This shot was taken from a helicopter flying over Apricot Lane Farms.  Do you see the psychedelic-looking block towards the bottom of the photo?  That’s what we call Block M, or the “Fruit Basket.”  Seventy-four varieties of fruit call that space home, and the paths that wind throughout it are designed to offer horse drawn carriage-rides through the blooming trees, one day.  I love this photo because it gives me new perspective on this place we call home.

The lingering promise of Morel Mushroom hunting supercharged an already exciting trip to Montana, this past June.  For as long as I’ve been obsessed with food, I’ve had frequent visions of traipsing through some deep, dark forest alongside some all-knowing mushroom expert, with a bag absolutely overflowing with loot.  The dreams usually end with a sharp right past a gigantic redwood to find Jamie Oliver & Gennaro Contaldo huddled around a warming cast iron skillet, ready to teach me mind-blowing tricks with my gatherings.  That’ll do.

I’m obviously standing a bit far back in the picture above, but metaphorically, the new horses at Apricot Lane really do feel this big.  They’re beasts.  Big creatures with soft spirits, they’ll only crush you accidentally.  After a long, hot trip cross-country, Johhny & Frankie arrived disheveled with cloudy eyes.  I don’t know if it was the grain they were feeding them or sadness, but those eyes have now cleared, thankfully.  The sight of those beasts standing on Apricot Lane’s fresh green grass skipped my heart and paused my breathe.  Black and green are surprisingly lovely colors together. 

One of the major pests of Southern CA is the pesky snail.  In the spring and early summer, they’re everywhere, and to farm organically, this means lots of labor hours spent distributing natural granular snail bait to each orchard tree.  To combat the issue, John raised 100 Khaki Campbell Ducks this winter, a breed known for an insatiable appetite for escargot.  In the spring, using electric fencing, John allowed the ducks to roam the orchard, moving them weekly and monitoring their progress by literally counting the before and after.  The results were obvious.  We’re talking a 300 snail count in the morning and a count of 10 by end-of-day… real numbers.  It was working.

Most people cook.  Some people cook well, others really well.  And a very few folks cook in a way that fills up our soul, leaving our belly content and our mind relaxed.  Everything feels balanced and good.  Simple, yet perfect.  They make it look and feel easy.  Those cooks give a true gift through the act of feeding.  They share their art, their soul, and in turn, we feel their knowledge and relax, knowing that someone else carried the responsibility of our nourishment.  We may not even consciously know this is happening – things just taste delicious, but if we stay quiet and feel, it is.  Recently, John and I were blessed with such a meal.

Mom visited last month, and when she did, carrots ruled the garden, a bit of a dictatorship.  They needed thinned badly, and like she does, Mom made things feel better.  As a result of her effort, we lunched on creamy carrot soup with a side of buttery carrots, which we later named Dilly Carrots.  The side was such a hit, she made it again for our volunteer dinner the next evening, and receiving the best kudos any chef could hear, mom was asked, “Can I get that recipe?” by this sweet person below.

You know movies like The Princess Dairies or Cinderella, where a young girl gets plucked from her modest upbringing and into the life of a princess?

I’m guessing you could fill in the gaps from here, but I’m gonna tell the story anyway.

On the farm, we have what are called WWOOFers.  They come from all over the world to trade hard work for knowledge of organic farming.  Luckily, because these typically early 20’s folks are passionate about something as conscious as organics, they tend to be a really nice crop of people.  Recently, we had our first international WWOOFer, from Germany.  Imagine the courage it takes to hop on a plane to spend 6 weeks with a farming family you know not a minute more than a Skype call… in a different country… that speaks a different language.  Alina was quiet for the first few weeks, but not shy.  Her thoughtful confidence and attention to detail slowly established her place as a very trusted part of the team.  She’s below…

We’re planting trees over here at Apricot Lane Farms! For reals… 2,010 little deciduous (meaning – goes dormant in the winter) arrived last week.  The project is a 20-acre block that we nicknamed “The Fruit Basket”, before we learned that there is some sort of sexual connotation to that term.  Doh… but, too late.  It had stuck.  The citrus trees aren’t arriving until end of March, but here’s the list of our future ingredients.

Apricot Lane Farms officially has two new compost piles, almost three – one day we’ll have as many as 6.  Aren’t we big.  The picture above shows one of these piles in front of the trees it will one day nourish – my heart’s a flutter.  No puny piles here, but 100 – 200 foot rows designed to create compost for our many thousands of hungry fruit trees.  Merging the detailed approach Biodynamic farming and 130-acres of production is not easy, but holy cow, does it feel good.  From a cook’s perspective, every effort is for one singular goal – great food.