Perfect Summer Sunday

• Mountain View farmers' market
• Family Caltrain ride to San Carlos to have brunch at The Depot Cafe w/ Margaret, walk around Laurel St. with a long stop at The Reading Bug
• Afternoon nap
• Bike with Kaiya to the garden to graze on cherry tomatoes and raspberries
• Make some salsa with our tomatoes from our garden
• Wrap potstickers at home and have Wendy pan fry them for dinner
• Evening family stroll with Kaiya in the wagon and Cooper in tow
• Sipping boba in bed

City Dirt: Adventures in Urban Gardening

I forget how I got turned onto the City Dirt email newsletter ("The Bay Area Weekly Garden Newsletter for Foodies, Foragers, Tree-Huggers and Beauty Lovers"), but however it happened I'm glad we did. Every week's newsletter includes interesting looks at different aspects of sustainable food, such as pieces on a local chef foraging for mushrooms, an edible gardens landscaping business, a book by a local urban homesteader in Oakland (Farm City), and an upcoming class on Sat, 6/12 in SF on how to grow your own shiitake mushroom log at home (I wish we could go!).

Maria Finn maintains the City Dirt website and has written her own book, a little piece of earth: how to grow your own food in small spaces. So inspiring to read about all the cool stuff that people are doing around sustainable food.

Finding Sustainable Food While Traveling

I was pleasantly surprised to find a touch of sustainable food on our recent visit to Las Vegas of all places. We visited 2 restaurants in particular, Enoteca San Marco (Mario Batali owned restaurant in the Venetian) and Bradley Ogden in Caesar's (who also owns Parcel 104 in Santa Clara), that highlighted sustainable, locally grown food on their menus. Since we're just visitors, we will likely never have the opportunity to know the farmers or visit the local farms where these restaurants get their food. But just to read their names on the menu, know that they were supplying some of the food that I was eating, and that the restaurants were making an effort to make that connection for me was satisfying enough.

Although there is definitely a PR grab that factors into this, reading the various articles (here and here) about Mario Batali raising the profile of a farmers' markets and local farms in Las Vegas is still interesting nonetheless.

Exploring New Places: Alameda

It never ceases to amaze us how many communities and neighborhoods make up the San Francisco Bay Area - we can spend every weekend exploring new places and only see a fraction of what is here.

We spent the afternoon today exploring Alameda - starting with a couple fun stops on the Alameda Backyard Chicken Coop Tour where Kaiya pet some chickens, followed by a quick stop at the Alameda Marketplace where we picked up some tasty fried chicken, roasted beets and garlic noodles from Culina and a baguette and cookies from Feel Good Bakery, a drive down Park Street where it looks like the most interesting restaurants and shops in Alameda are (including Dan's Fresh Produce that Opportunity Fund just made a loan to), and then a stroll along the Alameda beach enjoying the view of San Francisco and watching people play in the water and fly kites.

Farmers Market Chatter

[Kaiya at farmer's market next to 4-5 yr old girl holding a head of fennel]

Kaiya [yells and pointing]: Fennel!

Girl [smiling and nodding]: My parents used to grow fennel in our garden.

Kaiya [matter of factly]: My dada does grow fennel in our garden!

[Anthony smiling and all sorts of amused.]

Drive Less Challenge Is On!

For the next 2 weeks (Thurs, 4/22 through Wed, 5/6), we will be participating in the Drive Less Challenge, sponsored by the cities of Mountain View, Palo Alto, Menlo Park and Burlingame. It's an opportunity for people to win prizes and engage in friendly competition around walking, biking, and taking public transit more - and driving less.

Although we already walk/bike/train to lots of places (work, garden, to restaurants on Castro St), it's an opportunity to think about other opportunities to travel in an eco-friendly manner. The biggest opportunities might be biking to Kaiya to daycare (2 miles roundtrip everyday) and other errands around town (Whole Foods, etc.).

We Can Save Deer Hollow Farm!

We went to a farm tour at Deer Hollow Farm today. Located in the Rancho San Antonio Preserve in the Cupertino/Los Altos/Palo Alto foothills, it is a wonderful little educational farm with animals and a small garden. We pet the sheep and goats, fed the chickens and ducks, saw the baby pigs sleeping, stared at the big cows, and wandered around the garden full of fennel, leeks, radishes and carrots.

Unfortunately, Deer Hollow Farm is facing potential drastic funding cuts from the City of Mountain View. We hope that as many supporters of the farm as possible can contact the city to express their support and keep the farm open!

Inspirational Story - New Roots Community Farm

This is a quick, inspiring read in the LA Times about New Roots Community Farm - community gardening, sustainable food, immigrants from war-torn countries building community and gaining access to healthy food.

Too Many (Good) Choices

So much cool stuff going on next Saturday, April 17, and not enough time to do it all!

First, we really want to go to the Deer Hollow Farm tour. Deer Hollow is an educational working farm at Rancho San Antonio Park park in the Los Altos/Mountain View/Palo Alto foothills. It would be a great way to see, pet and learn about the pigs, cows, goats and other animals on the farm. Here are pics from their last farm tour in March.

We also just learned that Morris Grassfed Beef is having a Field Day that same day - and a BBQ and picnic with delicious grass fed beef and learning about more about the ranch sounds great.

Our neighbors are having a birthday party for their 2 yr old daughter, Fausta, at Foothills Park in Palo Alto, which sounds like a great place for a fun kiddie birthday party.

Hidden Villa is hosting a mozzarella and chevre making class in the afternoon from 4-6pm!

And Pie Ranch has their 3rd Saturday of the month volunteer work day and barnyard dance.

What to do?

Planting Blueberry Plants

We planted blueberry plants this weekend! Along with our existing raspberry and strawberry plants, we're looking forward to a summer munching on yummy berries.

Thanks Ollie and Melanie for the inspiration and help to plant our blueberry plants!