Back from Tour

It's strange to be so intensely involved with something for a period of time and then all of a sudden be done. That's what farm dinner season is like. It's Saturday, October 17th and I have a chance to sit at the coffeeshop, drink a tea and update my much-neglected blog. I have no new emails in my inbox. This is the first real "Saturday" I've experienced probably all year. And I'm going through withdrawls.

But don't mistake me for complaining, because I'm definitely not. I'm a workaholic (I think I've said that before somewhere in this blog). And I love it.

Our farm dinner season was big this year. We've had 56 events since May 16th. My staff is quick to remind me of the short time that I "left them and went to Canada" for my dear friend Heidi's wedding. I missed out on a few dinners then, though it was far from a holiday. On a side note, it just so happens to be Ms. Heidi Clayden's birthday today so happy day to her!

I have a really hard time staying in touch while we're on the road and in the thick of it. This is adequately shown by my lack of blog updates. I think my family and friends are used to it by now. Not to say that it's okay, but I'm thankful that they're satisfied with the short emails/text messages that say "I'm alive" or "Driving through Illinois".

One of the most amazing parts of being on the road is traveling with our crew. We quite literally live on a tour bus together for 3 and a half months. Yes, it is like a rock band. We roll into town, set up our "show", "perform", pack it all up and go onto the next place. Our schedule is just as intensive as a lot of bands too. And the crew has fun, squabbles, sleeps, eats and drives together day in and day out. We started this year's tour with a solid crew of 8, give or take, fluctuated up to 13 at a high point, and finished back in California with 7. They came from all over: Tennessee, Georgia, Vermont, Illinois, California and Canada (that's me!) Everyone ranged in age from 23 to 29 (Jim, who started the company, being older than that of course), with different backgrounds, experiences and roles. The common tie being we were all stoked on visiting farms and doing farm dinners. We started out barely knowing each other but by the end you have no choice but to be close: you know your co-workers best and worst habits, their favourite snacks and every clothing item they have in their suitcase, among other things. You learn to "love each other like family".

It takes a special person to live on the road and do what we do day in and day out for months. With the economy how it was at the beginning of the year, we received many resumes from middle-aged people who had been working in offices the past 20 years, recently lost their jobs, and romanticized about living on the bus and doing farm dinners. Not to say that they wouldn't be able to do it, but I would guess that 99% of those people would have had enough of us after about a week. Best for them to read about it in magazines and follow the blog (when we happen to update it). There's a reason all of the staff is in their 20s. The rest I'll leave to your imagination.

There are many photos and even more stories to share, though today is not the day for that. I've included just a few photos below to give you a taste. I do want to update my map to include more dots of where I've been and maybe some photos/short stories. The way it looks right now is not very representative of the last couple of years....

Just because farm dinner tour is over doesn't mean I'm going to sit still. I have two plane tickets booked already: I found a steal of a deal on a return flight to Seattle ($109!!) next week, from where I'll rent a car and go to Salmon Arm and Vancouver for a week. Back to Santa Cruz for a couple of days and then off to New York City for 3 weeks. I've been there a number of times in the past couple of years, but it's usually a whirlwind of a trip, like 5 farm dinners in 6 days. It'll be great to hang out with some of the great chefs we've met and visit some farms and people. I'm especially looking forward to seeing Ben and Annie at their Rooftop Farm in Brooklyn and of course hanging out with my good chef friend Bill Telepan, who has the best laugh on the East Coast.

That's all for now, but consider me back in touch.

Our 2009 Tour bus

Dinners happen in cities....

... in dry fields...

... and on very green farms.

The chairs in the field at Dingo Farms in Bradford, ON:
one of the most challenging dinners for myself- more on that later.

We survived the Dingo Farms dinner together:
Mark Cutrara from Cowbell Restaurant in Toronto, ON and myself.
He's amazing.

Another beautiful Canadian dinner site:
North Arm Farm in Pemberton, BC.

Family meal with the staff after cleaning up another long table.

Vancouver Visit via Seattle

Here's a good thing about the current state of the economy: cheap flights. Since I arrived here in Santa Cruz from Peru over a month ago and decided to stay, I've been itching to go back to Vancouver to get a few things. Mostly some more clothing items (getting kind of tired of the same 4 shirts) and my beloved bicycle. But especially my bicycle.

When I saw flights to Seattle for $79 each way and knew I could get a cheap car rental through Priceline.com, I couldn't resist. The total of the car rental and flight was just under $300. Not bad considering a return flight directly to Vancouver would have been $480. And this way I would also have a car to buzz around Vancity for a few days.

The stop in Seattle actually worked out quite well because I was also able to visit a potential farm dinner chef there that afternoon. We already had the interest of Tamara Murphy of Brasa (the "pig lady of Seattle") and so I was just stopping in that day to discuss details and hopefully confirm her participation. She's recently taken over the cafe under the Elliot Bay Book Company, a fairly iconic bookstore in Seattle. The cafe had evolved into a sad-looking soup kitchen of late and Tamara wanted to revitalize the place. I hadn't seen the place before, but it's definitely looking wonderful now. The old brick walls have an interesting story as well: they used to be above ground. This was a history lesson for me, but apparently Seattle was actually elevated after a devestating fire in the late 1800s. It's kind of hard to explain, so take a look at the story here and/or at wikipedia. Tamara and I had a great time chatting and visiting for over two hours. She was enthusiastic about Outstanding in the Field and participating since it lined up so well with her great support of the local Seattle-area farmers. She also does a really interesting annual event herself called Burning Beast (a big meat-fest collaboration by Seattle chefs) and has a very informative "Life of a Pig" blog on her website. Hence Pig Lady. Anyways, it seemed like everything was set for her doing a July 15th event with us in the Seattle area, but then she emailed me a few days later saying she'd forgotten about the plans she'd already made to leave town that week. Unfortunate, but I'm glad I was able to get to know her a bit better anyways. I'm sure she'll be on the schedule sometime in the future.

It was a quick but fun weekend in Vancouver, complete with an evening of beer and good food at Stella's with Jordan, dinner at Abigail's Party and shenanigans with Colleen, a good walk around UBC and down to the beach with Jordan and Duke, a visit to the Winter Market at Wise Hall, a Salmon Armian disco-funk party and of course gathering of my things and bicycle from "storage" in White Rock.

Hiking down at Spanish Banks near UBC
with Jordan, Duke and the other dogs and people

How could I forget, I also had the pleasure of hanging out the LUSH factory one morning with Jordan, who is now the new manager of the bubble room. He even has his own sticker now- check it out!

Yay Jordan!

So just like that and I'm back in Santa Cruz again. I've been working on some home improvements lately, which I'll share with you soon.