Photo by John IvankoThe Esalen Institute Farm and Garden in California particularize in growing lucre for the facility ’s kitchen .
Perched between the Santa Lucia Mountains and the Pacific Ocean , rests one of the most fecund 4 estate of farmland in Big Sur , if not the entire California Coast . Blessed with temperate weather , theEsalen Institute ’s Farm and Garden has emerged as a leader in organic food production , nourishing the mind , feeling and bodies of the Esalen community and more than 13,000 masses who pass through the Esalen kitchen every year . It provide a livelihood or an education for those who cultivate its row crop , which include the super - nutritious , dark , leafy greenkale .
“ For over 40 years , the Esalen Farm and Garden has provided a holistic example of local food security , grow organic foodthat sustains , heals , and educates the community , ” read Shirley Ward , who manages the political platform alongside Noel Vietor , Jessie Spain and Christopher La Rose . We savour our chance to visit while travel down the coast from San Francisco for ourFarmstead Chefcookbook tour to begin with this twelvemonth .
Ward ’s position look out over lush heyday and herbaceous plant garden as well as diverse rows of vegetable , and beyond them , the sparkle of the Pacific Ocean . The Esalen Institute , founded in 1962 as a nonprofit retreat center field , serve as a place to search human potential . As such , the Institute , in gain to managing the farm and garden , host workshops and programs as well as an opportunity for guests to enjoy the natural hot spring and beauty of the place .
topically make foodis a priority for the institute — and a requirement , give its distant location — with most of the greens used by the kitchen to fee about 275 mass each day .
“ We specialize in gourmet salad mix , specialty herbs and heirloom ascendant crops , and grow about every variety of shekels and lettuce we can find , ” says Spain , farm supervisor , standing at the door with a escargot she peck up from the garden stuck on her shoulder . “ In the preceding few yr our product has averaged around $ 90,000 in wholesale value to the Esalen kitchen . ”
The crop raised at Esalen may travel less than 400 foot onto the plates of the buffet car in the good-time lodge , where meals are served and seating area is communal . About 10,800 bunches of colewort glean every twelvemonth by the Esalen Farm and Garden gets transubstantiate into the kitchen ’s signature kale salad ( recipe to amount next calendar week ) or served up in numerous other ways . As we often portion out in our presentations nationally , a lot of kale grown in the U.S. unluckily terminate up lining the salad bar at Pizza Hut , but kale is being discovered by more of us for its nutritional , not decorative , time value .
“ I see this as a major part of our employment as Farmer and gardeners , ” Ward explains . “ Not just to originate the mass of amazing food that flow the multitude , but to receive combat-ready or passive participants into and through the quad , to witness their solid food turn , to commune , if even in brief and unconsciously , with the residential district of plants , flowers , herb . ”
It ’s this idea that may strike a familiar cord with many of us today , with our backyardkitchen gardensor crop field .
Just in pillow slip you think Esalen is an farming heaven , think again .
“ February , March , and April can bring torrential rains and 60 mph idle words blow , ” Spain admits . “ May through October the days are cool , damp and foggy . Warm , gay days in conclusion arrive in November and continue through January . Plus there are mudslides , road - closures , fires , yearly water line fall in in the canyon . It ’s a risky , distant position to live and farm . ”While their farm is quite different than ourInn Serendipity , it face the same realities , as all farm do , with the uncertainties and challenge of nature .
Over the year , visionaries andsustainable - agricultureleaders have graced Esalen with the practicalities of farming without the need for vast amounts of fossil fuel or pesticides . Intensive month - longpermacultureworkshops have brought into focus the family relationship between human settlements and solid food needs and those ecological systems on which we count . Some of the results take the form ofgreenhouses , yield grove , hive , and , of grade , compost — black Au for a farm as quarantined as it is along the rugged coastline .
“ Across the board , we aim to alleviate meaningful , relational experiences that connect people to the land , food for thought , themselves and each other , ” enjoin Vietor , educational coordinator for the farm and garden program .
Besides maturate solid food , the farm and garden program is a accelerator for the transformation of people of all ages who volunteer in the gardens to help reap for part of a day , participate in the Farm and Garden seasonal apprenticeship to hone their skills as husbandman , or take the week or weekend - long “ Experiencing the Esalen Farm and Garden ” workshop .
“ The Esalen Farm and Garden is not certified organic , not biodynamic , not permaculture , not bio - intensive , and not no - till , ” Spain explain . “ In any given class we may play around in any or all of these praxis to some extent . The Farm and Garden is like the Esalen Institute as a whole : WE wear our Dogmas lightly , we go with the flow , we are experimental , and we are always germinate our practices . ”
Given the unprecedented change today — in climate , politics and major planet — perhaps Esalen ’s coming is itself , transformative , function as a descriptive , not normative , template for our farmstead and farm-place chef cuisine . After all , eating and growing solid food connect us to all life .
savor the good life ,
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