Kaiya & Daddy Making Mushroom Soup

Daddy and Kaiya made mushroom soup over the weekend, using portabellos, shiitakes and brown button mushrooms we bought from Far West Fungi at the Mountain View farmer's market. We feel lucky to have a great selection of fresh mushrooms so close.

Especially since Far West Fungi only sells at a few locations in San Francisco (including the Ferry Building) and the Mountain View farmer's market.

Kaiya had a lot of fun making the soup, especially using the hand blender. =)

An Abundance of Sustainable Meat

We feel lucky enough to have an abundance of local options to buy sustainably raised meat on a regular basis:

• Mountain View farmer's market on Sundays: TLC Ranch (sustainably raised lamb and pork) Pampero Longhorn Ranch (grass-fed beef), and a vendor that sells free-range organic chicken
• Sunnyvale farmer's market on Saturdays: vendor that can't remember the name of (sustainably raised beef)
• Country Sun Natural Foods in Palo Alto: Marin Sun Farms (beef) and free-range chicken
• Grocery stores like Piazza's in Palo Alto and Whole Foods in Los Altos

And now with the holiday season here, there are two more special events in the next week or so where even more sustainable meat is being sold:

• Sat, 12/19, 10:30am-noon, Hidden Villa in Los Altos: sustainably raised lamb and pork from Hidden Villa's working farm - more info in their Animal Program newsletter
• Sat, 12/20, 9am-noon, "Pork Prom" in Oakland hosted by Live Culture Co., Sonoma Direct and Blue Bottle Coffee: 5 lb and 10 lb boxes of pork chops, ribs and fresh sausage from heritage breed, free-range hogs from Shasta Valley Farm - order in advance!

Evening Family Outing - No Car Necessary

A few weeks ago, we went on an evening family outing to Redwood City. We were looking for somewhere interesting and new (to us) to eat - and we settled on trying Donato Enoteca in downtown Redwood City. Despite the last minute planning and limited weekend Caltrain schedule, we were able to make it work:

- Ride the Caltrain from downtown Mountain View to downtown Redwood City (5:19-5:41pm) - Kaiya loved people watching on the train

- Walk a few blocks to dinner reservation at 6pm

- Lovely dinner on the well-heated patio at Donato Enoteca, a very smartly decorated, modern Italian restaurant with an interesting menu featuring fresh, seasonal and local offerings such as a sampling of artisan olive oils (which Kaiya loved dipping her bread in); a salad of Half Moon Bay fava beans, pecorino and roasted Chioggia golden beet salad; and "bigoli" pasta with braised Niman Ranch oxtail

- Walk back to the train station to catch the train back to Mountain View: 7:07-7:29pm

Nice weekend dinner at interesting new restaurant, fun train ride for Kaiya, no car needed. =)

Sustainable Food Movement, Workers and Kids in Schools

So many interesting articles to read about sustainable food lately!

Here is another one in the SF Bay Guardian that talks about the complexities of reconciling the sustainable food movement and its impact on and interaction with the working families who supply labor for sustainable and organic farms, and those who often can't afford the bounty of local, organic, sustainable food produced by the movement.

Connecting With Your Food

Here is another article in the NY Times about connecting people to their food. Featured in this article: our new favorite non-profit 18 Reasons; SF Food Wars, an interesting group that hosts food competitions; and Urban Kitchen SF which hosts Slow Food cooking classes.

Saturday Morning Bike/Caltrain Adventures

We had a great morning!

• Biked to the community garden, dumped the compost, turned on the drip irrigation
• Biked on Stevens Creek Trail and down Evelyn Ave. to the Sunnyvale farmer's market
• Grazed and shopped for 1/2 hour at the farmer's market: yummy pretzel and crunchy sticks at Esther's German Bakery, cranberry apple sorbet sample at Scream, raspberries from Rodriguez farms, sweet baguettte from Acme, Monterey Bay line caught sablefish
• Caltrain back to Mountain View
• Biked back to the community garden to weed, lay new woodchips and harvest some beets
• Biked home pooped and satisfied

Back to the Land

Here is an interesting NY Times blog post photo + essay about Thanksgiving, sustainable food, knowing where your food comes from, Alice Water, Michael Pollan, Bob Cannard, Wendell Berry, the Edible Schoolyard project and more.