Organic
Connections SPRING 2015
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CALM, CREATIVE & CONSCIOUS LIVING • PUBLISHED BY NATURAL VITALITY
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c o n n e c t i o n s
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S P R I N G
2 0 1 5
page four
Dale and Linda Bolton
Organics 4 Orphans
page eleven
Irene Owsley
Capturing Gifts of the Wild
page eight
Michel Nischan
page eighteen
Q & A with the Activist-Chef
Eric Skokan
The Farmer-Chef
page ten
Duron Chavis
Bringing Healthy to the Black Community Organic
Connections Ken Whitman
Publisher / Creative Director
Anna Soref
Editor in Chief
Radha Marcum
Senior Editor
Rosemary Delderfield
Copy Editor
HARVEST FOR ALL
®
ken@naturalvitality.com asoref@naturalvitality.com
Contributing content team Dave Soref, Mitchell Clute, Brooke Jonsson Adam Cambridge
Designer Organic Connections Online
Photo credits: Cover © Audra Mulkern; Farmer-Chef (pages 18–22) © Laurie Smith and © Con Poulos. Correction: The photographs in the Michael Ableman feature, “Urban AG Pioneer,” that ran in the Nov–Dec 2014 Organic Connections are all courtesy of Michael Ableman, including the cover image.
Organic Connections is published by Natural Vitality Publishing 8500 Shoal Creek Boulevard, Building 4, #208, Austin, Texas 78757 Editorial Office: 512.222.1740 • E-mail: info@organicconnectmag.com Natural Vitality product information: 800.446.7462 • www.naturalvitality.com © 2015 Natural Vitality. All rights reserved.
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often feel heartened when I hear about programs feeding those in need—who wouldn’t? But it’s only been in recent years that I’ve begun to think of what some of these programs offer— many times it’s canned or boxed glop that provides calories but little else. This issue of Organic Connections has a special section, “Harvest for All,” that looks at organizations working to give underserved populations not just food, but healthy organic food. And they aren’t working simply to serve it; they are also empowering people to both grow their own and learn how to shop for nutritious food, ultimately spreading the power of sustainable, organic produce further across the planet. While dining recently at Black Cat Bistro in Boulder, Colorado, I began my meal with a gorgeous stuffed zucchini blossom appetizer. When I asked our server, the chef, where the flowers came from, he said, “Oh, my farm; we picked them this morning.” On page 18, learn how one tireless farmer and chef does the work of many, thriving in his passion for both farm and table. In this issue you’ll also discover a generous serving of photographer Irene Owsley’s striking images of natural beauty—a bountiful harvest of our planet’s riches in their own right. Enjoy!
Anna Soref
editor in chief
Free subscription and online exclusives at www.organicconnectmag.com
Harvest for all
Dale and Linda Bolton
Organics 4 Orphans by Radha Marcum, Senior Editor
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“We came home from Malawi completely impacted by the direness of the situation,” recalls Linda. “The African people really love children. They’re willing to look after them if they can supply food for them. But if they can’t, the children end up in the streets. They have no place to go. We wondered what on earth we could do to help the kids, because we really didn’t have a lot of extra income to give away.” At the same time, Linda’s younger sister discovered Natural Vitality’s Natural Calm magnesium supplement, which helped alleWhen we think of African aid, images of viate her severe migraine headaches. Linda handouts often come to mind. Maybe it’s started taking Natural Calm to improve her the truck that rolls into the village, and sleep, fibromyalgia and bone density. The grains are scooped out of huge bags into Boltons began importing Natural Vitality people’s bowls, or perhaps clothing and wholesale products and distributing them blankets are distributed or vaccinations initially to some family and friends. Then given. One aid organization is helping in a Linda, a former nurse, started going to retail different way: Organics 4 Orphans empowers health stores to encourage them to carry the communities by teaching them about or- products. The products sold so well that ganic gardening, nutrition and natural the Boltons were given exclusive distribution medicine. This unique paradigm uses farm- rights for Canada. ing, along with the healing and nutritional “As we built the business, my husband asked power of plants, and has the potential to me, ‘If this turns into a profitable business, truly change the lives of Africa’s orphans— would you be willing to give all the profits and that’s just the beginning. after expenses to help the extreme poor?’ I totally agreed; so that’s what we decided to do,” Sowing Seeds of Hope says Linda. After a couple of years the Boltons stepped down from pastoring. Former pastors Dale and Linda Bolton founded Organics 4 Orphans after a 2004 The Organics 4 Orphans Model trip to Malawi. “In Africa (even in cities), a person will probably be seriously sick with The Boltons saw that the typical aid model a tropical disease—cholera, typhus, pneu- of raising funds to buy food for orphanages monia or dysentery—at least four times a only seemed to make the problem worse. Oryear. We were shocked to see the number of phanages learned to depend on those donapeople who would come down with some- tions and had little means to actively support thing and in three days be dead,” Dale tells themselves. They wanted to do something Organic Connections. different with Organics 4 Orphans—to build Sadly this leaves many children orphaned. an aid model that empowered the communiThere are fifty-five million orphans in Africa, ties to help themselves too. many of whom live on the streets. Others find Dale attended an African agricultural shelter in an orphanage. Wherever they end college, Manor House Agricultural Center, up, nearly all are severely undernourished. which provides hands-on training in 4 organic connections
sustainable organic farming. He discovered that even the poorest communities in Africa have the ability to grow some of the best immune-building foods in the world. “After thirty-five years of visiting developing countries like those in Africa, I believe that the best solution is to teach them to grow diseasefighting food,” says Dale. “It can be done for pennies a day per person. “We saw that many agricultural aid projects might be great at growing food but didn't know much about using food to build immunity,” he remarks. Likewise, the Boltons observed that African herbalists knew a lot about herbs but much less about nutrition. “In Africa, the Western medical system won’t work. What do you do with a billion people? The answer is that medicine has to be put back in the hands of the people.” Since 2004, Organics 4 Orphans has built staff in seven countries and trained African locals from fifteen different countries. Those who receive training through the program, in turn, go out and teach communities how to grow organic foods sustainably. Each year the Boltons spend two to four months in Africa, striving to meet the rising demands for their program. However, “We want Africans to run the programs as much as possible,” Dale asserts. Growing Health Organically
If nutrient-rich foods could grow in even the poorest African soils, why weren’t communities growing them already? “Farming has a very poor image in Africa for a number of reasons,” says Dale, “one being that chemical agricultural products like fertilizers and pesticides are too expensive for the average person, so many small farms have failed.” People run their small farms into the ground, after which they head to the slums. “The urban slums are growing exponentially,” he laments. “The lie everywhere in the world is that ‘cash is king.’ Everyone focuses on foods they
can grow and sell. Corn is grown everywhere in Africa—it is practically currency,” Dale adds. “The African diet is mostly corn and ugali [corn mush],” which leaves them woefully short on nutrients for proper immunity and makes them vulnerable to diabetes, he explains. “In the beginning, we felt that growing any kind of food would be better than what we saw fed to the kids,” Dale continues. “Then
nutrient leafy plants and grows naturally in some of the poorest areas.” For example, if a woman loses a lot of blood when delivering a baby, it can take her weeks to recover. But if she eats moringa leaves for a few days, she will recover much more quickly, he says. The economic impacts are significant too. “Recently a woman contacted us, looking for help to feed hundreds of unsupported kids [in Zambia]. It was costing five dollars a week per child to feed them enough calories to live. Their costs were growing every week as new kids arrived, and they couldn’t keep up. One of our trainers joined the project, and within a few months they cut the cost of feeding the children by 92 percent. Today, they support over two thousand kids.” Organic Farming for African Land
we discovered that foods can vary as much as fifty times in their ability to build immunity. Later we found that there were indigenous plants in Africa that had amazing medicinal properties, and so we added them—nature’s medicine.” Now the Organics 4 Orphans training focuses on plant varieties (the “Fabulous 50”) that grow well in African conditions and have high-nutrient profiles. “We use a nutrient-density chart developed by Dr. Joel Fuhrman to identify the overall values of different foods. Health comes from a symphony of foods,” notes Dale. “The more variety, the better.” The Organics 4 Orphans’ list stands in contrast to the grains and tubers, like potatoes, grown in most organic farming programs in Africa, which provide calories but limited disease-fighting nutrients. “We have turned our trainers on to what we call ‘green leaf nutrition,’ where at least a quarter of the diet consists of various green leaves that are eaten either raw, cooked, or dried into a powder that is added to food.” The vitamin and mineral most notably lacking in the African diet are vitamin A and iron. Organics 4 Orphans addresses this deficiency through a variety of vegetables high in those two nutrients. “Green leaves are generally the best to build immune function,” Dale indicates. “Moringa is one of the highest6 organic connections
At Manor House, Dale learned biointensive agricultural practices designed to improve soil fertility and sustainability in areas where resources are scarce. The Organics 4 Orphans program takes biointensive methods and applies them to nutrient-rich crops. “Aside from green leafy plants, we teach how to grow healthier root foods like beets and sweet potatoes. We have a climbing spinach that is amazing because it doesn’t take up any space and will grow vertically on walls.” Many communities lack water. “There has been a lot of development in rainwater harvesting, but few of the poor have the money for gutters and rain barrels,” says Dale. Instead, Organics 4 Orphans teaches gardening in 20-foot-by-5-foot beds. The aim is to build up as much organic material as possible in the beds to improve water retention. “Organic material holds seven times its weight in water,” he points out. It is even possible, once the program is up and running in an area, for the orphanage or community to make a profit from the crops they grow. “Further into the program, we really want them to develop some income from the organic farming that they’re doing. They can actually produce enough stuff to not only keep themselves healthy but also start selling it for other seeds and essentials.” Expanding the Wellness Connection
Organics 4 Orphans’ goal is to be in over fifty countries in the next decade, with regional centers in East, South and West Africa, Asia and Central America, including nations affected by Ebola. “In developing regions of Africa, people aren’t yet convinced that food
Since 2004, Organics 4 Orphans has built staff in seven countries and trained African locals from fifteen different countries. Those who receive training through the program, in turn, go out and teach communities how to grow organic foods sustainably. can be medicine,” Dale says. “Here in North America, documentaries like Forks Over Knives and Fed Up have created a significant awakening about how food is linked to health.” Dale would like to see the same concepts applied to Africa in a documentary film, “Can Food Be Their Medicine?” “We need to bring awareness to the research that exists,” he advises. “Twenty-first-century nutrition and immunity can improve, even for those with diseases like HIV.” This year, Organics 4 Orphans will begin to tackle another critical aspect of health: access to clean drinking water. “Of the seventeen thousand children who die every day in developing countries, thousands die from bad water,” Dale states. “We are working in an area of Kenya called West Pokot, where there are two hundred villages that have no source of clean water. Their average life expectancy is at least a decade less than the rest of the country.” Drilling water wells isn’t possible for these communities, “but simple water filters can purify even ditch water.” Organics 4 Orphans has partnered with Natural Vitality to purchase water filters for close to a hundred villages. “It will take a few months to install them and train the villages how to use the filters,” predicts Dale, “but these filters will save hundreds of lives.” “We’ve been working with Dale and Linda for many years, and it’s very gratifying to
see the fruits of their heartfelt work. Natural Vitality has been involved in organic agriculture programs, under our Calm Earth Project, since 2007,” says Ken Whitman, president of Natural Vitality. “In 2014 we funded the purchase of water filters for nearly a hundred African villages, which will be installed by Organics 4 Orphans. We can’t think of a better initiative or better people to partner with.” “Without the financial support from the sales of a great product, we would have never been able to do what we do in so many countries,” Dale affirms. In the next five years, Organics 4 Orphans will have the ability to take the training program anywhere in the world. “By the end of 2015, our materials will be available virtually anywhere,” reports Dale. As the program expands to new countries and new continents, Dale and Linda say that they will stick to their bottom-up approach, building grassroots solutions. “What we do has to empower people.” ■ resources
To support their empowering programs, Organics 4 Orphans relies on profits from Natural Calm Canada as well as donations from individuals. To make a donation or learn more about Organics 4 Orphans, visit www.organics4orphans.org. organic connections
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Harvest for all
Michel Nischan
Q & A with the Activist-Chef by Mitchell Clute
Michel
Nischan: In 1995 my son was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. My wife and I learned that our choices about his diet would have more to do with the quality of his long-term outlook than anything else we could do. This understanding led to the formation of Heartbeat restaurant; but I realized that if we really wanted to change the food system, we’d need to get bigger players involved. I was invited to forums at Chef, food activist, and founder of the the Harvard School of Public Health, and sustainable-food nonprofit Wholesome Wave, there I met a public health official from Michel Nischan has been cooking almost Ohio who blew my mind with her idea that since he could walk. Raised in the Midwest, type 2 diabetes would derail the American Nischan worked at restaurants in Chicago and economy if we didn’t act now. There are Milwaukee before moving east to Connecticut currently sixty million Americans with to become chef and co-owner of Norwalk’s type 2 diabetes; that’s the catastrophe of the Miche Mache, and then, at the urging of Paul processed-foods system. Newman, to operate Dressing Room on the This is a disease you can prevent through grounds of the Westport Country Playhouse, food, or at least mitigate organ failure and which featured a weekly farmers’ market in the amputation in its late stages. But the people parking lot. suffering from it certainly couldn’t afford In 2007, he founded Wholesome Wave to eat in my restaurant. Looking at all those Foundation, dedicated to making fresh, lo- white tablecloths, I felt like a fraud. That was cally grown food affordable and available to the genesis of Wholesome Wave. I wanted to underserved consumers. Its innovative initia- offer the same kind of healthy food to people tives include a Double Value Coupon Program, who didn’t have access. which provides double food stamp value when purchasing at farmers’ markets, and a Fruit OC: Tell us about Wholesome Wave’s double and Vegetable Prescription Program that coupons offered at farmers’ markets. gives individuals suffering from diet-related diseases (such as type 2 diabetes) prescriptions Nischan: The Double Value Coupon for healthy foods, which pay for produce at Program is based on the premise that the farmers’ markets and various retailers. Whole- reason people struggling with poverty don’t some Wave is in twenty-five states and works make healthier food choices is they can’t in collaboration with more than seventy afford to. You and I know why a small bag community-based partners, nearly four hun- of processed cheese thingies costs fortydred farmers’ markets, dozens of community nine cents when it should cost three dollars. health centers, hospital systems and food hubs. What would happen if it did cost three dolEach year, its programs reach more than forty lars, and an apple cost forty-nine cents? If thousand underserved community members and we could create an environment where food their families as well as thousands of farmers. prices reflected the real costs—meaning takRecently, the cookbook author and James ing all the subsidies away so unhealthy foods Beard Foundation Award winner talked with were as expensive as they should be—it Organic Connections about his passion for would level the playing field and give people food and how it fuels his activism. a way to make a healthy choice.
OC: Tell us about food hubs—how do they work, and why are you excited about them?
Organic Connections: What led you to em- OC: Can you share any personal stories of phasize cooking with healthy, unprocessed working with people who have benefited foods without butter, cream, flour or sugar? from Wholesome Wave?
Nischan: Food hubs are businesses that manage the aggregation, distribution and processing of regional food products to improve
8 organic connections
Nischan: There’s one I recall well from our Bridgeport opening. Into the market comes a black guy named Nelson, who happens to be raising the six children of his deceased sister. He’d heard about the coupon doubling through the local health department. So Nelson walks in with his vouchers and sees kohlrabi. Now, when an affluent white person sees a vegetable they’re not familiar with, they don’t want to seem like they’re not in the know; so they’ll hang out in the heirloom tomatoes hoping a friend will buy the vegetable and tell them how to use it. Nelson goes straight to the kohlrabi—seeing it’s seventy-nine cents a pound before doubling—and starts waving it around. He asks the farmer, “I need to know what to do with this, because it’s forty cents a pound and my kids need more vegetables.” This demonstrates that even poor people know they should be eating better. In underserved communities, when something comes along that allows you to improve the life of a child, you go after it more vigorously. OC: What is the prescription food program? Nischan: We had a doctor who was a regular customer, and he began offering five-dollar vouchers at health clinics so people would try the farmers’ market. I thought, what if we made this an actual prescription, something a doctor could prescribe to that patient who is obese or prediabetic, where the correction is healthier food? In the four years we’ve been doing this work, 41 percent of patients have dropped their body mass index in twenty weeks. If we can get food prescribed by a doctor coded into the Medicare program, then our public dollars can go toward prevention instead of treatment. Right now we spend $1,370 annually per living American for treatment of diet-related disease versus only $1.17 per person on prevention.
local food infrastructure. We really believe that we’ll be seeing more public dollars shift toward promoting healthier food choices in underserved rural and urban communities— so-called food deserts. These nascent food hub operations are trying to solve such problems by taking us back to the way food was once grown in America—more local, with small and medium businesses making up the regional food infrastructure. This approach can support millions of businesses. We would rather see farmers and small-business men and women get this capital than Big Food. Now, Big Food isn’t going to completely go away; there is a role for giants when we’re feeding nine billion people. But the notion that it has to be giant or it’s not valid is crazy. These huge operations are energy intensive and require mechanization. I say, fire the robots and you create more jobs! There has to be a global trade in food; but if you can take 30 percent of the system and turn it back over to small businesses, you’ll create millions of jobs and reduce the health crisis caused by highly processed foods being so cheap.
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OC: What are the biggest lessons you’ve learned through your work with Wholesome Wave? Nischan: First, everyone wants to feed their family well, regardless of their income. It’s as true in poor communities as in wealthy ones. Second, complex challenges require bold solutions, and ideas this big and powerful shouldn’t be owned by anyone. Every community and culture is different, and that’s why we need to support community-based approaches to the food and health issues facing us. ■ resources
To find out more, visit www.wholesomewave.org.
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Harvest for all
Duron Chavis
Bringing Healthy to the Black Community by Mitchell Clute
“I wanted to frame the event around holistic wellness—mind, body and spirit—by addressing the systemic inferiority complexes in the community as a result of discrimination, Jim Crow laws and slavery, and showing how health disparities such as obesity and lack of fitness could be addressed naturally so that people could learn to heal themselves,” Duron Chavis is an organizer, social worker, Chavis explains. urban gardener and activist, working tireHappily Natural Day struck a chord, evenlessly to improve the poorest neighborhoods tually expanding to a second annual location of his hometown of Richmond, Virginia. in Atlanta, Georgia, in 2008. In 2003, Chavis founded Happily Natural “It’s a culturally relevant way to promote Day, a celebration of natural products and Af- health and wellness in communities of color— rican American culture. In 2009, he launched but it’s relevant to everyone,” says Chavis. “We the Richmond Noir Market, a farmers’ market can all come together under the banner of targeting low-income communities in areas how to live healthily, connect to the earth, of Richmond that the USDA had designated and be environmentally conscious in our “food deserts”—places with little or no access lifestyle decisions.” to fresh foods. And in 2012, he developed a community garden project to help local resiAccess to Healthy Food Choices dents grow their own foods. Ironically, the event that set him on his The festival’s growth brought up new issues to activist path was one that nearly took his life. tackle. “One year, I was working with a farmer As a teen, Chavis was attending a birthday doing a workshop on the green movement party in Richmond when gunfire broke out. in urban communities, talking about where Three shots struck Chavis. While he waited food comes from and how eating well can in triage at the ER, he heard a family’s despair combat diabetes and heart disease,” Chavis as the birthday girl passed away in the relates. “We were assuming people had access next room. to fresh fruits and vegetables in their commu“It was etched permanently in my mind,” he nity—but it wasn’t true. says softly. “Why did I survive? What’s the “I realized these communities had been purpose of my life? At that point I began to locked out of the local food system,” he do a lot of questioning and searching.” says. “Some didn’t have a grocery store within four miles or more, and of course your A Natural Trajectory diet’s heavily influenced by what’s available.” Many people in these neighborhoods had Chavis’s path didn’t change overnight, but as additional challenges. Heads of household a college student at Virginia State University often worked multiple jobs, leaving little time Chavis says, “I got really interested in holistic for cooking. Many families didn’t own cars. health and naturopathic medicine. I started And finally, he adds, after so many years of making my own soaps, pomades and skin prepared foods, “folks hadn’t learned how to creams and selling them.” cook and prepare fresh vegetables.” As a result, Chavis set out to create a SatThe idea for Happily Natural Day came about shortly after his graduation, when urday community market with food stands Chavis convinced the Black History Museum manned by local farmers, held in various and Cultural Center in Richmond to sponsor neighborhoods, to give people access to a community event addressing wellness in real food. “We’re working to reintroduce foods and culinary arts in a meaningful the black community. 10 o r g a n i c c o n n e c t i o n s
way,” Chavis continues. “We offer collard, mustard and turnip greens, sweet potatoes, black-eyed peas, and fruits and vegetables that were originally grown in Africa. We’re respecting where people are coming from by offering healthy choices that are culturally relevant.” Gardens for Everyone
Learning that lack of access to fresh food had a powerful impact on eating right and that farmers’ markets alone wouldn’t end food scarcity, Chavis applied for a grant to turn vacant lots into community gardens. He began by helping establish a single quarter-acre garden. Working with the nonprofit Renew Richmond, where he serves as co-director, he has seen explosive growth in urban farms over the past two years. The organization has now set up five gardens: two community plots, two school gardens at local schools, and a three-quarter-acre plot that supplies provisions for the local food pantry. Chavis is now expanding his efforts beyond Richmond to create an indoor farm in an abandoned recreation center in the nearby city of Petersburg. “It’s a twenty-five-squaremile city that is virtually all food desert,” says Chavis, “but we’re teaching the community how to grow food and how to be entrepreneurs, and we’ve turned this building into an energy-efficient off-the-grid facility.” Change and Connection
These various initiatives are part of a broader vision, one that has sustained Chavis through a decade of activism. “Bringing people together in a collective energy is infectious because positivity seeks more positivity,” he points out. “We are all dependent upon each other, and everyone has a role to play. There’s no reason we can’t live in harmonious equilibrium.” resources
Check out Duron Chavis and Happily Natural Day at happilynaturalday.com.
Irene Owsley
Capturing Gifts of the Wild
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by Dave Soref
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It’s July 2012 in the fjord near Sawyer Glacier in Southeast Alaska. Ice is calving off the
glacier, waves are bouncing off of sheer stone walls, and although it is midsummer, the water temperature is just north of freezing. At this moment, wilderness photographer Irene Owsley’s main concern is to not slip and fall into the ice-cold water below as she unloads cameras and camping gear from her kayak onto the rock face. From an adrenaline-producing standpoint, this may be the peak of Owsley’s lifelong love affair with the outdoors and photography. Owsley is here serving as an artist in residence, accompanying four US Forest Service kayak rangers on their nine-day field rotation among the fjords and islands of Southeast Alaska, and capturing the experience in photos. “Between assignments, residencies and other kinds of travel, I’ve probably been to
Alaska about fifteen times in all,” Owsley tells Organic Connections. “The state is like nothing in the Lower 48. Being in this incredibly wild, spare, gorgeous, untouched environment always speaks to my interest in the outdoors. “But this assignment in particular gave me some of my greatest true wilderness experiences. We camped in a place near Sawyer Glacier that the rangers nicknamed Feng Shui Heights. It’s a place unlike any I’ve been before, let alone camped,” Owsley recounts. “The rocks are slippery and barely anything is level. If you fall in, it’s a very serious situation. Once you actually get yourself out of the kayak, you have to carry it and all your gear up what is basically a rock wall. We had to set up our tents probably 50 to 100 feet up. The whole process
took a couple of hours. If you add in rain, wind and cold, just getting on and off those rock faces becomes quite a challenge, but for the rangers it was no big deal.” Even more than the splendid isolation of the surroundings, the rangers themselves are what made this trip so special for Owsley. “I have never, never met such a dedicated group of people who feel so strongly about what they do,” Owsley affirms. “They work under not the best conditions, and they don’t make very much, but they throw themselves into it wholeheartedly. We are so fortunate to have such young, dedicated, enthusiastic people working on our behalf for wilderness and the natural environment.” For Owsley, photography has become more than a way to make a living. It’s a mission of travels near and far to capture
and communicate the gifts of the wild to viewers—to see the beauty of our world, whether it’s hiding and requires a day’s trek to reach or in plain sight in our backyards.
short jaunt from the seat of the world’s political power, nature’s intricate symphonies play out as they always have. “The work has been shown in galleries in Washington, and people respond to it Potomac Panoramas because it’s their backyard too,” Owsley confirms. “They’ll say, ‘Oh, I know where Owsley’s love for nature is brilliantly por- that is.’ Or they’ll say, ‘That’s the Potomac? trayed in her Potomac River shots. A once I had no idea!’ There are people who don’t resident of Washington, DC, the photogra- ever go a mile beyond the city limit, and pher learned to appreciate the river for more the photos make them more aware of what than just the body of water that flows through they’ve got in that metropolitan area that’s it, but also as a living, breathing ecosystem. so unique.” The result is a series of photographs called Potomac Panoramas, which reveal Facing Fears for Art the raw, solitary, untamed beauty of the river as it exists just six to twelve miles It was Owsley’s love for the Potomac that away from the White House. Owsley felt it made her face her fears and learn a skill that was important to show people that within a would change much of her photography.
“One day, I’ll never forget, I was walking along the river after an ice storm and I saw a lone kayaker paddle upriver so majestically, and I said to myself, ‘Oh my God, I have to learn to do that. I have to learn to kayak.’ So I did.” But first she had to conquer claustrophobia. Getting into a small, tight vessel that can capsize was daunting. Owsley stuck with it, though, and used the kayak to deepen her relationship with the Potomac. “It would get me out to places on the river that people couldn’t reach other than by boat,” she explains. “I got to shoot from these wild places. The river became my haven and I spent an amazing amount of time there. I came to know it very intimately, not just the banks, but the islands and the rocks and everything in the middle of the river.”
Though she has been kayaking for years now, each time Owsley squeezes into the rudderless vessel and plunges into fast-moving water, there is still a healthy dose of nerves, but the photos keep coming. Getting the Wild Bug
Owsley’s attraction to what she calls the world’s “wild places” goes back to a childhood growing up in Switzerland, where her father served in the diplomatic corps. Her exposure to the beauty of the Alps was compounded by black-and-white photographs her father took of the majestic countryside. She began taking photos in high school but didn’t consider it seriously until after graduating from Smith College and going
on a trip to Utah. “I took a photo workshop in which we went to Canyonlands, Utah, to shoot and then came back to develop and make the prints in the darkroom.” From that moment on, Owsley says, she was hooked. “To be in the great outdoors and then to create a record of that experience, or my vision of it, . . . magic.” The Next Shot
These days, Owsley’s photos are almost exclusively panoramas. A panorama for her is four to eight individual vertical frames stitched together in Photoshop, which allows for a level of richness and detail that wouldn’t be possible with a single wide landscape shot.
To be in the great outdoors and then to create a record of that experience, or my vision of it, . . . magic. Owsley’s assignments have taken her to places like Greenland, Iceland and European countries both north and south, as well as many parts of the US and Canada. If she could choose one location to shoot, Owsley says anywhere in the Arctic Circle would be great; but if it had to be a specific location, she would probably go back to Greenland. “It’s such an interesting place because it’s so far north. It’s got a culture that is fascinating and has adapted to an amazing environment;
And even though she lives “way too far” plus there’s this continuous push and pull between the modern and the old ways of from fresh water these days, she has already paddled on the Rio Grande once and looks doing things.” Currently Owsley lives in New Mexico, forward to further kayaking next summer— where the contrast in environments is giving and, of course, taking more shots. ■ her new perspectives on nature and new ideas for photography. She has already begun scout- r e s o u r c e s ing local areas for new photo shoots. “I’m just doing test prints now,” reports Owsley. “You For a deeper dive into Irene Owsley’s work, have to see what’s out there before you can visit www.ireneowsley.com. start doing the serious work.”
Eric Skokan
The Farmer-Chef
by Anna Soref, Editor in Chief
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hen you dine at Black Cat Bistro in Boulder, Colorado, you’re never sure what you’ll find on the menu. Each day’s Tasting Menu dishes are a mélange of the chef ’s imagination and skill and what was plucked on the farm that day. Summertime might mean Beet Carpaccio or Cured Trout with Potato Crisps. During the colder months you could find Winter Vegetable Gratin and Sheep’s Milk Cheesecake. On a recent visit to Boulder I was lucky enough not only to enjoy the Chef ’s Farm Tasting Menu at Black Cat but to have seven courses served by the chef himself, Eric Skokan. While he explained that the beautiful squash blossom appetizer he was serving me was picked that day, I asked from which farms he acquired his produce. “My farm—Black Cat Farm,” he responded casually. “My family and I live on it. We farm it every day.” Now, from what I know about owning and running an upscale restaurant like Black Cat, it’s more than a full-time job; it’s grueling, exhausting work. But to run a farm as well . . . I asked him when he slept. “When I get a chance,” he said. I went on to learn that his farm wasn’t some cute kitchen garden; it is a real farm with 130 acres of vegetables and 400 animals. Following an evening in which Skokan served our table course after course of intricate, fresh and delicious food, with his charming humble demeanor, I left, both having eaten well and with that sense of profound respect and excitement one gets after being in the presence of a truly inspired person doing exactly what he wants to be doing with his life. Here is his story. Planting the Farmer Seed
For some kids a weekend processing and canning tomatoes would be torture. For the young Skokan, it was magical. “One weekend every year, all of the cousins, uncles, nieces
and nephews—everyone—would head up to the New York family farm from Virginia for the tomato sauce weekend,” Skokan reminisces. “My job was to run this tomato grinder that my grandfather rigged up; the tomato juice and pulp would fall into a washbasin. There would be outdoor wood fires all across the yard, over which the sauce would slowly boil throughout the weekend. I think, in the end, my dad developed an appreciation for the convenience of the supermarket and I developed an appreciation for the joy of putting up tomato sauce on your own.” The family also put up bushel after bushel of corn each summer. “We’d shuck like crazy,
and then my mom would blanch it and freeze it in big chest freezers in our basement; they would go from empty to fully packed. So I grew up in that kind of household, and I loved it. At that time it didn’t seem like work; it seemed like this mystery, this wonderful celebration. I loved putting up the harvest every summer.” The seed of a farmer and chef had been planted. During his years as a college student majoring in history, wandering the archives and hallowed halls of the University of Virginia, you’d assume food would be pretty far from Skokan’s mind. But just as mesmerizing as getting his hands on Thomas Jefferson’s original documents was working his way through college at local restaurants. “I was the guacamole guy in a taco place, and then I was the prime-rib and french-fry guy in another place. And along the way, I realized that I loved the working-my-waythrough-college part much more than I loved the college part,” Skokan recalls. 20 o r g a n i c c o n n e c t i o n s
to open his own restaurant. That it would be a farm-to-table establishment was inspired by a trip to the Basque region of France. “We stayed at this little inn, with a few rooms, at the foothills of the Pyrenees,” Skokan relates. “While dining, we watched as the owner, who was also the chef, would leave the kitchen to gather items from the garden and then return to cook with them. “A few minutes later, out came these glorious dishes. She was a stunningly good cook and obviously had all these great ingredients as well. We talked with her a lot; in fact, we enjoyed it so much that we canceled our itinerary for the rest of the week and stayed there with her.” The bones of the Black Cat Bistro were laid out on the Skokans’ return flight home from France. “On this series of American Airlines napkins, Jill and I sketched out the basic idea for the Black Cat: On the menu, there would be a connection to every ingredient listed. We Adding Sustainability to the Recipe would really think it through and you would know where each was sourced; we’d have a Working at high-end restaurants postcollege, story to tell about everything.” he gained significant knowledge and training; but it was a job at the famous organic restauRestaurant Owner, Chef and . . . Farmer rant Nora in Washington, DC, that turned Skokan on to sustainability in the kitchen. He remembers the restaurant’s butcher: “He The Skokans have remained true to this worked sixty hours a week cutting and pre- passion and their ideals. As the restaurant paring meat cuts of all these different animals. opened and the positive reviews came in, their It was intense, and I asked Nora about it and kitchen garden grew. “I started gardening as a her thinking was very clear: ‘We are taking way of getting ingredients that I cared about the life of this animal and it’s not okay to just onto the menu,” Skokan continues. “I didn’t pick one little bit and let the rest go. When realize it, but I love farming. I love growing you take the responsibility for something, you things, and when you find something that take all of the responsibility. You start at one you truly love doing, you tend to want to do a end and you work your way to the other, and little bit more of it.” it’s our jobs as cooks to shine the spotlight on As a result of “doing a little bit more of each of the cuts: to make everything just as it,” the garden is now a 130-acre farm with good as the other.’ 250 fruit and vegetable varieties and 400 “I loved that. It was mind expanding—the animals, including Mulefoot pigs, Toulouse extent to which she was willing to work geese and Highland cattle. “Sometimes we’ll harder than everybody else to not just take a step back, but when we talk about it make the food nutritious on the plate, not we can never imagine not farming anymore. just take care of people in the dining room, It’s really a part of who we are and what we but take care of the community as well.” love doing; it’s part of the rhythm of our days This thoughtfulness would remain with and the rhythm of our year, and we love all Skokan as a guiding force and is now re- of its parts.” flected daily in his menus, where you’ll see all Skokan not only delights in farming, he cuts from animals that are ethically raised in loves tending the farm’s stand at the Boulder Farmers’ Market each Saturday. “It’s our time the pastures of his farm. to connect in a very laid-back way with our restaurant patrons and shoppers,” he indiThe Open Sign Goes Up cates. “It’s been invaluable to us in being good After almost ten years at the helm of the leaders in the community to have that time kitchen at a mountain resort outside Boulder to hear the feedback, to learn and grow and (where he met his wife, Jill), Skokan was ready think about what we do and in a completely Amid much hand wringing from his parents, Skokan took off his third year of college to cook. “I went to the best chef in town and said, ‘Hey! I want to work for you. I’ve cooked for a while and I think I know what I’m doing, but I really want to learn.’ “So I started as his apprentice and eventually ended up as his sous-chef; it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life, but I grew quickly as a cook. Everything I thought I knew was thrown out and a new style of cooking, very detail oriented, very careful, very subtle, started from that point forward.” Skokan did finish college (much to his parents’ relief); however, at that point the die was cast: “I knew I was going to be a chef. I thought about it all the time, and I loved it. I loved thinking about food, and living and breathing restaurants, cooking great food and taking care of guests.”
different context, because the conversations tribute not just to his love of cooking but to that you have at the farmers’ market are fun- his love of farming. The idea came from his damentally different than the ones that you Saturday mornings at the Boulder Farmers’ have in the dining room.” Market. “When I tend our farm stand each Saturday, my favorite part is the interaction The Fruits of Labor with customers. They always have questions, and I’ve learned how much I enjoy both For eight years Black Cat Bistro has succeeded sharing and teaching. I love giving someand grown. In July 2012, the Skokans opened one a tip on how to cook a different cut of a sister restaurant in Boulder—Bramble & meat or what to do with this interesting Hare—and that same year they purchased vegetable that they’ve read about but never their farm. The 1925 farmstead came with a seen or tasted before. So I decided to put dilapidated house, which they and their four these ideas together in a cookbook.” children now call home, although it took a bit How do they do it all: raise four kids, of work to get it there. maintain a marriage, and run two restau“It would have been perfect for a reality TV rants and a farm? The Skokans are quick show; it’s been an absolute adventure,” muses to credit their staff for their success, many
I started gardening as a way of getting ingredients that I cared about onto the menu. I didn't realize it, but I love farming. I love growing things, and when you find something that you truly love doing, you tend to want to do a little bit more of it. Skokan. “No running water, no septic field, and the description of the electricity ranges from head scratcher to absolute garbage.” Sometimes they’d get help by trading pork cuts for plumbing work, but the bulk of the labor they did themselves. Amid working the farm, running the restaurants and renovating the farmhouse, Skokan has also managed to write a cookbook, Farm Fork Food: A Year of Spectacular Recipes Inspired by Black Cat Farm (Kyle Books, 2014)—a gorgeous big book that pays
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of whom have been with them since the beginning. They also get help from a robust internship program. Because the Skokans now have two restaurants and a farm, there are many opportunities for their interns. “There’s no one formula for interns; we try to leave the programs as flexible as possible. Some people are very interested in animals, and so they tend to work more with them. Some have a stronger interest in the vegetables and others are interested in cooking, and we feel it’s important for
there to be a significant amount of crossover. The interns are all invited to the restaurant on Sunday for dinner, and they can see the culmination of the hard work that they’ve done during the week and how we take care of the guests. It’s really the thing that cements the meaning behind what we’re all trying to do,” Skokan explains. Although doing everything the Skokans do is enough to make one’s head spin, for them it is simply their lives. “We don’t have a lot of down time. We don’t have a TV, and that helps. Vacations might be a day or two here or there. But we no longer feel like the restaurants and farm run us; now we are running them. And our work doesn’t feel like work; it’s just the rhythm of our days.” ■ resources
Check out Black Cat Bistro at blackcatboulder.com, and Bramble & Hare at brambleandhare.com. Eric Skokan’s book, Farm Fork Food: A Year of Spectacular Recipes Inspired by Black Cat Farm, is available from the Organic Connections bookstore. Visit OC online for Black Cat recipes at www.organicconnectmag.com.
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