Simply Organic (2 page)

Now Jonah is working on a Ph.D. in cellular biology at Duke University. Through farmer friends, we found a local organic farm near Durham, North Carolina, where Jonah volunteers during his spare time. Cane Creek Farm is owned by an awesome farm woman, Eliza McClean, who raises animals and produce, which she sells at the Saturday market. Jonah regularly feeds the pigs, goats, and chickens; mends fences; and gathers eggs. While dedicated to his lab work, he manages to maintain a connection to locally produced food and the people who grow it. He loves to cook for himself and others, knowing that, in the midst of the serious work he is doing, this brings joy to himself and others. I am not sure whether I am more proud of his accomplishments in science or in the barnyard, including the morning he discovered and had to tend to a dozen brand-new piglets in the barn.

When I was asked once what legacy, if any, I wanted to leave behind, I replied: That my children will, under any circumstance, know how to plant seeds, to grow food. That they too will find satisfaction in cooking for themselves and others. That they will feel nourished when they open a refrigerator to leftovers from the food they prepared from scratch!

They can still look out the back door of my house and see a garden. But now they are no longer embarrassed because of my chickens, clucking about in the middle of suburban Palo Alto, California. My family now appreciates what it means to taste healthy, real eggs from chickens that are fed organically. My grand children love to come to “Mima’s” house and go to the garden to gather whatever is in season, including eggs. Then they pull up a stool and cook by my side.

I share these stories as a parent to let you know how important it is to practice what you believe, and trust that, in time, your children will see the love and commitment behind your decision to eat organic foods whenever given the choice. At the same time, I accept that my children and I are a part of the real world. We need to do our best to live honorably and respectfully on the planet.

My goal as a parent and now a grand parent has always been just to make my family conscious of what they eat. Even in the midst of their busy and hectic lives, I want them to maintain that vision of me standing at the prep table cooking with love for them. And, from what I can see, as they become adults, they are doing exactly the same for their loved ones.

A LIFELONG LOVE OF COOKING

By now, it’s easy to see how I view myself: After all these years of cooking at home and in my restaurants, the title of chef does not sit well and seems overused. We are all simply cooks, and I am a very contented one. Feeding others makes me happy. So does being treated to a special meal prepared by a loved one. Naturally, I prefer the ingredients to be organic, but I take more joy in knowing that someone has taken the time to cook for me. The spirit in which a dish is prepared is often as nurturing as the food itself.

I grew up during the 1950s, a decade characterized by the emergence of processed foods. Even my family was seduced at times by the allure of fast foods and convenience foods. A lunchtime sandwich often consisted of a freshly picked organic tomato and a handful of lettuce from my dad’s garden between two slices of Wonder Bread, slathered with Miracle Whip.

This explains my realistic view of organics. I am conscious of and careful about what I eat. Although there are times when there is nothing better than a corned beef and chopped liver sandwich at a Jewish deli, my pantry is predominantly organic and free of artificial ingredients
and chemicals. My restaurants feature organic ingredients on the menus, but we are even more committed to using locally grown and produced ingredients, which may not be organic. I walk the walk, but I am not ashamed to occasionally wander off the path. I like to follow what I call the 80/20 rule. My kids subscribe to this, and it is a welcome part of what I share with others. For 80 to 85 percent of the time, be a zealot. Eat healthy, clean, organic, and safe foods. Exercise and be conscious and conscientious about caring for your body, food, and environment.

For the other 15 to 20 percent of the time, live in the real world and choose your poisons well. We are human beings, and since the beginning of time, humans have chosen to eat and do things that are not always healthy. It is part of being a real person in the real world. So, for this small percentage of time, go for it—eat, drink, and be merry, but do it with awareness. And make sure that most of the time, you are taking good care of yourself, your family, and loved ones.

GIVING BACK TO THE COMMUNITY

I give credit to my parents for my business success. Each of them contributed in different ways.

During my childhood, Dad reigned as King Eddie, owner of King Edward’s Supermarket in Greensburg, Pennsylvania. He ran his store with integrity and respect for his customers and employees. He would wow customers with his array of locally grown meats and produce, which were most often naturally organic. He ran a German-style bakery; the bakers never used prepared mixes, and made fruit pies, whole grain breads, and even doughnuts from scratch. My dad delighted in creating custard from whole milk and churning gallons of strawberry and peach ice cream made with fresh fruit, again usually organic, grown on local farms. By age twelve, in order to be near my hard-working father, I was working side by side with him and loving every minute.

My dad taught me what it meant to be a part of the community. He often organized benefits to help those in need. And so even during lean times in my first restaurant, when the staff would urge me to cut back on costs, we tried to maintain a level of charity and civic work.

At the age of twenty-seven, I opened my first organic restaurant with my first husband, Bob, and a buddy of his, Steve Silva. We used as many organic ingredients as we could find. At that time, there were no organic restaurants, so buying enough organic ingredients was challenging. Still, we were determined to serve food that was healthy for people and the environment. After a long search, we finally found a local produce company that delivered organic fruits and vegetables. It was called the 3:30
A.M.
Produce Company, and it was run by two wonderful, dynamic, high-spirited women, Cathi Lerch and Patricia Atkins. In those early years, we would also hit the farmers’ market every Saturday to buy produce. It was the only option for buying local, organic ingredients. We had Muir Glen tomatoes (which were organic) delivered by UPS and searched endlessly for other foods that were not tainted with anything artificial. In the early ’70s, this was not an easy task.

We were told over and over again that using organic and sustainably produced ingredients in a restaurant wasn’t realistic from a cost perspective. There were times when things got tough, and it was my mother who supported my bottom line: The use of organic products was more important than making lots of money. Now, after more than thirty years in the restaurant business, I feel incredibly successful. One of the keys to this success has been the use of as much organic food as possible while serving a seasonal menu. Seasonal fresh foods always tend to be less expensive, and the flavors are deep and genuine. The somewhat trendy concept of using local, seasonal, and organic ingredients was not cutting-edge back then. Only a handful of people understood that we were not only serving delicious food, but also felt responsible for their health and safety.

Bob and Steve moved on to other arenas, but I kept on the sustainable path in the restaurant business. I feel great gratitude for what we did together back in those early days.

Every day, in fact, I feel profoundly grateful to everyone who has been patient and supportive of my efforts—my family, my staff, and my
customers. As you can see, food was and remains my heart and soul. As a daughter, a mother, a grandmother, and a business owner, I maintain my unwavering commitment to using organic foods as often as possible. To me, restaurants as well as home kitchens should be places where food is simply as pure as it can be, and is always served with love.

WHY ORGANIC?

Let’s consider what our great-grandparents grew up eating. Most likely, they enjoyed vine-ripened tomatoes and juicy red strawberries grown in nutrient-rich soil, pampered with fresh spring water, and warmed by sunshine. The fruits and vegetables were probably grown by a local farmer whom everyone knew by his first name. In this kind of community food system, there is a face attached to the production of the food people eat.

Our ancestors grew up in a time when “fresh,” “natural,” and “organic” went without saying, and there was no need to give food special labels. The primary food additives were natural preservatives and seasonings like vinegar and salt, and not difficult-to-pronounce, strange-sounding chemicals like monosodium glutamate and sodium nitrate. Our great-grandmothers planned their meals around foods of the season, and during the long winters they relied on the local produce they had canned and preserved the previous summer and autumn, which was better than fresh food shipped from afar, just as preserved local food is usually preferable today.

The fruits and vegetables they ate were naturally grown, unadulterated organic foods. But the term “organic” was never mentioned. For them, food was fresh, celebrated as the seasons came and went, and, most of all, safe for them and their loved ones.

These days most supermarket tomatoes spend their infancy inside huge greenhouses. They are nursed with synthetic fertilizers and engineered for shelf life and visual appeal, rather than flavor. After their stay in the greenhouse, they are transplanted to mile-wide fields saturated with 400 to 600 pounds per acre of more fertilizer and are fumigated with methyl bromide, a weed-killing toxic gas. Weekly, crop planes unleash fungicides and insecticides that destroy plant pests and diseases—and, unfortunately, some migrating birds. But the public has been led to believe that these are the best kind of tomatoes because they are inexpensive, uniform, and perfect-looking.

Many of us health-conscious eaters, however, desire and even demand that foods from supermarkets and restaurants be as good and pure as foods enjoyed by families who lived three generations ago. Our voices were stifled for a few decades, but as public awareness has evolved, we are being heard and respected. Finally, “you are what you eat” is no longer being discounted.

Look around you. Signs of this retro food revolution are everywhere. Even as recently as the 1980s, supermarkets separated tomatoes strictly by type—plum or beefsteak, for instance. Now, they are distinguished by variety, color, and how they are grown.

In many stores, there are now more choices. Look for the smaller tomato section, the one that is vibrant with a vast array of colors and shapes, and, yes, the tomatoes that typically cost a little more per pound. There is a good chance that you will spot the Certified Organic label—a signal to health-conscious shoppers that each and every one of these red, gold, purple, and green beauties enjoyed a splendid beginning. They developed from seeds that inherently have unique flavors, have not been genetically modified, and were grown in nutrient-rich soil on small, local organic farms free of artificial chemicals, pesticides, and commercial fertilizers.

This return to organic vegetables extends beyond your local supermarket. Many restaurant owners now proudly highlight their menus with organically prepared dishes, showcasing the farms’ names and indicating their preference for organically raised foods.

THE HISTORY OF ORGANIC FARMING

Who should we thank for starting the organic food movement? Perhaps the better question is, who rescued it and brought it back? Before 1900, all food was organically grown. Of course,
farmers and shoppers didn’t call it by that phrase. They didn’t need to. They knew that what they ate came from a local farmer who had grown the food with care, love, and purity. There was no reason to be concerned about safety or pollution.

Then the age of mass production arrived, intermingled with a couple of world wars. America had many more mouths to feed. We needed to grow lots of food in a hurry. Scientists discovered that chemicals sprayed on crops could kill pests and plant diseases instantly. They also developed artificial flavorings to perk up people’s palates, and preservatives to make foods last longer and maintain an eye-catching appearance. Growers in south Florida began loading their produce onto large trucks and train cars, to be delivered to supermarkets all over the country, as far as 3,000 miles away.

A few visionaries began questioning the price that our bodies and our planet were paying for this technology, born of our haste to produce foods more quickly. Sir Albert Howard, a British agricultural scientist, was the first to consciously reject modern “agri-chemical” methods back in the 1930s. He argued that artificial fertilizers and poisonous insecticides had no place in farming. He figured out a way to turn town wastes—animal manure, compost, grass turf, and straw—into usable nutrient materials, which were tilled into the soil to nourish plants in a safe way. He called this nutrient recycling system the Wheel of Life.

Here in the United States, J. I. Rodale embraced Sir Albert’s views. It was Rodale who in 1940 popularized the term “organic.” Rodale had left New York City and purchased a sixty-five-acre farm in rural eastern Pennsylvania. He grew all his crops without chemical fertilizers or pesticides. Rodale strongly believed that healthy soil produces healthy foods, which in turn help keep people healthy. He began sharing his philosophy in 1942, when he founded
Organic Gardening
magazine, a publication now run by his grandchildren. He remains one of my first heroes in the organic farming movement.

Even back in the 1940s, Rodale warned that using pesticides and artificial fertilizers would pollute our farmlands, lakes, rivers, and air. An excerpt from his book
Pay Dirt
(1945) reads: “People felt they could afford—with a continent to develop—to wear out a farm and move to another. That day has passed. Badly eroded, worn-out soil will not recover overnight, but fertility can be restored. Land still fertile can be kept so, with composts, and be constantly improved.”