Kitchen Kwento

Z is for Zenith. The Farm In Pictures.

        Farm sunrise. When the world feels both new and old.

In three weeks, I will pack up one corner of a wood-and-canvas tent, my little nest for sleeping on the CASFS Santa Cruz farm. I will turn out my pockets to leave behind unwanted seeds, shake fine dust off of fleece blankets, and pull maps and photos off the walls. I will leave a part of myself behind here, in newly shaped beds and seeds taking root. My body will be marked, too, in the tiny, tough callouses on my palms, skin a deeper shade of brown, and fading scars that tell a story of wild blackberries.

In three weeks, six months of a farm apprenticeship will come to an end. There will be a mad exchange of phone numbers and recipes and goodbyes as 46 farm apprentices disperse back into the world, returning to home communities and waiting family or charting out new paths. That time will come. But not yet.

"Zenith" is the word that comes to mind. I am still riding on an abundance of greens, corn, carrots, onions, and more. I am still here, a sole Filipina on this one piece of land, feeling my feet plant into the soil and uprooting many more questions and emotions than I can act on, and so simply hold.

Seasons are turning. I claim a moment of stillness, knowing that soon there will be an inevitable change with the start of autumn. From this vantage point, I will share a snapshot of the past months in pictures:

In the beginning, there was cover crop. Lots of it.

This was the first picture I sent home to the parents.

Morning feels good in these hills and mountains.

Readying the soil.

Before this farm, I had never seen such an ocean of lettuce.

Tomatoes and peppers in the hoophouses


In the springtime we picked jewel-like currants.


On harvest mornings, we follow a game plan.

CSA (community supported agriculture) members pickup boxes of produce.

We saw these apples turn from buds to blossoms to slowly ripening fruits.

Some of them became delicious sweet apple pies.

A rainbow of corn.                                     

Touring friends and good folks from the Bay Area.

Patience for winter squash in the fields. They grow even as the leaves slowly senesce.

The harvest moon shone so bright.

Y is for Youth Transforming Food

Quilt Project at  Food, What?! Annual Youth Day, Santa Cruz

In the space of 5 minutes, the plain canvas squares transformed into colorful quilt blocks. Dozens of youth were asked the question, "What is one way you commit to changing food systems in your community?" With yellow, green, brown and blue markers, with crayons, and bold Sharpies, they responded.

"I commit to growing healthy food," read one quilt piece. "I will eat healthy and help my neighborhood to eat healthy," read another. "I will support small farmers."

I watched this scene unfold during the Food, What?! annual youth day here at the Santa Cruz farm. That day, over 100 youth from points spanning Watsonville to Richmond led workshops, built skills in candle-making to terrariums, rolled out pizzas and pies from scratch, and shared food under the orchard trees. They brought themselves, their stories, and their expertise - from youth organizing, urban farming, health education, to the culinary arts. These small and vibrant pieces of cloth piece only hinted at the daily work youth were driving in their communities.

That day, I and the other adult farm apprentices were invited to join as collaborators. I think it's safe to say we learned as much from the youth as we shared. I was blown away by the youth commitment to positive change, and their recognition of the root issues of privilege and power when it comes to food that, frankly, many adults struggle to even acknowledge.

If there is anything that gives me hope, it is witnessing the leadership of young people. It's true that many things are broken in this world. It is also true that our next generations are part of the transformation so desperately needed, and many are already charting the course in both big and subtle ways.

More: there's an outpouring of powerful organizations focused around youth leadership and advancing food justice. Below is a handful, including some involved with this youth day.

Youth Food Bill of Rights - because it's not just about the Farm Bill
Food, What?!
Live Real
Berkeley Youth Alternatives
Veggielution
Real Food Challenge
People's Grocery

X is for Xylem

 
Xylem: ushering the flow between roots and shoots

Two hundred and one, two hundred and two...we stood at the tail end of a line of balikbayans and red-lettered cardboard boxes jammed with gifts at the San Francisco Philippine Airlines kiosk. Even on a weekday night, this line to Manila was the most bustling of them all. As I etched my parent's Philippine address onto luggage tags, I reflected on how their return to the homeland has deeply changed our family story. This airport, this passage between here and there, embodies our family's story of two worlds. Somehow, in the movement of bodies, passports, pasalubong (gifts), embraces, through currency and translation, we had learned to build, mend and stretch a family line across the Pacific Ocean.

When I hear about Pin@ys like me in the States learning to connect to tradition, I usually hear this is about searching for roots. "Know your roots." "Be proud of your roots.""Don't be ashamed of your roots," they say. But proudly acknowledging roots is one move; embodying them, carrying them, and keeping them alive is yet another.

In the plant world, I've seen how something will survive only if the whole is nourished. Roots, stem, leaves, flower, bud - life is resilient but they all depend on the soil, sun and air that surround them. I ask what lessons plants could have for a human family, for a culture and tradition like ours living in diaspora.

To stay alive, to deepen our groundedness into the 21st century, we must go beyond the surface, go even beyond digging those proverbial roots. There must be a channel through which that sap, that nourishment can continue to flow. In Western biology, this channel is called xylem - the planet's literal veins that carries water and sap to leaf, bud and new growth. In the world I live in, this channel is called ancestor, teacher, recipe, song, and story.

The time to part finally came. All around us a hundred movies and a hundred stories unfolded. Couples embraced their goodbyes, while solo flyers put on a fixed expression, readying themselves for the next thousand miles. We, too, were our own little movie, and waved hands at each other through the glass security windows until we couldn't see each other any longer.