Baking Bread Water Sustainable Cooking Workshop

The Rose Parade and Water (Flowers and Water)

Today an estimated fifty million people in over 220 countries will tune in to watch the Rose Parade. Floats covered with eighteen million flowers will parade down the sunny streets of Pasadena, California. Early parade officials in 1890, wanted a parade to gloat about the mild year-round weather of Southern California that can grow roses in the middle of winter (gloating about good weather in California is taught at an early age). Yet only two float entries are decorated with flowers exclusively grown in California– the rest are imported.

The official rose of the Rose Parade is South American. The pretty petals from South America are laced with over one hundred different types of chemical pesticides. In Columbia, the supplier of fifty percent of U.S. flowers, is reported to use one hundred and twenty seven different pesticides, herbicides and fungicides in their flower greenhouses. This list includes chemicals banned in the California like methyl bromide and DDT. According to the Journal of Environmental Health, Costa Rican flower producers (another large supplier) are directly responsible for the pollution of important major waterways and underground aquifers in the region.

Rose parade officials can’t recall the last time a float has been covered by 100% homegrown California botanicals. Two floats are a start. But wouldn’t it be grand to watch a parade of roses that are 100% organically grown? That is the Rose Parade I hold out for; a parade whose beauty and splendor is not at the expense of fresh water supplies in the U.S. or abroad.

My wish for the New Year.

To find your own locally grown organic flowers visit Local Harvest.

Dry Farming and Water

I followed the rain clouds along the two-lane road leading to With the Grain farm. On a slope above the wheat fields was a small house, home to John DeRosier, his wife Leaf and teenage son Noah. Near the house stood a barn stripped of paint from decades of sun and rain. It was charming. John’s big dog, his only companion on most days, joined us.

Among the gentle slopes of Paso Robles, John’s farm is an anomaly. Lines of grapevines squeeze his farm from every direction. Neighboring vineyards rely on continuous sips from wells that act like big straws, slurping up water from the aquifer for irrigation. John’s well, dug 300 feet deep, maintains the same level as when it was drilled six decades earlier. Surrounding vineyards are drilling 1,000 feet beneath the surface to find water. Wells are being drilled deeper and deeper, a sign that water is being extracted faster than it is replenished.

The summers reach 110 degrees Fahrenheit. Rain was imminent on the spring day I visited, but this part of the valley receives an average of only six inches of water a year, mostly in the winter months. This is less rainfall than the desert city of Phoenix, Arizona. Rain-fed crops need annual rainfall of ten inches or more; and less, and ordinarily the wheat farmer must irrigate. A common choice is flood irrigation that turns rows of wheat into straight, shallow rivers. It’s the cheapest method of irrigation (as long as the price of water remains low), but it has the highest rate of water loss through runoff and evaporation.

“You don’t irrigate your crops even in the dry months?” I asked John.

“I don’t need to. You can come out onto my field in the summer and see dry, cracked topsoil, but just underneath the soil is moist. My soil retains hundreds of thousands of gallons of water when it rains.”

“But why are the farms around you using ground water? Why is your soil different?”

“Your answer starts with the cover crop.” He led me down a slope to his “dirt laboratory,” slender strips of land used to experiment with new grain varieties.

“This is where the elegance of the farm begins,” he smiled. We stood next to a patch of clumpy grass mixed with legumes and peas abloom with periwinkle-blue flowers.

“This is cover crop?” I asked as I pointed down at the grass.

“Yes. Grass is the most important thing we have going on, on our our planet.” He yanked out a chunk of grass, exposing its dangling strings of thin roots.

“Before the rain, I turn the cover crop, incorporating these root systems combined with the tap root of the legumes into the soil until it resembles chunks of chocolate cake.” My mind feasted on the idea of cake as he continued. “The rain water infiltrates into the soil where it’s held in the pores and roots.”

“Why don’t more farms grow cover crops?” I asked.

“Cover cropping requires more time and double the land. For example, my 200 acres are carved into plots. Half the plots are planted with grain and the other half with cover crop. Each plot is on a two-year cycle alternating between grain and cover crop.”

“So that means only 100 acres are producing grain at any given time?”

“Exactly. But remember that I can grow on land that other farmers consider unsuitable for farming because it has no water source.”

We moved to a large field that looked like a giant plate of chocolate cake. The soil was freshly turned earlier that morning in preparation for the rain. John squatted close to the ground and scooped the soil with his hand. Flecks of ground cover were sprinkled in it.

“This plot here is breaking down the cover crop. The roots are feeding the microorganisms in the soil.”

“Why is that important?”

“Microorganisms are bacteria in the soil. They work to convert nitrogen from the air into nitrogen the plant can use.” He continued, “Gazillions of these microorganisms lie underground in the humus.”

“What is humus?”

“Humus is soil rich with organic matter.”

Humus, I learned, is a complex structure that does not occur on all farms. It needs to be cultivated with patience and strategic planning. Humus retains more moisture than synthetic or even organic soils. A report published by Soil Science finds that humus has the water holding capacity of eighty to ninety percent of its weight, much higher than the average of twenty percent for organic soils.

(excerpt from Eat Less Water chapter Wheat and Water)

Pumpkins and Water

Thanksgiving is officially over and Christmas time is now here (ready or not). It is time to move aside the pumpkins and replace them with holly and snowmen.

On my front porch sits a radio flyer stacked with small pumpkins that were spared the carving knife on hallows eve. It seems a shame to throw them out. A pumpkin has a water footprint of 40.7 gallons per pound. My little red wagon carries about 730 gallons of virtual water (more or less). Pumpkins can be dry farmed. That means that the farmer has cultivated the soil to hold rain and moisture during the dry months so that the crops require NO irrigation. These pumpkins are not dry farmed. The little pumpkins on my porch splashed around in ground water- blue water.

I feel an obligation to be sure this water does not go to waste. The pumpkin cake baked by sister-n-law and served for our Thanksgiving Day dessert inspires an idea. Like my sister-in-law I will roast the pumpkins in my oven and turn them into the tastiest pumpkin cake you could ever dream of. I don’t have my hands on the recipe just yet. But in the meantime I can roast, puree and freeze the pumpkins. Once I get the recipe I will be sure to post for your little pumpkins.

Maybe I will even leave a piece of pumpkin cake out for Santa this year.

Green Eggs and Water

I was first introduced to the concept of water footprint poolside at a hotel in Newport Beach. I reclined on my lounge chair with a book about water and a cold beer to refresh me on a hot Summer day. My beer, I learned had a water footprint of sixty-five gallons. The algorithm used to calculate the water footprint of the average beer adds up all the water used in the production of all the major ingredients, in this case barley and hops. The algorithm goes something like this: water from irrigation PLUS the water from precipitation PLUS water trapped in soil as moisture PLUS ground water utilized by the plant from planting to harvest. The totals are adjusted for water runoff and evaporation. Water footprints can be calculated on all food.

I totaled the water footprint of my breakfast I ate that morning at the hotel. The three egg omelet required sixty gallons of water for the eggs, about one-half gallon for the slices of tomato, thirteen gallons for the half ounce of cheese, and an additional twenty-two gallons for two slices of toast. I washed my breakfast down with a cup of tea with a virtual water footprint of five and a half gallons. Small in comparison to my husband’s coffee. The approximate water footprint of my breakfast was one hundred and one gallons of fresh water. My food measured in gallons.

The omelet and tea I made myself this morning, pictured above, also has a water footprint of 101 gallons. The difference is these are green eggs and tea. Remember the colors of water? The eggs are from my backyard chickens. I know exactly what they eat, some grass from the yard (irrigated with scant amount of water), some organic feed, some compost like veggies, fruit rinds, pasta, rice…..Their manure is scattered around the yard to fertilize my fruit trees and vegetable beds. The tomato was homegrown with a mixture of blue water from the garden hose and water I capture with water collection buckets from the sinks in the house. They are minimally watered tomatoes. The cheese is from pasture-raised cows who eat a diet of rain fed grass. The toast (I forgot to include in the picture) is from my own recipe using organic wheat and local honey (see bread and water). This breakfast is a mixed green and blue water, as most of my meals are. But I try to purchase or raise as many ingredients possible with higher green water footprints. If we all “green” are food just a little more imagine the difference it could make.

For more information on water footprint visit www.waterfootprint.org.

To the Moon and Back – Water Scarcity Part One

In black stenciled letters on the sky blue wall I painted the words, “I love you to the moon and back” in my baby daughter’s room. It was a quote from my favorite children’s book. It never failed that when I read this line aloud to my daughter my voice cracked with emotion and tears pushed their way free. Many years later, I read in a very different book, that women and children of South Africa walk the distance of the moon and back seventeen times each day for water. I thought about the words that had been in my daughters first room. I contemplated the little girls carrying heavy pots of water on their heads to the moon and back. Again the tears pushed their way free.

Drops of Water

Drops of water saved my father’s life.

My father laid in silent stillness from the moment of his birth. For four days he refused offers of milk. My grandmother knew the signs of a child at the doorstep of death. She had birthed ten children, only seven remained.

My Aunt Antonia, the eldest child, was instructed to borrow the small table that stood in the neighbor’s chicken coop. Once cleaned, the table would occupy the center of the tight concrete house. This is where my father would lay once he died.

My aunt brought the table to my grandmother but snuck back out of the house. She ran through the thick heat of the Mexican summer until she arrived at the door of the town doctor. She willed herself to walk thru the door, this was not the time to be shy. With no payment in return, the doctor agreed to come the following day.

That night my grandfather slept with his newborn son. A loud sound woke my grandfather. He felt cold air envelop the humid room. Instinctively, he shielded my father with his body. He felt a cold hand press down on his back. He believed the hand to belong to la muerte, death. As sudden as it arrived, the cold air retreated.

The doctor arrived the next morning as promised. My father’s condition was unchanged. The young doctor examined my father and concluded that what he needed was “gotitas de agua,” drops of water. The table from the chicken coop was returned unused.

As a child, I was fascinated by the magic in my father’s story. I enjoyed retelling the story to childhood friends, sure to emphasize the part about death paying a visit to my father, only to leave empty handed. As an adult I see that the magic had always been the drops of water.

——–
At an Earth Day event several years ago a park ranger stopped at my booth, intrigued by the shower timers I offered for sale.

He asked me, “Did you know that all the fresh water in the world can be expressed in one drop of water?”

“How so?”

“If we could pour all the water on our planet, both salt water and fresh water, in a gallon bucket, the proportion of water that we can use to shower, drink and grow food is one single drop.”

We live on a water planet. The Earth is 2/3 water, yet most is salty, 97.5%. Of the 2.5% of the water that remains, 69.5% is contained in earths natural freezers (snow, glaciers and permafrost) another 30.1% is hidden in deep aquifers. The remaining 0.4%, the drop, sustains life on this planet.

Santa Fe Farmers’ Market and Water

“Can I have a dozen rabbit eggs? asked the woman ahead of me in the line for eggs at the Santa Fe Farmers’s Market.

“Ma’am rabbits don’t lay eggs,” answered the farmer with a straight face. “The sign ‘we have rabbits’ means we sell rabbit meat in addition to chicken and geese eggs. The steadiness to his answer indicated that this was not the first time the question had been asked. I confirmed that indeed it was not.

She released an embarrassed laugh after she recognized the absurdity to her question. I did everything to keep my laughter from escaping my mouth but was unsuccessful.

The Santa Fe Farmers’ Market does have a way of loosening a mind into a world of imagination, one where rabbits could lay eggs.

The market is a feast for the senses. Orange dahlias were a bloom, chunks of goat cheese swam in marinades of oil and roasted green New Mexican chiles and heirloom tomatoes burst from their skins. The smell of roasted Chimayo Chile danced arm in arm with the fragrance of barbecued sausage from free range pigs. The market provided an experience of food unmatched by the aisles of a grocery store.

At the mouth of the farmer’s market, Mr G’s vegetable stand caught my attention. It was bustled with customers who patiently waited their turn to buy the organic local vegetable harvested this week.

I asked Mr G. how he irrigates his vegetables. This is a state that aches for rain.

He was the second farmer that told me he used acequias, a four hundred year old irrigation ditch system built by the Spaniards. His acequia is fed by the Chama River in the Espanola Valley located 20 miles from Santa Fe.

“I never thought to use flood irrigation. It is too inefficient,” he answered. “I use drip lines and misters.”

Vegetables need a steady source of water to grow and thrive. Unless located in a wet climate, vegetables need to be irrigated. The drip line conserves the most water.

Many vegetable stalls had signs that read organic or pesticide free which for me is code for ‘this food uses no synthetic fertilizers and chemicals that compromise the water quality of rivers and wells.’

I took back with me two bags of roasted chilies. Now back in California I will chop them up and add to quiche using the recipe in Eggs and Water which calls for chicken not rabbit eggs.

Visit the Santa Fe Certified Farmers’ Market page for more info, recipes and food and farm events.

Water Conservation at the Kitchen Table: Tequila and Water

I swirl the golden liquid in my glass. “Notice the color of the gold añejo,” directs Dr. Adolfo Murillo, the maker of Tequila Alquimia. “Its color comes from oak barrels.” Absent are wedges of lime and shakers of salt that are used to soften the sharp burn of tequila when it travels down the throat. This is tequila made to sip.

He tells me to hold the flavors of the tequila in my mouth and let them steep into my tongue. “We took minerals from deep in the earth, rain water from the sky, energy from the sun and created liquid gold,” I taste the earth, sky and sun before it disappears in a swallow.

Next, Adolfo reaches for a liter of blanco. The colorless tequila swims inside the recycled beveled glass. This tequila could be confused with water, too young to have absorbed the color of oak. How big would the bottle need to grow to hold 65 gallons of water, the water footprint of a liter of tequila?

The water footprint of tequila represents the average fresh water required to grow the agave and distill it into the popular beverage. Each liter has a blue, green and grey water footprint. Color has been assigned to water. Blue water is drawn from lakes, reservoirs and underground supplies. Green water is rainwater. Grey represents the polluted water resulting from the production of a product—in this case tequila. Each brand of tequila has a different water story to tell depending on how the agave is farmed and distilled. The story of Tequila Alquimia begins on a blue agave ranch in the town of Aqua Negra, Jalisco, Mexico. The ranch is owned by a Ventura County native.

I meet Adolfo at his home. We sit at the dining room table that is bare except for a laptop computer. His neat slacks tell me that he came from his optometry practice. His weathered cowboy boots remind me that the doctor is also a rancher. “What makes your tequila win gold medals?’ I ask as I notice the medals that hang on the far wall. Tequilas reposado, anejo and extra anejo, have collected 13 gold medals between the San Francisco World Spirits Competition and the Chicago Beverage Tasting Institute over the past three years.

“If you treat the earth well it will treat you well. That is what my grandfather told me. The earth treats us with flavorful tequila.” It is his grandfather’s teaching that led him to produce one of only four tequila brands certified USDA organic out of 1,150.

He shows me a video of his 125-acre ranch. The spiny blue agave plants grow in obedient straight lines. The plants are striking. Their strong sharp pose reaches for the blue sky. The stillness of the plants is broken by the movement of cows that wander between the rows.

“The cattle are our weed control. We spray no herbicides,” says Adolfo.

“Don’t the cattle damage the agave plants?” I ask.

“No, that has never been a problem. The Limousine cattle, originally from France was chosen for their superior foraging.”

Neighboring farms rely on the steady application of chemicals to eradicate pests, fungus and weeds. Spent chemicals alter fresh water into grey water. “What makes your plants resistant to pests and fungus without the use of chemicals?”

“Our plants grow naturally and rely on themselves instead of chemicals. They have built their own natural defenses.” Most conventionally grown crops such as wheat or lettuce receive a single season of chemicals. Since agave grows for six to10 years before it is harvested, conventionally grown agave absorbs a decade of chemicals.

The town of Aqua Negra receives little rainfall. The soil does not crumble like moist chocolate cake of rich farmland. The soil is layers of brittle sandstone. The water hides underground. Most agave farms irrigate year-round. Once the plant is established after the first two years Adolfo’s agave is dry farmed utilizing green water.

“How is it that you can dry farm?” I ask.

“We let the weeds grow during the rainy season where they protect the topsoil and help to store the water. We then mow the weeds, leaving the root systems. The mowed weeds incorporate into the soil. This all helps the soil absorb moisture for the plant in the dry months.” The organic material in the soil absorbs and retains moisture. Adolfo’s farm is able to collect millions of gallons of water under the parched rocks.

The health of Adolfo’s agave is demonstrated by the weight and sugar content of the piña, the core of the plant. The piñas are three times the average weight of surrounding farms. Too heavy to carry, weighing 200 pounds or more, they require the assistance of mules to carry the ripe piñas to trucks. The sugar content or brix of the piña adds to the flavor complexity of tequila. The brix for Adolfo’s agave is more than double the average.

Adolfo describes the distillation process. I begin to understand why the name alchemy was chosen as the name for this tequila. “Distillation was invented by ancient alchemists.” The agave is first cooked until it is soft and tastes like sweet potato. It is shredded to release the juice from the plant fibers. In fermentation tanks that stand 15 feet tall, natural yeast eats the sugars and the digestion yields alcohol. “The fermentation will take seven to 10 days when you let it follow its natural course, as we do. Many tequila companies prefer the faster method of three days, using supercharged yeast which is essentially chemical fertilizers.” The heavy metals and salt present in chemical fertilizers is concentrated during distillation.

The tequila leaves behind vinaza, a liquid that holds high concentrations of chemicals, heavy metals, salt and nitrogen. Every one-liter bottle of tequila leaves 10 liters of vinazas. The common practice of vinaza disposal is to pour it untreated into rivers. It turns rivers into brown raw sewage soup. The grey water strips the river’s ability to sustain life. The Mexican government has begun a campaign to encourage distilleries to build treatment plants, by imposing fines. Most distilleries opt to pay the fines and continue dumping the nitrogen-rich vinazas into rivers. Adolfo has devised a solution for the vinaza disposal. “On the land behind the distillery we prepare an area with a layer of clay followed by a layer of piña fiber. We pour vinaza over it. It turns into compost that supports life,” he says, showing me a picture of weeds and flowers growing out of a mound of soil.

Adolfo’s ranch touches the acreage of his grandfather’s former ranch. The new owners of his grandfather’s ranch slurp the water from a spring on the land faster than it can be replenished. The spring will run dry. Chemical herbicides, pesticides and fertilizers taint the spring and the water hidden underground. The fate of his grandfather’s land fuels his passion to teach organic farming. He has trained over 30 Mexican farmers to grow organically. The sip of tequila I hold in my mouth impacts a river thousands of miles away. My tequila choice sends ripples somewhere on the planet. Before my next sip I make a toast, “To Adolfo’s Tequila Alquimia and others who work to preserve the integrity of fresh water supplies on our small blue planet.” The tequila glass chimes in agreement.

For more information about Tequila Alquimia and a list of locations where it is available visit tequilaalquimia.com

You can view this article in Edible Ojai Magazine recent recipient of the James Beard Foundation Award of Excellence.

Pasta and Water (published in Edible Santa Barbara Summer edition)

One Pound of Pasta = 230 gallons of water

The Italian machine grows long linguine noodles with ease. The fresh pasta is dusted with the gold coarse powder of semolina and disappears into butcher paper before it remerges at the Santa Barbara Certified Farmer’s Market the next morning. I take one and a half pounds of The Solvang Pie Co. fresh naked pasta home. I dress the pasta with sautéed tomatoes, garlic, basil and shreds of parmesan. The lively dinner cadence is replaced by the silence of linguine noodles pirouetting around forks and the occasional loud slurp. Joaquin, my five year old interrupts the silence, “This is the best pasta I’ve ever had.” We all enthusiastically nod in agreement, mouths satiated with pasta.

Our family is not alone in our love affair for pasta. In the United States each person eats on average 17 pounds of pasta each year which translates to a water footprint of 3910 gallons of fresh water. The water footprint of 230 gallons per pound of pasta, roughly one package, reflects water required to grow the stalks of wheat and added ingredients.

Water footprint totals present the global average. The water footprint of food varies depending on the county, region, state and farm. All food has a different water story to tell depending on its origin. The water story of the pasta I serve on this night begins at a farm in Santa Ynez, California.

A welcoming committee of clucking chickens is the first to greet me on the seven acre farm of The Solvang Pie Co. tucked between a creek and hillside. About 350 chickens wander on this farm with Tracie Durban owner, her husband Fred and her baby Reagan. “My husband jokes that if I get any more chickens he will leave me for a cat lady,” laughs Tracy. The chickens eliminate her need for pesticides. They eat the slugs and other tasty bugs that feast on her apple trees.

In addition to pest control the chickens supply fresh eggs. “When I first began making pasta two years ago, the dough was sticky. After trial and error we realized that if we gather the eggs the morning we make pasta, without refrigeration, the dough is perfect.” The water footprint of a single egg is 23 gallons of fresh water. This reflects the average fresh water used to grow the feed, clean, and quench the thirst of an egg laying hen.

The water footprint of one egg largely reflects the embedded water to grow the feed for a chicken. Tracie’s chickens are raised with modest amounts of blue water. Water is colorless but researchers have assigned color. Blue water is sourced from ground water, reservoirs, and rivers that scribble across the landscape. Tracie’s chickens are on a diet of grass that grows between the lines of apples trees. Their favorite meal is the wheat germ mixed with scant amounts of water from her thirty acres of wheat fields in San Luis Obispo County.

The amber waves of wheat are grown on more land than any other crop in the world. The majority of wheat grown in the U.S has the friendly accent of a North Dakota farmer which grows enough durum for 13.7 billion servings of pasta each year. Most wheat in the world (90%) is grown with green water. This includes North Dakota wheat farms that rely exclusively on healthy rainfall.

Here, in California the acreage dedicated to wheat is growing, with 752,000 acres this year. Eighty percent of California wheat is grown on irrigatable land. That is to say that it is farmland that can be irrigated. Fewer farms require irrigation during robust rainy years like the one we are in. The majority of durum wheat called dessert durum is grown in the Imperial Valley. The dry valley relies on water from the Colorado River to sustain its wheat crops. A wheat farmer irrigates with either sprinkler or flood irrigation. Most opt for the cheaper flood irrigation which uses much more water than sprinklers.

After the rains between Thanksgiving and Christmas, Tracie with the help of her farmer husband, plant hard white wheat and durum. Most years the coastal moisture makes it possible for Tracie’s wheat farms to be rain fed. On very dry years her wheat will be watered with sprinkler irrigation once maybe twice before harvested in the summer. This year requires no irrigation.

“Do you use any chemicals on your wheat farms?” I ask. Chemicals can increase crop yields. Chemical application used on a farm make their eventual journey to fresh water sources. “Wheat is resistant to most pests limiting chemical use but occasionally we spray fungicides.” For the wheat farmer, fungus is the thief. In wet climates like North Dakota, or coastal California, fungus can wipe out an entire crop of wheat, leaving only the stalk. .“We spray fungicides about once every four years,” says Tracie. “We limit fungicide applications by yearly upgrades of seed, bred to resist new strands of fungus.” Organic wheat farms, according to USDA organic guidelines, disallow the use of synthetic chemicals and fertilizers.

The room that houses the mill smells creamy sweet. The wheat berry sifts through nine screens of silk that separate the white flour from the wheat germ and bran. The mill vibrates masculine sounds. Wheat berries are rubbed between North Carolina granite and concrete. Stone ground flour is to be of better quality. Plastic bins lined with flannel catches the white flour that will age for two months before it is mixed into dough for the bakery. “What happens to the wheat germ?” I look to the bin holding the separated brown wheat. “Some of the wheat germ and bran is used in our baking but most is fed to the chickens.” Nothing is wasted on Tracie’s farm.

Tracie reduces waste through her diverse operation. The apples she grows for her pies are fertilized by the chickens that wander beneath them plucking pests from the soil. The chickens provide the eggs for the bakery, fed by the excess wheat germ.

Purchases from a diverse farm, like Tracie’s diminishes waste that occurs on the conventional journey of food to our plate. Food is wasted at each stop on the food production chain: farm, processing plant, supermarket, restaurant or home kitchen. Between thirty to fifty percent of all food produced never makes it to our mouths in the United States. All the food that lands in trash bins can be expressed in gallons of water.

Seventy percent of all water in the world is ultimately connected to the food we put on our plates. If the world’s water was contained in a gallon bucket, a single drop of water on the tip of your finger represents the amount of fresh water available in any given moment. The drop is equivalent to less than ½ of 1 percent. This drop of water has sustained life on the planet throughout the ages, yet it is predicted that two-thirds of the people living on this planet will experience water scarcity by 2025. If we are to ensure that we have abundant water sources for our growing human population we must take a hard look at how water is used for food production. Every meal we eat either stresses or sustains our fresh water supplies. I will continue to slurp the long linguine pasta from the Solvang Pie Co. For the most important water conservation begins at the kitchen table.

Homemade Pasta
8 servings or 2.8 pounds

Once you open the door to fresh pasta you won’t want it any other way. Tracie’s fresh pasta is available every weekend at the Santa Barbara Farmer’s Market. Here is fresh pasta recipe for home just in case you miss the farmer’s market. The Solvang Pie Co. sells wheat berries and durum for home milling. Ask about the bagged stone ground flour. This recipe can be used with or without a pasta machine. The pasta machine I use for this recipe is the Marcato Atlas 150.

2 cups flour
2 cups semolina flour
1 pinch salt
6 large eggs
2 tablespoons oil

Sift together the flour and salt.

Empty the flour mixture onto a clean counter surface. Form the flour into a mountain shape with a deep well in the center.

Break the eggs and add olive oil into the well. Whisk eggs with a fork. I find that I can add about three eggs and oil in the center well before it resembles an overflowing volcano. Once this happens, I start to knead the dough and create another well and add the remaining eggs.

Dust work surface with semolina as needed. Knead the dough until it is smooth and supple about 8-10 minutes.
Wrap dough tight in a plastic wrap at room temperature for 30 minutes.

Roll dough to your desired thickness and cut into your favorite noodle shape or refer to the directions provided with your pasta machine.

Place the fresh pasta on a dusted counter of semolina or hang on plastic hangers to keep noodles from sticking to each other.

Boil enough water to cover the noodles, 2 quarts for a pound of pasta (trust me this is all the water you need not 4-6 quarts normally suggested). Add 1 tablespoon of salt to season the pasta for every 2 quarts water. Add pasta noodles into the boiling water making sure they are separate pieces (not one big clump). Stir a few times to be sure the pasta does not stick together. Fresh pasta cooks quickly. Stay close. Check to see if it is done at 3 minutes. If not, check pasta in one minute increments thereafter.

Remove pasta from water. Save the pasta water to make your favorite sauce. The starchy salty water is excellent in pasta sauces, it thins the sauce, adds flavor and salt. Reusing the pasta water in sauces is common practice in Italy. Your water conservation will be rewarded in flavor. The pasta water adds a rich, buttery flavor to the sauce. You will find yourself wiping the plate clean.

Simple Tomato, Garlic, Basil Sauce with Pasta Water
4-6 serving
2 tablespoons ‘dry farmed’ olive oil *
4 garlic cloves, diced
2 pounds organic** tomatoes chopped into eights
1-2 ladles salted pasta water
1 bunch fresh basil, stemmed

*Dry farmed olive oil means that the olives are sourced from olive trees that use only green water (rain water) for irrigation. How do you know if olive oil is dry farmed? Ask.

**When available, I choose organic or pesticide-free vegetables. This action minimizes pesticide and synthetic fertilizer runoff into water systems. Ask farmers how they utilize rain water for irrigation and support those who implement water sustainable practices.

Sauté the garlic until it begins to brown in the olive oil.

Add tomatoes and sauté until soft.

Ladle 1-2 scoops pasta water to thin and season the pasta sauce. Simmer the sauce to allow for the flavors to marry. (Keep the extra water in the Refrigerate the extra pasta water to add to leftover pasta sauce for tomorrow’s lunch. The sauce is even tastier the next day.)

Turn the flame to low and add basil. Keep flame on just long enough for the basil to wilt about 2 minutes.

To serve, drape the sauce over your favorite pastas. Sprinkle drops of parmesan.

You can find The Solvang Pie Co. at the Santa Barbara Certified Farmer’s Market every Tuesday afternoon and Saturday morning or the Solvang Farmer’s Market every Wednesday. Visit them online at www.solvangpieco.com.

Find a copy of this article published in Edible Santa Barbara.