Sacramento's Slow Food Snails Visit Capay Valley Farms

Early in the morning about 20 of us lined up outside of the Sacramento Co-op to get on the air-conditioned bus that would take us to Capay Valley. Sacramento Slow Food and the Sacramento Co-op organized a farm tour featuring Pasture 42, Full Belly Farm and Good Humus Produce.

Our first stop was family farm, Pasture 42. Owners Susan and Ken greeted us with samples of freshly made ice cream, yogurt, and flavored olive oils. On their farm, they have employees, interns and WWOOF volunteers that help them with the daily chores. Pasture 42 specializes in sustainable farm practices, which incorporates routinely rotating crops and livestock. For example, their pigs help till the soil during the wet season before planting in the spring, where the pigs will subsequently be moved to another area. Their chickens are transported around the property in mobile coops and then are surrounded by fencing as they feed. Eggs and broilers hens were available for purchase in addition to dairy products, different cuts of meats, infused olive oils, and handmade soaps. The closest farmers' market to Sacramento they visit is the Saturday market in Davis.

Our next stop was for lunch at locally famed Full Belly Farms. Full Belly Farms is a multi-generational organic farm in Capay Valley which specializes in vegetable and flower production as well as catering. We were welcomed by Amom Muller at the event hall, where he had prepared a homey meal for our group. It included flavored roasted potatoes, braised artichokes, homemade sausage, a green salad, lentil salad, and sweet fruit muffins for dessert. You can find Fully Belly products at different farmers' markets in the Bay area or join their CSA to have their products delivered in and around Sacramento.

We left lunch with our bellies full and wobbled our way to our final stop at Good Humus Produce. Our tour was led by owner Jeff Main through the orchards of fruits and fields of vegetables. Good Humus farm uses natural vegetation barriers such as trees and bushes to divide the land, soften winds, and provide habitation for wild animals. According to Jeff, the animals don't threaten the farming practices, but encourage a healthy ecosystem for the plants to thrive. Good Humus' products are distributed to the Sacramento Natural Food Coop and the Davis Farmers' Market. You can also sign up for their CSA box, which is delivered on Tuesdays in Sacramento.

Urban Gardening at Schools: A Garden In Every School Symposium

This weekend Soil Born Farms hosted 'A Garden in Every School Symposium' at Luther Berbank High School. As a volunteer opportunity for Sacramento Slow Food, I assisted chef Brenda Ruiz from Biba. Brenda teaches food literacy classes in local schools. She is specifically interested in incorporating food literacy into ESL courses.

For the weekend, we focused on two presentations. The first was Teaching to English Language Learners: Developing Taste. Here, Brenda developed an exercise with cilantro, romaine lettuce, lime, salt, sugar, soy sauce, and vinegar. She had the attendees try each element by itself and explain in terms of palate: bitter, sweet, salty, sour. Slowly the participants were asked to combine different flavors to eventually form a salad that incorporated all of one's palate. Afterward, she discussed teaching techniques for English Language Learners and how they specifically related to teaching food literacy.

Within this session, the feedback was incredibly interesting. Several teachers had ELL classes, where the majority of students had different native languages; therefore it was incredibly necessary to focus on the grading of the language. Other teachers gave examples of how their schools were already incorporating multi-cultural food literacy through potlucks and parent-student cooking classes.

On Sunday, the sessions were less lecture style and more experiential. Brenda facilitated a lesson with few instructions that encouraged participant creativity. Before everyone arrived, we placed all the required equipment on the table (knives, cutting boards, mixing bowls, mixing spoons, towels). We then created trays full of different vegetables or fruit such as a tray with different kinds of lettuces (focusing on bitterness) or one with various types of citrus (focusing on sour and sweet).  The class was required to create a salad with their ingredients and create a presentation explaining the process and the parts of the palate that their salad activated.

It was fun to see the how creative the students were know matter what age. Additionally, I believe the course was a good learning moment for many because they were not familiar with all of the names and tastes of the ingredients included in their baskets. The weekend opened my eyes to how much our communities need food literacy in order to take advantage of the abundance of produce we have in the US.