Edible Baja Arizona - March/April 2017

March/April 2017 • Issue No. 23

Celebrating the gastronomy of Tucson and the borderlands.

FOOD WORKERS No. 23 March/April 2017

Food Insecure Food Workers Dreaming the Biosphere • Syrian Sweets

Features

Contents

6 COYOTE TALKING

10 VOICES We asked some of Tucson’s Syrian refugees: What is your favorite sweet to bake?

22 GLEANINGS Mabel’s on 4th settles in; Bajo Tierra makes kimchi Sonoran; Curly Wolf Kombucha offers a Tucson taste.

30 CALENDAR 38 BAJA EATS 48 THE PLATE 56 EDIBLE INTERVIEW Diane Jones manages the Sierra Vista Farmers’ Market, a rural market with a big community.

60 YOUTH $1,000 grants are helping Tucson students save seeds, grow flowers, make soap—and learn real-world business skills.

102 SCALING EARTH After 30 years, the spirit of exploration that built Biosphere 2 continues, as scientists at the scaled-up laboratory investigate the nexus of food, water, and energy.

68 MEET YOUR FARMER Aaron Cardona carries on the legacy of his family’s farm near Double Adobe.

80 TABLE Fini’s Landing is the only restaurant in Tucson partnering with the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch program to serve sustainable seafood.

92 POETRY Eric Magrane and Maria Johnson explore bycatch in the Gulf of California.

143 HOMESTEAD Finding the fungus among us; introducing Rain to Table; connecting the sky islands.

158 FARM REPORT 162 SONORAN SKILLET Salad dressings that have you —and your greens—covered.

169 BAJA BREWS Baja Arizona brewers don’t just brew—they also educate, inspire, and foster community.

184 BUZZ Three Wells Distilling makes spirits with a distinctly regional signature.

124 A SEAT AT THE TABLE One out of every seven American workers is employed in the food industry. Many can’t afford to eat the food they grow and serve.

192 A DAY IN BAJA ARIZONA Explore Portal.

194 LAST BITE A late night mystery.

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“THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS GUILT-FREE EATING.”—DAN BARBER

COYOTE TALKING

I

Remembering Sid

f you ’ r e lucky ,

there is a relationship in your life that profoundly determines your fate, that sets off a chain reaction of cause and effect that reverberates over decades, that deeply influences your place in the world. I was fortunate to have such a relationship of more than 30 years with a friend, mentor, and business partner named Sidney Brinckerhoff. The longtime Tucsonan, who had lived the last 20 years in the Pacific Northwest, died in early January.

In 1989, five years into publishing the Tucson Weekly, my founding copartner and I split ways. Our handful of minority shareholders was forced to choose between us. At a climactic meeting after a month of drama, Sid led the charge to reject an offer from an out-of-town suitor; my partner (who was in cahoots with them) resigned; and yours truly was now the editor and publisher of a newspaper on the verge of collapse. Within a few weeks, I drove away from Sid’s house with a check for $250,000 to fund my brand new business plan. Just 29 years old, I was full of apprehension, optimism, and sheer exuberance. Sid saved the Tucson Weekly, and would do so a few more times in the decade ahead.

To this day, Sid’s admonition to me to “work with alacrity” rings in my ears. We faced a multitude of challenges over the years, but our good humor remained intact, our mutual respect deepened, and our willingness to continue our merry slog around new obstacles never wavered. We would make a pot of tea, sit down to review my always-changing plans, and part ways with a hug.

“Thank you, Sid” is a refrain I’ve said aloud and to myself many times over the years: at junctures when my gratitude for the present moment was overwhelming, when that cause and effect was resonant, when cognizance of what has continued to unfold as a result of our partnership was palpable.

Everything I’ve had the opportunity to pursue since selling the Tucson Weekly in 2000—including creating Edible Baja Arizona—is a direct result of Sid’s willingness to take a big chance that brutally hot summer of 1989 on a young dreamer who just wanted to keep publishing his newspaper. Thank you, Sid.

I

of the struggle of food workers—from fast-food employees to farmworkers—to feed themselves, Debbie Weingarten’s story explores what the Fair Wages and Healthy Families Initiative, approved by voters last November, means to the more than 30 percent of Arizona’s workforce who toil in the food industry. She quotes Michael Pollan: “Cheap food is an illusion. The real cost of the food is paid somewhere. And if it isn’t paid at the cash register, it’s charged to the environment, or to the public purse in the form of subsidies.” Every bite of food you eat is derived from a complex series of economic decisions. We owe a huge debt to those whose labor results in the food on our plates.

In John Washington’s feature on Biosphere 2, he writes that what began as “an ecotechnical dream” more than 30 years ago has become, with the involvement of the University of Arizona, “a giant, multimission lab and tourist destination.” As Biosphere 2 celebrates its 30th birthday this coming Earth Day, the sprawling project embodies the “spirit of exploration” of its founders more than ever. “The Biosphere 2 is a magnifying glass,” says its deputy director John Adams, “giving scientists and visitors alike a new view not only of individually controlled variables but also of entire real and imagined systems.”

As always, there is so much more to discover in this issue. Please enjoy, and we’ll see you around the table. ¡Salud! n her poignant portr ayal

—Douglas Biggers, editor and publisher 6 March/April 2017

ONLINE twitter.com/EdibleBajaAZ

Happy 105th birthday, #Arizona! We #love you! instagram.com/EdibleBajaAZ

How beautiful are these #organic #radishes from #Tucson #CSA? facebook.com/ediblebajaarizona

As the rest of the world uploads, Edible Baja Arizona unloads 25,000 copies of Issue 22 from Courier Graphics in Arizona! Watch the video here: bit.ly/eBADelivery

Janice Alesci’s recipe for Orange Date Pecan Muffins with Orange-Honey Butter.

(Photography by Ben Sisco) Subscribe at bit.ly/SubscribeEBA

Editor and Publisher Douglas Biggers Editor

Megan Kimble

Art Director

Steve McMackin

Advertising Sales Director John Hankinson Business Coordinator Kate Kretschmann Online Editor

Shelby Thompson

Designer

Chloé Tarvin

Senior Contributing Editor Gary Paul Nabhan Copy Editor

Ford Burkhart

Proofreader

Charity Whiting

Contributors

Craig S. Baker, Amy Belk, Kimi Eisele, Nichole Goff, Marguerite Happe, Saraiya Kanning, Molly Kincaid, Lorry Levine, Kathe Lison, Eric Magrane, Dennis Newman, Kate Selby, Lisa Shipek, John Washington, Rachel Wehr, Debbie Weingarten

Photographers & Artists

Adela Antoinette, Julie DeMarre, Scott Griessel, Steven Meckler, Tim Fuller, Maria Johnson, Shelley Kirkwood, Joe Pagac, Julius Schlosburg, Bridget Shanahan, Jeff Smith, Jeffrey Walcott

On the cover: French fries and food stamps. Many low-wage food workers rely on taxpayer-supported subsidized health care and nutrition assistance just to get by. Photo by Steven Meckler

Interns Madeleine Crawford, Gloria Knott, Jake O’Rourke

Above: Model Kaily Samaniego holds French fries as Steve McMackin makes the perfect arrangement. Benji the dog waits for a dropped treat. Photo by Joseph Boldt

Distribution

Royce Davenport, Gil Mejias, Shiloh Walkosak-Mejias, Steve and Anne Bell Anderson

We’d love to hear from you

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8 March/April 2017

VOICES

We asked some of Tucson’s Syrian refugees: What is your favorite sweet to bake?

Interviews by Nichole Goff | Photography by Jeffrey Walcott

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he m ar k et is packed with tables full of syrup-soaked, flaky pastries; crumbly sugar cookies; golden cake; and steaming cups of Turkish coffee. Organized by Tucson Welcomes Refugees, the Syrian Sweets Exchange is a bake sale run by Syrian refugee women who call Tucson home. More than 500 people came to the third event. Syria is a country famous for its food—especially its sweets. These events and the availability of these baked goods have been opportunities for cultural and personal connection that allows the bakers to share their food and financially support their families. Reema Abu Zead, who arrived with her family 14 months ago, says of the bake sales, “I’m happy to introduce my culture to Tucson. I get to meet people here. Syrian women like to feed you; it’s a way to share culture.”

A wide array of sweets are available to sample, including baklawah, basbousa, katayef, eswaret as-set, asabea’ Zainab, ghorayebah, and many more. One reason to attend the Syrian Sweets Exchange is to sample family recipes of each baker. Many of the women say they would like to eventually open an in-home bakery business to help supplement their family’s income.

As baking brings joy, it also engenders change. These women must slightly shift and change their recipes to accommodate differences in ingredient tastes and availability. In this way, baking also becomes a form of adaptation and growth. Baking is an invaluable connection to memories, community, family, and home.

So, we asked the bakers: What is your favorite sweet to bake?

10 March/April 2017

“Kunafa, basbousa with cream, and Syrian pound cake.

It’s easy for me to make them because I’ve practiced a lot! They all remind me of my family. I used to make and serve kunafa at night when my family was all together.

I also used to buy kunafa from a local shop in Darah, Syria, when I would walk around town with my friends.”

— Noor Alhuda

“Katayef with nuts. I enjoy making it and have my own special secret recipe. It reminds me of Ramadan overseas, and of my family and Syria. Making baklawah reminds me of my mother—it connects me to her. I always want to improve my work and make it nicer. My mother liked making baklawah the old fashioned way, and now I’m making it something new. Mine is a new shape, and now I’m able to add different nuts and different butter.”

— Reema Abu Zead edible Baja Arizona

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“My favorite is warbat, because my children like it, too. It reminds me of Damascus, and it’s something you can’t find anywhere in Tucson.”

— Manahel Asmadi

“My two favorites are osh el bulbul (bird’s nest) and basbousa (semolina cake). Basbousa is easy to make, is not too expensive, and sells well. Osh el bulbul reminds me of the old market in Midan, Syria, where they sell the best sweets on earth.”

— Safaa Taata

12 March/April 2017

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“Asabea’ Zainab (Zainab’s fingers), eswaret as-set (lady’s bracelet), baklawah, and fatayer. I like all of them! My mother used to make Asabea’ Zainab when it was cold in the winter in Syria to help keep us warm.”

“Making basbousa always reminds me of my mother.

I learned to make khaliyat an-nahel (the beehive) after moving here. I need some assistance when making khaliyat an-nahel as it’s more complicated.

Making it reminds me of life overseas.”

— Mariam Alhmed

— Zainab Almasri

14 March/April 2017

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VOICES Recipes from the Syrian Sweets Exchange | Photography by Scott Griessel

Ghorayebah Ingredients: 1 1 2 ½

cup sweet butter cup powdered sugar, sifted cups all-purpose flour Blanched slivered almonds, to garnish

Instructions: Preheat often to 325 degrees. Butter should be somewhat soft. Chill in refrigerator if it’s too soft. Put butter in mixing bowl and beat until light.

Gradually add sifted powdered sugar, beating until very creamy and light. Sift flour and fold into butter mixture.

Knead lightly until smooth. (Don’t overdo it.) If your kitchen is hot, chill the dough in refrigerator for 1-2 hours.

Roll pieces of dough into balls the size of walnuts and place on ungreased baking sheets. Flatten slightly. Flour hands lightly if necessary. Top each one with a slivered almond.

Bake in the preheated oven for 20-25 minutes until very lightly golden. Cool on baking sheets.

16 March/April 2017

Hereseh Ingredients: Dough: 3 cups of semolina flour 1 cup of sugar 1½ cups of yogurt 1½ teaspoons of baking soda 1 tablespoon of butter Blanched slivered almonds Sugar syrup: 1 cup sugar ½ cup water Squeeze of lemon juice Instructions: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix together all ingredients. Keep covered in a dark place for at least 8 hours. Butter a 9” x 9” baking dish and cover it with flour. Add the dough mixture and spread it equally in the dish. Add almonds on the top.

Bake for 30 minutes, or until golden.

Meanwhile, prepare sugar syrup. Simmer sugar and water and a squeeze of lemon on low heat for about 5 minutes.

Remove baking pan from oven and let cool. Cut into small pieces and add the sugar syrup while still hot.

Ballorieh Ingredients: 16-ounce pack of kataifi dough ½ cup of ghee (clarified butter) or melted unsalted butter Syrup for dough: 1 cup sugar 1/2 cup water Lime juice from half a lime 1 teaspoon of rose water 4 cups lightly roasted unsalted shelled pistachios Syrup for filling: ½ cup of granulated sugar 1/2 cup honey (kater syrup) 1/2 cup water 2 teaspoons rose water 1 teaspoon lemon juice Instructions: Preheat oven to 200 degrees. Place kataifi dough in a baking pan. Separate the fine strands of dough. Drizzle the clarified butter (ghee) or melted butter on it. Mix well, fluffing the dough, then place the pan in preheated oven. Bake at 200 degrees for 10 minutes.

Fluff the dough with a fork and bake for additional 5 minutes. Remove from oven and set aside.

To prepare syrup for the dough: Mix 1 cup of sugar and 1/2 cup of water in a pan on medium low heat, until sugar is melted. Add lime juice.

Once it comes to boil, reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes. Let cool. Add rose water. Set aside.

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To prepare filling: Pulse the pistachios in food processor. Grind them to desired coarseness.

Set aside. Start to make a syrup for the filling: In a large wok-like pan, mix water, sugar, and honey and lemon juice. Heat on stove at medium-low heat. When comes to a boil, reduce heat to low simmer for 4 minutes. Add rose water. Add ground pistachios and mix well.

To assemble: Put the lightly baked dough on parchment paper. Drizzle the syrup (that you prepared first) all over the dough and gently mix well.

Grease a 10” x 13” glass pan with melted ghee or butter. Take half the dough mixed with syrup and layer it as bottom layer on greased glass pan.

Try to line the fibers lengthwise as much as you can and press firmly down with back of cup.

Add filling on top of bottom layer of dough and spread across evenly. Press down firmly on the bottom layer of dough with a greased bottom of a measuring cup. Top with another layer of dough and spread evenly. Again press down firmly on the filling. Cover with parchment paper. Place another small heavy pan and some weights on top and let it sit for 10 hours at room temperature.

The next day, remove the weights and parchment paper. With sharp knife cut in to desired sized squares and serve.  For more information about the Syrian Sweets Exchange, visit SyrianSweetsAZ.com.

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gleanings

Nicole Carillo and her husband, Johnny, transplanted their Savannah store to Tucson’s Fourth Avenue.

Make Your Kitchen Smile

A newcomer boutique, Mabel’s on 4th creates kitchen community.

Text and Photography by Shelby Thompson

G

rowing up , Nicole Carrillo spent every Sunday afternoon of her childhood eating “the best meal of the week” at her Grandma Mabel’s table. Grandma Mabel encouraged Nicole to cook nutritious meals for her own family, and eventually inspired Mabel’s on 4th, a kitchen boutique that will “make your kitchen smile,” says Carrillo.

Mabel’s on 4th wasn’t always a quaint kitchen boutique located in the middle of Fourth Avenue. Until October 2016, it existed clear across the country in Savannah, Georgia, where Nicole and her husband, Johnny, lived while he served in the Marine Corps. There, the store was known as Kitchen on the Square and served the large number of tourists that visit Savannah each year. As Johnny’s retirement approached, the couple set their sights on moving to Texas. However, when Nicole came to Tucson to visit a friend in early 2016, she began to reconsider their plans.

“This place is freaking beautiful,” she said. Nicole liked it so much that she planned a trip to return in June. Untroubled by the summer heat that prevented her departing plane from taking off, she convinced Johnny to return with her for the third time in August. On the last day of their trip, Nicole insisted on taking Johnny to Fourth Avenue because “the Pop-Cycle girls are just darling and I fell in love with them.” As they walked down the shop-lined street, they noticed a vacant storefront for rent. As fate would have it, the owner was there and gave them a tour

22 March/April 2017

of the shop and attached art studio that would allow Johnny, an illustrator, to work alongside Nicole.

It was at that point that Johnny asked, “Why are we even going to Texas?” So they signed the lease on the building that now houses Mabel’s on 4th and moved to Tucson. “When you move your store across the country, it puts some hairs on you,” Nicole said. Yet, the move has more than paid off for the Carrillos and their family-run kitchen boutique. “The attitude of the people in Tucson is so kind and welcoming … the complete opposite of a small town in the South.” Nicole said. “Tucson makes me want to be a good citizen,” Johnny added. Now that their customer base doesn’t consist of tourists, Mabel’s on 4th is beginning to develop a group of loyal customers who return week after week.

“Everybody has a kitchen, and you can always justify buying something for [it],” Nicole said. She sources her products everywhere from large manufacturers to grandmas who crochet in their homes. Johnny designs all of the tea towels, which are illustrated and emblazoned with phrases such as, “My dog would make a better president.” Free of packaging, the wide array of spoons, citrus peelers, and shelving encourage customers to interact with everything in the store. Each purchase comes with a vintage, hand-written recipe card. “It doesn’t feel like work. It feels like I’m doing exactly what I’m supposed to do,” Nicole said.

Mabel’s on 4th. 419 N. Fourth Ave. 520.304.1029. Mabelson4th.com.

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Cynthia Smith (left) and Elianna Madril make a Sonoran Kimchi that captures the flavors of Baja Arizona.

Below the Earth

Kimchi finds a home in Baja Arizona.

Text and Photography by Shelby Thompson

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imchi , a fermented cabbage dish that Koreans have been making for thousands of years, was traditionally stored underground in clay pots to regulate its temperature.

Although Bajo Tierra Kitchen owners Cynthia Smith and Elianna Madril don’t ferment their Sonoran Kimchi underground, the name (which translates to “below the earth”) serves as an homage to its origins. In fact, Bajo Tierra Kitchen’s products are a direct reflection of the local crops in Baja Arizona.

Smith and Madril bonded over their love for food and cooking while working at Café Passe. Although the friends both enjoy the taste and health benefits of kimchi, the decision to base a business off of it stemmed from their desire to reduce food waste at local farms. When Smith and Madril began working at Sleeping Frog Farms and Tucson Village Farm, respectively, they noticed a large amount of produce left over from weekly farmers’ markets. Making kimchi—fermented cabbage packed with carrots, onions, daikon radish, ginger, garlic, and fresh chili peppers—seemed like the perfect way to ensure that this local produce would go to good use.

“When we first started, we wanted [the kimchi] to be as traditional as possible,” Smith said. However, their desire to source locally led them to the slightly adapted, yet still entirely delicious, Sonoran Kimchi recipe they now use. The combination of sweet

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peppers and chiltepins used in Bajo Tierra Kitchen’s Sonoran Kimchi adds to it the flavor of Baja Arizona. Smith and Madril source much of their produce through Pivot Produce and Sleeping Frog Farms; and when they can’t find an ingredient locally, they buy organic. While they’re doing their best to source locally, Smith and Madril ultimately hope to increase the variety of products they sell to let them use more leftover produce from local farms.

Smith, who wrote the business plan for Bajo Tierra Kitchen while studying retail and consumer sciences at the University of Arizona, always intended for the business to sell multiple products. In addition to preventing more food waste, adding new products to the line will increase their affordability and enable more people to try fermented foods. Those who can’t afford the $13 Sonoran Kimchi, for example, might be able to afford a jar of sauerkraut ($10).

However, the 20-to-30-day process of fermenting their products and sequentially receiving approval by the FDA make expansion a lengthy endeavor. Smith and Madril hope to eventually get their products into larger stores such as Whole Foods and Sprouts. For now, their local kimchi and sauerkraut await Tucsonans above the earth at Food Conspiracy Co-op and the Santa Cruz River Farmers’ Market.

BajoTierraKitchen.com.

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Curly Wolf founder Timothy Johnson says that the kombucha he makes is an homage to his grandfather, “a curly wolf himself.”

One Mean Drink

Curly Wolf Kombucha offers a taste of Tucson.

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Text and Photography by Shelby Thompson

T imoth y J ohnson thinks of a curly wolf, he envisions an ornery old man nursing his whiskey at the bar. Curly Wolf Kombucha comes in 12-ounce beer bottles printed with modern logos sans any promise of healthful well-being. One look at Curly Wolf Kombucha makes it clear that this isn’t the miracle-touting elixir that many brands claim their kombucha to be. This is just a well-crafted, tasty beverage—one that just happens to have a few extra health benefits.

Kombucha is fermented tea. To make it, caffeinated green or black teas are steeped in filtered water, lightly sweetened with organic evaporated cane juice, and given a culture (SCOBY, for symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast). The yeast carbonates the beverage by consuming the liquid sugars. Although it can be consumed after as little as 10 days, kombucha is at its healthiest and most flavorful after about three weeks of fermentation.

Johnson, Curly Wolf Kombucha’s founder and all-around hat wearer, began brewing kombucha in 2011 after a voluntary kombucha recall by every company in the business. Accustomed to enjoying the tangy carbonated beverage every day, Johnson found himself missing the taste and energy that kombucha provided him. His only option was to brew it himself.

After three years of brewing kombucha in his small Los Angeles apartment, Johnson began to hone his craft. As friends and customers repeatedly told him how much they enjoyed his home-brewed kombucha, Johnson’s confidence in the endeavor continued to build. By this time, Tucson had grown and transformed from the quiet city it was when Johnson left in 2010. “Coming back and seeing the drastic change was so inspiring,” he said. Tucson’s hen

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transformation, along with old friends who were gradually moving back to begin their own creative endeavors, galvanized Johnson to return to his hometown and start Curly Wolf Kombucha.

“It’s a craft, not a supplement,” Johnson said of the oak barrel-aged kombucha. His ultimate goal is to convince people that kombucha is a delicious beverage that happens to aid digestion and energy levels. He does this by creating flavors such as the Old Fashioned, which is made with tart cherry juice, expressed orange peel and bitters, and fermented in a Whiskey Del Bac oak barrel. “It’s perfect for dropping a little whiskey in,” he added. “[The kombucha] is an homage to my grandfather, who’s kind of like a curly wolf himself,” Johnson explained. Johnson is determined to reflect the flavors of the Sonoran Desert in his craft. “I grew up watching my grandfather pop chiltepins into his mouth with breakfast,” he said. “I’m trying to use more local ingredients and more inspiration from growing up in a Mexican household in the Sonoran region.” Local citrus and peppers from Pivot Produce and Iskashitaa Refugee Network, Mexican piloncillo (brown sugar), and locally roasted coffee beans give Curly Wolf Kombucha a distinctly Tucson taste.

Find Curly Wolf Kombucha at 15 local markets, including 5 Points Market, Food Conspiracy Co-op, and Rincon Market. “I still have a lot of work to do in Tucson,” Johnson said. He hopes to get his kombucha into stores on Tucson’s north and east sides.

For now, he continues to create flavors that embody the taste of his upbringing and the Sonoran Desert.  CurlyWolfKombucha.com.

Shelby Thompson is the online editor of Edible Baja Arizona.

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MARCH Saturday, March 11

4th Annual Ajo Food Festival 9 a.m.-1 p.m.

Ajo Plaza 15 W. Plaza Street, Ajo

CALENDAR APRIL

Tuesday, March 21

Monday, March 13 through Sunday, March 19

Water Harvesting Design Certification Watershed Management Group 1137 N. Dodge Boulevard

Thursday, March 16

Edible Plant Tour 10-11:30 a.m.

Tucson Botanical Gardens 2150 N. Alvernon Way

Friday, March 17

Hypertufa Pot-Making Workshop 9-11 a.m.

Tucson Botanical Gardens 2150 N. Alvernon Way

30th Annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade & Festival 10 a.m.-6 p.m.

Armory Park 221 S. 6th Avenue

Tucson Organic Gardeners: How to Grow 7-9 p.m.

St. Mark’s Presbyterian Church 3809 E. 3rd Street

Kitchens of Nogales: A Gastronomic Tour

Thursday, March 23

Tucson Water Rebate Class: Rainwater Harvesting

Sunday, April 2

3-6 p.m.

Watershed Management Group 1137 N. Dodge Boulevard

Saturday, March 25

Field Studies: Pruning Native Shade Trees 9 a.m.-12 p.m.

Watershed Management Group 1137 N. Dodge Boulevard

Sunday, March 26 Edible Shade Mesquite Pancake Breakfast

Taste of Oro Valley 5-8 p.m.

Gaslight Music Hall Oro Valley 13005 N. Oracle Road

2:30-8:30 p.m.

Border Community Alliance 47 N. Sonoita Avenue, Nogales

Wednesday, March 29

Sunday, March 19

Free Bike Maintenance Basics Class

Griffin Gallop Cross Country Challenge 8 a.m.-12 p.m.

Green Fields School 6000 N. Camino de la Tierra

Tucson Water Rebate Class: Rainwater Harvesting 9 a.m.-12 p.m.

Watershed Management Group 1137 N. Dodge Boulevard

9 a.m.-12 p.m.

Watershed Management Group 1137 N. Dodge Boulevard

Saturday, March 18

Saturday, April 1

6:30 p.m.

Tucson Hop Shop 3230 N. Dodge Boulevard

Taste of Tubac

Tuesday, April 18

Tucson Organic Gardeners: Propagating Perennial Herbs 6:30-9 p.m.

St. Mark’s Presbyterian Church 3809 E. 3rd Street

Saturday, April 22

San Clemente Neighborhood Historic Home Tour 1-4 p.m.

San Clemente Park 3955 E. Cooper Street

Kitchens of Nogales: A Gastronomic Tour 2:30-8:30 p.m.

Border Community Alliance 47 N. Sonoita Ave., Nogales

5-8 p.m.

Tubac Golf Resort & Spa 65 Avenida de Otero, Amado

Thursday, April 27

Tuesday, April 4

Tucson Water Rebate Class: Rainwater Harvesting

Arizona Gives Day All day

Wednesday, April 5 Spring Cleaning for Tucson Trees 10-11 a.m.

Tucson Botanical Gardens 2150 N. Alvernon Way

Friday, April 7

Kitchens of Nogales: A Gastronomic Tour 2:30-8:30 p.m.

Border Community Alliance 47 N. Sonoita Ave., Nogales

Sunday, April 9

Sam Hughes Neighborhood Home Tour 12-5 p.m.

2513 E. 6th Street

Thursday, April 13

Field Studies: Sonoran Food Forests 5:30-7:30 p.m.

Watershed Management Group 1137 N. Dodge Boulevard

3-6 p.m.

Watershed Management Group 1137 N. Dodge Boulevard

R E P E AT I N G Saturdays: March 11, 18, 25 April 1, 8, 15

DIY Desert Design 9 a.m.-12 p.m.

Tucson Botanical Gardens 2150 N. Alvernon Way

Saturdays

Distillery Tour and Tasting 3 p.m.

Hamilton Distillers 2106 N. Forbes Boulevard Suite #103

Monday-Sunday

Mesquite Sawmill Tours No appointment needed Tumacacori Mesquite Sawmill 2007 E. Frontage Road, Tumacacori

SEND US YOUR EVENTS!

EdibleBajaArizona.com/events Submit events by April 14 for our May/June issue.

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FARMERS’ MARKETS

Saturdays

Sundays

Heirloom Farmers’ Market

Heirloom Farmers’ Market

March 9 a.m.-1 p.m./April 8 a.m.-12 p.m.

Steam Pump Ranch, Oro Valley 10901 N. Oracle Road

FoodInRoot Farmers’ Market 9 a.m.-1 p.m.

St. Philip’s Plaza

Rincon Valley Farmers’ Market 8 a.m.-1 p.m.

12500 E. Old Spanish Trail

Bisbee Farmers’ Market 9 a.m.-1 p.m.

Vista Park, Bisbee

St. David Farmers’ Market 9 a.m.-12 p.m.

70 E. Patton St., St. David

Shorey Family Farms 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m.

Mirage & Bird Botanicals, 10 Plaza Road, Tubac

Authentically Ajo Farmers’ Market 9 a.m.-12 p.m.

15 W. Plaza, Ajo

FoodInRoot Farmers’ Market 4:30-7:30 p.m.

Third Fridays Rancho Sahuarita.

8 a.m.-12 p.m.

Rillito Park Food Pavilion

FoodInRoot Farmers’ Market 9 a.m.-1 p.m.

St. Philip’s Plaza

Santa Fe Square Farmers’ Market 9 a.m.-2 p.m.

Santa Fe Square Shopping Center

Mondays

El Pueblo Farm Stand 3-5 p.m.

Irvington Road & South Sixth Avenue

Tuesdays

FoodInRoot Farmers’ Market 10 a.m.-2 p.m.

First and Third Tuesdays Northwest Medical Center

Wednesdays

Shorey Family Farms 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m.

Mirage & Bird Botanicals, 10 Plaza Road, Tubac

FoodInRoot Farmers’ Market 10 a.m.-2 p.m.

Wednesday 3/22, 3/28, 4/5, 4/11, 4/19, 5/3 UA Mall

Thursdays

Santa Cruz River Farmers’ Market 3-6 p.m.

Mercado San Agustín

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Sierra Vista Farmers’ Market 10 a.m.-2 p.m.

Veterans’ Memorial Park 3105 E Fry Blvd., Sierra Vista

Authentically Ajo Farmers’ Market 4-7 p.m.

15 W. Plaza, Ajo

Fridays

Heirloom Farmers’ Market March 9 a.m.-1 p.m./April 8 a.m.-12 p.m.

Trail Dust Town

FoodInRoot Farmers’ Market 10 a.m.-2 p.m.

Banner-UMC

77 North Marketplace Farmers’ Market 9 a.m.-1 p.m.

16733 N. Oracle Road, Catalina

El Presidio Mercado 9 a.m.-2 p.m.

Corner of Church and Alameda

Sycamore Park Twilight Farmers’ Market 4:30-7:30 p.m.

First Fridays Sycamore Park

FoodInRoot Farmers’ Market 4:30-7:30 p.m.

Third Fridays Rancho Sahuarita

FoodInRoot Farmers’ Market 5-8 p.m.

Fourth Fridays Tucson Botanical Gardens

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hether you need to refuel after a muscle-burning ride up Mount Lemmon or you’re looking for a spot to meet your friends for brunch, the self-described “European style espresso bar and patisserie” Le Buzz Caffé has been serving up tasty food for 20 years on Tucson’s northeast side. Owner Margaret Hadley points to French and Italian cafés as the original inspiration for the menu, with an additional emphasis on Southwestern flavors added when Le Buzz began serving breakfast. A variety of tantalizing baked goods drawn from “all-American comfort food” round out the menu.

Hadley says Le Buzz Caffé was one of the first restaurants in Tucson to roast its own coffee, and they take pride in both the coffee they serve and the beans they sell. We ordered a latte and a mocha, and the coffee lives up to the hype: smooth and without bitterness, and the chocolate flavor of the mocha is subtle yet sweet.

Our entrées quickly followed the coffee. The Scrambled Eggs ($5.50) come with a choice of toast or French roll, and it was just the right size meal for a modest appetite. The eggs were light and buttery, with

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a fluffy texture and good mouthfeel.

The roll, served with butter and raspberry jam, had a nice crust and was a substantial companion for the eggs.

If you’re used to the hefty tortilla-bound morning meals served up at Mexican fast food joints, the Le Buzz Breakfast Burrito ($8.50) will seem small by comparison. Don’t let the compact size fool you. This burrito was big on taste, with crispy bits of bacon and perfectly cooked home fries, scrambled eggs, fresh pico de gallo, and cheddar cheese. The roasted tomatillo salsa is sweet with a mild heat, Le Buzz Caffé’s housemade Chorizo Potato Hash with Poached Egg.

marking this dish as a Southwestern favorite that is safe for all palates.

Le Buzz’s House-Made Chorizo Potato Hash with Poached Egg ($9.50) is only served on the weekends, so I jumped at the chance. The egg was expertly poached, the toast crusty and light, and the sliced avocado perched on top was decadent. The chorizo, potato, bell pepper, and onion hash was flavorful but not spicy, with browned potatoes.

We capped off our meal with a piece of Apple Almond Cake, which was everything we could wish for in a breakfast dessert. Almond and brown sugar crumbles topped a lightly sweet cake, with a generous portion of baked apple filling making the end result resemble an apple pie with cake instead of pastry.

Before Le Buzz Caffé opened their doors two decades ago, Hadley tells me they posted a notice in the shop window saying they hoped to “provide … customers with an espresso bar in the European tradition, with great coffee and pastries and an inviting atmosphere in which to enjoy them.”

The menu may have expanded, but that hope continues to be realized.

Le Buzz Caffé.

9121 E. Tanque Verde Road.

520.749.3903.

LeBuzzCaffe.com.

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La Parrilla Suiza’s Platillo Mixto con Bistec combination platter.

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family - ow ned r estaur ant

responsible for bringing Mexico City food to Arizona-residing mouths since 1969, La Parrilla Suiza has deep roots in Tucson, with three locations in Tucson and two in the Phoenix metropolitan area. The recipes are drawn from family tradition, and many items from the original menu continue to be served today.

In the mood for gobs of melty queso and a margarita or two, I grabbed a couple of friends and headed to La Parrilla Suiza’s Speedway location for dinner. A complementary trio of salsas and fresh corn chips set the stage for the rest of our meal and helped take the edge off our appetites. Gilbert Aguilar, the general manager for the Speedway location, says the salsas are made fresh daily, and I found the green tomatillo salsa to be particularly outstanding, which Aguilar credits to the combination of tomatillo and avocado.

For my drink, I figured go big or home: I ordered the Cadillac Margarita ($9.99), which is made with 1800 Tequila, Grand Marnier, and fresh lime juice. Available blended or on the rocks, this is a large drink and will easily last an entire meal (mine did).

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As for the melty queso, we ordered the smaller Queso Suizo ($8.49, serves 2) as an appetizer for the table, and proceeded to shovel heaping spoonfuls of cheese into hand-sized flour tortillas. While the Queso Suizo can be ordered with a topping of chorizo, I found the cheese and tortillas alone to be a rich and flavorful dish as is.

Our entrées arrived in short order, with the award for most dramatic presentation going to the Parillada de Pollo ($15.99). Delivered on a table grill loaded with live coals to keep the dish hot, the Parillada was a colorful jumble of sautéed chicken breast, bacon, onions, and bell peppers intended for scooping into handmade corn tortillas; it comes with a side of charro beans. Aguilar tells me La Parrilla Suiza makes the masa in house daily, and the tortillas are made throughout the day. Walking past the open kitchen, we watched more tortillas being made, the cook’s hands scooping masa and transforming it into small flat circles waiting their turn on the griddle.

For those looking to feed an outsized appetite, the Platillo Mixto con Bistec combination platter ($12.99) promises not to disappoint. Two bistec

tacos and a single-person serving of Queso Suiza topped by chorizo, grilled bell peppers, and avocado, along with sides of rice and charro beans, occupied what was easily the largest plate on our table. The chorizo, bell peppers, and avocado take the cheese-in-tortilla portion of the dish up a notch in complexity of flavor, and the bistec tacos were true to their street food origins: simple and satisfying.

As luck would have it, my own entrée turned out to be my favorite: the Enchiladas Suizas ($12.99), filled with chicken and soaked in La Parrilla Suiza’s house-made red enchilada sauce, packed a ton of flavor into three of those fresh corn tortillas. The sauce, made with ancho and guajillo chiles, brought a gorgeous smoky flavor to the dish and played off well against the well-salted chicken.

We finished our meal with an order of flan ($5.25): creamy and thick, with just the right amount of caramel, it was the perfect way to round out our meal. We left La Parrilla Suiza reminded of why they remain a go-to spot for Tucson Mexican cuisine.

La Parrilla Suiza. 5602 E. Speedway Blvd. LaParrillaSuiza.com.

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Good Day Café’s Chicken and Waffles.

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I’ m in the mood for some perfectly crisped, golden brown pancakes, I point my mouth toward Good Day Café. Tucked inside an unassuming shopping center on Speedway just east of Craycroft, Good Day Café has grown a devoted following since opening in August 2013. Their business model is simple: serve up scratch-made food at competitive prices. Owner Susan Duran points to their clientele as the deciding factor for the Good Day Café’s price point. “We want to make our customers happy and still make a profit, but I’m not going to raise more than I have to,” she says. She estimates that most menu items fall about $2 below what similar restaurants charge. Lower prices haven’t resulted in a lower quality dining experience: the tuxedo T-shirt-clad employees are all smiles when we arrive for breakfast on a sunny Sunday morning.

My short stack of pancakes ($3.99) was fresh off the griddle, featuring the crispy finish over a fluffy interior with just the right balance of salt and sweet that pancake dreams are made of. I asked Duran what makes the pancakes at Good Day Café so good. She points to the batter for the flavor—“We use a combination of cinnamon and vanilla, and a secret ingredient that I’m hen

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not going to tell you”—and gives the kitchen credit for the griddle-flipped perfection: “That’s my cooks. There’s nothing we [have to] do with that.”

Duran emphasizes the importance of experience when she considers who to hire. “When I hire a line cook, they have to have five years’ experience,” she says. They also have to be great at working as a team: “It’s two [cooks] back there; they have to read each other’s minds on what they’re doing.” That teamwork aesthetic holds true for all the café’s staff, with menu items resulting from input from the servers, cooks, and Duran herself, who says she considers her employees to be like family.

It turned out I wasn’t the only person in the mood for griddle food that Sunday. The potato pancakes ($7.99 for a combo plate) deviated from the usual approach to potato pancakes, mixing savory potatoes, green peppers, and red onions into regular pancake batter. The result is a bit sweeter than a traditional potato pancake, but still up to pairing with sour cream and applesauce for a potato-licious dish.

The chicken and waffles ($7.99) showcased Good Day Café’s fried chicken, an item I don’t often encounter due to my tendency to order breakfast items (read: pancakes) every time I eat at the

café. The breading on the chicken was thick and crunchy, without being overly greasy, and the seasoning was right on: not too salty, with enough pepper to bring out the flavor, but not so much that it hides the chicken. We slathered on the hot sauce and syrup and got to work.

I asked Duran if there were any menu items that she takes special pride in.

She points first to The Hobo ($7.49), a breakfast special featuring two eggs, two sausage patties, and hash browns, “all layered in a big heaping pile.” I recommend taking portion size warnings seriously at Good Day Café. I’ve had The Hobo, and I took about two-thirds of it home after admitting defeat. Duran’s other menu favorite is Good Day Café’s annual NFL Burger series ($9.29 for a burger). The staff dream up a different burger for each team in the NFL (32 in total), and then remove burgers from the menu as their corresponding teams get eliminated in the playoffs. The winning team’s burger stays on the menu all year.

Whether you’re seeking a cheap and tasty breakfast or a hearty lunch in midtown Tucson, Good Day Café has you covered—and the variety of their menu and consistent service is likely to make you a return customer.

Good Day Café. 5683 E. Speedway Blvd.

520.722.9621.

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destination for fine dining in central Tucson, Feast has established itself as a home for unexpected and exciting flavor combinations and food served in a relaxed atmosphere perfect for everything from Sunday brunch to a work luncheon to date night.

Grabbing an early lunch with a friend, I was delighted to discover that Feast begins serving from their happy hour menu the moment they open until 6 p.m. every day. My inner cocktail nerd rejoiced, opting for the Waifs and Strays, a rye whiskey cocktail featuring Grand Hop liqueur ($7.50 happy hour). It successfully integrated the bitter tang of hops with muddled orange and lemon, keeping the drink from becoming overly sweet while also avoiding the realm of IPAs. Chef and owner Doug Levy and his bar staff can be thanked for the variety of culinary-inclined adult beverages, though Levy has a sense of humor when it comes to his contributions: “Much to the dismay of the bartenders, I do create a lot of the cocktails, and since I’ve never been a bartender, the cocktails I make are usually more work than a cocktail needs to be.”

I’m always on the hunt for nonsweet cocktails, so I was already delighted with my choice, but the complementary pairing of a rich, savory arugula potato pancake topped with crisped pork belly took the experience over the top. Levy points to the happy hour specials as an opportunity to expose people to something new, with the additional encouragement of a free snack. “You’ll see things that we think you should be drinking, as opposed to the stuff that people customarily order without thinking about it.”

Feast is known for their substantial wine cellar. We ordered a glass of 2013 German Messwein, paired with an asparagus and goat cheese frittata ($8 happy hour). The wine was delicious: dry, with lemon and honey notes, but the frittata is what really shone in this pairing. I have never eaten eggs so fluffy and moist, and when combined

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Feast’s Shortbread.

with the saltiness of the goat cheese and the tender pieces of asparagus, this little rectangle of flavor was positively sinful in its appeal. I asked Levy what makes the frittata so good. “We beat a little bit of the goat cheese into the cream that we in turn beat into the eggs, [then] bake it in a convection oven, which gives it more lift,” he says. Also important? Quality local ingredients: “We use really good eggs from Zamudio Farms down in Elfrida.”

It’s not easy to pick an entrée from Feast’s menu: everything sounds amazing.

We finally settled on two, with help from our server, Renee. I ordered the vegetarian-friendly Butternut-SpinachNiçoise Olive Tart ($17), and my friend ordered the Seared Beeler’s Heluka Pork Chop ($25). We were both eager to experience the unusual sounding ingredient combinations in our entrées.

Levy points to seasonality of ingredients and balance of flavor and texture as the driving factors behind Feast’s menu, which changes monthly. He also likes to push his boundaries with unfamiliar ingredients. “I’ll go to an ethnic market and just buy stuff that I have no idea what to

Feast’s Seared Beeler’s Heluka Pork Chop.

do with and see what contribution it can make to a dish, or use herbs and spices I haven’t worked with before to see what we can do with them, or put them in a new context,” he says. For example, “Ajwain might not even be noticeable in Indian or Pakistani food, but it really pops when you use it in a dish that people perceive as Western.”

The pork chop arrived beautifully plated, the bright colors of the broccolini, kumquat marmalade, and tangy pickled beet relish popping off the plate. If you prefer your steak a little on the rarer side, you’d probably enjoy the pork chop cooked similarly. The meat was tender and extra flavorful; it’s brined in a mix of sugar, salt, shallot, garlic, peppercorn, and star anise, and had a beautiful caramelized finish. This dish only got better as the meal went on. The crisp bits of pumpernickel toast, while initially valuable for adding a crunchy texture to the meal, began to soak up the flavors from the plate, along with the broccolini, whose firm-to-the-bite saltiness played well against the sweet flavors on the plate.

The tart was a flavor revelation—rich and hearty, with the aggressive flavor of kalamata olives tempered by the soft sweetness of butternut squash. Flaky pastry encircled the vibrant filling, strong enough to hold its own as we attacked the tart. The warm sautéed Brussels sprout leaf, lily flower, and walnut salad served on the side was an adventure all on its own, with the sweetness of honey and crunch of walnuts making it as delicious to mix in with a bite of tart as to eat alone.

We finished our meal with Feast’s Shortbread ($8), a layered treat that featured the juxtaposition of a delicate shortbread, a light and fluffy star anise cremeux, and a dense caramel bavarois (a caramel thickened with gelatin), topped by a pear simmered in thin liquid caramel. Served with fresh berries, it was the perfect ending to an elegant and memorable lunch.

Feast.

3719 E. Speedway Blvd.

520.326.9363.

EatAtFeast.com.

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Poco and Mom’s Best of New Mexico Combo Plate.

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f you ’ r e seek ing a Hatch chile fix, believe the best enchiladas are served flat, or just want a plate heaped with delicious food that won’t break the bank, Poco and Mom’s is the spot for you. They’ve been serving up New Mexican cuisine in Tucson since 1999. In 2014, they opened their Cantina location, featuring expanded hours, an appetizer menu and full bar, and a banquet room for special events.

I couldn’t resist the opportunity to try something off the Cantina drink menu, and opted for the Hatch Margarita ($8), made with Hatch chile-infused Zapopan reposado. Limey and sweet, with a good kick, this drink both refreshes and sets a small fire at the back of your throat. I enjoyed it.

I asked Carol Gibson, manager at Poco and Mom’s Tanque Verde location, what distinguishes New Mexican cuisine from other Southwestern food.

She pointed to subtle differences, such as enchiladas that are served flat instead of rolled, with corn tortillas stacked on top of one another and the option to order eggs on top as being

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“a New Mexico thing.” Perhaps most important, all of the chiles served at Poco and Mom’s are from New Mexico, guaranteeing that diners experience that authentic Hatch flavor.

Fair warning: New Mexico food is served spicy, and Poco and Mom’s portions are large. Come with a big appetite and taste buds ready for heat.

Poco and Mom’s website declares, “It’s hard not to be addicted to this place,” and I have to agree. Our entrées came out slathered with sauce and cheese, the very definition of comfort food. Mom’s Red Chile Chicken Enchiladas ($11.49) came with a generous helping of rice and beans on the side and a good amount of heat on the tongue; the shredded chicken was tender and flavorful. Both the beans and rice contain meat in the form of bacon fat and chicken stock, respectively, and while this doesn’t make them veggie-friendly, it does make them delicious for those who eat meat. The beans in particular are outstanding: creamy, salty, and capable of inspiring return visits for frijoles alone.

If you’re having trouble deciding what to eat, Poco and Mom’s Best of New Mexico Combo Plate ($12.99) gives you a chance to experience a bit of everything. The platter features a green chile chicken enchilada, a sauce-drenched chile relleno, and red shredded beef taco, and includes sides of beans and rice. I swapped out the rice for an extra-cheesy bowl of calabacitas, and was treated to tender squash and onions swimming in rich tomato flavor. The tortillas used at Poco and Mom’s are made in Phoenix and shipped down daily, and provided an excellent backbone for both my enchilada and taco. While not the most aesthetically appealing plate I’ve ever eaten, my taste buds were in heaven as I worked my way through the food, and I went home with a full belly, a full carton of leftovers, and a big smile on my face.  Poco and Mom’s Cantina.

7000 E. Tanque Verde Road.

520.296.9759.

Kate Selby is a local-living enthusiast and craft cocktail chaser living in Tucson. She received her bachelor’s degree in creative writing from the University of Arizona.

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The Plate Plate the

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The one breakfast they should never take off the menu.

1234 Photography by Shelby Thompson

Roasted Sweet Potato Hash Prep and Pastry Diced sweet potatoes are roasted and sautéed with corn, bell pepper, leeks, and asparagus. The hash is topped with fresh spinach, two over-easy eggs, and a dollop of creamy herbed mousse. $11 3073 N. Campbell Ave.

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Fresh Berry Liege Waffles Baja Cafe Liege waffles are made from a brioche dough with Belgium sugar that caramelizes the waffles and gives them a crispy, golden coating. The waff les are served over blueberry sauce and topped with macerated berries, powdered sugar, and whipped cream. $9.49 2970 N. Campbell Ave.

Eggs Benedict Welcome Diner Two halves of a fluffy biscuit are topped with pork belly from E & R Pork, poached eggs, and hollandaise sauce, served alongside hash browns and seasonal fruit. A welcome you can’t resist. $13 902 E. Broadway Blvd.

Huevos Poblanos The Little one Breakfast shouldn’t be small on flavor. Two over-easy eggs come served in a roasted chile poblano and smothered in a mild green poblano-based salsa. Served with beans, rice, chips, and salsa. $10.50.

151 N. Stone Ave.

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EDIBLE INTERVIEW

A Taste of Sierra Vista Diane Jones manages the Sierra Vista Farmers’ Market, a rural market with a big community.

By Marguerite Happe | Photography by Julius Schlosburg

You manage the Sierra Vista Farmers’ Market.

How did the market develop?

Today we’re a mature, established market, and we still have a significant percentage of original vendors that have been with us for 12 years. The market started back in 2005, when a few ranchers and a grower were selling their goods in the parking lot of a store here in Sierra Vista. When the store closed, the informal little gathering needed to find a new location. So, they asked for help from Valerie McCaffrey, who had launched the Bisbee Farmers’ Market a couple of years earlier. Valerie already knew some of these vendors, because in Cochise County, everything overlaps. Everyone knows someone to talk to. So, Valerie found a lot owned by Wick Communications, and asked if vendors could borrow the lot. They generously agreed to let those two growers and a rancher begin selling in the lot, for free.

Within a few months, the market had attracted 10 to 12 more vendors, and has grown continuously ever since. We eventually moved out of that lot when the City of Sierra Vista agreed to let us operate in Veterans Memorial Park. For Sierra Vista, the park is analogous to what Central Park would be for New York City; it’s a beautiful spot.

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How did you first become involved with the market, and what type of preparation is needed each week to successfully operate a farmers’ market of this size?

It’s a small world, actually. My husband, Jim, and I first met Valerie when we all worked together on a little Harvest Festival in Elfrida. We began to help her with market-related events in Bisbee and Sierra Vista, and Jim and I were regular customers at the market. So, Jim and I met and became acquainted with many of the growers, without knowing that we’d ever be involved in the market business. When Valerie left the Sierra Vista Farmers’ Market in 2010, it was a natural fit for me to take over, since I’d been a member of the advisory board and had helped with the market for so long. Today, I always tell people that I’m just as much a promoter as a manager. My job, essentially, is to support promotion and publicity for the market just as Valerie did, so I work with The faces of the farmers’ market. (Clockwise from top left) Irwin the Lettuce Man, Don Beard, Jack Lemons, Simmons Honey Ranchito booth, Irma Estrada, Sivonn Nrong, Gabe Montoya, Zia Bischoff, and David Romero. (Center) Diane and Jim Jones.

Lauren Jones sells Hawaiian shaved ice at the Sierra Vista Farmers’ Market.

organizations and vendors to find out who’s coming, share what they’re bringing, and promote their goods and services to our customers. I send out a weekly newsletter with special events, and I write a concise version for our local newspaper to be published the day before the market. Every week, I feel as if I’ve hosted an enormous party when the market is over.

I’ve lived here for 20 years, so each week I see friends whose kids I watched grow up, who now have their own kids. My husband is still indispensable to the whole operation, too. He does so much work both at the market and behind the scenes, and I couldn’t run it without him.

The Sierra Vista Farmers’ Market not only attracts members of the Sierra Vista Community, it also brings Tucsonans and tourists, too. What type of experience does the market offer for locals and out-of-towners alike?

We have a very small-town, community feel, which is very contagious, even if you don’t live here. People who visit tell me that they feel as if they’re part of something special when they visit; there’s just a friendly vibe. Our location is also in an absolutely beautiful spot, so people love taking day trips. We’re surrounded by mountain views, and many people aren’t aware that our mountains in Sierra Vista are just as breathtaking and steep as those in Tucson. Miller Peak reaches around 9,500 feet.

So, you can come and shop at the market, or you can also enjoy spending time in the park and eating lunch from the food trucks at one of our picnic tables. I wish people knew that many of our growers live practically within the city limits. Some are just a few miles beyond town. If you head to just about any function in this town, say, a youth orchestra concert, you’ll see groups of ranchers, growers, and customers and their families who are entrenched in the market, but also in the city itself. That type of proximity creates a different atmosphere from hosting vendors from other parts of the state.

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In addition to the atmosphere, what type of distinct culinary offerings set the market apart?

We are fortunate to have many organizations that work with us or do outreach at the market, but I also work hard to ensure that we are never oversaturated in any category. One of the distinctive features of the market is our vast selection of meats. We offer everything from beef to goat, lamb, pork, chicken, emu, yak, and wild-caught salmon and cod; there’s really a massive assortment, and the products are almost entirely raised on nearby ranches.

We have jams, honeys, salsas, oils, coffee, body care items, plants, alpaca fleece products, a small percentage of crafts, and of course, plenty of fresh produce. We have also started to accept the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, so that more people than ever can enjoy fresh, local food.

Sierra Vista is a fairly small rural community.

How has the farmers’ market impacted the city?

Someone once told me that tourists visit markets to experience a flavor of the community. I think we function as good ambassadors for our city, but I also will never forget when one customer told me that for her, she feels most like she has a hometown when she comes to the market. I see soldiers having lunch at the food trucks and community members thanking them for their service; I see elderly, lonely people coming to the market for an opportunity to see people they know. The market unites people from all ethnic groups, ages, and segments of society. In addition to supporting local growers and thereby food security for our region, the market has truly helped bring citizens of Sierra Vista together.  Sierra Vista Farmers’ Market. Thursdays, 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. 3105 E. Fry Blvd., Sierra Vista.

520.678.2638. SierraVistaFarmersMarket.com.

Marguerite Happe is a writer, English teacher, and editor.

Follow her on Instagram @margueritehappe.

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YOUTH

Real World School $1,000 grants are helping Tucson students save seeds, grow flowers, make soap—and learn real-world business skills.

By Kimi Eisele | Photography by Jeffrey Walcott

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ast year , Milo Peters, then a first grader, showed up to the chili cook-off fundraiser at his school—Borton Primary Magnet School—with little packets of marigold seeds to sell. He’d grown the marigolds himself and learned from his mom how to pull the seeds from the dry flower. Each packet was folded into a special origami envelope and went for a dollar.

“We made $13 for Borton,” Milo said. “It was a really good start.”

Indeed it was. When they saw Milo’s success, other students wanted to save and sell seeds, too. Eventually, Milo’s idea evolved into a classroom microbusiness called the Borton Garden Shop, where students sell seeds along with small clear ornaments filled with colorful peppers and rosemary grown in the school garden.

“They wanted to make more money. Now they want to make candles using stuff from the garden,” said Molly Reed, who runs the school garden and outdoor learning at Borton.

Reed and her students found help from a national organization called Real World Scholars (RWS), which grants $1,000 to classroom teachers to develop small businesses with their students. By becoming an EdCorp (education corporation), students gain real-world experience through business projects that incorporate classroom curriculum in STEAM subjects— science, technology, engineering, art, and math, said Elyse Burden, cofounder of RWS.

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In 2014, RWS piloted an EdCorp project in a chemistry class in San Diego, where students developed a small soap business.

There are now 230 projects in 31 states. Three Tucson schools are among them.

In addition to funding, RWS provides basic business education and support and hosts an e-commerce site where EdCorps can sell their products online and keep all the profits. “We host the scary stuff for them so they can focus on the fun, fruitful, formative experience,” Burden said.

Food and agricultural businesses are a natural option for schools that already work in those areas, Burden said. For example, in Maine students started selling water flavored with maple syrup. Other schools are offering CSAs selling produce they’ve grown themselves. Some classes are keeping bees and selling honey.

At Apollo Middle School, seventh graders are making bath bombs from herbs grown in an aquaponic pond system that the students researched and created with their science teachers Priscilla Fischback, Katie Montgomery, and Nicholas Martell.

The Borton Garden Shop began when a first grade student came to a chili cook-off fundraiser with packets of marigold seeds to sell. Since then, the idea has taken off, with other students clamoring to save and sell seeds.

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(Left) Seventh grade students at Apollo Middle School mix the ingredients to make bath bombs as part of a small business experience project funded by Real World Scholars. (Right) At Borton Primary Magnet School, a student works to create seed pods for sale in the Borton Garden Shop, part of the EdCorps program.

Aquaponics is a system combining aquaculture and hydroponics, in which plants grow using the nutrients in fish waste, helping to filter pond water in the process. Students realized they could create a business using plants from the pond, Fischback said.

Fischback had made sugar scrubs, but had no first-hand knowledge of bath bombs, which are ball-shaped mixtures of dry ingredients that effervesce when wet. So she set her students off to research and experiment with recipes. “The next day we got surprises because some of the bombs expanded exponentially,” she said. “They were like, ‘What happened?’ ” What happened is that they had poured water into the mixture too quickly, which activated the citric acid, causing a chemical reaction.

“I just had to let them do it,” Fischback said. “I knew something was off, and I opened my cabinet and saw the soap everywhere. But I said, ‘I’m glad you guys are learning.’ Ever since then they know to not pour water too fast.”

Fischback said her students’ initial idea was to create Pokémon-themed bath bombs. “Because at the beginning of the year the Pokémon craze was on,” she said.

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She had them research licensing to learn what would be possible with an existing brand and also had them directly contact the company that produces Pokémon. “That was really entertaining to watch a bunch of 12-year-olds who are really awkward make those phone calls. They were told no, they couldn’t use Pokémon, and they were really bummed,” Fischback said.

Turned down by Pokémon, the students decided to link their bath bombs to endangered species awareness. Each bath bomb is labeled with a tag sharing information about a specific species and its endangered status. The students also created figurines of some of the animals using a 3D printer. The figurines will go inside some of the bath bombs “like a little surprise,” Fischback said.

Eventually they want to be able to adopt an animal from Reid Park Zoo, Fischback said, supporting that animal with money made from the sales of their product.

This kind of problem solving is exactly what RWS likes to invest in, Burden said.

In education circles, it’s called problem-based learning, said Joshua Ruddick, who teaches natural resource management and agriculture at Santa Rita High School. Ruddick got an RWS

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Students participating in EdCorp gain real-world experience through business projects that incorporate classroom curriculum in STEAM subjects—science, technology, engineering, art, and math. (From left) Nick Rochon inspects a seed container filled with sunflower seeds for sale at Borton. Alejandro Bernal, a seventh grade student at Apollo Middle School, makes bath bombs.

Collin Montgomery, another seventh grade student at Apollo, shovels rock to create a pond to hold an aquaponics project. Grace Reed, a kindergarten student at Borton Primary Magnet School, works to sell seeds before the bell for class rings.

grant to fund projects based on the two student-run greenhouses he supervises. Under the name Santa Rita Sprouts, the classes sell produce they’ve grown in one of the greenhouses on the second Saturday of every month through Produce On Wheels Without Waste (POWWOW).

Ruddick’s students are also making a collection of bath soaps and bath bombs called Suds. With RWS funding, they bought supplies then started experimenting with scents and colors.

The Suds come in various fragrances, including Tropical Breeze (juniper and bay rum), Sunday at Grandma’s (coffee and oatmeal), and Lavender Love (lavender and lilac). To make the soaps, students needed a basic understanding of chemistry and plant biology. “They took wildflowers that we had planted and used the flower materials, the petals, in the products,” Ruddick said. Future plans include experimenting with coconut and olive oils.

Ruddick, who worked in business for 15 years before becoming a teacher, said what has impressed him the most about bringing an entrepreneurial project to the classroom is the kind 64 March/April 2017

of collaboration it has yielded. “It’s given me a really tangible example of the power of project-based learning and getting kids to work together.”

On soap days, he said, the students come in and get to work, each one taking responsibility for his or her part. “I have guys that all they do is sit and sniff the essential oils to figure out good combinations.”

This kind of teamwork is productive, he said. “Before, some kids would work together but always that typical scenario where one kid does the heavy lifting and the others don’t do much. This one has been an entire class environment, where all 28 to 30 kids are engaged and involved,” Ruddick said.

Fischback echoed that sentiment and said the bath bomb project has changed her classroom environment. “I don’t have behavior problems. They have to figure how to make things work with each other. I don’t hear them fussing about it.”

Burden said that another important aspect of EdCorps is connecting them to the local community. In Tucson, this was easy, she said. “We didn’t want just a ‘unicorn teacher,’ or a single

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(Clockwise from top) Real-world teachers: Joshua Ruddick teaches natural resource management and agriculture at Santa Rita High School; Molly Reed runs the school garden and outdoor learning program at Borton Primary; Priscilla Fischback teaches science at Apollo Middle School.

strong leader. We had this idea of what a supportive ecosystem would look like. Tucson is one of our favorite communities.”

Organizations like Lead Local and Community Share have been helpful in connecting EdCorp projects to local experts and markets. Borton used Community Share to find a marketing specialist who helped the Garden Shop with its logo.

And Lead Local connected EdCorp projects with the pop-up market Cultivate, where teachers and students sold products last December.

That market taught Fischback and other teachers a lot about business, like the need for bags for the product and a credit card reader. “I didn’t realize all the little things involved to create and run a small business. I appreciate those people who really have to have a passion for it,” she said.

Burden said the goal of RWS isn’t to turn teachers into business people, but to help them make their classroom experience meaningful. “It’s not really about profit, though that can be 66 March/April 2017

exciting for kids. We want to get kids out there learning and selling and talking about what they’re doing and articulating the value of that,” she said.

Earlier this year, Milo Peters, the original seed saver, stood on a stage with Tucson Mayor Jonathan Rothschild when Borton was named Green School of the Year. Later, at the same event, he sat at a booth selling seeds. He talked to anyone who came up to the table—about Borton, about if they had a garden, about seed saving.

Reed said this kind of engagement helps fulfill her goal as a teacher of outdoor learning—to promote a culture of health.

“Kids recognize that flowers are pretty and food is great to eat, but that they can continue the cycle and share that information with the public is invaluable.”  RealWorldScholars.org.

Kimi Eisele is a Tucson-based writer and multidisciplinary artist.

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MEET YOUR FARMER

Growing Arevalos Aaron Cardona carries on the legacy, and future, of his family’s farm near Double Adobe.

By Dennis Newman | Photography by Tim Fuller

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J anuary afternoon at Arevalos Farm, and two generations of the Arevalos family are gathered around a picnic table sorting beans.

At one end sits the older generation, Joan Cardona and her brother, Don Arevalos. She pours a pile of beans onto the table.

He grabs a few handfuls and begins the tedious task of sorting them by hand.

To the untrained eye, there appears to be nothing wrong with these beans. But as Don picks through the mound in front of him, he finds tiny pieces of broken shells, stems, and other chaff. A few minutes later, Don’s chosen beans are set aside to be bagged and sold at farmers’ markets and co-ops. The small pile of rejects is discarded.

At the other end of the table sits the younger generation, Joan’s son, Aaron Cardona, and his wife, Marla. They are sifting through a pile of their own. Aaron explains that his customers want perfectly clean beans. If sorting them by hand is what it takes to make the customer happy, that’s what the family does.

Sorting beans is about as interesting as it sounds, so the conversation meanders to the story of how a farming family from Southern California wound up in the middle of Arizona, and how a young man with no interest in farming traveled abroad only to rediscover his roots.

Arevalos Farm is in the southern end of the Sulphur Springs Valley, a broad, rolling plain of farmland and ranches, grasses and desert scrub, spread between Southeast Arizona’s famed Sky Island mountains. Water plays a huge role in shaping the landscape. An average of 13 inches of rain falls annually, mostly t ’ s a pleasant

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during the monsoon season from July through September. When the rainwater comes rushing down from the mountains, it carries with it dirt that spreads across the valley in broad alluvial fans.

The patriarch of the family, Gilbert Arevalos—Don and Joan’s father—arrived here in 1954 to farm red chile peppers. Demand for red chiles was high, the soil was good, and a nearby natural gas pipeline would provide the family with all the fuel they’d need to dehydrate the peppers.

It was a smart move. Arevalos Farm chiles earned a loyal following across Baja Arizona. People drove hundreds of miles to pick their own, and the family’s peppers became a fixture on menus in Tucson.

“You could list every single Mexican restaurant that’s been there for at least 40 years,” says Aaron. “Take El Charro. If we go into that place with my uncle, they’ll lose their mind because we had such a long relationship.”

But the farm began to decline in the mid-‘80s. Rising costs for basics like electricity made it harder for the family to compete with commodity growers. Gilbert’s sons, Don and Ronnie, moved elsewhere to find employment. When Gilbert died, his daughter, Joan, and her husband kept the land in the family, but only because they had full-time jobs off the farm. Their hope was that one day, one of their children would return and become the third generation of Arevalos farmers.

Aaron Cardona (left) is the third generation to run the family farm near Double Adobe. His mother, Joan Cardona (middle), and father, Art Cardona, still pitch in around the farm.

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Sorting beans by hand is slow work, but the Cardona/Arevalos family uses it as a moment to catch up. (Below, clockwise from left): Sandy Arevalos, Don Arevalos, Art Cardona, Marla Cardona, Joan Cardona, and Aaron Cardona.

A

C ar dona loved growing up on the farm. Playing in the fields with his siblings and cousins, building forts out of chile boxes, racing worms they picked off ears of corn. It was a great place to be a kid.

But like many of his generation, he had no interest in farming.

“I remember me and my cousin Chris picking green beans all day and Grandpa paid us a dollar,” says Aaron. “We were like, ‘Oh my God, we worked all day and we got a dollar. This is ridiculous.’ ” After high school, Aaron went to New Mexico State in Las Cruces for history and Latin American studies. From there he headed north to the School for International Training in Vermont for a masters in international education. As part of his aron

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studies, Aaron traveled to Oaxaca, Mexico, where he assisted a local historian and cultural anthropologist.

Living among the Zapotec people, Aaron saw a reflection of the community he left behind. The elders were immersed in their language and traditions. The middle generation could understand Zapotec only when it was spoken to them. The youngsters wanted to be like Americans. They reminded him of a young man in Arizona who couldn’t wait to leave the farm.

“It caused me to examine myself,” says Aaron. “I started appreciating how I was raised here. I wanted to come back and learn those values myself, like farming and ranching.”

In 2010, Aaron returned to his roots.

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“H

av i ng l a n d is the start of problems,” jokes Aaron as he walks down rows of produce.

This time of year he harvests mesclun and kale. The mesclun, a mix of lettuce, arugula, and mustards, has a sharp bite of horseradish. It tastes nothing like what you’d buy in the supermarket. The stem of the Russian kale is surprisingly fresh and sweet. “No one thinks to eat the stem,” he says, “but I think it’s the best part.”

In the next field, tall stalks of Mexican June corn tower overhead. It’s the same heritage variety his grandfather grew. It’s less sugary but more flavorful than sweet corn, and fans swear it makes the best tamales and tortillas. With the help of Native Seeds/ SEARCH, Aaron grows a yellow meated variety of watermelon that originated on the Tohono O’odham reservation.

As for the beans the family sorts so carefully? It’s a variety called Frijol Mechudo, a hybrid Aaron developed on the farm for a creamier flavor and texture than regular pinto beans. Mechudo is Spanish for shaggy, a nickname the Zapotec children gave him because of the long hair and immense beard he wore then. The lessons of Oaxaca are never far from his thoughts.

Aaron is optimistic, but realistic about the future of Arevalos Farm. Some customers still balk at the price of his organic harvest. So he focuses on growing specialty crops and foods with flavor. He tries to show people how much better food tastes when it’s made with quality ingredients.

When they make the connection, all the extra time, money, and effort Aaron puts into his farm take on a new meaning.

“I go to the farmers’ market and someone comes back and tells me that’s the best watermelon I’ve ever tasted in my life,” he says. “That chile is amazing. These are the best tamales I’ve ever eaten. They remind me of my grandma.”

Along with rebuilding a farm, Aaron wants to rebuild his community. He sees a lot of similarities between here and Oaxaca. He worries about family farming dying along with an aging population, and a new generation that’s eager to leave it all behind and move to the city.

Aaron Cardona peels groundcover off a row of spinach and winter greens.

Cardona says he’s interested in pursuing innovative farming methods.

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Mother-son dream team: Joan drives while Aaron shovels.

So he regularly invites school children to tour the farm, to see how the pumpkins, peppers, beans, corn, and produce are grown.

A fall harvest and pumpkin picking festival drew in more than 250 people. He hopes that by reaching kids at an age when they think farming is cool, maybe some will stay and become farmers, too.

“It’s all these old timers coming up to me, almost crying, saying, ‘I’m so proud of you.’ It’s those little things that keep you going,” he says.  74 March/April 2017

Find Arevalos Farm products at the Bisbee Farmers’ Market and Bisbee Food Co-op, the Sierra Vista Farmers’ Market and Sierra Vista Food Co-op, and the Larry’s Veggies stand at Heirloom Farmers’ Markets in Tucson.

Arevalos Farm. 520.678.2729.

Dennis Newman is a freelance writer from Tucson who has written extensively about farming and how crops become food and beverages.

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TABLE

Ocean Focused Fini’s Landing is the only restaurant in Tucson partnering with the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch program to serve sustainable seafood.

By Megan Kimble | Photography by Julie DeMarre

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ini ’ s L anding , like Tucson, is landlocked. But perched on the northwest corner of Sunrise and Swan, the beachthemed restaurant has a front-row seat to the vibrant sunsets that so often sweep over the Catalina Mountains—sunsets that, like those that melt over the Pacific, are best watched with a beer in hand and a taco to come.

On a Tuesday evening in January—Taco Tuesday, when fish tacos sell for $2.80 a piece—every seat at the large U-shaped bar is occupied. There’s a pleasant buzz to the place, bustling not swarming. A surfboard hanging on the wall lists upcoming events in hand-written marker. A half-dozen flat-screen TVs flicker with a college basketball game.

Matt Dickson and Sam Hazboun sit at the bar, watching the game. Both men live nearby and have been coming to Fini’s Landing since it opened in 2012. “It’s a real neighborhood place,” says Dickson. “Everyone knows your name.” The two men didn’t know each other until a couple of years ago, when they met sitting at this very bar. “I’ve made some good friends at the bar,” says Dickson. “I’ve gone on vacation with some of the guys I’ve met here.” He points around at the people he knows because of Fini’s Landing—a dozen or so who gather to watch football on Sundays.

Dickson and Hazboun didn’t come to Fini’s Landing for sustainable seafood, but they say it keeps them coming back. “The

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fish tacos are so good anyway. When you find out why they’re so good, it only makes you want to come back for more,” says Dickson. “And it’s important that we maintain the fish supply,” says Hazboun.

Fini’s Landing is the only restaurant in Tucson that has partnered with Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch program to serve sustainable seafood. That partnership comes with a commitment to source not just sustainable seafood—vaguely defined as the term is—but seafood that is sustainable according to the Seafood Watch program, which develops science- and fishery-based criteria for seafood considered to be sustainable.

Seafood is ranked in three categories: green “Best Choice,” yellow “Good Alternative,” and red “Avoid.” Fini’s Landing only buys seafood in green and yellow categories.

Sitting with a friend at a nearby table, Dawn Kirschenman says, “Is sustainable seafood something you look for when you eat out? Probably not. But when you go and you find out about it, it makes you feel better.”

A lifelong lover of the ocean, Scott Mencke, the co-owner of Fini’s Landing, sailed a catamaran, dove for lobster, and worked on a fishing boat before opening his restaurant.

Three servers at Fini’s Landing wear t-shirts that tout the restaurant’s commitment to sustainable seafood.

(Left to right) Savannah Hubbard, Patricia Kowalski, and Rachelle Rheubottom.

“I

’ ve always been a population explosion guy, worrying about the fate of our planet,” says Scott Mencke, who owns Fini’s Landing with Doug “Fini” Finical. “I couldn’t live with myself owning a restaurant that wasn’t paying attention and making the right decisions in at least purchasing from the right fishery.”

Mencke grew up in Tucson and studied journalism at the University of Arizona. After graduation, he got a job as a reporter at The Florida Keys Keynoter and ended up on the commercial fishing beat. “No one wanted it, but I thought it was fascinating,” he says. A trap reduction plan had just been implemented for the stone crab and lobster fisheries; turtle excluder devices, which allow sea turtles to escape from trawling nets, became required for all shrimp trawlers in 1987. “You had these environmentalists and bureaucrats coming in and trying to change the lifestyle of these old Southern redneck guys,” he says. “I’d go to meetings and there would be fistfights in the parking lot.”

In his free time, he sailed around on a small catamaran and dove for lobster. He left and returned to south Florida several times, twice to work on commercial fishing boats. One season, he worked for “a guy committed to conservation and the long-term 82 March/April 2017

health of the fishery,” he says. Another season, the captain was “more traditional—what do we need to do to get through the day?” he says. “It was interesting to have been writing about that and then see it in practice, how much it can differ.”

After returning to Tucson in 2005, Mencke reconnected with Finical, a longtime friend who he’d met lifeguarding during college, and the two took over The Hut on Fourth Avenue.

“It didn’t really have an identity,” says Mencke. They built a following, hosted live music, and Finical spearheaded a campaign to raise $30,000 to move a 25-ton tiki head from the shuttered Magic Carpet Golf to the entrance of the bar at Fourth and Eighth. Identity: created.

In 2011, a commercial real estate broker approached Finical and Mencke about opening a casual restaurant/bar in the foothills. In February of 2012, Fini’s Landing opened with a beachy, fish-focused menu inspired by the “waterfront life experiences” of its owners.

Mencke wanted to source sustainable seafood from day one, but the demands of running a new restaurant consumed his time and attention. “We were tied into one of the major local purveyors who we thought were pretty well-committed to sustainable fish,”

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he says. They weren’t. “These vendors just couldn’t find a shrimp that we could trace to a sustainable source,” he says. Shrimp is particularly difficult to source sustainably. Across the world, shrimp trawling decimates fragile ocean ecosystems and bottoms out fish stocks. In the Gulf of California, for example, 85 percent of what is caught by trawlers scraping the sea floor for the bottom-dwelling crustaceans is considered bycatch, thrown back into the ocean dead or injured.

That often includes juvenile fish—fish that haven’t yet reproduced—and endangered species like sea lions and sea turtles. After failing to find a source he was happy with, Mencke decided not to put shrimp on the menu.

“It was not well-received with the customers,” he says.

Unlike locally raised beef or chicken, there is effectively no direct-to-consumer market for seafood.

Businesses that want to buy sustainable seafood have to rely on the transparency of knowledgeable purveyors who work directly with the fisheries they buy from.

“The sourcing information for seafood commodities is really hard to track down,” says Tim Stevens, who helped open Fini’s and worked as the general manager until 2016. “It’s not very transparent when you’re working with a big box purveyor.”

And the supply is constantly changing. “Unlike a high-end seafood restaurant that can have a different special depending on the availability of sustainable products, I need to come up with a consistent product for the same fish tacos every day, day in and day out,” Mencke says. Eventually, Mencke and Stevens came across the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch business partnership program, which offered clear metrics for evaluating suppliers. Even after they had committed to sourcing only green- and yellow-ranked seafood—a decision not taken lightly, says Mencke—they still had to figure out where they’d actually buy the seafood.

Enter Sue. Sue Watson is a sales representative for Santa Monica Seafood, a specialty seafood processor and distributor founded in 1939 in the port of San Pedro, in Southern California. “I think Sue just walked in the door one day,” says Stevens.

Santa Monica Seafood evaluates its suppliers based on several third-party certifications. The Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch program is one; the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) is another, as is Best Aquaculture Practices (BAP). “The third-party certification is kind of like the police in terms of fishing methods,” says Watson. “They make sure that boats have the proper gear on them. They make sure they’re pulling the proper quotas.” When a fishery can’t afford to pay for a certification, Santa Monica Seafood will conduct its own audit. “We go and actually visit that fishery to determine what they’re doing,” says Watson.

(Top) Carib Calamari, fried squid rings and tentacles tossed with hot peppers. (Bottom) A taco trio that includes Chubasco Shrimp, Escondido, and Sayulita tacos.

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Located at the corner of Sunrise and Swan, the bar at Fini’s Landing has a seat with a front-row view of the sweeping Catalina Mountains.

When Santa Monica Seafood offered a green-ranked source for farm-raised shrimp, Mencke put it on the menu. “The way I justified it in my head—they are serving shrimp in Vegas in incredible quantities,” he says. “We sell a good amount of shrimp, so we have a significant voice in the industry. If that voice isn’t heard because I choose to boycott, I don’t feel anything is gained.

Someone is just going to fill that void in the marketplace.” Today, the shrimp on the menu at Fini’s Landing comes from integrated mangrove forest farms in Southeast Asia that practice a kind of aquaculture combining forestry and fishery management.

Watson says there is plenty of sustainable seafood to go around. “Supply is not the issue,” she says. “It’s demand.” She says if every restaurant in Tucson decided to source sustainable seafood according to the Seafood Watch guidelines, they’d be able to provide it.

Today, Mencke lives part of the year in Baja California. He has two kids, 2 and 5 years old, who are in school there. On the weekends, they’re on the water—“my 5-year-old has been 86 March/April 2017

snorkeling with whale sharks, with sea lions,” he says—and learning about the region’s vibrant marine ecology.

Mencke doubts that many of his customers know their $4 tacos come from sustainable fisheries, but he doesn’t really care.

“The seafood speaks for itself,” he says. “It has to.”

Despite the laid-back, surfs-up vibe of Fini’s Landing—the bar where everyone knows your name—Mencke brings to the business a deep commitment to the ocean. “I would happily give up this restaurant and everything it offers me and the financial security, if everyone would just quit eating fish for four years and let the oceans recover. If everyone stopped eating fish, the oceans would bounce back,” he says. “And then we could have our fish again.”  Fini’s Landing. 5689 N. Swan Road.

520.299.1010. FinisLanding.com.

Megan Kimble is the editor of Edible Baja Arizona and the author of Unprocessed: My City-Dwelling Year of Reclaiming Real Food.

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POETRY

Bycatch Paying witness to species caught as collateral damage in the Gulf of California shrimp trawling fishery, where more than 80 percent of catch is not shrimp.

By Maria Johnson and Eric Magrane

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is a large marine fish species endemic to the Gulf of California. Once abundant, massive schools of totoaba swam in annual circular migrations around the Gulf, stopping to spawn in the Colorado River Delta where the juveniles took refuge for several years before migrating themselves. The Comcaac, an indigenous group in Sonora, have an extensive knowledge of this species and tell the story of black brant geese (Branta bernicla nigricans) transforming into totoaba as they land on and enter the water in the Delta.

Across the globe in the early 1900s, populations of a similar fish called the Chinese bahaba were brought to near extinction as the demand for their swim bladder, used medicinally in Asia, was high. This contributed to the establishment of the commercial totoaba market in the Gulf of California. The fish were captured in huge quantities in the 1920s and many fishing camps sprung up specifically for the harvest. Their less-valuable meat was often abandoned and only the swim bladders, or buches, were taken to market and sold to fish buyers in Arizona for large sums of money. This practice, combined with the he totoaba

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threats of an altered habitat in the Delta and frequent accidental catch (bycatch) of totoaba juveniles by shrimp trawlers, quickly decimated their population.

Fishing totoaba became illegal in 1975 and they were later listed as critically endangered under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). Today, they are still targeted illegally and sold in the black market for up to $10,000 each; the demand has not only continued the decline of this species, but has also driven the vaquita, a small, endemic porpoise, to critical endangerment through accidental capture in gillnets meant for totoaba.

Depletion of this species, among countless others—including the finescale triggerfish and cownose ray also featured here—through overfishing, bycatch, and altering of the Colorado River Delta, has continued to have an impact on the entire ecosystem, human communities, and food corridor in the Sonoran Desert Region.

(Above) Brants transforming into totoaba by Maria Johnson (Right) Totoaba macdonaldi by Maria Johnson

Totoaba Totoaba macdonaldi

By Eric Magrane

when the black brants fly north to the delta they turn into totoaba drumming, drumming sonic muscle fibers around swim bladder buoyancy in the column drumming water migration cycling the gulf dreams of schools a century later, insatiable drumming insatiable your name insatiable the humans who say “the swim bladder or buche is scraped and washed until it is snowy white” already ghost-like, the edge of three generations what was twenty fish is now one and you are caught in trawl nets and you are caught, like the vaquita, in gillnets and you are caught in utterly transformed waters, and they continue, “after drying it becomes a clear, translucent, light amber color and about as tough as a steel armored plate,” is extinction like drumming, is it transforming buoyancy, turning back into birds and flying into a hard shell of translucent nothing?

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Finescale Triggerfish Balistes polylepis

By Eric Magrane

not your swimming like a wave itself, your ripples mirroring the sea form, the way your second dorsal spine unlocks the throat of the future or rather releases your first trigger but onshore the man with his knife jabbing, at first I thought out of mercy, but then no, and you probably dreaming, anxious gliding, while the people gathered around turn into clouds billowing above and the hard bench of the boat is soft sea floor

T

he finescale tr igger fish is found from northern California to the Gulf of California, and southward to Chile. It is called cochi in Spanish, referring to its round, pig-like shape. As protection against predators, its second dorsal spine—when erect—locks in place its first dorsal spine, which then cannot be released until “triggered.” In the colder months triggerfish move very slowly, and it has been reported that divers can pick them right up. The nets of shrimp trawlers, of course, also have no problem picking them right up along with all of the other bycatch they haul up. When caught locally closer to shore, they are often used in ceviche.

(Above) Balistes polylepis by Maria Johnson

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Cownose Ray Rhinoptera steindachneri

By Eric Magrane

sleek glide nose wing to strike elegant waves large schools or loose aggregations beaten metal gills your cousins in the touch tanks & youtube videos yet what do we know elasmobranch, elasmobranch

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he cow nose r ay is found from the Baja Peninsula and the Gulf of California southward to Peru. Like sharks, they are elasmobranchs, a classification meaning they have skeletons of cartilage rather than bone, and large livers that control their buoyancy. This species is always moving: they often form aggregations of hundreds of individuals that “f ly” through the water, and migrate northward or southward depending on the season. They are a particularly sensitive group of animals, as females reach maturity late in life and give birth to only one pup per year. Even so, they are one of the most heavily targeted elasmobranchs in the small-scale fishery and are frequently captured as bycatch in the Gulf of California. It is becoming a rare sight to see them in the wild, and increasingly more likely to encounter them in zoos and museums.

you move like water itself (Above) Rhinoptera steindachneri by Maria Johnson

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Bycatch Collector’s Edition Trading Cards pay witness to 11 of the species caught as bycatch in the Gulf of California shrimp trawling fishery. Riffing off of the form of baseball cards, the format both honors the living species and memorializes individuals caught up in the nets. The production of a Collector’s Edition bestows value on these species that are surplus casualties in the fishery. Johnson and Magrane created the illustrations and poems in Bycatch as part of the N-Gen Sonoran Desert Researchers 6&6 Art-Science Initiative.  98 March/April 2017

These cards are part of a multimedia Bycatch exhibit

by Magrane and Johnson at the University of Arizona Museum of Art. It shows through April 2.

Eric Magrane is the coeditor, with Christopher Cokinos, of The Sonoran Desert: A Literary Field Guide (University of Arizona Press, 2016).

He is completing a Ph.D. in geography at the University of Arizona, where he is a research associate with the Institute of the Environment.

Maria Johnson is an illustrator and marine conservationist. For several years she has studied shrimp trawler bycatch in the Gulf of California with Prescott College’s Kino Bay Center for Cultural and Ecological Studies.

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Scaling Earth 102  March/April 2017

After 30 years, the spirit of exploration that built Biosphere 2 continues, as scientists at the scaled-up laboratory investigate the nexus of food, water, and energy.

By John Washington • Photography by Steven Meckler

(Previous page) LEO, the Landscape Evolution Observatory, is the world’s largest Earth Science laboratory experiment.

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to find yourself on Mars, and you want a snack, you’re going to have limited options. You might think, following the plot of the “The Martian,” that you could eat a potato. Or maybe—you hope—astronaut ice cream. Probably your munchies will be limited to dense, high protein nougat that tastes like strawberry gravel or, if you’re lucky, a few leaves of Swiss chard.

Before we rocket off to Mars, though, there is plenty to concern ourselves as to what what we’re eating on this planet.

That’s where Biosphere 2 comes in. Originally designed as f yo u h a ppe n

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something like a revolutionary alternate to Earth (or a simplified replicate), 25 years after the initial Biospherian mission, scientists on the Biosphere 2 campus, about 20 miles north of Tucson, are working on more practical problems, such as how to mitigate heat around solar farms, how to turn abiotic soil into a substrate that can grow plants, how rainforests will react to droughts, and how to grow leafy greens more efficiently.

Biosphere 2 (B2) began as an ecotechnical dream—an exorbitantly expensive, private mega-experiment designed to push the collective imagination beyond the confines of Biosphere 1,

The 3.14-acre Biosphere 2 structure is located near Oracle, at the base of the Santa Catalina Mountains.

otherwise known as Earth. The dream was dreamed by John Allen, latter-day hippy/Renaissance man who practiced adventure, communal living, ecoscience, and theater therapy. Allen and his crew, self-dubbed Synergians, were largely funded by Texas oil billionaire Ed Bass, who enabled the Synergians’ wild adventuring. Rebecca Reider, writing in her book about the project, Dreaming the Biosphere: The Theater of All Possibilities, explains, “Their enormous agreed-upon inner aim was … to grow as artists, scientists, and explorers; and by transforming themselves, to somehow transform the world.”

The Synergians’ most ambitious plan, dreamed up at an Institute of Ecotechnics conference in the mid-‘80s, was to design a self-sustaining, enclosed biome, a scaled up version of a terrarium (or vivarium) that could support life, including human life. Bankrolled by Bass, the Synergians bought land north of Tucson and broke ground on Biosphere 2 in January of 1987.

John Allen described their mission as initiating “the first mitosis of Biosphere Planet Ocean.”

Then, after years of complicated bio-logistical study, in September of 1991, eight men and women sealed themselves

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A graduate student works on a small section of the landscape-scale LEO experiment.

inside Biosphere 2. The seal itself sparked controversy, given that the system was “energetically open”—that is, the giant glass bubble was powered and cooled with energy sucked from the grid, as well as gargantuan diesel and natural gas generators.

Of course, our planet is not a completely closed system. Earth, as Katie Morgan, B2’s current program coordinator for marine science education and outreach, reminded me, is “energetically open”—getting its power from outside our atmosphere (from the sun). And even if the science wasn’t perfect—only one of the eight biospherians had an advanced scientific degree—the 106 March/April 2017

goal was, basically, to replicate the nearly infinitely intricate life system of an entire planet, which, notably, includes human hubris, basic error, and plenty of drama. Whatever criticism was levied against them, there is no denying that the biospherians were ambitious, dedicated, profoundly creative, and that they inspired people around the world.

Not long after they closed the door behind them, however, they encountered a problem: they got hungry. The biospherians could only afford a single cup of coffee every other week, which came from beans they grew, harvested, dried,

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roasted, and ground themselves. That was the way all their food came—from toiling under the glass. Self-sufficiency was an integral part of the mission, but also one of its biggest challenges. They lost weight.

And, along with diminishing oxygen levels, they became lethargic. They would later discover—a discovery with potentially crucial Biosphere 1 implications—that the newly poured concrete was absorbing a lot of their oxygen.

Their hope, as Reider explained, was that the conglomerate artificial ecosystem would “self-organize” and “find its own balance.” It didn’t quite. Oxygen needed to be pumped in. As the biospherians coped, the world ogled on.

In 1990, in just the first six months of the mission, “159,000 people—nearly 1,000 every day—took guided tours” around the perimeter, according to Reider. Despite hunger, low oxygen levels, and some intradome drama, the biospherians made it through their two years.

There was a second mission, run in part

by Steve Bannon, formerly of Breitbart News and currently chief strategist for President Donald Trump. But things went even more sour during the second run. Biosphere 2 was vandalized by two of the Mission 1 biospherians, and the experiment was aborted.

Since then, after a takeover from Columbia University and then a transfer to the University of Arizona in 2007, Biosphere 2 has become a giant, multimission lab and tourist destination—different from its original mission, but certainly in the same scientific and ethical spirit of exploration. John Adams, B2’s deputy director, is in charge of re-engineering the facility for new projects.

Strolling with him along the B2 campus in early January, in stunning view of the snow-capped Catalina Mountains, he told me about an innovative project meant to keep solar panels cool: planting crops underneath them. UA researchers Greg Barron-Gafford and Gary Paul Nabhan are working together to design an agrovoltaic system in which the transpiration of harvestable plants, growing underneath solar panels, would keep the panels from overheating, which decreases their efficiency. Creating a small microgrid of solar panels for the B2 would also offset electrical expenses. Since UA’s takeover, B2’s electric bill has been cut in half, from over a million dollars a year. The practical effects are as important, Adams explained, as the efforts of outreach and education.

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The current goal of Biosphere 2 is, basically, to explore. “It’s a scaling tool,” Adams said. B2 is an intermediate step between the laboratory, where experiments fit into test tubes, and the world, where variables are nearly impossible to control. There is some degree of natural variability under the dome, but, Adams explained, “We have ways to manipulate and perturb the system that we don’t have in the real world.”

A prime example of Biosphere 2’s scaling potential is the LEO (Landscape Evolution Observatory) project, which is, according to B2’s website, the world’s largest Earth Science laboratory experiment. LEO is basically a giant tray (nearly 100 feet by 36 feet, and 3 feet deep) containing over a million pounds of crushed volcanic rock. The tray, angled like a ski slope, is peppered with 1,800 sensors, feeding data to scientists seeking to understand how abiotic (dead) soil slowly converts to a substrate that can support microbial and eventually vascular plant life. The object is to “infer how water resources and ecosystems in real landscapes may be impacted by ongoing and future climate change,” according to the B2 website.

The LEO project had a mitosis of its own, spawning the mini-LEO at Tucson’s Manzo Elementary School, where students, guided by B2 scientists, ran scaled down LEO replication experiments to test which plants would grow best in the full-scale project.

“The science that they’re doing is real science,” Blue Baldwin, the ecology program coordinator at Manzo, told me, with the results directly impacting the decisions the B2 scientists are making. Because B2 scientists can only plant for the first time once, “there are high stakes as to which plants to add,” the UA’s Barron-Gafford told me, which is why crowd-sourcing out to schools was so helpful.

Based on the school experiments, B2 scientists have narrowed their plant selections.

The students “are learning first principles in biology and ecology,” Barron-Gafford said, “and we’re taking those numbers” directly into our experiment. Manzo is setting up for another B2 collaborative experiment, getting ready to plant crops underneath their solar panels and participate in the agrovoltaic study. B2 scientists are also working with Rincon and University high schools.

(Left) John Adams is B2’s deputy director, in charge of re-engineering the facility for new projects. (Right) Katie Morgan, the program coordinator for marine science education and outreach, takes a swim in B2’s ocean.

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The Lunar Greenhouse is part of the Controlled Environment Agriculture Center (CEAC).

Basically, it’s a protype for growing food on Mars. The encapsulated minifarm grows food, recycles and purifies water through plant transpiration, and produces oxygen.

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or as long as farmers have been farming, they’ve been challenged by insects, weather, droughts, and floods. Not having enough space will pose a new challenge. Snacking on Mars is a fun thought experiment, but for 10 billion people (the estimated population by 2050, 80 percent of whom will live in cities), eating healthfully on Earth is the more pressing concern.

According to Adams, the acreage it takes to grow enough crops to feed Earth’s 7 billion people is about the size of South America.

To feed 10 billion people using current agricultural practices, we’d have to add the equivalent of the landmass of Brazil, which is about as large as the contiguous United States. One possible solution, being explored at Biosphere 2, is to go vertical: start stacking farms on top of each other.

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Adams and I sauntered into Biosphere 2’s echoic west lung, which will soon be turned into a vertical farm, research lab, and education space. The lung, like a giant dome, is a hollow snickerdoodle-shaped structure crowned with a steel plate instead of a chocolate kiss. The steel plate rises or sinks, along with a flexible ceiling, to relieve or maintain air pressure inside B2. Since the space, these days, is no longer sealed, pressure can rise and fall through cracked windows (or doors opened to let scientists and tourists stream through) and the lungs have largely become vestigial organs.

The vertical farm project is a public/private initiative run

by Biosphere 2 and the Chicago-based Civic Farms. “We’re technological famers,” Paul Hardej, CEO of Civic Farms,

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“Biosphere 2 is an intermediate step between the laboratory, where experiments fit into test tubes, and t h e w o r l d , w h e re variables are nearly impossible to control.�

(Right) Gene Giacomelli has been running the NASA-funded Controlled Environment Agriculture Center at Roger and Campbell in Tucson since 2009. A second prototype will expand to B2 in 2017.

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After 30 years, the goal of Biosphere 2 is to explore. “It’s a scaling tool,” says deputy director John Adams.

said: farmers who are inventing “food solutions.” Together with B2, Civic Farms plans to start producing leafy greens using LED lights and water-efficient technology, hoping to sell crops in Whole Foods stores in both Phoenix and Tucson.

One of the many benefits of vertical farming is the control that the farmer-scientists have in almost every step of the growing process—a control much in the spirit of the initial idea behind the B2. Farmer-scientists can manipulate, Adams explained, the specific wavelength of the LEDs to enhance different parts of the growing cycle, or tailor the light to the mood of different crops.

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Hardej expects to be able to harvest about 400,000 pounds of leafy greens a year in the west lung.

Though outside energy sources are needed to run the vertical farm, there are other benefits that make up for the energy used.

“You have to look at the entire carbon footprint of the food system,” Hardej said, taking into account factors such as how far a product travels before landing on your plate. One head of lettuce, on average, travels about 1,500 miles in the United States before it’s consumed. Other benefits of vertical farming include increased water efficiency, with zero farm run-off (one

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of the principal pollutants in our oceans), the almost complete absence of pests (hence, the absence of pesticides), and the fact that vertical farming is not affected by weather (extreme weather being one of many challenges brought on by climate change). Compared to a head of lettuce grown on a traditional farm, vertical farms conserve 98 percent more water.

“The idea,” Hardej told me, “is to grow where people live.” When those B2-grown baby greens finally hit the shelves in Tucson and Phoenix, look for a unique package. Civic Farms has developed Grow Tray Units (GTUs) in which the greens are not only grown, but are packaged and sold. Customers can continue to grow their own greens, “harvesting” only what they need for their salad. The cultivation and packaging setup theoretically cuts down on waste and extends shelf life.

Ian Frazier described vertical farming recently in the New Yorker: “Each plant grows at the pinnacle of a trembling heap of tightly focused and hypersensitive data.” But what is it about the lung, I asked Adams, or even about B2 itself, that makes for a good vertical farm?

In one sense, Adams admitted, nothing.

The vertical farm could be built in a warehouse in South Tucson. However there are about 100,000 visitors that come to Biosphere 2 every year, and diverting them, for a moment, from marveling at the rainforest in the desert, will be an invaluable teaching tool. Hardej laid out the educational components of the Civic Farms-B2 collaboration: They plan to teach visitors about water and energy conservation and food security, and run an industry training program for vertical farm growers and design professionals.

Education is exactly the role of the aquaponic system already in place in Biosphere 2—a mostly closed system growing fish and vegetables—which you could build in your own backyard. Morgan explained how some visitors are inspired enough by what they see to build their own aquaponic systems. Improving efficiency of solar panel usage could make B2 more economically sustainable, which could make it a more attractive investment site for future experiments that would indeed take advantage of its distinctive capacities. “The Biosphere 2 is a magnifying glass,” Adams said, giving scientists and visitors alike a new view not only of individually controlled variables, but also of entire real and imagined systems.

100,000 visitors pass through Biosphere 2 every year, including this group walking on a boardwalk through the desert biome.

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Supported by captured desert sunlight, plants grow to the edge of the B2 terrarium.

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ood , water , and energy ,

Adams reminded me, are not separate issues, but together form a life-supporting nexus.

That’s another reason why it makes sense to keep Biosphere 2 as a working laboratory: multiple and diverse experiments can happen next to each other, rather than in isolated labs.

The Lunar Greenhouse, part of the Controlled Environment Agriculture Center (CEAC) is another boundary-pushing project associated with Biosphere 2, and intertwined with the vertical farm project. Gene Giacomelli, principal technical investigator with UA’s Department of Agriculture and Biosystems Engineering, has been running the NASA-funded experiment

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since 2009. Basically, Giacomelli is the one figuring out how to grow veggies on Mars. He runs the project at the research site on the corner of Roger and Campbell, in Tucson, but has a prototype in B2, and hopes to expand research on site. Like other projects at B2, the location is a draw. The Lunar Greenhouse looks “spacey,” as Giacomelli described it to me, which is a good educational hook for visitors.

The fully closed Lunar Greenhouse is what is known as a Bioregenerative Life Support System. The encapsulated minifarm doesn’t only grow basil and lettuce, but also recycles and purifies water through plant transpiration, and produces oxygen.

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Visitors enter Biosphere 2 through a door that hasn’t been sealed in more than 25 years.

The farther into space humans go, Giacomelli explained, the more difficult it will be to follow the “picnic basket approach,” or sending along the food, water, and oxygen needed for the foray in a rocket-propelled “picnic basket.” If we ever get to Mars, or beyond, we’re going to need to grow some of our own food (Iike potatoes or Swiss chard). Doubling the size of the B2 prototype would expand its capacity to provide one person for half of their needed calories for a year. They’d need protein nougat—or something like it—for the other half.

CEAC isn’t just about learning how to shuttle off Earth, “parachuting to another planet” when this one is in distress, Adams told me, but how to “fine-tune and predict models here.”

Giacomelli and his team will continue working with Civic Farms, trading research and ideas, hoping to build more sustainable food production models for Earth, and beyond.

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“The Biosphere 2 project has showed us how little we understand Earth’s systems,” Adams told me while we were gazing into Biosphere 2’s Lunar Greenhouse. As we continue to experience the effects of climate change, and try to meet the challenges of a rising global population, B2 could be used as a research space to better predict and respond to continued changes and needs in Biosphere 1. Civic Farms and Biosphere 2’s vertical farm project exemplifies the overlap in space/terrestrial technology.

It turns out that dreaming up snack food on Mars could help us eat healthier on Earth.  Biosphere 2. 32540 S. Biosphere Road, Oracle. 520.838.6200. Biosphere2.org.

John Washington is a writer and translator. Visit jblackburnwashington.com or find him on Twitter at @EndDeportations.

“On the highways the people moved like ants and searched for work, for food. And the anger began to ferment.”

—John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

A Seat at the Table

One out of every seven American workers is employed in the food industry. Many can’t afford to eat the food they grow and serve.

By Debbie Weingarten | Illustrations by Joe Pagac

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he winter sky is dotted with clouds, and the temperature has dropped so suddenly that it feels like it could snow.

Kathy Ortega, 52, leans against the truck parked in her South Tucson driveway. “I didn’t think it would be so cold today,” she says, rubbing her palms together and peering up at the sky.

It is Jan. 2, one day after 22 states raised their minimum wage, including Arizona. Ortega, a manager in training at McDonald’s, campaigned for Proposition 206, which was approved in November by nearly 60 percent of Arizona voters. Beginning on Jan. 1, minimum wage workers received a pay increase from $8.05 to $10 per hour, as well as the addition of paid sick days.

“I striked, I talked, I got everybody to go vote,” Ortega says. And when she went into work yesterday, she says she could see the emotion on the faces of her coworkers. “They were excited to work there again. We all said, ‘We did it.’ ” A decade ago, Ortega’s husband, a construction worker, began experiencing debilitating arthritis in his back and was forced to stop working. Ortega became the primary income earner for her family, despite experiencing health problems of her own. The family began relying on the state Medicaid program (the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, or AHCCCS) and SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly known as food stamps.

When Ortega was hired at McDonald’s two years ago, she lived in a two-bedroom house with her husband, two of her daughters, and three grandchildren. Without a vehicle of her own, she could work only shifts that correlated with the bus schedule. But when she was promoted to manager in training, she and her husband were able to move across the street into their own house. They purchased a used truck so Ortega could pick up shifts at night or early in the morning.

Still, she says the future is unsure. She taps the side of the truck with her knuckles and says, “This truck is a luxury for me this year. I can’t say if it will be here next year.”

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he F ood C hain W orkers A lliance (FCWA) reports that one out of every seven U.S. workers is employed in the food industry. This amounts to a total of 21.5 million workers—14 percent of the nation’s workforce—ushering our food from field to table through five distinct sectors: production, processing, distribution, retail, and service. But despite a 13 percent increase in food-chain workers since 2010, as well as the undisputed necessity of food, worker wages are lower than in almost all other industries. And the FCWA reports that 2.8 million food workers relied on SNAP in 2016, 2.2 times more than workers in other industries.

Zaira Livier, the southern Arizona director for Proposition 206, says minimum wage increases are essential for the survival of service industry employees. As an adult, Livier spent a decade working for tips as a server and a bartender. As a child, her mother waited tables. “We did need help.

We picked up boxes of food, because we didn’t have it.” She pauses. The food industry, she says, “is a volatile market. Restaurants pop up and go away again. Wages are very low.

Benefits are nonexistent.”

Since 2010, injury and illness among food workers at work has risen, including repetitive stress injuries and behavioral health crises. Ortega experiences asthma and has periodically ended up in the emergency room. The asthma is exacerbated by stress, and her job at McDonald’s is stressful. Ortega says her team has three minutes from the time a customer orders until the food needs to come out. As a manager in training, Ortega assumes the brunt of that responsibility. Everything is tracked and timed, from food waste to burger assembly speed.

“There are times I’ve broke out crying at work because I’m so stressed about being timed,” she says. “If you knew what we went through, I don’t think anyone would say we don’t deserve minimum wage to go higher.”

Food-chain worker wages are lower than in almost all other industries.

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have gained momentum nationwide, championed by food worker organizations, including Fight for 15, the Food Chain Workers Alliance, Service Employees International Union, and United Food and Commercial Workers. In Arizona, Proposition 206, also known as the Fair Wages and Healthy Families Initiative, created a state-mandated stepping stone path for minimum wage increases over the next four years: $10.50 in 2018, $11 in 2019, and $12 in 2020. Starting in 2021, Arizona’s minimum wage will increase in correlation with the cost of living. inimum wage campaigns

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In an analysis of Proposition 206, The Grand Canyon Institute (GCI), a nonpartisan research center, estimated that 790,000 workers—30 percent of Arizona’s workforce—would experience increased wages if the measure passed. They found that “two-thirds of beneficiaries would be older than 24 years old and most would be women. Forty percent of working single mothers would likely benefit.”

In Pima County, 15.4 percent of residents are food insecure, a measurement defined by Feeding America as referring to residents “who lack access, at times, to enough food for an active,

healthy life for all household members and limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate foods.”

“Food insecurity could mean a family is going hungry, or it could mean they are having to make difficult decisions between, say, whether to make a payment on a loan or refill a prescription,” says Nick Henry, the director of the Community Food Resource Center of the Community Food

“Even making $10 an hour, you’re still just a step from the bottom.”

Bank of Southern Arizona. “Or it could mean making tradeoffs in nutritional quality and buying the cheapest food possible.”

Ortega says that her family members who have never needed assistance before are now on food stamps. “I rarely meet anyone now who isn’t on food stamps,” she says, “And all of my coworkers at McDonald’s. Without a doubt, everybody working at that store is on food stamps.”

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n 2016, McDonald’s reported a net income of $4.69 billion.

In a press release, McDonald’s president and CEO Steve Easterbrook said, “For McDonald’s, 2016 was a year of purposeful change as we focused on the key elements of our turnaround plan—strengthening our business to drive long-term sustainable growth by sharpening our focus on our customers, right-sizing our structure and putting the right talent in place to lead the company into the future.” But this growth is misguided and inflated, based entirely around the concept of cheap food.

And while the corporation profits, it is at the expense of its workers—many of whom, like Ortega and her coworkers, rely on taxpayer-supported subsidized health care and nutrition assistance just to get by.

Ortega says there are still unknowns, even with the passing of Proposition 206. As a manager in training, she has been making $9.50 per hour, but she isn’t sure if that will go up to $10, or if she’ll be making the equivalent of her old wage compared to the new minimum wage. “Even making $10 an hour, you’re still just a step from the bottom,” she says. She hears her coworkers asking similar questions, and she doesn’t have the answers. Will they still qualify for food stamps?

Health insurance?

“We don’t have a good system for supporting people who are trying to move out of poverty,” says Henry. “Working hard to get that raise may just mean they’ll lose their benefits and end up worse off.”

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also include the people who grow our food, who are often not able to sell their products above the cost of production.

Farmers are shrouded in all kinds of dualities—the birth and death of livestock; drought and monsoon; the vibrancy and the physical pain from a life spent doing and making. But the greatest irony may be this: When I farmed, I made far less than minimum wage. I could not afford to purchase health care, despite the physical risk of my occupation. And while I spent each day surrounded by food—touching it, growing it, making it sing for our customers—I did not earn enough to buy that same food for my own family.

We made do. We pickled and preserved, ate the beetle-scabbed zucchini, the winter squash gnawed on by rodents, the produce no one would buy. We traded vegetables for more seeds to plant, bread, cheese, or bones for our working dogs. And I spent hours in the lobby of the Department of Economic Security (DES) office trying to apply for assistance, rocking my wailing or sleeping or suckling baby, waiting for my name to be called, only to be erased by a case number. Once, a woman caught my eye as we waited together. “Might as well be cattle,” she said. I nodded and stared at the floor.

The paperwork felt endless. Often a caseworker would tell me to come back with an entirely different set of documents, and I would leave the office through a stinging wall of frustrated, humiliated tears. or k ers in the food chain

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Joel Greeno, a Wisconsin dairy farmer and the president of Family Farm Defenders, has lived a similar irony. In 2008, he signed up for state-subsidized healthcare in order to cover the cost of a surgery for his daughter. Upon enrollment, he found that his family also qualified for nutrition assistance.

“It just doesn’t make sense,” says Greeno. “You have a farm, and you’re producing food, and then you end up needing assistance just to have food …” He trails off.

In the winter of 2012, three masses were discovered in Greeno’s abdomen. He had surgery to remove a foot of his large intestine and was forced to pay someone to take care of the farm during his recovery. The bills and the debt piled up. The family sat at the kitchen table, weighing the decision: take out another loan to keep them afloat, or sell the cows? It was the end of October in 2013 when the family’s herd of dairy cows were loaded onto trucks and driven to auction. Greeno’s daughters perched on a pallet watching, tears streaming down their cheeks. “We just kneeled in the road as the trucks pulled away with our life on board,” remembers Greeno.

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pp o n e n t s o f wag e i nc r e a s e s have been staunchly vocal, stating a lack of correlation between the increase in minimum wage and a reduction in poverty, as well as the negative impact on businesses, who maintain they cannot afford the increase in labor costs. In Arizona, two lawsuits were filed against Proposition 206 by plaintiffs including the Arizona Restaurant Association, Arizona Chamber of Commerce, and Arizona Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. Both lawsuits were thrown out.

“In the end, if your business plan can only be successful by paying starvation wages to your employees, then you should reconsider your business plan,” says Livier.

The agricultural industry has been particularly vocal against minimum wage increases. In a statement of opposition to Proposition 206, Tom Nassif, president and CEO of Western Growers, claimed that a raise in the state minimum wage “will hurt Arizona’s farmers and the rural communities dependent on these family businesses. Labor is the single largest line item in a farmer’s budget … The truth is, many family farmers, still recovering from

the recession, will not be able to absorb the added financial and regulatory burdens.”

As a former farmer, I can understand this perspective, having faced the difficult and real cost of hired labor.

But I also think it unnecessarily pits farmers against farmworkers, and ignores the real problem: decades of devastating agricultural policies that have crippled our nation’s family farmers.

A minimum wage is a basic type of price f loor—the lowest legal amount that can be paid for one hour of human labor. And until the 1970s, the United States had agricultural price floors, originally created to lift farmers out of the Great Depression. These price floors functioned as legal mechanisms to

guarantee farmers a fair price for their commodity crops, essentially functioning as a minimum wage for farmers. But the 1970s and ‘80s saw the government dismantling these agricultural price floors. After they were eliminated, farm prices collapsed, and federal subsidies were needed to bail out farmers swimming in debt, no longer able to sell their products above the cost of production. Meanwhile, food corporations saved billions of dollars purchasing crops at rock bottom prices, and the market was flooded with cheap food.

“Cheap food is an illusion,” writes author Michael Pollan. “The real cost of the food is paid somewhere. And if it isn’t paid at the cash register, it’s charged to the

While I spent each day surrounded by food— touching it, growing it, making it sing for our customers—I did not earn enough to buy that same food for my own family.

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environment or to the public purse in the form of subsidies.”

Today, those subsidies range from commodity programs for farmers to supplemental nutrition programs for minimum wage workers who can’t afford to buy that food. Not only is this cheap food funded by taxpayer dollars, but it is also directly subsidized by the health and well-being of the human beings working in the food industry.

“What a farmer earns has to be adjusted for inflation,” says Greeno, who advocates through the National Family Farm Coalition for a return to price floors. With price floors, “farmers would be getting $50 per 100 pounds for milk, instead of $17. Corn producers would be getting $10 a bushel instead of $2.95 or $3. Soybeans would be more like $20 a bushel instead of $8.95. And the same thing for beef or poultry.”

These numbers tell of a stark disparity, exposing a web of unjust price calculations and corporate inf luence, a burden placed on the backs of food workers and farmers industry-wide. Greeno says, “It’s incredibly frustrating when you see all the wealth that is out there, and all the wealth that is possible, and the lack of distribution of that wealth.”

In a statement supporting an increase in minimum wage for the state of New York, the Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York echoes this: “There is plenty of money in the U.S. food system,” they write, listing 2015 public financial postings from major food industry giants: net sales of $5.3 billion for General Mills for the first half of the year, and quarterly revenues of $2.2 billion for Campbell Soup, $2.7 billion for ConAgra Foods, and $978 million for Mead Johnson Nutrition Company.

If we want a truly just food system, one that honors each human life along the way, Greeno says, we will have to pay more for food. A financial analysis of Proposition 206 estimated that prices for most items would increase by 0.5 percent to 1.6 percent, while prices for restaurant items could potentially increase up to 6 percent.

“If a farmer has enough money to buy everything he needs, that will create jobs,” he says. “And then workers will be able to earn enough money to go out and buy goods at proper prices—not rock bottom prices.” He pauses. “But this is part of how we struggle—I mean, how do you get people to understand the benefit of higher prices?”

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It is possible to advocate for fair wages for workers and fair prices for farm products. If we want a food system that produces not only good food but also a good life for the people who steward that food, we must increase the minimum wage for our food workers, and we must fight for agricultural policies that ensure farmers are paid fairly for their products.

“Solidarity among food workers is key,” says Greeno. “Everyone needs to be justly paid for what they do. It means going to the bottom and making it work for everyone.” With 14 percent of the workforce employed in the food system, that solidarity could drive changes in issues ranging from farm policy to food security.

Ortega says, “My job is a job, just like everybody else has. I want to be respected. I want to be paid for what I do.” Ultimately, she says she’s fighting for her children to have a better life than she has had. “When I die, I am hoping my children have something.

A house, a job. I don’t want to die worrying that they’re not taken care of.” It’s the very same thing Greeno is fighting for.

Ortega says her career working in the United States food industry has been an uphill slog—long and sometimes painful hours at physically and emotionally demanding jobs, related health issues, and the frustration of wading through government assistance programs. But Ortega says she has felt inspired by the passing of Proposition 206, and she intends to work toward the creation of a union in her workplace. “I had my doubts,” she admits. “But if you get enough people together, and enough people are talking about an issue, you can get it on the ballot and you can actually vote for it.

And you can win.”

Still, she remains a food insecure food worker, relying on nutrition assistance for enough to eat.

“Sometimes I just want to give up,” she admits. “They make you feel like you don’t deserve it. They make you feel like you’re tiny. Like, why do you need food stamps?” She shakes her head and scoffs. “To eat.”  Food Chain Workers Alliance. FoodChainWorkers.org.

National Family Farm Coalition. NFFC.net.

Debbie Weingarten is a freelance writer and a cofounder of the Farm Education Resource Network (FERN). She serves on the City of Tucson’s Commission on Food Security, Heritage, and Economy, as well as the Pima County Food Alliance Leadership Council.

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edible INK

BY BAMBI EDLUND

Herbs

&

Spices

bambiedlund.com

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Homestead

Skills for self-sufficient living & eating

Fungus Among Us The good, the bad, and the delicious.

By Amy Belk Illustrations by Adela Antoinette

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ardening and fungus go hand-in-hand. Whether

you love fungi or hate them, our gardens and dishes just wouldn’t be the same without these bizarre and fascinating things around. They recycle the nutrients in our wild lands as well as our cultured spaces, make food from waste, and latch onto the root structures of around 90 percent of the world’s vascular plants, helping them absorb water and nutrients. There’s a whole lot more they can do for us, too, but this discussion will focus on just a few of the fungi we find in our gardens or on our plates.

Fungi are constituents of a vast kingdom with an astonishing variety of forms and functions. Some have large fruiting bodies (which we call mushrooms, also known as macrofungi) that are easy to see, while others (like mycorrhizae) stay hidden in the soil or remain dormant for years. Some fungal species are essential for

the survival of certain plants, while others can wreak havoc on our gardens or cause sickness in people and animals.

The desert Southwest isn’t thought of as a place where fungi thrive. Compared to warm environments with ample moisture, where mushrooms and jelly-like things seem to grow on every available surface, the lowest elevations of Baja Arizona feel virtually fungus-free.

Despite all appearances, there are more than 2,200 species of fungi documented in Arizona, and some estimates suggest that there are at least several thousand more that haven’t been recorded yet. A greater variety can be found as you go up in elevation, and you’re more likely to see larger mushrooms as you get closer to the sky islands, but there’s more going on in the gardens of the low desert than you might have thought.

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THE GOOD Mycorrhizal Fungi

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ycorrhizae isn’t a new word in gardening

vocabulary. From the Greek words for “fungus” and “root,” these fungus-roots live in the soil and form mutually beneficial relationships with the roots of living plants, taking some of the plant’s self-manufactured food in exchange for an upgrade in the plant’s ability to absorb nutrients and water.

It was just a few years ago that I first witnessed a gardener inoculating the soil with mycorrhizal fungi, but such a scene is almost common today. From pretreated seeds to dry mixes, dips, or water-soluble mixes, you don’t have to go far to find products aimed at instilling and nurturing these beneficial fungi, or gardeners eager to purchase them.

Ideally, you already have at least several kinds of mycorrhizal fungi living in your soil, but land development practices and standard garden activities like tilling can set them back. Reported benefits of good mycorrhizal activity include larger plant growth; better disease, pest, and drought resistance; improved soil structure (and thus water retention); and protection from some types of harmful fungi that might move in if the soil weren’t already occupied.

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We’re still learning about the complex relationship between plants and mycorrhizal fungi, and scientists aren’t all in agreement about the benefits of using inoculants. Some plants appear to appreciate the effort more than others, and the different types of fungi found in available inoculants are not all equally effective in every garden. The most drastic positive impact from inoculant use is seen in severely nutrient-poor soils, while a well-mulched, compost-rich garden bed (where good fungi may already be thriving) might show little difference at all.

If you want to give it a try, look for an inoculant mix from a reputable dealer that contains endomycorrhizae, as this class of mycorrhizal fungi is more beneficial to fruits and veggies (ectomycorrhizae are more beneficial to woody plants like oak, pine, and eucalyptus). Unless you’re using reverse osmosis or well water, allow water for inoculant mixing to sit for a day to give any chlorine time to break down. Inoculate soil in spring or fall, when plant roots are actively growing, and use organic fertilizers that are low in phosphorus (the middle number on the fertilizer’s label) while your new fungal friends are getting established for at least 30 days.

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THE BAD

U

Parasitic Fungi

nfortunately, this is the group of fungi that

gardeners in the low desert are probably the most familiar with. We’re lucky that our dry heat keeps many types of fungus in check for much of the year, but it can be hard to keep some of them from taking over when the conditions are right. Fungal outbreaks tend to occur when temperatures are relatively low and humidity is high. However, these pathogens are numerous and diverse, and they’ll quickly take any opportunity that presents itself if they have what they need to grow (a susceptible host, the right temperature, high humidity, and moisture).

There are some easy cultural practices that can help keep fungal infections from spreading, but it’s important to catch problems and deal with them early. Remove the affected plant if possible, or the affected leaves and/or branches. Consider doing some extra pruning or thinning in the area to increase light penetration and airflow. Lift sprawling plants off of the ground with cages or trellises to limit their contact with spores in the soil.

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watering with a hose or even a watering can, so use an alternate watering method like drip irrigation or ollas when trying to get an outbreak under control. Keep beds as tidy as possible, especially through the winter; spores like to spend the colder months hiding out in the leaf debris at the base of your plants. Crop rotation is a good idea for many reasons, but it’s essential if you discover a soil-dwelling fungal infection in your garden. You’ll also want to stick with crop varieties that are resistant to fungi that you’ve had problems with, as parasitic fungi or their spores can stick around for a long time once they show up.

As a last resort, there are a number of fungicides at our disposal to treat a persistent outbreak, or use as a preventative treatment, but keep in mind that fungicidal treatments will likely affect the good fungi as well as the bad. In addition, a fungus that grows and spreads quickly can build up resistances to treatments that aren’t 100 percent effective, so it may be necessary to alternate your modes of attack by switching between two or more types of fungicide that are specified to treat the type of fungus you’ve got.

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THE

DELICIOUS Macrofungi t turns out that you don’t have to go mushroom

I

hunting on one of the sky islands to find good edible mushrooms in the desert. I talked with John Jacobs of the Sonoran Mushroom Company, who said that while operating a large-scale mushroom growing company is a complicated endeavor (especially in our climate), growing a few at home is fairly easy.

They’ll grow year-round indoors, and don’t have to take up too much counter space.

Jacobs recommends starting with a mushroom growing kit if you’re interested in growing mushrooms at home. Packaged with everything you need for the “flavor” of your choice, all you have to do is follow the directions, spray with water when necessary, and harvest. The kits are easy to find locally and online for around $13-$30, depending on brand and flavor. If the first kit works out and you liked the experience, till the straw from the spent kit into your garden and try a different flavor the next time around. Oyster mushrooms seem to be the most commonly available, as they’re one of the easiest to grow, but kits with other mushrooms like shiitake or portobello are out there, too.

According to Jacobs, the real fun commences when you start experimenting with mushrooms you’ve never grown before and trying

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different types of substrates to grow them in (like straw, sawdust, or coffee grounds). Jacobs’ whole family, and especially the kids, love to see what each new variety will look and taste like, and how different substrates can affect growth and flavor. One of his personal favorites is the Italian oyster mushroom, which has a rich, buttery flavor, but he loves it when they have good luck with a crop of golden oyster mushrooms, which are more finicky but taste delicious.

Inoculants for a wide variety of species can be found online, but each type of mushroom comes with its own set of light, water, and substrate preferences, so it’s a good idea to do a little research before purchasing, and use a reputable dealer. Several sources have pointed me in the direction of Fungi Perfecti, which is a great informational resource as well as a premier source for spores.

If growing your own mushrooms at home sounds like too much effort, find mushrooms grown by the Sonoran Mushroom Company at Time Market and Rincon Market in Tucson, and at their booth at the St. Philip’s Plaza Farmers’ Market on Sunday.  Amy Belk is a garden writer and photographer, a certified arborist, and a certified nursery professional who has been learning from her garden for 16 years. She and her husband homestead on a little piece of the desert in the heart of Tucson.

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Homestead

Rain to Table

Get off Colorado River water —and go local with rainwater.

By Lisa Shipek Illustrations by Adela Antoinette

A

s foodies, we want fresh, local food that is produced as

part of a food system that cares both for people and the planet. But do we hold the same standard for the water that comes out of our tap? Is it local? Is it part of a sustainable water system that protects our groundwater supply and our creeks and rivers? The short answer to these questions for Tucson’s municipal water supply is no.

Eighty-five percent of Tucson’s water supply comes from the distant Colorado River, and is transported with energy from a dirty coal-burning power generation plant on the Navajo reservation.

Forty percent of the City of Tucson’s electricity demand is for transporting and treating water. Not only have we wreaked havoc on Tucson’s rivers, but since the late 1990s we’ve been helping diminish the mighty Colorado River by diverting water that reduces the river’s flow. With all the diversions from Western cities, the Colorado River stopped reaching the sea in 1988. The once lush and large Colorado River Delta is now a barren dustbowl.

Shortages in Colorado River supplies are quickly increasing with extended drought, climate change, and overuse. The situation is so dire, municipal and agricultural water providers across Arizona are sitting down to create a Drought Contingency Plan that will look at

ways to reduce Arizona’s demand on the Colorado River. Our water utility, Tucson Water, is looking at ways to help with this effort, as well as offering some of the most robust water harvesting and water conservation rebates in the country.

Here’s the kicker: Colorado River water is actually not necessary for us to live in the Sonoran Desert. We have an abundance of local water from the sky—through both a winter and a summer rainy season. More rain falls on Tucson than we use through our municipal water supply annually. As citizens, we don’t need to wait for the government to act; we can take action today.

Rainwater harvesting is the simple act of collecting the rain that falls on site to use as water supply. By conserving water and implementing green infrastructure, we can also restore groundwater levels and our rivers at the same time. If you’ve heard about rainwater harvesting, maybe a big tank pops into your mind. Yes, collecting rainwater in a tank is one way to go. But there are much more basic and inexpensive steps you can take. First, you can start by creating a local water budget. Then, you can install a rain garden with organic mulch and native plants. After that, tap into graywater for irrigating fruit trees. And finally, install tanks to grow food or meet indoor water demands.

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The first step down the path of independence from unsustainable Colorado River water is to create a local water budget (see sidebar).

You can also make hydrosustainability happen by joining the Rain to Table campaign, which runs from World Water Day (March 22) to Earth Day (April 22), and taking real action to harvest local water. Keep your eye on the Edible Baja Arizona blog to learn how to create a local water budget for your home, figure out how much water can be used from renewable sources, and take action to harvest local water. Join the campaign on social media by posting with the hashtag #raintotable. This campaign is a collaborative effort of Edible Baja Arizona, Watershed Management Group, and the Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona.

You can start small, and it can be as simple as creating a basin for some native plants or directing your laundry graywater to a fruit tree. I’ll be sharing tangible steps in upcoming issues to help you along your journey. In the meantime, here are seven simple ideas to get you started:

• Watch how water moves through your yard when it rains.

• Direct runoff into your yard. Make sure your gutters go into your yard, not down your driveway.

• Get out a shovel and dig some simple depressions where rainwater flows to capture and sink water.

• Add organic mulch. Leave tree trimmings and leaves in your yard, or get wood chips from a tree trimming company. Apply mulch liberally in basins and all dirt surfaces in your yard.

• Do an audit of your landscape—and create a plan to replace non-natives with native plants over time.

• Attend a free rainwater harvesting rebate class, currently offered by Pima County Cooperative Extension/Smartscape Program and Watershed Management Group. After attending the class, you will qualify for up to a $500 rebate for rain gardens and up to $2,000 for rain tanks.

• Attend a free, hands-on workshop to learn about water harvesting and help install an actual system at someone’s home through WMG’s Co-op program. Visit WatershedMG.org for the workshop and class schedule.

So what if serious water conservation actions were adopted by all of Tucson? Watershed Management Group created a water budget for the entire Tucson Basin and found that if Tucsonans bring their average gallons per person per day down to 40, this community can meet its water needs with local, renewable groundwater supplies and reclaimed water.

(This does not factor in water harvesting as a supply.)

Water harvesting is powerful, but even stronger is the sense of purpose you’ll get from being a steward of this resource in your community. Our actions have consequences, and when we live locally we can be conscious of them.  Lisa Shipek is the executive director of Watershed Management Group.

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Create your own local water budget Step 1: Supply.

Rainwater:

Calculate the renewable supply of rainwater that you could capture from your roof and landscape in one year. Let’s assume 12 inches of rain a year (1 foot); a 2,000-square-foot home; and 4,000 square feet of landscape.

6,000 feet² (roof & yard) × 1 foot of rain × 7.48 gal rain/foot³ 44,880 gallons of rain/year

Graywater:

We’ll assume 1 person uses 30 gallons of water/day for laundry, bathroom sink and shower. (Tucson Water customers use an average of 80 gallons per person per day. About 40 percent of that is for outdoor uses, leaving 48 gallons/day for indoor use. After subtracting water used for flushing toilets, dishwasher, and kitchen sink, we have about 30 gallons of potential graywater to harvest.)

30 gallons/day × 365 days 10,950 gallons of graywater/year/person

Step 2: Demand.

Determine your monthly demand by looking at your water bill.

How many gallons per month did you use in January? In July?

Take the average of those two numbers, to capture both winter and summer water use, and multiply by 12. For our calculations, the average water use for a Tucson Water customer is 80 gallons per person per day. 80 gallons/day × 365 days = 29,200 gallons/year.

Step 3: Local Water Balance For 1 person living in a typical midtown Tucson lot: 55,830 gallons rainwater and graywater supply − 29,200 gallons of water demand 26,630 gallons left for local infiltration The water budget tool is powerful; you can quickly see the possibilities for using local, renewable water as a principal water supply. Start by meeting your outdoor water needs with local water.

Then you can start a rain-fed veggie garden or scale up and go completely hydrolocal, meeting all your indoor and outdoor needs with rainwater.

Note: To use rainwater harvesting for a Sonoran Desert native landscape, throw the above math out the window. If you go for a hike in the desert, you will see a wide diversity of plants surviving on rainfall alone. So, all you have to do is contour your yard to give your plants a leg up. Create basins and swales to slow and capture rain instead of mounds that shed water.

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Connecting the Sky Islands Sky Island Alliance helps keep the wilderness wild.

By Craig S. Baker | Photography by Jeff Smith

A

lthough we live in one of the most arid places in the

world, Tucson is located in the middle of a biological “sea.”

There are 57 forested mountains with peaks at elevations between 3,000 and 10,000 feet that make up what’s known as the Madrean Sky Island region, or the Madrean Archipelago. Stretching from northern Mexico into southeastern Arizona and western New Mexico, these sky islands are characterized by their oak, pine, and aspen-laden apexes, though they are isolated from each other by wide expanses of desert and grassland—“seas” that operate as wildlife corridors between each unique mountain ecosystem.

The Madrean Archipelago is a system that covers 70,000 square miles in total and, due to its position between the Rocky Mountains to the north and the Sierra Madre range to the south, Louise Misztal calls it “a real mixing zone,” of plants and animals from temperate North America and the southerly tropics. Misztal is the executive director of the Sky Island Alliance (SIA), which is a Tucson-based nonprofit that operates under a directive to study, restore, and preserve the sky islands in and around southeastern Arizona and northern Mexico.

Climbing any one of the sky island mountains from bottom to top is ecologically tantamount to driving from Mexico to Canada and, Misztal says, this makes the region we call home a “hotspot of different habitats and [species of] plants and animals” unlike any other on earth. It’s the only place on the continent, for instance, where northern predators like bears and wolves might share a chance encounter with a jaguar or an ocelot, or where neotropical bird species can comingle with songbirds from the American plains and beyond.

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The Madrean Archipelago is internationally recognized as a hotbed of biological diversity, and with good reason. It contains more than 7,000 species of plants and animals, and more than half of the bird species in the United States can be seen in this expanse of isolated mountain peaks. According to SIA’s website, “The 143-mile stretch of the San Pedro River alone contains more native vertebrate species than Yellowstone National Park.” And that’s saying something.

SIA has spent more than 25 years educating the public about the incredible value this geography offers to local wildlife, as well as protecting the land from human threats and preserving it in its wild state so that it can remain as such for as long as possible. The organization began in 1991 as a localized effort to rebuff a proposal to develop a portion of the Coronado National Forest into a recreational retreat. Today, SIA works to track and monitor local wildlife populations and their movements, to restore historically viable ecosystems, and to monitor and preserve springs for the sake of native plant and animal populations whose long-term survival depends on the longevity and abundance of resources in the sky islands.

“We’re really trying to take this approach of looking at the whole picture of what these habitats and the wildlife they support need to persist into the future,” Misztal says. And that means working to preserve the sky islands themselves, as well as the corridors that connect them.

Louise Misztal, the executive director of Sky Island Alliance, says that the organization is trying to look at habitats and wildlife in a holistic way.

Homestead

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A team of Sky Island staff and volunteers prepares to go out into the field to assess and track wildlife in the sky islands.

(Clockwise from top left) Bryon Lichtenhan, Katy Brown, Erin Posthumus, and Sami Hammer.

Like most grassroots organizations, SIA relies on volunteers to achieve their mission. Hundreds of people log upwards of 10,000 hours with the group annually, trekking out into the field to help with spring assessment and monitoring, tracking the movement of animals along wildlife corridors, removing invasive species of plants, planting native species, and helping to maintain so-called wildlife camera “traps.” Though some educational programs, in areas like spring assessment and wildlife tracking, require a fee, trips to the sky island habitats to participate in such activities are almost always free.

And since they attract between 10 and 20 people to each of their three-or-more monthly outings, SIA’s volunteer opportunities offer a way for outdoor enthusiasts to meet a handful of like-minded people while adding a bit of extra purpose to their excursions than a weekend camping trip could offer. Misztal says that many of the skills learned through SIA’s more structured educational programs can be garnered along the way simply by showing up to a few relevant volunteer adventures. And for homesteaders looking to implement ecosystem-strengthening methodologies on their own land, Misztal says that the Alliance has plenty of resources and guidance to offer on that front as well.

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As climate change causes species to leave their historic home ranges in search of new territories, shifts in political leadership and ideology threaten to further disrupt corridors between mountains and along international borders, and constant human development pushes deeper and deeper into formerly-pristine wild spaces, SIA’s work to preserve, restore, and connect the wilds of the Madrean Archipelago is perhaps more important now than it has ever been.

And if keeping this singular ecosystem intact for the sake of future generations seems like something you could get behind, SIA makes it easy for you to contribute—especially if you were already looking for a reason to get out into nature.  For more information about the Sky Island Alliance and volunteer opportunities, visit SkyIslandAlliance.org.

Sky Island Alliance. 406 S. Fourth Ave. 520.624.7080.

SkyIslandAlliance.org.

Craig S. Baker is a local freelance writer. You can see more of his work at CraigSBaker.com.

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Farm Report

By Rachel Wehr • Photography by Jeff Smith

Plant starts in a spring greenhouse.

S

B aja A r i zona is a transitional time between cold and heat. While in some spring seasons, winter nights dip into freezing temperatures, others seem to rush into summer warmth. This makes growing outdoors a fragile process of protecting young plants from intense sunlight and cold nights, as is the case with Aravaipa Creekside Growers.

“It’s going to be a little bit cooler than Tucson at our farm, so we continue with our greens and root vegetables into April,” says Andrew Carhuff of Aravaipa Creekside Growers. While the farm in Winkelman is about the same elevation as Tucson, temperatures can drop 15 to 20 degrees below those in the city. During the day, the field warms up due to high sun exposure.

“Toward the end of March, we direct seed heirloom squash, flowers, and basil,” says Carhuff. Tomato starts planted over winter will grow in the greenhouse until the end of March or early April, when the chance of a late freeze has dissipated.

Oyster and shiitake mushrooms will continue to grow in the greenhouse until July, when temperatures are too high to sustain yield without climate control.

Farm duties in March and April include weeding, building straw logs to use as substrate for mushrooms, and succession planting. Succession planting, seeding in regular intervals, helps to maintain constant production from a small plot of land. “We have five acres that we own, and we’ll be growing slightly less than one acre at any given time,” says Carhuff. “We’ll plant pr ing in

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radishes and salad greens in succession throughout the spring.”

Expect mushrooms, root vegetables, and greens to be sold at the Heirloom Farmers’ Market at Rillito Park in the spring.

Aravaipa Creekside Growers also sells wholesale products to Pivot Produce, which distributes the farm’s ingredients to a number of local restaurants.

“February, March, April are our favorite time of year,” says Paul Schwennesen of Double Check Ranch in Winkelman.

“It’s the easiest time for us and the animals.” The weather is favorable, and animals are expending less energy to stay warm during harsh nights.

During March and April, the cattle are grazing exclusively in pasture, with 20 to 30 animals grazing on the ranch. That’s when the pasture is lush, thick, and green and turning solar energy into pounds of beef faster than at any other time of year. “It’s not impossible for animals to gain two to four pounds per day in optimal locations,” says Schwennesen.

In spring, the cattle will be grazing annual rye, which makes up at least half of their diet, and a blend of native annuals like clover and alfalfa, which acts as a nitrogen fixer to replenish soil nutrients.

Double Check Ranch employs management-intensive grazing, a technique in which herds are rotated through fresh pasture to help regenerate soil and grass growth. “Animals are not simply extracting or mining the ground that they’re walking on and

A piglet at E & R Pork.

grazing,” says Schwennesen. “They are biological participants in this process of grass growth and renewal.”

“We’re trying to capitalize on the ‘bloom period’ where we can get weight on as many animals as possible,” says Schwennesen.

The ranch will continue to process animals for beef during March and April.

Double Check Ranch produces lamb, pork, chicken, and eggs in addition to beef. They sell at Heirloom Farmers’ Markets at Rillito Park and Oro Valley, at the St. Philip’s Plaza Farmers’ Market, and at the Santa Cruz River Farmers’ Market. They supply beef to 18 restaurants including Wilko, Blue Willow, Truland Burgers & Greens, Graze, and Canyon Ranch.

For some Baja Arizona producers, spring is a season of expansion. Through the spring, sows—female pigs—will give birth to an average of eight piglets per litter at the farm of E & R Pork in Tucson. With a remodeled farrowing barn, the animals are offered more space to roam and lie in sunlight, as well as new feeders to reduce waste and increase ventilation. For the pigs, these conditions equal overall better health.

The farm will continue to process animals throughout the spring, preparing for barbequing season. They will also be preparing hams and roasts for Easter gatherings.

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pen over the summer. With dreams of growing to fill the vast market for pork within and beyond Baja Arizona, there is work to be done. “Within the next five years we’d like to have our own processing facility,” says Rodney Miller, who owns E & R Pork with his wife, Erika Pacheco.

In addition to expanding its existing facility, E & R Pork is developing a charcuterie business, making preserved meats to be sold at the farmers’ markets. “The best way to describe it is that we’re expanding,” says Miller. This charcuterie business is made possible through a collaboration with Kelzi Bartholomaei, the chef-owner of Mother Hubbard’s Café.

Bartholomaei’s style of charcuterie involves making slowly-dried meats using low-salt rubs and brines to extend the life of the meat and infuse flavor. Among these hand-crafted meats are agave and tequila pecan-smoked bacon and juniper mesquite-smoked bacon.

Dry-cured meats are sold at the Heirloom Farmers’ Market at Rillito Park and the Rincon Valley Farmers’ Market. E & R Pork also sells to a number of Tucson restaurants like Welcome Diner and Mother Hubbard’s Café. Its pork is also sold at Johnny Gibson’s Downtown Market and Time Market.  Rachel Wehr is a Tucson-based freelance journalist. She spends her free time in nature among cactus and pines.

Dress It Up, Dress It Down Two salad dressings that have you —and your greens—covered.

By Molly Kincaid Photography by Shelley Kirkwood

E

v e ry s o o f t e n , I get sucked in by the siren song of takeout. On those days when I’m at work until 6:30 p.m., and still need to walk the dog, it can be 7:30 or 8 before I’m faced with the decision of what to make for dinner. Sometimes I cave to the pressure and get phở or a burrito on my way home.

But I end up shelling out $10-20, and all the while lonely CSA vegetables sit waiting patiently in the fridge at home. I know, life is rough. But unused-CSA-veggie-guilt is a real thing.

Most weeks, though, I do a few things on the weekend in order to get ahead of the game. I have a friend who washes, dries, and chops all of her CSA vegetables every Sunday to have them ready to go throughout the week. I’m not quite this disciplined, but I do usually have salad greens washed and stored in the salad spinner in the fridge. Sometimes I make a big batch of grains or a frittata, which is great leftover on a slice of Barrio bread as you jet out the door.

I also always have at least one or two kinds of homemade salad dressings on hand. Please, friends, beware bottled dressings.

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They are full of cheap oil and sugars, and are also much more expensive than making your own.

If you’re reading Edible Baja Arizona, you probably already have a vinaigrette regimen using olive oil and citrus or vinegar.

I also add a touch of agave nectar and Dijon mustard, and sometimes a crushed clove of garlic or diced shallot to give it extra punch. Lately, though, I’ve been expanding my repertoire of dressings—especially creamy ones with stronger flavor profiles than vinaigrettes. These dressings are super-versatile and can transform ho-hum staples into gourmet dishes. Once you’ve got the recipe down pat, you can mix and match these dressings with any number of combinations of greens and grains, adding cheeses, nuts, and meats, depending on what’s in season and what’s in your pantry.

These two recipes can also double as dips. I’ve used my Green Goddess as a dip for fried green tomatoes, fried squash blossoms—pretty much anything fried. Plunge crudités into this tahini dip or spread it on grilled eggplant.

Tahini-Date Dressing

Green Goddess Dressing

Ingredients:

Ingredients:

Instructions:

Instructions:

½ 2 2 2 2 1

¼-½

cup tahini tablespoons miso paste dates, pitted and soaked in hot water for 30 minutes teaspoon grated ginger tablespoons olive oil teaspoon sriracha Juice of one orange or lemon cup water

Combine all ingredients in a food processor or Vita-Mix blender and blend until well combined and the date has been pulverized. The miso is salty, so you may not need much salt, but taste and add salt or a touch of tamari if you like.

½ ¼ ½ 1 1 1 1/8 ¼

cup plain yogurt cup sour cream (or use more yogurt) cup roughly chopped spring onions or green garlic cup torn parsley cup basil leaves or ½ cup dill tablespoon lemon juice teaspoon white pepper teaspoon salt

Some Green Goddess dressing recipes call for garlic, but I find it too overpowering for this delicate dressing. Green garlic and spring onions are in season in the spring, and deliver just the right amount of allium pungency. Blend all ingredients in food processor or blender. Pour liberally on everything.

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A Mighty Cobb Salad Ingredients:

Mixed salad greens Handful of kale, shredded thinly 1 beet 4 fresh, local eggs 4 slices bacon Sunflower seeds, salted and roasted 1 avocado (or 2)

Instructions:

This really isn’t a recipe. You can use whatever you have on hand. But this is how I do it, and really, I believe the technique of handling the greens and cooking the eggs just right is important. So here we go.

Place eggs in a saucepan and cover with cold water. Cover and bring just to a rolling boil. Right when it starts boiling, turn off heat, leave on lid, and let sit for 12 minutes. Immediately drain hot water and rinse in cold water. Peel and chop.

Peel beet and shave into pretty paper-thin slices with a mandolin or a peeler. I only recently discovered how great beets are raw.

Place bacon in a cold cast-iron skillet or other pan.

Cook on low heat until browned, turning once, about 10 minutes. Drain on a paper towel, and crumble.

Wash and spin dry your lettuces. Same with the kale. Trust me, a salad spinner is a must. Then shred the kale thinly—as thinly as you can. Massage the kale a little to make it more absorbent for the dressing. Mix in a bowl with torn lettuces, sprinkle with salt, and toss with your hands. Don’t be afraid to get your hands in a salad.

In a shallow bowl, lay down a bed of lettuce. Arrange eggs, bacon, beets, and avocado on top. Drizzle with Green Goddess dressing. Sprinkle with sunflower seeds.

Roasted Veggie and Bulgur Bowl Ingredients: 1 1 1 ½ ½

cup bulgur head broccoli, cut into florets large or 2 small sweet potatoes, diced (peeled or unpeeled) cup almonds, roasted and roughly chopped cup crumbled feta Tahini Dressing

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Toss broccoli florets with salt, pepper, and a good glug of olive oil on a sheet pan. On another sheet pan, do the same thing to the sweet potato chunks. Roast for 20-30 minutes. The broccoli will be done before the sweet potatoes.

Meanwhile, combine bulgur and 2 cups water in a saucepan with lid. Bring to a boil, cover, and simmer for 12 minutes.

When the bulgur is done, spoon some into a bowl. Top with sweet potatoes and broccoli. Top with almonds and feta and drizzle with Tahini Dressing.

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Collard Green Tofu Wraps Ingredients:

10 giant collard leaves 2 blocks bulk tofu from the Food Conspiracy Co-op or one package extra-firm tofu 1 lemon cucumber, or English cucumber, peeled and cut into matchsticks 2 carrots, peeled and cut into matchsticks 1 large ripe avocado Cilantro Basil 1 tablespoon sesame oil 2 tablespoon vegetable oil 2 tablespoon tamari or soy sauce 2 tablespoon grated ginger 2 tablespoon sriracha 1 tablespoon rice vinegar Tahini Dressing

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Instructions:

First, drain the tofu and wrap in a clean dishtowel. Set on a plate, and pile several more plates on top, to squeeze out the moisture. Let sit for 15 minutes or more. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Slice tofu into Âź-inch thick strips.

Whisk sesame oil, vegetable oil, tamari, ginger, sriracha, and rice vinegar in a Tupperware or glass container with secure lid. Add tofu strips and turn container gently to coat all sides. Let marinate for 30 minutes. Line baking sheet with parchment paper. Drain tofu and place slices on baking sheet.

Bake for 15 minutes and flip the slices, baking for 15 minutes more, until brown and crispy. (You can add these slices to any salad or sandwich.)

For the wraps, lay the collard leaves flat, and cut along the stem so you have two large crescent-shaped pieces from each leaf. Bring a large pot of water to a boil and salt generously as if cooking pasta. Once hot, put two collard leaves in the water at a time for 3-5 seconds, and then plunge them into cold water to stop cooking. Place in a strainer, and repeat with all leaves.

Line a large baking sheet with paper towels. Lay collard moon on the paper towels, and dab with another paper towel to dry. On one end, stack two basil leaves, a sprig of cilantro, a tofu slice, a slice of avocado, and a few pieces cucumber and carrot. Roll it up tightly, tucking in overhanging parts of the collards. Cut in half and serve with Tahini Dressing.

Cauliflower Fritters Ingredients:

½ head of cauliflower, roughly chopped 2 scallions, roughly chopped (use whites and green parts) ¼ cup chopped parsley ½ teaspoon cumin ½ teaspoon salt Freshly ground pepper to taste ½ teaspoon baking powder ½ cup almond flour 1 egg, lightly beaten ½ cup panko Olive oil for frying

Instructions:

Steam cauliflower branches lightly in a steamer basket, no more than 4 minutes once the water boils. Drain well and cool slightly, and transfer to food processor.

Add scallions, cumin, salt, and pepper, and pulse a few times to get a uniform consistency, but not until it’s a paste.

patties into the pan. Fry until golden brown on both sides, flipping once.

Drain on paper towels. Serve on a bed of arugula or other greens, and drizzle with Green Goddess dressing. Add some protein to this salad with a sliced hard-boiled egg or baked chickpeas. 

Transfer to a bowl, and stir in parsley, flour, baking powder, and finally the one egg. If you cannot easily form balls without them crumbling apart, you may need to add more egg, or flour if the mixture is too wet. Form small patties with your hands, and place on a baking sheet. Roll each patty in the panko.

Heat olive oil (you don’t need more than a ¼ inch depth of oil) in a cast iron skillet. Get it hot before dropping the

Pottery by Catherine Guibert-Orrantia.

Catherine is a self-taught potter living in Tucson and makes pieces for local restaurants such as CORE Kitchen and Wine Bar and Starr Pass Marriot. Visit CatherineOrrantia.com.

Molly Kincaid is a Tucsonan who is obsessed with tinkering in the kitchen and reading cookbooks. Her favorite foods are, paradoxically, kale and pork belly.

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f o L o h c c al Hoppin r a e S ni ess The Baja Brews pro

ject is a year-long collaboration between the region's craft brewers and Edible Ba ja Arizona.

Explore, celebrate, and taste Baja Arizona's extra ordinary craft beer in this six-part series. Drink loc al!

Tasting events will feature local breweries using a different indigenous ingredient to create a special small batch. Drink beer and help benefit innovative nonprofit organizations working for food security.

The next event is March 30th. See p. 183 for more information.

Sponsored by VISIT TUCSON and the ARIZONA CRAFT BREWERS GUILD

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Cruelty-Free beeR Baja Arizona brewers don’t just brew—they also educate, inspire, and foster community.

By John Washington | Photography by Jeff Smith

Beer does more than quench our thirst; it also brings us together in places like Arizona Beer House.

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ithout beer ,

society wouldn’t exist.

So says Mike Mallozzi of Borderlands Brewery. And so it might feel for some in the burgeoning beer scene in Baja Arizona. And even if Mallozzi might be exaggerating—just a touch—the proclamation might not be merely tipsy hyperbole. If you look closely at major human developments, you’ll see that beer, sort of like a liquid Forrest Gump, consistently pops up in the background.

Some 7,000 years ago, “During agriculture’s earliest days,” Mallozzi explained, “it was impossible to store excess grain, but you could turn it into beer.”

Developing a more stable product that could be traded, sold, planned for, he said, led to developments in commerce, economics, politics, and, eventually, tail-gating.

Beer, Mallozzi professed, is also responsible for sparking some of the major sciences, including biochemistry and microbiology.

In trying to understand why their beer was skunking, early scientists, including Louis Pasteur, discovered yeast, and subsequently developed the germ theory of disease. That is, before beer inspired Pasteur to gaze deeply into the eye of a germ, people thought they got sick because their humors were imbalanced, or they were possessed by bad spirits. Thanks to beer, we started developing vaccines, and started thinking more carefully about hygiene.

And even if beer wasn’t the primary catalyst for all of the other major scientific developments of the last few millennia, you can bet that it was at least lubricant for a lot of them.

Today, in Baja Arizona, beer continues to fulfill another of its august roles: bringing together community.

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At Borderlands Brewery, Mike Mallozzi says that “perfect strangers will sit down and start talking.”

i l l 2017 see Baja Arizona open its 18th brewery? The count, as I write this, is at 17, though it’s hard to keep track—with new breweries cutting ribbons and starting to fill growlers seemingly every few months. A lot of the motivation for the spike in breweries is about beer itself, but there seems to be something more driving the boom. Last November, with politics on the minds of many of us, Borderlands Brewing became a space to bridge differences rather than build a wall between them. Breweries, along with the saloon and trading post, have long stood as spaces that allow for and motivate community gathering—pushing drinkers to discuss both the personal and the political.

“It’s bullshit if you try to stay out of politics,” Mallozzi told me. “You don’t want to offend anyone, but you have to be who you are, as a business.” On Nov. 27, just a couple of weeks after the divisive national election, Borderlands hosted “Get to It,” an activism and volunteering fair. Thirty-two community organizations and as many as 700 people came to find a more hands-on way to engage in their communities. Mallozzi saw it as a response to the election’s outcome. People wanted to engage, and a natural space to do so was at the brewery.

Borderlands recently teamed up with Buqui Bichi Brewing of Hermosillo to brew a brown ale called Cerveza sin Fronteras.

Mallozzi told Arizona Public Media, “We wanted to be a

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counterpoint to some of the more toxic sentiments that are going around right now.” Though it’s a “political beer,” brewed, in part, in response to rising anti-immigrant sentiment, Mallozzi told me, “We thought that one thing we could do was to make beer with our friends.” He wanted to remind folks that, “People in Mexico are real people. Good entrepreneurs. Not people to wall out.”

There are two distinct versions of the Cerveza Sin Fronteras.

Borderlands and Buqui Bichi brewers used piloncillo when they brewed in Sonora and mesquite flour when they brewed in Arizona. A Borderlands bartender told me that a lot of people had been coming in and asking about the beer, which was part of the point. In Borderlands, as in many breweries around town, “Perfect strangers will sit down and start talking,” Mallozzi said.

“We wanted to be a positive force in the community. If your business doesn’t have a mission that is beneficial to the community, you’re not going to survive. Consumers are becoming increasingly conscious about the decisions they make, how they make their purchases,” he said. It’s why, for example, Borderlands has invested in technologies to conserve water during the brewing process.

“Like the foodie movement,” Mallozzi said, consumers are increasingly interested in where and how their products are made. “People want cruelty-free eggs,” he said. I asked if the beer was cruelty free. He chuckled and said that it definitely was.

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o r 11 y e a r s , 1702 has been a local stalwart for craft beer aficionados.

In a prime example of how local brewers put community, or at least beer, ahead of profits, 1702 owner Austin Santos refuses to stock or pour any noncraft label, even popular “craft” names such as Sierra Nevada. I asked Santos where his strict ideology came from.

He answered, rather humbly, “I’ve just never liked Bud or Coors.” He also cited an “early infatuation with complex flavors in the regional breweries at the time.”

For local brewers and drinkers, 1702’s commitment to small-label craft is commitment to community. Part of 1702’s mission has been education. For example, they used to carry Lost Coast Brewery’s Great White, a Witbier very similar to Blue Moon. Santos noticed, however, that customers were coming in thirsty for an approximation of the nationally distributed Blue Moon rather than trying new beers or new beer styles, and so he did something that would make traditional profit-seekers and beer barons choke: He stopped carrying it. “We stopped carrying our best selling beer,” Santos told me, in order to “eliminate that crutch,” and stop people from “mindlessly drinking” according to national trends. There are better beers out there than Blue Moon, or Blue Moon knock-offs.

“We could sell a ton of Budweiser and make a small fortune, but that’s not the business we want to have,” he said. “We wanted to grow these other brands.”

“It’s not only an ethical decision,” Ty Young, 1702’s assistant manager, told me. Staying with craft-only beers “frees up shelf and handle space for more interesting beers,” he said. 1702 won’t carry even Ballast Point or Lagunitas, two popular (and delicious) beers owned by breweries that have

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At 1702, owner Austin Santos (left) and Alvin Kuenster are so dedicated to craft beer that they don’t stock or pour any noncraft label.

recently outgrown the small craft label. “The taste also changes,” Young said, when beer is mass-produced. He gave the example of Goose Island, a classic craft IPA. They were bought by AnheuserBusch InBev, the world’s largest brewer, in 2011. “Goose Island’s IPA used to be better,” Young said, but now its quality has gone down—it’s been standardized.

Santos tries to maintain the same ethos on the pizza end of 1702— staying distinctive and, if possible, sourcing from local distributors.

Though he said that there are currently no local farms that can keep up with their demand, they are hoping to collaborate with a new greenhouse project to source tomatoes and basil, and with a flour mill that is planning to open in Phoenix.

Even as The Address (1702’s brewery) finds success with some of their own beers, like their Habanero pepper-infused Paloma White IPA (the soft heat settles into your throat rather than pricks into your tongue, and is nicely complemented by a fresh sparkle of hops) they want to stay deliberately small with their brewery. They aren’t looking for a statewide footprint.

Better, Santos explains, keep a chef’s mindset to the brewery: go to the farmers’ market, see what ingredients are available, and take advantage of the small size to be creative, maintain control, and keep products fresh. “It’s a very important aspect in producing quality beer,” he said.

Sitting at the bar in 1702 last December, sampling a Prairie ‘Merica, a saison beer from Oklahoma, Young suggested to me a pizza slice that would pair nicely with my beer: “a middle spectrum beer for a middle spectrum pizza.” Young recommended it with the Odysseus Slice (no red sauce, ricotta, garlic, pepperoncini, red pepper, and chicken). The Prairie ‘Merica was balanced, hoppy, and slightly grassy. You could make for a worse afternoon: The tastes mingled, flirted, cavorted with each other across my palate. If you want to wash down pizza with a perfectly complementary beer, there’s no better place to go in town than 1702.

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Brian McBride opened Arizona Beer House in 2015, giving the eastside of Tucson a much-needed community space and gathering spot.

M c B ride , who opened Arizona Beer House in 2015, described the importance of having a good local beer and community space on the east side of town. (If you’ve never been to the Arizona Beer House, hop on Broadway and pedal against the sun, hook a right on Kolb, and begin exploring the wonders of the Orient.) Until Arizona Beer House opened, anywhere east of Alvernon was a beer desert, and craft aficionados had to take a pilgrimage downtown, or to the

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closest brewery, Sentinel Peak. Arizona Beer House developed regulars almost immediately. (BlackRock Brewers is opening soon in the Research Loop, to help quench thirsty eastsiders.)

Arizona Beer House’s taproom, open for a year and a half, has 11 handles dedicated to local brewers, though the afternoon I visited, there were 12 Baja Arizona beers on tap. McBride told me he might add a few handles (there are currently 34) or dedicate a couple more to local beers.

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Friends meet at Borderlands Brewery for a flight of local beer.

Though McBride, born in Tucson, lives close to downtown, most of his friends are on the eastside. When they used to invite him east to drink, there was nowhere to go, and they usually ended up in someone’s backyard. Arizona Beer House changed that. McBride has long been friends with Tucson’s brewers, and wanted to help support the local craft scene. The Beer House has done some educating, but a lot of his regulars already knew their Baja Arizona beers, and were thrilled they didn’t have to drive all the way across town to drink a decent pint. “I love being on this side of town, where people live all year,” McBride told me. “There are no snowbirds or students. It’s a more consistent population.” Last July—typically a slow month 180 March/April 2017

for downtown Tucson—Arizona Beer House had their best month yet. McBride is excited to see breweries continuing to open. “The more there are,” he said, “the better for all of us.”

When 1702 opened in 2006 as Tucson’s first craft-focused taproom, only around 3 percent of all beer sales went to craft beer. Even by 2011, when Borderlands opened, the percentage of craft sales was only at 5 percent of the national market.

But through the efforts of 1702, Arizona Beer House, and the multiplicity of Baja Arizona breweries, as well as those around the country, craft beer sales now make up around 16 percent of the national market, and the percentage is climbing.

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1702’s commitment to keeping small-label craft beers on tap is a commitment to community.

For what is beer actually responsible, besides fostering community and our basic understanding of civics? To beer do we also owe the art of philosophy, the study of genetics, autonomous vehicles? How about space travel, the domestication of wolves, or wireless technology? Some of that might be a stretch, but drink a few and you start to make the connections. “Also,” Mallozzi told me, “beer just makes you feel good.”  182 March/April 2017

My recs from this article: 1702’s Paloma White IPA with Habanero, and Borderlands’ Toole Avenue IPAs, their single-hop series.

John Washington is a writer and translator.

Visit jblackburnwashington.com or find him on Twitter at @EndDeportations.

BUZZ

Desert Distilled Three Wells Distilling makes spirits with a distinctly regional signature.

By Kathe Lison | Photography by Julie DeMarre

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2012. It’s one of those monsoon days when the air feels heavy with more than mere weather, as Matt Montgomery of Three Wells Distilling drives his F-150 west along Sahuarita Road. To the south, clouds mass over the Santa Rita Mountains. North of the road, the late afternoon sun still shines over a desert undulating with prickly pear. Each summer, Montgomery makes his wife a new poking stick so she can harvest the ripe fruits the way her grandfather once taught her. Looking across mile after mile of sun-bright pads tipped in dusky, wine-red tunas, Montgomery sees his wife’s favorite treat. And then he sees something else: booze.

The handful of years leading to Montgomery’s drive had been tough. Once a successful contractor, the housing market crash left him scrambling. Stuck with little means to buy the high-end whiskeys he loved, Montgomery, the grandson of a Texas sharecropper who grew up “fairly redneck” on 10 acres near Sabino Canyon, built a still and started making whiskey in his garage.

Soon enough, those experiments led to some hooch those lucky enough to sample wanted to keep on sampling—everyone that is, but his wife, Ken’te, who isn’t much of a whiskey drinker.

His sister, Sue, on the other hand, was among the early devotees. ummer

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When she ran across an article about an up-and-coming craft distillery in Utah, she mailed it to her brother with the words “No reason this couldn’t be you! Got to be easier in AZ than Utah!” scrawled along the border in black Sharpie. Montgomery remained unconvinced. Until the day he saw all those prickly pear fruits, and realized that instead of making a grain-based spirit like whiskey, he could make a desert-based one. A spirit that would reflect the Sonoran region, that would come from the surrounding lands. A spirit—if he got it right—even his wife might like to drink.

The result was Sonora Silver, what would eventually become Three Wells’ signature spirit (not only did Montgomery’s wife like it, she still calls it “my prickly”). And Montgomery began to think founding a distillery might not be so crazy after all. His long-time friend and chemist Chris Dudding not only agreed, he was also willing to take out a second mortgage to seed the venture. In early 2013 the two men rented space on East 44th Street in Tucson, and Montgomery got out his welder.

Matt Montgomery co-founded Three Wells Distilling after a drive in the Sonoran Desert opened his eyes—and taste buds —to the ingredients available in the desert.

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Many of the ingredients in Three Wells spirits come straight from the desert, like these chiltepin peppers.

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sing a still to separate a liquid mix, called a mash, into components through controlled evaporation and condensation has roots in Middle Eastern alchemy.

Ancient as those origins are, and as prevalent as spirit-making once was in the United States (in the 1880s some 8,000 distilleries burbled away even though total population scarcely topped 50 million), until quite recently small-batch hard liquors remained the victim of stringent regulations leftover from Prohibition.

Montgomery’s epiphany, however, came at a good time. Spurred by the craft beer-making movement, the past few decades have seen more enlightened views, and rather better laws, take hold.

Today, with some 1,300 distilleries nationwide and counting, “grain to glass” makers are on the rise.

In Three Wells’ case it might make more sense to say “desert to glass,” or even “garage to glass,” since the distillery, which has two rolling garage doors, resembles nothing more than a larger version of what Matt’s original operation must have looked like. “It’s not that we’re cheap,” Montgomery quips, “it’s just that we’re not well-funded.” So far, Montgomery and Dudding have resisted bringing in outside investors,

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and outright refuse to do what too many craft “distillers” do: buy base alcohol—most of it from the same industrial-scale producer in Indiana—and simply age it. “There is a craft to aging,” Montgomery is quick to point out, but if Three Wells has a philosophy, it’s this: Distillers ought to distill.

And distill they do. Occupying an entire side of one garage bay, Three Wells’ homemade copper stills exude an aura of mad scientist crossed with MacGyver. Though Montgomery won’t call himself a Master Distiller—“maybe in a few years”—distilling is an art, and Montgomery has it down. This is especially true when it comes to Sonora Silver. Unlike commercially harvested grain, prickly pear can be tricky at the mashing stage, when the broken up fruits—Three Wells mashes them in five-gallon buckets with a half-inch drill and a mixing attachment—are combined with water, a corn base (which adds a note of sweetness to the final flavor profile), and yeast.

The fruits still come straight from the desert—in July, pickers head out with tongs—which means each year requires its own particular attention. “Just because of the way the rainfall came,” says Montgomery.

Matt Montgomery started distilling after the housing crash left the former contractor scrambling.

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t ’ s at the stills , unsurprisingly, that the distiller’s art is on full display. From a pure chemistry standpoint, it should be possible to “cut” the raw alcohol coming from a still by temperature alone—that is, to measure when the undesirable “heads” stop and the flavorful “hearts” begin, and how much of the oily “tails” to keep depending on the desired mouth-feel. But temperature, Montgomery says, “only gives you an idea.” Instead, he relies on taste—but even, and mostly—on smell to make his cuts. Montgomery, who favors cowboy boots and Wranglers and likes to say “everything we do is ugly, but it works,” would likely snort at the label “artisan.” But artisans make full use of their senses, and that’s exactly how Montgomery practices his craft.

Standing before four porthole-like windows in the main column of Ugly Boy—the name of the still Three Wells uses

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for its final, or “spirit,” run, Montgomery and I watch bubbles.

He explains how the soon-to-be spirit passes from vapor to liquid to vapor again as it rises and falls through a series of perforated copper disks inside the column. The “lower” alcohols (like methanol), which evaporate at a lower temperature, rise faster than the “higher” alcohols (like ethanol). You can see the difference in the bubbles, which get fizzier as they go up. A thin stream begins to spurt from Ugly Boy’s arm. “See how it smells like acetone?” he asks.

I nod, but mostly it just smells like it could knock me on my butt. In contrast, the very end of the tails smell “like a nasty wet dog,” says Montgomery. The hearts, meanwhile, smell “like what you used to make the spirit,” so in the case of the Silver—prickly pear. He has me stick a finger under

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the still-running heads.

Never before having tasted nail-polish remover, it’s hard to say what it’s doing beyond scorching my lips.

M ont go m e r y g r in s a nd nods, shaking liquid off his own finger. Soon enough he’ll deftly make his cut at just the right moment to capture the hearts.

That heart—the pure, clear spirit—can be found in the unmistakable note of prickly pear in every sip of Sonora Silver. It’s there, too, in Sonora Copper, the stave-aged, oaky cousin to the Silver. And it will likely be even more apparent in Sonora Gold, the prickly pear spirit that’s been quietly gaining complexity in charred American White Oak barrels on one side of Three Well’s distilling room for more than a year. I can’t tell you, because all Montgomery will say is that he occasionally unplugs a barrel, tastes, and says “Nope, not yet.” In the meantime, the rains will fall, the tunas will ripen, and Three Wells Distilling will keep on bottling the desert.  Three Wells Sonora Silver, along with their equally locally inspired Mt. Lemmon Gin, is distributed statewide. Visit ThreeWellsDistilling.com for a complete list of retailers and to check their calendar for events, tastings, new products, and Build-A-Gin workshops.

Three Wells Distilling.

3780 E. 44th St. 520.205.1363.

ThreeWellsDistilling.com.

Kathe Lison lives and writes in Tucson.

A small demonstration still is used during Build-A-Gin workshops, when Montgomery teaches students how to make their own gin.

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A Day in

Baja Arizona

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Portal Text by Saraiya Kanning | Photography by Chloé Tarvin

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in the far southeast corner of Arizona, at the foot of the Chiricahua Mountains and the mouth of Cave Creek Canyon, sits Portal, an unincorporated community of biologists and naturalists.

With a close-knit population of about 70 individuals living alongside seasonal visitors from around the world, Portal makes for a diverse community despite its small size.

“We’re all united by this intense curiosity for the world,” says Peg Abbott, owner of the tour company Naturalist Journeys.

Abbott knows the geological story of the looming red cliffs that can be seen as you drive into the canyon.

They are volcanic, formed by the eruption of a caldera 27 million years ago. Today, these rhyolite and granite cliffs are covered in lime green lichen, estled

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making for a breathtaking juxtaposition of color. It’s because of these towering rock formations that the earliest visitors of the canyon dubbed it “little Yosemite.”

To view these cliffs, take Exit 382 (sign for Portal) from I-10 in San Simon. Follow Foothills Road for about 26 miles and turn right on Portal Road. Your first stop will be the Portal Peak Lodge, Store & Café (2358 S. Rock House Road). Here, intriguing conversations unfold as birders, artists, hunters, hikers, photographers, and campers share this one-andonly eatery in the Portal area.

Built first as a convenience store in the 1920s and ‘30s, much of the clientele came from the Civilian Conservation Corps and visitors exploring Arizona via the Southern Pacific Railroad. Today, you’ll find

a simple store up front, a cozy café in the back, a stage for musical guests outside, and rooms for lodging in a separate building behind the café. Each room comes with a hummingbird feeder hanging just outside the door.

Visit the café in summer and enjoy a meal outside while watching a concert of local musicians. Owner Mitch Webster recommends the green chile cheeseburger, a popular customer order. In the winter, order a hot chocolate piled high with whipped cream and talk to locals ready to share their story of how they fell in love with Portal and came to live here. You’ll hear about rare birds otherwise found only in Mexico and sightings like jaguarundi and mountain lion. Says Webster, it’s here in Portal that one can have “an incredible experience in the middle of nowhere.”

From the Portal Café, travel 0.3 miles west on Portal Road until you see a house on the left. Pull into the driveway to visit Dave Jasper’s bird feeders, a hotspot among birders. Jasper, a guide for Naturalist Journeys and expert birder, lives here and has recorded 166 species in his yard.

“I’m not a privacy nut and have always shared my properties with whoever,” Jasper says. Visit in summer to see vivid orange Hooded Orioles and the two largest hummingbirds in North America, the blue-throated and magnificent hummingbirds. Be sure to sign the guest page and view the finds of others.

Travel into the Coronado National Forest on 42 Forest Road, which branches from Portal Road shortly after the Jasper feeders. After three miles, turn left at the sign for South Fork. Follow the dirt

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road until you reach a berm.

The South Fork Trail begins on the other side of the berm and winds along the creek, providing excellent views of the cave-pocked cliffs.

Enjoy the yellow, mauve, red, and green-gray creek stones, white sycamores, and tall pines as you hike this easy path. For a more difficult hike, follow the trail eight miles to Sentinel Peak.

Summer visitors should keep their eyes and ears open for the spectacular red and green elegant trogon, a rare tropical species for which this canyon is famous.

Follow 42 Forest Road further to visit the Southwestern Research Station, a home base for biologists working in the canyon. A nature shop opens March through October for those in search of a wildlife-related souvenir.

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The road forks at the station. Take the right fork to visit Rustler Park and view the upper life zones of the Chiricahua Mountains.

Although recent fires of unusual proportion have devastated some of the local ecology of the region, visitors can still find tall pines, aspens, and wildflowers. Bring a jacket for this experience at 8,500 feet elevation.

A visit to Portal, however, isn’t all about the canyon.

The Chiricahua Desert Museum (NM80 and Portal Road) sits at the easternmost end of Portal Road in the nearby ranching town of Rodeo. Publisher and reptile enthusiast Bob Ashley founded the museum in 2009 as a live exhibit of local reptiles.

Zoologist Rachel Beasley occasionally offers behind the scenes tours. She knows the personalities of every

7

species of reptile in the museum, and knows which of the rattlesnakes in their collection have the most “sass.”

Among them are intricately patterned Mojave and western diamondback rattlesnakes.

The museum also holds an extensive nature shop, a botanical garden with endangered Bolson tortoises, and reptile-inspired art. Many of the paintings on the museum walls are by wildlife artist Tell Hicks, who spends hours observing in the field in order to paint reptiles in high detail.

An adjacent building, the Geronimo Event Center, displays artifacts and photography of the Chiricahua Apache. These tell the story of a people who fought tirelessly against the United States Army in order to continue living in their ancestral homelands. They were eventually relocated to

reservations in Oklahoma and New Mexico, where their descendants still reside. The museum seeks to honor the Apache people who called this place their sacred home.

Portal and the surrounding area offer an education in ecology, history, culture, and community. In the words of Abbott, “Here, you’re away from everything. You only have the sound of nature.”  Saraiya Kanning is a freelance writer, silk painter, and birder living in Tucson.

1. A view of the Chiricahua

Mountains from Rodeo.

2. Lichen-covered mountains at Cave Creek Canyon. 3. Peg Abbott’s horse. 4. Myrtle Kraft Library.

5. One-stop shop: The Portal Store Café & Lodge. 6. A lizard at the Chiricahua Desert Museum.

7. The entrance to Portal is marked

by the Portal Store sign, the first sign after you turn off the dirt road.

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LAST BITE

A Late Night Mystery

By Lorry Levine | Illustration by Chloé Tarvin

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draped the yard in a veil of shadows, surreal images, and an eerie opaque landscape. Focusing my 3 a.m. eyes to investigate the backyard mystery through the patio door, I sensed a movement. Was it the fig tree in the breeze? Or was the haze of early dawn tricking my senses?

When we designed our backyard swimming pool years ago, my wife and I wanted to establish a functional lap pool that was easy to maintain ourselves. Years later we added vertical green elements to surround our little body of water, replicating a cool Mediterranean retreat. Eucalyptus papuana, tall slender ghost gum shade trees, surround the northeast corner of the pool. Ficus carica, sweet mission fig trees, adorn the southern portion while Wisteria floribunda grace our steel ramada, gnarled and lush, with lovely hanging purple flowers providing a natural shade element.

Together, f lowering shrubs, grapefruit, orange, and lemon trees, and larger shade trees, enable a microcosm of life attracting pollinators, lizards, birds, and small mammals. This web of life produces a copious amount of organic material adding nutrients to the biodiversity surrounding the pool. It has evolved into a symbiotic world of cooperation and mutualism.

But with constant growth, decay, and regrowth of life in our yard, the pool also becomes a repository for all this organic matter. Floating debris finds its way into a skimmer basket, installed in the pool decking, accessible for cleaning by inserting a forefinger from each hand into the two holes of the snugly fit lid. This skimmer basket needs emptying regularly to filter the pool water.

In early June of last year, one morning I walked outside to find the lid off the skimmer basket. Thinking I had left the lid off the night before, I reinstalled it. The next morning, the lid was off again. This on-again-off-again conundrum went on for several more days.

I had to solve this mystery, so I put a two-pound brick paver on the lid one evening. The next morning the lid and brick were moved. That night, I tried a brick and a half. The next morning the lid and brick and a half were off. Then two full brick pavers.

The lid and bricks remained in place. So the next night I went back to a brick and a half. Off again. half moon

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So whatever it was, it could move three pounds—and no more—and had the ability to lift the snugly fitted lid.

Hummingbirds routinely sip nectar from our Bignonia capreolata, or tangerine cross vines. Bees congregate on the puffy white eucalyptus flowers. House finches adore the figs. Butterflies navigate and quietly sample the menu everywhere. And rodents, rabbits, reptiles, and arachnids galore munch on the abundant nutrients at ground level. Did they all combine forces to pull one over on us?

Finally, late one night, I witnessed a creature eating by the skimmer basket. I could see the shape, clearly a mammal, oblong, head pointed down at 45 degrees, at least 10 pounds and two feet long with a foot-long tail. With a high beam flashlight, I shined it on the feasting creature and there it was. A coatimundi, Nasua nasua, a raccoon-like desert dweller, originally from South America, nocturnal by nature, with a keen sense of smell and a gristle-padded snout to root in soil and leaf litter.

Eating. But eating what?

After he took off, I investigated the skimmer. Empty. What was he after?

The next night, ensuring the skimmer lid was secure, I inspected the basket’s contents. Cotinus mutabilis, scarab beetles, also known as fig beetles or June bugs, filled the water below. Probably 30 to 50 beetles, dead and alive, were caught in the basket.

No doubt they fell in the pool after gorging themselves silly on the nearby figs.

So each night the lid was on with the basket full of beetles. Morning came and the lid was off and the basket cleaned out. It astounded me that a coatimundi had the dexterity to wedge its snout in the skimmer basket finger holes and lift it up.

How does wildlife know when and where food is available?

Do they let each other in on the bounty in our yard?

The figs are usually gone by July. And when the figs are gone, so too are the June bugs. Sure enough, the day came. One morning in early July, the lid no longer was askew. The basket no longer held the June bug feast. The coati was gone. But where?

What was it feeding on tonight? Will it return next year to feed on the June bugs, which feed on the figs?  Lorry Levine is a local freelance writer and an advocate for wild places, sustainable living, and locally brewed craft beer.