WEBVTT 00:00:01.110 --> 00:00:04.625 Today is September 3rd 2015. My name is Christi Narra Backman 00:00:04.658 --> 00:00:08.187 interviewing for Arizona State University for the Dinner 2040 project. 00:00:08.220 --> 00:00:11.027 Good morning. Could I ask you your name and if you introduce yourself? 00:00:11.060 --> 00:00:18.945 Yeah. Hi. My name is Natalie Morris. Um I am the, I'm a faculty member of 00:00:18.978 --> 00:00:22.666 Mesa Community College and I teach core classes in the sustainable Food 00:00:22.699 --> 00:00:27.497 Systems program there. I also am the local foods coordinator for local 00:00:27.530 --> 00:00:31.096 First Arizona. So let's talk a little bit about where you were born and 00:00:31.129 --> 00:00:36.296 where you grew up. I am actually um an Arizona native. I was born and 00:00:36.329 --> 00:00:41.457 raised here. Um I often like to joke that I ran away for just a little bit 00:00:41.490 --> 00:00:48.335 um uh a year specifically, maybe a year and a half. Um and uh went off to 00:00:48.368 --> 00:00:54.135 another country so nobody can accuse me of uh forsaking Arizona or 00:00:54.168 --> 00:00:59.656 anything for those of you out there who are die hard Arizonans um just for 00:00:59.689 --> 00:01:03.417 education purposes and then uh spent a little bit of time in the big city 00:01:03.450 --> 00:01:09.286 of New York. Um just to hopefully bring back some of the best of the best 00:01:09.319 --> 00:01:15.447 there and came back here and here I am again. So let's talk about um 00:01:15.480 --> 00:01:21.355 growing up and kind of cooking in your house and your family and what that 00:01:21.388 --> 00:01:27.126 was like for yourself. Sure. So, um looking at me, you wouldn't be able to 00:01:27.159 --> 00:01:35.066 tell. Um, but uh I grew up with a Dutch Indonesian grandmother. She was 00:01:35.099 --> 00:01:42.066 our adopted grandmother. I just was, she was a neighbor and uh um from an 00:01:42.099 --> 00:01:47.206 early point in my life, um, used to come over all the time and she would 00:01:47.239 --> 00:01:51.805 babysit my sister and I, and, um, really just became the grandmother that 00:01:51.838 --> 00:01:56.805 we always knew, but she was Indonesian by birth and then, um, a migrant 00:01:56.838 --> 00:02:04.838 and she would, um, she early in her life then went to, um, the Netherlands 00:02:05.159 --> 00:02:12.636 to escape the war. And, uh, she, um, ended up coming here at some point in 00:02:12.669 --> 00:02:18.636 her life to, um, Arizona. And so I grew up often on her food. There was no 00:02:18.669 --> 00:02:25.515 question in her mind that she would be serving us the dishes that she knew 00:02:25.548 --> 00:02:30.585 very well. She was a cook by, um, trade, um, had owned her own restaurant 00:02:30.618 --> 00:02:36.475 in the Netherlands. And, uh, she served my sister and I food that I don't 00:02:36.508 --> 00:02:43.036 think typical kids eat. Um, I think in her mind it was food that kids 00:02:43.069 --> 00:02:50.536 should eat. Um, I don't think my, my hunch was always that, um, she didn't 00:02:50.569 --> 00:02:57.245 even know what baby food was. Um, so from an early age um we would eat 00:02:57.278 --> 00:03:02.146 things like steamed broccoli with peanut sauce and I to this day 00:03:02.179 --> 00:03:07.475 definitely credit uh broccoli with peanut sauce. The dish that brings me 00:03:07.508 --> 00:03:14.406 to where I am now with my beliefs about food and culture. So um that's how 00:03:14.439 --> 00:03:19.495 I kind of feel about uh where that started. It sort of was like a spicy 00:03:19.528 --> 00:03:24.017 peanut sauce and my palate, I think just like from right then on always 00:03:24.050 --> 00:03:29.286 demanded um, that kind of food. And in addition, my mother actually was 00:03:29.319 --> 00:03:34.616 from the Midwest and my dad was from the South. So whatever food, um we 00:03:34.649 --> 00:03:40.467 had when she wasn't around, um, was always sort of like midwestern um, 00:03:40.500 --> 00:03:46.255 American food, um, whatever, whatever foods you can recall or come up with 00:03:46.288 --> 00:03:52.495 that might uh be from that um part of the US. And then of course, southern 00:03:52.528 --> 00:03:56.475 food, my dad was, um, appreciative of all those kinds of foods as well. So 00:03:56.508 --> 00:04:01.846 when he had the time would make us those things. So kind of a co uh a 00:04:01.879 --> 00:04:06.146 mishmash of all those kinds of foods were on our tables as kids. Do you 00:04:06.179 --> 00:04:10.406 remember, um, cooking with your grandmother or helping or would she allow 00:04:10.439 --> 00:04:14.717 you to or what was that experience? Was actually, she was actually pretty 00:04:14.750 --> 00:04:17.084 , 00:04:17.117 --> 00:04:20.916 my, my recollection was actually that she was pretty closed off about it. 00:04:20.949 --> 00:04:26.834 She, it was her space in the kitchen. It was her time to almost zone out 00:04:26.867 --> 00:04:32.437 and be away from us. And, um, though I kind of remember her giving us 00:04:32.470 --> 00:04:39.286 little tasks, set us up at the table and, and putting us up to something. 00:04:39.319 --> 00:04:43.286 I, I always sort of look back now and think maybe it was just her getting 00:04:43.319 --> 00:04:50.926 us, you know, out of her hair, um, and less about helping her. So I 00:04:50.959 --> 00:04:56.836 remember her always being really concentrated when she was standing at the 00:04:56.869 --> 00:05:04.869 , um, cutting board or over the stove. And when I think back it wasn't, um 00:05:05.160 --> 00:05:11.515 , it was just, it was her time, you know, to be away from, from society or 00:05:11.548 --> 00:05:16.096 whatever it was that stressed her out and I just sort of picture her, she 00:05:16.129 --> 00:05:23.197 would take a long time to cook. It was, it was really long and oddly long. 00:05:23.230 --> 00:05:28.007 So I really think that it was her time and her, her space and, um, she 00:05:28.040 --> 00:05:32.666 had a lot of things going at once. There would be boiling things and 00:05:32.699 --> 00:05:36.976 sauteing things and chopping things. She was quite the multitasker. And I 00:05:37.009 --> 00:05:42.786 think that fed into that time away as well. So she would just have a lot 00:05:42.819 --> 00:05:47.937 of things going on and, and, and be quite in the zone much in the way that 00:05:47.970 --> 00:05:54.546 chef, professional chefs talk about, um, this being their escape sometimes. 00:05:54.579 --> 00:05:59.887 Yeah. So tell me when she finished cooking and the, and the dishes were 00:05:59.920 --> 00:06:03.877 served, did you all sit together as a family to eat dinner or? Yeah. So 00:06:03.910 --> 00:06:07.217 that was my, that might be where she kind of tuned back in with us. She 00:06:07.250 --> 00:06:14.656 definitely put everything then on the table in a family style, uh, portion 00:06:14.689 --> 00:06:22.689 size dishes and ate with us. And, uh, um, her family was mixed family from 00:06:25.759 --> 00:06:30.836 very early on in her life. We weren't her, her only adopted family. She 00:06:30.869 --> 00:06:37.866 had another family that, uh, she had adopted along the way somewhere. Um, 00:06:37.899 --> 00:06:44.526 and they lived here as well for a few years. And so they would often be 00:06:44.559 --> 00:06:50.276 over and um they were Dutch as well and lived here. And so we would have 00:06:50.309 --> 00:06:55.336 them at the table or um there were often a few people at the table. I 00:06:55.369 --> 00:06:59.536 don't quite remember who all they were, but our church people were often 00:06:59.569 --> 00:07:05.687 there. Um Everyone loved her food. Um It was different. We don't have that 00:07:05.720 --> 00:07:09.245 much of a culture here in Arizona and I think people were attracted to 00:07:09.278 --> 00:07:16.836 that and I think people are often attracted to spices and foods. Um So we 00:07:16.869 --> 00:07:22.995 did, we had family dinners and people really liked being around almost too. 00:07:23.028 --> 00:07:26.866 The smells were attractive and therefore we all sort of attracted our, 00:07:26.899 --> 00:07:31.976 the the table attracted us. And so yeah, we would sit around the table and 00:07:32.009 --> 00:07:36.836 enjoy for quite a while. There was big, huge plates of the same things 00:07:36.869 --> 00:07:40.967 every time, but we never got tired of them. 00:07:41.000 --> 00:07:47.817 So tell me how um when did your interest um spark and when did you, when 00:07:47.850 --> 00:07:53.046 did your interest for food, take hold or kind of come about. Yeah. So I 00:07:53.079 --> 00:07:58.817 think I put two and two together for myself. Probably when I was 16 it was 00:07:58.850 --> 00:08:05.245 around the time that the Food Network was becoming a thing and they, the 00:08:05.278 --> 00:08:09.825 Food Network was launched, I think with about three, 00:08:09.858 --> 00:08:16.955 chefs or something like that. And I would, my sister and I would, um, just 00:08:16.988 --> 00:08:21.676 lay on the ground and watch Food Network all day. I don't know that I 00:08:21.709 --> 00:08:25.486 connected it to what was going on at home or anything like that. It was 00:08:25.519 --> 00:08:29.717 just interesting to me and we hadn't, my sister and I not, we hadn't 00:08:29.750 --> 00:08:35.677 really grown up with a big TV presence in our house, um, especially not 00:08:35.710 --> 00:08:41.657 cable or anything like that. Um, but at that point, I guess we did have 00:08:41.690 --> 00:08:48.816 cable and we watched the Food Network when it started to take hold and so 00:08:48.849 --> 00:08:53.217 we would watch it and at some point, I guess I had never really realized 00:08:53.250 --> 00:08:58.066 that being a chef for, I guess I never realized that you could be a chef 00:08:58.099 --> 00:09:02.326 for a living. And so being in high school, I guess I had started to think 00:09:02.359 --> 00:09:07.576 about what I would do after high school and I started thinking about, I 00:09:07.609 --> 00:09:13.275 could work in food. I could be a chef. And, um, the food network did that 00:09:13.308 --> 00:09:18.807 for me started to get my wheels turning and, um, I had already sort of had 00:09:18.840 --> 00:09:25.066 that palette. I think that where I, I really just loved all food and the 00:09:25.099 --> 00:09:32.557 food network was where the wheels started turning. Um, and 00:09:32.590 --> 00:09:36.537 I guess I just took it from there. It was obviously not till years, a few 00:09:36.570 --> 00:09:42.417 years later that I went to college. But, um, that was kind of where I left 00:09:42.450 --> 00:09:46.467 off. Was that, was that turning point for me? Was the food network. Did 00:09:46.500 --> 00:09:51.645 you start cooking in high school as well? Your own dishes or? I guess I 00:09:51.678 --> 00:09:56.775 was interested in it. But I don't really have a memory of doing much 00:09:56.808 --> 00:10:02.236 cooking. I think. I remember maybe in middle school, my dad, I have a 00:10:02.269 --> 00:10:08.005 memory of my dad teaching me how to make scrambled eggs. Um, but like good 00:10:08.038 --> 00:10:14.755 scrambled eggs, you know, um, he had a theory of how to do that and, you 00:10:14.788 --> 00:10:21.446 know, a perfect recipe low and slow. Um, he added milk which I've since 00:10:21.479 --> 00:10:25.177 eliminated from my own recipe. 00:10:25.210 --> 00:10:30.456 But, um, I don't remember doing much cooking. I remember being very 00:10:30.489 --> 00:10:34.917 interested in it so that when I did do some cooking, I would really spend 00:10:34.950 --> 00:10:40.135 a lot of time on it. Um, and cook quite a few dishes at once, but I don't 00:10:40.168 --> 00:10:47.996 remember it an ongoing thing. Um, probably until, 00:10:48.029 --> 00:10:53.125 probably until I was about 18. Um, I got married young. So, um, I got 00:10:53.158 --> 00:10:56.446 married when I was 19. So that was probably where it started to become 00:10:56.479 --> 00:11:01.547 more of a, a thing. I, I was living on, I, I moved out of my parents' 00:11:01.580 --> 00:11:06.037 house, obviously when we, we got married so that, you know, now I was in 00:11:06.070 --> 00:11:10.967 my own place and I had to survive. So, um it became more of a consistent 00:11:11.000 --> 00:11:16.157 thing at that point. So let's talk a little bit about um college and 00:11:16.190 --> 00:11:19.275 cooking and that transition and how you got interested in food 00:11:19.308 --> 00:11:25.086 sustainability issues. Sure. So after I got married, um my husband and I 00:11:25.119 --> 00:11:33.119 both then continued on into college. Um, and I decided kind of out of, 00:11:35.808 --> 00:11:41.385 more, out of, uh being naive that I didn't really, I knew I wanted to work 00:11:41.418 --> 00:11:45.326 in food, but I didn't know how to do that other than being a chef. So I 00:11:45.359 --> 00:11:52.255 went to, I enrolled in culinary school and, um, had so much fun doing it. 00:11:52.288 --> 00:11:57.946 It was, you know, at the time where everyone was sort of thinking like, or 00:11:57.979 --> 00:12:02.436 I had this perception, I guess maybe it wasn't a real thing, but I thought 00:12:02.469 --> 00:12:06.025 that it was a big thing during that time. I knew a lot of people who were 00:12:06.058 --> 00:12:13.236 sort of ditching their careers and going to culinary school. Um, and I 00:12:13.269 --> 00:12:17.476 decided to do that and there was a new program at the Art Institute of 00:12:17.509 --> 00:12:20.486 Phoenix and it was a Bachelor's degree. That was a really new thing at 00:12:20.519 --> 00:12:24.625 that time. Prior to that, it was um only associates degrees or 00:12:24.658 --> 00:12:28.996 certificates. And I wanted my bachelor's degree that was important to me. 00:12:29.029 --> 00:12:32.746 Education in general had always been important to me. So I wanted to make 00:12:32.779 --> 00:12:37.037 sure to get my bachelor's degree. So that was a selling point for me. So I 00:12:37.070 --> 00:12:39.946 enrolled at the Art Institute of Phoenix to make sure to get my bachelor's 00:12:39.979 --> 00:12:47.025 degree in culinary arts. And uh I went there and that was a great program. 00:12:47.058 --> 00:12:53.717 Um I learned a lot and during that time, I also ended up working for um 00:12:53.750 --> 00:12:57.467 uh two chefs here in the Valley. The restaurants are no longer, but they 00:12:57.500 --> 00:13:03.366 were like, the chefs were just wonderful to me. Um I worked for Greg Lrad 00:13:03.399 --> 00:13:11.399 at Quiescence and um uh Deborah Knight at Mosaic Restaurant and uh between 00:13:11.849 --> 00:13:17.836 the formality of school and the practicality, the hands on at the 00:13:17.869 --> 00:13:25.869 restaurants I learned so, so much. But, um, that was where I decided to 00:13:26.950 --> 00:13:33.246 really kick into gear, um with my education and training and getting my 00:13:33.279 --> 00:13:36.635 Bachelor's degree and um 00:13:36.668 --> 00:13:40.476 moving on from there and making it a formal profession. It was during that 00:13:40.509 --> 00:13:46.395 time, I think probably in my second year of my bachelor's degree that 00:13:46.428 --> 00:13:51.547 something popped into my head. I started to think it was really strange 00:13:51.580 --> 00:13:57.375 that we'd have all this food chucked in. Um, when we could have just 00:13:57.408 --> 00:14:01.946 ordered the fresh produce from around the corner specifically, I was 00:14:01.979 --> 00:14:06.206 thinking of Maya's Farm and 00:14:06.239 --> 00:14:12.816 I asked my chef that I said, you know, why aren't we just very much 00:14:12.849 --> 00:14:17.356 naively. I said, why are we ordering food from this really beautiful farm 00:14:17.389 --> 00:14:23.515 , which I'm sure is just going to be fresh. Um, and probably taste better 00:14:23.548 --> 00:14:28.657 . I mean, it's been sitting on a truck all day. It probably will just be 00:14:28.690 --> 00:14:34.177 more tasty. And it, it, the whole thing was, like I said, very naive. And 00:14:34.210 --> 00:14:39.186 um my chef, God bless him. I love him. He's a great guy, but he, you know 00:14:39.219 --> 00:14:44.167 , old guard kind of chef looked at me and said mirror like something like 00:14:44.200 --> 00:14:47.076 that literally was what came out of his mouth. He kind of mumbled 00:14:47.109 --> 00:14:55.109 something and I was like, well, ok, whatever, like, I guess, um uh so that 00:14:56.529 --> 00:15:03.326 was what got the wheels turning for me. Um I didn't like the, you know, 00:15:03.359 --> 00:15:10.515 like that was not OK. So that was where I um started to think about more 00:15:10.548 --> 00:15:16.135 food in terms of sustainability. Um It was just basic sort of one and one 00:15:16.168 --> 00:15:23.566 I think what happened next? Um I ended up, it was getting close to my, 00:15:23.599 --> 00:15:27.076 where do I go from here in my bachelor's degree? And so I ended up 00:15:27.109 --> 00:15:32.436 thinking like, well, how could I go from here? How could I turn my life 00:15:32.469 --> 00:15:36.936 into more of a sustainable? That word wasn't a real big thing yet. But how 00:15:36.969 --> 00:15:44.969 could I turn, um, what I'm doing into that, you know? Um I went home and I 00:15:46.668 --> 00:15:50.446 simply just googled something. I don't even know what it was, but I ended 00:15:50.479 --> 00:15:55.736 up finding a syllabus. It just popped up and it was the degree program 00:15:55.769 --> 00:16:02.826 that I attended in Italy. And uh it was the master's in food culture um 00:16:02.859 --> 00:16:08.186 and communication for the University of Gastronomic Sciences. And I just 00:16:08.219 --> 00:16:12.586 read through this syllabus and it was everything I'd wanted to study. It 00:16:12.619 --> 00:16:16.746 was everything from, obviously, it was food culture, but it was food 00:16:16.779 --> 00:16:24.779 systems as well. It was everything um about. 00:16:24.940 --> 00:16:32.375 So the sociology of consumption, it was um studying, you know, um 00:16:32.408 --> 00:16:39.596 the um geology um about food in the entire world. It was, it was just 00:16:39.629 --> 00:16:44.525 everything and I looked at the syllabus and I said this is what I want. It 00:16:44.558 --> 00:16:48.547 was nothing I didn't want and it was everything I wanted. And it was 00:16:48.580 --> 00:16:54.557 taught by experts that were flown in from all over the world. And it also 00:16:54.590 --> 00:16:59.496 had this component to it that we would go out and do field work in a major 00:16:59.529 --> 00:17:03.606 way, not just the school was based in Italy. So it was not just in Italy, 00:17:03.639 --> 00:17:09.535 but it was also um you would go out and do field work in the eu. So we 00:17:09.568 --> 00:17:15.544 went to places like Belgium and we went to places like um uh where else 00:17:15.577 --> 00:17:21.305 did we go? Goodness. Um We went all across the eu to study as well. So I 00:17:21.338 --> 00:17:25.847 had a big um you know, in classroom component, but it also had field work. 00:17:25.880 --> 00:17:31.097 We would go out and we would learn from the people who do this and all of 00:17:31.130 --> 00:17:36.656 that was really super attractive to me. So I um I applied and I got in and 00:17:36.689 --> 00:17:42.085 I was, you know, kind of flabbergasted. I really didn't, admittedly I was 00:17:42.118 --> 00:17:45.436 less interested in the master's degree and more interested in what I would 00:17:45.469 --> 00:17:52.026 be doing. Um So that's how I ended up doing that and going where I was 00:17:52.059 --> 00:17:58.246 with all of it and uh learning what I have been learning. So how would you 00:17:58.279 --> 00:18:05.456 describe, um, what a food system is? So, one of the classes that I teach 00:18:05.489 --> 00:18:11.206 at MESA is this, um, it's under the umbrella of sustainable food systems. 00:18:11.239 --> 00:18:16.335 But one of the key components that I sort of kick off the class with is 00:18:16.368 --> 00:18:22.335 that question because I think often it's sort of misunderstood. Um It 00:18:22.368 --> 00:18:26.906 seems so the words seems so self explanatory, but it's not something that 00:18:26.939 --> 00:18:31.835 people really think about. Um, it sort of revisits that idea of what, 00:18:31.868 --> 00:18:37.075 where does our food come from. But even then it's mind boggling and we 00:18:37.108 --> 00:18:41.967 wonder where, what that even means. And we sort of think, ok, it comes 00:18:42.000 --> 00:18:46.766 from a farm that seems like the natural answer. Once you've gotten past, 00:18:46.799 --> 00:18:52.127 it comes from a chef or something like that. But, um, 00:18:52.160 --> 00:18:56.756 when we really think about currently where our food comes from, we don't 00:18:56.789 --> 00:19:03.357 think about all the steps in between whether that's, um, 00:19:03.390 --> 00:19:06.746 you know, if you really get down to the nitty gritty. You have to think 00:19:06.779 --> 00:19:13.535 about the fact that the food comes or starts with a seed. Um And if you 00:19:13.568 --> 00:19:17.127 back it up, just even further, it starts with the soil or if you back it 00:19:17.160 --> 00:19:23.035 up even further, it starts with the inputs in that soil, which if you back 00:19:23.068 --> 00:19:27.766 it up even further, it starts up, starts with what we're contributing to 00:19:27.799 --> 00:19:32.085 that soil on a daily basis that we don't really even think about when 00:19:32.118 --> 00:19:36.085 we're putting our trash in the trash bin. And how if we don't do that 00:19:36.118 --> 00:19:41.967 correctly, it doesn't, it truly affects how then our soil and our 00:19:42.000 --> 00:19:47.956 environment and the rain and all like all those inputs work. And so I'm 00:19:47.989 --> 00:19:52.325 going backwards, but it's for a reason, you know, that's the part of this 00:19:52.358 --> 00:19:57.097 food system that we have to continue to worry about. 00:19:57.130 --> 00:20:02.285 Not to stress everyone out when I say worry. But that for me is the food 00:20:02.318 --> 00:20:10.318 system. But if we sort of then go forward, we have to think about once the 00:20:11.368 --> 00:20:16.555 food is out of the ground and it's, you know, been grown 00:20:16.588 --> 00:20:24.588 once the food has grown, who is affected by that, who has um been a part 00:20:26.318 --> 00:20:33.127 of that process. So the people um that's a part of the food system. So 00:20:33.160 --> 00:20:38.436 we've gotten um you know, all the inputs we've talked about and then we've 00:20:38.469 --> 00:20:43.137 gotten into the um 00:20:43.170 --> 00:20:47.045 you follow that trail, you, you go through inputs, you go through soil and 00:20:47.078 --> 00:20:50.627 seed and, and all of the growth there. But then you get to the point where 00:20:50.660 --> 00:20:54.906 the food is grown and you talk about the people who are out there growing 00:20:54.939 --> 00:20:57.887 the food. And I think that's a major thing because whether you're talking 00:20:57.920 --> 00:21:02.476 about a large food system or you're talking about a small scale grower, 00:21:02.509 --> 00:21:06.476 you have to consider 00:21:06.509 --> 00:21:10.706 the people that are growing it. And if they're being paid well, if they're 00:21:10.739 --> 00:21:17.315 being treated well, and if they're being 00:21:17.348 --> 00:21:24.147 considered at all, so I think that's a part of the food system. But then 00:21:24.180 --> 00:21:27.486 if you think about that, you have to talk, start talking about 00:21:27.519 --> 00:21:33.766 transportation and how that works and how that whole process in general, 00:21:33.799 --> 00:21:38.467 then really even affects our environment, which then revisits that whole 00:21:38.500 --> 00:21:42.887 soil thing. It's this huge long process that if we start to talk about 00:21:42.920 --> 00:21:47.516 where our food comes from, there's really so many answers to that. And I 00:21:47.549 --> 00:21:51.315 think that's the food system and I'm not even, I'm not even visiting every 00:21:51.348 --> 00:21:55.726 single little thing in there. But I think that for me is the food system. 00:21:55.759 --> 00:21:59.456 And uh what I try to do with my students in that class is have that 00:21:59.489 --> 00:22:04.676 conversation. It, it's a, it's an engaging conversation um that I try to 00:22:04.709 --> 00:22:10.766 have with them rather than a defined conversation. Um because I think 00:22:10.799 --> 00:22:14.736 that's super important to make people really have their wheels start to 00:22:14.769 --> 00:22:19.696 turn on that rather than, um, say this is what a food system is, you know 00:22:19.729 --> 00:22:23.746 , talking about that conversation. Is it hard to have that conversation 00:22:23.779 --> 00:22:28.986 with them? Do they? It is, it is. Yeah. The thing is, I think they, it is 00:22:29.019 --> 00:22:33.916 there innately, you know, we talk about these things from kindergarten up 00:22:33.949 --> 00:22:38.717 but we sort of start to forget about them when we are teenagers. Starts 00:22:38.750 --> 00:22:44.347 that those basic things that we learn about when we're a kid um start to 00:22:44.380 --> 00:22:48.897 kind of go away and um it's harder and harder now that we are an 00:22:48.930 --> 00:22:52.785 information based society. We have so many things coming at us all the 00:22:52.818 --> 00:22:59.206 time between social media and all the forms of social media and all the 00:22:59.239 --> 00:23:05.706 forms of news that we can read and see and hear and watch and um have 00:23:05.739 --> 00:23:10.746 access to whether it's important or not. And I think we start to forget 00:23:10.779 --> 00:23:16.137 about the things that I just 00:23:16.170 --> 00:23:22.847 things that we need to know in life in order to um move forward. And I 00:23:22.880 --> 00:23:27.656 think us as human beings, um 00:23:27.689 --> 00:23:32.717 if we could take a step back, we could actually be more functional for our 00:23:32.750 --> 00:23:39.285 own selves if we remembered some of these basic things. Um So, yeah, so 00:23:39.318 --> 00:23:42.976 let's go back a little bit. Tell me what you think you learned from um 00:23:43.009 --> 00:23:48.456 your experiences in Italy, the master's class. You know, it's funny 00:23:48.489 --> 00:23:52.766 because it was a food program. But one of the things that indirectly 00:23:52.799 --> 00:23:56.585 relates to what we're talking about is that one of the things I took away 00:23:56.618 --> 00:24:00.666 , one of the biggest things I took away. And it's important to me every 00:24:00.699 --> 00:24:08.699 day in my life is that we have to take time to just be. And I relate that 00:24:09.328 --> 00:24:16.416 to food in a very big way because food allows us to just be um when we 00:24:16.449 --> 00:24:22.325 take time to eat, we're taking the time to just nourish ourselves and 00:24:22.358 --> 00:24:28.717 we're taking the time to nourish ourselves. Not only um 00:24:28.750 --> 00:24:33.266 you know, to sate ourselves, but we're taking time to refresh, we're 00:24:33.299 --> 00:24:38.206 taking time to um 00:24:38.239 --> 00:24:44.246 just kind of renew and if we do it right, we're also taking time to 00:24:44.279 --> 00:24:50.196 socialize and remember who we are as a species and conversations 00:24:50.229 --> 00:24:57.976 arise and who knows ideas might become of whatever that situation is. And 00:24:58.009 --> 00:25:04.266 , and it's really kind of a cool thing that food can do for us. And that 00:25:04.299 --> 00:25:08.335 was one of the biggest things I think I took is Italy is pretty known for 00:25:08.368 --> 00:25:12.026 just kind of taking their time to do things and they're also pretty known 00:25:12.059 --> 00:25:17.746 for food. So I think that um the connection there is um pretty obvious and 00:25:17.779 --> 00:25:22.236 I think that's a big thing that we can take from their culture. Europe is 00:25:22.269 --> 00:25:30.269 a little bit more, less that way, but they still are. And I think that um 00:25:31.170 --> 00:25:34.085 I'm gonna get this wrong because I always twist it up. But I think that 00:25:34.118 --> 00:25:42.118 the expression that is used um is that often um they uh working to live or 00:25:42.729 --> 00:25:48.186 we working to live and they're living, were living to work cause I, I 00:25:48.219 --> 00:25:55.226 might be getting that backwards. But I love that expression because um 00:25:55.259 --> 00:25:58.676 I think we could really slow it down a little bit and I, I hate to be so 00:25:58.709 --> 00:26:02.436 cliche and whatever, but I think it's so true that if we sort of 00:26:02.469 --> 00:26:08.387 prioritize what, um, what it is that when we do on a daily basis and we 00:26:08.420 --> 00:26:12.545 take those times, whatever works for everybody. You know, if it's 15 00:26:12.578 --> 00:26:16.406 minutes in the morning, 15 minutes in the afternoon, that, that's the 00:26:16.439 --> 00:26:20.456 biggest thing. And I think food is the core of it. We all eat, we all love 00:26:20.489 --> 00:26:26.156 food. Why not use food to be that thing that slows us down, you know. So 00:26:26.189 --> 00:26:30.897 that's one of the biggest things I think that I took from Italy. So tell 00:26:30.930 --> 00:26:37.285 me when you came back and what, what you did after you came back. So, 00:26:37.318 --> 00:26:42.496 other than the fact that we lived in New York for a little bit, um, which 00:26:42.529 --> 00:26:45.575 was a really, actually very fun experience because I got to work on a 00:26:45.608 --> 00:26:51.045 really cool project there. Um, that I did end up bringing back here, um, 00:26:51.078 --> 00:26:55.847 which was Truck Farm, Phoenix. Well, truck Farm in general. It was an 00:26:55.880 --> 00:27:00.196 urban agriculture project that I helped to launch um, all across the 00:27:00.229 --> 00:27:06.676 nation. But then I, there's one here over on Roosevelt Road. Um, now sure 00:27:06.709 --> 00:27:11.756 if you'd like, um, it's, it's an urban agriculture project that's youth 00:27:11.789 --> 00:27:19.789 oriented and it is a farm in the back of a truck bed. That really just the 00:27:20.250 --> 00:27:26.295 idea is that it would go around to schools or anywhere youth hang out and 00:27:26.328 --> 00:27:31.535 just show kids that we can grow food wherever and, you know, if it's just 00:27:31.568 --> 00:27:36.335 the front porch or if it's right here at the table or something, they can 00:27:36.368 --> 00:27:41.256 grow their own food. And, um, you know, all it really requires are the 00:27:41.289 --> 00:27:45.206 essential inputs, you know, water and a little bit of sunlight depending 00:27:45.239 --> 00:27:52.156 on the plant. And, uh, the idea is that doing those little things can help 00:27:52.189 --> 00:27:58.045 you to save money, eat, better, eat fresher, more nutritiously, but also 00:27:58.078 --> 00:28:05.026 have fun and be engaged. Um, as gardening can be therapeutic. So it, you 00:28:05.059 --> 00:28:08.877 know, it is not the panacea for solving the food crisis or anything like 00:28:08.910 --> 00:28:14.156 that. But it was a fun thing to be able to do across the country. A lot of 00:28:14.189 --> 00:28:18.075 really cool food advocates got engaged in that and it was a really cool 00:28:18.108 --> 00:28:21.996 thing to do. It was 2010, I think they've done two more rounds since then 00:28:22.029 --> 00:28:29.045 , maybe three. So that was what I did while I was there mostly. Um, and 00:28:29.078 --> 00:28:34.906 then came back here and uh did one here. Um, Roosevelt Grow House was 00:28:34.939 --> 00:28:40.936 specifically the guys that took it over. Um, and, uh, after that I 00:28:40.969 --> 00:28:46.676 actually worked with, uh, I went back to my old job prior to leaving and I 00:28:46.709 --> 00:28:52.305 went to work with Cindy Jury at the Phoenix Public Market and helped with 00:28:52.338 --> 00:29:00.338 the Urban Grocery, um, and did some work there, um, helping with kind of 00:29:00.729 --> 00:29:06.387 everything. That was a, that was a group effort, the urban groceries. So, 00:29:06.420 --> 00:29:12.926 um, everything I mostly did events, I guess was my biggest um undertaking 00:29:12.959 --> 00:29:19.766 there after I returned um working every event from kind of food day based 00:29:19.799 --> 00:29:25.516 events to little ones that we did um on our own. Um like the Chef series, 00:29:25.549 --> 00:29:32.996 which was really fun where we got uh local chefs engaged in um various 00:29:33.029 --> 00:29:41.029 small very intimate um dinners that we would host um kind of all of that. 00:29:41.729 --> 00:29:47.065 And since then, um since the Urban Grocery, I ended up launching a 00:29:47.098 --> 00:29:51.456 project called Guru Finder, which is an online directory of farmers and 00:29:51.489 --> 00:29:56.446 food producers here in the State of Arizona. And I worked on that for 00:29:56.479 --> 00:30:01.656 quite a while um under the umbrella of the Kellogg Foundation um and the 00:30:01.689 --> 00:30:07.756 University of Arizona. So, and then I ended up um working with local first 00:30:07.789 --> 00:30:13.585 Arizona to have them take that over and they will be relaunching that this 00:30:13.618 --> 00:30:20.857 month. So, so let's go back a little bit about the truck, farm, truck farm. 00:30:20.890 --> 00:30:24.746 Tell me what the role of education and why that initiative was so 00:30:24.779 --> 00:30:29.637 important. So, 00:30:29.670 --> 00:30:33.795 like I mentioned it was youth oriented and what we really wanted to do was 00:30:33.828 --> 00:30:39.565 go out to underserved communities because at the time, and it's still 00:30:39.598 --> 00:30:43.726 pretty prevalent that those were the communities that we felt were the 00:30:43.759 --> 00:30:50.766 ones not hearing the message enough. Um, in any way, because simply due to 00:30:50.799 --> 00:30:56.555 funding and things like that, those schools and those areas don't, aren't 00:30:56.588 --> 00:31:03.506 having access to um things like school gardens. And um at least at that 00:31:03.539 --> 00:31:09.607 time, um, now there's more funding that sort of goes more specifically to 00:31:09.640 --> 00:31:14.196 things like food desserts. This was pre food desert awareness and things 00:31:14.229 --> 00:31:21.127 like that. But, um, at that time, this was not, it wasn't like that um, in 00:31:21.160 --> 00:31:26.555 any sort of bigger way. So this directly targeted the under serve, 00:31:26.588 --> 00:31:31.107 underserved communities. Um And we wanted to make sure that we, um, took 00:31:31.140 --> 00:31:35.217 that truck farm. I mean, it literally, it was, we drove, it, it was 00:31:35.250 --> 00:31:42.266 difficult to drive a truck farm across town. But, um, we would take the 00:31:42.299 --> 00:31:48.127 truck farms and just take them out to um various schools who wanted to 00:31:48.160 --> 00:31:52.825 have it come. And it was a um, 00:31:52.858 --> 00:32:00.858 a literal vehicle to showing kids how fun food and farming can be. Um And 00:32:01.818 --> 00:32:05.717 we really just wanted to 00:32:05.750 --> 00:32:12.397 make sure that we, I think highlighted the word fun because I think the 00:32:12.430 --> 00:32:19.815 messaging that can be a part of some of this is often that it's sad and 00:32:19.848 --> 00:32:23.676 that we don't know what's happening with food and then it's like I said, 00:32:23.709 --> 00:32:28.295 there's a food crisis and then it can be daunting. It can, the messaging 00:32:28.328 --> 00:32:32.666 along this line can be daunting. And we wanted to make sure that kids 00:32:32.699 --> 00:32:36.387 particularly knew. I mean, they're our next generation, right. So we 00:32:36.420 --> 00:32:43.055 wanted to make sure that they knew that this is going to be, it is a 00:32:43.088 --> 00:32:49.446 really cool, um, it can be a really cool thing to be able to change the 00:32:49.479 --> 00:32:54.996 food system. And uh so that was kind of the fun aspect of this is that 00:32:55.029 --> 00:32:59.575 even though we're going to stereotypically, some parts of the communities 00:32:59.608 --> 00:33:05.575 that may not be so happy, um We wanted to show them that this would be a 00:33:05.608 --> 00:33:12.535 really cool space for them to potentially be involved in. So, um that was 00:33:12.568 --> 00:33:15.795 , that was kind of, it was pretty simple mission. It was, and it was 00:33:15.828 --> 00:33:22.717 successful. Kids had so much fun. I had fun. It was so much fun to be out 00:33:22.750 --> 00:33:28.266 at these, at these schools, kids, we let them eat out of the truck. Um So 00:33:28.299 --> 00:33:34.996 we took it when it was, you know, pretty full and sometimes overgrown and 00:33:35.029 --> 00:33:39.436 uh kids just had so much fun. There's some really cool videos on youtube 00:33:39.469 --> 00:33:46.335 of what the kids did and um it became a project of Food Corp. Um So they 00:33:46.368 --> 00:33:51.717 often will show pictures or videos as well and uh it became, I know 00:33:51.750 --> 00:33:55.397 there's some really cool quotes from um the food, core messaging of kids, 00:33:55.430 --> 00:34:00.815 say the darndest things and things like that. So it was just kids. Uh, the 00:34:00.848 --> 00:34:04.176 reactions were amazing. 00:34:04.209 --> 00:34:07.776 They totally did. Um, that's actually what I can't. I wish I could 00:34:07.809 --> 00:34:13.995 remember the quote. There's one kid who I'm picturing in that and he was 00:34:14.028 --> 00:34:18.735 saying something along that line where he's saying something about how he 00:34:18.768 --> 00:34:21.914 just loves parsley now, like he just only wants to eat parsley or 00:34:21.947 --> 00:34:24.644 something. And I wish that I could remember the quote because it was 00:34:24.677 --> 00:34:30.874 really adorable. But yeah, along that line, he, they got it and they, we 00:34:30.907 --> 00:34:35.796 had a contest once. Um, well, I think every year had the contest and they 00:34:35.829 --> 00:34:41.736 would send in like plants that they planted, um, in like a half of a 00:34:41.769 --> 00:34:47.756 basketball or like the idea was to plant in quirky places and, and they 00:34:47.789 --> 00:34:51.997 did and they just planted, um, things and they would cut a basketball in 00:34:52.030 --> 00:34:57.555 half and plant it in basketball or a grocery cart or any of the quirkiest 00:34:57.588 --> 00:35:02.405 places they could find. And so, yeah, they did and they had fun. Why is 00:35:02.438 --> 00:35:07.836 getting that message across to young Children? Important? 00:35:07.869 --> 00:35:12.206 Um, 00:35:12.239 --> 00:35:14.436 I think, 00:35:14.469 --> 00:35:20.217 I think for me anyway, I, 00:35:20.250 --> 00:35:24.126 I think it really just boils down to the fact. And this affected me too 00:35:24.159 --> 00:35:29.135 for a while, I think. But somewhere between 00:35:29.168 --> 00:35:35.166 good food finder after I launched good food finder and now there was a 00:35:35.199 --> 00:35:40.865 point in time where I felt that message and the, and the depression of 00:35:40.898 --> 00:35:48.606 that message. Sometimes I feel the, the pain of how like sad, this message 00:35:48.639 --> 00:35:53.787 can be portrayed. And it is because it is sad. There are some statistics 00:35:53.820 --> 00:35:58.276 out there about all parts of that food chain that can be really depressing 00:35:58.309 --> 00:36:05.327 and kind of makes you wonder where are we going from here? And um, kids 00:36:05.360 --> 00:36:10.385 feel that kind of thing. You know, kids are really attuned to their 00:36:10.418 --> 00:36:16.365 surroundings and they don't let on often or they don't, or we see them 00:36:16.398 --> 00:36:22.727 crying and they can't express that. And I think that um that is partly why 00:36:22.760 --> 00:36:27.977 we need to bring a positive message to students, students, kids, whatever 00:36:28.010 --> 00:36:30.037 because 00:36:30.070 --> 00:36:34.236 they are our next generation. They need to know the facts, but they also 00:36:34.269 --> 00:36:39.666 need to know why it's important to be positive about it. Um I teach my 00:36:39.699 --> 00:36:44.037 students in that way. I don't like the fear mongering messages or, or any 00:36:44.070 --> 00:36:48.287 of that because while again, they need to know the facts. They need to 00:36:48.320 --> 00:36:55.655 know what's out there and the sadness with say, um the, the animals and 00:36:55.688 --> 00:37:02.017 humans and the environment and all of that, but they need to know why 00:37:02.050 --> 00:37:06.026 we're doing this. You know, they need to know the positivity and I think 00:37:06.059 --> 00:37:10.287 that's why it's important to get kids 00:37:10.320 --> 00:37:14.936 out there and having fun with it, you know? Ok. Can you tell me a little 00:37:14.969 --> 00:37:18.456 bit about, um, how can you tell me how you would define food 00:37:18.489 --> 00:37:22.537 sustainability? Oh 00:37:22.570 --> 00:37:26.945 Question. Um 00:37:26.978 --> 00:37:33.967 oh boy, can I create more of a picture? OK. 00:37:34.000 --> 00:37:38.967 Maybe this is gonna be too. I have a feeling that might just be another 00:37:39.000 --> 00:37:46.467 answer to your question or something. But I see food sustainability as 00:37:46.500 --> 00:37:52.095 this might be more of a ideal scenario. But it's something that if I could 00:37:52.128 --> 00:37:57.416 recreate the world right now. This is my idea of how food sustainability 00:37:57.449 --> 00:38:03.865 or even a sustainable world would look like in general. Um 00:38:03.898 --> 00:38:11.898 I would si would picture it as local communities working together 00:38:12.340 --> 00:38:14.816 in 00:38:14.849 --> 00:38:19.175 how do I say this 00:38:19.208 --> 00:38:23.276 kind of like little spots all around the world of local communities 00:38:23.309 --> 00:38:27.686 working together. So we don't have to rely on buying something that comes 00:38:27.719 --> 00:38:33.066 from really far away. So utilizing the best of the best that your neighbor 00:38:33.099 --> 00:38:38.227 has or um it, it maybe, like I said, it doesn't necessarily have to be 00:38:38.260 --> 00:38:45.997 food. It's maybe it's the guy next door and he makes, um you know, pottery 00:38:46.030 --> 00:38:53.736 or the guy next door makes um some kind of essential that you need. And um 00:38:53.769 --> 00:38:58.456 the farmer down the street or the cheese maker down the street or whatever 00:38:58.489 --> 00:39:03.436 , but you're all buying from one another kind of a revisit to the way it 00:39:03.469 --> 00:39:11.066 was hm 100 years ago, you know, maybe a little more, but relying on one 00:39:11.099 --> 00:39:15.606 another and to me that's food sustainability or sustainability in general 00:39:15.639 --> 00:39:19.876 is just making sure you're putting the food on the table of your neighbor 00:39:19.909 --> 00:39:27.909 , if you will. And um to me that's what that scenario looks like. Ideally. 00:39:28.260 --> 00:39:32.727 Can you tell me a little bit about um the good, good food finder? Why 00:39:32.760 --> 00:39:38.905 your inspiration and what were your goals for it or how it came about? 00:39:38.938 --> 00:39:45.827 So, when I received the funding um from the Kellogg Foundation, there 00:39:45.860 --> 00:39:53.227 weren't too many parameters. They kind of just said do something great. 00:39:53.260 --> 00:39:59.655 And at first, I was kind of like, what does that mean? What do you want me 00:39:59.688 --> 00:40:04.186 to chew? And um 00:40:04.219 --> 00:40:11.445 I knew that at the time the program was called um Borderlands Food and 00:40:11.478 --> 00:40:14.057 Water Security. 00:40:14.090 --> 00:40:20.336 And so I knew that it obviously had to meet the criteria of food and water 00:40:20.369 --> 00:40:28.369 security, something that um needed to be in the realm of serving 00:40:30.179 --> 00:40:36.345 a longer term purpose of all of that. So I started to think like, what am 00:40:36.378 --> 00:40:41.546 I passionate about and what I'm really passionate about within all of this 00:40:41.579 --> 00:40:46.316 is um farmers and food producers, small scale, medium scale farmers and 00:40:46.349 --> 00:40:53.206 food producers. I really think that if we can support them, they will, 00:40:53.239 --> 00:41:01.239 there's a return on that and am, you know, a um a um multi effect return. 00:41:03.199 --> 00:41:08.086 And I really thought that at least here in Arizona that was kind of 00:41:08.119 --> 00:41:12.195 underserved. And I still think in some ways it is, but I thought that I'm 00:41:12.228 --> 00:41:16.126 a big fan of quick wins. I'm like, I'm thinking like, what could I do that 00:41:16.159 --> 00:41:21.227 would be relatively easy within that budget. That 00:41:21.260 --> 00:41:27.095 will have a pretty quick pay off. And I thought, what about just a local 00:41:27.128 --> 00:41:30.717 foods directory? We already have a couple here in the state, but no one 00:41:30.750 --> 00:41:35.655 that really serves small scale, medium scale farmers and food producers. 00:41:35.688 --> 00:41:39.796 And I thought, you know, if I could create something like that, which I 00:41:39.829 --> 00:41:43.537 was, I'm pretty tech savvy. I knew I could create a website. I needed some 00:41:43.570 --> 00:41:48.767 help with some back end development and some design. But I really wanted 00:41:48.800 --> 00:41:52.057 one that would be able to 00:41:52.090 --> 00:41:59.146 almost be a quick way to market them. If people looked up ex farmer, they 00:41:59.179 --> 00:42:04.936 would be able to find farms that are near to them. But also, then what 00:42:04.969 --> 00:42:08.316 else would they find on that profile? They would find ways to get to them 00:42:08.349 --> 00:42:15.695 , ways to shop, ways to, um then, you know, forward them on to their 00:42:15.728 --> 00:42:20.477 friend who's looking for some special thing. There were so many ways that 00:42:20.510 --> 00:42:27.436 I thought this could then, you know, help the community. Um And later I 00:42:27.469 --> 00:42:31.267 thought, well, you know, even this data is amazing because we could show 00:42:31.300 --> 00:42:36.345 the world that Arizona is not just about the five Seas anymore or we're 00:42:36.378 --> 00:42:43.477 not just about um the dry desert, you know, we're here and we're cool just 00:42:43.510 --> 00:42:47.497 like everywhere else. And so there were some things that I thought and we 00:42:47.530 --> 00:42:51.827 could put numbers to that directory and we can say, hey, look, we have, 00:42:51.860 --> 00:42:57.307 I'm making this up, but we have over, you know, 200 farmers that are 00:42:57.340 --> 00:43:04.896 selling eggs or whatever. Um And so to me, that was my quick one. I was 00:43:04.929 --> 00:43:09.506 thinking like if we can put this up in a logical amount of time and make 00:43:09.539 --> 00:43:13.876 it beautifully presented as well, then it would be attractive. People 00:43:13.909 --> 00:43:17.037 would want to use it, they would remember it was there and they would do, 00:43:17.070 --> 00:43:19.566 you know, they would use it, but then the farmers would see value in it 00:43:19.599 --> 00:43:24.767 too. And so, um that was what I used the money for and that's what I 00:43:24.800 --> 00:43:32.800 thought. Ok, this is good. And so, you know, as with any business, um you 00:43:32.889 --> 00:43:38.356 have to figure out ways to keep it funded or keep it moving forward. And 00:43:38.389 --> 00:43:43.477 so I did put a lot of effort into it for about two years or something like 00:43:43.510 --> 00:43:46.327 that. And I worked with some really great people here in the community 00:43:46.360 --> 00:43:50.206 that did the branding for it. Um And helped me with the back end 00:43:50.239 --> 00:43:57.626 development of it. Um And uh we just took it to that next level until 00:43:57.659 --> 00:44:02.195 there, it was no longer a place where I could give to it anymore. I didn't 00:44:02.228 --> 00:44:08.807 even know how to go about going to the next level. Um But that was what I 00:44:08.840 --> 00:44:13.336 wanted to do with good food finder. And that was, uh now I'm just so proud 00:44:13.369 --> 00:44:18.356 of where it's going to be going in the next year. So we'll see why is this 00:44:18.389 --> 00:44:24.236 , why was it important for small and medium farms? So I believe personally 00:44:24.269 --> 00:44:28.155 , that kind of revisiting when I was kind of creating that food 00:44:28.188 --> 00:44:32.267 sustainability picture, I believe personally that small and medium scale 00:44:32.300 --> 00:44:37.675 farmers um are 00:44:37.708 --> 00:44:42.977 the key to that picture. If we have small and medium scales, we have 00:44:43.010 --> 00:44:49.126 medium scale farmers, then we have small businesses helping to create our 00:44:49.159 --> 00:44:55.776 sustainable state or sustainable world if you will. And the number of 00:44:55.809 --> 00:45:02.666 small and I say medium because it's sort of like that small to massive 00:45:02.699 --> 00:45:07.095 world that we're currently facing. But so the medium people can probably 00:45:07.128 --> 00:45:12.456 get grouped in with the small at this point. But um if we eliminate the 00:45:12.489 --> 00:45:15.666 small farmer, then we're really only left with the large farmer at this 00:45:15.699 --> 00:45:18.175 point. So 00:45:18.208 --> 00:45:22.267 small farmers have the capability to do things that large farmers can't. 00:45:22.300 --> 00:45:30.300 And um those are things like growing um poly culture systems. They can 00:45:30.639 --> 00:45:36.606 grow much more. Um I in much more um biodiverse ways they can grow a lot 00:45:36.639 --> 00:45:44.405 more foods that are heritage foods that are disappearing from our um list 00:45:44.438 --> 00:45:50.396 of foods that we need to make sure that we keep intact. Um They can um 00:45:50.429 --> 00:45:54.537 help grow our economies as I was sort of getting at there in the beginning 00:45:54.570 --> 00:45:58.486 just because they are a small business and they sell to small, you know, 00:45:58.519 --> 00:46:03.166 fellow small businesses such as small restaurants or, or via C SAS which 00:46:03.199 --> 00:46:10.736 keeps the money circulating via individuals. Um, I think those people are 00:46:10.769 --> 00:46:14.537 so much are, are small scale farmers and medium scale farmers are the ones 00:46:14.570 --> 00:46:19.706 that really help to keep things going. Obviously, when they're growing the 00:46:19.739 --> 00:46:23.595 diverse, um, fruits and vegetables, they're helping to contribute to our 00:46:23.628 --> 00:46:27.316 environment. Um, 00:46:27.349 --> 00:46:30.106 I don't know, I guess I could keep going on about the various ways they're 00:46:30.139 --> 00:46:35.546 helping, But to me, those are the things that, um, those are the reasons 00:46:35.579 --> 00:46:37.876 that they are so important and that's why I wanted to make sure we show 00:46:37.909 --> 00:46:41.876 them off in good food finder. So I'm gonna follow up with the comment you 00:46:41.909 --> 00:46:45.405 made about heritage foods. Can you tell me what those are and why they're 00:46:45.438 --> 00:46:52.635 important? Yeah. So to me, well, more specifically, I guess not just 00:46:52.668 --> 00:46:59.115 heritage foods but, um, what often? So I'm kind of thinking too fast in my 00:46:59.148 --> 00:47:07.106 head, but heritage foods are often ones that, um, haven't yet been, um, 00:47:07.139 --> 00:47:15.139 genetically modified and they're also, um, ones that, um, 00:47:15.148 --> 00:47:19.655 I can't quite remember the year. I want to say that there's no official 00:47:19.688 --> 00:47:22.905 designation, but I feel like it's longer than 50 years that they haven't 00:47:22.938 --> 00:47:26.986 been. Um, 00:47:27.019 --> 00:47:32.546 I can't quite remember. I wanna say it's 50 the, 00:47:32.579 --> 00:47:36.925 if you go to. So I'm on the committee for the Southwest Arc of Taste for 00:47:36.958 --> 00:47:40.236 the Slow Food. And I feel like if you go there, they will have more of a 00:47:40.269 --> 00:47:44.017 definition and, and I can't quite remember what I'm getting at here for 00:47:44.050 --> 00:47:49.425 the, for the number of years. But, um, the reason I feel like they're 00:47:49.458 --> 00:47:54.977 important in the heritage foods is because they lend themselves to the, um 00:47:55.010 --> 00:47:57.467 , 00:47:57.500 --> 00:48:05.186 the non GMO. Um, that, that's the biggest thing I think the, the, 00:48:05.219 --> 00:48:08.537 the one that most people will be able to relate themselves to, um, the 00:48:08.570 --> 00:48:13.416 most is because they are the foods that aren't necessarily going to be the 00:48:13.449 --> 00:48:17.135 genetically modified foods that the farmers might have on the table. And 00:48:17.168 --> 00:48:20.736 if you grow the heritage foods, they're also the coolest ones to look at, 00:48:20.769 --> 00:48:23.396 in my opinion, you know, they're the fun ones. They're the ones that we 00:48:23.429 --> 00:48:29.606 really need to look out there at the farmer's market and go. Um, what is 00:48:29.639 --> 00:48:33.175 that? I want to know more about that they have a story to them and 00:48:33.208 --> 00:48:36.776 oftentimes they have a really neat name because of that story and that 00:48:36.809 --> 00:48:41.997 history that they're providing, um, they don't have just a number or a 00:48:42.030 --> 00:48:47.675 sticker or something that says like this was modified or the distinction I 00:48:47.708 --> 00:48:55.195 should make here though is that breeding, um, is different. But 00:48:55.228 --> 00:48:58.186 the heritage roots are obviously, they're, they're just, I don't know, 00:48:58.219 --> 00:49:05.405 they're much more, why are they important? 00:49:05.438 --> 00:49:12.066 I don't know. Um, this might be one, I'm not sure how to answer. 00:49:12.099 --> 00:49:16.115 I can move on. That's ok. Yeah, let's do that because I'm not, I'm getting 00:49:16.148 --> 00:49:20.727 , I'm stumbling over it for this part. Um That's fine. So let's talk about 00:49:20.760 --> 00:49:25.836 a little bit about um You mentioned you were on the slow food board. No. 00:49:25.869 --> 00:49:32.336 Um The Slow Food Southwest Arc of Taste Committee. What is that? So this 00:49:32.369 --> 00:49:35.456 is why I shouldn't be stumbling over the heritage answer because I don't 00:49:35.489 --> 00:49:40.206 have the, the verbage to be able to explain to you. But the slow food 00:49:40.239 --> 00:49:46.925 Southwest um Well, the slow food arc of Taste, I should say um is a 00:49:46.958 --> 00:49:54.206 program of slow Food, actually, not just U fa u the U the USA slow Food, 00:49:54.239 --> 00:50:01.106 but all of Slow Food International has this program. Um It is a um program 00:50:01.139 --> 00:50:09.139 that was designed to preserve um disappearing foods um all over the world. 00:50:10.250 --> 00:50:15.695 Uh The USA programming in general um has just recently, I can't quite 00:50:15.728 --> 00:50:20.767 remember the number but it's um I wanna say over 00:50:20.800 --> 00:50:23.195 250 00:50:23.228 --> 00:50:27.336 as of last time I looked, which was about a year ago, they've recently 00:50:27.369 --> 00:50:32.916 boarded that many um foods to the arc of taste in order to help preserve 00:50:32.949 --> 00:50:38.467 and promote them. Um Their campaign um is along the lines of just eat it 00:50:38.500 --> 00:50:45.345 in order to promote them. So they talk a lot about, um 00:50:45.378 --> 00:50:49.416 you know, we talk a lot, they work with and talk a lot with um growers 00:50:49.449 --> 00:50:56.227 about how to grow these foods, but also then sell these foods because what 00:50:56.260 --> 00:51:00.376 happens is a lot of these foods as I mentioned are really beautiful but 00:51:00.409 --> 00:51:04.646 beautiful, meaning often ugly because what we're used to buying in the 00:51:04.679 --> 00:51:08.445 grocery stores are these perfect apples, perfect tomatoes and these foods 00:51:08.478 --> 00:51:10.727 are not 00:51:10.760 --> 00:51:15.736 like that. They might be beautiful, but people often look at them and go, 00:51:15.769 --> 00:51:18.736 I don't need to buy that because I don't know what that is or what I would 00:51:18.769 --> 00:51:25.026 do with it. Um They require that extra amount of education. Um And so the 00:51:25.059 --> 00:51:31.307 slow food um arch of taste does a lot to provide that education for the 00:51:31.340 --> 00:51:37.925 farmer, but for the consumer as well. Um The uh what was I going to say? 00:51:37.958 --> 00:51:42.385 Something particularly about? Oh, they don't just do plants. They also do 00:51:42.418 --> 00:51:47.467 things like um heritage animals um that have been around for a while. Um 00:51:47.500 --> 00:51:53.776 As well as um dare I say, I don't mean to confuse anyone processed foods. 00:51:53.809 --> 00:52:01.809 So, foods that have been um like canned or um we recently um boarded the 00:52:02.789 --> 00:52:05.836 um 00:52:05.869 --> 00:52:10.747 I don't know how to describe it. It's a traditional enchilada if you will. 00:52:10.780 --> 00:52:17.695 It's a uh it's a Maza corn tortilla. Uh I'm sorry, Maza corn patty, not 00:52:17.728 --> 00:52:21.506 tortilla, a patty. That is not what we would normally think of as an 00:52:21.539 --> 00:52:25.467 enchilada, but it's just more of a patty. And uh so things like that, that 00:52:25.500 --> 00:52:31.327 are more handmade um ingredients. So, so let's um why do you think it's 00:52:31.360 --> 00:52:36.155 important to, what do you think are the opportunities for um a sustainable 00:52:36.188 --> 00:52:39.655 food system. 00:52:39.688 --> 00:52:42.936 Yeah. So it's funny because I always think of opportunities and challenges 00:52:42.969 --> 00:52:45.977 as something that could almost be the same because you look at challenges 00:52:46.010 --> 00:52:49.945 and you go, oh no, what can we do? But they are opportunities, you know, 00:52:49.978 --> 00:52:52.037 um 00:52:52.070 --> 00:52:58.066 I think we have come a long way, I would say in the last 10 years um with 00:52:58.099 --> 00:53:02.017 sustainable food systems, I think half the battle is just knowing that it 00:53:02.050 --> 00:53:07.497 has a need, you know, getting people to realize on a common, getting 00:53:07.530 --> 00:53:12.095 everyone to realize that 00:53:12.128 --> 00:53:17.967 that there is a challenge and that these are the challenges and that here 00:53:18.000 --> 00:53:24.445 , here, here are the, here are the options. Um 00:53:24.478 --> 00:53:27.717 And then obviously from there getting people to think about more options 00:53:27.750 --> 00:53:34.186 or more ideas or solutions and that kind of thing. So I think that 00:53:34.219 --> 00:53:40.175 knowing that we've come this far and that now the language is less about 00:53:40.208 --> 00:53:47.586 awareness and more about um 00:53:47.619 --> 00:53:52.756 I guess creating solutions. Um I still think there's obviously an audience 00:53:52.789 --> 00:53:58.896 of people who don't really understand that there isn't, you know, um 00:53:58.929 --> 00:54:02.986 a challenge, but now that we're moving into a place where the general 00:54:03.019 --> 00:54:07.517 public still does realize that uh there are things to be done, but they 00:54:07.550 --> 00:54:11.776 don't quite know we can move into the messaging of and this is maybe where 00:54:11.809 --> 00:54:16.816 the challenge is. Um What can you do? What are the simple things? Um 00:54:16.849 --> 00:54:20.477 Recently there was a, a um 00:54:20.510 --> 00:54:26.236 campaign, I guess done by local first Arizona and it was about three 00:54:26.269 --> 00:54:31.307 less, more, not any less than three years ago. And it was called Shift 10% 00:54:31.340 --> 00:54:35.307 Campaign or something like that to just shift only 10% of your buying 00:54:35.340 --> 00:54:38.327 local. And I think that's a great thing to do. Start with those little 00:54:38.360 --> 00:54:43.287 things that say like shift 10% of your local food purchasing or something 00:54:43.320 --> 00:54:46.256 like that. Those are the little things that we can do to just get the 00:54:46.289 --> 00:54:51.717 general public aware and buying local. So 00:54:51.750 --> 00:54:56.236 I think we can do little things like that to 00:54:56.269 --> 00:55:04.269 get people past the awareness but into actually doing um there's so much 00:55:04.769 --> 00:55:08.767 that can be done in every part of that food system. So whatever people are 00:55:08.800 --> 00:55:12.517 passionate about, if people are passionate about helping animals, then 00:55:12.550 --> 00:55:16.356 let's, you know, let's talk to them about what it is that they would do to 00:55:16.389 --> 00:55:19.865 help animals in that food system if they're passionate about helping 00:55:19.898 --> 00:55:22.827 people in the food system, which I think is a big thing that people still 00:55:22.860 --> 00:55:25.557 need to be aware of. I don't know that we're still thinking about our 00:55:25.590 --> 00:55:30.666 fellow human beings in the food system. Um I think that's probably one of 00:55:30.699 --> 00:55:36.675 the challenges. Um What, what are little things that we can do to raise 00:55:36.708 --> 00:55:41.706 awareness, what campaigns can we do to, you know, shift 10% or whatever. 00:55:41.739 --> 00:55:46.856 Um 00:55:46.889 --> 00:55:50.467 I think environment is a big one. People often think of environment when 00:55:50.500 --> 00:55:57.227 they think sustainability, we need to think more about food within that, 00:55:57.260 --> 00:56:00.577 from my side of it. I think about food all the time. I think we need to 00:56:00.610 --> 00:56:04.655 make sure that we think about food as a bigger part of that sustainability 00:56:04.688 --> 00:56:10.115 term. And, um, what does that mean on a daily basis for a person at home 00:56:10.148 --> 00:56:14.727 when they're cooking dinner or if they cook dinner? What is that, what 00:56:14.760 --> 00:56:19.126 does that look like? Um, for the daily person going about their business? 00:56:19.159 --> 00:56:23.365 Um, I don't know. I think those are all sort of like the little things 00:56:23.398 --> 00:56:29.517 that I'm trying to think of. Ok. Um, so as, you know, tw, um, the, the 00:56:29.550 --> 00:56:34.405 event is focusing on what the food system will look like in Phoenix in 24. 00:56:34.438 --> 00:56:40.057 What are your, what are your hopes that about Phoenix in 2014? What will 00:56:40.090 --> 00:56:44.736 happen? So, where are we at? We're in 2015, huh? I have to think about 00:56:44.769 --> 00:56:50.925 where we're at first. Um, 00:56:50.958 --> 00:56:53.365 right now. 00:56:53.398 --> 00:56:56.416 So I guess I've been, I've been a part of the food system here in Phoenix 00:56:56.449 --> 00:57:03.376 for, well, more actively a part of the food system here in Phoenix for, I 00:57:03.409 --> 00:57:06.816 would say 10 years. 00:57:06.849 --> 00:57:13.287 Um, 00:57:13.320 --> 00:57:19.425 and in that 10 years, I really feel like we have got, we, we've gone a 00:57:19.458 --> 00:57:26.405 long way. We, we've come a long way. We've tell me how, 00:57:26.438 --> 00:57:30.646 so 10 years ago, I don't feel like there was anything when I first 00:57:30.679 --> 00:57:33.445 enrolled in culinary school and I had to start thinking about someone I 00:57:33.478 --> 00:57:38.807 would work for. Quiescence was really the only farm to table restaurant. 00:57:38.840 --> 00:57:43.486 There was another one or there still is another one. Rancho Pino was 00:57:43.519 --> 00:57:47.695 definitely another one. And her restaurant has been around for a long time. 00:57:47.728 --> 00:57:50.155 Um, 00:57:50.188 --> 00:57:57.365 there were other maybe little small restaurants, but for the most part, I 00:57:57.398 --> 00:58:02.776 would say those two restaurants were the ones that really put it out there. 00:58:02.809 --> 00:58:08.405 But it wasn't like they were putting it out there because it was a thing 00:58:08.438 --> 00:58:13.856 and they were just trying to promote that. Um They just both believed in 00:58:13.889 --> 00:58:17.287 it and thought they would put it on their menus that, you know, they 00:58:17.320 --> 00:58:21.155 sourced from Xar 00:58:21.188 --> 00:58:24.865 and it wasn't, 00:58:24.898 --> 00:58:28.037 it wasn't even, you know, I would say even dare to say across the nation a 00:58:28.070 --> 00:58:31.467 really big thing yet. So 00:58:31.500 --> 00:58:36.717 when that was first sort of being put out there, I would say that Phoenix 00:58:36.750 --> 00:58:42.356 was sort of not really aware yet of this type of thing that we needed to 00:58:42.389 --> 00:58:48.776 be aware of. A few years later, people started to become aware of it and 00:58:48.809 --> 00:58:53.477 it was funny because they became aware of it. I would say, I want to say 00:58:53.510 --> 00:58:58.695 there's the foodie crowd and they became more interested in more just food 00:58:58.728 --> 00:59:04.936 , um, not sourcing of or anything like that, but just food and there's a 00:59:04.969 --> 00:59:10.365 big presence with that. Obviously, Yelp came around around maybe a few 00:59:10.398 --> 00:59:15.336 years later had kind of a smashing presence, you know, kind of overtook 00:59:15.369 --> 00:59:20.646 everything. And that timeline, 00:59:20.679 --> 00:59:24.256 it was almost crucial that Yelp came around because it was like, people 00:59:24.289 --> 00:59:30.756 were putting up what they thought of what was going on and it almost 00:59:30.789 --> 00:59:37.816 forced some of these restaurants to step up their game. And with that 00:59:37.849 --> 00:59:43.945 development, alongside social media things, Twitter and Facebook, probably 00:59:43.978 --> 00:59:50.997 at that particular time, people were creating a buzz and I think that 00:59:51.030 --> 00:59:56.276 all these kind of contributions force people to start thinking about where 00:59:56.309 --> 00:59:59.227 their food is coming from, whether it's the farmer or the chef or whatever 00:59:59.260 --> 01:00:03.936 , but they're putting it out there. And so I think the development was 01:00:03.969 --> 01:00:07.026 during the time and we're, and we're watching it happen across the country 01:00:07.059 --> 01:00:10.626 too and we're saying we want to be like New York or we want to be like 01:00:10.659 --> 01:00:14.526 Portland or we want to be like whatever. And yeah, there's cool things 01:00:14.559 --> 01:00:17.706 going on in all those places and we want to be just like them. But at the 01:00:17.739 --> 01:00:22.345 same time, we have to be our own thing. Um 01:00:22.378 --> 01:00:25.396 If you look back at that development, I think that we've made some 01:00:25.429 --> 01:00:32.416 seriously cool progress. And now we're at the point where all those people 01:00:32.449 --> 01:00:37.767 are talking about where their food comes from in terms of 01:00:37.800 --> 01:00:45.155 farmers, not in terms of, you know, chefs or anything. And if I look back 01:00:45.188 --> 01:00:51.316 , you know, on the two restaurants, maybe a few more than that we have so 01:00:51.349 --> 01:00:54.186 many restaurants who, 01:00:54.219 --> 01:01:00.467 um, want to say they're farm to table, who actually use local farmers to 01:01:00.500 --> 01:01:06.155 source from. And we even, you know, imitation is the best form of flattery. 01:01:06.188 --> 01:01:10.845 Have restaurants who don't but say they do, which is a challenge in 01:01:10.878 --> 01:01:17.537 itself. But a kind of a cool one because they're trying to be maybe hip, 01:01:17.570 --> 01:01:21.227 you know, and if that's hip and that's how we have to go about it to, to 01:01:21.260 --> 01:01:26.916 make people recognize that that's where it needs to be right now. That's 01:01:26.949 --> 01:01:33.796 cool. And, um, I think that if we measure that progress or if we measure 01:01:33.829 --> 01:01:38.526 our future progress against where we were and you know, how fast that 01:01:38.559 --> 01:01:45.666 happened, I think it will be really cool to think about 2040 01:01:45.699 --> 01:01:51.595 in terms of food sustainability and where we need to be and a lot of 01:01:51.628 --> 01:01:58.807 farmers have popped up since then. Um, small scale and medium scale. Um 01:01:58.840 --> 01:02:01.905 And everybody sort of recognizes they're all coming around to recognize 01:02:01.938 --> 01:02:05.787 just how important it is to incorporate animals into their food system or 01:02:05.820 --> 01:02:11.307 into their, I'm sorry, animals into their farming system. And uh you know 01:02:11.340 --> 01:02:16.276 , how incorporate, how to incorporate um 01:02:16.309 --> 01:02:20.865 waste and, and how all those things, I think it's really cool to see the, 01:02:20.898 --> 01:02:27.807 the growth. Um not only here in the state but all over as well. So, so 01:02:27.840 --> 01:02:32.856 tell me what you um what policy changes think. Do you think need to be 01:02:32.889 --> 01:02:38.626 implemented to help this movement. Um Admittedly, I am not so great with 01:02:38.659 --> 01:02:43.977 policy. Um 01:02:44.010 --> 01:02:47.856 So let's ask you on another front. Then what do you think is needed to 01:02:47.889 --> 01:02:55.889 move the food sustainable system in Phoenix? 01:02:57.168 --> 01:03:05.168 So I guess to almost as answer the opposite of the policy question, um I 01:03:08.688 --> 01:03:14.026 almost revisit the answer that I almost gave without really meaning to. I 01:03:14.059 --> 01:03:20.037 really think people are the answer. I think that the more people speak up 01:03:20.070 --> 01:03:28.070 , the more people vote with their dollar. I think that 01:03:29.289 --> 01:03:34.767 speaks so much that, that speaks volumes when we do things like that. I 01:03:34.800 --> 01:03:39.546 think people don't realize the power of their voice. It's hard to speak up. 01:03:39.579 --> 01:03:45.655 I think for a lot of people, I know it is for myself when I have to speak 01:03:45.688 --> 01:03:51.497 in front of a lot of people or even write about something that I'm truly 01:03:51.530 --> 01:03:55.977 passionate about or, or something like that knowing that I don't have any 01:03:56.010 --> 01:04:04.010 idea who's reading it or who, what people might think of me, but 01:04:04.550 --> 01:04:12.405 people should do that. I it really matters. Um a lot and the voting with 01:04:12.438 --> 01:04:17.945 your dollar thing does too. It, it, it's just that is really, really super 01:04:17.978 --> 01:04:25.066 important. Um The more you can support your fellow, 01:04:25.099 --> 01:04:28.925 the more you can support the, the small businesses around you. But also 01:04:28.958 --> 01:04:31.925 then um 01:04:31.958 --> 01:04:37.787 show your purchasing dollars in some kind of stats, all of those things 01:04:37.820 --> 01:04:41.356 that is speaking for you, that's working on your behalf, you know, while 01:04:41.389 --> 01:04:45.445 you sleep kind of thing, it's, it's doing a lot for you and I think 01:04:45.478 --> 01:04:50.477 whatever else people can do in order to 01:04:50.510 --> 01:04:54.146 become part of a statistic, which sounds really horrible because I don't, 01:04:54.179 --> 01:04:58.736 you know, I don't like that idea, but it's true if we can just vote with 01:04:58.769 --> 01:05:01.626 our dollar and also speak up about things that we're really passionate 01:05:01.659 --> 01:05:04.646 about or have a strong 01:05:04.679 --> 01:05:09.046 uh opinion on. I think that's the biggest thing that people need to know 01:05:09.079 --> 01:05:15.586 that they're a part of it and that they create the change. OK. Um I'm 01:05:15.619 --> 01:05:19.816 gonna go a kind of a follow up question. You said the good food finder is 01:05:19.849 --> 01:05:26.166 now moving to local first. It is part of local first, but um it will be 01:05:26.199 --> 01:05:33.436 relaunched this. Uh I wanna say September 14th pending any, you know, 01:05:33.469 --> 01:05:38.986 website glitches. Tell me how excited you are and what this means for um 01:05:39.019 --> 01:05:42.856 to you. Um 01:05:42.889 --> 01:05:48.925 So I know I've seen the website and what it will look like come September 01:05:48.958 --> 01:05:56.057 14th. Um For me, them being able to do that. 01:05:56.090 --> 01:06:00.327 Um I kind of said at the beginning of the interview, it was time and 01:06:00.360 --> 01:06:03.615 financial means and things like that, that I sort of realized at some 01:06:03.648 --> 01:06:09.405 point that I wasn't able to give anymore and for them to be able to 01:06:09.438 --> 01:06:17.438 realize all the notions and ideas and everything I had in my head at one 01:06:18.139 --> 01:06:21.666 point in the process or another 01:06:21.699 --> 01:06:29.699 at the build, um, is just, um, 01:06:30.128 --> 01:06:34.497 I don't know, it's just, it's amazing for me, able to, for me to be able 01:06:34.530 --> 01:06:39.967 to look at it now and see those things realized. It's so amazing. It's, 01:06:40.000 --> 01:06:43.646 I've been looking at all the features that they now have. The, the map 01:06:43.679 --> 01:06:49.186 feature was visited at one point in my process and we couldn't do it. Um, 01:06:49.219 --> 01:06:54.776 that's a really expensive process and, um, 01:06:54.809 --> 01:06:58.695 to do it right. And they've been able to reinstate that and that was 01:06:58.728 --> 01:07:04.307 something that a lot of people were asking. Why. Well, why can't I just, 01:07:04.340 --> 01:07:07.816 you know, search five miles away or whatever? They couldn't, you know, 01:07:07.849 --> 01:07:11.456 that's been reinstated. But that's just a small thing. Probably mostly 01:07:11.489 --> 01:07:16.486 from my end, they've been able to incorporate now. So the directory is 01:07:16.519 --> 01:07:19.925 farmer and food producer based, but you can filter and do searches based 01:07:19.958 --> 01:07:27.958 on the state C SAS, the States, um, um, farmers markets, restaurants who 01:07:27.969 --> 01:07:33.006 source from the farmers and food producers, um, all sorts of things and 01:07:33.039 --> 01:07:39.396 people, um, will also have the option to upgrade their, um, their listing 01:07:39.429 --> 01:07:44.006 as well. So if they want some advanced features, they can do that. So it's 01:07:44.039 --> 01:07:47.606 really just, it's amazing. It's, I'm kind of giddy about it. So why will 01:07:47.639 --> 01:07:52.695 this be important for the, uh, for the farmers, the new website redesign? 01:07:52.728 --> 01:07:55.425 Yeah, sure. 01:07:55.458 --> 01:08:00.057 I mean, it really comes back to the fact that this is something I keep, 01:08:00.090 --> 01:08:07.186 I've always mentioned in my process of this site since this site 01:08:07.219 --> 01:08:15.219 development or even the idea of it, um is just how cool modern technology 01:08:16.259 --> 01:08:20.607 can be for these small businesses, whether you're a farm or food producer 01:08:20.640 --> 01:08:28.640 or you know, you provide entertainment or whatever you do. Um Modern 01:08:28.750 --> 01:08:32.555 technology is really great in terms of the fact or in terms of like social 01:08:32.588 --> 01:08:35.376 media and things like that, it's free, it's free publicity for you. And if 01:08:35.409 --> 01:08:39.536 you manage it correctly for your small business, it can really work well 01:08:39.569 --> 01:08:42.717 on your behalf. And I think good food finder, particularly for small 01:08:42.750 --> 01:08:50.750 businesses, small food based businesses um for Arizona residents. If you 01:08:51.198 --> 01:08:55.085 want to reach your, it's B to B and B to C Good Food Finder. And so if you 01:08:55.118 --> 01:08:57.634 want to reach your fellow small businesses or if you want to reach your 01:08:57.667 --> 01:09:03.005 consumer, good food finder, does that for you. If you just, you know, put 01:09:03.038 --> 01:09:06.615 your listing up and every now and then take a peek to make sure it's 01:09:06.648 --> 01:09:11.696 updated or whatever, you'll reach your audiences, whether it's another 01:09:11.729 --> 01:09:19.336 business or you're a consumer and uh there's no fee to do that. So, so 01:09:19.369 --> 01:09:25.107 final question, um Can you share your fondest food memory? 01:09:25.140 --> 01:09:31.406 Um Yes, I always think that if I, I always have an answer to this question 01:09:31.439 --> 01:09:35.116 when I'm not being asked the question. 01:09:35.149 --> 01:09:38.425 Um 01:09:38.458 --> 01:09:43.256 So I guess the obvious answer would be to come up with something that my 01:09:43.289 --> 01:09:46.446 grandmother had for me, but I'm gonna share something that actually 01:09:46.479 --> 01:09:52.845 happened to me when I was living abroad and I was eating alone and, um, it 01:09:52.878 --> 01:09:56.996 should be, you'd think this scenario would be the opposite. It would be 01:09:57.029 --> 01:10:05.029 sad and just eating alone is not something people picture as happy and 01:10:06.319 --> 01:10:11.777 fond. But, um, and sort of that scenario goes against everything I'm kind 01:10:11.810 --> 01:10:18.296 of saying about my philosophies and food and things. But we had gone to 01:10:18.329 --> 01:10:26.329 Belgium and Brussels specifically and it was pouring rain. And, um, I was 01:10:26.569 --> 01:10:30.397 so tired and my husband always jokes with me because we did a lot of 01:10:30.430 --> 01:10:35.467 drinking in Belgium. We were there studying, um, it was legitimate 01:10:35.500 --> 01:10:41.635 drinking. We were studying uh craft beer. And so we had done a lot of 01:10:41.668 --> 01:10:47.817 drinking and uh I was just so tired in Belgium and um I just wanted some 01:10:47.850 --> 01:10:52.406 like really good food and I didn't know what that meant necessarily, but I 01:10:52.439 --> 01:10:57.366 wanted to find some comforting food. And so I had been away from my family 01:10:57.399 --> 01:11:03.076 now for about six months, my family, my familiarity here in Arizona and 01:11:03.109 --> 01:11:06.656 everything and I was kind of just homesick. I wanted some like comfort 01:11:06.689 --> 01:11:11.055 food, but I was also tired because of all the like heavy beer drinking and 01:11:11.088 --> 01:11:19.088 stuff like that. And I walked uh down the kind of main area and I found um 01:11:19.739 --> 01:11:26.746 , a Thai restaurant and like I said, it was pouring rain. So I was happy 01:11:26.779 --> 01:11:31.126 to be able to get out of that and walk in and the smells hit me and it was 01:11:31.159 --> 01:11:36.116 almost a revisit to my grandmother's cooking. It was so great to be able 01:11:36.149 --> 01:11:42.836 to find this place. And I was really hoping that the food would be, um, 01:11:42.869 --> 01:11:47.166 would match the environment and the ambience. So I was really just kind of 01:11:47.199 --> 01:11:53.206 hoping for that full, that full thing, that full experience. And so I did 01:11:53.239 --> 01:12:00.147 , I sat down and I must have really just wanted this experience because I 01:12:00.180 --> 01:12:04.116 started to notice everything on the wall from like the little ticking cat 01:12:04.149 --> 01:12:10.675 thing and um the pictures and everything. I ended up writing a story for 01:12:10.708 --> 01:12:15.036 my class actually. But how much I really like this. But I ended up getting 01:12:15.069 --> 01:12:18.876 a hot pot of 01:12:18.909 --> 01:12:26.909 duck and some lemongrass or something. And I don't know, it ended up 01:12:27.588 --> 01:12:32.147 tasting so much like what I, what I wanted and the flavors of home if you 01:12:32.180 --> 01:12:37.175 will, even though again, that's not really what you think of for Arizona. 01:12:37.208 --> 01:12:44.357 But um it tasted like what my those flavors reminding me of, of um Oma is 01:12:44.390 --> 01:12:49.607 her name and I never mentioned that but or what we called her. And uh it 01:12:49.640 --> 01:12:53.626 was perfect and I had a beer with it even though that didn't make any 01:12:53.659 --> 01:12:59.206 sense at the time. But I did and um oh and the thing we also had was 01:12:59.239 --> 01:13:03.116 shrimp crackers. And it's so funny because no one ever serves the shrimp 01:13:03.149 --> 01:13:07.476 crackers that I want. Um, which were ones that my grandmother made and 01:13:07.509 --> 01:13:10.626 they actually served the shrimp crackers that my grandmother made. And I 01:13:10.659 --> 01:13:14.555 thought that was so awesome. So, that's my, and like I said, I was eating 01:13:14.588 --> 01:13:18.446 all alone but it didn't matter. And the rain was actually perfect. I 01:13:18.479 --> 01:13:22.166 thought the rain was part of the experience. So that's actually one of my 01:13:22.199 --> 01:13:27.067 fonder food memories. So are there anything, is there anything I missed 01:13:27.100 --> 01:13:30.506 anything that you'd like to cover? Anything you'd like to be known about 01:13:30.539 --> 01:13:34.265 food sustainability or? 01:13:34.298 --> 01:13:39.336 I don't think so. I think um I think it's great the questions that you 01:13:39.369 --> 01:13:44.046 asked, I think I like all of them. So um I feel bad messing up the 01:13:44.079 --> 01:13:49.607 heritage one but my mind just went like nuts on the statistics and I got 01:13:49.640 --> 01:13:54.796 all thrown off but um no, everything is great. I think, OK, I have one 01:13:54.829 --> 01:13:59.107 question that I just realize. Ok, you mentioned food culture. What is that 01:13:59.140 --> 01:14:03.156 ? I think it's another thing like food sustainability. I was like, what do 01:14:03.189 --> 01:14:07.006 you really mean by that? Um 01:14:07.039 --> 01:14:12.836 To me, food culture is 01:14:12.869 --> 01:14:17.015 the point at which 01:14:17.048 --> 01:14:19.147 a person's 01:14:19.180 --> 01:14:23.385 say they um 01:14:23.418 --> 01:14:28.857 racial background or their subculture, whatever that might be for them 01:14:28.890 --> 01:14:35.366 ends up defining um I'm sorry, the food, their food ends up defining who 01:14:35.399 --> 01:14:43.399 they are. So I am a super um I'm super appreciative of when say a culture 01:14:43.720 --> 01:14:50.036 has integrated their food so much into who they are, that it's become a 01:14:50.069 --> 01:14:54.446 part of their daily life and they almost don't even see that the, that the 01:14:54.479 --> 01:14:56.496 food 01:14:56.529 --> 01:15:01.616 is there, you know, that it's just so much apart. And that's how I feel 01:15:01.649 --> 01:15:05.385 like omma was, you know, as a kid, I feel like she just didn't even know 01:15:05.418 --> 01:15:08.567 that like I mentioned the baby food thing, She didn't even know that like 01:15:08.600 --> 01:15:11.726 food, 01:15:11.759 --> 01:15:16.015 there was other food, you know, the American baby food was this pure stuff 01:15:16.048 --> 01:15:22.666 that we normally get here for kids. She just was like, no, you eat the the 01:15:22.699 --> 01:15:25.817 steamed broccoli with bean sauce. That's what you get. I don't know that 01:15:25.850 --> 01:15:31.836 you have teeth but like you're gonna eat this. So when food is so 01:15:31.869 --> 01:15:38.116 integrated into a culture or even ends up defining you through nurture um 01:15:38.149 --> 01:15:42.687 into your subculture or something like that. I think that that is what 01:15:42.720 --> 01:15:46.237 food culture is for me, at least when it's just something that is just so 01:15:46.270 --> 01:15:52.675 ingrained in you um or ends up becoming so part of you that for me is what 01:15:52.708 --> 01:15:58.937 food culture is. And I, I love that. That is my favorite thing. OK. Thank 01:15:58.970 --> 01:16:01.220 you very much.