Susan Preston book Launch at Barndiva Healdsburg: Take a Bow

The gift of perspective with age

We don’t talk enough about the upsides of old age, which is a great shame. While we go on and on about getting as much as we can from every minute of our lives, devote books and podcasts and practices on how to ‘hold the moment,’ when it comes to aging, too often fear replaces reverence for the lives we can still live as we age. The truth is that all of life, not just youth and middle age, is a blink and you miss it experience. And unlike those other phases of our time on this planet, getting old brings with it the potential of illuminating perspectives, especially if you have been paying attention. Another huge plus- there is a palpable relief in allowing yourself to finally let go of the insatiable need to fill your life with things, and diversions, all that ‘stuff’ you come to realize with age - thanks again to that hard won perspective - do not in themselves bring resonant joy or happiness.

The obsession to deny our aging minds and bodies their agency ignores the fact that our mental and physical health can be fragile at any stage of life- none of us really knows what’s coming. Resilience is the skill set we should be focused on, not clinging onto being young, which is monetized non-stop starting from an age when we are in fact still biologically young! Learning to accept the inevitability of age with intelligence, with grace, is what could be driving more of us to live meaningful lives… before and certainly after we get there.

Towards the end of our lives there is great relief to be found in sitting back on your heels, and basking in the glow of your life’s accomplishments.

It helps, of course, to have accomplishments you can be proud of - even better if they are acknowledged by the tribe.

Gathering Healdsburg’s Artists, Farmers & Makers

On Sunday Sept 14, a very special tribe gathered in Barndiva to celebrate the publication of “In Ghost Time, The Art and Stories of Susan Preston, her remarkable compendium filled with joy and mischievous humor that could only have come out of a long and glorious life, lived with intent. Much has been written about Lou and Susan Preston over the years, their farming life in Dry Creek Valley where they raised glorious vegetables, fruits, nuts, animals, made olive oil, bread, organic wines, all while supporting the growth of a Sonoma County regenerative food shed. Less known is that for all those years, quite a bit before, and while raising a family, Susan Preston never stopped writing and painting, accumulating a remarkable body of work that is now gathered between the pages of this new book. ‘In Ghost Time’ is a record of a life lived fully, infused with kindness, wit, few regrets, no apologies. It is also a heroic endeavor, as the making of the book was the lifeline she used to pull herself out of a very difficult couple of years when her health, indeed her life, was precarious. That she has come out the other side with this magnificent accomplishment was cause for celebration.

Celebrate she did, with her family and a very special community —a veritable who’s who of artists, farmers, and visionaries who have helped make Healdsburg the celebrated destination it is today. Legacy leaders mingled with those still shaping the town’s creative spirit: Bonnie Z of Dragonfly Farm and Floral; Carrie Brown, founder of Jimtown; Cindy Daniels and Doug Lipton, founders of the acclaimed gathering place The Shed; Yael Bernier of Bernier Farms; Dawnelise Rosen, formerly of Scopa and Campo Fina and now executive director of FARMpreneurs; Manok Cohen of Gallery 205; Carol Vena-Monte of the 428 Collective; Laura Parker of Laura Parker Studio, (who exhibited at Barndiva’s opening alongside Susan); Jessica Martin of Jessica Martin Art and the 428 Collective; Barbara von Wollner of BVW Art; Colleen McGlynn and Ridgley Evers of DaVero Farms & Winery; Marci Ellison of Art Farm; Ray Dagischer of Country Industrial; Suzanne & Chris Blum (Blum Box Art); Christina Hobbs of the 428 Collective; Kirsten Petrie of Yarn Paper Print Studio; Marcia Brauer of Preston Family Farm; and of course Francesca Preston, poet, and Maggie Preston of Maggie Preston Studio, Susan’s beloved daughters.

Susan floated through her opening on Sunday with self assured grace, signing books until it was time for a mesmerizing reading to the group assembled beneath the Mulberry Trees in our garden. On this sunny, perfect summer afternoon, in the heart of a splendid community we all helped foster, there was profound admiration for this singular woman. For her art, her honesty, and her resilient spirit.

Working on this book with Susan for the past two years I’ve taken away a great many lessons- not least that old age can be a season of abundance. Would that we all lived lives as fully as she has, with purpose and rootedness. To have an abiding passion for something so fully that when we look back we feel the quiet satisfaction of having become who we were meant to be.

Buy the book! You can find it on Susan’s page @PrestonFarmandWinery.com.

Speed Dating with Fork & Shovel in Healdsburg

(originally posted March 3, 2010)

Writing about gardens last week all my reference points seemed to be pulling from old friends and dead writers? A bit maudlin, no? Luckily, on Tuesday night Barndiva hosted Fork & Shovel’s annual get-together ~ a speed dating evening between the county’s best sustainable farmers and the chefs who rely on them. It was (excuse me for tempting fate) a hopeful evening in the extreme. Screw maudlin.

Fork & Shovel is primarily an Internet grange, but once a year we face off, flirting shamelessly about our varieties, heirlooms and breeds. A barn dance, without the music. A chance to build a definition of sustainable that can’t be co-opted. This is a crowd that doesn’t just know its food, it grows its food. Then cooks it.

But we really do live in different time zones. Think the Early Bird & the Owl on bio-dynamic crack.

The evening started a bit awkwardly ~ with everyone soaked from the rain and fumbling with name tags with either a fork or a shovel stamped on them. There were loads of new (young) faces. Luckily, Spencer had filled a huge punchbowl with one of his vodka and blood orange concoctions (this one held about 80 portions) and before long the drink wasn’t the only thing flowing. The evening officially began with a hilarious improv between Deborah Walton (Canvas Ranch) and Sondra Bernstein (Girl an the Fig) ~ issues of pricing, and delivery and how much mud a commercial kitchen can handle were deftly raised, then put to one side as farmers took to the podium, one by one. They had 30 seconds to charm chefs, tiny pencils hovering above Fork & Shovel pads.

John had brought the wood burning Rosso oven and before long crispy-edged pizzas laden with examples of the produce we’d just heard farmers singing the praises of started arriving on the bar. Even Mr. Hales, who is not known to enjoy anything he can’t eat with a knife and fork, seemed to be tasting one of each. (One of the nicer moments of the evening for me was sharing the Rosso energy under the makeshift tent during a sudden deluge ~ the smell of warm crust, wild mushrooms, arugula, chorizo, fontina was transporting).

We drank many bottles of wine ~ this is a great BYOB crowd ~ they bring it and they drink it. Bellwether contributed three gorgeous mounds of their new ricotta to taste, there was Big Dream Ranch Honey, Apple Farm Cider and Syrup and toward the end of the evening Doug Lipton opened bottles of his exquisite Home Ranch ’07 Muscat Blanc. If all that weren’t enough, everyone brought an old fashioned dessert ~ double stacked platters of cookies and fruit bars, spice cakes, cheese cakes, Hungarian “these are the walnuts I grow” layer cakes. Somewhere in heaven, Fanny Farmer was smiling down.

We are a Gossipy crowd: doll sheep, who already has tomato starts in the ground (lots of dubious eyebrow raising), how long before Sofia’s plow horses would be fully trained, and whoa, what to make of the sudden interest in classes on how to butcher whole animals? By the end of the evening Barndiva’s contract planting list had doubled, we had finally made it onto Liam Gallagher’s baby lamb allocation list, Karen agreed (though I doubt she will remember) to sell us a pig and do a cooking class with it in the new studio space, and I had collected the names of several goat farmers that swore they would serial call Chef Ryan. (My repeated efforts to bring this lean, light on the land source of protein to Barndiva’s menus have not, up to now, been successful.)

Fork & Shovel is about farmers and chefs working together to create an honorable business model that brings our enthusiasm to the public through increased sales. But we also share a landscape, a view. We are all trying to survive, to thrive even, in this difficult recession, growing beautiful food and cooking it with commitment and passion. We ended the evening with a promise to launch a series of First Sunday Fork & Shovel Dinners across the county.

I suppose maudlin serves a purpose, but what keeps me going in this business does not reside in looking backward. It is knowing that everything these farmers plant tomorrow, any animal they raise, might eventually land on a plate somewhere in my kitchen, eye to eye with Chef Ryan, to be blessed by his talent before being sent out for you to devour in the dining room. “Eat the view” is the most heartening three words in my vocabulary.

Here is the list of Barndiva’s fellow speed daters on Feb. 23, 2010.

Reminder: even if you were born to it and have your parent's experience to pull on, farming is crazy hard work with very few pots of gold at the end of the day. (Pots of poop is more like it. Which is gold to them). Support these sustainable farmers by frequenting the talented chefs who feature their food.

(The list below represents about half our membership. For a full list, visit www.forkandshovel.com and become a supporting member!)

Fork & Shovel Farmers who speed dated Tuesday Feb. 23 @ Barndiva

Bellwether Farms, Big Dream Ranch, Blankety Blank Farms, Canvas Ranch, Cultivating Impact, De Vero, Dragonfly, Early Girl Farms, Eastside Farm, Foggy River Farm, Gleason Ranch, Gretchen Giles (editor of The Bohemian), Healdsburg Eggs, Home Farm, Jim Leonardis Organics, Linda Peterson (representing Farm-Link), Mendocino Organics, Mix, Nana Mae Organics, Owen Family Farm, Oliver’s Market, Paula Downing (F&S Steering Committee, SR and Sebastapol Farmers Market Director), Quetzal, Sky Saddle, Sonoma Meat Buying Club, The Philo Apple Farm,Weed Farm

List of Restaurants Chefs they flirted unabashedly with:

Barndiva, Boon Eat & Drink, Cyrus, Dry Creek Kitchen, Inn at the Tides, Jimtown, Mateo Granados Catering, Mayacamas, Nick’s Cove, Park Ave Catering, Ralph’s Bistro, Relish Culinary School, Rosso Pizzeria and Wine Bar, Santi, The Girl & the Fig/ ESTATE/ The Girl & The Fig Cafe, Vintage Valley Catering, Zazu, Zin

All text and photography, Jil Hales (unless otherwise noted)