Pennsylvania
The trip started off in Pennsylvania. Specifically, Philly. I visited Philly last year for the first time as an adult, and for the first time not as a tourist going to see the Liberty Bell. I stayed with Chris Bowers & Natasha Chart (now married! yay!) and Philly was a bit unique because I wasn't there as a guest of a liberal or food-related organization. I tried to make sure I worked with a local group in each location so that people who came to my book talks could easily connect up with their local groups to take action and find out about local issues.
In Philly, I visited a bookstore next to Weaver's Way Food Co-op after spending a delightful day with blogger Anonymous Bosch, having dinner with him and LeeN, and visiting Debtors Prison's bookstore (details at the link).
Next up was Lancaster, where I stayed with blogger Monkeybiz and visited Spedwybabs' ice cream shop (where we also met Escapee!). This time, I was a guest of Susquehanna Sustainable Business Network, an organization that works to promote sustainable and ethical businesses in the area. As a wonderful surprise, my hostess from SSBN took me to visit Lancaster Farm Fresh, a cooperative of Amish organic farms who formed a CSA program together. They also sell at Reading Terminal Market and at markets and to local schools. I wrote about them in my book so it was REALLY cool to visit them again, a year later, to find out about their progress. They've grown A LOT since I first met them.
I wrote the following in a diary about my time in Lancaster:
The Pennsylvania trip was wonderful. This is exactly what I wanted from the book tour. Really, the book is an excuse to build the movement. In Lancaster, I spoke to a few guys who were interested in food justice and setting up farmers' markets in low income areas. We've got a market like that in San Diego so we shared ideas from Lancaster, Chicago (where one of the guys currently works... he's just visiting friends in Lancaster now), and San Diego. We exchanged email addresses and I hope to put them in touch with the folks in charge of the San Diego City Heights farmers market.
Later that evening, I gave a talk to about 20 people at a bookstore. The Q&A continued until I had been speaking for a total of 2 hours... lesson learned that I need to wrap things up quicker in the future, but it was exciting that everyone was so engaged. The Q&A gave a really local focus to the event, because we talked about groups people could get involved with locally, Pennsylvania state politics, and PA's Senators role in national politics. Much of the Q&A was more of a conversation between various members of the audience, and that was really exciting. I learned a lot from them, and they filled in local details that I didn't know about. It was neat to hear a Pennsylvanian's point of view about how the people in the state organized to save their milk labels 2 years ago. I was involved in that, but from a distance, and it was inspiring that the people of Pennsylvania got a chance to take action and see their own impact when their outcry caused the Governor to overturn a decision of the Secretary of Agriculture.
If you live in Pennsylvania and you want to get involved in sustainable food, I recommend getting in touch with: Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture (PASA) and/or Buy Fresh Buy Local. PASA in particular has been instrumental in getting changes made to the recently passed (by the House) food safety bill that will make it work better for small sustainable farmers.
New York
Stop #2 on the trip was New York City. It was quite a shock to the system to go straight from Amish country (literally waking up on a farm to a rooster crowing!) to Brooklyn. Blogger Eddie C met me at Penn Station and Sidnora set up an AMAZING event for me with the Brooklyn Food Coalition that night. They put on a conference that I have heard nothing but wonderful things about this past May so they are certainly a group to watch in the future (or a group to join if you happen to live in Brooklyn).
The next day, blogger Wide Eyed Lib (and her hubby) took Eddie C & I foraging in Central Park. That kind of blew my mind. I will NEVER look at plants the same way again. I realized beforehand that there were edible plants in nature. I did not realize HOW MANY edible plants were out there. Wide Eyed Lib literally stood in one tiny patch of Central Park and pointed out about 20 different species of plant that we could eat (and 2 that are poisonous - so don't just go around randomly tasting stuff). As a result of our foraging trip, I spotted TONS of staghorn sumac all over New England and I collected up a big bunch of it to make sumac lemonade. Yum!
That evening (Aug 10), Drinking/Eating/Living Liberally held a gathering for me where I spoke to bloggers and liberal drinkers and eaters in Manhattan. Bloggers Kerry Trueman, Paula Crossfield, and Sidnora provided delicious food, and all in all it was a fun time. A girl I went to high school with (and hadn't seen in 10 years!) showed up, as did a girl I knew in college who I hadn't had any contact with in 6 years (I had no idea she was coming). Amazing!
The following day was my last in New York and it was one of my only "days off" on the entire trip. Eddie C and I went to see Hair. However, I did get to meet Mark Bittman of the New York Times. He was incredibly nice (no surprise there) and he gave me a copy of his cookbook Kitchen Express. (I wrote a review of it at the link... wonderful book. I think I had a few orgasms while reading through it.)
If you live in New York and you want to get involved in sustainable food, you've got more options than I can name. The Brooklyn Food Coalition is a great group, but there's also Just Food and numerous other groups around.
Vermont
Blogger 4Freedom and I drove from Netroots Nation all the way to Morrisville in northern Vermont. I was to speak at her natural foods store Monday after NN09. During the day, we drove over to my friend's dairy farm (so far north it's practically in Canada). To my great delight, he had some new kittens for us to play with:
And he had some cows too...
This farm has about 90 or so cows plus several calves and a steer. The cows all graze on pasture, which makes the milk healthier (compared to milk from cows fed an all-grain diet). The milk goes to Stonyfield for yogurt. If you click the link above, you'll also see pics from their garden for the CSA that they run. They grow a bunch of veggies and they have chickens for eggs and meat.
Later that night, I gave a talk to a small group at the natural foods store, including Brian from the group Rural Vermont. From Morrisville, I drove to Rutland (an hour or so south of Burlington), stopping along the way to pick blueberries:
In Rutland, I was hosted by RAFFL (Rutland Area Farm and Food Link), a group that came recommended to me by several sources. I was delighted to meet blogger snimtz there. One of the men at the event was a farmer who mentioned to me that his sow had piglets. OK, I'm totally a sucker for cute baby animals. So I asked if I could see the piglets. The answer was yes! So the next morning, I drove to his farm before leaving Rutland for my next stop, Bellows Falls.
I didn't have enough light to get a pic of the really tiny babies, but here's an older piglet:
And here's the goat, Thor, who was as friendly as a puppy dog:
If you live in Vermont and you want to get involved in sustainable agriculture, get in touch with Rural Vermont.
Massachusetts
My last stop was Massachusetts. I started out in Boston at an absolutely AMAZING non-profit cafe in Roxbury called Haley House Cafe. Haley House began in the 1960's as a soup kitchen that involves a residential area for its staff. They also run a food pantry and affordable housing. About 20 years ago, they started an organic farm that gives away all of its food via Haley Houses other operations. Four years ago, they started the Cafe, where I visited. It's in an area that I'm told is devoid of healthy, sustainable food, and it provides affordable, culturally appropriate healthy food to its neighborhood.
At Haley House, I was hosted by the Boston Localvores and greeted by Kossacks Virgomusic, Sardonyx, Brillig, and another one who may wish to keep his name private, plus all 3 bloggers from U.S. Food Policy.
From Boston, I headed west to Granby, MA for Red Fire Farm's Tomato Festival. If you live in New England, GO TO THIS FESTIVAL next August. I've never seen so many tomatoes, and so many varieties of tomatoes!!!!
Sadly, after my hostess and I got back to her place, we discovered one of the tomatoes she picked had the blight, which has more or less wiped out all of the east coast's tomatoes this summer. It's actually kind of amazing that the tomato festival happened at all.
On my way west from Boston, I visited with Equal Exchange, a company that roasts Fair Trade coffee and also markets other Fair Trade products (chocolate, hot cocoa, cranberries, pecans, and bananas). Note to self: Hanging out at a chocolate company is hazardous to one's waistline. I was very pleased with what I learned about the company (for example, that they are a worker-owned cooperative) and about the work they do. I'd still like to know more about Fair Trade because occasionally I'm faced with questions like: Do I buy Fair Trade non-organic or non-Fair Trade organic??? Or do I buy non-Fair Trade coffee from a local coffee shop or Fair Trade coffee from a chain coffee shop? Questions like those make my head explode!
Last, I stopped off to see Bill Scher of Liberal Oasis and the Campaign for America's Future in Northampton. He hooked me up with CISA (Communities Invested in Sustainable Agriculture) which does AMAZING work around there. CISA held a reception for me and then I gave a book talk at Boswell's Books in Shelburne Falls, MA. To my great delight, it turned out that Boswell is a 14 year old Maine coon cat.
I knew I was going to enjoy my stay in western Mass when I got lost on my way to the bookstore and - when I looked for a place to stop and ask directions - I ran into a natural foods co-op in Greenfield. I ended up having a long talk about food and health care with the woman in the store who gave me directions. We exchanged email addresses and I went on my way.
Northampton was the last stop of all. Yesterday I went with Bill and his wife and new baby to their farmers' market and then to Drinking Liberally. I knew I was in luck when I saw a hemp clothing store and a vegetarian restaurant. No wonder Northampton is where the founder of Liberal Oasis calls home. However, it's hardly a liberal oasis... it's a dot of blue in a sea of blue. God I love Massachusetts.
If you live in Massachusetts and you want to get involved in sustainable agriculture, get in touch with CISA (Communities Invested in Sustainable Agriculture).
Location: Anonymous
During the trip, I visited two dairy farms in one day (different from the one in Vermont) and I wrote them up on my blog because it was interesting to see how 2 dairy farms were surviving the dairy crisis (the worst since the Great Depression) in such very different ways.
In short, one did it by growing big, compromising a bit by putting the cows in a barn instead of on pasture and feeding them a high calorie diet that leads to more milk but less nutritious milk, and by marketing his product (along with other local dairy farmers) as "local" with a special brand, selling it in major retailers like Wal-mart. The other dairy farm is surviving by staying small, diversifying, and capturing a greater share of the retail dollar spent on dairy by marketing ice cream made from their own milk.
You can see my photos from these farms here but below you'll see a day old calf from the big farm and some very cute ducklings from the small farm:
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