“This magical, marvelous food on our plate, this sustenance we absorb, has a story to tell. It has a journey. It leaves a footprint. It leaves a legacy. To eat with reckless abandon, without conscience, without knowledge; folks, this ain’t normal.”
― Joel Salatin, farmer and author of Folks, This Ain’t Normal; You Can Farm
Farmers have to be optimists or they wouldn’t still farm. One of the immutable truths is that weather conditions, including drought and the unknown are going to "crop up" for every farmer, everywhere. They do it because they love the soil, and we benefit from their love by taking the fruit of their labors into our bodies and (hopefully) passing that
love on to the people we meet every day.
This set of portraits winds up my week-long tribute to our farmers, and tomorrow I move on to other things (the first being a short video celebrating the rising moon over San Francisco). But on Tuesday I'll reprise the farmer theme with one last tribute... a video I made to help raise money for a permanent farmers market here in Marin County.
For now though, here's one last look at the people we rely on to provide
sustenance and flavor to our lives.
The Heroes of the Farmer's Market.
Eva Bruins of Bruins Vegetables in Winters.
David Weingarten of Massa Organics in Ord Bend (near Chico).
“First we eat, then we do everything else.”
― M.F.K. Fisher
Dawn Dolcini of Tully Dolci Organic Farm in Petaluma.
Sonia Rojas of Rojas Family Farms in Manteca.
Liana Steinmetz of Rainbow Orchards in Camino.
“Organic is something we can all partake of and benefit from. When we demand organic, we are demanding poison-free food. We are demanding clean air. We are demanding pure, fresh water. We are demanding soil that is free to do its job and seeds that are free of toxins. We are demanding that our children be protected from harm. We all need to bite the bullet and do what needs to be done—buy organic whenever we can, insist on organic, fight for organic and work to make it the norm. We must make organic the conventional choice and not the exception available only to the rich and educated.”
― Maria Rodale, CEO and Chairman of Rodale, author of Organic Manifesto: How Organic Farming Can Heal Our Planet, Feed the World, and Keep Us Safe
Enrique Morena and friend from Cypress Flower Farm in Moss Beach.
Leon Day of Leon Day's Condiments in San Rafael. Leon makes amazing chutneys from the farmers market produce.
Tara Payton of Feather River Farms in Yuba City.
“Remember, too, that at a time when people are very concerned with their health and its relationship to what they eat, we have handed over the responsibility for our nourishment to
faceless corporations.”
― Lynne Rossetto Kasper
Julia Lopez of Ortiz Brothers Farm in Sonoma.
Potato farmers, mother and twin sons.
And today's chefs... the last batch of the week.
“One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.”
― Virginia Woolf
Tim Goetze & Molly Stein of the Rancho Room in Nicosia.
Louise Franz flanked by two assistants of Pizzalina in San Anselmo.
“Every aspect of our lives is, in a sense, a vote for the kind of world we want to live in.”
― Frances Moore Lappé, author of Diet for a Small Planet
Thanks for watching.
I have a long history of inventing tools for animators and also making films and photographs. My wife, daughter and I live at the foot of beautiful Mt. Tamalpais on the San Francisco Bay and I've been using technology to tell complex stories for a long time. My biggest claim to fame? Leading the team that created Autodesk 3ds Max... the most popular 3D animation tool of all time. When I sold the Yost Group to Autodesk at the end of the last century I jumped headfirst into pursing my original love... photography and filmmaking. Now I spend all of my time exploring the mysteries of my world with my cameras, and revealing what I find in my images and films.
You can find my verification post here.