Remembering Ché

In front of the farm house is a black granite pyramid. Bolted to the top of it is a rusted ornamental metal bar, looping upward toward the sky. Attached to the end of this bar is a metal Pitts S1A bi-plane positioned as if it were going to buzz the farm house.

Our brother Ché buzzed the farm house, farm tractors and farm tours as often as he could, in that plane or whatever plane he was piloting at the time. We always loved it - who doesn’t love being buzzed by an aircraft? The rattling of the house that sent us running outside, the roar of the engine we felt on the second pass-by, waving with both arms in excitement, and the feeling of freedom evoked by a fly-by never got old.

Etched into the black granite is a photo of our older brother Ché Jeremy Barnes and the story of the evening of October 29, 2009, when he was dispatched as the pilot in command of a Coast Guard Search and Rescue C-130 from Sacramento. He and his crew of six flew CG 1705 south to search for a missing boater who was last seen off the coast of San Diego. The search area was in the military training zone W-291.

While searching, CG 1705 was struck by a Marine AH-1 Cobra attack helicopter that was flying a night-vision training mission in a pattern with three other Marine helicopters. 

The last words recorded by the black box of CG 1705 were Ché’s voice giving a calm, but direct order to his co-pilot to "Climb up, dude." To this day, that location in the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, marks the resting spot of the aircrafts and their combined crews of nine.

The incident reminds me how close northern and southern California are. We share the same search and rescue resources, the same water resources and are separated by less than a work day in a vehicle or a long lunch in a jet.

It reminds our company of the importance of safety and the reality that huge accidents are never attributed to one single thing. Big accidents are the result of many small things, all of which are no issue independent of each other, until they line up perfectly to deliver a huge accident.

It is for this reason that safety, physical and food, must be approached with the understanding that the many small and subtle details of an operation’s behavior are required to avert disasters.

 

Our farm misses Ché dearly, his enthusiasm for a quality product being rewarded by the market place, his genuine appreciation for being true to the cause of our parents’ movement, his inquisitiveness into important details and above all his loving friendship and encouragement through hard and fun times.

Saying Goodbye to Ché's Pitts

Thank you to everyone who shared their well wishes and joined us in remembering Ché. We consider you, our CSA community, part of our extended family.

The Essential Good Food Guide Book Giveaway!

Photo credit: Jennifer Martiné

“At last we have Margaret Wittenberg to answer our most basic questions about any food we see: ‘What is it? and ‘What do I do with it?’ The Essential Good Food Guide is an extraordinarily comprehensive guide to foods, ingredients, and their handling.  Sophisticated cooks as well as beginners will be grateful to have this indispensable book at hand.” - Marion Nestle, author of What to Eat

The Essential Good Food Guide by Margaret M. Wittenberg is your one-stop resource for purchasing, storing, cooking and enjoying whole foods. From uncommon ingredient profiles to clarifying confusing food labels, Wittenberg skillfully educates consumers on where their food comes from, making it easier to determine healthier options.

“Rather than being about what foods to avoid and why, The Essential Good Food Guide is an introduction or a reminder of what good food is and what to do with it.” - Margaret M. Wittenberg, The Essential Good Food Guide 

Margaret helps explain common misperceptions about everyday items, allowing you to maximize the benefits of whole foods cooking. This book is more than a guide; it is an encyclopedia and your new kitchen companion. We are thrilled to give away this informative book to one of you!   

Photo credit: Kathy Weigand Photography

Margaret M. Wittenberg is a well-known authority and educator on natural and organic foods with more than thirty-five years of experience. She is a former member of the USDA National Organic Standards Board and has served on many other boards directed on organic agriculture, seafood sustainability, agricultural environmental standards, and farm animal welfare.  

We're so happy to announce we have a copy of this amazing
book to give away to one of you!

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

To win a copy of The Essential Good Food Guide, simply leave a comment below answering this question by Tuesday, October 29, 2013 (one entry per person please).

If you could ask Margaret to share her insider's knowledge
about one particular ingredient, what would it be?

No purchase required. Limit one entry per person, please. Entries will close on Tuesday, October 29, 2013 at 8:00 am. Winners are chosen by Random Number Generator and announced on our blog on Tuesday, October 29, 2013.

Thank you to everyone who participated! It is very exciting to read your questions and see how many of you are provoking a food dialogue!

We have chosen a winner:

The winner chosen at random is Paul Picard who asked:

Is the nutritional benefit of young tender asparagus better than more mature asparagus? What are some of your favorite ways of serving this vegetable?

Congratulations Paul Picard!
A big thank you to again to Margaret M. Wittenberg!

Be sure to check out The Essential Good Food Guide.

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!