FoodLove: Elizabeth Storm
Meet Liz Storm, newly graduated PTHS social justice activist, poet, firefighter apprentice, and wood carver of the Haida tribe, a student teacher/globe-trotter who writes poetry, loves sushi in the FoodFeast program, and is learning the ways of rice.
Elizabeth Storm
Liz Storm is a newly minted graduate of our local high school, a multi-creative social justice poet, wood carver, educator in-training, firefighting apprentice, world-traveler, notable scholarship recipient, youth leader, and a member of the Haida tribe. She has a lot of insights and wisdom to share about local BIPOC youth experience and leadership. We are lucky to have her in our community and lucky that she wants to return back here after she completes her full education.
Listen to Liz talk about her experience as a BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, Person of Color) youth at our local high school and what might be some small shifts that could make the future better still. She is very clear on the importance of student voice, and in a community that was most recently imagined largely for retirees, her admiration and respect for peers, elders, and traditions of her people, can remind us of the kind world we might want that will need to be led by our youth.
In this episode, Liz also provides a testimonial of joy for a program created straight from the heart of FoodLove and offered only with the deep help and collaboration of Amanda at the Farmers Market (which served as the fiscal sponsor for the program), advisors to the BIPOC student union (Melissa and Azurite), Oceana Sawyer, Michelle Hagewood (for her amazing world-building notebooks that we gave to youth to inspire creativity and use of their authentic voices), Mrs. Cruz at the high school’s culinary kitchen classroom, Darrell Thomas, Wellness Director at the Port Townsend High School, Quimper Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, and Chef Wyatt, or my new Oppa. The program, called Food Feast: Tracing Cultural Roots and Identity through cuisine and spoken word, was funded by a grant from Jefferson County’s Public Health Department. (It does take a whole village to raise our youth, particularly in the lingering effects of the pandemic.) Thank you to all of you who helped make this happen!
I designed the program to teach BIPOC and LGBTQ+ youth and their friends who don’t identify as such to cook and to amplify their voices rooted in their identity. We focused on farm fresh ingredients to eat in season in keeping with the Tao of Food. The gift to us as facilitators of the program was all the joy and full-hearted connection with amazing young people— the next generation of leaders coming up in life with all the compassion, grace, energy, and grit to take on the world.
Below is Liz’s poem contained in the podcast:
A-Z ON OUR ECONOMY
by Elizabeth Storm
Abuse from the outside world Banned to do what we want Constantly told who we are is wrong Diversity between communities Each and everyday we get told that’s a sin For every mother and father who turns away from their child they lose a life Gender identity crisis Hanging above those who can’t speak up lose a life Illegal marriages are told to be the same sex marriges and Justice has not been brought to the countless lives that we have lost Killings of the youth and old are spread out so they look random Looked over as not connected to each other Merely to be put in files, in a room locked up No matter how much we fight for equality economy wins Open fire if they fit this description Proceed to have diverse communities Quick he’s got a gun shoot Raise your arms and give us your life So we look like heros Taken down for doing nothing, you are Under arrest for your differences Violation of the white supremacy you are guilty Without a doubt you were in the wrong X-rays of the mind after you lied are hidden You can’t fight the supremacy Zero remorse is put on the innocent ©2022 Elizabeth Storm. All rights reserved.
WHERE CAN YOU HEAR US NEXT?
Liz and I collaborate on social justice spoken word and poetry events in an ever-evolving collective of poets nicknamed “Shattering Glass,” and we’ll be performing together again at Soundcheck, a pre-Thing thing in PT. Come hear our provocative poetry interlude on social and environmental justice at Key City Theater on August 18, 2023 (6:30 to 8 p.m.). It’s called “Conjuring Climate Shift: The Alchemy of Elemental Forces—Rage, Grief, and Rituals of Wonder.
WHAT CAN YOU DO TO SUPPORT BIPOC AND LGBTQ+ YOUTH?
As you listen, if you are moved to fund graduation stoles for BIPOC youth for next year, please contact Port Townsend High School’s Director of Well-Being, Darrell Thomas.
If you are interested in supporting more Food Feast programs or the production of this podcast through sponsoring an episode, please contact Rufina at foodlovetao@gmail.com.
WHAT ELSE CAN I LEARN?
Stay tuned for postings of simple cooking videos and recipes for beginners as part of the final pieces of the Food Feast program (which is beyond budget at this point) but nevertheless a good thing for those youth who couldn’t make it to the live cooking demonstrations. I’ll feature some food items that can make for some easy and nutritious meals.
The Shape of Land
The Shape of Land is a social justice spoken word piece that acknowledges the genocide of the buffalo and indigenous peoples of the Great Plains. It invites listeners to consider what having daily bread has really cost us as a culture.
Oil Pastel and photgraphy above are original to Rufina. Copyright 2022 Rufina C. Garay. All Rights Reserved.
The Shape of Land
Luminous yellow mounds,
Swelling with its own harvest,
Heaving forward
Past Great Plains and prairie camus,
Blowing history out of the way.
This earth breathes and remembers,
If we just watch.
I want to touch them
Through the window with a full sweep of my hand,
To know that they are as soft and welcoming as they look.
Different fields flow through them, wheat brushed neatly
Into corn-row braids,
With mellowed green grass
between crowded chaff.
I ache for further sight
Down and through them,
Looking for the promised amber
In these waves of grain.
Under smoke-filled skies, there is
Also a buffalo-blood-red truth,
A dirty color palate,
Shy a shade of genocide
Of beasts and people
Who were of and for the land,
Who were wise to, and worn by, the plot
To starve nations
By the isolation and separation
of reservations.
Scattered in the flats and valleys, grass turned to hay
Is spiraled evidence of a farmer’s alchemy--
Rolled to the inside
Like ancient symbols of the cosmos.
I love the farmers and the hay rolls too,
in a troubled way.
Their work is noble
even if these lands are stolen.
Did I just say that?
Even if these lands are stolen.
I don’t know if there will be a precious restoration
In the gracious reckoning I hope will come.
But what do I do with what I have witnessed?
At the warrior park,
Children without smiles played
Not far from the tin boxes
Where their parents
Stood in thresholds,
Withered brown and leaning in to speak
In 105 degree weather
With no air conditioning.
On the turning away,
We did not stop to rest there.
Life on the plains,
Turns with a pitchfork and plow,
Gold and red,
Not with sounds of the herd’s stampede.
Give us our daily bread
Is a prayer full of demand
Said by hearts of stone. **
Ancestors did not pray this way.
They prayed for the good hunt
Until they knew the great herd had been shattered.
And nothing could be the same again.
The birthright of daily bread
Makes no room for a slow peace
With the Sioux, Comanche, and Kiowa.*
Pray for rain
To douse the fires that halt my breath today.
Practice
trust in the wind
that the fire turns before and around you.
But I have somewhere to go.
I cannot take the withered with me.
Hope for a not-red sun at sunrise,
Though we’ve ravaged the land,
Laid waste to the trees,
And fouled the waters.
We are not the same stewards as
The ghosts of those
Standing in doorways with no relief
A mile from the
“Stop Meth!” sign.
We made the split-pea-smoke-fog sky,
The relentless heat
Suffocating this stillborn summer.
To understand how our government and people conspired to eliminate indigenous peoples by destroying a primary food resource and a way of life, read
*https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2016/05/the-buffalo-killers/482349/
**See and listen to Pink Floyd’s “On The Turning Away” for the resonance of observing Warrior Park, the neighborhood around it, the signs of societal struggle in the “stop meth!” sign
To understand more about what started the Dixie fire of 2021 that tainted the skies and crossed the wind currents over the Pacific Northwest in 2021, see PG&E agrees to pay $55 million in penalties and costs over two wildfires. - The New York Times (nytimes.com).
To read more about the Oregon fires that in combination with the California fires start to transformed by PG & E made for foreboding skies and oppressive air quality, see 2021 Oregon wildfires - Wikipedia.
To understand what the significance of seeing the “Stop Meth!” was to me, read this summary of research from the National Institute of Health on
The “Stop Meth!” sign brought to mind for me the Jamestown S’Klallam tribe efforts on the Olympic Peninsula to help indigenous and non-indigenous peoples with opioid addictions, including black tar heroin addiction. The public outcry of NIMBY (Not-in-my-backyard) arguments led to litigation against the tribe which has set its intention on healing people. That litigation only ended in 2021.
On that road trip with some time to think about the connections between how we turn away from people who are deeply hurting and addicted, and how the S’Klallam tribe has led with courage and conviction to turn toward people in the face of opposition, I sat in the discomfort of how I have had the ability, the privileged opportunities to turn and look away from so many things.
This spoken word piece is a tribute to land, landscapes, and indigenous people whom I’ve had the good fortune to meet including Jo of the Chinook tribe, Naoime of the Chemakum and Jamestown S’Klallam, Mackenzie and Loni of the Jamestown S’Klallam tribe, and Sabrina of the Makaw tribe. All of them have been doing the work of social justice. The images within the piece are ones I experienced across the Great Plains as we road cross-country in an RV during the pandemic to see my mom for a monumental birthday.
In seeing the land, I was struck by the beauty of these landscapes as if they were moving paintings rushing past the window, yet I knew there had been a different landscape and life there before the buffalo herd and indigenous peoples were decimated. In being struck by the current beauty, I could begin to imagine the depth of historic and ongoing loss.
In my imaginings of the past, I felt very deeply what the great cost of our daily bread has been.
© 2021 Rufina C. Garay. All rights reserved.
FoodLove: Celestial Bodies in Chaos
Celestial Bodies in Chaos is a social justice spoken word piece that navigates sorrow-filled events and history in a quiet moment of communion with the grand beauty of nature, a story-telling that weaves the cosmos, lives, and death together.
Social Justice Spoken Word dedicated to Loida, painting and photography by Rufina
Celestial Bodies in Chaos
Dropped from the sky
not Adam but atoms
bouncing in excitement
at the freedom of bursting out of dark matter
into known space
A playground of Carbon, Hydrogen, Nitrogen, reaching for each other,
bonding but needing Oxygen
To breathe
Needing the white of Phosphorus
To glow
Needing Sulfur to waft
The stench of humanity’s waste
In life
To keep us humble
In our evolution and
To remind us that it isn’t just dust to which we return,
But star dust.
Star dust that
We do not remember.
We cannot remember.
We must remember, even if slowly.
Something in my bones knows another something eternal,
Neurally networked first in sea,
then in sky through the lightning amidst the ether,
underfoot in forests among the fruitful mushrooms,
causing intentional decay,
Great Gaia’s macrophages eat at just the right moment,
while taking shape,
molded out of the earth from what was deep in the ground,
Adam, a mad man, a mud man arose
in his intelligence.
But what of his celestial soul?
Not far from the campfire glow, I stand.
Maybe I can feel my other brethren’s intelligence,
Micro-thumping and pulsing that attunes my heart to
synaptic sensory messages between trees
made of salmon eaten by bear, creating forests
Lightning speed qi traveling to and fro
In the story below the understory to
tell us we’ve forgotten that
we are celestial bodies,
that we are all connected kin.
How our faulted memory hurts
Now that this brother is broken, underfoot, under knee,
this one’s run gunned down,
these sisters shot, blood spilled,
bullet-riddled in the day and night,
without warrant,
Reminders of the dark matter son hog-tied,
“voluntarily” river drowned
in front of his Father,
because the boy simply loved
from the core of his celestial being.
He was radiant light too bright for marauding Adams.
I don’t know why the whole world isn’t crying.
Our neural networks in isolation fail us.
My boy asks, what was the first color of the universe?
Black, because it absorbs all of the energetic frequencies—
Becomes the container for all things not yet felt or dreamed.
Even the scientists keep waiting for nothing to happen,
To detect with secret desire the capture of dark matter
Deep in containers under the earth where no light shines.
But the darkest matter is already in hearts bound to this earth
And it is easy to see in daylight.
I stretch my neck up and arch to see the whole obsidian night dotted
By a multitude of celestial lights,
Encircled by the towering council of Douglas firs around me and this portal,
Pointing the way back.
I wonder at a sky so ordered in its brilliance
Taking light years of time to produce
This one moment of impermanent connection
To the constellations telling stories
And in this I see how small I am
No matter how grand the touch of this beauty, this limited awareness
Of the beginning and of eternity.
Mother Tree tends to my need for comfort in
my inadequacy to hold the light and the dark together
here in the woods,
not the lone Madrona standing guard
by lovers of and in Alexander’s Castle
On this earth
In this skin I’m in
To feel part of this cosmos
To know that he is me, and I am him,
The trees feel me and I them,
The wind becomes the shadow of my breath,
Shades of the same celestial bodies beyond light
Pure energy.
Did those whispers of yesteryears’ light stay in the sky when the time came to choose?
Did they sense the loss and pain to come from forgetting what we really are?
When we look up, are they laughing at our folly?
When we fall from grace
Out of the lightness of being
Into
Gravity,
Depravity,
and chaos of misremembering, dismembering,
owning, controlling, each other,
in forgetting that we are all made up
of dark and light matter,
Let go the darkest matters of your heart.
Stay fireside with me, celestial beings,
Know we belong together
Radiating light for each other
Out of the cosmos that birthed us
And into the future we birth.
©2021 Rufina C. Garay. All rights reserved.
Some notes that may be helpful for the references above:
This article references the idea of common composition among stars, star dust, and human bodies. There is talk from one of the authors of the book featured of the “impermanence of our bodies” which is something I have been thinking about with the losses I’ve experienced of aunts and an uncle to COVID-19.
https://www.space.com/35276-humans-made-of-stardust-galaxy-life-elements.html This article provides the element list in common that I wrote about in the piece.
“Great Gaia’s macrophages eat” alludes to the idea of the planet earth metaphorically being a single cell that would have macrophages to clean out the detritus, like the fungi.
The reference to “neurally networked first at sea” is a reference to the networking of individuals to a collective through observations of behavior in schools of fish (murmuration in birds which I am slightly obsessed with)
I reference the ether which is an outdated concept (pre-Einstein) in relationship to light. The intention is to have people imagine a time when they could see something with their eyes like lightning and conjure up a story about the existence of ether that might change the speed of light. Einstein taught us that ether does not exist despite scientists trying to prove its existence at the time (that light travels at a constant speed means that no ether slows it down). We eventually gave up on this idea of ether, despite the romance of it. This is the anchor I put in sand that we could change indoctrinated false beliefs that contribute to racism, bias, and racially motivated violence.
https://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/einstein/light/a-new-view-of-light
The following link and the movie Fantastic Fungi explain how fungi communicate information in the network of trees and are the basis for the lines about “lightning speed qi traveling to and fro in the story below the understory”
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20141111-plants-have-a-hidden-internet
“made of salmon eaten by bear, creating forests” is the acknowledgement that the forests of the Olympic Peninsula exist as “salmon forests” from bears eating the salmon and dispersing the remains of what they have eaten. The trees are composed of the nutrients from salmon and entangled in the health of the salmon population. As the salmon population is suffering the overfishing by people and environmental harms, we must recognize the intricate complexity of the relationships among all living things. Listen to the FoodLove podcast with Jessica Plumb to understand more. https://www.recipeswithrufina.com/foodlove-podcast/foodlove-10-jessica-plumb
“other brethren’s intelligence” refers to how species within the forest communicate, and “Micro-thumping and pulsing” is the imagined sound of the fungal network at work communicating information.
Chinese mythologies tell stories about people as celestial beings or immortals. These stories are part of my heritage as a Chinese-Filipino-Spanish American and part of the Taoist studies in which I’ve engaged.
Questions about the “folly of the fall” reference these mythologies generally. See http://idp.bl.uk/4DCGI/education/astronomy/myth.html
“Now that this brother is broken, underfoot, under knee, --is a reference to George Floyd
this one’s run gunned down, --is a reference to Ahmaud Arbery
these sisters shot, blood spilled, --is a reference to Breonna Taylor and also to the Asian women in Atlanta who were slain by Robert Aaron Long (Soon Chung Park, 74; Hyun Jung Grant, 51; Suncha Kim, 69; Yong Ae Yue, 63; Delaina Ashley Yaun, 33; Xiaojie Tan, 49; Daoyou Feng, 44) https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/19/us/atlanta-shooting-victims.html
bullet-riddled in the day and night,
without warrant,”--is a reference to the hollowness of having a “no-knock” warrant in the Breonna Taylor case
“Reminders of the dark matter son hog-tied,” --is a reference to Willie James of Live Oak, Fl whose sweetheart feelings for a White girl led to his heart-breaking murder in 1943 https://www.the-journal.com/articles/our-view-caste-provides-lesson-in-black-history/
“voluntarily” river drowned — Read Caste to understand this story
in front of his Father,
because the boy simply loved
from the core of his celestial being.
A Columbia University professor has been conducting a search for dark matter with a lot of waiting and only small signs of possible discovery. Time will tell us if there is substance in dark matter or if it will go the way of ether. The “dark matter” is the hypothesized glue that holds the universe together. In calling Willie James the “dark matter son,” I am saying that his loving nature—beyond the boundaries of skin color—is the glue that we aren’t looking for but that might matter more at a spiritual level rather than a scientific level. His innocent love is reflected in Isabelle Wilkerson’s story of how he enjoyed the people in the department store where he worked and sent Christmas cards to all of them, including the White girl whom he admired and loved as a sweetheart. He could have been anyone’s son, just like George, Ahmaud, and so many others.
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/14/science/space/14dark.html
I don’t know why the whole world isn’t crying.—This is how I have been feeling about the historical atrocities and the stories in Caste.
Our neural networks in isolation fail us.—This is my observation and a wondering about empathy and why we might be missing some of the connectivity that exists in other species like the schools of fish or the networks of mushrooms to see the urgency and devastation of this moment.
“What was the first color of the universe?” is a question my son asked me.
Black, because it absorbs all of the energetic frequencies— I answered him and realized that art makes its entry for me here in the thought that all colors are absorbed in Black. There is alchemy in art and poetry. The importance of Blackness and respect for darkness exists in so many contexts. See Rumi’s poem Searching Darkness.
Mother Tree is a reference to the work of Suzanne Simards. https://fantasticfungi.com/the-mush-room/finding-the-mother-tree-book-finding-the-mother-tree-suzanne-simards-new-book/
The juxtaposition of Mother Tree in the same stanza as the lone Madrona reflects my wondering about the knowledge that there is always a Mother Tree in any forest. I wonder if the Madrona that stands alone at Fort Worden outside of Alexander’s Castle is the Mother Tree there, because it is not partnered with another tree. Typically, Madronas are partnered with hard woods that provide an overstory without over shading the Madrona. In Fantastic Fungi, there is a description of how Mother Trees will throw off their offspring further away in the underground network of mycorhizzial communication if there is a feeling of being unsafe. Though I love Fort Worden, I realize that so much was lost for the Jamestown S’Klallam tribe and Coast Salish peoples in the building of this national historical park. I also wonder how many madronas were cut down to make it. I wonder how unsafe the trees began to feel as the different barracks and buildings like Alexander’s Castle were built, and whether the notable Madrona there stands alone for a reason.
The references to “depravity” and “dismembering” are references to lynching practices described in Isabelle Wilkerson’s Caste.
“in forgetting that we are all made up
of dark and light matter”—is a reference to the yin and yang of Taoism, the duality that resides in wholeness or oneness and within each person. It is also a recognition that we will need to confront ourselves to accept hard things, dismantle sacred things to some, and still seek and find joy.
“Whisper of yesteryears’ light” suggest the time lapsed in seeing the things with your eyes and the revelation of this time period over the past 400 plus years and a multitude of other ancient stories of domination, conquest, and slavery. The science of starlight and the relationship to time is discussed in this article.
https://theconversation.com/when-you-look-up-how-far-back-in-time-do-you-see-101176
The “campfire” is a reference to being outdoors in nature to begin to understand one’s place in it more fully. The circle of Douglas firs references the moment when I looked up at the sky in Oregon at a tribal reservation site when I felt held by the constellations and the universe despite the pain of experiencing personal outrage and grief over the burden sometimes placed on people to speaking about social justice issues in the face of allies who are not quite that. That moment of connection with nature was the night when this piece began speaking to me.
I’m grateful to Naomi Shihab Nye, Velda Thomas, Crystie Kisler, Wendell Berry, Walt Whitman, and T.S. Eliot for sharing their resilient world views and for the beauty and wonder within their poetry.
Their works, words, experiences in nature, and an encouraging friend like Loida, always help break the radio silence of struggle.
I’m grateful to be in dialogue at times with their words or them.
FoodLove 19: Sarah Spaeth- 25 years in conservation!
Sarah Spaeth is simply remarkable. She is the Director of Conservation at Jefferson Land Trust. This “wild brethren” tracker grounds herself in the spirituality of place and environment.
“Farms, fish, and forests forever”is the mantra of the mission-driven organization of which is a part. That same mantra reflects how she lives and makes choices. Sarah has consistently applied her world view over a quarter of a century to build communities of support around important environmental locations and land.
She is one of the key people who works with community members to preserve parts of Cappy’s Trails for our access to nature within the city limits, and also the Illahee preserve which maintains important habitat for spawning salmon.
Sarah is also a pioneering leader, along with the Executive Director of Jefferson Land Trust and other team members in their efforts to examine how to look at lands through an equity lens. These conversations are challenging, and it requires the fortitude of a tracker not to be daunted when the path is not always clear.
Read about the Kawamoto farm that was endangered by the racism of Japanese internment but now is being preserved for agrarian use by the land trust and its partners. Fair warning, I wept when I watched this video. The self-restraint in the telling of the personal tragedy of internment and “othering” within this story tears me up the most.
The story is most deeply one of perseverance, resilience, relationships that persisted across perceived divides, lasting community, and honoring the importance of legacy and lineages despite racism.
If you are an anti-racism activist, Jefferson Land Trust’s preservation efforts are a remarkable and visible moment that changes the story of property ownership through collective action. The property will maintain a lineage of land stewards who will continue to tell the story of Kawamoto family lest we forget. The collaborative work of many partners focuses at the intersection of farm succession planning and an ongoing battle against structural systems that would otherwise make it difficult for some qualified farmers of color to own or maintain an expanse of agrarian farmland on the peninsula.
In this conversation, Sarah and I also talk about the balance of human impact with the natural environment and also the balance of sweet and salty in a Kouign amman! You have to listen to learn what that is (if you don’t know already).
When asked what she would contribute in to a newly re-imagined home economics, Sarah encouraged people to develop a deep relationship with the places they are in, and she gave us her berry pie recipe. I can’t wait to try it!
I knew that the expanse of Sarah’s knowledge was vast from the first phone call we had, and I learned some things about her baking experience that were new to me. What she does in her daily work is truly FoodLove: The Space Between Terroir and the Tao of Food.
Berry Pie
Ingredients
Instructions
- Crust: Put oats, dates and almonds in the food processor and pulse until the mixture is uniform, add all other ingredients and process until it starts to hold together. Press mixture into a greased pie plate (this may make enough for two smaller pies) and preface at 350 degrees Fahrenheit until light brown. Cool crust and set aside.
- Filling: Put 3 cups of berries in a saucepan with honey and bring to a simmer- cook briefly until berries break down a bit. Mix some of the berry juices with the gelatin until mixture is smooth with no clumps. Add butter, lemon rind and juice and the gelatin mixture into the saucepan of cooked berries. Let cool a bit, then line the prefaced pie crust with the cooked mixture. Evenly distribute most of the uncooked berries across the filling, then layer on the remaining cooked berry mixture, smoothing it out. Finally, distribute the remaining raw berries on top. Chill in the refrigerator for several hours until the pie has fully set. Serve with ice cream, whipped cream, a mixture of mascarpone and whipped cream or whatever suits your fancy. Enjoy!
FoodLove 18: Chef Arran Stark
Meet “fire starter” Chef Arran Stark. He put “hospitality” into Port Townsend’s Jefferson Healthcare “hospital” with flair and fervor. His extraordinary skills and passion for fresh and local food at the hospital has been the proof-in-principle that hospital fare can rival restaurant fare in flavor.
In my mind, casual fine dining in healthcare is the next frontier in hospitality, and it’s also a possible intersection of food equity. What could be better than empowering people by teaching them how to manage their health through cooking nutritious foods? It’s what Chef Arran does daily. Food plans are plentiful for recovery and long-term well-being for many patients. What Chef Arran has done is the beginning of seismic shift in culture when hospitals get rooted in great-tasting food and patients and their visitors expect it.
Chef Arran was trained in many of the best fine-dining, terroir-based kitchens around the country, and this heart-centered executive chef is the consummate creative and visionary. He has deep knowledge of the potent flavors and nutrients of ingredients of the earth and soil. He himself has recently returned to the soil by developing a home farm, which may be the ultimately journey of any chef with appreciation for terroir. Our conversation happens there in the heart of the summer heat in the open-air greenhouse.
If every hospital and every school offered the kind of food that his kitchens prepare, restaurants might go out of business. And yet, his work is the embodiment of a culinary forefather’s, Boulanger’s, motto in the original restaurant, “Venite ad me omnes qui stomacho laboratis et ego vos restaurabo” translated and explained by Merriam Webster’s dictionary as "Come to me all who suffer from pain of the stomach and I will restore you."
There isn’t much the man can’t do, and he has a new vision. He wants our city to have a revolutionary kind of cooking school to meet the dire needs of the hospitality industry in our destination- hotel-tourist-and-agrarian economy.
I want to help him to do this. Imagine a culinary industry and a healthcare industry founded with his culinary leadership and deep understanding of terroir. Share the word if you are local to the region and have your firends give a listen to this podcast.
The cover photo features Chef Arran fresh from his other passion, paddle-boarding. No surprise to me, he’s now a co-designer of aerodynamic paddle boards (I’ve seen a prototype, so think “Ferrari of paddle-boards”).
What inspires me about Chef Arran Stark is that he empowers everyone to have food that fuels their bodies to heal and also satisfies the palate and soul. His work is food equity in action. He cooks and shares stories about food with humor and humility, a dynamic combination that puts him in a league of his own beyond the pale of other chefs with similarly illustrious careers.
Chef Arran has been on a mission to teach people and children how to nourish themselves. When asked how he might reimagine home economics with me (with the aim of world peace through food and a podcast), he said he would take the children out to the land first, then harvest some simple, easily accessible, easily growable ingredients, and show them how to make a flavorful staple that they can “own” for themselves. Here’s the recipe for Berry Salsa that he’s contributing into our growing FoodLove curriculum. In it, he features the bounty of the Pacific Northwest berries.
Berry Salsa
Ingredients
Instructions
- Variations include: Using gooseberries or currants instead or along with blue berries, using herbs like basil, parsley or chervil instead or along with cilantro, using Lemon juice or freshly pressed unripe apples instead of Lemons.
FoodLove: Nothing Wasted
Artwork inspired by Wendell Berry’s The Peace of Wild Things, made by Rufina.
This spoken word tribute to a handful of slain Asian Americans and elements of my Chinese-Filipino American heritage begins with appreciation for a scallion. In it, I explore the tension of being Asian American, of feeling and behaving as exemplary and loyal Americans, while being undervalued and unrecognized “model minorities,” not even a soldier is American enough in today’s climate. The beauty of nothing being wasted from a cooking utilization standpoint is juxtaposed with the disappointment and anger of one’s very breath being wasted in speaking to the crimes against Asian Americans.
The tribute questions whether speaking to the atrocities that befell notable Asian Americans is a waste of one’ breath because few seem to be listening or to care. Taoist meditation (in the reference to “tying the horses to the post”) is offered as both a traditional comfort and an opportunity. Speaking to the tragedies is the discipline, whether it is productive or fully understood. In this approach of non-attachment, the breath is never truly wasted.
Nothing Wasted
by Rufina C. Garay
When I think of Chinese cookery,
I picture the economy of a scallion, the high yield
of the purest white and pale green parts, stir fried.
Bias-cut, dark green tops, all thin to garnish soy and vinegar sauce.
Add garlic. Almost always, add garlic.
Left behind are the small grassy roots just as slender,
Compost for the earth.
Returning is the motion of the Tao.
To me, Chinese cookery means nothing wasted,
Everything and everyone valued,
‘Round the kitchen watching matriarchs and masters cook,
‘Round the table, eating, laughing.
Chicken dinner’s not yet truly done,
Until the cartilage is gnawed,
Still to come,
Roast the bones until dark,
when the marrow runs dry
Like the blood of my elder, 84-year-old Mr. Vicha, tackled to his death on a “regular morning walk” in “misty Northern California.”
“Make soup with the bones,” says my mother’s voice inside my head.
Nothing wasted.
In the oven, the carcass sits while I am empty like the hollow of its chest cavity. Our ribs heave silent sighs, browned.
How do we make soup with these dead bones?
Even chicken feet are more valued, not thrown away
But frozen together
With others,
then unthawed
transformed to stock
or even better,
authentic
healing
bone broth.
Nothing wasted.
But here, today not one Chinaman is valued.
A ripped shirt reveals
This military patriot’s scars,
important to him.
Alone.
All the same now.
Fathers and grandfathers
Already built your railroads,
Ushered in the American Manifest Destiny
at a discount.
All discarded.
Denied their blistered American citizenry daily
because of the slant of their eyes.
In wartime, camps opened, holding a mirror to overseas horror,
one step shy of the enemy, justifying
citizens held captive by their own government.
Why not weep for a sin-less Sisyphus
who eternally slides back down the hill of
betrayal and loss?
You’re taking too many bones.
You’re making too many bones.
“I can’t breathe,” became “We can’t breathe” a long time ago.
No words wasted
for a man, woman, or child from Japan
until the too-late apology.
Korematsu’s justice came forty-four years—a lifetime—too late
His personal diaspora drove him Eastward.
But, thank Tao that Korematsu spoke his words.
You can scarcely appreciate the economy of a scallion, until your bones are cracked
Or hollowed out from what you see and feel.
Returning is the motion of the Tao.
Tie the horses to the post.
Nothing wasted.
But maybe our breath.
©2021 Rufina C. Garay. All rights reserved.
“Returning is the Motion of the Tao” reference: https://tao-in-you.com/cyclical-movement-of-tao/
Citizens held captive by their government reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_Americans
Ripped shirt reference: https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/ny-official-lifts-shirt-ohio-scar-asian-violence-20210327-qohjkmtbtrem3lgqxdqpikkxlu-story.html
“Sinless Sisyphus” reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sisyphus
“Korematsu” reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korematsu_v._United_States
“Tie the horses to the post” is what a Taoist meditation teacher would say to students to remind them to quiet their minds and lower one’s gaze beyond and past the nose. This type of statement is often followed with reminders about meditative breath.
FoodLove: Grace Love, Chef, Vocalist Musician, Creative Entrepreneur
Grace Love cooks, sings, and creates more love wherever she goes with whatever she touches. As a local chef, she has embarked on the journey of building out and operating food truck that she has named “Mabel.” You can follow her on instagram and can support the build out in a number of ways. I met her when we came together to cook in support of the Jefferson County Farmers Market, and I knew instantly that I wanted to be friends with Grace. We were already part of the same culinary family.
With Mabel, Grace hopes that she can share food, music, and community (sounds a lot like FoodLove to me) around the country. As she shares what she is doing in beloved Port Townsend, I couldn’t help but get excited about her dreams for the culinary team she hopes to build.
Listen as she talks about the influence and importance of remembering loved ones on the way that she cooks and what she cooks. We talk about the beauty of eating barbecued ribs with our hands and what that means to us now versus what it meant to us when we were kids and our parents did that.
Grace cooks Southern comfort food. Enter our cozy conversation about childhood foods that last us through life. We also talk about easy prep foods that help us manage heat waves like the one we recently experienced with record temps over 100 plus degrees.
Finally, Grace shares advice for students in a reimagined home economics class to be adventurous in their eating as well as a song from her heart.
Grace has been doing pop events in Seattle and Port Townsend bringing people together around her cooking and her divine singing. If you want to cook with her, contact her directly here at Nadine’s Soul Kitchen.
Heat Dome Hack—Black Sheep Baguette Sandwich Copycat
Serves 3
1 baguette
1 jar of Genovese pesto
16 oz Galbani fresh mozzarella, sliced into thin discs with serrated knife
1 pint organic grape tomatoes, each tomato sliced lengthwise with serrated knife
Aged balsamic vinegar to taste
Salt to taste
Slice the baguette lengthwise for the sandwich bread. Spread pesto on the bottom half. Spread tomatoes over the pesto and lightly sprinkle salt over tomatoes. Layer mozzarella over the tomatoes. Using a clean finger to cover a portion of the pouring spout, drizzle balsamic vinegar over the mozzarella. Cover with the other half of the baguette. Slice to create the number of sandwiches you need.
FoodLove: Francis Tapon of WanderLearn, Part II
Meet Francis Tapon, author of Hike Your Own Hike and podcast host of WanderLearn. He has traveled over 120 countries and believes that travel is the best university. Francis and I began our friendship at Amherst College while playing volleyball in the off-season for the men’s volleyball team, and so our conversation takes shape as a volley of questions after more than two decades of not having spoken with each other.
Interestingly, our divergent paths in life intersect in some ways. When I asked Francis to be a guest on FoodLove, I was interested in Francis’ wanderings through different lands and landscapes. He had hiked in the Pacific Crest Trail and on multiple famous, longer trails like the Appalachian Trail. He also had never owned a bed until Amazon sent him one when he was 48 years old. (Read more about this on his website.) That lack of attachment to material things was a point of interest to me, and I learned later in the interview that Francis has been studying Zen Buddhism while I have been studying Taoism. Sometimes kindred spirits remain kindred over the years in surprising ways.
Listen to Part I of this podcast with Francis as we talk about intersections among food, culture, and travel.
In Part II of this podcast interview, Francis and I dive into commentaries on current conversations about food, including debates on game hunting, hunting, and meat-eating, and laboratory grown, plant-based meat. We also speculate about how the food industry might be impacted by the effects of the pandemic. (Included in this podcast is a reference to a prediction about what might happen to the food industry in the Bay Area from [KQED's Forum] Our New Co-Host Checks in With Local Creators and Change Makers About What Makes the Bay Special #kqedsForum
https://podcastaddict.com/episode/124719523 via @PodcastAddict) Lastly, I talk about when to salt meat and why. This may be a key to great cooking for many of dishes that you make, so tune in! His question about salt has me entertaining a new concept for the podcast, “Bite-Sized FoodLove” where I take questions from listeners and do my best to answer them. Think “Dear Rufie (on food)” instead of Dear Abby (on life).
FoodLove 14: Francis Tapon of Wander Learn, Part I
Meet Francis Tapon, author of Hike Your Own Hike and podcast host of WanderLearn. He has traveled over 120 countries and believes that travel is the best university. Francis and I began our friendship at Amherst College while playing volleyball in the off-season for the men’s volleyball team, and so our conversation takes shape as a volley of questions after more than two decades of not having spoken with each other.
Interestingly, our divergent paths in life intersect in some ways. When I asked Francis to be a guest on FoodLove, I was interested in Francis’ wanderings through different lands and landscapes. He had hiked in the Pacific Northwest and on multiple famous, longer trails like the Appalachian Trail. He also had never owned a bed until Amazon sent him one when he was 48 years old. (Read more about this on his website.) That lack of attachment to material things was a point of interest to me, and I learned later in the interview that Francis has been studying Zen Buddhism while I have been studying Taoism.
In one of Francis’ TedX talks, he suggests that we ought to look at the world with new eyes to see unexpected safety in places where one might assume unrest and in this, I felt a kindred sense of openness to the world and humanity. I also imagined a quiet undercurrent in his talks that peace across countries is possible through learning about other cultures and dismantling misconceived notions.
Working my way back from a larger objective of “world peace through food and a podcast,” I wanted to ask him a series of questions about how food and travel intersect for him. Naturally, as a podcaster and long lost (or maybe just wandering) friend, Francis had some questions for me. You will hear the story of what I ate in which country that was most “out-of-the-norm” for me but the most indicative of how I try to immerse myself in culture (and family bondedness) when traveling. You’ll also hear some of my thoughts on when to salt food and why.
Through the course of our conversation, you’ll hear how food, culture, and travel have shaped Francis’ experiences as well as some expert advice on how to travel well. He shares guidance on how and what to pack for food and the one thing that can give you cover while cooking in the rain on longer hikes that you might not expect for those of you hiking the trails this summer. Listen in toPart II of this podcast for deeper dives into food commentaries. Two decades of missed conversations required a little more time for us to catch up!
FoodLove 13: Will Harris of White Oak Pastures
Meet Will Harris of White Oak Pastures. He’s a cowboy and regenerative, intergenerational farmer. Long ago, he became an observer of the health of the animals on his farm. Then, he became a listener to the health of the soil. In the process of growing White Oak Pastures, Will has created a dynamic, agrarian ecosystem that has also brought to life a thriving community in rural Bluffton, Georgia. With steer, cows, sheep, turkeys, lamb, pigs (for Iberico ham), and abbatoirs (slaughterhouses on property), Will has achieved a gastronomical Noah’s Ark on land.
Built up by a larger-than-life personality that beams under that all-American cowboy hat with a new vision for farming, Will talks straightforwardly about how every farmer can commit to a method of farming that is beyond sustainable—one that adds value to the soil and can make the agrarian food supply systems more resilient at scale. As he speaks, he talks about natural cycles. Everything he says about his understanding of these cycles is the Tao of Food, the connectedness between all things, that oneness in that agrarian ecosystem that promotes health and longevity.
What he does at White Oak Pastures is phenomenal and could cure what ails us in American farming today. He has even started a nonprofit that helps to educate others about regenerative farming.
In fact, Will has a message for Bill Gates who is buying up farmland, people today don’t know how to farm the land to keep it healthy. So, if we care about the quality of our food in this country or the resiliency we need in our national food system, then please spread the word and share this podcast until it reaches him. There is an invitation in this podcast for Bill Gates to start a dialogue with Will about being a steward of the land. Cultivating the abundance of land might result in the most positive of unintended consequences, if a genuine relationship with it is built instead of a transactional, extractive one. The hope is that rich dialogue like that could become the core of better policy-making and legislation related to farmland and related to food in schools.
I met Will Harris after I graduated from New England Culinary Institute when I worked as a Whole Foods demo chef. I knew from the flavor of the beef he produced that he was doing something special with the quality and health of the steer. I’m amazed by how much White Oak Pastures has expanded the food grown on its 3,200 acres in the time since. He was only offering beef back then.
I would encourage you to taste the quality and the “qi” force and vitality of what White Oak Pastures offers. You can order direct from the farm and have the White Oak Pastures experience shipped to you within ground ship distances for frozen foods.
If you are in the South, you can find White Oak Pastures grassfed ground beef at all Publix supermarkets, Kroger stores in Atlanta.Whole Foods offers White Oak Pastures grassfed steaks, roasts, offal, ground beef, and chickens in the Mid-Atlantic and South Regions. Pastured eggs from White Oak Pastures can be found in Whole Foods Market locations in Atlanta and select restaurants.
Will is a model for farmers across the country and his conviction to a right relationship with animals and the soil makes sense. In the Pacific Northwest, we have a number of farmers doing the same. In my immediate region of the Pacific Northwest on the Olympic Peninsula, that work is being done on a different scale and with some varying methods. Locally, however, our cattle farmers can’t get the U.S.D.A. slaughterhouse they need to serve the number of them. That is another podcast in itself.
I hope that the more these regenerative farms and other farms that care about the soil and environment are networked, the more they will share what they have learned from observing and working the soil. That network could lead to an opportunity to shift how we grow food in America. Who doesn’t want to have better holistic health for our environment, the livestock and food supply, and our bodies that are nourished by all of it together? With less commoditization and a greater focus on natural cycles, we’ll have greater quality and flavor in what we grow and eat. From listening to Will’s story, you’ll learn that we’ll also get stronger communities as a byproduct. If you are a farmer and want to learn more, see the workshops offered by White Oak Pastures here.
FoodLove 12: Sue from The Cocoa Forge
Meet Sue from The Cocoa Forge, a former chocolatier and now a maker of sublime, world-class chocolate that expresses the terroir so perfectly. With one taste of a bar, a chocolate lover can travel to Ecuador, the Philippines, or any number of other countries in which she has established relationships with cocoa grove farmers/stewards. In what is an amazing commitment to the environment, Sue will soon be bringing cocoa beans by sailboat back into her hometown harbor.
In this episode, Sue speaks of the alchemy of chocolate-making and gives us insights into the precision and care for details that give her chocolate nuanced flavor, artistic and ecologically-minded packaging, and indulgent satisfaction that might lead to obsession similar to a fine bottle of wine. (I would personally rather receive her chocolate than most any bottle of wine for any special occasion.) You can order her chocolate online and subscribe to the upcoming Chocolate Faucet for a monthly fix of the featured chocolate bars or sampling tiles.
Sue is a treasure in Port Townsend and a model for how one can bring a “food of the gods”—theobroma into the world in a sustainable and holistic way. Her chocolate represents deep care for the environment, global relationships with real people, the cocoa bean harvest and storage, the understory of tropical forests, and superlative quality. How she does this in harmony with nature is such a perfect example of the Tao of food.
FoodLove 11: Chef Kevin Kincaid and Rufina C. Garay
Tables turn in this episode as ACF accredited, Executive Chef Kevin Kincaid of Escoffier Culinary Institute interviews FoodLove host and New England Culinary Institute alumna, Rufina Garay.
Chef Kevin is mentor, friend, and culinary family to Rufina. Listen to a deeper discussion of terroir, culinary leadership, the spirit with which we put food on the plate, and the belief that food is a stand-alone language of love that has been omitted from the famous list for too long.
In conversation with Chef Kevin, Rufina describes how Saxon Farms in Wisconsin was the birthplace of the concept of terroir and the Tao of Food in the FoodLove podcast. While building relationships with the farm family as a faculty member and Associate Dean, Rufina tasted award-winning cheese which reflected the unique complexity and richness of the glacial lands near Lake Michigan. The family’s commitment to land stewardship had deep and lasting impacts on the way Rufina views and tastes food today. The farm itself holds a special place in the hearts of many alumni of the former culinary institute where Chef Kevin and she served as faculty together. Each year, they oversaw students in catering the Saxon Farms community Chataqua event. Chef Kevins asks Rufina to share advice with his wonderful Garde Manger students about two of her favorite topics, the preservation of foods and culinary artistry.
Subscribe to our podcast on iTunes and read broader descriptions here on our website. Thanks for listening!
FoodLove 10: Jessica Plumb
Episode 10: Jessica Plumb
Meet Jessica Plumb, the producer and co-director of ten-time award-winning film—Return of the River. This writer and master storyteller in film and video gives us a behind-the-scenes understanding of her artistic journey in the making of the film.
As an inter-disciplinary artist and graduate of Goddard College’s M.F.A program, Jessica committed over a decade to produce one of the most important films of this era. Jessica captures the interconnectedness between people and land, water and food, culture and identity, political process and choices, and restoration of environment and spirit.
Her portrait of the Elwha River inspired me to move my family near the river for a summer to listen, observe, and learn. I hoped for us to build our own relationship to this body of water and the sacredness of it as a source for life here on the Olympic Peninsula. It felt, in part, like a necessary pilgrimage and an experiment in living in gratitude for the beauty of this place that provided time for an inward journey to honor and remember the perseverance of the Lower Elwha tribe as stewards of this landscape.
When I saw how the river surged unfettered with its immense energy and beauty, I could only imagine what a shock it must have been to see the river caged by a dam. I imagined that the loss of salmon as a source of food and the related traditions must have disrupted culture in a deeply painful way, made worse by racism and arrests (despite treaty rights that guaranteed the Lower Elwha’s right to fish for salmon).
If you read the news, the size of salmon that are being commercially fished are shrinking. According to scientists, the smaller sizes are the harbinger of an environmental imbalance that affects a “keystone species.” Jessica explains to us that before the damming of the river, the salmon were of mythical proportions. They began shrinking after the Elwha River was first dammed with the rapid increase in commercial fishing. (Read here to learn more about the shrinking ages and sizes of the salmon.)
Jessica reveals the scientific secrets of “salmon forests” which everyone would do well to know. Her explanation of salmon forests offers an opportunity to marvel at the sheer magic and natural wonder in our world. The salmon are part and parcel of the terroir of this place.
In the film, Jessica deftly weaves the complex political, cultural, historical, civic, and change management process into a visual and auditory tapestry of transformation and restoration. Her film is an example of art that reflects FoodLove: The Space between Terroir and the Tao of Food. In a re-imagined home economics curriculum, all children would watch this movie.
FoodLove 9: Velda Thomas
Episode 9: Meet Velda Thomas, a multi-faceted, creative, tour de force. As a writer, a sound and somatic healer, poet, and steward of the land in Port Townsend, Washington, Velda offers a new model of relationship to land and to bees. She models how humans can move away from trauma toward healing and away from a transactional approach to animals and bees toward a deep relationship with the land and, hopefully, the bee colony that will soon be hers.
How might one relate to bees if one were a member of the colony?
Listen as she describes poetically the tai chi walking of a beekeeper, the healing effects of being in nature, and the beauty of a life that focuses on, and honors the intimacy of, a committed relationship with land, animals, and bees.
Be inspired by her words, her relationship to land, and her reimagined relationship with bees. What poetry will come from her deep observations of them is yet to be seen.
She shares an exquisite poem with listeners in this podcast which gets to the crux of the power of words to heal.
Of herself, Velda observes:
“I am a multifaceted person.
Like a cut jewel there are many facets to my past, present and future self.
I long to share this journey with you.
Writing, art, travel, healing, bees, creativity, women studies, dreams, horses, cultural anthropology, earth stewardship, natural building, and more.
I need to move my body, be in nature and engage my brain.
I pause often for integration in quiet communion with the spiritual forces supporting me.”
Find her powerful, healing writing, poetry, and other creative works on her patreon account. https://www.patreon.com/veldathomas
FoodLove 8: Trevor and Lauren Koch
Meet Trevor and Lauren Koch as they navigate essential worker transitions from sous chef to grocery deli manager, depression, anxiety, & alcoholism to self-awareness, and identities as White people who believe Black Lives Matter.
Episode 8: Meet Trevor and Lauren Koch, a culinary and hospitality couple with a young family on a healing journey through food and growing gardens. Trevor is a former culinary student of FoodLove host, Rufina. He has worked in kitchens in Wisconsin and Colorado as a sous chef, essential restaurant worker, and essential grocery store manager. Lauren is studying the healing properties of herbs.
Recently, Trevor shared with Rufina his ongoing journey out of depression and the personal battle with alcoholism that overtook his professional life. It cost him one job and impacted his family.
When Rufina asked Trevor to speak on the podcast, it was in part, because restaurant industry harbors many people managing both depression and substance abuse and in part, because she is very proud of Trevor and sees him for the multi-creative talent that he is. Lauren’s story made the picture of impacts, compassion, and resilience more complete. She too is multi-talented and creative.
Alcoholism in the midst of a pandemic and recent diagnoses of ADHD for both Lauren and Trevor have brought them both to a crossroads of self-awareness. Trevor and Lauren are navigating their way to emotional and mental health. In the process, they are reckoning with their own identities that were not fully seen or understood by others. It is from this place that they recognize what it means not to be fully seen, and the place from which they have begun to evolve how they re-educate themselves around race and how they raise their children despite what other family members might think. Their humility and courage in this pursuit of a better world is an important model for how we get to world peace despite the complexity of our lives and daily struggles, even for people who benefit from the privileges associated with being White.
Rufina and Trevor dedicate this show and the possible pathways to hope for people struggling with depression and substance abuse to their loving memory of Chef Todd Bowman,. Chef Todd shared a deep love of land, food, and connection among all people.
When we feel lost or alone in isolating depression, grounding ourselves in what we can make with our hands, how we can watch a seedling grow, or how we can genuinely support each other, can be a first step toward healing. These inquiries are part of FoodLove: The Space Between Terroir and the Tao of Food.
Though we didn’t talk about this recipe on air, Trevor shared a kitchari recipe adapted and modified from a few others that he and Lauren have been eating for their health. This is the recipe he would share in a re-imagined home economics curriculum. Follow and support Trevor and Lauren on Itnstagram @trevorcooks
Kitchari and Rice
Ingredients
Instructions
- For Kitchari:
- Add fresh garlic and ginger, coconut oil to a large pot over medium-high heat for approximately 5 minutes or until translucent and fragrant.
- Turn heat down to medium.
- Add beans and loose spices. Sauté for two minutes.
- Add 6-8 cups water, tea bag spices, and 1 teaspoon of salt. Bring to a boil with lid slightly cracked open.
- Turn heat to medium-low. Cook and stir occasionally until beans split open, approximately 10-15 minutes.
- Add root vegetables and cook another 15-20 minutes or until soft.
- Add greens, lime juice with heat on low for approximately 10-15 minutes more.
- For Rice:
- Place all ingredients in instant and follow manufacturer directions to cook rice.
FoodLove 7: “Acting As Though”
Acting As Though
By Rufina C. Garay
Acting as though I’m not disappointed in people or disgusted with a few makes me tired.
Acting as though disconnection could be made whole by Zooms and infrequent phone calls that have less and less meaning and more and more performance, makes the struggle of extroverting my daily stumbling block,
Because I need what little there is to get from the halo of it all.
Acting as though I don’t have rage over the egos of
gatekeepers held up with ivory hands
to win prizes for excellence
makes me exhausted,
even terrified
the way certain seers imagined—
knew what atomic bombs going off
would do when they struck inhabited land,
rupturing, then melting skin that wasn’t theirs—
didn’t look like them,
to protect something very important.
Acting as though it doesn’t bother me that people pat themselves on the back
for attending this training,
doing this good and recognized deed,
reading this or that book,
when they forget that relationships with real people
actually matter,
makes me realize that I have grown older.
I would hold each person, including myself more accountable, with or without hashtags.
I ask
how I can contribute in,
how can I collaborate from an authentic place?
I won’t give up until the real women of excellence show up or are given access to the stage.
I have to hold on to the identity I know, resting below the surface
of the blood boiling.
Wind invading wood phase produces imbalance, anger in the liver,
but not just anger.
Rage. Rage over a number of years.
Rage over a White woman talking to me through her misperceptions of my point of view while I wait patiently.
She is ready for everyone else to be wrong.
Rage over the righteousness she wears like a blazoned red cape. I gently explain that she has assumed something incorrectly.
She assumes everyone is always talking about oppression.
My first generation cousin who is of no blood relationship to me would tell this activist that she has made an “Ass-(out of)-u-(and) me.”
As if, my focus on hierarchies of access to foster empowerment was her idea.
She is blind to the entanglement of her ego in the work.
She isn’t ready to pass the mic to our dark sister,
or to pay her to lead.
She is comfortable as the voice, the leading “do-gooder.” But her challenge is simply to be better.
She is the younger version of the gatekeeper. These women of excellence know a lot. If you are from my parents’ country of origin, you will know what I mean by this.
As if, she had my lived experience.
Only the wind of tsunamis can imagine the destruction I could produce with my tongue.
I hold it.
I promise to breathe in his honor instead.
I see no stranger*, but the more you laud yourselves, the less I can feel the spirit of this great work, and the more I see the return of self-absorption.
That momentary pause for reflection in that original pivot slips away. The terror of
“I can’t breathe”
is yesterday’s news to you.
Couldn’t you hold on to it for one moment more
before saying goodbye?
Kiss that lover who melted every ice wall you put up
who soaked in your vulnerabilities as if they were shared, lived-in skin whose bruises and sores were not too much to handle, and who tended to those wounds with every gentle caress?
No. You are back to surviving in the literal wake of others not like you.
My elders dying on the streets from hate crimes are simply foreign to you, distanced by how you take refuge in focusing first on one thing. You abdicate your responsibilities to see and share from your seat of authority, from your place of privilege.
Yesterday, those hate crimes were your post-election, ineffective hashtags.
Then, you let him, the White terrorist whose face you’ve already seen multiple times, slaughter my sisters. He is your progeny.
It matters that I, as an Asian (as you call me), or rather,
as a Chinese-Filipino-Spanish American (as I know me), want to focus first on
the fundamental truth that
Black Lives Matter.
It matters that we model for others what it means to show up
and take a stand for each other,
how we do that with the different colors and
shades of skin we inhabit.
It matters too that my dark and sacred sister will know how to speak of my precious elders,
even if you cannot.
In grace, her blood boils too, and she will give space to it.
She knows the sorrow of my silent sisters, their sons, daughters, and children.
But you women of excellence, must you show up brightest at the table with the greenest adornments, gleaming gold now in the shroud of my sisters?
Must you be the arbiter of whose mind matters, whose hearts we care about, and whose spirits we crush? Why do you show up with so little appreciation for others?
Must all the people of color line up in a neat and orderly queue
so that you can handle it,
so you can process how to focus?
The earth in all her complexity does not tell the grass to stop growing in order for the apple, pear, plum, and quince trees to bear fruit.
There is a time and season for it all.
There is a time and season for us all to bear fruit.
Follow mother nature to know endless bounty,
remembrance and respect for every living being
and a resting place for that which is dead.
Having no place to put this dis-ease of discontent with humanity
where once I had such unbridled and deep love,
I can only offer it to the magnificence of water.
Pull it away from me in low tide,
wash me in imagined forgiveness
until rage runs shallow
leaving only jutting rocks and pebbles
until the emptiness becomes as real as the sun’s violet rays
reflecting its intensity at dusk at that perfect angle
where the blurred brightness below opens like a peaceful portal to the hidden beauty and danger of what could swallow us up.
*“see no stranger” is a concept from the Sikh Muslim tradition shared by activist and civil rights lawyer, Valarie Kaur, who advocates for revolutionary love.
© 2021 Rufina C. Garay, J.D. All Rights Reserved.
FoodLove 6: Dr. Darshan Elena Campos
Episode 6: Dr. Darshan Elena Campos
Meet Dr. Darshan Elena Campos, a Fulbright specialist in education, former professor at Stanford and other higher education institutions, domestic violence survivor/thriver, healer, and remarkable decolonizing activist.
Of her lineage, Darshan says that “she was raised on welfare and flea market capitalism by her single Askenazi mother in a small coastal community on ancestral Awaswas territory in a town now named Santa Cruz, California. Her father, a Boricua born on ancestral Lenape territory, has been missing, homeless, or incarcerated for most of her life — and his own.”
Through indigenous and intuitive ways in Borikén, she continues to heal herself and marginalized communities through land, seeds, trees, and a new business model for this era.
Darshan lives the practice of her work. In her “medicine wheel” for a reimagined paradigm for business and decolonialized business education, she addresses “all dimensions of ecological resilience as central to actualizing an organization/product/brand.”
Listen to her as she describes testing the method for viability via several projects, including Somos Semillas Antillanas (a mobile seed library of indigenous plants and trees), Vivero Sin Nombre / No Name Nursery, a native tree nursery that gives Indigenous trees such as guamá, níspero, guayaba, and guanábana to people who love them.
Dr. Campos writes, “the name Vivero Sin Nombre talks to our grief as Boricua, as people of the Indigenous Black Caribbean who have never known freedom. It calls attention to the 4645 Boricuas we lost in 2017 and the millions and millions of murders of First Peoples/Pueblos Originarios and Stolen Africans on our shores and across Turtle Island and Abya Yala since 1492 . . .” Her mother vision is “a #MigratingUniversity that teaches geologic, Indigenous, and local living histories and a #DecolonialBusinessAcademy that emphasizes #rematriation and reparations as central to business leadership.”
Dr. Darshan Elena Campos and Zulma Oliveras-Vega are co-founders of Fundación Yamoca Opia (Two Spirit Foundation), which provides rapid housing for queer, nonbinary, and trans youth who have been forced to flee their families and communities on Borikén, the biggest island of the archipelago of Puerto Rico.
Here is her recipe for Tree Love, a recipe for healing with a photo from me of trees on the bank of the Elwha River, a sacred place for salmon and our indigenous peoples here in the Pacific Northwest.
Tree Love
Ingredients
Instructions
- Let's step into nature and fall in love with local tree!
- If one tree calls your attention, hear its call. If it isn't a tree but a small grove of trees or an entire forest, look at each tree as its own being and one among family. What about this tree, grove or forest is calling to you? Leaves, flowers, scents? The texture of the trunks? The seeds scattered across the sidewalk or bare dirt? The crunch of leaves or their sounds on the wind?
- If you have the physical ability for touch, place your hands on its trunk. Alternatively, imagine the feeling of its bark on your flesh. Connect!
- If you sense a warm, living connection, pursue it across the seasons! Nourish the tree and your closest neighbors by gathering tree knowledge. What is the tree called by your area's first people? If the tree isn't Indigenous, how did it come to grow in your local area? Does the tree have medicinal uses or provide edible fruit or roots? How can you make a living, loving connection to this tree across the seasons of your life and your local ecosystem?
- As you move about your life, listen to the trees and all the life they nourish. Now ask yourself, how can you promote community reforestation?
FoodLove 5: Mackenzie Grinnell
Episode 4: Mackenzie Grinnell, Keeper and Teacher of Traditional Foods, and Two Hooligans Cider businessman
Listen to Jamestown S’Klallam tribe’s Mackenzie Grinnell, a Two Hooligans Cider businessman. He teaches traditional foods and ancestral love of the land to area high schoolers despite the tragedy of U.S. history with his tribe. At the heart of it, Mackenzie says, “My ancestors have always been part of this landscape with everything from the mountaintops into the waterways with the salmon and the seal that when we were removed, we weren’t the only ones getting sick eating this lard and eating this white flour, and getting diabetes. We didn’t have diabetes until the 1940’s. Now Native Americans have the highest diabetes rate.”
In the 1940’s on the Olympic Peninsula, indigenous peoples were severed from their food sources and forced to remain on reservation land unable to hunt and gather in ways to sustain themselves with proper nutrition.
Out of love for the land, his tribe, and people, Mackenzie offers kindness and grace to help others forge their own relationships with the land to gather sustainable nourishment. His work is the embodiment of FoodLove: The Space Between Terroir and the Tao of Food.
Learn more about Jamestown S’Klallam Tribal history.
Note: I’ve written to Gather Victoria for her Lemon Balm Stinging Nettle Cake recipe. If I hear back, I will share it. In the meantime, please go to her page and support her Patreon Account. She is a wealth of knowledge too.
FoodLove 4: Adrian Chitty
Episode 4: Adrian Chitty, artisanal artist-photographer
Adrian describes himself as someone with a left-brained upbringing who has fashioned a right-brained life in art. Leaving behind a career in IT, Adrian began to explore the making of things. Most recently, he has explored winemaking during a two-year internship and artist-in-residency with Rex Hill winery in Newberg, Oregon. His recent exhibit provides a unique portrait of wine-making processes that is both intimate and evocative of the clarity provided by the precision of the lines and geometric shapes his photography highlights. This ordering of shapes and lines out of the natural work environment is a hallmark of how Adrian has integrated his left-brained impulses with his art. His photographic compositions offer a powerful and disciplined appreciation for the dynamic, colorful, and alchemical process of winemaking. He offers an essential view of the people who work hard to produce the wine so easily poured at a table.
Adrian’s photography upends the romanticized version of wine-making with the intensive labor and beauty of it from behind-the-scenes. The interview invites you to imagine the images through dialogue and then to see the virtual exhibit at www. artisanalphoto.com
Adrian speaks to the cycle of creation from the point of harvest of the grapes and gives us a unique look at wine in the space between Terroir and the Tao of Food.
He also shares his personal take on the environment, food waste, and raising children to value the making of food. See his Claire’s cheesy quiche recipe below, a great one for kids to cook! Maybe we’ll get our kids together to make Alexander’s pizza next!
FoodLove includes love for the people who make our food and drink and love for the earth that provides the fruit to cultivate and transform into wine.
Claire's Cheesy Quiche
Ingredients
Instructions
- For the crust:
- Put the white flour, wholewheat flour and butter in the bowl of a food processor.
- Pulse the food processor until the ingredients are mixed and look a bit like oatmeal.
- Add 2 ½ Tbsp ice water a little at a time while pulsing. Process until the ingredients clump together and start to form a ball.
- Shape the dough into a ball, wrap in clingfilm, and put in the refrigerator for a minimum of 20 minutes.
- After the dough has rested, roll it out on a floured surface, and line a 9”/23cm pie tin.
- Put the lined pie tin back in the refrigerator, again for a minimum of 20 minutes.
- For the filling:
- While the pastry is resting, sauté the onion or leek (or even better, onion and leek), and allow to cool to room temperature.
- Preheat the oven to 375F.
- Thoroughly mix together the eggs and milk
- Add a couple of good handfuls of cheese.
- Put the onions/leeks in the lined pie tin.
- Pour the egg/milk/cheese mixture on top.
- Bake for about 40 minutes, until the top is nice and brown and the filling is set.
- Place in the center of the table and invite your family to EAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Notes:
Thanks to Adrian and Claire for this wholesome cheesy quiche that demonstrates the beauty of baking together and nourishing each other!
FoodLove 3: Crystie Kisler
Episode 3: Crystie Kisler of Finnriver, Chimacum Center, and Community Wellness Project
In this episode of FoodLove, meet Crystie Kisler, femme phenom of the innovative cider beverage business, Finnriver Farm & Cidery where Crystie calls for both community connection, activism, and inclusion at every turn. She studied the Tao de Ching deeply while in college and her learning has manifested into a holistic approach to stewardship of the agrarian land and community in the Chimacum Valley. Together with partners and others, she is the visionary behind many important organizations and movements in food security and land equity. Her body of work to create a safe space to talk about race in the midst of music and everyday celebration is a beauty to behold at Finnriver. The landscape of the orchards near picnic tables at which cider can be sipped in the company of family and friends is the essence of FoodLove: The Space Between Terroir and the Tao of Food.