I’m an American with Midwestern roots raised on French fries, potato chips, and meat and potato dinners. I’ve been known to order mashed potatoes for dessert (I’m not joking), lived on baked potatoes and salsa in college, and generally think scalloped potatoes are manna from heaven (on par with a classic, homemade extra cheesy mac n’ cheese.) However, I didn’t’ truly appreciate the sheer joy of the potato until I had an opportunity to harvest rows and rows of them on a New Zealand family farm. I didn’t know that this ubiquitous part of my existence, this foodstuff I took for granted for so long, was such a treasure.

While a WWOOF volunteer in Nuhaka, on the East Cape of New Zealand’s north island, I happily trailed behind a tractor, knees and hands deep in dirt, to gather brown, yellow, and purple gems as they popped up from the earth. Harvesting felt like I was back in the schoolyard sandbox simply playing and discovering. Since the potato harvest was serious business for Neil and Linda, the owners of Woody Hollow Farm, the work went beyond the fun of searching for every potato that had grown in the field. We took crates and crates of them back to the work shed for sorting. Hours of work went into stamping the brown paper bags with the farm’s logo and more hours into bagging and weighing them for sale. And, I loved every minute connecting to this tuber and gained a new appreciation for its role in my life, as sustenance.

About 10 years ago, I stopped eating them all together. Low carb was all the rage and feeling a bit tubby I cut them out of my diet. I truly missed my mashers, but held firm to my restrictive boundaries. It was difficult, but I did it for a few years. A trip to Peru brought them back into my life as they are such a huge part of the native cuisine and are revered and appreciated for their diversity. Peruvians take great pride in cultivating a wide variety of them, in some places over 1200 kinds. The greatness of the potato, I discovered, is that it’s one of the most, if not most, efficient form of converting land and water into nutritious food. At 100 calories, no fat, and loaded with potassium and vitamin C, the potato is versatile and tasty to boot!

As much as I love the potato there is nothing like watching kids harvest and prepare them. The photo here is of my little friend Molly from New Zealand. She loved roaming the fields in her bare feet, dirt a constant under every nail, toes and fingers, and she was a great help in the kitchen when we prepared them for dinner. A few months ago, I got to watch a few dozen kids interact with potatoes when I volunteered to help my friend Chef Gabriel Cole conduct a potato party at Bret Harte Elementary School in San Francisco’s Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood. In January the students planted potatoes. While watching them grow they learned all about their origins, varieties, and how to prepare them. Then, in late May, they searched for them in the ground and learned all about the joy of an abundant harvest. In the end they’d grown over 100 pounds of russet, butterball, fingerling, yellow fin, red, and purple potatoes.

As a way to celebrate their harvest at the end of the school year, second through fifth graders participated in the potato party that transformed their garden classroom into an outdoor kitchen and dining room. We boiled the potatoes then dished them out to groups of students at tables. We offered them a variety of fixings like milk, butter, sour cream, chives, salt, and pepper and encouraged them to mash and smash. Then they appointed a taster who evaluated the flavor. Later the groups enjoyed eating their creations and comparing flavors.

One boy told us he didn’t like potatoes, but he liked fries. We explained that fries were made from potatoes much like the ones he planted and harvested. I think he had a hard time believing us, but when he tasted his own mashed creation, made from those same potatoes, he and everyone had to agree that “nothing beats potatoes you’ve grown.”

The potato love is abundant. Did you know that 2008 was dubbed “The International Year of the Potato” by the United Nations as one hope for alleviating word hunger? I even found an on-line potato museum co-founded by Meredith and Tom Hughes which boasts 1330 potato related items and covers the history and social influence of the potato along with a hilarious video of Myrtle Young, a potato chip collector, interviewed by Johnny Carson.

As one of the most popular crops on the planet, one that’s relatively easy to grow, and an edible that you can simply dig, heat, and eat, I can only hope that it’s diversity will reign and GMO potatoes won’t fly. (I read that in 2007 Greenpeace UK helped release a Russian study that found that genetically modified potatoes caused cancerous tumors in rats. The results were released after an eight-year court battle with the biotech industry.)

I’m happy to report there are a variety of sustainable potato farming projects in the works. The Northeast Organic Farming Association Sustainable Potato Project helps growers develop best practices for organic potato production and facilitates seed sharing initiatives. The Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides, based in Eugene, Oregon runs a sustainable agriculture program that focuses primarily on potatoes because it’s the most chemically intensive crop in their area. I hope these programs and others will help alleviate any tolls that intensive mono-crop potato production has exacted in terms of water contamination and soil degradation and promote local production and increase diversity in our nation’s markets.

Now that potato salad season is heating up (I do yogurt instead of mayo), I enjoy my local potatoes that come in my CSA box and the ones I buy at my local farmers market. I’m fortunate that way. They taste so much better than the Russets in the five-pound bags Mom bought at Kroger.

I hope that local, organic, sustainably-grown potatoes get the recognition they deserve. And, that people don’t fall prey to impostors like Frito Lay, who in May announced their local potato chip campaign. Derided by bloggers local-washing campaigns like these need to be challenged by consumers and activists alike.

Most recently I got a chance to harvest some backyard potatoes for dinner. At a friend’s homestead up in Redwood Valley, in the midst of inland Mendocino County, my smile widened as I got to dig my hands into the earth and extract four gorgeous jewels for roasting. I felt complete.

That harvest inspired this piece and in preparation I re-read Michael Pollan’s Botany of Desire for a little dose of history and to just get in touch with the potato world as Monsanto sees it. Recalling the joy of those garden-variety potatoes it was hard to re-read Pollan’s account of his visit to Monsanto where “the cheerful staff horticulturist” invited him to “don latex gloves and help her transplant pinkie-sized plantlets from their petri dishes to small pots with customized soil.”

In light of the Frito Lay local campaign and increased use of GMOs, we have to stay vigilant about this most cherished tuber. And, as Tom Hughes, co-founder of The Potato Museum, said in a radio interview with Terry Gross, “we honor the potato as we honor ourselves.”

In response to some of the worst economic times since the Great Depression, I’m excited to present my “Grow. Cook. Grub.” series.  With unemployment climbing, diet-related illnesses increasing, and health care costs sky-rocketing, more and more people are looking to feed themselves healthfully, simply, and cheaply.  Using my family and community as an example, I will show readers how easy it is to cook health-promoting, delicious, and inexpensive meals year round using food from my home garden, CSA, and local farmer’s markets.

Sweet Sweetback’s Salad with Roasted Beet Vinaigrette

Yield: 4 to 6 servings

Soundtrack (all songs that contain samples of Melvin Van Peebles’ music):

“30 Cops Or More” by Boogie Down Productions from Edutainment
“The Finest” MF DOOM from Operation Doomsday
“Come on Feet” by Quasimoto from The Unseen
“Hydrant Game” by Quasimoto from The Further Adventures of Lord Quas

Film: How to Eat Your Watermelon in White Company (and Enjoy It) (2005), directed by Joe Angio. This documentary chronicles Melvin Van Peeble’s astonishing career.

In March 2008 I went to Los Angeles to film an episode for MVP’s Greenhouse, a television series that follows Mario Van Peebles, his wife, their five children, and his father (Melvin Van Peebles) as they renovate their LA home in an environmentally friendly manner and embrace a more sustainable lifestyle. I was excited to help Mario prepare a meal, but I was overjoyed to be in the presence of Melvin.

I created this salad not so much in honor of Melvin’s cult classic Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song or the moving biopic—Badasssss—written and directed by Mario, but more so for Melvin’s influence on me as a creative person. In addition to being a screenwriter, director, actor, and film editor, Melvin’s creative pursuits include being a painter, sculptor, children’s book author, dancer, novelist, journalist, translator, composer, recording artist, playwright, playboy, Broadway producer, and stockbroker (the first African American to hold a seat on the American Stock Exchange). And at 77 years old he’s still going strong. Black genius indeed.

Like Sweetback, the protagonist of Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song, this salad is bold (beets), bitter (argula), earthy (walnuts), and sweet (agave-sugar).

4 medium beets, scrubbed, tops trimmed, root tails left intact
Coarse sea salt
4 tablespoons plus 4 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1/2 teaspoon agave nectar
Freshly ground white pepper
3 large bunches arugula, trimmed and roughly chopped (6 to 7 cups)
1 1/2 cups Candied Walnuts ( see Vegan Soul Kitchen)

*Combine the beets, 3 quarts cold water, and 1 teaspoon salt in a medium pot over high heat. Boil uncovered for 20 to 30 minutes, or until the beets are easily pierced with a knife. Drain. Peel the beets by holding them under cold running water and rubbing their skins off with your fingers or a clean towel.

*Preheat oven to 400°F.

*Trim the tails off the bottom of the beets. Reserve two of them for the vinaigrette and compost the others. Cut the beets into 1/4-inch dice. In a medium bowl, toss the diced beets with 4 teaspoons of the olive oil. Transfer them to a parchment-lined baking sheet and roast for 15 minutes, stirring every 5 minutes to ensure even cooking. Remove the beets from the oven, transfer them back into the bowl just used, and toss with 2 tablespoons of red wine vinegar. Return to the baking sheet and cook for an additional 5 minutes. Set them aside to cool.

* In a blender, combine the reserved roasted beet tails with the remaining red wine vinegar, mustard, 1/2 teaspoon agave nectar, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and white pepper to taste. Blend while slowly pouring in 4 tablespoons of olive oil. If needed, add more salt to taste.

*Place the arugula pieces in a large serving bowl, add the roasted beets on top, and add the candied walnuts on top of that. Immediately before serving, toss well with just enough of the vinaigrette to coat.

Last year we built a fortress, created to deter deer, raccoons, skunks, squirrels, and wild pigs from our own little slice of edible possibility. Today we are in the middle of planting our spring garden in this enclosure, now just a blank, dark dirt slate of bumpy rows and discarded piles of weeds. Shaping the earth is like frosting a chocolate cake, at least to this baker’s mind, and has inspired my next birthday party creation. Right now, though, it is time to focus on what plants will grow. 

Dave spent at least the last month researching, sorting, and picking out seeds, some from his own collection and some from rare seed catalogues and websites. So far, we have some old standbys such as carrots, beets, lettuces, radishes, turnips and an unintended sugar-snap pea hybrid from saved seed; and some new editions like asparagus, fenugreek, cumin, and a cilantro from Oaxaca. Dave enjoys the excitement of the seed selection process in much the same way some of us might find joy in the finest Parisian patisserie (there I go again with the baked goods). To say the least, we now have a ridiculously large stock of potential food, awaiting the elements to bring life. No matter what we actually choose though, it is always a wild card what will actually grow, flourish, and become. Some winter squash seeds from a few years ago became a hybrid this last season, morphing from a basic butternut (or what we thought was basic) to an interesting and delicious mystery.

The newness of spring also brings new ideas of what we will soon eat, and projects of how to make these gems last as long as they can. Will we finally start our homemade grapefruit bitters for cocktails? How about more preserved Meyer lemons with some interesting herbs? Or maybe just classic pickled beets with a touch of clove? But right there lays the nexus of a problem I find myself grappling with time and again. After the harvest, the glean, the washing and prep, the brining and boiling and sealing and storing, I can’t bring myself to actually EAT what I have made. It is too special. I find myself saving it for the ultimate occasion and then before I know it, another season has arrived along with another cratefull of the very same produce that is caged within my mason jars. Some could compare this self-inflicted issue to saving a nice bottle of wine too long, year after year for that one perfect moment, instead of enjoying it at its recommended prime. Fellow Civil Eats contributor and environment editor Aaron French recently touched upon this issue, citing a Harvard Business Review article about “how people place an unreasonably high value on products they made or assembled themselves” via “The IKEA Effect”. The lesson for me is to start treating every day like it’s worthy of jam, no matter how rare or involved or alone or hurried things may be.

So here is a recipe for preserves that I am entitling “Jam for NOW”. Write that in thick black Sharpie on the top of your canning lids and follow the command. Use the finest fruit you can get your hands on, and even if you only get enough to make a couple of jars, listen to your deepest inner voice when it declares, “I want blackberry jam on my toast today!”

Jam for NOW

(Makes about 4 pints)

9 cups fresh blackberries (or any other berry or combination)
6 cups sugar
Juice of 2 lemons

Wash the berries, making sure to remove any with signs of mold, and place in a large, non-aluminum saucepan. Crush the berries (or blend with an immersion blender). Add sugar and lemon juice. Bring slowly to a boil, stirring occasionally until sugar is dissolved. Cook until desired thickness is achieved, stirring to prevent burning. Remove from heat and fill hot jam into hot, sterile jars, leaving ¼-inch space from the top. Wipe rims of jars with a dampened, clean towel before securing each with a two-piece canning lid. Process the jars for about 10 minutes in boiling water to seal. Remove from water with tongs and let sit on a countertop to cool before storing.

I’ve always possessed a secret desire to be placed in a situation where I would have to rely merely upon my wits, resourcefulness and surroundings to survive. So sometimes I pretend that Armageddon has come along, just to prepare for the unexpected. It’s not uncommon for friends to tell me I would be one of their top picks if faced with the infamous “who would you want if you were trapped on a deserted island” question, primarily due to my foraging skills. Although flattered, I have to admit that it’s really not as hard as one might imagine to fend or oneself in an urban landscape, even a desert urban landscape!

One of the Valley’s celebrated locavore chefs, Payton Curry of Digestif  left Quince in San Francisco a few years ago for Arizona. His boss in California told him he’d be committing “career suicide because nothing grows in the desert.” Curry has since found this statement to be severely unfounded. It’s almost as if Californians, to uphold their breadbasket image, have this urban legend going around that everything immediately east of the Golden State is devoid of life. This mindset not only persists in California but Arizona as well. Time and again I find myself explaining to native Arizonans that food can actually come from plants growing in their home state. Granted, for a few months out of the year all we really get is okra, chilis and tepary beans. However, Arizona is unique in that it actually has two growing seasons and lots of sun… all you need is water! The issue of water is an entirely separate debate, which will not be discussed in this article. I will say that there are people and programs growing and promoting sustainable food production in Arizona such as The Urban Farm and The Phoenix Permaculture Guild.

The Sonoran Desert of Arizona may not adhere to my deserted island fantasies of spearing giant fish and hitting down coconuts but it has its own way of providing. That is, if you know where to look! Below are just a few of the urban desert treasures, both indigenous and otherwise, that can be found on public grounds and in your own (or in your neighbor’s) backyard.

Edible Cacti
Something you’ll quickly learn when harvesting desert goods is that, in order to survive, almost all plants have thorns: Do not be deterred! Cacti have a multitude of uses and also possess nutritional and healing properties. The most well-know edible cacti, the prickly pear cactus, is a double bonus because you not only eat the fruit but the pads of the cactus as well. The pads can be grilled, steamed, sautéed or any other method you’d do with a vegetable like bell peppers. The fruit can be juiced (my favorite is for margaritas, candied, pickled or eaten raw.)

There are plenty of websites with detailed instructions on how to go about it. Four good tips for any cactus fruit are: 1. wear gloves, 2. use tongs when picking, 3. get the spines off using heat, rubbing, picking etc., and, 4. process, which varies among types of fruit. Prickly pear cacti can be found in abundance in a variety of locations including alongside highways, public grounds and vacant lots during the fall harvest season.

Two other less well-known edible cacti include the cholla cactus, which is in the same family as prickly pear, and the fruit of the barrel cactus. The buds of the cholla, harvested in late winter/early spring, can be eaten as a vegetable and are well known for their high calcium content – two tablespoons have more calcium than a glass of milk! The barrel cactus looks like its name and, in springtime, miniature pineapple-looking fruit appears on top. Crazy, but true. The fruit have dark black seeds that can be eaten as you’d eat any seed and is very tart and great for making candy. Both the barrel and cholla variety can be found while hiking and in many neighborhoods.

Mesquite
I find mesquite to be Arizona’s most underappreciated indigenous ingredient. The tan pods, which run rampant around the valley and typically go unused, can be ground into a gluten-free flour, have a low glycemic index and are high in fiber and antioxidants. A special mill is needed to grind mesquite into flour and once a year, during the fall harvest, the Downtown Phoenix Farmers’ Market has a mill available to the public. I have heard that the pods can also be ground in a coffee grinder, but have yet to try it. The flour has a lovely sweet-smokey taste and can be used in numerous ways, such as in baked goods, sprinkled in oatmeal or rubbed on meats for flavor.

Dates
I have been fortunate in that I have access to plenty of dates through the Campus Harvest Program at ASU. Most dates grow too high for typical foraging access but keep your eye out for the low hanging gems on certain palm trees. Dates can be eaten just as they are or made into items such as date jam, my personal favorite!

Citrus
Although not indigenous to Arizona, citrus is one of “The Four C’s” of Arizona because so many citrus trees have been planted in the state. Citrus is extremely easy to come by, as most people have more than they can handle, so don’t hesitate to ask your neighbor!

A common phrase here is “Love Phoenix or Leave Phoenix” and although I will be leaving before the summer hits for other opportunities on pastures a little less “water challenged,” I will always hold a special place in my heart for Arizona and the harvest that abounds.

In response to some of the worst economic times since the Great Depression, I’m excited to launch my “Grow. Cook. Grub.” series.  With unemployment climbing, diet-related illnesses increasing, and health care costs sky-rocketing, more and more people are looking to feed themselves healthfully, simply, and cheaply.  Using my family and community as an example, I will show readers how easy it is to cook health-promoting, delicious, and inexpensive meals year round using food from my home garden, CSA, and local farmer’s markets. Smoky Black-eyed Peas Yield: 8 to 10 servings Soundtrack:  “Money Jungle” by Duke Ellington With Charles Mingus & Max Roach from Money Jungle If you’ve read my first book, Grub, you already know that eating black-eyed peas and greens on New Year’s Day is a ritual among Southerners to help usher in a year of good luck and prosperity (bep = copper and greens = dollars).  I forgot to buy black eyed-peas before New Year’s Day, so I was in a bit of a panic trying to get my hands on some to cook up before the day ended (since most stores were closed).  I called a few friends to see if anyone had some that they could share with me, and my neighbor Luna had a bag of fresh black-eyed peas that she had bought from the Mandela’s Farmer’s Market in West Oakland.  Score. This is the recipe that I created with Luna’s fresh peas.  I made a larger serving so that I could give her half.  I had most of the staples on hand, and I got the fresh herbs from my front-yard planter boxes.  If using dried black-eyed peas reduce the amount of peas to 1 1/2 cup then sort, soak, drain, and rinse them before cooking.  Like most beans, this dish tastes much more flavorful after they have sat in the broth overnight. 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil 1 large onion, diced 4 cloves garlic, minced 3 cups fresh black-eyed peas 1 (3-inch) piece kombu 2 large dried chipotle chilies Simple Stock (see recipe below) 1 1/2 teaspoon coarse sea salt 1/2 teaspoon fresh thyme White pepper • In a skillet over low heat, warm the oil.  Add the onion and sauté until the onions start to caramelize, about 10 minutes. • Stir in the garlic and sauté for 2 minutes more. • Transfer the mixture to a medium saucepan.  Add the black-eyed peas, kombu, chiles, and enough Simple Stock to cover. • Over high heat, bring to a boil.  Quickly reduce the heat to medium and simmer, covered, until almost tender, about 1 hour and 15 minutes.  Add the salt and simmer for another 15 minutes, until tender.  Add the thyme and cook for 5 more minutes.  Remove kombu with a slotted spoon. • Season with white pepper to taste and serve hot with or without the gravy along with greens and cornbread. Simple Stock Yield:  about 1 1/2 quart Soundtrack: “Home” by The Modern Jazz Quartet from Blues At Carnegie Hall This stock is all-purpose and can be used whenever a vegetable stock is called for.  In addition to the suggested ingredients below, you can add the tough stems and trimmings from leafy greens and other vegetables. 2 large onions, quartered (include skin) 1 large carrot, thinly sliced 4 celery ribs, thinly sliced 8 ounces button mushrooms, thinly sliced (stems included) 1 whole garlic bulb, unpeeled, broken up, and smashed with the back of a knife 2 bay leaves 3 sprigs fresh thyme 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper 9 cups water • In a stockpot over medium-high heat combine all the ingredients, bring to a boil, reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer, uncovered until the vegetables are meltingly tender, about 1 hour. • Strain the vegetables, pressing down on them to extract all their liquids.  Discard (and compost) the cooked vegetables.