Farm Trips: a north Alabama jaunt

Last weekend, Rashmi and I made a trip up to north Alabama to visit her folks and a few farms in that part of the state. We left Friday afternoon, after a careful consideration of what we could bring to eat for the next 24 hours. Travel within the state becomes a whole new adventure when you're restricted by what you can eat. Gone are the gas stations and their Moon Pies, the fast food pick me up, the Cracker Barrels with their greasy biscuits. Instead, you become a time traveler. How much hard tack and cured meats are we going to need for the long haul across the prairie?

We brought a steak to share with Rashmi's parents and some sweet potatoes for ourselves. They provided the last few sprigs of kale from their garden - the Beckers are indeed a kale loving family. The next day for breakfast we enjoyed a few eggs, scrambled up with an onion and some yogurt from Wrights Dairy. Then, it was off to the first farm.

1. Jack O Lantern Farms - Muscle Shoals - After visiting Jack O Lantern's website and being quite impressed by the amount of local produce offered at their Saturday market, I gave them a call to make sure I wasn't missing something. Steve Carpenter and his wife Carol run the farm. Steve assured me that most everything available at the market was grown within the state, and gave me a brief outline of what was being offered: tomatoes, basil, lettuce, cucumbers, peppers, potatoes and more. That, and the farm is Certified Naturally Grown. Now you may be thinking, as I was, that there's no way a tomato grown in the ground could be up in Alabama right now - especially north Alabama. You're right. But Jack O Lantern operates two large greenhouses where they grow much of their produce hydroponically in the off season. Part of what we set out to do in this project is to rediscover seasons. Eating hydroponic vegetables seems to undermine that goal. Point taken. However, another part of our project is seeing what's available, when it's available, and where. Personally I'm conflicted about hydroponics. On the one hand, it's not a fully sustainable model, it's not in the ground, the nutrients supplied to the vegetables are a concoction cooked up in a lab somewhere, and, as I mentioned, it negates the idea of seasons. Just ask someone involved with sustainable agriculture about hydroponics and they will immediately turn their nose up at the idea. But, Steve supplies much of his produce to local restaurants in the Shoals area in addition to the throngs of folks visiting his market. The Marriot (one of his largest customers) isn't about to stop serving fresh lettuce and tomatoes in their salads just because it's April. So, is it better for that lettuce and tomato to have come down the street from a small scale hydroponic grower, or for them to have been trucked in across Mexico, their provenance and growing methods unknown to the average eater? We loaded up on their produce - squash, zucchini, peppers, tomatoes, and lettuce from Jack O Lantern, and potatoes (the last left over in the cellar from last year), eggplants, sweet potatoes, and hot peppers from growers down in south Alabama. Steve is trying to set up a network of farmers across the state. He gets hot peppers from south Alabama, and the grower there gets his tomatoes to sell at market. It's small scale solutions like this that could make eating Alabama feasible for more than just the four of us.

2. Rosita's Farm, Hartselle - At Rosita's we were welcomed by Karen Wynne (director of the Alabama Sustainable Agriculture Network), her husband Santiago, and their precious newborn Margarita. Rosita's has chickens, cattle, and pork available throughout the year. We were there with the expressed goal of bacon, and they did not disappoint. First, we were treated to a farm tour led by the farm's namesake - their dog Rosita. A handful of piglets roamed around in the pen, while chickens wandered near their hen houses - all adorned with rescued campaign signs otherwise headed for the landfill after an election. Santiago finds them to be a perfect construction material because of their durability, weatherproofness, and price. We had a great conversation about our project and as we were leaving Karen went back to her office and emerged with a can of peas from China. Someone had given them to her years ago, and she thought that we might get inspiration from them now. The fact that somehow it makes sense for typical green peas to be grown in China and shipped here for an American market using an importer in LA, suggests the lunacy of our foodways. Now the can sits on my shelf. Thanks Karen. But the thanks doesn't end with the untouchable (at least until July) can of peas. The biggest boon of our trip to Rosita's was the five pounds of bacon that brought us there in the first place. This is the best bacon I've ever tasted in my life. Period. Hands down. End of conversation. And, for those who know my dear wife, she's quite the connoisseur.

Check out some pictures: