Organically Raised by Anni Daulter

Reprinted with permission from www.greenmoms.com; minor revisions courtesy of the author.

I really like this cookbook; it covers all the areas I need to think about when cooking for my family.

For beginners who don’t know much about nutrition, it starts with the basics of children’s everyday nutritional needs so we can be aware of how to provide a variety of foods. Most of the recipes are very easy to prepare as well.

Every time I open this book, it reminds me that I can add more antioxidants and nutrients to my children’s food. The author helps us by giving us basic ideas and recipes for snacks and meals for babies and toddlers, showing us multicultural recipes that can inspire adventurous eaters, and providing healthy low-sugar dessert recipes. This is all entwined with high-antioxidant vitamin-packed ingredients, a Zen appreciation for relaxing and enjoying the moment, and a slow-food-movement emphasis on cooking with joy and love — and taking time to fully enjoy the food.

I find this cookbook unique in that the recipes incorporate vegetables, fruit, nuts and “healthy mix-ins” (high-antioxidant foods such as acai berries and flax seed) into almost every recipe, including the desserts! My latest favorite breakfast recipe is Jenny’s Easy Cheesy Egg Soufflés. They are individual egg dishes you cook in a muffin pan, creating tiny soufflés of high-antioxidant breadcrumb crust, topped with eggs and cheese. Yum! My family really likes this one. And, when my baby turns 1, I look forward to trying the Baby Turns 1 No-Sugar Cake. It utilizes a variety of puréed fruits, fruit juice, blueberries, ground flax seed, and — believe it or not — spinach! If you are nervous about that one, you could always leave it out, but I believe it will blend in well without being noticed.

Teressa Kileen, the “Lizard Lady,” with granddaughter Angel and Scooter, the prehensile-tailed skink. Photo courtesy of Patrick Kileen.

Indigo likes to shock others with her bright blue tongue. Bob is the only 65-year-old in town with red scales. Together, they’re the life of the party at Bay Area preschools, day camps and classrooms — that is, when Scooter the skink isn’t stealing the show. What they share in common, apart from their fellow membership in phylum Chordata and class Reptilia, is their devoted owner: Pacifica’s “Lizard Lady,” Teressa Kileen. She makes it her business to educate children about rainforest conservation and how animals work together in the wild, using live interactive demonstrations. I caught her en route to two San Jose preschools on Aug. 2, with a carload of reptiles and five minutes to kill before showtime.

“With the preschoolers, I keep it simple,” she says. “We hold the animals and talk about the importance of saving trees and not wasting paper towels, for example. By the time I leave, the 4-year olds are teaching fellow classmates or nagging their mothers about using ‘just one paper towel.’ It’s adorable.”

Curious about the carload of reptiles, I ask Kileen about her passengers. “I’ve got Bob here with me today. He’s a cool guy. He’s done every show with me for the past 20 years. He knows he’s going to get an orange if he comes along, so he’s excited,” she says.

What Bob, the Brazilian jungle red-footed tortoise, doesn’t know is that his fellow passenger Scooter, a prehensile-tailed skink from the Solomon Islands, is integral to his “orange-getting.” Or does he know? During the presentation, Scooter perches on Kileen’s arm as he eats an orange in front of the class, and he always lets part of it drop to the ground, much the way parrots and monkeys do in the rainforest. Bob, being a tortoise, stays on the ground and is all too happy to clean up the mess. Like his rainforest brethren, Bob adores fruit but must wait for it to fall from the trees when it’s very ripe, or for other animals to drop it from the branches above. Kileen helps kids understand the working relationship between rainforest species by using analogies like “garbage men” and “messy eaters” to describe the food cleanup process that takes place in the wild.

“With the older kids, we go deeper into the discussion of the rainforest and talk about topics such as how trees create oxygen for the planet. Then I might talk about cattle ranching and the meat industry as one of the leading causes of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, for example. Teenagers eat a lot of hamburgers. This is a great time to make them aware of what’s going on in the world and the choices they have.”

Kileen lives with and cares for approximately 30 reptiles, including Indigo, a blue-tongued skink from the Australian outback and Scooter’s family of five prehensile-tailed skinks. Scooter is the proud father of three babies that were born recently under Kileen’s watchful care. She adopts only rescued animals and as a long-time member of the Rainforest Action Network, donates a portion of her annual proceeds to RAN. While her reptile family includes species from all over the world, her teachings focus on the problems faced by vanishing species of rainforest reptiles.

As the fragile connection between the environment, wildlife and humans continues to make national headlines following the BP oil spill, Kileen hopes to expand public focus to include the fragile ecosystem of the rainforest. To that end, she is offering Bay Area schools special pricing through the end of 2010. To book Kileen’s interactive wildlife experience, contact the Lizard Lady directly at 650-355-4105 or via e-mail at lizardladyrept@hotmail.com.

Although not many coastside homes have basements, there are still many dwellings built on hillsides where there is extra space beneath the current living area. If you have been thinking about doing something with this unused space, you may wish to take a look at Remodeling a Basement (Taunton, $19.95) by Roger German.

Newly revised, this “Build Like a Pro” book covers all the bases when it comes to doing something with a basement that is either still unfinished or needs a major makeover.

A general contractor for over three decades, the author first addresses evaluating walls and floors, checking mechanical systems and dealing with the water problems which are the bane of most basement projects.

He then discusses what can be done with the area — recreation room, extra bedroom, utility and workshop area — and how to approach design work and building code and permit issues.

The bulk of this hands-on guide is devoted to the nitty-gritty of actually doing the job yourself. You’ll find chapters on framing walls, plumbing and wiring, installing insulation and hanging sheetrock for ceilings and walls.

Once the heavy lifting is done, the final chapters delve into the finishing chores, such as setting doors and cabinets, floor coverings, installing baseboard and fitting closets.

There are plenty of illustrations, pictures and “pro tips” that will help the do-it-yourselfer handle each step of the project. However, while this book will give you a sense of the scope of the project, it probably won’t answer all your questions.

I would use it to get an overview of what a home-improvement job like this would entail. Then I would sit down with a contractor to see what is really feasible given my particular situation. This is very important if you are on a hillside and may have to begin by actually pouring a concrete floor.

Father and daughter team Geena and David St. Vincent of Coffee of My Grandfather. Photos: Whitney Merrill.

I first meet Geena St. Andrew and her father, David, at the Half Moon Bay Farmers Market one Saturday morning as they sell their coffee, Café de mi Abuelo or “Coffee of My Grandfather.” Geena and her grandfather, Don Francisco “Panchito” Centeno, are pictured on the label. “I was much younger then,” Geena notes, offering me a cup of coffee. I take a sip and feel like I’m being transported back to the rain forests of Nicaragua.

David, Centeno’s son-in-law, talks passionately about the family farm and how this represents the past as well as the future for his family. The farm has been in Geena’s family for 70 years; for 50 of those years it was managed by Geena’s grandfather, and for 20 years before that by his uncle. The farm is in Dipilto, a premium coffee-growing region in Nicaragua.

David tells me that the farm previously sold all of the coffee to Japan. The Japanese came to Nicaragua looking for a coffee that was dried on a particular kind of tile floor, made from the clay typical to the region. David describes the terroir as “high altitude, mild climate that is the same year round, lots of rain, volcanic soil, low acid soil … which provides a unique, mild flavor.”

David met his wife, Mayra, in Southern California where they were eventually married and had Geena, who grew up in Long Beach, then Montara, then Half Moon Bay. David is a commodity buyer for a steel foundary in the Bay Area, but he says that in the back of his mind he has long been thinking about the coffee farm. The idea first began to form nine years ago when he was back in Nicaragua at Christmas time, talking with Mayra’s brother about the possibility of bringing the coffee to America and selling it directly.

It was a wistful idea at the time. But two years ago — when Geena’s grandmother, Abuela Sarita, passed away — David realized that time was short and that potentially there would be no one in the next generation to run the farm. “Without someone running it,” David notes, “a way of life would disappear,” referring beyond the family to the farm workers, who are third-generation employees. David and Mayra realized that if they didn’t do something now, “the farm would literally drift back into the forest. We don’t take it as an obligation, but … a responsibility.”

In 2009 David, Mayra and Geena bought a portion of the crop, which can yield between 20,000 and 35,000 pounds of coffee beans per year, and began to sell the coffee locally at farmers markets, on their website and through select retailers like Cunha’s and New Leaf Market in Half Moon Bay. In 2010 they bought 100 percent of the business and are on track to sell all the coffee locally, on the Coastside. They talk of this as more than a business but as a dream that resides within the consciousness of the family. David says, “We have an opportunity to fulfill the dream we have, that my father-in-law had … to preserve the farm that he has within the family as a way of honoring him and Sarita. It is part of our joint soul now to do this.”

David notes that when you buy their coffee, you are buying directly from the source, without a middleman or distributor. Additionally, purchasing the coffee allows people to contribute to sustainable agriculture in one of the most sensitive areas of the world, while helping to preserve and further a family business. Although Geena tells me that she is pursuing her education and a variety of other interests, she describes a certain connection to her extended family that is rooted in place by the family farm. There is a sense of hope and optimism in the future, in the hope of a family legacy. As she tells me, “My grandfather has been doing this and now he’s giving it to me.”

Diana Zamudio and Catrina Cooper. Staff photos.

Eco6design is the new name for Green Intention Design, located in Half Moon Bay. The new name is a reflection of a new focus, according to owner Diana Zamudio. The name of her business has now changed three times over the years, she said, but each name change reflected the evolution of the services and products provided.

Zamudio has been an interior designer since 1987. In 2006, she also became a certified feng shui consultant because she loves the philosophy. “Feng shui is about designing with intention,” she said. While raising her children, much of her work was done out of her home.

Non-toxic paint and clay wall covering.

She lived in El Granada when she opened her first showroom there in 2007, known then as Planet Green Design. Shortly after opening her business, Zamudio placed an ad on Craig’s List, looking for a business partner. Nancy Kinghorn answered the ad and they clicked immediately. Zamudio described the partnership as a perfect match, because Kinghorn had a strong background in design and had been a realtor on the San Mateo County Coast for 20 years. The new partnership chose a new name, and Green Intention Design was born.

Things were going well for the newly revamped business when tragedy struck. Kinghorn, who had been diagnosed with cancer, died suddenly just as Green Intention Design was gaining momentum.

Wide selection of tiles and countertops from recycled products.

But at this sad time, there was also something good afoot. Another designer, Catrina Cooper, happened to walk into the showroom one Saturday in July 2008, shortly before Kinghorn’s death. She and Kinghorn started talking and the following Monday, Zamudio called her for an interview. “I asked her if she could start immediately. I meant that day,” Zamudio said. Cooper could and did, and now she’s a partner in the business. Pam Mayers, who handles the bookkeeping and also has a design background, joined the business a few months later.

With Zamudio’s background in design and Cooper’s knowledge of green products, the business took another turn, with an increasing focus on retail. To support that change, the partners agreed to move to downtown Half Moon Bay and Randy Kinghorn, Nancy’s son, found the building for them, across the street from the Half Moon Bay Library on Purissima Street.

Green gift items.

Currently, the business is half design services and half product sales. As Zamudio does her design work, she can readily provide customers with information on green products that complement those designs.

And now there’s a new name to reflect the partners’ current focus. Eco6design refers to the six services provided by the business: interior design, green products, expert color advice, paint mixed on site, feng shui and community education. Eco6design sells Mythic Paint, the only brand of paint that is truly non-toxic.

When customers come to Zamudio for design advice, they’re often uncertain about what they are looking for, and she helps get them get focused. Some are looking for paint, some for a remodel and others just want advice. “We truly enjoy educating the community about different eco-friendly options that are available when choosing materials for their projects,” she said.

Zamudio said that educating her clients means helping them understand that making a green choice makes sense for sustainability as well as aesthetics. Green products are made to last a long time. And she loves to show them “how gorgeous some of the materials are.”

While she loves the philosophy of feng shui, Zamudio said she understands not everyone is interested in eastern approaches. Zamudio is schooled in the western approach to feng shui, which is much more practical and easy to understand and implement. “I am careful when I use the word feng shui, as I understand that word can mean different things to different people. The western approach is about surrounding yourself with things you love, and that’s something everyone can relate to.”

Cooper said she’s thrilled with the support the business has received from the community. “People are so delighted we’re here,” she said. “They tell us we’re so needed, and they’re surprised to find such a large selection in our small town.”

Compost in a home garden. © Goldution | Dreamstime.com.

Going green is nothing more than turning back the clock and gardening the old-fashioned way, using your body for power and natural products instead of chemicals. There is nothing more annoying than the sound of power mowers, blowers, hedge trimmers and even chain saws reverberating through the neighborhood.

Home remedies, beneficial insects and actively aerated compost tea combine nature and science for complete pest and disease control. Your kitchen contains many items that can be used in the garden: baking soda for black spot, dishwashing soap for insect control, and buttermilk for mites. The Internet, farm supply stores, hydroponic stores, nurseries and hardware stores are resources for other natural products.

I’ve talked about rain barrels before, but water is so important it’s worth another mention. A rain barrel is inexpensive to make. Simply cut an opening in the lid of a garbage can, line it with contractor bags if necessary, and screen the opening. Shower water and vegetable cooking water are also great for watering plants. My mom used to put eggshells in a plastic jug filled with water. The smell of sulfur was unbelievable, but her plants were beautiful.

Hand lawn mower. © Tomasz Niewęgłowski | Dreamstime.com.

Composting is highly recommended, but there are other ways to recycle items for garden use.

For example, aluminum foil is a useful tool for keeping birds away from fruit and tender seedlings. It can also be used to reflect heat onto seedlings and starts. Egg cartons can be used to germinate seeds, and plastic cat litter tubs can be used to hold potting mix.

Does your garden produce more than you need? Neighbors and community groups such as Freecycle provide a way to share starts and excess harvests.

Even if you are not able to grow your food, you can support the community and save gas by buying locally. Organic produce is readily available from local growers like Pastorino Farms, Beeson’s Produce Stand and the Abundant Farmer in Half Moon Bay.

Home-grown veggies. © Mustafanc | Dreamstime.com.

The Abundant Farmer produces USDA certified organic herbs, fruit and veggies, leafy and micro-greens, plus a variety of fresh fish using aquaponics — a combination of aquaculture and hydroponics. The fish are raised in tanks and produce nutrient-rich water for the plants, which then clean the water for the fish. According to the company’s website, aquaponics uses 98 percent less water and 92 percent less energy than conventional in-ground farming, while it produces 10 to 20 times the yield in the same amount of space.

The Abundant Farmer offers Saturday greenhouse tours and aquaponics workshops. It is located on Highway 1 in Half Moon Bay.

Laurie Keit is the owner of Seasonal Celebrations: Gardens, Flowers, Events. She designs with plants and flowers to increase the natural beauty in our lives. Visit her website at www.seasonalcelebrations.com.

Community Work Day participants at the monthly event. Photos courtesy of Jered Lawson.

“Slow for Pie” read the hand-lettered signs stuck to sawhorses set out along Highway 1 just north of Año Nuevo. Sounds like a good idea to me! And come December, there’ll be more to brake for than pastry on one wedge of Coastside land.

Pescadero’s Pie Ranch might have been designed specifically to host an Outstanding in the Field dinner. The pie-shaped slice of land produces all the ingredients necessary to make delectable pies. That means wheat and berries, dairy products, and eggs and honey. The view of the Pacific Ocean adds a sweet touch of ambiance.

Adelaide and Dulce.

When Santa Cruz chef Jim Denevan dreamed up Outstanding in the Field, the term “locavore” hadn’t even been coined. Yet his vision of one long table standing in a farmer’s field, groaning with gourmet dishes prepared by top chefs using produce grown right there, couldn’t have been more timely. What started as a funky California concept — getting people to come out to eat on the fields where their food is grown — quickly became an international phenomenon.

Despite a hectic schedule of dinners prepared by some of the world’s leading chefs, Outstanding in the Field hasn’t forgotten its roots on the California coast. In December 2010, the ranch will open its barn doors to host two wintertime OITF dinners. One event will feature returning chef Scott Youkilis of Maverick restaurant in San Francisco. The other dinner will be cooked by Jean-Pierre Moulle of Chez Panisse, the grandmama of elegantly sustainable dining in the Bay Area. Nodding to the chill of the season, the table will be set up indoors, in the ranch’s big barn.

Chicken slaughter at the ranch.

A long hike across a pasture, down a beach, or through a forest is an integral part of the Outstanding experience — repeat guests know to wear broken-in shoes and farming-casual clothes. At both Pie Ranch events, diners clad in thick jeans and waterproof jackets will spend the pre-meal period with an expert forager, hunting edible mushrooms and other wild foods on the uncultivated parts of the property.

Staggering in from the damp fields, guests shake off most of the moisture before sitting down at the communal table. The farmer, the featured winemaker, and the guest chef each get a turn at talking about their contribution to the evening’s spread. Finally, the food appears. As people pass the family-style platters, strangers become friends as they discuss the delectable offerings before them. What could be friendlier than exclaiming — while gesturing with a loaded fork — over the freshness of eggs laid by resident chickens or the perfect flavor of the sautéed kale and chard?

Want to experience an Outstanding in the Field event? Go to the OITF website to check for any events that still have tickets available. Sign up for the e-newsletter and follow OITF on Facebook for information about last-minute tickets to dinners and for next year’s schedule. Tickets cost a hefty $180 and upward.

Pie Ranch from the ridge.

You don’t need to shell out for an OITF dinner to check out Pie Ranch. Its website and blog include dates for community activity days, volunteer projects, and even a yearlong farm apprenticeship program. Or you can just purchase pie and produce from the farm stand on Saturday and Sunday from noon-6 p.m.

Special Event: Sept. 26, 2010

A “Butcher, Baker, Candlestick Maker” event will be held at Pie Ranch on Sunday, Sept. 26. An afternoon of in-depth workshops, led by skilled chef-educators from the careers mentioned in the Rub-A-Dub-Dub nursery rhyme, will be followed by a late-afternoon fine farm dinner utilizing sustainable and locally produced ingredients.

This 2004 Chinese film, directed by Xiao Jiang, will intrigue film aficionados who love the Italian movie Cinema Paradiso. There are only a few women directors in China making narrative feature films. For her debut feature, director Xiao Jiang also co-wrote the screenplay with Cheng Qingsong. The title Electric Shadows is a literal translation of the Chinese words for movies, dian ying. The film was warmly received in the U.S. five years ago.

The story is based on the supposition that films we see in our childhood and adolescence have a lasting effect on how our imaginations transform our personal attitudes toward families, friends, adversaries and ourselves. In his review of Electric Shadows, Stephen Holden, The New York Times movie critic, wrote, “Even in rural China, during the Cultural Revolution, it suggests, movie iconography was so potent that the most austere, government-approved propaganda could instill counterrevolutionary dreams of glamour and stardom.”

Electric Shadows begins in the present as we see a grown-up bicyclist Mao Xiaobing (Yu Xia) carrying water bottles, speeding around the corner of a narrow street. He careens into a wall of bricks, toppling them. A woman (Zhongyang Qi) wrathfully attacks him. Neighbors call police who arrest her and dispatch the cyclist to a hospital. When Mao is released he goes to visit the woman at the police station to ask her why she reacted so vengefully. Without speaking, she hands him a note and apartment key and asks him to go feed her fish. Mao complies and finds her walls covered with pictures of movie scenes. A projector stands beside stacks of film reels and videocassettes. Mao also sees the woman’s journal and begins reading it. He realizes that the mute woman is his childhood playmate Ling Ling. When his family moved away, he gave her the beloved binoculars through which they viewed magical movies together.

Then the film flashes back to an earlier time when we see Ling Ling’s mother Jiang Xuehua (Jiang Yihon) employed at a radio station in Ningxia. She is pregnant and her lover has abandoned her. Citizens of the town brand her as a counterrevolutionary and she flees to the countryside. There she becomes a friend of Pan (Haibin Li), a movie-projectionist. They marry and conceive their own child, a son named Bing Bing. Since boys get first choice for attending school, Ling Ling can’t enroll because her parents can’t afford two tuitions. She is bereft. But then childhood friend Mao Xiaobing comes to live with his father in Ling Ling’s village. The father beats Mao each day. Ling Ling’s mother invites Mao to live with them. A family tragedy occurs. Is Ling Ling responsible? Why is Ling Ling deaf?

The village cinema goes out of business due to television’s ascendancy. Electric Shadows is a tribute to movies shared by children whose lives reconnect later in life to create new dreams.

95 minutes. Available on DVD. Mandarin with English subtitles.