two thousand twelve

HAPPY 2012!

To welcome the New Year, some New Years resolutions. I'm hoping that if I put this out there, I might feel more accountable or at least pressured to make it happen. Wrote this out three months ago as an exercise envisioning life in 2012:

wake up and worry about the plants - how intense is the sun today?

make green tea and breakfast

say good morning to people I care about

walk, bike, or bus to work

do something that involves arranging things, working either outside or in a place with really big windows (with people I like)

it's lunch time! so delicious! maybe there's pan-fried ramen or tamales with green salsa

yoga after work sometimes

go home to a record player, wine rack, and friends

dinner with fresh ingredients, smells really good, home-cooked

at least 8 hours of sleep if not more

CA Farmhouse

BUSINESS California Farmhouse

I've been calling this my 'fictitious business' for a few months now. Maybe like Geppetto, I can wish upon a shooting star for my creation to become a real business.

Alice's Restaurant

PROFESSOR Laura Nader
It was about three years ago my anthropology professor, a sweet lady named Laura Nader (above), played Alice's Restaurant for our class, which inspired this blog. 
SONG Alice's Restaurant by Arlo Guthrie, 1967
A very long song, but apparently, you can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant.

Craft Fair/Telegraph Ave

EVENT Telegraph Avenue Holiday Street Fair 2011

'Plant Crafts' FRI BOOTH #423/SAT BOOTH #146 on Telegraph Avenue

Last Saturday, I spent my evening selling terrariums at the Arc Studios & Gallery in SF with the Kearny Street Workshop. To my surprise, I actually sold all my terrariums! I also got to meet some really cool artists and even got to barter terrariums for crafts - stationery from 'Paper Suitcase' and an original print+necklace from Vivian Truong. So, this week, with a bit more confidence, I will be selling more at this year's Telegraph Avenue Holiday Street Fair:

11AM - 6PM, this Friday & Saturday, December 16 & 17

Telegraph Avenue between Bancroft Way and Dwight Way in Berkeley

Come say hi and maybe offer to watch my booth so that I can take a bathroom break?

Marvelous Mushrooms

WORKSHOP 'Marvelous Mushrooms' with Mo-mei Chen


Assorted mushrooms, 42nd Annual Fungus Fair

Mo-mei Chen is a mycologist at UC Berkeley's Jepson Herbaria. She was one of few woman scientists in China during the Cultural Revolution (her story here). I met her last Saturday at the 42nd Annual Fungus Fair at the Lawrence Hall of Science and wow, she's really into mushroom cultivation. Anyways, she's teaching a workshop this Sunday:

'Learn to grow Indian Oyster and anti-cancer Ling Zhi mushrooms'
$25 comes with mushroom pizza dinner and an oyster mushroom cultivation kit
2-6PM, Sunday, December 11th, 2011
Valley Life Sciences Building, UC Berkeley
RSVP by Thursday: momeichen@gmail.com

Picking Up Leaves

Cold settles, leaves turn

Green flushed yellow, orange, red, into crisp dead

Lightly detached, floated here to there

To the floor with the others

Landscape Studies

FELLOWSHIP Gardner Museum Fellowship in Landscape Studies

Maybe one day. But for now, I'll work on the the studying part.

CLASSES Landscape Horticulture at Merritt College

Cool place, cool people, atop a hill overlooking Oakland & and the Bay. Today, the Landscape Horticulture Department at Merritt College announced and unveiled their AA Degree in Landscape Architecture, which would qualify someone to take board exams and acquire a CA state license to practice landscape architecture! Yes! Classes I'd like to take:

LANHT 18B: Landscape Design (Tu 1:00-3:50PM)

Principles of landscape design (primarily residential scale). Focuses on design process and definitions, legal and ethical issues and site analysis.

LANHT 210A: Landscape Design Forum (Tu 4:00-5:50PM)

Forum Emphasizing professional practices in landscape design, including review of student designs for client presentation and guest speakers in the trade. Basics of contracts and professional licensing options; development of a portfolio to market services.

LANHT 34A: Computer-Assisted Landscape Design (Tu 6:00-9:50PM)

2D drawing and editing tools; CAD orgnizational and calculation tools; personal symbol libraries; and section, elevation, and axonometric drawings.

Changing Fields

FARMER FRIEND Ben Harris, Changing Fields

Sometimes I have a hard time articulating why I've headed toward left field to become a sort of farmer-gardener despite my double major double minor with honors from UC Berkeley blah blah. In his article for forward.com, Ben explains his shift from journalist to farmer.

why occupy

WONDERING why occupy

It's been over 2 months since Occupy Wall Street started in New York City. However loosely organized, I imagine it's involved thousands upon thousands of people and millions of consolidated work hours across the country (not to mention the tension, violence, and pain it's had to endure). Basically, a ton of precious resources and attention - more than any kind of government program or business could ever receive in such a short period of time - have gone into this general movement. But why, I am wondering.

A theory:

People have nothing better to do. Seriously. Perhaps there is nothing better left to do in this country; maybe there are no other means left of pursuing happiness and freedom outside of occupying public space. As a country, the economy is tank, political processes have long been unsatisfying, and our personal lives are statistically overtaken by poor health, poverty, and broken families. Therefore, anything to address these issues in a quick and effective manner issues itself as an immediate priority.

The occupation of public spaces may not appear to be a quick and effective strategy however, since it is in fact a massive, unauthorized phenomenon of loose organization rearing unpredictable and unclear movement. However, unauthorized occupation is one way to move outside the amoeba of thick material that makes the status quo - an amalgamation of rules, structures, and enforcement; tools that citizens have been using for a long time without seeing timely or effective change.

Occupation may therefore pose the next best strategy for change and most benign form of unauthorized action, compared to violence, rioting, or terrorism.

Personally, I believe in evolution and see these occupations as expressions of that process, however unfortunate or uncomfortable it may seem in the short term. But that's just the Berkeley bio nerd in me :/

HAPPY Thanksgiving Music

Free mixtape download from Lupe Fiasco, Friend of the People.

succulent obsession

PLANT CRAFTS succulents

An empty salt & pepper shaker. All it needs is a little plant living inside.

The past three hours, I've been crouched in the corner, quietly arranging succulents in little glass jars. Succulents are desert plants that store much of their water and energy in their waxy, succulent leaves. They're real easy to propagate or pocket! Also, I say 'quietly' because I don't want to scare the good relatives that are housing me with my obsession over these things. Some points on why succulents are attractive: 1. they are easy to grow b/c they are adapted to harsh desert climates, 2. they look like synthetic, plastic toys, no?

All plant materials foraged from the public & private lands of San Jose. Don't tell.

It's fun to water this one. Currently lives in my car.

From the last UCSC Farm & Garden plant sale.

At Succulent Gardens in Castroville, a 2-acre warehouse of just succulents.

Workshop time -thanks, Alice :] Time to get back to work..

KSW Arts & DIY Fair

EVENT Kearny Street Workshop Holiday Party

Kearny Street Workshop is the nation's oldest Asian American multidisciplinary arts organization.

Saturday, December 10, 6-9PM

ARC Studios & Gallery

1246 Folsom St. @ 8th Street in San Francisco (SOMA)

On Friday, I decided to follow my heart into the world of plant-based craft & design. Yup. So come check me out at this arts & DIY craft fair in SF (seriously). For sale: potted plant arrangements, terrariums, and holiday wreaths using foraged and re-used materials. And if that's not cool enough for you, there will also be things like festive music, homemade snacks, and an Asian Santa! :D

can't resist

QUOTE via Dave via François de La Rochefoucauld

If we resist our passions, it is more due to their weakness than our strength.

(Cannot resist: good food, plant-based crafts, flowers, neglected space, matching textures, patterns & colors, friendly dogs, light pink swept clouds in the sky, good company, antiques!)

Cat Profile

PROFILE Nanook

name Nanook

sex male

age young adult

studied philosophy at UC Santa Cruz

lives in Santa Cruz, California

from San Francisco Bay Area

works at UCSC Farm & Garden

status in a relationship with Milly

interests sustainable agriculture, pest control, organizational politics

activities hunting, road tripping, charming undergraduates

about me don't kidnap me, k thanks

growing at home (San Gabriel Valley)

Last weekend, I traveled back home to my southern California suburb and hometown of Rowland Heights in the San Gabriel Valley. I grew up here, driving everywhere, not really knowing my neighbors, and going to the mall all the time to shop. For a long time, suburbs, to me, have represented a gross problem of poor regional planning & development characterized by mind-shattering traffic, social isolation, and drab iterations of tract homes/shopping centers. Over time, however, I am beginning to see past the infrastructural frame of the suburb and into the cracks and corners - spaces that house unique cultural resources, social organizing, and innovation. Like amazing food & restaurants, church communities, and start-up businesses. In the San Gabriel Valley, the area also has the advantage of having immigrant populations on land with sunny skies = the know how & tenacity to grow culturally important (yummy) foods.

For example:

SUBURBAN FARM The Growing Home

During my visit, I stumbled upon the Growing Home: a house in Diamond Bar that transformed itself from a typical green lawn & cement landscape to a suburban farm & learning center. To me, this place represents a beacon of light that illuminates the darkness of suburban sprawl. The people of The Growing Home are starting a chapter of the international Slow Food Movement in the San Gabriel Valley. The first meeting is next Saturday.

URBAN FARM Earthworks

Also during my visit, I spent some time at Earthworks in South El Monte. I taught a workshop on the basic principles of irrigation (to elementary school kids)! The farm is in a period of transition and development, hopefully a place that will soon capture the huge potential that is offered by the combination of youth, immigrants, land, and year-round sun.

infographic graffiti

STATISTICS On the dollar, literally

occupygeorge.com

Found this on infosthetics.com, which is a data visualization blog that features new infographic projects internationally. I check it out once in a while, usually when I get home from work and can't think of anything else to do. If you were really into this, you could download templates and print them on your own dollars. (Though, I think it is illegal to modify money. I think graffiti in general is illegal. Infographic graffiti, though=nerdy+illegal=genius.)

1 year

EVENT The 3rd Annual Harvest Gala

Friday, November 18th, 6-9PM @ the David Brower Center

The Food Collective was formed by hungry students who soon became amateur business planners, policy writers, accountants, board of directors, fundraisers, marketers, teachers, and chefs - all while living the usual Berkeley student life of procrastination, frolicking, studying, and sleeping way too late.

This month marks the one year anniversary of the Berkeley Student Food Collective's storefront on Bancroft and I can't help but feel a little proud, like a middle school student of her science project - of something she had spent a lot of time fretting over. The store is now equipped with a full-time manager, consistent membership, board of directors, organizational policies, a regular schedule, seasonal menus, and all kinds of grocery items.

flash back:

2010 2009

most of all

via Dave via Tom Robbins' Still Life with Woodpecker:

Yes, and I love the trite mythos of the outlaw. I love the self-conscious romanticism of the outlaw. I love the black wardrobe of the outlaw. I love the fey smile of the outlaw. I love the tequila of the outlaw and the beans of the outlaw. I love the way respectable men sneer and say 'outlaw.' I love the way young women palpitate and say 'outlaw.' The outlaw boat sails against the flow, and I love it. Outlaws toilet where badgers toilet, and I love it. All outlaws are photogenic, and I love that. 'When freedom is outlawed, only outlaws will be free': that's a graffito seen in Anacortes, and I love that. There are outlaw maps that lead to outlaw treasures, and I love those maps especially. Unwilling to wait for mankind to improve, the outlaw lives as if that day were here, and I love that most of all.

P.S. screen printing is awesome.

:D

LA Green Festival

THIS WEEKEND LA Green Festival

October 29-30 at the LA Convention Center: Line up of speakers & events around 'green living,' whatever that is! [sustainable economy, ecological balance, social justice, I guess.] Amy Goodman will be there and I love her.

The SF Green Festival is on November 12-13 at the SF Concourse Exhibition Center.

Salon on Wednesday

SALON Convergence in Diversity

November 30, 6:15PM at the David Brower Center in Downtown Berkeley

Rooted and Rising, hosted by the Earth Island Institute's New Leaders Initiative: a dialogue and 'solutions salon' on Convergence in Diversity: how to turn the food movement into a force for social transformation. RSVP here. It's free, let's go!

The prompt: There are many different groups working to address food issues. How can we bring this diversity of groups together to be effective and successful in our common endeavors?

I love

I LOVE

Farm and Garden 2011 from Weston on Vimeo.

Farm cats, fresh fruit pies, fork and spade, field flowers, felcos, friends.

Outside Boutiques

VIDEO CLIP via kitchenkwento.com

Interviewed by Adobo Nation, featuring Miss Aileen (I miss you!) at the Farm & Garden. Hits and connects: health, culture, and economy as related to sustainable food systems.

Some related thoughts:

Granola, quinoa, amaranth.

Kale, arugula, chard.

Bread, butter, milk.

All things Whole Foods, organic, local, fair trade, and fancy.

Deep down inside, I can't relate.

All things unfamiliar and irrelevant.

Granola, sweet. Quinoa, kwinoh-ah. Amaranth..

Kale, so green. Arugula, bitter. Chard, cooks mushy.

Bread, keep it in the freezer. Butter, all fat. Milk, soy.

Why is the face of whole, organic, local, and fair trade food represented only by particular 'hippy food' ingredients like kale? And why are quality and healthy foods displayed as boutique, luxury goods? It's not like buying a Lexus over a Honda, luxury over economy. The cheaper economy car can work well, whereas the cheaper basket of strawberries laced with methyl iodide cannot. Buying quality food is more like buying a running car over a broken car. In my cynical way, I think the image of quality food has been hi-jacked (intentionally or not) by fancy marketing teams and fancy neighborhoods. They use light green earthy colors matched with birch wood panels and endearing chalked letters on blackboard. I love it and hate it. They package and commoditize the shit out of quality food to make it something more than it is. The cute storefront, the style, the fresh and amazing gourmet product - love it. The feel-good rhetoric, like I'm supposed to get a pat on the back for going into a natural foods store and purchasing chocolate that isn't produced with cacao picked by the hands of desperate mothers. Hate it.

Quality food, healthy lifestyles, and sustainable cultures should not be tied up in boutique stores situated on cute San Francisco street corners. Obesity, heart disease, and economic instability will never be saved by the boutique alone. Or by kale and quinoa alone. The face and representation of quality food and culture need to be multi-faceted and produced by an array of cultures and communities to address the suffering of lifestyle-related diseases by our parents, siblings, children, and friends. Okay?

first day

MY FIRST DAY out of Santa Cruz (yesterday), and I find myself:

at the Landscape Horticulture Department at Merritt College

conversing on the role of cultural diversity in landscape design

getting connected to an apprentice alum

ditching a screening of 'Seeding the Future' to attend a series on sustainable food systems

in the same room as Alice Waters, Nikki Henderson, Michael Pollan, and Raj Patel

receiving an invitation to the 3rd Annual Food Collective Harvest Gala

having food and drink with my old agroecology lab mates

brainstorming ways to re-invest assets

feeling lucky with direction

Greenhorns

SCREENING Seeding the Future 10/18 in SF @ Internet Archive

Roundtable discussion/panel/potluck featuring young American farmers.

Graduation

I'm going to miss this place ^

MANIFESTO: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

A poem by Wendell Berry, selective chunks. It's something I don't intend to take word for word, but do intend to keep in my back pocket as I enter the nine to five.

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,

vacation with pay. Want more

of everything ready-made. Be afraid

to know your neighbors and to die.

And you will have a window in your head.

Not even your future will be a mystery

any more. Your mind will be punched in a card

and shut away in a little drawer.

When they want you to buy something

they will call you. When they want you

to die for profit they will let you know.

So, friends, every day do something

that won't compute. Love the Lord.

Love the world. Work for nothing.

Take all that you have and be poor.

Love someone who does not deserve it.

Denounce the government and embrace

the flag. Hope to live in that free

republic for which it stands.

Give your approval to all you cannot

understand. Praise ignorance, for what man

has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Go with your love to the fields.

Lie down in the shade. Rest your head

in her lap. Swear allegiance

to what is nighest your thoughts.

As soon as the generals and the politicos

can predict the motions of your mind,

lose it. Leave it as a sign

to mark the false trail, the way

you didn't go.

Be like the fox

who makes more tracks than necessary,

some in the wrong direction.

Practice resurrection.

Squash Pile

PILE of Squash

So many varieties. Of just squash! From the National Heirloom Expo.

Promagation

FLOWERS <3 them

Boutonnieres we made using little things from the garden. I think I could make these all day, everyday, never blink, and be happy.

Sometimes, when I try to make a mixed flower bouquet, I get to feeling a bit crazy and completely dissatisfied with the awkward lump of flower mess I have created. Choked in my hand, I look at it for way too long and wonder what's missing in its structure, texture, or color. Not knowing what to add or change, I tighten my grasp. Torture.

Thankfully, last week, my fellow Up Garden folks and I were graced with the pleasure of learning how to use flowers effectively from our talented apprentice friends, to make bouquets, corsages, and boutonnieres. Good for business. And good for things like prom, which happens to be tomorrow. Farm Prom, in the Greenhouse; 'Promagation,' as in 'Propagation.' :D It comes down to a loose grip, starting with a good structure, filling in space adequately, and using complimentary colors with a diversity of textures. To finally make a complete, satisfying bouquet that's easy on the eyes, it is liberating.

White House Economic Policy Advisor 10/4

LECTURE White House Economic Policy Advisor, Jason Furman

Tuesday, October 4th, 4-5pm @ Goldman School of Public Policy, Room 250

From my inbox: The Goldman School of Public Policy cordially invites you to attend a lecture entitled, “Headwinds and Tailwinds: The Path Forward for the U.S. Economy,” by Jason Furman, President Barack Obama’s Assistant for Economic Policy and Principal Deputy Director of the National Economic Council. He will discuss President Obama’s new jobs plan and how we can get the economy moving forward.

I wonder, as I sit in this cafe with my cider, fretting over the possibility of becoming an overqualified and underemployed statistic. Trying. To stay optimistic.

Bird from the National Heirloom Festival. I think it looks a bit skeptical, or at least paranoid.

Harvest Festival

WEEKEND ACTIVITY Harvest Festival

This Sunday from 11 to 5 at the Farm in Santa Cruz. I'll paint your face if you want. Or if not, you could do an apple tasting or go on a hay ride or learn to cook. $5 please.

Fingers Crossed

BUSINESS Farmscape, your family farmer

Having been a part-time residential gardener for five years in college, I spent a whole lot of time planting, weeding, and pruning all kinds of things. It's a good thing I loved it. Anyhow, I remember spending hours each week gathering pounds and pounds of plant debris and thinking that it'd be neat if all those branches and leaves I had individually hand-cut were somehow valuable.

weeding & pruning:waste material

as harvesting:fruits & vegetables

So, fingers crossed, I get to interview for a company that answers to such an opportunity, Farmscape. Maybe I'll get to be someone's 'friendly' family farmer and we'll all get to smile and eat healthy food under the sunny skies of so-cal.

Until then, I'll be savoring my last three weeks at the UCSC Farm & Garden. More specifically, the Up Garden (Alan Chadwick Garden).

Two Days

TWO DAYS Left of Summer, officially

The Fall, reminds me of cozy times in Berkeley with the smell of leaves on the floor <3

About a year ago:

Valley Life Sciences Building, UC Berkeley

Altieri Lab, UC Berkeley

Ridge Winery, Sonoma County

North Berkeley

Heirlooms (Vegetables & Fruits)

Are absolutely beautiful and superior in every sense: visual, tactical, aromatic, cultural. (I don't have my pictures uploaded yet, so I'll try to process my memory into really descriptive words, eek.)

Today, I attended the 2011 National Heirloom Exposition in Sonoma, and I found myself - In the show room on sensory overload, feeling and smelling heirloom fruits and vegetables, wishing just wishing I could take a bite of that delicate, pale golden pear skin as I quaff its floral scent - Talking to this lovely man:



at the trade show about how his neighbor, the founder of Baker Creek Seed Company, started off his heirloom seed business as a boy at the age of 15, stapling xeroxed pages of his home-made seed catalog at the local copy shop - Asking the buyer of Bi-Rite Market whether similar 'community-based' markets might be viable in less fancy neighborhoods and finding that it's a difficult question to answer - Marveling at the general beauty of heirlooms in their intense colors, shapes, and smells, wondering why all food isn't this pleasurable to hold and look at - And lastly, feeling mild resentment build towards those dull cookie cutter lumps of pale vegetables and fruits at Safeway :(

Small Business Development

SERVICE Small Business Development Center, LA Region

Free and low-cost services around small business start-up and development, including workshops and one-on-one consulting. Centers all over California, not just LA.

GUIDE Governor's Office of Economic Development: Business Permits

Enter in your 'business type' and city to find out what specific permits and licenses may be required on the city, county, state, and federal levels.

APPLICATION California Seller's Permit

Legally required for any sales occurring more than twice per year, including Ebay and Craigslist sales! More research to come...

LIST of Farmers' Markets in the LA Region

Why? Because omg I need a job! and if all else fails, I can at least try to make one up, maybe. And for practice, maybe.

Right Time

CONFERENCE Good Food Conference & Trade Show

It seems as though fate has it in for me. Whether it's an unplanned, long-awaited reunion of friends in the Cheeseboard line, or the first sustainable food conference in LA held just a month before I return from the Center for Agroecology & Sustainable Food Systems. Timing is just right.

Laden with key experts and pioneers within southern California food, I hope to hit up these talks:

FOOD POLICY & HEALTH SUMMIT (Friday, 9/16 @ Santa Monica College)

9:00-9:45 am Public Health & Food

10:00-10:45 am Food with Integrity

11:00-11:45 am Public Policy & Food

12:00-12:45 pm Scaling Up to Meet the Demand for Local Food

1:45-2:45 pm School Food Best Practices

TRADE SHOW

12:00-5:00 pm Buyers & Producers/Suppliers

LOS ANGELES FOOD POLICY COUNCIL WORKSHOPS

2:30-3:30 pm Building Power for Fair Food: Grassroots Organizing and the Farm Bill

From Farm to Landfill: Can ‘Good Jobs’ Be Part of the “Good Food” System?

CalFresh: Making SNAP a Good Food Program

3:45-4:45 pm Food Equity, Healthy Retail, and Community Driven Demand

Growing Good Food in Our Neighborhoods: Urban Agriculture, Food Security and Health in Los Angeles

Street Food: Where Food and Social Justice Meet

Now, some maybe related photos:

BUNS.

Apples on the Farm, pruning session

At Pinnacle Farm

Tomatoes