What does Alice Waters, Red Hook, and a Peach have in common?

Quite a lot, actually.

Alice Waters ‘Class Photo’ of Food Climate Hope luncheon attendees. Photo by Matthew Paul D’Agostino

This past weekend I was invited to Washington, DC to attend Alice Waters’ Food Climate Hope event to promote School Supported Agriculture. Alice Waters founded Chez Panisse Restaurant in 1971 and has been a pioneer of the farm-to-table movement, but her real passion has been improving good food access for children in schools and teaching students how to grow food through her Edible Schoolyard Project. Her dream is to provide a free sustainable school lunch for all students K through 12; to buy food directly from farmers and ranchers who take care of the land and their workers; and to teach students the value of nourishment, stewardship and community. To accomplish her dream, we need both policy change AND individual action. With the people and speakers in attendance, from the farmers and ranchers to lunch ladies and Former Vice President Al Gore and Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, I think this gathering captured the importance of both the people working for policy change and the on-the-ground individuals incredibly well.

From DC, I went to New York City and through my friend Franco, I visited the Columbia Street Farm, which is part of Red Hook Farms, a youth-centered urban agriculture and food justice program operating one of Brooklyn’s largest farms. I met Brendan Parker, the assistant director of Red Hook Farms, who took time out of his busy day to give me a tour of this incredible 2.75 acre urban farm, composting site, and outdoor classroom which also employs high school students from neighboring schools. The bitter melon vines were still going strong and Brendan let me sample the over-ripe bitter melon seeds, which was a complete surprise to my palette - instead of bitter, the bright red pulp tasted sweet like fresh dates. The farm harvests over 15,000 pounds of produce each year, increases access to fresh, affordable produce, and provides nutrition education along with healthy, delicious ways to prepare fruits and vegetables all to benefit the surrounding urban community. Alice must be so proud!

And now back to the peach, which was the original reason I was coming to NYC and what I believe connects all of this work together. My dear friend Franco Fubini just wrote a beautiful book ‘In Search of the Perfect Peach: Why flavor holds the answer to fixing our food system’ and I wanted to support him at his book launch at King Restaurant. Franco is founder and CEO of Natoora, the disruptive fresh produce distributor behind the most seasonal menus across New York, London, Paris, Miami, Copenhagen, Malmo and Melbourne. Franco believes that flavor is the spark and without it food would be but a footnote in our culture. He thinks that flavor is a window into the farmer, the soil, and the entire ecosystem, and we must use it as a tool to guide our food choices and to demand better food as consumers.

There is so much that is depressing and unjust in our food system and it will take a lot of heart and sustained effort to push against the forces that are only motivated by greed and power, but these three interconnected experiences reminded me of the incredible capacity of good people - chefs, farmers, lunch ladies, writers, leaders, and more - all working together for a common goal: to grow, share, learn, and connect through good healthy food, for ourselves, for our loved ones, and for our planet. We all need it!

And, please VOTE!