GQ?!!?

Is this picture really in the May issue of GQ?
Believe it or not, there is an article called "A Man's Introduction to Vegetable Gardening"...I got a call from an editor at GQ who said "Is it alright if we take a picture of you for our magazine?" and I said "I don't see why not..."

Bastille

Can you believe that there is a new restaurant opening soon Ballard called Bastille? And even though it is slated to open in mid-summer, it isn't opening on Bastille Day? It might sound ridiculous, but it is true. I suppose everyone is just too excited to get started. I know that I am. Somehow, through the powers of small town Seattle, we got the opportunity to help them set up a garden on the rooftop of the restaurant. So this is a picture of one of the new raised beds (built by some very talented carpenters) in which we will be attempting to grow salad greens. As I understand it, there will be a "Rooftop Salad" on the menu and our goal is to produce as much salad as humanly possible to satisfy the well documented, endless appetite for such a commodity. Mostly we will be growing wild arugula, small head lettuces and many "soft" herbs that are apparently essential to French cuisine. Quite an adventure so far...everything is assembled, irrigated, seeded and ready to go. This is the part where things should start to grow...

Alice

Not that anybody is keeping track...but I haven't blogged in a while. Not that there has been a lack of fodder...to say the least, the past few weeks have been a whirlwind tour of Leeds England. Spring has come on with a vengeance, intermittent sunshine mixed with rain and warm nighttime temperatures have made this (in my opinion) the best spring in a few years. Things are growing. To further complicate things, SUFCo. has been transitioning into a new headquarters (more about this later)...so we haven't had much time to breath (or play leisure sports). Interesting things have been happening. It seems that everywhere you go, someone is ready to talk about local foods and/or baseball. A couple of weeks ago I was lucky enough to meet Alice Waters at a farmer's market.


I am not sure if I should attempt to explain the importance of Alice in the local food movement. Briefly, she started a restaurant serving fresh, local foods in California Chez Pannise back in the day, way before it was cool. In my opinion, she is certainly one of the most influential food activists in the universe. There is even a great PBS documentary "Alice Waters and Her Delicious Revolution. I picked up a copy of her new book Edible Schoolyard which chronicles the advent of a gardening/cooking program she helped develop at a school in Berkeley. Which is very timely as we are currently trying to work out the details to help set up gardening spaces and curriculum at a few schools around Seattle. Anyways, the point is that she is really cool, and even though she wasn't signing body parts, she did sign my book and seemed like a genuine person.