Organic Marin

What seems sometimes just yesterday but is actually years ago, I visited a friend who had moved to Marin County to work for/begin a restaurant consulting firm. I saw pictures from that trip recently in cleaning through boxes -- piles of oyster shells (and a memory of learning about oyster farming), bicycling on Angel Island, and flying (yes, I even had a moment when I was ostensibly maneuvering the plane) in a small plane over San Francisco Bay and Marin County). I remember the brown-y yellow of the dry hills and the sun.  All this came to mind when I opened the mail a while ago and found Organic Marin: Recipes from Land to Table by Tim Porter and Farina Wong Kingsley. With a cover beautifully depicting veggies in a basket (the radishes are particularly attractive), the hard back book opened immediately to a page (47) with other memories because of its short description of Cowgirl Creamery. Why is this memorable? On a much more recent trip to San Francisco, and the swell Ferry Plaza Farmer's Market, I discovered this excellent cheese, the Straus Family Creamery (depicted on p. 141) and McEvoy Olive Oil (p.67) , for example. And there's always Green Gulch Farm (see p. 110), the farm which is linked forever in my mind to the San Francisco Zen Center and to their restaurant, Greens. Photographer Tim Porter is described on the backleaf as having "an extensive background in newspaper and magazine journalism and as co-author of News, Improved: How America's Newspapers are Learning to Change. Farina Wong Kingsley  is described as "a culinary instructor at Tante Marie's Cooking School in San Francisco and a consulting chef for San Francisco's Center for Culinary Development" as well as a "contributor to numerous cookbooks." More information appears there, as well, on Marin Magazine, the book's producer.  Most crucial, perhaps, is the following statement from the front leaf of the book: 

proceeds of this book support Marin Organic's school lunch program which helps serve 12,000 lunches a week with food grown in Marin County. 

So: memories. An evocative book in many ways. But what about Organic Marin itself? It is filled with beautiful photographs and tempting recipes, along with snippets of thises and thats (see above) and a resource list in the back. Arranged seasonally, the focus is also very much on local foods, some of which will most definitely not be local for, say, those of us in the Finger Lakes. And yet, this is, the book claims, the original site of much of today's emphasis on local, on organic, on eco-friendly/sustainable agriculture, etcetera. The book uses the phrase "community of values" well --and makes the important point, too, that for a sustainable farm to be sustainable it needs income! Embedded in all this are what I think of as biographies (?) of organizations -- ranches and farms, honorign both the land and those who work with that land. (Honoring, indeed, both hard work and fun, as many of those quoted make evident.) The book also shares a vision we might all take up: linking organic farmers to government with an eventual goal of creating an organic county. Now there's a goal upstate NY might share; might Ontario County adopt a similar goal? 

Beyond all this, Organic Marin is certainly a book with tempting recipes for dishes from start to finish of a meal including, for example:

Blood Orange and Star Anise-Braised Pork

Gnocchi with Morels and Peas 

Braised Short Ribs with Candied Meyer Lemon Gremolata

Double Chocolate Bread Pudding

(Yes, I am on to comfort food today). The recipes come from restaurants from the San francisco Bay Area that support local organic farmers and ranchers. (Of course, not all ingredients are local even to Marin County.) And they definitely meet their stated goal: to inspire. 

For another review of this book, click here. For Marin Organic, the association of organic producers highlighted in the book, click away here. And for Marin Agricultural Land Trust, move your mouse here and click!