Introduction – Why does a city girl become a farmer anyway?

My interest in food began soon after I graduated from college and found myself living in a small, rural town with little to entertain me during long winter evenings. I began making frequent trips to the 24hr grocery, wandering the extensive produce aisles. I purchased the most unusual items I could find – foods I’d never cooked before, and some I’d never heard of. Week by week, foods like Brussels sprouts (never cooked), fennel bulbs (never cooked), and celeriac (never heard of) appeared on my kitchen table in unique and often tasty dishes. I cultivated a collection of cookbooks and culinary magazines and began to experiment with a variety of ingredients and types of dishes. I used my grandmother’s pasta machine to make my own noodles, worked to perfect my French bread recipe proportions and technique, and spent countless hours in front of my vintage stove stirring something. Though I was still crazy for the thin burgers and hand-cut fries served up at the local summer-only ice cream shop, I was quickly becoming a foodie. A move to San Francisco seemed imminent.

Through all of my culinary adventures, I always paused to wonder where my ingredients had come from. Where do kumquats grow, anyway? If horseradish is a root, what does the plant look like? How do all root vegetables look above ground, for that matter? Why are raspberries always so expensive when I can find black raspberries growing wild each summer? I began reading about the history of food – broadly and liberally, from high-brown culinary exposes in Gourmet magazine to the history of food policy in the US. I, like most Americans, had never imagined that something as simple as an ear of corn could have so much politics and controversy behind each kernel. I wanted to know more so I could answer my questions about the ingredients I was using, but more importantly, so I could be conscious about what I was putting into my body. What better way to learn than to live as a farmer?

San Francisco proved to be a great place to eat incredible food and be a part of a community largely cognizant of their power as food purchasers. Still, much of the food consumed in the city isn’t grown in the city, and though California has incredible food resources, many foods come from far and wide. With abundant small farms surrounding the Bay area, why does much of the organic produce available trace back to large-scale “organic” operations? How do small farmers make a living? And if I want to grow my own salad mix, what will it take? I decided to find out.

I worked on an organic farm one summer during college, so I sort of knew what to expect. I say ‘ort of because the farm I worked at then was more of an oversized garden, and the owners practiced what I’d call “farming lite.” We weeded and harvested vegetables much of the day, but never worked between lunch and 3pm, and always finished in time for an early dinner. Though there was a small degree of grunt work (endless wheelbarrows of mulch and compost) much of the summer was spent doing easy work like washing salad greens and picking flowers for wedding arrangements. So, I only knew that my experiences traveling to farms around the world were likely to prove more challenging. With the hope that added challenge would amount to added knowledge about food and plant systems, I set off to my first stop: Brightwood Farm & Vineyard in Madison County, Virginia.

Brightwood Sign on Lillard's Ford Road