Farm Breakfast

Hi everyone! I'm finally back in Portland, though not without a few mishaps along the way. My car is currently stuck down in Grants Pass, at the Nissan dealership, due to what has been so delicately termed as 'CATASTROPHIC ENGINE FAILURE'. Yep. Plus, my family is in town, for my mom's outrageously short summer vacation (she teaches special education, and between summer school and the regular year she gets too-little time off. But she's amazing, so she's totally ok with it), and we've been spending all of our time on the phone with various customer service representatives. Not a lot of fun. I have so many amazing things to share with you, but it's been tough to steal away to the computer to talk about veggies while I'm dealing with a minor vehicular emergency.

But hey, this is a food blog, not a complaints form, so, how about some shots of a gorgeous breakfast made from ingredients from my family's farm, Camp Joy, in Boulder Creek, California!


A simple bowl of oats, fruit, nuts, yogurt, and honey, enjoyed on the porch of the old house on the hill above the farm. There is really no way to express how amazing this place is. It's more than a farm, its a place of family, education, children, love, good food, good music, community, continuity, generations, activism, sustainability, appreciation, and perfect California sunlight. Coming here is coming home, and I am so grateful that, in this special place, the journey from farm to fork is a matter of feet, not thousands of miles. What's more, the beauty of the people that take care of this land really shows in the quality of the food, the health of the plants, and the happiness of the animals. It is so inspiring to be connected to something so fundamentally part of the solution to our world's problems. Starting with breakfast.

The apples and berries came from the orchard and blackberry patch. The yogurt was made the day before from fresh goats milk, from the happy, silly goats on the farm. Check out this goofball, on the roof of the goat house...



The honey is from bees, constantly buzzing around the lavender and every other plant. Once, I was digging up potatoes and got stung by a bee, right in the middle of my forehead. I got a big, swollen red bump, right on my third eye. Since then, the Camp Joy bees and I have been polite, but wary. That being said, I am extremely grateful for what they do for the garden and the world. A pollinator researcher, E.O. Wilson, famously stated in 1996 that we should, every third bite of food we take, thank a bee. And that number goes way up on a small, organic farm. So, thanks bees.



It just feels better to know where my food comes from, not to mention to have a small hand in picking it, raising it, fermenting it, and loving the land it comes from. It's how I eat well, and hope to for many years to come.