13 minute read
ON THE FARM
Farmer Ronald Donkervoort is a regular at farmers’ markets around the Monterey Bay.
ON THE FARM An Adventurous Life
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The circuitous journey that led a Dutchman to a life of contentment and a farm in Moss Landing
BY EMILY BEGGS PHOTOGRAPHY BY DORIANA HAMMOND / WEST CLIFF CREATIVE
At age 68, Windmill Farm owner Ronald Donkervoort has the same mischievous twinkle in his eye that once mirrored sunlight reflecting off the iconic greenhouses on the outskirts of The Hague. If you’ve visited him at the farmers’ markets, it’s easy to picture a teenage Donkervoort speeding away from his earliest employment in his homeland’s glassed-in growing operations, skin stained green with tomato sap, hand on the throttle of a scooter purchased with freshly earned cash.
On 10 acres in Moss Landing, Donkervoort grows albion strawberries, heirloom cabbage, coveted winter squash, plump crisp carrots, German butterball potatoes freshly dug for each market, beets, greens, spring onions, leeks, zucchini, cucumbers and cilantro, “not for the money, but because I’m totally addicted to it.”
Aside from his own passion for the pungent and nutrientrich herb, “you guys dictate what I grow,” he says, referring to the direct community feedback he receives at farmers’ markets. Donkervoort is one of the few farmers who still personally sells his produce, and he stands out not only for his wealth of organic farming knowledge, but also for the blend of cordiality, humility and playfulness he bestows upon market goers.
“It’s very rich to be in my role in the community,” he says. “I see people being born, I see people die. There’s a certain trust you get when you grow people’s food.”
Donkervoort describes himself as a “bit of a manager” in those adolescent days in the greenhouses, surrounded by tomatoes, peppers and glass walls. As an enterprising and rebellious high schooler with sights set on a life of adventure, he used his command of French to translate between his Dutch bosses and Moroccan workers while picking vegetables for pocket money. When not engaged in side hustles, music appreciation or exploration of Holland’s countryside, he occasionally made it to class, and surprised himself by managing to graduate—although skipping the ceremony.
Intolerant of the monotony and rigidity of conventional schooling, but a clever and gifted polyglot full of wonder and curiosity, Donkervoort now uses his Spanish to help workers on his own farm find housing and negotiate with landlords. “I like all that,” he explains. “It’s not just about the soil. It’s the people who work the soil. Workers have to feel good about what they’re doing.”
In total, Donkervoort speaks five languages, not counting cattle dog, or an uncanny ability to commune with the land that yields his livelihood. He’s also a master table tennis player, having ascended his country’s highest ranks in the sport as a teenager, and a dedicated scholar of Jiddu Krishnamurti. Donkervoort is recognized as one of the few living devotees who spent considerable time in the presence of the philosopher both in the U.S. and in India. At one point, he also worked on-set for award-winning Dutch director Paul Verhoeven. These accolades are a mere drop in the berry bucket of a long life filled with the sweetness of taking the road less traveled.
WORLD TRAVELER Donkervoort’s values and path to becoming a farmer were shaped as much by a socialist upbringing as they were a rejection of the government office job that Dutch society expected him to take as an adult. His parents, Meintje, a school teacher, and Pier, a social worker who taught vocational skills in the prison system, modeled a life of serving their community. “It wasn’t
Cate Geyer at her workbench inside their handmade home.
about money; it was about what you can do for other people,” Donkervoort recalls. Though his academic career was a sore subject for his teacher mother, he is grateful to his parents for embracing him for who he was. They had grown up in the shadows of WWII, haunted by bombings survived decades earlier. Committed pacifists, they understood why young Ronald ran away from compulsory military duty after high school, at one point tossing his machine gun into the bushes on a march. A perennial trickster, Donkervoort convinced his soldier superiors that he simply wasn’t up for the rules and rigors of basic training, repeatedly dressing himself incorrectly, getting “lost” and running away.
Looking back at past adventures from his home in the Santa Cruz Mountains—a cozy redwood cabin with hand-hewn shingle siding assembled entirely by Donkervoort himself—he recounts his early life over a tempeh sandwich and salad of Windmill Farm beets and sauerkraut, made lovingly by his partner Cate. An ornate, hand-knotted, rubycolored rug covers the floor and the walls are lined with bookshelves, altars, Southwestern prints and artifacts, and artist Cate’s rotund, whimsical ceramic figurines. Cate passes me photos of Ronald: one taken at the headwaters of the Ganges River in the 1980s and
another older, black-and-white of an Indian shrine where he sits in full lotus opposite a friend, bare chested with a long dark beard and thick mustache, hair tied up in a rope-like head cloth.
After leaving the military, panic-stricken by the thought of a life confined by the walls of an office building, Donkervoort drove taxis until he had enough money to board a cargo ship headed to South America. It was the early 1970s, and unknown to Donkervoort, the wave of military dictatorships that swept the southernmost countries of the continent was cresting. Sobered by curfews and silent city streets, yet undeterred, “I never took a bus or slept in a hotel,” he says, preferring hitchhiking, camping and homestays to tourism. At one point, he was arrested by Argentine military police who confused the wide-eyed, fair-skinned backpacker for a foreign journalist.
Eschewing comfort and consumerism in favor of freedom and serendipity, Donkervoort eventually landed in Peru where he spent three months penniless on the Amazon River. Gaunt, covered with infected insect bites and living at the mercy of locals for fish, rice and transport due to having been robbed, Donkervoort does not romanticize the serpentine passage to the Brazilian coastline, but a gleeful aura never leaves the picture he paints of his adventures. One can’t help but envision the not-yet-farmer as a spiritual mendicant, surrendering himself to the kindness of strangers for sustenance, in a manner akin to fledgling Buddhist monks. FARMING ROOTS Like many of the hippie generation, but with a singular drive to fulfill his own dreams and a tolerance for simple living, Donkervoort was transformed by later travels in India where he met lifelong teacher Krishnamurti who “put words to everything I feel.” Donkervoort was drawn to meditation as a solo camper in wilderness areas of North America and eventually made his way through Mexico. He describes pitching a tent at the now Instagram-famous ruins of Tulum with no one else in sight and planting a large garden in a highland Oaxacan indigenous community so that children wouldn’t run at the sight of a pink-cheeked, long-haired not-quite gringo. Camping and living in borrowed dwellings in areas where Spanish was seldom heard, Donkervoort observed that “the happiest people were those who lived off the land. They had time for each other, time to be with their children and grandchildren.” Their livelihoods made them self-sufficient, and they were never far from sunshine, forests and the plants they relied on for food. “One day, I will do that,” he remembers thinking to himself. “Life is so short. I have to do my own dream.”
The birth of his first child brought him from India to Santa Cruz in the early 1980s. Living in a school bus in the woods, he planned to take his family back to India, but a friend told him about a tiny piece of land for sale in Ben Lomond. The parcel happened to cost $5,000, the same sum of money the family had just received for selling the school bus. Rather
Produce at Windmill Farm in Moss Landing grows without the use of animal fertilizers.
than purchasing plane tickets, Donkervoort built a tiny cabin and fashioned a water system from a spring on the steep, wooded property. He got his start growing food commercially on an organic farm in the Pogonip area of Santa Cruz, then leased land around the county before finding the acreage in Moss Landing.
On the day I visited the farm, he had just released 50,000 spiders, explaining that spider mites were one of the biggest concerns for strawberry growers, and that his pest control strategy involved “letting the animals work for you, instead of chemicals.” Standing atop the dirt clods of a freshly turned bed, clad in an ivory cowboy hat, work vest, long-sleeved plaid shirt and a sacred Hindu rudraksha seed necklace, Donkervoort professes that “whatever is good for me is also good for the soil.” He is not dogmatic about diet, but he does subscribe to a vegan way of life that revolves around eating what he grows, and no longer using animal manure composts on his crops, the farm being “an extension” of himself. Since he doesn’t know whether the animals from which he formerly sourced his compost lived good lives, free from unnecessary medications and pesticide-laden feed, he now opts for extensive cover cropping and frequent rest periods for his fields. He proudly irrigates with water from the Pajaro Valley Water Management Agency’s recycled water program, orchestrated in partnership with the City of Watsonville, to halt seawater intrusion on coastal lands. Forever treading lightly, Donkervoort remains on a mission to nourish his community and to always “try to give back to the soil, a little more than you took.”
Emily Beggs is founder and lead chef of Kin & Kitchen, which specializes in ecology-minded private chef services for clients throughout California. She has a background in the anthropology of food and nutrition, and the menus she develops meld wellnesspromoting ancestral recipes with local ingredients to create intimate and nourishing feasts.
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Campfire Strawberry Tart
Courtesy Emily Beggs, owner of Kin & Kitchen In truth, Windmill Farm’s Albion strawberries require no additional ingredients for the perfect summer treat, but if you’d like to bake with them, this fruit-forward summer dessert evokes the nostalgia of s’mores, combining classic vanilla pastry cream, elegant Swiss meringue marshmallow crème and jammy, roast strawberries.
This dessert is best approached in stages. Complete the crust, pastry cream and berries on day one, assembling the tart once all components are cool. Optimally, refrigerate the tart overnight or for a few hours, then whip up the fluffy marshmallow top, pipe it or spoon it over the tart and toast, if desired.
4 pint baskets strawberries, hulled and sliced in half lengthwise 2 tablespoons sugar 1½ tablespoon balsamic vinegar 1½ teaspoons vanilla Salt
For the crust
1¾ cups finely ground Graham cracker crumbs 2 tablespoons sugar 1 teaspoon sea salt 9 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and browned 3 ounces dark chocolate, broken in pieces
For the pastry cream
2 cups whole milk ½ vanilla bean ¼ teaspoon salt 4 tablespoons cornstarch ½ cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar 3 large eggs 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 4 pieces
For the Swiss meringue marshmallow crème
4 large egg whites 1 cup sugar ¼ teaspoon cream of tartar ¼ teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon vanilla
To prepare the berries Heat oven to 375° F. Hull and slice berries from 3 of the 4 baskets. Place them in a large mixing bowl and toss with vinegar, vanilla, sugar and salt. Spread marinated berries onto parchment-lined baking sheets and roast for 20 minutes or until deflated and pooling with thickened juices. Once out of the oven, place them in a bowl and allow to cool before chilling in the refrigerator.
Hull and slice berries from the fourth basket, placing them in a small bowl when finished.
To make the crust Heat oven to 350° F. Mix Graham cracker crumbs, sugar and salt in a medium bowl and stir until mixed. Drizzle in brown butter and mix to evenly coat crumbs. Press crumbs into the bottom and up the sides of 9½-inch fluted tart pan with a removable bottom. Then bake crust until lightly browned, about 10 minutes. After removing the crust from the oven, scatter pieces of chocolate over the bottom, then wait 30 seconds so that they begin to melt before you slide them across the crust to create an even chocolate shell. Place unroasted strawberries, cut side down, into the melted chocolate, covering as much surface area as possible. Let the crust cool, then cover with foil and place in the freezer.
To make the pastry cream Place a fine mesh sieve over a medium-sized bowl and place near the stove. In a separate mixing bowl, whisk together the cornstarch and sugar. Once well combined, add the eggs and whisk until smooth before setting mixture aside.
Pour the milk into a heavy saucepan, then split the vanilla bean in half lengthwise and using the tip of a paring knife, scrape the vanilla seeds from the bean into the milk. Add salt to the milk and place the saucepan over mediumhigh heat, stirring occasionally to ensure that the milk solids don’t adhere to the pan. When the milk is about to boil, slowly ladle roughly 1/3 of the hot, vanilla-scented milk into the egg, sugar and cornstarch mixture, whisking constantly. Pour the warmed egg mixture back into the hot milk and continue whisking over medium heat until the consistency of lightly whipped cream is achieved. The pastry cream must just come to a boil, then immediately be taken off the heat and poured through the sieve, to prevent overcooking.
Allow the pastry cream to cool for 3-5 minutes, then stir in the butter, taking time to whisk in each piece before adding the next. Let the cream cool so that it is warm rather than hot.
Chill the cream by covering the bowl with plastic wrap or parchment, pressing the food wrap onto the surface of the cream before placing it in the refrigerator.
Once all components are thoroughly chilled, fill the Graham cracker and chocolate shell with the pastry cream, and top with the roasted strawberries. Ideally, refrigerate the tart overnight or for a few hours, then make the marshmallow crème meringue right before serving.
To make the marshmallow crème Place a double boiler on the stove. Once the water is boiling, whisk egg whites, sugar and cream of tartar together until the sugar has dissolved completely and the mixture begins to thin. Remove from heat, add vanilla and transfer to a stand mixer. Whip on high speed until stiff glossy peaks form. If you can hold your bowl of meringue upside-down over your head without the contents plopping into your hair, you’re there.
Pipe or spoon the marshmallow crème over the tart. Use a kitchen torch or 3-5 carefully supervised minutes under the broiler to produce the campfire effect. Serves 8-10.
