I Miss You

The view from the Gold Line

There is no self-discipline left. Originally, I was committed to writing five “Covid” pieces, with this one as part of the middle hump before the grand finale huzzah marking the time when we would have returned to our life as usual. But here we are, almost a year since last March when our world changed into a place now delineated neatly by the descriptors “pre-“ and “post-Covid.” 

This post, titled “I Miss You,” has been almost heartbreaking to turn to.

Grandson Alex and the post Covid hug.

Grandson Anthony

Its original intent was to speak of the small, everyday patterns of life that are no longer, beginning with my wild mornings with grandson Alex. Once a week I picked him up at 6:30 for an early morning breakfast of chocolate chip pancakes and sausages at the Nano Cafe in Monrovia, just a hop, skip and jump from his school. I dropped him off at the main office, where he was greeted by the school secretary, a gentle man who allowed Alex to hang in the office rather than deal with the big yard. And then--wonders of wonders--I spent a luxurious hour completing my 45 laps at the Monrovia Y with all the other regulars before the 80-plus- year-old ladies began their water aerobics class. A bicycle with its jaunty basket propped up daily by the entrance meant my friend Dave was “in the house.” A developmentally disabled group of adults, whose morning coffee klatch off the lobby made my heart sing because this center of community had fulfilled its promise. There was even some fragment of scripture posted on the bulletin board that in my younger years would have annoyed me but was now somehow comforting. As I write, I find myself choking up. It’s not my style, as I am one who has searched without fail for the heroic rather than painful stories of Covid. 

My mother, Norma Green, brother Jan and me in earlier days. 

I miss you, I miss you, I miss you. What does this mean now, nearly a year later? It means so much more than the innocent first blush of loss. In concentric circles moving outward, I miss touching my dear ones—grandchildren, children, their spouses, good friends. I miss my mother, who died this last October, basically of old age. I was allowed to see her hours before she died and once or twice before then, yelling through our masks out in the parking lot of her assisted living home. I miss our once vibrant neighborhood, where I used to hear voices without fail as spontaneous street visits occurred almost daily, along with planned summer and winter gatherings. My daily mantra, “We are so lucky to live here,” still holds true, but now we are hunkered down behind closed doors, waiting like the protagonists in Ray Bradbury’s short story from The Illustrated Man for the rain to cease. 

Scene from the film, The Illustrated Man 

We are waiting--I know it--to emerge into the sun feeling wonder and indescribable joy. I miss smiling as I pass other walkers, hikers, browsers in stores. I miss inadvertently brushing by one another without fear. I miss you, concerts, museums, food folk, restaurants, libraries, bookstores (where I wandered for hours—not for a furtive five minutes, double masked out of some odd idea that I will be safe). I miss you, plethora of gorgeous food markets, where I tasted as well as bought. I miss you, good friends who cook like dreams. I miss you, long tables filled with food made and eaten communally. I miss you, cooking classes taught at Descanso Gardens. I miss you, book talks. I miss you, Altadena Community Gardens summer potluck/movie nights, where once we watched Caddy Shack on the deck as an antidote to our frustration about the incessant destruction of gophers. I miss you, impromptu activities engaged at the last minute, just dropping by.  God, I even miss you, meetings for which I had to drive, emerge, get to on time. I miss you France and Japan, Oregon and New Mexico—2020 travel destinations that now seem like evanescent dreams. 

The Ojai Festival in pre Covid days. 

And then, somehow, I miss a sense of beginning and end. At first the idea of time unspooling without the bracketing of events felt like an endless form of hooky. Projects could extend into the ether or be put off for weeks at a time; returning to them seemed somehow less essential. And while I am eternally grateful to the ingenuity of performing arts community in engaging us in their generous content, the idea that I can slither in and out of committing to a time and place is too much latitude. I want to miss something because I did not pay attention. Because I miss paying attention. 

Nurse Lori Marie Key singing Amazing Grace at the Inauguration’s Covid Memorial

Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman

A sense of gravitas

At the beginning of new leadership in our country, I feel like a child who is finally being held after a long nightmare of neglect. Knowing that I have been grieving is a sign that the end may (?) be (?) in sight. Is it possible that I will no longer have to parse my feelings to outlast this year and to a larger extent the past four years?  I have no assurances; we are all in shock. But I do know this: I will never take anything for granted again. 

A coda: The Urban Forager is normally a blog that centers on the relationship of food to culture and community. To honor one of my most missed I Miss You’s, I am including recipes from some of my dearest cooking friends: 

The food makers who gave so generously to The Urban Forager Cookbook. Left to right: Jack Aghojan, Sumi Chang, Minh Phan, Mario Rodriguez, Rumi Mahmood, and Masako Yatabe Thomsen

Take care, dear ones. I know we are nearly over the hump. 

The World is Small, the World is Big

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Photo by Marika

As very young children, we ventured out into the world in small bites, beginning with our family—immediate to extended. We explored the neighborhood in the secure presence of our parents, made a first trip to the store, to the park, to a side-by-side playdate, and then to “school”–one of the first experiences without the touchstone of our families. As we grew, our touchstones and circles of attachment multiplied to the point where we matured into adults, hopefully with a sense of identity, purpose, and mastery. 

And now, here we are in a world nearly as small as it was many, many years ago: home, neighborhood, once-a-week visit to store, a periodic “visit” at a distance of 6-plus feet with one or two friends. This period of isolation feels like an odd developmental rewinding of my experiences as a very young child. On my bad days, I dream of the freedom of movement without planning and without considering the persistent and strange new calculus of risk’s return on investment.

Have we managed to reverse human progress to become a culture whose sense of survival overshadows the very natural orientation toward curiosity and exploration? 

On my good days, I remember how fortunate I am to be living in a generous and supportive community, in a home with space and garden, and without financial exigencies, as both my husband and I are retired. I realize that this rewinding brings with it opportunity to reconsider these developmental stages through the lens and perspective of an adult. I now have the time and space to follow Jean Piaget’s tenets as a mechanism of psychic survival. 

“Every response, whether it be an act directed towards the outside world or an act internalized as thought, takes the form of an adaptation or, better, of a re-adaptation.”

“Play is the answer to how anything new comes about.”

“What we see changes what we know. What we know changes what we see.”

“Experience precedes understanding.”

For today’s post, I asked several artists whose medium is photography to share images taken during the pandemic. With the generous sharing of their photographs came a desire to talk about what they noticed about this extraordinary period’s output.

All spoke about a continuous “thrumming” of anxiety residing in their subconscious—something that has proven to be deeply distracting, thus making the intense demands of creative work even more challenging. 

“By midday, I am done, exhausted and so my work is morning work only.” Ann Cutting. 

“Working in my garden is a sustainable future; more in some ways than my current work.” Dennis Keeley. 

“I find myself working in two spaces: at home or alone, on daily walks in the street recording the most common of material—shadows and sidewalks.” Doris Hausmann. 

There is a possibility that we are living through a psychic winter.  We are storing our energy for a time when it feels safe once again to venture outside our narrowed comfort zone.

I choose to believe there will be an equally intense outpouring of creative and energetic work waiting for fear to be replaced with relief, breath, and finally wonder.

It is now that I hold onto my fifth-grade love of the “great civilizations” of the Fertile Crescent and all other periods of stability and plenty that led to productive brilliance in the arts and sciences. This too must come again. For now, there is the challenge of sudden and enduring constraint that on our good days acts as a stimulus for creative work. The loose affinity between photographic images and Piaget’s ideas seem most assuredly to express the increasingly smaller, but perhaps deeper exploration of our lives. 

We now experience our world through extreme close ups, computer screens, or at a distance of at least six feet. There is no space between this tight focus and distance. 

Photo by Ann Cutting

Photo by Dennis Keeley

Photo by Ann Cutting

Schedules are elastic, allowing for open-ended time and something I like to call deep noticing. What we see changes what we know.

Photo by Doris Hausmann

Photo by Doris Hausmann

We’ve got the whole world in our hands. Our young children are playing, but often singularly, in spaces created by parents to simulate our parks and playgrounds. We adults are finding deep wonder and a form of play in the most commonplace sources. 

Photo by Elisa Callow

Photo by Dennis Keeley

Alternative celebrations are the finest exemplar of Piaget’s sense of re-adaptation. My gratitude “runneth over” when humanity expresses its honoring of connection combined with safety. 

Photo by Elisa Callow

To close, as promised, the big as well as the small worlds—an eclectic list of links to the big world of cultural delights courtesy of Hope Tschopik Schneider, Esther Kang, Nicolas Gerpe, and yours truly, the Urban Forager:  

Picks from Hope, knitter and sage:

Modern Daily Knitting - My favorite go-to link at the moment is a knitting link--truly extraordinary, connecting me with some of the best designers, fabric artists and yarn makers in the world.

The Los Angeles Philharmonic Watch and Listen

Pick from Esther: researcher and strategist

A needed respite from chaos, the eclectic newsletter Sprung.

Picks from Nic, pianist and faculty member of the Pasadena Conservatory of Music:

 Piano Spheres - This longtime series is dedicated to contemporary piano music in Los Angeles, commissioning and premiering countless new works as well as presenting a range of new and little-known pieces and composers. Concerts from previous seasons are now being streamed. 

Hear Now Music Festival - Since 2011, the Hear Now festival has been dedicated to promoting composers in Los Angeles and the greater Southern California area. This year, an e-Festival was launched to continue the group's mission of promoting local composers and showcasing new works.

Pasadena Conservatory of Music - PCM has been working tirelessly to continue their  students' musical education and to provide opportunities and outreach in a variety of innovative ways during the COVID lockdown. Aside from online lessons and classes, PCM now has online series such as Keep Calm and Play On, Faculty Voices, and Artists in Residence. 

Picks from the Urban Forager:

Neighbor Mwï Epalle’s website - It is truly inspiring to experience a young and talented person spread her exquisite wings. 

This Land - Rebecca Nagle’s fascinating and beautifully narrated podcast about the Muscogee Creek Nation’s fight to maintain sovereignty over eastern Oklahoma, as promised after The Trail of Tears. 

The Ojai Virtual Music Festival - I recommend watching this glorious Festival sitting outside, over dinner, without interruption, just like we used to do.  

And for you ballet fans: Misty Copeland and Roberto Bolle in Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet

Restorative adventures with food: 

Photo by Ann Cutting

Masako’s beautiful home baked weekly delights are available every Saturday. Masako, baker extraordinaire, bakes bread and other exquisite treats including this August’s take on The Urban Forager’s Polenta Almond Cake.

Two “safe” shopping adventures: Highland Park Farmers’ Market For those of you newly venturing out to open air markets, this one is a good bridge to the larger markets. It is one “lane” of fresh produce vendors, carefully monitored to assure safety, and never very crowded. Cookbook Market - A small and beautifully curated collection of small farm based produce, dairy, grains, oils, and vinegars. The Highland Park location is large enough to allow three shoppers at a time. All is carefully monitored for health safety.

And further afield: Bloom Ranch of Acton —Peach season is coming and nothing feels more relaxing than a visit to the open space of a happy farm. A small store sells fresh produce, eggs, and other goodies. Call ahead for peaches, as these are some of the best you will ever taste. 

Recipes for “Pods”

Marionne’s Cucumber Gazpacho, Summertime is Here: Fried Green Tomatoes with Basil Mayonnaise, and Campsite Pan Fried Layered Toast —a breakfast treat. 

And three poems for our time: 

Pandemania 

By Daniel Halpern, Poetry Foundation, March 2013 

There are fewer introductions

In plague years,

Hands held back, jocularity

No longer bellicose,

Even among men.

Breathing’s generally wary,

Labored, as they say, when

The end is at hand.

But this is the everyday intake

Of   the imperceptible life force,

Willed now, slow —

Well, just cautious

In inhabited air.

As for ongoing dialogue,

No longer an exuberant plosive

To make a point,

But a new squirreling of air space,

A new sense of boundary.

Genghis Khan said the hand

Is the first thing one man gives

To another. Not in this war.

A gesture of limited distance

Now suffices, a nod,

A minor smile or a hand

Slightly raised,

Not in search of   its counterpart,

Just a warning within

The acknowledgment to stand back.

Each beautiful stranger a barbarian

Breathing on the other side of the gate.

The End of Poetry 

Ada Limón, Together in a Sudden Strangeness, 2020

Enough of osseous and chickadee and sunflower

and snowshoes, maple and seeds, samara and shoot, enough chiaroscuro, enough of thus and prophecy

and the stoic farmer and faith and our father and tis

of thee, enough of bosom and bud, skin and god

not forgetting and star bodies and frozen birds,

enough of the will to go on and not go on or how

a certain light does a certain thing, enough

of the kneeling and the rising and the looking

inward and the looking up, enough of the gun,

the drama, and the acquaintance’s suicide, the long-lost 

letter on the dresser, enough of the longing and

the ego and the obliteration of ego, enough

of the mother and the child and the father and the child 

and enough of the pointing to the world, weary

and desperate, enough of the brutal and the border, 

enough of can you see me, can you hear me, enough

I am human, enough I am alone and I am desperate, 

enough of the animal saving me, enough of the high 

water, enough sorrow, enough of the air and its ease,

I am asking you to touch me. 

Snow Day

By Billy Collins from Sailing Around the Room, 2001 

Today we woke up to a revolution of snow,   

its white flag waving over everything,

the landscape vanished,

not a single mouse to punctuate the blankness,   

and beyond these windows

the government buildings smothered,

schools and libraries buried, the post office lost   

under the noiseless drift,

the paths of trains softly blocked,

the world fallen under this falling.

In a while, I will put on some boots

and step out like someone walking in water,   

and the dog will porpoise through the drifts,   

and I will shake a laden branch

sending a cold shower down on us both.

But for now I am a willing prisoner in this house,   

a sympathizer with the anarchic cause of snow.   

I will make a pot of tea

and listen to the plastic radio on the counter,   

as glad as anyone to hear the news

that the Kiddie Corner School is closed,   

the Ding-Dong School, closed.

the All Aboard Children’s School, closed,   

the Hi-Ho Nursery School, closed,

along with—some will be delighted to hear—

the Toadstool School, the Little School,

Little Sparrows Nursery School,

Little Stars Pre-School, Peas-and-Carrots Day School   

the Tom Thumb Child Center, all closed,

and—clap your hands—the Peanuts Play School.

So this is where the children hide all day,

These are the nests where they letter and draw,   

where they put on their bright miniature jackets,   

all darting and climbing and sliding,

all but the few girls whispering by the fence.

And now I am listening hard

in the grandiose silence of the snow,

trying to hear what those three girls are plotting,   

what riot is afoot,

which small queen is about to be brought down.

Til Next Time.  Stay healthy in heart, mind, and soul. 

Photo by Nori Durham

A Clean, Well-Lighted Place

A Library circa 1950, My father at 2, Minh Phan and other chef buddies at porridge & puffs pre-COVID-19

My father grew up in the height of the Depression on the northwest side of Chicago in a Polish/Jewish enclave. At the end of his life, he began telling the stories of his youth and admitted to the depth of poverty he experienced. Called Peewee because of his small size, he remembers working at ten as a delivery boy for a local butcher. During one such delivery, he lost an order and was made to forfeit his wages until the loss was reimbursed. His family depended on his meager contributions and so, even at the end of a brilliantly successful life, he continued to feel shame. He also remembered two uplifting constants in his life that form the core of today’s writing: his frequent, almost daily visits to the neighborhood library and the delicious, nourishing meals shared by a neighbor when his family moved to the small town of Lyons, Michigan after his father secured a job there.

Libraries, in my mind, are the quintessential exemplars of a civic asset. They are the “clean, well-lighted places” that welcome all and form through their equity and aesthetic a sense of values writ concrete.

Because they are places for reading, research, and contemplation they can be respite to the intensity of a city’s psychic and sensory overload. (This of course, in the time before COVID-19.) Love of libraries is demonstrated over and over again. In my city of Pasadena, a parcel tax was passed by an easy 79.9 percent margin in 1999 to restore the Library budget to its pre-recession level. In 2011, a gutted Los Angeles Library budget was restored by a charter amendment supported by more than 63 percent of voters.

“All the things that are wrong in the world seem conquered by a library’s simple unspoken promise: Here I am, please tell me your story; here is my story, please listen.” 

― Susan Orlean, The Library Book.

In this time of COVID-19, the small, neighborhood café and restaurant have an elevated role as similarly democratized community spaces that promise to prevail as such, even as our libraries, recreation centers, and cultural institutions begin to experiment with re-opening. They provide a needed break from our adventures in home cooking as well as personally curated selections of groceries and provisions. Through the simple act of feeding us, listening to us, and responding to us, they offer some semblance of our pre-COVID-19 communal life.

At every visit, we see the owners of the cafés and restaurants make it their business to welcome their customers and check in about their needs and desires.

Julie and Minh at the front door of their restaurants, every day.

They are pivoting on a daily basis, responding to complex, rigorous and changing health department requirements while remaining deeply committed to creating an experience of aesthetic and sensory nurturing without the bells and whistles of a wrap-around dining environment.

How do they achieve this seemingly incongruous magic trick of creating community and connection in a time of profound isolation?

I spoke to three food professionals, all small-business owners whose core strengths lie in considering and honoring the communities they support—their customers, their staff, and their suppliers--while committing to business practices based on ethical choices, no matter how challenging: Julie Campoy of Julienne’s, Minh Phan of porridge & puffs, and Onil Chibas of Onil Chibas Events Deluxe 1717.

“For every complex problem, there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.”

--H. L. Mencken

There has been a great deal written about the punishing work cultures of restaurants and in many cases unfair labor practices, particularly for servers who often earn well below minimum wage when tips are designed to complete rather than supplement fair compensation. In smaller businesses, owners are often on similar footing as their staff, and in some cases are taking little or no salary as an extended stopgap measure.

Minh describes looking at her family’s personal finances as a way of reverse engineering the scope and scale of her restaurant’s life during the shutdown. 

Some are looking at the virus as an extreme wake-up call, likening it as Julie described to “my time when I was diagnosed with breast cancer. It required enormous internal reserves, an ability to pivot, and a reminder that I just had to keep on walking.” She has been able to maintain a full- and part-time team of 50 (down from 65) and is committed to maintaining her staff, several of whom have been at Julienne’s for over 20 years.  

Onil, a former manager at Disney Animation, began problem solving with an extensive personal review of what is possible and what he enjoys most about his work in food. “Although I loved many aspects of owning a restaurant, for me it was like a hamster on a wheel. Catering fits my love of project work with a beginning, middle and end, but now events like the 350-person gala is gone. And as I look to the future, do I really want to be schlepping those “cambro” boxes up another flight of stairs? So I was left with a weekly meal service as a sort of catering and restaurant experience combined, which allows me frequent contact with my customer-friends, consistent work for my small team, and a rational workload.”

Onil with chef and friend, Masako Yatabe Thomsen in Deluxe 1717, October 2019.

A Slight Digression

The average salary of wait staff in Copenhagen, a city with one of the highest costs of living in Europe, is nearly $2,000 per month--slightly higher than similar wages in Los Angeles. However--and this is a big however--the Danish government covers healthcare and includes significant housing subsidies (about 43% in Copenhagen), meaning a huge differential in the security and lifestyle of their workers.

Nourishment is a Form of Activism

The Protest Box from porridge & puffs

Minh’s customers are encouraged to purchase prix fixe meals as a form of giving back. For every [Jonathan] Gold Set Meal purchased, another is donated to a first responder. The Protest Meal Box ranges from free to full price, depending on ability to pay, and was created to support those actively protesting racism. Minh’s provisions are as unique as her food: makrut lemon jams, prickly-ash oil, sesame oil, and bulk grains, walnuts, and raisins from small farms. (Minh’s connection with local farmers is a part of her food-making heritage, as her first venue was a pop-up at the Hollywood Farmers’ Market.)  She maintains a “strong team,” all of whom have adjusted without complaint: three chefs, including herself, and a front-of-house person. “The model is, you pay attention. You change on a dime. If the weather is hot, people want provisions. Fifty percent of our orders were cancelled during the curfew. We didn’t charge our customers; instead we created family meals and gave them to our neighbors, many of whom are really struggling.”

Julie with long-time Julienne chef Marcelline Dominguez in the days of hugging.

Julienne’s counter and to-go service was 60 percent of its revenues, which expanded overnight to 100 percent. Nearly every person on her team has transitioned to a new role: head waiter to head greeter, kitchen prep to grocery prep. Despite the herculean work behind the scenes, Julie’s brilliance is her sense of calm and welcome. She is as serene as a swan while paddling mightily underwater. She instituted “hazard pay” and every-other-week Friday Food Day, when all team members, including furloughed workers, are encouraged to take home produce, eggs, tortillas, cheeses. She too is listening to her customers.

“That’s how you are a good merchant, by asking your customers directly, what do you need? I can get that. I can do that.”

Along with an expanded number of Julienne-prepared standbys, there are shelves stocked--aesthetically--with sugar, flour, yeast, and even toilet paper.

A produce box filled with vegetables and fruits exemplifies her ability to transform a challenge into an asset. “A customer’s son sold produce to high-end restaurants, and suddenly there was no market. The next day, I asked him to put together these beautiful boxes that are for sale here.” 

From Here On?

Libraries offer lessons here, as the advent of the computer was thought to be the death of them. Instead, they are proving to be as nimble as these much smaller businesses and have in fact recalibrated and celebrated some of their inherent strengths: community connection, a culture of service, access to content and technology.

Julie, Minh, and Onil are all considering their futures, and all are thoughtful enough to understand that this intensive and extended “moment in time” will have lasting impact on them.

Julie is clear; “I am really investing in creating an experience that is gracious and nurturing for now.” For her, that means baby steps toward thoughtful additions to service that are safe while maintaining the well-loved Julienne environment of aesthetics and pleasure. Very soon, Julienne’s will be providing an expresso bar and pastries in the morning for customers to pick up and take to socially distanced tables outside. Hours will be extended to take advantage of the “pink” of the lengthening days with a wine service.

Brandon, a greeter, Julienne style.

Onil sees the weekly meals as continuing even when he reopens Deluxe 1717. “My feeling with this whole thing is, we can’t be victims, otherwise you start feeling that it is something done to you. I want to approach this as a new venture. I really dove in and considered everything—how we would present the menu, involving other chefs and catering staff, supporting them and my customers.”

In what at first would seem counterintuitive during a time of daily upheaval, Minh decided that everyone still working would receive raises, saying “The most essential workers are often the most disadvantaged.” She is also a realist, understanding that the rock-and-hard-place for her is a commitment to fair wages while living through a recession’s depressed market and prices.

Are Restaurants the New Nonprofits?

There are so many examples of owners providing free food for their communities and initiating funds for unemployed workers. And, of course, there is World Central Kitchen’s José Andrés, who has been hiring laid-off restaurant workers to provide meals for the expanding numbers of unemployed. He is the impetus for the FEMA Empowering Essentials Delivery Act, which if passed, will not only provide FEMA funds for local and state governments to partner with restaurants and nonprofit groups to feed all those in need during COVID-19, but expands the understanding of need from short-term emergency fixes to ongoing support.

 On a much larger scale, the pandemic has recalibrated our understanding of restaurants as essential services. Julie, Minh, and Onil were wholly aware of their potential to turn challenge and nourishment into a form of grace well before the pandemic.

Earlier days: Minh foraging at the late, great Muir Ranch.  The beautiful poultry and mushroom porridge at p&p.

Work among all its abstracts, is actually intimacy, the place where the self meets the world.

Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Words David Whyte

To conclude, three recipes featuring the beautiful food of Julienne, Minh, and Onil.

All are condiments and add-ins designed to wake up everyday dishes: Crème Anglais, Minh’s Geranium Pickled Baby Onions, and Red Onion Jam.

For those of you have time to go deeper during this time of seclusion, some suggested reading:

The Library Book by Susan Orleans

A bipartisan group of lawmakers and José Andrés want to empower FEMA to meet America’s growing hunger crisis by Tim Carman

To the Stars Through Difficulties by Romalyn Tilghman

My Restaurant Was My Life for 20 Years. Does the World Need It Anymore? by Gabrielle Hamilton 

Shades of L.A.: Pictures from Ethnic Family Albums Edited by Kathy Kobayashi and Carolyn Kozo Cole

On a personal note by Julie Campoy

The Little Engines That Could

Many of us are now living in isolation, and our daily life stories remain separate and individual. We share few common experiences in real time; instead most are perceived through the lens of the past or the future. Yet there is another side to this picture. While some are “sheltering in place,” others are struggling to maintain businesses that make it possible for us to remain safely at home. For many of us, time is unspooling slowly; our calendars have been wiped clean. And then there are the food producers and distributers, who are living in a hyper-intensive world of rapidly shifting and unpredictable realities. Their schedules are crammed with completely unanticipated new responsibilities.

I am a newbie to the world of food, having had the outrageous luck of my first cookbook being published by a well-respected small press. My career path had been firmly centered in the nonprofit lane, first as the executive director of the Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena, California, later on the funding side as a program officer with philanthropic foundations, and finally as a planning consultant to nonprofit leaders. This experience has given me some insight into the characteristics of resilient nonprofits. And lo and behold, these apply to food production and distribution as well.

With the exception of healthcare, no other sector is now situated on a more crucial testing ground for sustainability. Food purveyors that are hanging in there are doing so thanks to inherent structural or circumstantial advantages.  Some are small and nimble, while others are culturally flexible enough to pivot. Most are used to being responsive to their community, in part because their hand is permanently on its pulse. 

So, for today, three individuals whose stories are about more than survival; they represent inspirational, creative, and workable responses to the unimaginable.  

Maegen Rzasa-Cleary, Manager, The Hollywood Farmers’ Market

Beautiful produce from the Hollywood Farmers’ Market in situ and at home. Photos and ceramics by Ann Elliott Cutting.

The Hollywood Farmers’ Market is one of the largest in Los Angeles County and is part of SEE-LA (Sustainable Economic Enterprises of Los Angeles), a nonprofit that has under its wing six markets located for the most part on the south- and central-side of L.A. County. I must admit that I was surprised to read that the markets were open for business, as my local farmers’ market in Altadena has shifted completely to pre-order and curbside pick-up. Maegen Rzasa-Cleary, the Hollywood Farmers’ Market manager, gave me plenty of clear-eyed rationales for staying open. Let’s start with the question of safety, as this is top of mind for all of us. The market is outdoors, rather than indoors. Check. The produce comes directly from farmer to market, rather than being part of a complex chain of distribution that includes long-haul truckers (who are suffering in their own ways) and multiple opportunities for contact, be it packers, store clerks, or handsy customers. Check. The market has restructured its entire design, temporarily removing all prepared food to allow for ten feet between each vendor stall. Check. The market has only one entrance and several exits and more importantly, allows only 250 people at a time in its approximately three-quarter square mile area. Check, check, check. A cadre of volunteers act as gentle disrupters to maintain the required six-plus feet of social distancing and mask wearing. Check. And the produce is handled only by its vendors, who are required to wear gloves and must not cross-contaminate between produce and cash. Check again. 

Maegen at the Hollywood Farmers’ Market monitoring an exit at Selma and Cahuenga Avenues.

In my mind, however, there are many reasons beyond the timely issue of safety to support our farmers’ markets. Please excuse me as I go on a “did you know” tear for a moment. The Hollywood Farmers’ Market is home to over 100 vendors, half of whom are small farm owners who are themselves the faces you see at the market.

“If you compare a grocery store to a farmers’ market, you might ask yourself, who am I supporting?” says Maegen.

“Closing down farmers' markets but leaving the grocery stores open was shocking to me. You're ok with having truckloads of produce from large scale farms shipped all over the country, with multiple contact points, but you're not ok with produce being driven directly from the farm to an outdoor location?

It feels like a dialogue about small farmers and big agriculture with little hesitation to close down the small farmer whose livelihood, for the most part, comes from a farmers' market. Farmers' markets are not a flea market or a carnival, we're not just for the elite. We are a vital food source for everyone.”

Indeed, farmers’ markets address global as well as local concerns. Smaller family farms make up the majority of farms throughout the world and are the greatest contributors to food production and crop diversity, contrary to the assumption that large-scale, industrial agriculture is the solution to feeding the world’s growing populations. Lower energy consumption is one advantage of local farming and distribution. Transportation accounts for approximately 14 percent of the total energy used in the U.S. food system. Our farmers’ markets are a distinct exception, as they farm and sell within a relatively small geographic area. Their local purview has, in fact, enabled them to be quite nimble in managing life during the coronavirus pandemic. They sell their produce at farm stands and farmers’ markets, and through CSA boxes, pre-ordering, and curbside sales. Despite the Hollywood Farmers’ Market reduction of customers from an average of 7,000 to about 2,500 per Sunday, nearly all the farmers have remained, and sales are generally at two-thirds of pre-coronavirus levels. 

Farmers’ markets have long been critical players in alleviating food insecurity. In our area, they are located in a diverse range of high- to very low-income communities. SEE-LA and all other local farmers’ markets not only accept SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the current name for food stamps) but provide matching support through a variety of government programs and private contributions as incentives to select healthy produce. At one SEE-LA market—Central Avenue—nearly 50 percent of transactions are with SNAP clients. SEE-LA has stepped up its fundraising as the number of food insecure residents has increased dramatically due to the economic fallout of shelter-in-place regulations. In a single month, they were able to donate 20,000 produce boxes. They have also tripled their SNAP matching benefits up to $30 weekly and are matching WIC support (Women, Infant, Children supplemental nutrition) at two South L.A. markets.

Despite the good will and positive impact of these resources, L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti temporarily closed farmers’ markets on March 30 after photos of what appeared to be a crowded market surfaced on social media. Following a review and approval of a Covid-19 operational plan, most re-opened within days.  The quick turnaround was due in part to the unimpeachable case that these markets represent essential services, services that Maegen considers the heart of their mission.  “During this time, it is really, really interesting to see where our values as a society lie—defining how we prioritize different facets of life, deciding what is considered important and crucial and how we function as humans in community. It is our responsibility to get food to people. To me that feels really basic and simple.” Maegen continues,

“The coronavirus cannot stop crops from growing. They need to be harvested. We are one of the main ways that small farmers maintain their financial health and help to stabilize our food supply.” 

Leah Ferrazani, Owner, Semolina Artisanal Pasta 

Left: September 2019, at Semolina Artisanal Pasta. Leah Ferrazani preparing for a panel about food with Mary Aghoian, Amelia McDonald, Elisa Callow, Masako Yatabe Thomsen, and Leslie Ito. Right: Store signage post Covid 19.

Leah owns a small-scale pasta-making business located on Lincoln Avenue in Northwest Pasadena. In 2014, she began making dried pasta, at first in her home laundry room, then in a Lincoln Heights prep kitchen, and soon after in a small retail storefront complete with a glass-walled “factory.” Pre-coronavirus, Leah and her one employee produced slightly more than one thousand pounds of dried pasta each week, at times running out as demand remained high. 

She is a meticulous person, sourcing high quality durum semolina from U.S. farmers and using brass dies, which create a sauce hugging texture, to extrude her pasta. She slow-dries each batch at low heat to preserve flavor. Once you get a sense of how much goes into any food making process, the difference in taste and texture begins to make sense! 

Leah is also a thoughtful businesswoman. Having worked front-of-house in restaurants, she understands the nail-biting rigors of running a business based on quixotic customer satisfaction and high built-in costs. She purposely focused on a product for a number of markets, investing in wholesale distributors who could get her product to high-end supermarkets and specialty shops as well as building on her connections with chefs at restaurants and her shop’s retail customers. 

Leah’s instincts for diversification, quality, and “right size” have more than paid off. Social distancing restrictions forced her to close her retail business (with the exception of infrequent online orders), and her restaurant sales went from 30 percent to negligible due to closures in that industry. Instead, she and her employee are now working daily to produce 1,700 pounds of dried pasta each week for an expanding wholesale market. 

“When you have something that is not perishable, it makes a huge difference. People are cooking a lot more, and pasta is something they know, so they are comfortable with it. It is friendly across the spectrum of eaters and it is economical.” The niche for high quality pasta has opened wide since Italy’s own production has slowed to a trickle. The holy grail for all food producers in this country--shelf space--is suddenly wide open for small, boutique brands. “I think a lot of people are trying my pasta for the first time, because even though I can’t keep the shelves stocked, frequently my pasta is the only one available.”  

Leah’s resiliency as a small businesswoman is perhaps no surprise.

“We all have our vulnerabilities. In my case, if either my pasta dryer or extruder break, my production stops completely. But because my business is smaller and more agile, it’s easier for me to adapt my business model to keep myself and my team safe. For me a bigger challenge is trying to figure out how to scale up in a way that’s sustainable. There is an important role for my size business now in feeding our community, and for demonstrating the benefits of a more localized supply chain.”     

José Reyes, Farmer, Cortez Family Farms

Left: José Reyes, farmer. Right: José at a farmer’s market.

Twenty years ago, José’s soon to be father-in-law invited him to work on his farm. José was in construction then and felt more than capable of hard work. After a day in the fields with a picker, José was ready to quit, but his pride and work ethic stopped him. “I am one of those guys, if you tell me I can’t do something, I will do the opposite. That’s the story of my life. I run toward challenges.” Following his father-in-law’s retirement, José is now running the farm—a more than formidable challenge, even for someone with José’s moxie. 

On his twenty-acre farm, José grows celery, carrots, radishes, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries—food for people, not feed for animals. When asked about his work, he said readily,

“I love farming because it is something different from my other job. I meet people, different people. My customers—they all have their stories.” 

Pre-coronavirus, he sold small amounts of produce at a farm store but mainly rotated sales at six nearby farmers’ markets: Baywood, Los Osos, Arroyo Grande, Ojai, Morro Bay, and San Luis Obispo. After the coronavirus restrictions, each of these farmers’ markets closed temporarily. Within days, Jose was faced with dwindling access to customers and acres of berries and vegetables ready to harvest. All have since reopened, with the exception of San Luis Obispo, the largest market. To make up for a more than 50 percent loss in sales at farmers’ markets, José’s workweek has increased from five to seven days. With help from his wife and son, he offers his customers produce delivery service throughout the region. People are slowly coming back to the markets, but the numbers are nowhere near what they were. 

José’s produce boxes, now a part of his post-Covid 19 business plan.

José’s experience as a farmer and board member of the local Farmers’ Market Association leaves him with a sobering sense of realism about his future as a farmer. For now, he has made up for his loss in sales, but the personal costs are high, as he has even less time to spend with his family and his expenses leave little for retirement.

“I rent my land, and the land costs $4,000 a month. That and housing, water, supplies—all cost. For now, I break even.”

He mentioned the demographic shifts in his customer base and wonders if a desire for the convenience of pre-washed vegetables, pre-squeezed juices, and packaged food will edge out fresh, higher quality, locally produced food.

I end with a surprising source for good news.  My niece Melanie Greben is a demand science manager at Conagra Brands—the fifth largest food producer in the county and thus the diametric opposite of these little food producer/distributor engines. A demand science manager analyzes food purchasing trends and translates these into sources of information for product development—in Melanie’s case, frozen vegetables. 

She generously shared a raft of data that actually pointed toward some positive trends for the small of scale, sturdy of heart and mission. She describes five “covid themes” that represent recent buyer behavior: 

• Seeking Solutions: I am now cooking three meals a day, 21 meals a week, times however many people. I am looking at ways that different foods and different brands can provide solutions.  Melanie identified the impact on smaller food producers. “When there are shortages of known brands, people do try something new—which can be great for the little guys.” 

• Seeking Comfort and Familiarity: It feels unstable. I have a desire for comfort: baking bread and cookies and going back to the basics. 

• Seeking New Channels (that is, how people are shopping):  I may go to a grocery store instead of buying snacks from a gas station convenience store. I am buying more when I shop. I am shopping online, looking for other ways to purchase food. 

• Seeking Financial Help: I am more cash-strapped, I need value for my dollars. More from Melanie: “The top search online is for ‘frugal meals’ and ‘frugal meals near me.”

• Seeking Health and Immunity: What should I eat to stay healthy and less stressed?

So much of what we are needing, feeling, and experiencing points to what these smaller food producers do quite naturally and authentically. They are a source of beautiful, inspiring food; they offer familiarity and comfort and alternative (and possibly safer) ways to access food; and they more than meet our desire for high quality, nutritious food. 

How have your food purchasing and eating habits changed? Here are a few images of my newly forming habits. 

And for you to try, here are two recipes that celebrate the beauty and bounty of our farmers’ markets, Shortbread Crust and How To Fill it and Everyday Vinaigrette, and my favorite basic, Crème Fraiche.

Take care, stay healthy, eat consciously and well.

The Word for the Day is Hintertür!

Is it week four or five since we have exercised a sense of civic duty wrapped around dread and have for the most part stayed put in our domiciles with partners of all kinds, human and animal to wait until…?  

Whoops, this is not the path I meant to enter, as the big news has been better described by so many others. What is more uplifting for me is learning about how we have reshuffled our lives, discovering and rediscovering priorities that are quieter and less insistent, having wished so long for a break in our schedule. Now the break has come for many of us. My survey of dear friends (through shared journals, phone calls, and Zoom—thank you, technology) has revealed a pattern.

Many of us are moving more slowly, elevating what used to be described as chores to the higher calling of “home making.”

A conversation with my dear friend Julia from Dusseldorf crystalized the whole matter. When asked about how her life had changed she answered, “The word for the day is hintertür.” Of course! Hintertür is the German word for back door reminding me that the German language draws its beauty from meaning rather than sound. Hintertür—such an apt metaphor! Its meaning was clarified by Julia’s anecdote: “Last week, I needed to go to the bank, but saw a long line of people waiting and thought, ‘this will never do.’ And so, I walked around to the back of the bank where they have a hintertür. No one was there. I walked in and took care of my business. I have always lived my life this way, going through the back door.” Many of us are living by reconsidering the back door—less obvious ways to invest our lives with meaning without the usual props. 

The many faces of dear friend Julia. 

Keep Calm and Bake On, Friends!*

For me, my love of food preparation has become almost an ethical challenge, as I truly am invested in wasting nothing. “Refrigerator foraging”  is now a requirement, as food shopping is not the last-minute inspiration it used to be. Scraps of this and that become soups, fried rice, savory tarts, fruit curds, and pavlovas (grapefruit and passion fruit curds are made from egg yolks—what to do with all those egg whites?).

But even more inspiring is the beautiful alchemy of sourdough bread. It is made of so little—sourdough starter, flour, salt, and water—and returns so much.

Sourdough bread is the hintertür of bread preparation. Not because it saves time, but because it enriches the time you have. It is so incredibly inefficient and inconsistent—the opposite of ready-made. And it is perfect for this time, this place. Most of us have flour (King’s Roost, Central Milling, Grist and Toll, King Arthur) water and salt. Sourdough starter is one of life’s great “shares.” However, sourdough is challenging enough to keep us stimulated as these simple ingredients mean there is nothing to distract from error. Your bread is either dense and as tightly structured as a curling stone or it is a light and flavorful crusty dome. 

Image by Simone Rein

And sourdough bread can be made from a dizzying yet inspiring variety of wheat and other grains. Their names and descriptions are mysterious enough to add poetic flair to this very basic ingredient—hard white, rye, farro, spelt, red fife to name a few—all milled into variations of flour that become bread. Every step of bread baking is aesthetic to me as it is a completely sense-based experience. To begin with the sourdough starter, my friend and bread master Roe Sie describes a good starter as smelling faintly of bananas, ripe ones at that.  My starter was given to me by good friend and brilliant cook, Mario Rodriguez. He calls his starter “Paloma’s little sister,” as he began baking bread when his daughter was born. 

You rely on the senses of smell and touch rather than time and measurement. There is something called hydration ratio (the ratio of water to flour):  each type of flour behaves differently, so the amount of flour to water is not a constant. There is dough fermentation and proofing (aka rising): its readiness for baking is dependent on whether the day is warm or cold, the strength of your starter, and if the gluten has been stretched enough to transform the dough from a ragged mess into a springy, cohesive ball. 

Bread baking mastery almost always means learning the old-fashioned way, with a mentor by your side. My bread baking masters include some of the greats who have literally walked (no running with sourdough) me through every step of the process. 

From left to right:

Sumi Chang: her bread became the standard of what we could be eating outside of France.

The late, great Joseph Shuldiner and Eric Knudsen, who continues to inspire: the bridge builders to all bread baking “newbies.”

Joseph Abrakjian: He allowed me to “stage” at Seed bakery. I weighed bread dough and watched him work. 

Roe Sie: He teaches the joys of milling your own flour and combining grains. 

Masako Yatabe Thomsen: The most generous of bread baking mentors, she found every mistake I made when my boules came out of the oven resembling flattened berets. I milled my grain too coarsely and so it was too heavy to rise: I didn’t stretch the dough consistently or with real energy; I under-proofed the dough—”it needs to became almost jiggly with a few bubbles emerging on the surface”.

Do you Sharpen Your Shovels? 

I know this is becoming ridiculously arcane, but isn’t this the point of it all at the moment?

We have this odd feeling of spaciousness and choice within the context of unprecedented restriction.

Why not allow ourselves to go down the rabbit hole of healthy obsessions? 

I know I am not alone. Central Milling, one of my go-to flour suppliers, actually took a break from business to catch up with their vast backlog of mail orders. I am planning two face time sourdough instruction sessions with friends. For the first time in my life, I crested a wave early. 

A coda to end. I send to you all a photo of my husband Eric’s shovels. Why? Because he took the time to sharpen them. Something else for all of us hintertür folks to consider as a sweet, small accomplishment. 

Further reading on the beauty of sourdough bread with thanks to good friend, Anna Ganahl. 

Some of my favorite bread baking resources. Brilliant Bread is my favorite.

And thanks to Erik Knudsen, news of a more than delightful way to participate in the science of sourdough. Yay nerds!

And of course, some recipes considering simple ingredients, most made of a bit of this and that along with one for making your own starter.

Fruit Curd From Unlikely Sources

Beautiful Roasted Salad

Zucchini and Spinach Soup

Gnudi Bianchi (Gnocchi)

King Arthur Sourdough Starter

May you all stay healthy in body and in spirit. 

*From the Central Milling website.

The Perfect is the Enemy of the Good*

Illustration by Simone Rein

 

*attributed to Voltaire

FireFall

Fall at last.
Heat came too early
and stayed too long.
All summer I dreamed
of fog-shrouded beaches,
walks on thick-leafed paths
under trees bearded with wisdom.

The wind is not spice.
It is heavy with the scent of
charred sycamore and
Home Depot specials.
I spend hours sorting
my belongings in my head.
What would I take?
What leave behind?

And through the days
when fire wraps and cooks
me into a hard brown nut,
I am prepared to start over,
forget the dreams I’ve lived.
Like the earth, I drink
the hard liquor of reality.

Fire, earthquake, flood,
things lose their meaning.
Soggy or turned to ash,
form no longer holds.
Yes, I can see myself wizened
and leak proof, afloat,
memories chittering around me
like so many children.

There are burdens I would not go without.

Published on December 20, 2017  in Environment/Wildfires in Poets Reading the News by Beverly Lafontaine

This post has haunted me for months since my most recent visit to Ojai in June. I originally envisioned it as a return to the impact of the Thomas Fire, a “story” that has receded for most of us since its devastation last December. Our attention has more recently been claimed by another fire-news cycle—this time the Carr Fire in Northern California, burning for more than a month and destroying nearly 230,000 acres before containment in August.

Something that I heard in Ojai, from Peter Strauss, actor and citrus farmer, released a cascade of long-held assumptions and redirected this post toward exploring the yin and yang of environmental sustainability and and our need for a reliable food source. 

The wind changed direction from east to west, from the orchards toward the town. Fire fighters believe that the massive fields that had been irrigated saved the town.

Peter Strauss, actor and citrus farmer/gardener

View through the window at Ojai's Peppertree Retreat.

Beautiful Ojai, a balm that opens my heart whenever I approach from Highway 150, is a community that also poses serious questions about the future of our state's identity as the country’s most valuable farming resource. Any discussion of agriculture begins and ends with water. Scale, heritage, and the wobbly definitions of “organic” add to an already loaded subject. In a wide-ranging conversation, Peter gently—and sometimes forcefully—confronted me with the unexplored implications of what I had considered thoughtful, sustainable consumption. 

Meaning

How we eat determines, to a considerable extent, how the world is used.

Wendell Berry

Citrus farm in Ojai, June of 2018

Describing himself as an advocate for growing “healthy, tasty, nutritious food,” Peter turned quickly to the potentially devastating impact of growing produce without some form of defense against an increasing range of threats. As a farmer, he said, “I am aware of the fungus, insect, and weed world. Every year, there are new insects in our world. There is a new ‘Bug 273,’ and we rely on UC Davis to tell us how to rid ourselves of this bug. At the moment, our defenses are chemical. In Florida, farmers are faced with the insect borne Greening disease, now decimating the citrus crop. And think of the amazing number of gophers that are no longer kept in check by hawks or coyotes.”

Our conversation suggests that the term “organic” has become an exercise in opportunistic semantics. According to Peter, there are 17 derivations of the word. Other words, natural, farm-fresh, local add to a sense of healthfulness—that has little to do with actual quality. Organic certification, a costly and for many farmers, impossible standard, is monitored by a relatively small number of inspectors as few as 80, Peter told me, for the entire country. 

I felt obliged to reexamine my own notions of “pure” food, of one apple exceeding another in flavor, delight, and health because of the ubiquitous sticker that identifies it as “organic.” 

How do we reconcile the vast abundance of farming communities such as Ojai, the cost differential inherent in organic produce with urban communities whose access to nutrition is described as food deserts?

Desire

Our land use is based on how we eat and how we eat is based on unreasonable behavior.

Peter Strauss

Evolving consumer tastes toward ease of use have changed the way we farm. The Pixie tangerine, a relative newcomer to Ojai, is popular not only for its taste, but because it is easy to peel and a convenient size. Valencia oranges, representing a majority of Ojai’s historic crops, are made for juicing—and surely nothing tastes better than a freshly squeezed glass of orange juice! Yet purchasing a generous bag of oranges, no matter how inexpensive, has been largely supplanted by more efficient forms of consumption. The underwhelming taste of bottled orange juice, requiring pasteurization to extend shelf life, can deflect the uninitiated fresh juice drinker. And on Ojai’s Gifferson Road, which runs parallel to Highway 126 between Santa Clarita and Santa Paula, the citrus trees are covered with white gauze to prevent bee pollination, which produces the flowers that in turn create seeds. The desire for seedless fruit as a convenience means fewer bees, the world’s most important pollinator of food crops. 

Small and Nearly Perfect

In Ojai, as in many other agricultural communities, alternative farming methods are developing. Permaculture designed to channel and reuse irrigation water is an example. Such measures are almost always quite small in scale,  and therefore do not affect a large market of consumers. The small size of these farms means flexibility, with a focus on developing sustainable practices and educating consumers over production quotas. 

Eclectic farm stands along Thatcher Road in Ojai. Payment is on the honor system.

How does the innovation of the small and the individual support whole system change?

“Some efficiencies should be conducted within whole systems; for example, lined channels to conduct water. There are a lot of unlined channels in California’s farmland functioning like streams, but the ground all around them is saturated. These irrigation “streams” do not provide habitat; rather habitat is stripped. Nor do they direct water to crops or help to replenish our ground water. A single farmer concerned with sustainable practice can make adjustments. But for meaningful impact, these practices need to be scaled up and in a collaborative way on all fronts.” Kitty Connolly, executive director of the Theodore Payne Foundation.

Kitty Connolly at the Theodore Payne Foundation office.

The Golden Mean

Ventura County’s water comes from one source, Lake Casitas, dependent entirely on rainfall to “re-charge.” After years of severe drought, Lake Casitas hovers between 32 and 34% of its capacity. As its future is uncertain, Ventura County is looking at alternative water sources including accessing the California Aqueduct, a long-term project requiring significant political will and financing. Its timeline may exceed the lifespan of its Lake.

What do you say in terms about a state that has this connection to agriculture, a community that is built upon the legacy of family farms?” Question posed to Kitty Connelly.

First of all, I have to say is that I eat food; I do it every day. So, I can’t vilify food production entirely, because I eat food that is grown in California. I even grow my own food. I think there is no way to be pure on this issue. There is no way to be pure on basically any issue.

Kitty Connolly

There is a tremendous joy in growing fruit. No farmer I know is making money. They are breaking even at best.

Peter Strauss

 A single almond requires a gallon of water to produce; this reliance is evident in the acres and acres of fallow fields and dying trees in California’s drought-stricken Central Valley. Persimmons, pomegranates, and cactus are now emerging as sustainable crops, supplanting the unrealistic water requirements of more traditional farm produce. Fortunately, consumer tastes appear to be bending to availability. Peter farms eight acres of navel and twenty-two of Valencia oranges. He has switched out eight acres of citrus for cactus and is now experimenting with juices and tequila.  He waters at night to prevent evaporation; uses drip irrigation to encourage longer, deeper, more drought-tolerant root structures; and even uses a bucket in the shower. “That’s one rose’s need per shower!”

An example of challenge creating abundance and innovation. Some of Bolivia’s 4,000 native potato varieties cultivated for their ability to withstand extreme elevation (over 12,000 feet) and cold. They are a revelation in taste and are nutritious too.

A dish from Restaurant Gustu in La Paz, Bolivia—builds its tasting menus on Bolivian native food products including potatoes.

Between 1975 and 2005, Los Angeles County’s water usage has not increased despite a growth in population of more than a million people. An investment in water conservation began in the mid 90's with a suit brought against the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power District to restore and protect Mono Lake by a coalition of local, state, and national organizations. The Aqueduct's design diverted all water from the Mono Lake Basin.  The strategy has moved from confrontation to monitoring, education, and access, including the distribution of more than 40,000 low-flow toilets. The Rush and Lee Vining Creeks are now flowing again into the Lake, reviving and restoring its ecology. 

The original goal of the Theodore Payne Foundation was to encourage Los Angeles County residents to return to native plants as a way of supporting natural habitats and reducing pests. Drought has shifted its conversation to both incremental and larger scale changes that can affect water conservation practice and policy. 

I am left searching for balance, avoiding what Confucius and Aristotle described as extremism. In its place, is “the golden mean,” or the middle way. There are no simple answers to the question of need, desire, and reality. Practices that have seemed reasonable turn out to have unintended consequences. There is a case to be made for the small and the incremental; its impact is built by individuals working in common for long-term change. There is likewise a case to be made for beginning with confrontation when there is no time for evolution. There is sadness in the prospect of losing California’s traditional farm heritage and excitement in the possibility of evolving both acreage and consumer taste toward water-wise crops. There is a case to be made for sustainable farm practices that avoid the overuse of pesticides but do not rule out their judicious use. Quality and sufficient food for all, no matter what a person’s income, should be a right. 

To conclude this overly long post, I suggest a number of activities along with a recipe for Nopal Salad courtesy of Mario Rodriguez, friend and consummate cook.

Visit Theodore Payne Foundation. Wander among the plants, close your eyes, sniff the beautiful fragrance, and notice the butterflies, bees, and the absence of pests.

Follow our water situation by clicking on Kitty’s favorite link, The United States Drought Monitor

Buy a bag of Valencia oranges and squeeze a few to make yourself a glass of juice. Close your eyes and taste.

Breakfast from foraging Ojai’s farm stands. A boiled egg and fresh orange juice.

Till next time.

Summer on Steroids

The Urban Forager Returns...

Writer Octavia Butler’s calendar notations from the 2017 exhibition Octavia E. Butler: Telling My Stories, at the Huntington Library. I love the internal exhortations to keep going.

Summertime used to be slo-mo time. School was out; some lucky folk experienced a real vacation time.  But now, I find myself working around the temperature rather than the clock; vacations are staggered; school schedules are no longer three months based on the “agrarian calendar.” Walking begins in the early dawn, racing against the waves of heat that begin well before noon. I squeeze in productive activity as all bets are off in the late afternoon. At some point, usually well after the sun goes down, I re-awaken to catch the cool.  Has summertime lost its unspooling quality? When was the last time you sat outside for a good part of the day, feeling warm rather than blast-furnace air? Did you, like me, sit under a generously spreading tree, reading a book until overtaken by sleep?

Spun silk of mercy,

long-limbed afternoon,

sun urging purple blossoms from baked stems.   

What better blessing than to move without hurry   

under trees?

Last August Hours Before the Year 2000

Naomi Shihab Nye

Since my last post honoring Mother’s Day well back in May, my summer ritual all but disappeared, overtaken by a publishing deadline for The Urban Forager: Culinary Exploring & Cooking on L.A.'s Eastside. Writing a cookbook, with its exacting requirements, is not for the faint of heart. Its gestation is longer than the carrying time for a baby elephant, and the finished product evinces none of the intensity of the process. As a bridge between pre-cookbook Urban Forager and post-cookbook Urban Forager, I cannot help but share some of its in-process content, as the back story to creation so often includes unseen commitment and labor. 

The most inspiring part of this work was searching for and connecting with some of the eastside’s great cooks. Of the five profiled—Sumi Chang, Minh Phan, Rumi Mahmood, Mario Rodriguez, and Jack Aghoian—three are home cooks whose journey towards expertise is both inspiring and feasible. All have been extraordinarily welcoming and supportive; their generosity contributing as well to an unexpected side effect of this project: a fifteen-pound weight gain.

Sumi Chang, Jack Aghoian with his parents Mary and Abraham, Minh Phan, Rumi Mahmood, and Mario Rodriguez. Photos by Ann Cutting.

Their stories are enriched by family members, mentors, and in the case of Rumi and Minh, links between their home countries' food cultures with their adopted country’s possibilities. Of the five, I knew only Sumi and Mario personally. The other three received an email from me out of the blue, asking them to participate in a cookbook that until recently was without a publisher. Each gave me liberal amounts of their personal time, so necessary for a cookbook that depends upon understanding of origin and authentic cooking style. I treasured sitting down with each of these cooks, interviewing them, hearing about their early experiences with food, and then working with a gifted young illustrator, Simone Rein, on visualizing these influences through the metaphor of a personalized table overflowing with delights. 

Onil Chibas, left, inspirational chef and friend, who suggested Rumi as a cook to be profiled in The Urban Forager.

I stood side by side with each of these cooks, watching them work, tracking each step as they made one beautiful dish after another. In all cases, photographer Ann Cutting and I ate what was made, meaning we were treated to pozole, lemon bars, saag, shrimp dopiaza, jahl ghost curry, vegan rice porridge, guacamole, cabbage rolls, yogurt, negi oil, nut cookies, salsa, and frittata. In some cases, the recipes were reverse engineered at every step for dishes that had never been recorded. In others, a recipe was more than ingredients and steps, but a way into understanding the qualities of a great cook.

In documenting Rumi's recipes, we managed to combine our work with a four-course, elegantly presented meal. Between each course, Ann and I ran outside where the light was better to capture a newly plated dish.

A sampling of Rumi's gorgeous food, including his Jhal Gohst Beef Curry (left). Photos by Ann Cutting.

Simone's first sketch of Rumi's Table of Influences and the final drawing. Each table went through a number of revisions as the cooks considered how their food history made visual sense. 

The words of each cook reveal a conviction that cooking is a form of energizing, creative delight rather than a chore.

One thing I decided is that people who love to cook do so because they are all aesthetic.

Rumi

The markets in New Mexico were so physically beautiful. They had these corn kernels that were almost blue. They have this sensual quality of food that you either get or you don’t. My jaw kept falling!

Sumi 

Bags of chile powder at the Sucre Central Market in Bolivia.

The reason I am a cook is that my greatest creativity came out when I made something from whatever I could find in the refrigerator. This began in my childhood and continues today. 

Minh

Cooking is like breathing. I pride myself on making something from nothing and don’t use a recipe.

Jack 

Minh foraging for ingredients at the late, great Muir Ranch. Photo by Ann Cutting.

I have a starter for bread. I tell my daughter Paloma it is her big sister because when Monica was pregnant, I decided to start my first starter dough with my own wild yeast trap and it’s fine. It's almost nine years old.

Mario

Twenty-One Hour Boule, one of the simplest recipes for so much deliciousness. Photo by Ann Cutting.

Writing the cookbook has felt seamless: a natural expression of my belief in community's variations on the common table. Watch for more stories as the journey to its publication continues. And in the meantime, may you find a quiet moment within our overheated days and enjoy a cooling dish of Rumi's Saag, More to come! 

Mother's Day

My daughter Nori with her son Alex on his birth day.      Nori at 4 months with me. 

The most complex of all relationships is noted one day a year on Mother’s Day. In looking up its history, something stood out—a requirement by Anna Jarvis, the day’s originator, that “Mother’s should be a singular possessive for each family to honor its own mother, not a plural possessive commemorating all mothers in the world.”:

As a daughter and stepdaughter, mother and stepmother, and grandmother, I return today to Anna’s original non-commercialized intent. I was interested in culling from my neighbors and friends, a sense of their family food history through childhood recipes. This “simple” subject multiplied  into many—homemaking, siblings, family celebrations, and in some cases deep struggle. The fulcrum of all stories was the mother. Mine is too, as I navigated two intensely meaningful relationships, each quite different; and in my mother’s case challenging enough to compel an acceptance of inconsistency and evolution. My mother has never been my true north; this was my stepmother Margie's role—one she took up joyfully. But my mother’s own fragility has led me to an awareness that we all have lives that began and will extend well beyond our time as mothers and that nurturing can be found in many places. 

My mother and me at the beach, our favorite outing.                                    Margie and me at work together.        

“Lost really has two disparate meanings. Losing things is about the familiar falling away, getting lost is about the unfamiliar appearing.”

Rebecca Solnit, A Field Guide to Getting Lost

Being compelled to look within and without for nurturing, meant a habit of extending myself more widely and more hopefully into the world—be it neighborhood, the common history of friendship, or the glancing intimacies of community.

Drive-by Affirmation 

A bit west of us, someone writes single sentence affirmations on a large chalkboard. I now look for this sign as I drive along Woodbury Road. Most memorable was, “You are seen;” so similar to the Zulu greeting, Sawubona,meaning, “I see you” and by extension,  “I see your humanity. I see your dignity.”

Is it possible that an entire culture can embrace what we understand as the deepest form of nurturing—of being seen and therefore understood? 

I See You: a collection of mother/daughter portraits of friends and neighbors. Each mother gazes directly at her daughter.  

• I see you: Jo LaVonne Ewing and her mother Nell Brown Smith Chism, top left 
• I see you: Trish Pengra and her mother Rose Majewski Farrow, top right 
• I see you: Hope Tschopik Schneider and her mother Marion Hutchinson Tschopik, bottom right 
• I see you: Doris Hausmann and her mother Hilda Hausmann, bottom left  

Neighborhood Comfort 

Trish lives across the street in a craftsman house that extends its greeting through a wide porch and at times, the sound of her playing the piano. After a harried day of moving into our home over a year ago, she arrived on our doorstep with a lasagna and cookies in hand. The next day, without my usual hesitation, I asked to use her dryer, soon carrying a basket of wet clothes across the street. Somehow, I knew I could ask for help. 

Our kitchen window overlooking Jo's house. 

Our next-door neighbor Jo’s kitchen window and back deck align with ours allowing the pleasure of casual connection. Although she must have endured more than her share of house construction noise and filth, she never complained. Well before our move in date—impatient to feel a sense of belonging—I placed a teapot on the counter by the window. She came by to let me know how happy she was to see this sign of life—as it meant the house was becoming  a home. 

The Connection of Common History

Barbara and I were two social orphans brought together through the intercession of Miss Rosen, our eighth-grade Home Room teacher at Bancroft Junior High School. I wonder if this teacher has any idea about how she changed the course of our lives. We now tell the story as family lore about our first conversation—ending with the discovery that we both loved to make art. This toe-hold of interest led to the building of a common history; almost family and more than family; Barbara is my dearest friend. 

Peggy, an acquaintance within Pasadena's busy community of non-profits became something much more so after a walk taken together through our neighborhood. We found uncommon parallels in our personal histories, leaving us both stunned and connected. We speak and feel in a shorthand that comes through the familiarity of our common history—mothers who struggled with depression, fathers absent at times due to work in the foreign service, stepmothers named Margie. 

From Rose's Homemaking Notebook, a collection of recipes, practical hints, and ephemera. 

Marriages are Made in Kitchens, from the This n' That section of  Rose's Homemaking Notebook. Trish's mother and father came from disconnected and at times neglectful families. Her father described his greatest accomplishment as creating "a happy family" of eight with his wife Rose. 

From Jo's mother Nell's recipe for Apple Pie. Jo's family is from Kentucky, land of excellent sweets. (Pickle relish is a common savory ingredient.)

The Security of the Familiar

This week, I include family recipes from my friends and neighbors in their original form—a scrap of paper, the ubiquitous index card, and three ring notebook paper. Our mothers’ recipes assume knowledge that comes from learning side-by-side with them. The directions are brief and only make sense if knowing family context, history, and flavors. They are loved for more reasons than just taste. 

Margie’s Baked Lamb Chops

Rose’s Sugared Crunch, Honey Crisp Bars, Crispy Peanut Squares

Nell’s Angel Biscuits and One Crust Apple Pie with Rich Topping

Peggy’s Pavlova

Barbara’s Whipped Cream Pound Cake

“My mother and her youngest sister would get together to bake around Christmas time. They watched the sales for butter and sugar and confered about how many batches to make. They made ten types of cookies and shared them out. When my aunt went back to work, my mom and I continued to bake together. I would take a day off of work, as we baked all day. When I bake now, I do so, to remember those days with my mom.” 

                                                                                                                                      Trish Pengra

“One thing that we have for Thanksgiving or Christmas or sometimes both is my mom’s apple pie—a kind of Dutch apple with butter, brown sugar and flour that is crumbled over the top. My son makes it now and my nephew loves to cook”

Jo LaVonne Ewing  

And to end; it is definitely time for a poem.

Nurture

From a documentary on marsupials I learn

that a pillowcase makes a fine

substitute pouch for an orphaned kangaroo.

I am drawn to such dramas of animal rescue.

They are warm in the throat. I suffer, the critic proclaims,

from an overabundance of maternal genes.

Bring me your fallen fledgling, your bummer lamb,

lead the abused, the starvelings, into my barn.

Advise the hunted deer to leap into my corn.

And had there been a wild child—

filthy and fierce as a ferret, he is called

in one nineteenth-century account—

a wild child to love, it is safe to assume,

given my fireside inked with paw prints,

there would have been room.

Think of the language we two, same and not-same,

might have constructed from sign,

scratch, grimace, grunt, vowel:

Laughter our first noun, and our long verb, howl.

By Maxine Kumin

Happy Mother's Day!

Our Springtime Ritual is Renewal

Spring has returned. The earth is like a child that knows poems.

Rainer Maria Rilke

This year, the confluence of Easter and Passover meant that many of us were gathered with family and friends, eating meals inspired both by metaphor and tradition. As someone who loves to cook, I re-entered my family’s heritage by beginning something we call “The Cousins Passover.” This tradition began over twenty-five years ago, and for the most part, my extended family and friends have met around a growing table every year. In the off years, like this one, I feel a sense of loss. For some reason, I kept track of the Seder dinner—what we served and who came—perhaps at first to critique the meal and as a way to improve upon it for the next year. These notes to myself changed over the years. They now tend to speak more about how it felt to be together and less about the food. The span of time chronicles our children’s maturation into adulthood and the aging and death of older generations.

Passover notes to myself.

Passover, Easter, and Ramadan are markers of early and late spring, physical and spiritual renewal, and connection. The Passover Seder is a particularly apt ritual for holding ideas in physical form. The food eaten is a vivid teacher as the contrast of salty and sweet, rich and bitter lead us through a series of emotions tied to one story of exodus. From a single family’s gathering around the symbols of exodus, the connection to other stories is seamless--an entry into larger communities and universal ideas.

The Seder plate’s symbolic foods: a lamb shank; sweet greens, bitter herbs--maror, a nut and fruit paste-haroset, and a boiled egg. Photos by Ann Cutting.

For this week’s post, I describe two such stories: The Conflict Kitchen and This Land, an extraordinary play written by Evangeline Ordaz and produced last year by the Company of Angels Theater.

Photo courtesy of The Conflict Kitchen.

The Conflict Kitchen, located in in Pittsburgh, was both restaurant and community organizing platform that served cuisine from countries “with which the United States is in conflict.” Its organizers understood how a common table’s comfort and intimacy could ease entry into discussions about countries, cultures, and people that are little known outside of polarizing rhetoric. Its restaurant served the cuisine of Iran, Afghanistan, Venezuela, North Korea, Haudenosaunee or the Iroquois Confederacy, and Palestine.

Food is wrapped in colorful paper with the story of the maker, the culture, and the country.

Although the restaurant closed, the Conflict Kitchen plans to expand its educational work throughout the greater Pittsburgh region with the production of curriculum, performances, public events and publications in partnership with cultural institutions, community organizations, and schools.

Armando Molina, Artistic Director, Evangeline Ordaz, playwright, Company of Angels

This Land spans a 150-year period of stories emerging from four families. They all lived on a particular plot of Southern California land first known by the Native Americans who lived there--the Tongva, then Rancho La Tajauta, a Mexican land grant, and now Watts. The play shifts continuously between different time periods (the 1840’s, the 1940’s, the 1960’s, and the 1990’s) and in doing so, vividly describes the displacement, overlap, and intersection of these families through a montage of languages, characters, experience, and food.

“Stories can be epic and personal at the same time. This Land is the story of humanity. When we have these big conversations, we are not aware of historical context, but it informs how we relate to one other.

I have a close relationship with a family who I based some of the characters on. The food they eat was my introduction to Louisiana soul food. Louisiana had been under the Spanish crown and it went back and forth between the Spanish and French. Another connection between African-Americans and immigrant Latino cultures is that, as a result of oppression, they have experienced a great deal of poverty. So,they made do with what was thrown away by the rich--organ meat. We, Latinos eat chicharrones; African-Americans eat chitlins. I was sorting out the characters and food became a theme. What would we have in common with slight variations? At the end of the play, these cultures broke bread having a chitlin taco, Louisiana pot roast with prickly pear. Food captures culture.”

Evangeline Ordaz

In spring, there can be a sense of hopefulness; a sense of renewal after winter, after conflict. I leave you with recipes of the season and a a poem that captures where these ideas have left me, for this day, for this time. 

After the Winter

Some day, when trees have shed their leaves

     And against the morning’s white

The shivering birds beneath the eaves

     Have sheltered for the night,

We’ll turn our faces southward, love,

     Toward the summer isle

Where bamboos spire the shafted grove

     And wide-mouthed orchids smile.

And we will seek the quiet hill

     Where towers the cotton tree,

And leaps the laughing crystal rill,

     And works the droning bee.

And we will build a cottage there

     Beside an open glade,

With black-ribbed blue-bells blowing near,

     And ferns that never fade.

Claude McKay

The Unseen

When I was a young dancer, many, many years ago, I learned the well-known aphorism, “Don’t let them see you sweat.” In the ballet world, this is largely true. It is why I never sit too close to the stage. I, like many in the audience, want to allow myself a momentary suspension of disbelief: to imagine that this beauty emerges from magic, not grindingly, physical, relentless work.

As I dip my toe further into the world of food, cooks, chefs and purveyors, I am becoming more and more aware of the effort, care and experience behind the exquisite plate of deliciousness that I often devour in minutes. A growing media industry profiles the story of exceptional chefs, many of whom flame out in a few years. The gap between what is envisioned and what is possible is often too great to imagine or accept.

The back story is the front story in this week’s post. In this case, I discovered individuals who are able to balance the wobbly line between what is and what could be—lessons for us all.

A hike in Ojai

Early this year, shortly after the extraordinarily destructive Thomas Fire, Julia, a friend from Germany, and I travelled to Ojai. We were not there to gawk, as this was to be a restful few days planned well before the fires. We soldiered on, driving the back route that has always been my favored way into Ojai. In times past, this is a route to decompression, beginning in Santa Clarita, where highway 126 leads through California farm country and quiets even further at Santa Paula, where the 150 cuts off. But this year, the 150 was a moonscape: acres and acres of blackened trees, a wall or foundation, sometimes the only evidence of a home. The downtown area of Ojai was untouched. Other than the residual smell of smoke and the many banners expressing gratitude to the first responders, this epic story could be forgotten at least momentarily. 

Shelf Road Trail mini landslides, not visible unless we look carefully.

The Shelf Road Trail was open and despite the burn, offered the expansive, heart opening views that are Ojai. A small group of engineers and soils scientists from nearby Ventura were gathered at the trail’s mouth, assessing the damage and the potential danger of future rain storms. Julia and I had been looking out at the horizon and up at the sky, but not at our feet, where hopeful shoots of green were sprouting here and there through the bare earth. Dawn, one of the soil scientists, pointed out the various mini-slides and described the back story she carried as part of her deep knowledge. “Even though you think you see green stuff, there is a slide here a slide there. Our normal flow is loosened; our vegetation will never be the same again. It is a high risk for mud slides for seven years.” Our hike ended after a short mile, when the damage became increasingly noticeable.

This experience, while sobering, leaves me with a sense of gratitude to the people who choose to be extraordinarily aware and willing to see and act on what is hard to acknowledge. Dawn left us with an acceptable truth: “Stay on the trail please. We need these bits of green to grow and flourish.”

Mise en Place

This past week, I had the honor of watching one of our gifted East Side chefs Minh Phan prepare one of her signature dishes, porridge. I witnessed something far more layered and physically beautiful than any pre-conceived idea of this “homely dish.” The day began at Muir Ranch, a three-acre school garden located behind Muir High School in Pasadena. Minh wandered the rows of mustard greens, amaranth, fennel and chard, picking a few leaves or fronds of each. Her greatest find was the variegated leaves of geranium. Other than fennel, most of these “ingredients” seemed more at home in a vase than on the stove. I was wrong.

The next phase was Minh’s preparation of her mise en place. A quiet hour went by as she organized a food based still life that would challenge any Dutch Renaissance home maker. Along with her prepped ingredients, rose geranium pickled baby onions, Makrut lime compound butter and what she describes as Asian mirepoix—ginger, shallots and lemon grass—she placed at the ready edible flowers, vegetables and herbs, kumquats and habanero chilies, both as inspiration and reminder.

Minh Phan’s Mise en Place for Vegan Porridge. Photo by Ann Cutting.

Within the next hour or so, rice porridge was cooking slowly. Minh sources every ingredient with an eye to quality, saying, “People understand that a steak is worth $15, but to most a bowl of porridge –that’s hard.” But this food’s value is based on a commitment and ability to coax elusive and subtle flavors from personally foraged ingredients and carefully constructed mini-dishes. Minh describes her relationship to the food community--purveyors, makers and customers--as symbiotic: taking and giving back. She recently donated her time and food to a fundraiser for Muir Ranch. She frequents the Hollywood Market, as so many of her food suppliers from ranches and farms around Central and Southern California sell there regularly, including the source for so much of her inspiration, Koda Rice Farms. 

For those of us lucky enough to partake, Minh’s dishes are a form of exquisite alchemy--amaranth, so prevalent that it is considered by some a weed, becomes a delightfully light tempura and nettles, fennel and cilantro are blended with coconut milk for an earthy yet light green sauce.

The finished dish, “Vegan Porridge,” with pickled baby onions, negi (Japanese green onion) infused oil, green sauce of nettles, fennel, cilantro and coconut milk served with amaranth tempura –yum! Photo by Ann Cutting.

The Archeology of Mole

Benjamino Cano of Moles La Tia in East Los Angeles, mole maker for over 40 years and his El Pistachio mole. He cannot choose a favorite mole, saying they are like children, each different, but equally loved. Photos by Sally Krueger-Wyman.

And last, but certainly not least, is one of my most beloved food experiences and the inspiration for this post. Eating mole, a deceptively simple looking sauce originating in Pueblo and perfected in Oaxaca, is my idea of a beautiful journey filled with exciting discoveries. A typical mole is made up of more than 30 ingredients that somehow manage to remain distinctive and at the same time cohesive.

Some of the more than 30 ingredients in a mole. Photos by Sally Krueger-Wyman.

As I become more convinced that we live in one of the major food capitals in the world, I returned to Moles La Tia in East Los Angeles to deconstruct this dish with the help of chef Benjamino Cano and the restaurant’s long time manager, Alfonso Hererra.

Benjamino’s moles begin the night before. He toasts and soaks various chilies before grinding them along with seeds and nuts. There is broth, tortilla or bread, spices including cumin, and sometimes cinnamon infused chocolate for Mole Negro, considered the pinnacle of moles by many aficionados. I am a Pipianes type of gal, gladly trading the complexity of negro for the brightness and freshness of a pepian loaded mole. After about four hours of active work time, Benjamino’s Mole is done. He rotates making the various types on Moles La Tia's menu, to allow for time and for the tastes to meld. Day two or three is better than day one for mole.

Alfonso, who manages many of this family’s enterprises, is committed along with the owner to continuing mole despite its enormous time investment and consequent expense. The family runs a bakery and catering company, as tamales and other more quickly made food, help subsidize this true labor of love. During my visit, he insisted on treating me to one of his recommended moles, El Pistachio, a pistachio mole paired with grilled salmon. It was memorable enough to haunt me whenever my thoughts turn to mole.

My good friend and food making co-explorer, Desiree Zamorano and I made mole together, once. After eight hours and a champagne break, we were finished in more ways than one.

And to conclude --Is the Back Story the Magic?

I realize now, that knowing more about how something is formed creates its own kind of alchemy. There is something heroic and authentic in those who pursue complexity and challenge. Dawn watches out for those of us, who choose to live near some of the world's most dynamic mountain ranges. Minh leads us gently and persistently to consider the most humble growing things around us as a potential unlocked treasure and to honor and support the high-quality food makers in our state. And every day, in a simple dining room thanks to chef Benjamino, we can enjoy one of the world’s most rarified of foods. One taste and you know: it is magic. Thanks to you all.

 And for this week, instead of a recipe or two, I leave you with something equally delicious--a few moments from the revelatory film, In the Steps of Trisha Brown.