The brewery is still there, and I spent just about every waking minute of my short trip brewing beer, rafting the Fu, and sitting at the riverside camp bar looking out over the blue glacier melt rushing past below me. I also had a little time to reflect on all the pieces from my seasons in Chile that got me to Northspur Brewing. From figuring out how to shift my life and career from IT to brewing, to the experience that comes from five or six brew sessions a week, to brewing in a difficult environment (water system failures, limited hardware supplies, broken equipment, sheep raiding our malt stash, and plenty more), to meeting the woman I’d be lucky enough to marry, I will be forever grateful to the mighty Fu and the valley it calls home.
Sample the brewing talents of Jakob Foley at:
Northspur Brewing
101 N Main St, Willits
(707) 518-4208 | NorthspurBrewing.com
Open Tues & Wed 3 -9PM, Thurs 3 - 10PM, Fri & Sat 10 - 2PM, Sun 12 - 9PM
Photos courtesy of Jakob Foley
Jakob Foley is the brewer at Northspur Brewing Co. in Willits, a harebrained venture he started with his wife, Sarah, in 2019. When not brewing or drowning in brewery chaos, Jakob can be found brewing and drowning in brewery chaos.
Eat & Read at Melba’s
A New Orleans Po’ Boy Shoppe Enriches Community and Literacy with Free Books and Author Visits
by Torrey Douglass
For a woman who says she never read “a proper book” until age 43, Jane Wolfe is one of the most passionate advocates of literacy you could ever hope to meet. With 43 million American adults possessing no more than a sixth grade reading level today, it’s a cause that is more than ready for some attention, and Jane is uniquely qualified to step up to the challenge.
Jane has the direct manner and buoyant spirit of a person who has lots to do and can’t wait to get started. She is both thoughtful and quick, pausing before answering my questions during our Zoom interview like she’s checking in with an internal touchstone before responding in her warm New Orleans drawl. She has the attitude of someone who knows how to face difficult circumstances and turn them around with a powerful blend of humility, humor, and hard work.
At 16, Jane married her husband, Scott Wolfe, and left high school to work in the grocery business they started together in the lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans. With the help of a $10k loan, Wagner’s Meats opened in what would today be referred to as a food desert, but at the time was known as “an area of poverty in the city.” The store focused on providing the African American community with meat and other ingredients found in gumbo, red beans and rice, and other signature dishes beloved in the city. Scott, a consummate capitalist, grew the business into a chain of ten stores, employing more than 300 people and serving over 100,000 customers at its peak.
If Scott was the brains of the operation, Jane was its heart. Every store featured a marquee out front with a life-affirming quote to uplift and inspire passers-by, selected and meticulously proofread by Jane. (Any employee who left out necessary punctuation was expected to correct it right away.) She created a store policy whereby any child who earned at least one A on their report card received a free soft serve ice cream cone. Jane remembers how kids and their parents would visit the store with their report cards in hand, smiling with delight, to get that ice cream cone. “It was a beautiful moment of communion with the community,” she recollected. “Instead of just being a business, I began looking at capitalism in a social manner.”
Then Hurricane Katrina hit, and all ten stores and the communities they served were inundated with water. By that point, the couple had been operating their business for 30 years and retirement was on the horizon, so they decided not to reopen. Instead, Scott went into construction to help rebuild the city. Jane was tempted to attend college, but she was afraid it might be awkward to be a college student in her 40s. Her son reminded her that the age of 50 was on its way no matter how she spent the years until then, and Jane took the plunge, enrolling in Tulane for her undergraduate degree at the age of 43.
“At college I got a lot of books thrown at me, and I read them all,” said Jane. After graduating from Tulane with degrees in both history and religious studies, she attended Harvard Divinity School to study religion and social entrepreneurship. There she continued reading, drinking up knowledge, always thinking about how she could bring these new ideas to her community back home. She shared, “Every time I met an author or went to an author’s discussion I thought, ‘Everybody should have this.’”
In 2015, when Jane was in her last, overworked days of finishing her Harvard degree, Scott was ready for something new. Jane said, “Go ahead and open a little po’ boy shop.” He found the ideal location where the 7th, 8th, and upper 9th Wards come together, and Melba’s Po’ Boys was born. In addition to the 24-hour restaurant serving up Po’ Boys, Shrimp and Grits, gumbo, fried chicken, breakfast, and more, they opened a laundromat called Wash World in the same building.
A few years later in 2018, Jane’s academic advisor, Jonathan Walton, came to New Orleans with his family. A writer and religious scholar, he’d recently published his first book, The Lens Of Love: Reading the Bible in its World for Our World. Jane purchased 100 copies and organized an author event at Melba’s, giving a book away for free with each lunch purchase and providing diners the opportunity to chat with Jonathan about his book before continuing with their day. As his wife and three children helped behind the counter and he spoke with people who came from homes with few books, Jonathan looked up and said, “Jane, this is so needed—to get these books into the hands of everyday people!”
That was the spark that inspired Jane to begin Eat & Read at Melba’s, a literacy project that brings authors to the restaurant, either in person or virtually, for book signings, book giveaways, and conversations. While the books included in the program represent a variety of topics, prominent subjects include African American history and the role of race in America, religious and spiritual matters, children’s books, women in history and society, and New Orleans food, culture, and local history. Authors have included Colson Whitehead, Gregory Boyle S. J., Sister Helen Prejean, Professor Deidre Mask, Chelsea and Hillary Clinton, Michael Pollan, Sherri L. Smith, and many more.
Reflecting on the program, Jane shared, “What I’m doing right now in New Orleans—in this book desert—is fertilizing our community with ideas. It’s the reason I get up in the morning.” It is the perfect combination of social entrepreneurship, spiritual compassion, and intellectual generosity, an avenue through which Jane can share the mind-expanding excitement she experienced in college with customers who come through the restaurant every day. “I want to awaken ideas that people do not have time to seek out, to [give them a chance to] just think about them.”
For some people, the regular book events are on their radar and not to be missed. These folks usually belong to the 25,000 member email list that Jane notifies a few days before every event. She estimates about 40% of the attendees come intentionally. For the rest, a free book with lunch and the chance to speak with its author is an unexpected delight. Those unanticipated moments are Jane’s greatest joy. “When I’m at the book giveaway for an hour, people come in and the surprise of literacy hits them. It’s a beautiful moment of surprise.”
While people receive a free book with food at the author events, there’s also an ongoing offer that does just the opposite. When a customer buys a book from a large shelf stocked with works from alumni authors, they receive a free side, brownie, or daiquiri with the purchase. Some favorites sell out time and again. Chicken Soup for the Black Woman’s Soul has been reordered a number of times.
The combination of thought-provoking reading and delicious New Orleans food is a definitive success, and it’s getting attention. The program has received support from organizations like Scholastic, which donated $5,000 worth of books, and the Clinton Foundation, whose “Too Small to Fail” initiative partners with the Family Read & Play space at the laundromat, a reading nook with table, chairs, books, and art supplies where kids can hang out while their parents do laundry. On top of that, Melba’s is on Inc. 500’s list of the fastest growing companies and has been recognized as Louisiana’s fastest growing company. When we spoke, the organization had only just received its nonprofit tax id number ten days prior. Jane hopes her model of using the restaurant industry to address a societal ill can be replicated across the country.
Besides running the program, Jane teaches World Religions at a local Catholic university, a subject that is clearly close to her heart. She credits learning about religion during her years at Tulane and Harvard with returning her to her faith tradition. She went to college to understand what religion was for, and now believes one key component is that “it helps you to think of the other.” For Jane, thinking of others is reflecting in how she uses her business to share her love of books, with the ultimate goal of turning both staff and customers into lifelong learners. She still takes time to read and enjoy her favorite po’ boy—shrimp with extra mayo, ketchup, and hot sauce, “dressed” with lettuce, pickles, and tomato—but she doesn’t sit still for long. After all, there’s much to be done to address the literacy crisis in America, and she can’t wait to get back to it.
Eat & Read at Melba’s
1525 Elysian Fields Ave, New Orleans, LA
(504) 267-7765 | Melbas.com
Torrey Douglass is a web and graphic designer living in Boonville with her family. Her life’s joys include reading by the fire, cooking something delicious, and inspiring her dogs to jump into the air with uncontained canine happiness.
Lake Superior Smoked Fish
A Child of Texas Follows Her Tastebuds North
by Lisa Ludwigsen
With a few rare exceptions, Scandinavian food is not known to be particularly inspiring. Originating in a harsh land with heavy winters, the food at hand traditionally consisted mostly of meat, fish, dairy, and a few grains. I’ve always pictured my ancestors, who originated in the southwestern region of Norway, relying on the sea and a trusty cow in the barn to sustain them through the long, dark winters. That arrangement sounds pretty good to me. I could eat fish, cheese, and dairy every day—as long as I have my coffee.
In Scandinavia and other northern climes, the year’s food consisted of what could be harvested or procured in the short summer season, and preserving food for the long dark months was paramount. Along the long coast of Norway, fish reigned supreme, and air-drying, pickling, fermenting, and smoking the catch ensured nourishment all year. The famously slimy, gelatinous lutefisk is a whitefish, like cod, that is preserved by air-drying it to the point that it looks and feels like corrugated cardboard. This treatment results in a product that water alone can’t sufficiently rehydrate, so lye must be added to the soaking solution for several days. Multiple rinses in fresh water are then required to make it edible. Eating lutefisk certainly conjures dark, desperate days of limited food and few alternatives. Even smothered in the traditional melted butter and white sauce, it is one of the worst foods I have ever eaten.
Growing up in Texas in the 1970s, meat, mostly beef, was our main food group. It was a time when the federal government, no doubt in coordination with the powerful beef lobby, told Americans to eat meat with every meal. My mother hated fish, and Hamburger Helper was much more our style. But everything changed for me during a visit with my Norwegian grandparents, Ev and Lud. Both were raised in the tiny northern town of Bayfield, Wisconsin, on the shores of Lake Superior, where Lud’s father, a Norwegian immigrant, had fished commercially. They harvested lake trout, whitefish, salmon, burbot, and herring, among others, navigating bulky, enclosed wooden boats, constructed so the nets could be pulled into the hull without exposing the fishermen to the extremely rough weather of Lake Superior.
On a fortuitous sunny day when my sister and I were visiting, we watched Grandma Ev work in her small kitchen. She placed a chunk of smoked whitefish into the blender, along with a healthy plop of Hellman’s mayonnaise and a handful of chopped scallions. That was it. What emerged from the blender was a homogenous, thick, white smoky paste that we spread on saltines or made into sandwiches with the fabulous mushy white Wonder bread of the day. Smoked fish spread is still a staple in the Great Lakes region, with specific recipes attributed to influences of the person making it. Capers, onions, and herbs can be added, though I remain a purist, preferring my grandma’s recipe. I could still eat it every day, and can only attribute my continued preference for strong, smelly fish to my Norwegian ancestry. I would argue that fish spread is appropriate at all times of the day or night.
During a visit with my parents in Bayfield this past summer, France Miller, a well-known painter and distant relative, stopped by with a small, precious container of her fish spread. It was different than Grandma Ev’s—chunky, with perfectly balanced ingredients and a bit of acidity. Luckily, we had saltines on hand, and that’s how my Dad and I ate that yummy snack, with a glass of sauvignon blanc.
France makes her version in large quantities for art openings and big parties. “Luckily, it freezes beautifully,” she shared. Though her recipe might seem heavy on the dairy, the finished product was not overly creamy or rich. “Even though I grew up on Lake Superior, I’m not a big fish eater,” said France. “I created the recipe for a gallery opening about 20 years ago, and it was so good that I continue to make it.”
Of course, whitefish spreads aren’t limited to Scandinavian cuisine. Jewish whitefish spread is also delicious and quite common, though France will tell you that the best whitefish or lake trout comes from Lake Superior. I might just agree with her.
France Miller’s Smoked Trout or Whitefish Dip
Try France’s recipe with any locally caught, mild smoked fish. This recipe is for a crowd, but can be halved, as desired.
Ingredients
• 6 lbs trout or whitefish fillets, smoked, bones removed
• 2 lemons, juiced
• 2 packages cream cheese, softened
• 1-pint sour cream
• 1 cup Hellman’s mayonnaise (Best Foods in the west)
• 1 Tbsp Frank’s red hot sauce (or your hot sauce of choice)
• 1 large onion, finely chopped
• ½ c fresh chives, chopped
• 2 Tbsp minced garlic
• 1 Tbsp salt
• 1 tsp pepper
Instructions
All ingredients, except the fish, should be at room temperature. This is best made a day ahead. Break up and skin the fillets, removing any bones. Set aside. Mix remaining ingredients, then fold the mixture into the cold fish. Combine thoroughly. Add additional salt and pepper, to taste. Serve with hearty crackers such as Triscuits. It also makes a great sandwich.
Find France Miller’s work at www.austinmillerstudio.com.
Fish photo by John Werner courtesy of Unsplash
All other photos by Lisa Ludwigsen
Eco Wave Power
Harnessing Energy from the Ocean
by Dawn Emery Ballantine
Ocean energy is thought to be the next great frontier for reducing fossil fuel dependence. Unlike solar energy, which only works when the sun shines, or wind energy, which operates only when the wind blows, the ocean offers a constant source of wave power, as well as regularly-intervalled tidal power possibilities. Yet past projects with great potential—tidal turbines, ocean-harvested wind energy, and off-shore wave energy generators, to name a few—have faced significant obstacles, with very high price tags and equipment struggling to withstand the rigors of the harsh ocean environment.
Enter Inna Braverman and her company, Eco Wave Power (EWP). Currently a Swedish company which originated in Israel in 2011, Inna Braverman was only 24 years old when she launched EWP. Born in the Ukraine only two weeks before the Chernobyl nuclear disaster released an unprecedented amount of particulate matter and radioactive gases, she suffered respiratory arrest and was resuscitated by her mother. She has lived her life with the feeling that she was given a second chance to make a difference.
When Inna was young, her family moved to a town in Israel called Akko, with little to do but go to the beach. She was fascinated by the waves, but she didn’t become interested in waves as a source of power until her early twenties, after a stint at an environmental company. At that time, almost all wave energy projects were of an offshore nature and therefore were both exorbitantly expensive and suffered from a high failure rate. So, she became fascinated with the idea of developing an innovative wave energy technology which would be cost-efficient, reliable, environmentally friendly, and fully insurable. She came up with her own ideas of efficiently harnessing the power of onshore and nearshore waves. She was unable to do anything with her ideas, however, as she did not have the relevant contacts or the necessary financial resources. One day, she was invited to a social event where she met David Leb, a Canadian businessman and avid surfer, who shared a similar passion for wave power. They soon discovered their shared fascination with the potential energy that could be provided by the power of the ocean. Together, they birthed Eco Wave Power.
A Political Science/English Literature major and a businessman/surfing aficionado respectively, Braverman and Leb had to seek out both funding and engineering support to turn their ideas into a practical solution complete with sketches and blueprints. To that end, they made connections in the Ukraine, where they launched a competition between 300 engineers, ultimately choosing a team of five to make their ideas a reality. They subsequently rented a wave pool in the Hydromechanical Institute in Kiev to test different floater shapes, then increased the size of the system and installed it in the Crimean peninsula in the Ukraine, where the waters and weather are harsh. If the equipment can withstand the brutal conditions there, it increases the potential locations where they can be installed around the world. In 2014, they moved the floaters to Israel at Jaffa Port, the oldest port in the world. They then successfully developed the only grid-connected wave energy array system in Gibraltar, which has been operating in since 2016. In fact, they set a world record in 2018 by providing more than 15,000 hours of grid-connected power.
Braverman attributes her success to her deep passion for the project. She feels that “passion is the greatest renewable energy source.” She is particularly interested in bringing power from renewable energy to developing countries, such as Sub-Saharan Africa, where 70% of people are not connected to any source of electricity.
Approximately 40% of the world’s population—2.4 billion people—live within 62 miles of a coast. “Wave energy alone can produce twice the amount of electricity that the world produces now,“ says Braverman, noting that The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change believes that it offers a potential of 32,000 TWh of electricity. Unlike many ocean power technologies currently being developed, the Eco Wave modules are not installed off-shore or embedded into the sea floor. Instead, the floater modules are appended to already existing structures such as piers, jetties, and breakwaters.
Braverman explained, “The floaters are going up and down, pushing hydro cylinders, creating pressure in land-located accumulators, and this pressure is used to turn a hydro motor, which turns generators, which produce clean electricity to the grid.” The floaters begin operating when the waves are between half a meter and five meters high. If the waves are higher than that, or if a storm rolls in, an automated fail-safe function is activated, and the floaters either raise into a locked position above sea level, or they lock into a safe position deeper in the water to avoid damage. When the danger abates, the floaters automatically resume their power-generating position. The remainder of the power generation system is on land, which considerably reduces installation costs, as well as mitigating seawater and storm damage to costly equipment.
According to EWP, and verified by third party testing, the technology is environmentally friendly, has no negative
impact on the surrounding environment, and does not release any emissions. Yair Rudick, Business Development manager at EWP, said, “When designing our technology, we made the strategic decision to install our system on existing marine structures to avoid introducing new presence into the ocean environment and ensure that the local marine environment remains undisturbed. We also put an emphasis on ensuring that all the materials and components used in our system meet the highest environmental standards. For example, the hydraulic fluid used in the Eco Wave Power technology is bio-degradable … Furthermore, our system does not pose any problems for fishermen, as our floaters function in much the same way as boats moored to the relevant marine structure.”
EWP has just secured a development grant for the Sea Wave Energy Powered Microgrid for Remote Islands and Rural Coasts project. Braverman explained, “Wave energy is an immense source of renewable energy which can become greatly beneficial for Island and coastal communities that often have to rely on capital intensive and polluting solutions … The use of wave energy in such locations will lower the pollution levels while creating a new local industry and work places, which presents an additional set of benefits to the local population.” She noted that they have recently dual-listed Eco Wave Power on the U.S. NASDAQ (Stock Symbol: WAVE) and were successful in obtaining funding for the execution of the EWP’s near-future plans, which include the goal to expand their technology to the U.S.—the second largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world—including coastal California. These goals are in line with the Biden Administration’s stated desire to more fully develop alternative power sources and make tackling climate change one of their top priorities. She urged, “The time to act is now! . . . The potential of wave energy in the country is estimated at 3,500 TWh per year.”
Eco Wave Power has received the United National Global Climate Action Award, among many other commendations, and has secured 17 patents and patents pending for their clean wave energy generating technology, with one of the pending patents for adding solar panels on top of the floater arrays to generate additional energy. The company’s technology is comparatively cost effective, roughly the same as solar energy and a bit cheaper than wind energy. Their stance is that the world will only reduce its dependence on fossil fuels by utilizing multiple renewable energy methods in tandem, including solar, wind, hydro, and other non-polluting energy sources.
With projects in the pipeline in Brazil, Chile, Vietnam, Mexico, China, Portugal, Israel, U.K., Scotland, Gibraltar, Thailand, and other locations, and with passionate people like Braverman and Leb at the helm of this unique company, perhaps we can reverse our current climate woes and move into a healthier future. Ms. Braverman said, “Our mission is changing the world! And yes, I need you to help me. I cannot stand alone.” Let’s spread the word about this emerging technology and do our part to move fossil fuels to the past, where they belong.
Eco Wave Power
52 Derech Menachem Begin St., Tel Aviv-Yafo, 6713701, Israel
+972-3-509-4017 | EcoWavePower.com
Dawn Emery Ballantine lives in Anderson Valley where she curates and sells books at her tiny bookshop, Hedgehog Books, edits this magazine, and has always been awed by the power of the ocean.
Small Places with Big Impact
Mendocino County Residents Support Orphanage in Haiti
by Jen Dalton
In 2020, Hearthstone Village celebrated ten years of service to the nutrition and education of orphaned girls in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, ranked the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. It is plagued by poverty and civil unrest, where kidnappings, child prostitution, and, as a recent UN report summarized, “a widespread sense of insecurity” is the norm. In an environment as unstable as this, only ten percent of Haitians graduate from high school.
The Hearthstone volunteers and donor supporters, based largely in Mendocino County, have successfully helped ten girls in Haiti graduate from high school over the last two years—a huge beating-the-odds story. Their secret to success lies in a strong, supportive, community-based foundation and generous donors who help feed, house, and send these girls to private schools in their neighborhoods, encouraging them to become a part of the fabric of their community.
Hearthstone Village has been around for decades. The founding board members originate from the Ukiah community and identify as “back to the landers.” Most took their inspiration from Rudolph Steiner, with an organizational emphasis on his philosophies, including the importance of multi-generational communities. Founded by Lynn Dress-Meadows, Shawna Hesseil, Deborah Mead, and Deborah Lovett, today the all-volunteer 501(c)(3) non-profit organization includes Mendocino County locals whose names you might recognize: Nancy (Niv) McGivney, Serena Miller, Juanita-Joy Riddell, Michelle Maxwell, Laura Wedderburn, Emily Frey, Jen Dalton, Nancy Watanabe, Kirin Riddell, and a newcomer based in Chicago, Bryan Rogers.
According to Dress-Meadows, the original plan was to create a multi-generational community in the Ukiah area that could take in children who needed care. Frey said the envisioned project was “an orphanage,” while Riddell described it as “a permanent housing facility for children in medical need.” The project encountered significant red tape and was never approved by Mendocino County government. So Dress-Meadows, Riddell, and their husbands, who owned property in El Cardonal, Baja Mexico, developed the project with the local community there, and eventually raised enough money to build a multi-purpose community center. A sister organization, Tu Hogar, is now responsible for operations in Baja, while Hearthstone Village continues to support the medical needs of a few small families.
The work of the organization transitioned toward Haiti after the devastating 2010 earthquake, a magnitude-7.0 centered in Port-au-Prince, which killed over 200,000 people and injured more than 300,000. In less than a minute, more than a quarter of a million homes and buildings collapsed. This included 4,000 schools, eight hospitals, 75 government buildings, and the presidential palace—more than 70% of all buildings in the country. This devastation wreaked havoc on transportation and communication networks, and survivors had no way of contacting family members and friends. More than 600,000 people left Port-au-Prince due to an epidemic spread of cholera, which lasted until just before the Covid-19 pandemic. Haitians, especially children, also faced psychological issues, and an incalculable number of children were orphaned. The cultural, personal, societal, and infrastructural damage was beyond comprehension.
Medical teams—including Dress-Meadows, Wedderburn, and Frey from Ukiah—came from around the world to provide emergency medical care to those injured in the disaster. At the time of the 2010 earthquake, they had been working as doctors and physician assistants at the Ukiah Valley Medical Center (now Adventist Hospital). While in Port-au-Prince, they wanted to connect with an orphanage to support, and they toured two. One was large and sufficiently supported by the Catholic Church; the other was Reveil Matinal Orphanage Foundation (RMOF). RMOF is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization “that rescues, loves, and takes care of orphaned children. It was founded in 2007 in Queens, New York. However, the orphanage itself is located in Port-au-Prince in Haiti.”
Dress-Meadows contacted the founders, Charlucie and Jay Jaboin, Haitian expats living in New York, and agreed to support the orphanage in two major realms: nutrition and education. These remain Hearthstone Village’s focus, although the organization now also pays the staff’s salaries and has developed a relationship with Maison de Jasmine, the dorm-style living arrangement for RMOF girls who age out of the orphanage after they turn eighteen. The founders are still very much involved in supporting more than 33 girls, ranging in age from 1 year to 22 years, who are a part of the RMOF community.
According to 2014 estimations, there are nearly one million orphans in Haiti. The number of orphanages is estimated to be around 760, and the number of children in orphanages is approximately 32,000. Hearthstone Village and RMOF support girls and educate them to help break the cycle of poverty. Studies have shown that educating girls is the number one way to reduce poverty, as educated girls have families later and are often able to contribute to family income. This is a primary reason why Hearthstone Village focuses on education and a stable home environment.
Per Haitian law, all orphans must vacate the orphanage after their 18th birthday. All schools in Haiti are private. There is no public school system nationally or in the cities—the primary reason that only ten percent of Haitians are high school graduates. To create some educational equity, many orphanages bring teachers in or create a “school” at the orphanage. One of the main problems with this noble arrangement is that, since kids must leave at 18, many of these youth miss out on education support and don’t get to complete their education goals. This is what makes Hearthstone Village and RMOF different.
Though RMOF is a state-sanctioned orphanage and receives new girls through that system, as girls age out, Hearthstone Village prefers to focus on the idea of community and supporting them financially until they stabilize, whether through university, vocational school, or employment. Hearthstone Village raises money to send each girl to a school in their neighborhood which meets their educational aptitude and interest, and they bring in tutors to help them excel, thus helping each girl become their best selves through the opportunity of education, nutrition, and a safe place to live. Volunteer board member and Education Liaison, Niv McGivney, works closely with Jean-Wesly Demosthene, RMOF’s on-site Administrator, to monitor grades, progress, and special needs. Despite the impacts of the pandemic and civil unrest forcing schools to close periodically through the last year, two girls have finished their first year at Quisqueya University in Port-au-Prince.
Financially, Hearthstone operates on $100k-$120k per year. For the work in Haiti, there are three funds: the education fund, the general fund, and a new higher education fund. A program with dedicated education sponsors is the backbone of the education fund, and Hearthstone is always looking for people who want to support one or more of the girls throughout their educational journey. One girl usually has three or more sponsors, who each pay $750/year to fund her education costs. The general fund pays for staff salaries, household expenses, food, internet, clean water, and medical coverage. The higher education fund was recently started to meet the growing needs of the graduates. It’s easy to get involved and be part of nurturing and educating this remarkable group of girls and young women.
UPDATE: Due to our production schedule, this article was received prior to the current political upheaval caused by the assasination of Haiti’s President Jovenel Moïse on July 7. We reached out to Jen to ask for an update on the school and its residents. From Jen: “It’s been chaos [in Haiti] for years. The girls are in a relatively safe neighborhood in Port-au-Prince and have male escorts drive them to school. We were able to buy a school bus and have a paid driver, Louchard, whom we would all trust with our lives! And, when school is cancelled due to the unrest, or the pandemic, the girls help tutor each other at home (and thanks to a grant from the Kodak Foundation, we were able to help them create a robust library!). They read to each other, study together and use education as a form of entertainment when the country is on lockdown! We really hope things calm down soon so we can visit again. For now, we are grateful they are safe and thriving despite all the hardships.”
www.hearthstone-village.org
@herdreamsmatter (Instagram)
Facebook: Hearthstone-Village
To become an education sponsor: nivmcgiv@gmail.com
Photos courtesy of Hearthstone Village
Jen Dalton is the Vice President of Hearthstone Village. Her visits to Haiti have opened her heart in unexpected ways. She is also an author (Of Butterflies & Bullies) and a community facilitator (Kitchen Table Consulting). She lives and grows food in Ukiah.
Restoring New Zealand
Mendocino Native Wyatt Dooley Pursues Ecological Restoration on the Other Side of the Globe
by Holly Madrigal
There was a confluence of factors that led Mendocino native-son, Wyatt Dooley, to be living and working across the globe. “I studied environmental science at U.C. Santa Barbara, and a lot of my classes were based on the Channel Islands National Park. There is a ton of biodiversity there—they call it the Galapagos of the Northern Hemisphere. A lot of environmental degradation happened there over the years, and when the park service began working on ecological restoration, they hired a lot of New Zealanders to come over and do the work. That country has a lot of experts, specifically in the area of island restoration, whom I met while working there.”
Onetangi beach, Waiheke Island
Wyatt and I, in true modern fashion, are talking via Zoom across space and time. He describes the factors that brought him to Waiheke Island just off Auckland. “New Zealand has amazing surf, and I travel all over the world for that,” he laughs. “And conveniently, New Zealand used to be one of the easiest places an American could get a one-year working holiday. It was super easy because they have a huge wine industry and other farm work that allows a back-packing culture to provide a young labor pool.”
Wyatt met his girlfriend, Ruth, while on a surf trip in Nicaragua, then connected with her again while visiting her native New Zealand. He traveled back and forth to the States, working as an environmental consultant in Mendocino. All these factors wove together, with the result that he found himself flying down for a visit in December of 2019, luckily just missing the cut off when New Zealand decided to close its borders due to the pandemic.
Wyatt’s background in environmental restoration led him to seek work in that field. He lives with Ruth near white sand beaches and vineyards and commutes to the city each day. “It’s crazy. I can take a 35-minute ferry ride to the mainland and arrive at a city. It’s like a commute from a place like Mendocino to San Francisco with a 35-minute ferry ride … I think the job I have is the most interesting job in the world,” continues Wyatt. “I work for an Iwi (a Maori word similar to a tribe) called Ngāti Whātua Orākei, and there are just the most incredible opportunities and projects that we are working on.”
Like many places around the world, New Zealand was colonized by the British and Europeans, with many years of oppression and the theft of native of lands. The Ngāti Whātua’s ancestral lands, called Tāmaki Makaurau Te Ika-a-Māui, were essentially the area that is now Auckland. As with many indigenous cultures, there was no such thing as land ownership. But when the Europeans came, the iwi designated three thousand acres as a gift, which the Europeans promptly “sold” for millions of dollars, starting a process of dispossession. In the 1970s and 1980s, the government wanted to claim the last remaining bluff property to build high-end housing, and the Ngāti Whātua protested by occupying the land until the government relented. They were able to keep the land undeveloped, and for the past 20 years they have been been restoring the forest and opened it as a park for the public. They have an ethical code called mātāpono (values), one of which is kaitiakitanga, meaning guardianship of the earth. One of the guiding factors of the Ngāti Whātua Orākei is to restore and caretake the land. In 2018 they were given another section of land through treaty settlement, a hundred acres near downtown Auckland.
The iwi crafted a visual framework of their goals and engaged the kids and elders of the community to find out what they would like to see on this land. Wyatt explains, “The children, for example, wanted to see a summer camp on this property, so we’re helping design an educational wilderness camp. Others wanted hiking trails. One of the plans is to plant certain tree species that are used for carving Pou (similar to totem poles) and ngawaka (canoes), planting these trees now so that their descendants can harvest in a hundred or more years.”
“I work with Ngāti Whātua to help achieve these visions,” Wyatt elaborates. “One of the first projects was the native plant nursery, which is when I started in 2020. Our goal is to grow half a million plants a year, much of which will be planted on the property to restore the forest health, since many invasive plants have taken over.” Wyatt is amazed by how the organization works. “When the pandemic started, they immediately asked their members what they needed. They put together care packages with food and items, and each iwi member received one. They called every single person to make sure they were ok. What they found was that getting fresh food was an issue.”
This jump-started a whole new project called the Maara kai (vegetable garden). The Maori are historically amazing gardeners, and this area had been previously cultivated as a produce garden. They are restoring the historical use as a food garden and also providing educational opportunities to members that want to learn more. Wyatt helped to develop this garden and now it is providing weekly fresh produce bags. Anyone within the iwi can come pick up produce grown right outside their door.
greens from the garden
The vision of the Ngāti Whātua already held these values, but the pandemic boosted the efforts. “We started in August, and it was like, we gotta make this happen. And by October we were building garden beds, by November we were harvesting greens, and now we have harvested about 1500 kilos of produce and have given it all out for free to the local community.” He continues, “The foundation of my work is that it is all educational. It’s learning how to garden, or learning about your history, or doing research on native plants. They want it to become a destination where you can come and learn and thrive.” The fact that this property is so close to the city center makes it very accessible.
“I just did a presentation for 75 school teachers, bringing them to the site to show them what is happening on Ngāti Whātua. This was closed off in the past, but now it is a Maori-led project inviting the world to come and learn about all the projects that are happening, and figuring out how we can get students in here to experience this. We have two universities conducting research experiments here. You can come learn about drought tolerant native species of plants, for example.”
Wyatt describes New Zealand as similar to many other places in the world. As they became more capitalist-focused, its history was filled with extraction of resources, timber, mining, agriculture, dairy, and sheep. “Like Mendocino County, it started off as a timber industry, but the resources were extracted. Here in New Zealand, it is this crazy dense forest with incredibly high diversity. There are many specific species that are found nowhere else on the planet. The land was cleared for agriculture and other uses, but they started to lose their biodiversity—for instance, the Kiwi, which is now a threatened species. This country really stepped up to become experts in ecological restoration. Now so much of the economy is based on its beauty and natural resources.”
It is the coolest thing to be part of this work with the Ngāti Whātua. “It’s a living lab, a research center, and I get to be part of it.“ Wyatt is the only American on the team, and he laughs that it is weird hearing an American accent as we talk. “I am learning so much about strategic planning for generations. It is such a great thing to be a part of, learning that the quickest way to a goal is not always the best. For example, we have an invasive plant, privet, that just takes over. But rather than use chemicals to kill it, the Ngāti Whātua and most iwi believe that everything has Mauri, life-force to it. Everything has a family tree, and by using chemicals you are killing that lifeforce. You can’t kill the energy, even of this invasive species. When pondering this problem, they decided to cut and mulch the privet and inoculate them with edible mushrooms, introducing three native species of mushrooms to be a food source. “It does work, but we are continuing to trial it on a small scale. They are really trying to find unconventional solutions to these problems.”
Wyatt says he looks forward to coming back to Mendocino to visit and see family once the travel restrictions are lifted, but as it goes, he stays in touch with family and friends remotely. And he still has plenty of time to surf. He counts himself fortunate to be part of this meaningful work on the other side of the globe, supporting the Ngāti Whātua in realizing their vision of an intact ecosystem that educates as much as it nourishes.
Find out more at ngatiwhatuaorakei.com.
Holly Madrigal is a Mendocino County maven who loves to share the delights of our region. She’s fortunate to enjoy her meaningful work as the director of the Leadership Mendocino program and takes great joy in publishing this magazine.
Soil Carbon Cowboys
Adaptive Multi-Paddock Grazing Helps Ranchers Build Soil and Profit
by Torrey Douglass
Doug Peterson, a farmer and soil health specialist from Newtown, Missouri, used to rotate his cattle in a 35-day cycle onto different parts of his land in order to distribute their impact. But when a broken water tank caused him to skip a section, doubling its rest time, it led to a revelation. “That whole field was a mess,” he said, describing how the cows eventually came back through, ate down the grass, and were moved off again. Being a busy farmer, he didn’t think much of it until the following year, when that particular field produced twice as much forage as any other on his property. “That was a real a-ha moment for me,” he remembers. He didn’t yet understand how it had happened, but if there was a way to double the food for his herd without additional inputs from him, he was determined to figure it out.
Carbon Cowboys, a series of 10 short films by Peter Byck, are full of brain-sparking anecdotes like this. Men and women stand in fields thick with wildflowers and talk about how it wasn’t like them to change their ways, but they are so glad they did. In accents ranging from clipped Saskatchewan to a warm Georgia drawl, farmers share their stories of struggle and success. Rancher Gabe Brown of Bismarck, North Dakota, talks about the difficulties brought on by four years of crop failure. “I’m sure that I wasn’t a pleasant man to be around, in that it was extremely high stress. But my wife and I will tell you it was the best thing to happen to us … because it forced us to start looking at the soil.”
Soil health is at the heart of Byck’s films, as ranchers from all over tell different parts of the same story—once they start moving carbon from the atmosphere into the soil through regenerative farming practices, everything gets better. They can raise more cattle with fewer inputs on land that is left healthier as a result, retaining more moisture, flourishing with microbes, pushing up a “salad mix” of grasses (many once believed to be extinct), and mitigating flooding.
The primary method for achieving this farmer’s fantasy is AMP—Adaptive Multi-Paddock grazing, an approach that mimics the relationship between buffalo herds and pastureland. Ranchers move a single herd through sections of land portioned off by mobile electric fences, sometimes multiple times in a single day. The cattle eat down the grasses, leave nutrient-rich dung and urine, and trample what they leave behind to create a protective mat of “litter” that helps retain moisture and keep the ground cool. It’s then essential to get the herd off the land quickly and give it ample time to rest. Allen Williams of Starkville, Mississippi, sums it up by saying, “We graze it and then we get the heck off it.”
Combined with the increased moisture retention, the rest period allows long-dormant grass seeds to grow. The Ranney Ranch in New Mexico gets just 14” of rain per year, yet when they transitioned from continuous grazing to AMP, their previous menu of four to five grass species jumped to over 40. Those seeds were in the soil all the time, just waiting until the right conditions returned to blossom, conditions that would not be possible without the cows.
Cattle are often depicted as significant (if unwitting) contributors to environmental problems. Staying on a piece of land for too long exacerbates erosion, the methane they emit contributes to climate change, and beef has a notoriously large water footprint (although over 90% of that footprint is “green water,” or precipitation, not water from wells or municipal systems). Yet with AMP, livestock are essential to restoring soil health and reaping the many benefits that come with it. Gabe Brown recalls how, in 1993, his fields could only absorb ½” of rain every hour, while today they can hold over 8”. Increasing the soil’s moisture capacity means rain doesn’t turn into runoff, where it would deposit sediment (often contaminated with herbicides and fertilizer) into waterways, remove valuable topsoil off the farm, and cause flooding. And with higher moisture in the soil, grasses last longer into the dry season—Ranney Ranch reports their feed bill has dropped two-thirds as a result of adopting AMP.
And it’s not just the feed bill that goes down when a rancher shifts to AMP. The wild legumes it restores add nitrogen to the soil, removing the need for microbe-destroying fertilizers. Herbicides are also crossed off the shopping list, as some “weeds” can offer the foraging cattle more protein than alfalfa. The cost of equipment and labor for distributing those herbicides and fertilizers—as well as that time spent—go back in the rancher’s pocket. The animals are healthier, too, with some ranchers reporting a 90% drop in medicine costs. One could say that AMP is the poster child for the popular recommendation to “work smarter, not harder.” Rancher Neil Dennis of Saskatchewan captures it perfectly when he quips, “I’ve got more spare time on my hands than I know what to do with … If I was to start this when I was your age, I’d’ve had 15 kids by now ‘cause I’d spend so much time in the house.”
With Carbon Cowboys, Byck has tackled a near-impossible task—he’s made a climate change film series both beautiful and optimistic. A journalism professor and documentary filmmaker with Arizona State University, he started focusing on climate change in 2007. That led him to explore the impact of grazing practices, and in 2014 he released his first 12 minute short, Soil Carbon Cowboys, featuring ranchers from Starkville, Mississippi; Bismarck, North Dakota; and Wawona, Saskatchewan. Despite their varied seasonal conditions, land and herd sizes, and yearly rainfall, all of them credit AMP for improving their farms’ soil, herd, and financial health, as well as their overall quality of life.
Thanks to the success of Soil Carbon Cowboys, nine more films followed, many in response to the resistance Byck heard from more traditional farmers when sharing his findings, something he calls the “yeah, but” syndrome (as in, “yeah, but it can’t work on MY farm”). Think it can’t work in Kansas? Check out During the Drought (12 minutes). Think it’s not viable for a large Texas ranch? Take a look at Herd Impact (23 minutes). When asked what surprised him in the course of filmmaking, Byck shares, “If there’s a downside [to AMP grazing], I haven’t found it.” As a journalist, he expected to encounter some cons mixed in with all those pros of AMP, but so far his research has only revealed benefits.
Some ranchers report experiencing the benefits of AMP within months or just a few years, benefits like improved herd and soil health, increased financial stability, and reduced vulnerability to flooding, all while transforming destructive atmospheric carbon into constructive carbon in the soil. Doug Peterson sums things up neatly when he says, “We’ve been taught for a long time that we couldn’t change the land. The soil was what it was … we couldn’t change it significantly in a human lifetime. We don’t believe that any longer. With the things that we know now about organisms in the soil and adding livestock and diversity, we can make pretty significant changes in just a few years on the land.”
Each film is like a short walk down a country road, with a tale told in the farmers’ own words interspersed with before-and-after comparison images and enchanting slow motion shots—a flock of birds soaring over grassland or bees humming among the wildflowers. But the real heroes of the films are the ranchers, soil experts, and farmers, people who are equal parts plainspoken, warm, and wise. Byck captures their fortitude and humor, their devotion to the land and their love of the animals, both wild and domestic, that it supports. I bet, like me, you’ll be at least a little bit in love with each of them by the end of the series.
These days Byck and his team of scientists, many of whom work with consulting group Understanding Ag, are deep in a research project centered in the southeastern region of the US. Their findings will eventually generate both academic research papers and a full length documentary film. In the meantime, enjoy the shorts at carboncowboys.org, take a look at what you can do to improve soil health, and when you’re considering solutions for climate change, don’t discount the humble cow.
See the whole film series at CarbonCowboys.org.
Access consulting services at UnderstandingAg.com.
`Āina, Community, and Culture
A Small Hawaiian Island Strives for Sustainability
by Juice Aguirre
On a tiny island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean lives a small organization doing BIG things for their community. Mālama Kaua`i was founded in 2006 and is a non-profit that focuses on advocating, educating, and driving action toward a sustainable Kaua`i. Their focus in the last few years has been on local food production and consumption, as well as building community capacity and growing interest in sustainable tourism.
Mālama Kaua`i has three important core values:
`Āina—We are rooted in the core value of aloha ‘aina (love and connection to the land). We create solutions that foster sustainability and work in harmony with nature while producing abundant, healthy, and local food.
Community—We care for our children, our economy, our society, and our island’s future. We envision a Kaua’i where people enjoy a high quality of life and the sense of community is strong.
Culture—We are built on healthy relationships with each other and our kinship with the land. We respect and perpetuate the local culture and indigenous wisdom of our ancestors.
Just like the rest of the world, Mālama Kaua`i (MK) and our beautiful communities have been affected by COVID-19. Although these are still very important core values, MK and most local farmers were forced to pivot their businesses due to the pandemic. Since it began, tourism and hospitality employment alone have plummeted across our island by 52%.
Many of our farms participated in subsidized programs, providing food for the vulnerable and needy in their community during the period of pandemic emergency response. They now need to change their business models to survive. Yet during all this time of duress, MK has been able to move forward with their current project, the Moloa`a `Āina Center Food Hub.
This new food hub will be developed in partnership with the Moloa‘a Irrigation Cooperative, which comprises 70 commercial farms and spans 600+ acres. Located a half mile off the highway and on the primary farm road in Moloa’a, the hub will create immediate opportunities for farmers to increase their revenue at this critical time of pandemic market disruption.
This project will increase access to healthy food in the Anahola area and address the loss of the previous Anahola Food Hub site due to COVID-19. It will also create new opportunities for farmers to preserve their produce into value-added products for longer shelf life. It will be FSMA compliant (to abide by food safety rules), and will provide farms with washing, processing, and storage space, opening up institutional distribution channels such as farm-to-school programs.
These new farm-to-school programs will help educate youth on the importance of sustainability, farming, and knowing where the food they consume actually comes from. It creates a connection to community and is exactly what our island needs now more than ever. To be able to even slightly imagine ourselves as an island that can sustain itself is a step in the right direction. With our tropical climate and amazing growing conditions, the possibilities are endless. We have become so reliant on having consumables shipped to us from the mainland and all over the world. Imagine what we could do for our community and economy if we shifted our focus to what we can grow here locally?
We are truly blessed to have so many amazing supporters and to live in such a magical place. Our sense of togetherness and community support is more vibrant than ever. It is critical to the health of our community to remain strong, dynamic, and resilient together! We will always be Kaua`i strong.
Learn more about Mālama Kaua‘i and how to support their efforts at malamakauai.org. IG: @malama_kauai Facebook: Malama Kaua`i
The Journey of Un-Becoming
Walking Spain’s Camino de Santiago
story & photos by Stacey Soboleski
“Maybe the journey isn’t so much about becoming anything. Maybe it’s about un-becoming everything that isn’t really you, so you can be who you were meant to be in the first place.”
In September 2019, I had the incredible good fortune to walk the Camino de Santiago (The Way of St James) in Spain. It had been a dream of mine for a very long time, and I can honestly say that I am forever changed because of the experience.
The Camino de Santiago is an ancient pilgrimage route that has been traveled by Christians for more than 1,000 years. There is evidence that in pre-Christian times, the Celts traveled a route following the Milky Way. These ancient routes began to appear all over Europe, at a time when early faithful travelers used to begin their pilgrimage simply by walking out their front door. Today, tens of thousands of people from over 200 countries take part in this spiritual and deeply personal journey every year.
So why do people want to walk the Camino? Historically, Christians made the pilgrimage for religious purposes, seeking either atonement or penance. Today, many walk in search of the metaphorical pause button on their lives, to escape the hustle and busyness of everyday life and engage in deeper self-reflection. For others, the walk presents a physical challenge because of the daily 25-30 kilometers (15-18 miles) of walking and climbing. In one way or another, for every person who steps foot on the path, it becomes a spiritual journey, forcing them to unplug, slow down, and look deep within.
I learned about the Camino after watching the movie, The Way. For years after, I knew that it was something I simply had to do one day. The opportunity arose in 2019, when my husband and I were about to become empty-nesters. For the first time in more than twenty years of being a stay-at-home mom, I felt emotionally unsettled and asked myself, “What now?” I had a deep desire to move away from the familiar and do some much needed soul-searching. The Camino seemed like it could shed some light onto what the next chapter of my life could look like.
Each day on the Camino I would put on my backpack, which contained all of my belongings, and head out the door not knowing what I would see, who I would meet, or where I would sleep at the end of the day. A typical day on the Camino started with café con leche and either a croissant or toast at one of the local bars. Bars in Spain are more similar to a cafe or informal restaurant in the U.S., and that’s where I’d have lunch later in the day, perhaps a Tortilla de Patatas (Spanish omelette) or a Bocadillos (Spanish sandwich). Both of these options are quite filling and provided enough fuel to keep me moving.
As I didn’t want to add extra weight to my backpack, I didn’t carry a lot of extra food with me. There were stretches on the trail with no places to get food or water . . . especially on a Sunday. I tried to plan ahead by reading my guidebook and calculating how long it would take me to get to the next town, but sometimes I got it wrong. One of the most surreal moments I experienced on the Camino happened on my second day of hiking. I was experiencing the beginning stages of a large and painful blister forming on my right big toe as well as sharp pain in my left foot. I was only on day two, and I was worried—one of the biggest concerns of the pilgrims is that they will become so injured that they can not complete the Camino.
I had just struggled up a very long, steep, and rocky incline and was worrying about how I was going to make it to the next town for a place to sleep. My water supply was low, and I hadn’t eaten for hours. When I say it was in the middle of nowhere, I am not exaggerating. There in the distance at the top of the rocky incline, I saw what looked like a fruit stand next to some brick walls and awnings. I soon arrived at a pilgrims’ oasis called La Casa de los Dioses Cantina, home to a charismatic and hip guy from Barcelona named David. For over 10 years David has provided free food and drink, as well as a place to rest for weary hikers. His refuge offers plenty of shade, relaxing hammocks, benches, pillows, cookies, fresh fruits, and an assortment of beverages. There is a small donation box, but he doesn’t even mention it, and everyone who stops there is beyond grateful to contribute to his kindness and generosity.
Knowing the trek can inspire appetites, most local restaurants and albergues (hostels) offer a Pilgrim’s Menu for dinner. For around € 7-10, ($8–$12) you will get a three course meal plus bread and wine. The first course is either a pasta or salad, followed by the main dish (usually chicken), and finishing with a dessert. As I got closer to Santiago, the food choices changed to more Galician-style cuisine featuring plenty of seafood. A couple of the most famous dishes for this region are the tapas dishes Pulpo a la Gallego (Galician octopus) and Pimientos de Padrón (Padron Peppers).
A stay at the smaller albergues often includes a place at the table for a family-style dinner, typically prepared with the food from their gardens. The larger albergues have cooking facilities, which allow pilgrims to prepare their own meals either for themselves or as a group. My dinners with fellow pilgrims on the Camino were some of the best moments of my trip. After a long day of walking, an evening filled with laughter, singing, stories, and plenty of wine led to more than one life-long friendship.
Accommodations on the Camino ranged from a large 300-bed, barrack style albergue to a private room with a bathtub (bliss!) in a beautiful 1700s stone farmhouse. I slept in a converted thousand-year-old medieval pilgrims’ hospital, where I was awakened in the early morning by Gregorian chants. I stayed in a “Green” albergue which offered massages and vegan meals made with fresh vegetables out of their own garden. One of my favorite places to stay was Casa Susi. Casa Susi was a twelve-bed albergue in a converted barn owned by an Australian woman who had herself walked the Camino numerous times. Susi married a man she met while on the Camino and vowed to one day return and open a place of her own, offering all the creature comforts she had longed for while walking her own Camino. The evening I was there, I shared a family-style, delicious homemade meal with people from Latvia, South Africa, Hong Kong, Taiwan, the Netherlands, Australia, Spain, and the U.S.
My memories and experiences on the Camino will stay with me for a lifetime. I’ll remember my reverential climb to the Iron Cross (The Cruz de Farro), taking part in an ancient tradition of leaving the stones I’d brought from home that symbolized the burdens I wished to leave behind. There was the day I went seven miles off the beaten path on a solitary journey to visit a magnificent sixth century Benedictine monastery. There was the unforgettable kindness I was shown by strangers who would magically appear just when I needed them the most. One of my favorite memories has to be the sound from the lone bagpiper as I made my final approach through the stone archway to the Cathedral de Santiago. I had just completed my own 200-mile journey following in the same footsteps as the hundreds of thousands of pilgrims who had gone before me.
So did I figure out the next chapter of my life? Perhaps. I know that I changed after my experience on the Camino . . . and I can’t wait to do it again. Getting away and walking every day for almost a month changes the way you see yourself and gives you that rare gift of time to reflect on what is really important. The beauty and simplicity of slowly walking through Spain helped me remember who I once was. It helped me let go of who I wasn’t so that I could once again be who I was meant to be in the first place.
Stacey Soboleski lives in Philo with her family and menagerie of animals. She loves to travel, hike, and immerse herself in learning new ways to improve health through holistic health nutrition.
The Mysterious Carob
A Bean-Sized Piece of Sicily’s History and Cuisine
story and photos by Cynthia Ariosta
There’s a funny thing about perspective. Sometimes you don’t acknowledge how lucky you are until you are faced with how fortunate you have been. I have been so lucky to have had the opportunity to travel to many places in the world in the last decade. Yet there has been one place I’ve been to twice and would return to again and again—Sicily.
Sicily is intoxicating. One could attribute that feeling to a carafe of Carricante shared over lunch at a local osteria, or the bottle of Nerello Mascalese consumed after two glasses of bubbly from Etna at a Michelin-starred restaurant. But the euphoric feeling I experienced during a recent two weeks in Sicily came from so much more.
Many travelers prioritize visits to local museums in search of exhibits to give them some sense of place and its history, culture, and community. Post-travel, friends will often query about our museum visits. We’ve been fortunate enough to stumble across a Dali exhibit in Matera, a Bruegel exhibit in Vienna, a Kahlo exhibit in Budapest. But those exhibits, while educational and enchanting, have left us with no more sense of place than a man-made lake in the Gobi or a Starbucks in Japan. What gives us the most sense of a place are the smells and tastes of the food, the harvests of farmers and fishermen, and the chefs, winemakers, and producers of edible treats and all that they prepare. It’s the feel of the nubby rind of a blood orange followed by the taste of its candied peel in a cannoli, the sounds of the fisherman hawking his silver-skinned sardines at the market followed by a plate of fritte sardine at the local trattoria, and the tartness and brine of an olive as its flesh first breaks on the tongue.
Our drive through Sicily took us from bustling old town Palermo to the secluded Temple of Segesta, from medieval Erice to the Greek ruins of Agrigento. We wandered the cobblestone streets of Ragusa Ibla and Ortygia and meandered from the Mar Mediterraneo to the ever-percolating Mt. Etna—or A Muntagna, as the Sicilians call it. Sicily reminded me so much of my beloved Mendocino County, similar in its diverse topography–with her lush valleys with serpentine rivers stretching between snow-capped inland mountains and the crashing ocean. But what was so intoxicating, and what impressed me the most, was the concentration on seasonal and regional food ingredients, the diversity of the agricultural landscape, and how the cuisine of even the smallest towns reflected it.
On one day in particular, we took a drive from old town Ragusa to enchanting Noto on a narrow country lane, a vanedda, through a stunning farmland landscape, the rolling hills along the road bordered with prickly pear and fieldstone walls. Our mouths were agape in wonder as we passed one farm after the other, each with a different crop: citrus trees next to olive groves next to nut trees, hoop houses filled with squash plants bursting with fiery blossoms, fields of carciofi violetti side by side with vineyards, sheep and cattle grazing the grass in between. But there was a “gem” in the midst, unknown to us. We passed fields of gnarled trees towering with dense foliage and slowed at each field to try to identify its crop, but the giant trees continued to puzzle us. It was December, and while citrus trees were supporting low hanging fruit, pistachio and almond trees were bare of leaves awaiting spring. This tree held its leaves but sported no blossoms, no fruit. Its flat, rounded leaves shone in the afternoon Mediterranean sun.
In Noto, we ate an epic lunch at Ristorante Manna, seductive dishes reflecting the bounty of the season. Our delightful server was so engaging, fluent in English, Italian, and French, we decided to ask her about our elusive albero. “Leaves or no leaves?” she inquired. “Leaves,” we answered. “Fruit?” “No, no fruit.” She inquired about the size, the trunk, the bark. We told her of its gnarled trunk, its large stature, its thick foliage. “Ah, sì. It is the carob tree.” Carob? It had occasionally crossed our palates but was not high on our radar. “Sì. We use it in baking, in sauces, in bars like chocolate.”
It turns out the Provence of Ragusa is particularly renowned for its carob trees, and they are considered a protected species. In September, the ground beneath the trees is draped in nets to catch the falling carob pods. Farmers whack at the trees to release the pods, collecting them for the local mill in Modica. The seeds are collected for flour and sweetening agents while the pods are separated and broken into sugary pieces often used in animal feed. The pods can also be eaten raw, like licorice.
After lunch we strolled along Largo Porta Nazionale and found ourselves at Pitittu di Sicilia, a small shop offering Sicilian prodotti artigianale and degustazione gratuita, free tastings! We entered and perused the offerings. Blood orange preserves, almond wine, pistachio crema, olive oil, pasta, Modican chocolate and alas, bars of carrubato “senza cacao”—without cocoa—available for tasting. As the fragrant and nutty bricks from the carob bar melted on our tongues, the owner approached us. “Do you know the real mystery of the carob?” she asked, as she handed us two small beans. “The carob seed was used as a standard for weighing small quantities,” she continued. “Can you guess now?” It turns out that carob seeds, due to their uniformity, were used as a measurement of weight in jewelry. The word “carat,” derived in the 15th century, comes from the Italian word “carato,” borrowed via Arabic from the Greek word “keration,” referring to both “carob bean” and “small weight.” The carat was used for measuring diamonds beginning in 1570. As it turns out, though, the carob seed is no more uniform in mass than any other seed, making it an inconsistent unit for measuring, particularly precious gems. Subsequently, the measurement of the carat also fluctuated, often by location, from “187 mg in Cyprus to 216 mg in Livorno,” according to one source.1 It wasn’t until the 1900s that the weight of 200 mg was standardized for the carat.
We held the beans in our hands, chuckling as we imagined an Italian gemologist hunched over his balanced scale, placing the seeds on one plate and his diamond on the other, knowing the beans’ clever little secret. The shop owner placed a pod in our hands. “Un regalo,” she said. A gift. It was true. The entire day had been a gift. The journey through the countryside. The meal at Manna. The stroll through Noto. The discovery of Pitittu and the story of the carob. This day had satisfied our travel cravings, the knowledge we seek through our palate. These were the gems we would have never found in a museum that day. This was the story of the place where we were in that moment, a story that wove together the people, the culture, the food, and the landscape in magnificent Sicily, the “gem” of the Mediterranean.
(1) How to use the terms ‘karat’ and ‘carat’ correctly. Merrill Perlman, May 6, 2019. https://www.cjr.org/language_corner/carat-karat.php
Cynthia Ariosta is a restaurateur (cross-fingers for post COVID-19 success), avid traveller and food enthusiast, and former Mendocino County resident and business owner. She currently resides in Healdsburg, CA. For help planning your own trip to Sicily, contact Cynthia at girleatswhat@gmail.com.
English Gardener for a Day
story and photos by Lisa Ludwigsen
“In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.”
— Margaret Atwood.
When I arranged to visit my college friend, Patti Stevenson, in Oxford, England, I thought spending our time touring renowned English gardens would provide inspiration and distraction. After all, any place with a national trust dedicated to the preservation of historic estates and their extensive gardens could not possibly disappoint a scrappy backyard gardener from northern California.
I was also excited to see my old friend in her new career. After years of demanding positions in international and local urban planning, Patti had pivoted into a new vocation about as far as one can get from long commutes, policy-making, and tall office buildings. In response to a health crisis brought on by all those years of stress, Patti decided to become a Royal Horticultural Society certified gardener.
“After I left my job, I volunteered for different nonprofits in Oxford to see what appealed to me,” Patti shared. “In my work with the Oxford City Council parks department, I realized I loved the way my body responded to being outside and to hard physical work.”
Fueled by this new interest, Patti began taking classes at Waterperry Gardens near Oxford. Here she met and soon began working for one of the course tutors, Steve Relton, and from him she learned the intricacies and level of commitment required to care for formal English gardens. After two years of classes and training, she passed the intensive Royal Horticultural Society exams, obtained her British driving license, bought a van, and launched Perbellus Gardens. Today she maintains about a dozen gardens year round, in and around Oxford.
When Patti gave me the okay to work with her for a day in Oxford, I was delighted. After 20+ years of gardening in a true Mediterranean climate, where six months of the year see no measurable precipitation, I was excited to discover some secrets of the legendary English garden culture.
The basics of gardening organically are universal–build healthy soil that will support a diverse system of plants and organisms. Right plant, right place, border shapes and layouts, along with the shared concepts of soil cultivation, mulching, pruning, and irrigation are similar in most places. The level of gardening that Patti does, though, is so much more. Finding balance in design, knowing the characteristics of each plant, and keeping gardens interesting in each season require considerable skills.
English gardens range in style from formal layouts to wilder cottage gardens, perhaps as an expression of the various aspects of English culture. The many gardens of Oxford in late spring/early summer were truly inspiring. One great example of the whimsy factor were tiny flowering plants growing out of stately rock walls. They showed up in unexpected places and were always very sweet.
It was mid-May, just approaching summer, and we set out early, with two gardens on the schedule. Each of Patti’s clients was exceedingly polite and engaged. “Would you like a cup of coffee before getting to work?” one asked. We declined and dug in (pun intended).
We were tasked with getting these gardens ready for public viewing to benefit a charity called the National Open Garden Scheme. Both gardens looked great to the casual eye, but we made them look even better! At each site, the owner reported to Patti the work they’d done over the weekend and laid out the plan for the day’s chores. Both gardens were impressive, incorporating distinct zones within the overall garden.
“Large gardens are thought of as having rooms,” says Patti. One garden had more structural landscape than the other, but both offered a feeling of respite and reflection.
The front yard of the first garden was composed of mixed herbaceous borders, which is a fancy name for a mix of perennials, bulbs, annuals, biennials, ornamental grasses, trees, and shrubs. “This garden is designed for four-season interest,” said Patti. The garden was at near peak that day, with large balls of purple alliums mixed with resplendent spears of yellow lupines, deep purple heucheras, feathery salvias, Icelandic poppies, irises, and other perennials. It barely looked real to me. The homeowners had spent the weekend working in their garden, and it was obvious.
We tackled the back yard, which was more of a woodland with a mix of shrubs, low growing plants, and trees. As I crawled around at the side fence, pruning spindly bamboo and pulling weeds, I was reminded that my old friend is a monster of a worker. I tried hard to keep up with her. At one point I lost my clippers—secateurs as the British call them—and had to dig through a large tote packed with prunings to find them. A rookie mistake, but Patti just said, “That happens sometimes,” as she kept on working.
After a couple hours sprucing up the first garden, we moved on to our next garden, which was also near peak bloom but differed in its layout. The owner of this garden is a successful author and a dedicated gardener. Her layout featured distinctive water features, raised beds for veggies, a small chicken run, and a garden building where potted tomatoes were trellised up the walls. “The front garden is more of a true herbaceous garden,” shared Patti. “In the fall, these plants will be pruned to the ground, so during the winter this area looks bare.”
We worked in the back yard, crawling through foliage at the back of borders to get at the tall weeds and tangles of brambles. When it began raining, we put on our jackets and kept going. My traveling wardrobe wasn’t exactly weatherproof, but I really didn’t care. I had forgotten how really lovely it is to be out in the rain.
At day’s end, Patti had a specific routine of cleaning, drying, and storing her tools. I was pooped. Patti, however, responded to emails, made a few calls, then made us dinner. It was a great day.
In reflection, I realize that Patti’s specific brand of gardening service isn’t about just maintaining a landscape. Instead, she enters into an ongoing conversation with her clients so that they may realize the gardens of their dreams. It is a collaboration, sharing the creative process and the hard work.
When I returned to my semi-rural acre in northern California, I understood that my established drought-tolerant gardens can withstand a lot of neglect, but I am happiest when my gardens are happy. Like the gardens in Oxford, my gardens speak of the place and living things that inhabit them. Gardens everywhere speak a common language. I believe it is the language of connection—connection to nature, to others, and with oneself.
For more inspiration from English gardens:
https://www.rhs.org.uk
https://www.waterperrygardens.co.uk/
https://patientgardener.wordpress.com/
https://ngs.org.uk/
Home to Michoacán for the Holidays
by Mayte Guerrero
When I think of the holidays, I think of three-day road trips down to my father’s hometown, La Laguneta, a small town in Michoacán, Mexico. I think of lighting fireworks with my cousins on the sidewalk outside of my aunt’s house, of waiting for the New Year together and hugging everyone—which takes a while when you’re one of twenty-one grandchildren (and that is just my dad’s side of the family).
The holidays have always signified a time for good food and great times with family. Even in the years when we haven’t all been in the same place, the foods we share remain the same, holding us together, tying us to our culture and traditions.
In Mexico, the holiday season begins on December 12th, which is the day honoring la Virgen de Guadalupe, the patron saint of Mexico. The festivities extend until January 6th, which is el Día de Los Reyes Magos, Three Kings Day.
During the weeks we spent in Mexico over Winter break, we typically stayed a week in Mexico City with my maternal grandparents right before Christmas Eve, which allowed us to participate in las posadas, which are a part of the Christmastime celebrations in Mexico. Las posadas begin on December 16th and are a nine-day celebration which commemorates the journey of Mary and Joseph looking for a place to stay before giving birth to baby Jesus. I remember fondly an evening when my grandma hosted la posada. We stood behind her and listened as the neighborhood sang villancicos, traditional Mexican Christmas carols, before she opened up the doors to let everyone inside to celebrate. Since my grandma has the spirit of a child, which is one of my favorite things about her, she bought five piñatas for that day—one of them perhaps the largest I’ve ever seen. The piñatas were filled with toys and candy for the neighborhood children. Seeing the smiling faces and hearing the children’s laughter that night really highlighted the importance of community during the holiday season.
Nochebuena, or Christmas Eve, is perhaps the most celebrated night of the holiday season for my family and holds true for many Latinx families. There is usually not much done on Christmas day itself, except for heating When I think of the holidays, I think of three-day road trips down to my father’s hometown, La Laguneta, a small town in Michoacán, Mexico. I think of lighting fireworks with my cousins on the sidewalk outside of my aunt’s house, of waiting for the New Year together and hugging everyone—which takes a while when you’re one of twenty-one grandchildren (and that is just my dad’s side of the family).
The holidays have always signified a time for good food and great times with family. Even in the years when we haven’t all been in the same place, the foods we share remain the same, holding us together, tying us to our culture and traditions.
In Mexico, the holiday season begins on December 12th, which is the day honoring la Virgen de Guadalupe, the patron saint of Mexico. The festivities extend until January 6th, which is el Día de Los Reyes Magos, Three Kings Day.
During the weeks we spent in Mexico over Winter break, we typically stayed a week in Mexico City with my maternal grandparents right before Christmas Eve, which allowed us to participate in las posadas, which are a part of the Christmastime celebrations in Mexico. Las posadas begin on December 16th and are a nine-day celebration which commemorates the journey of Mary and Joseph looking for a place to stay before giving birth to baby Jesus. I remember fondly an evening when my grandma hosted la posada. We stood behind her and listened as the neighborhood sang villancicos, traditional Mexican Christmas carols, before she opened up the doors to let everyone inside to celebrate. Since my grandma has the spirit of a child, which is one of my favorite things about her, she bought five piñatas for that day—one of them perhaps the largest I’ve ever seen. The piñatas were filled with toys and candy for the neighborhood children. Seeing the smiling faces and hearing the children’s laughter that night really highlighted the importance of community during the holiday season.
Nochebuena, or Christmas Eve, is perhaps the most celebrated night of the holiday season for my family and holds true for many Latinx families. There is usually not much done on Christmas day itself, except for heating up the leftovers (and maybe nursing a hangover), but nochebuena is filled with a morning of prepping and cooking tamales, pozole, and buñuelos, followed by an evening full of celebration. We often stayed up together until midnight to mark the arrival of Jesus Christ.
The nochebuenas spent in La Laguneta, Michoacán often begin with attending the Christmas Eve mass. Afterwards, the community all gathers in la plaza, which is right outside of the church. The adults share stories with each other, and the children run around playing different games and lighting fireworks. Eventually, most families disperse to their homes for their own celebrations.
For me, nochebuena means walking back together from church to my aunt’s house, making a bonfire in the backyard, and fighting heavy eyelids to try to stay up until midnight, because nobody wanted to be the primo who fell asleep first. It means a time when even the teenage cousins who thought they were too cool for the younger kids joined them in games of hide-and-go-seek. It means seeing my abuelita lean her head against my abuelito’s shoulder as he reaches out to hold her hand, both watching what their 60 years of love has created. Nochebuena means eating tamales and drinking ponche. The sweet smell of tejocote, caña y canela [hawthorn, sugar cane, and cinnamon] filling the room, along with our love for one another.
Ponche Navideño (Christmas Punch)
Ingredients:
12 c of water
3 fresh apples, any type, chopped into small pieces
1 can (8 oz) of guavas
1 cinnamon stick
½ c hibiscus flowers*
24 sticks of sugar cane
2 lbs of tejocote (Mexican hawthorn)*
2 ½ c of sugar
*Check your local Mexican markets.
Directions:
Put your pot of water on the stove. Add the apples, the can of guavas, the cinnamon, hibiscus flowers, sugar cane, and the tejocotes. Cover the pot and cook over medium heat until it boils. Continue boiling for half an hour, then add the sugar. Stir well and simmer for another 15 minutes. ¡Buen provecho y felices fiestas!
Mayte Guerrero was born and raised in Anderson Valley, a place that allowed her to develop a deep love for the natural world. She is a naturalist who hopes to continue to do work that creates wider access to public lands and engage in conversations that expand the definition of what it means to love the earth.