Kathleen Barsotti Non-Profit for Sustainable Agriculture

Kathleen Barsotti

Our parents started our farm in 1976 with a vision and passion for organic and sustainable agriculture that led them to become early pioneers in this movement. In 1992, our mother, Kathleen Barsotti, founded Farm Fresh To You, our Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) service, delivering farm-fresh, local, organic produce to homes and offices in California. It was her belief that an important part of sustainable agriculture is connecting people to the land that grows their food.

After a courageous nine-year battle with breast cancer, our mother passed away in 2000. As a way to honor her memory, the Kathleen Barsotti Non-Profit for Sustainable Agriculture (KBNP) was created in 2009. The goal of the non-profit is to promote the method of agriculture that Kathleen supported, a method that preserves the land for future generations, protects the people who work on the farm and contributes to the local economy.

CONNECTING WITH OUR COMMUNITY 

College Scholarship Awards

In 2009, the Kathleen Barsotti Non-Profit began its activities by awarding a $500 scholarship to a young student planning to study agriculture and promote sustainable practices after graduation. This scholarship has been awarded to a new student every year since.

As it was always very important to Kathleen to give back to the farm-worker community, one of the goals of KBNP is to increase the resources that are available to farm workers and their families.

Our additional programs include providing backpacks filled with school supplies to children of farm workers, providing a yearly college scholarship to a young-adult with ambitions of working in sustainable agriculture, supporting English-as-a-second-language classes for farm workers, and educating the public on the importance of sustainable farms.

School Supplies and Backpack Program

BECAUSE OF YOU!

Each year, the farm in Capay has three special events that bring our various communities together at the Capay Organic/Farm Fresh To You farm to enjoy live music, fantastic local food and an opportunity to meet their farmer and connect with the land that grows their food. Our events are another way that we raise awareness and support for KBNP.

Silent Auction at our Capay Tomato event.

This year, we added Seasonal Farm-to-Fork Dinners to our line up of special events. These dinners have provided a unique experience to sit down with farmer and chef, enjoy a meal together and share about the mutual passion for sustainable and organic practices.

Seasonal Farm-to-Fork Dinner at Mulvaney's B&L Restaurant.

These events have allowed us to provide more education and support than ever before!  But there's something else that happened this year that stole our hearts and show us that our mother's life work and dreams are taking root and growing!

This year we promoted our annual backpack/school supplies drive in our newsletter and on our Farm Fresh To You Facebook page and you, our community reached back with an outpouring of over $3,800 from these efforts alone!

Together, this year we were able to receive and fill over 600 backpack requests from farm workers both at our farm and local partner farms in northern and southern California!

We are so honored by the outpouring of generosity from our CSA community.  Whether it's being part of our family farm, a CSA member or by attending our events, thank you - thank you for supporting our non-profit and a better way of farming!

Cookbook Giveaway - Root-to-Stalk Cooking

Photo credit: Clay McLachlan

Root-to-Stalk Cooking: The Art of Using the Whole Vegetable by Tara Duggan is all about making the most of your produce. If you've ever wondered what to do with carrot tops, broccoli stalks, potato peels and pea pods, this cookbook offers instruction on how to transform trimmings into delicious meals.

"This is a wonderful, forward-looking book. It's not only filled with fantastic recipes that you can cook by rote, but also with new ways of looking at your ingredients. It will make any one's cooking more efficient and, most importantly, more delicious."

- Daniel Patterson, chef-owner of COI restaurant

Photo credit: Clay McLachlan

Root-to-Stalk Cooking is a newly released cookbook featuring more than 65 delicious recipes that make use of the parts of vegetables that typically get thrown away. The cookbook has gorgeous photos and creative tips for making the most of seasonal ingredients. We're excited to give away this beautiful cookbook to one of our CSA members!

Photo credit: Clay McLachlan

 "My own love of vegetables grew when I became a staff food writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, where I’ve had the opportunity to interview countless chefs and farmers who share a passion—sometimes extreme—for vegetables."

- Tara Duggan, Root-to-Stalk Cooking 

Tara Duggan is a James Beard award-winning journalist and cookbook author. She has written for The San Francisco Chronicle since 1999, and has published work in the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Denver Post, Toronto Star, Shape, California and The Bay Citizen. As a food writer and recipe developer, she covers home cooking, restaurants, food trends, sustainable agriculture and food policy, all with a Northern California focus.

We're so happy to announce we have a copy of

this amazing cookbook to give away to one of you!

Here's How to Enter – (Givaway is now closed)

To win a copy of Tara Duggan's Root-to-Stalk Cooking cookbook, simply leave a comment below answering this question by Tuesday, August 27th (one entry per person please).

How do you get creative with your vegetable excess?

No purchase required. Limit one entry per person, please. Entries will close on Tuesday, August 27th, at 8:00 am. Winners are chosen by Random Number Generator and announced on our blog on Tuesday, August 27th.

Thank you to everyone who participated!
 It is very encouraging to read your comments and see how many of you are trading ideas and inspiring one another! Thank you - thank you! 

We have chosen a winner:

The winner chosen at random is: Annie Lee who wrote:

The obviously not-edible parts (molded, hard stem of certain veggies, super wilted or dried) get composted. Everything else that looks a bit sad is stir-fried, baked, or turned into soup. The super fresh veggies are usually eaten raw in salads.

Congratulations Annie Lee!
A big thank you to again to Tara Duggan!

Be sure to check out Root-to-Stalk Cooking, The Art of Using the Whole Vegetable. 

The Great Gravenstein Apple

Coming your way for a very limited time – a special summer treat worth saving and savoring! Gravensteins, highly treasured heirloom apples, are crisp, juicy and delicious, and yet for many reasons, are in danger of becoming extinct. To read more about why they are on the Slow Food Ark of Taste’s list of foods in danger of extinction, see last year’s blog post Gravenstein Apples - A Labor of Love.

We are excited to partner with farmer John Kolling of Solana Gold Organics again this year. We admire his extreme dedication and care for the Gravenstein and his ability to fulfill our dream of finding enough of these rare apples to share with you, our CSA members!

We learned a few new facts from John during our visit to his orchard:

• The Gravenstein is a “variable harvest” apple, meaning the apples do not ripen at the same time. They start off a bright lime green then transition to a medium orange color with faded red over-markings and then to a rich red. On a single tree, you might notice a variety of seven different colorations. As they mature the flavors become less acidic and a bit sweeter.

• Some of John’s trees are well over 100 years old, planted in the late 1800s. He has been tending to these orchards since the late 1970s.
• John grows on 81 very small parcels all over Sebastopol (in Sonoma County) tending to many different varieties of apple.
• Because this year is a heavy year for the fruit, the apples tend to be smaller.
• He says that this time of year is not a good time to sleep in the orchards because the apples fall randomly and make the night seem long!

Gravenstein apples are more on the tart side, yet are sweet enough to eat out of hand. They are valued for their crisp and juicy flesh, sweet-tart juice and unique aroma of sweet honey and floral tones. They are perfect for baking because they hold their shape well. Their flavor intensifies when cooked – which also makes them great for applesauce or cider.

The Gravenstein is delicate and quite perishable, which is one reason why they are only available for a short period of time. They also do not store well, so be sure to enjoy your apples within a week of receiving them.

We hope you enjoy these precious, heritage apples. Thank you again to farmer John Kolling and Solana Gold Organics for providing these sweet treasures with us again this year!