A tale of three cities

Earlier this month I took a weeklong trip to China. I visited its three most prosperous cities: Beijing, Shanghai, and Hong Kong. The trip was eye-opening as both Beijing and Shanghai have changed immensely since I visited almost a decade ago. I could feel the booming Chinese economy while I was there.

Striking architecture: future CCTV Tower in Beijing, construction has resumed after a serious fire last year

In Beijing, huge plots of land downtown have been transformed into glistening shopping malls and office towers. I reckoned none of the buildings on the street where I stayed was more than ten years old. Keep in mind Beijing is an ancient city, then you recognize the scale of the changes. These can be good or bad, depending on your perspective. The question lingering in my mind: what sacrifices ordinary citizens had to make for them to happen?

Not interested in international brands that filled downtown to the brim, I ventured out to find remnants of old Beijing. My find? A century-old pastry shop dated back to the Qing Dynasty called Daoxiangcun (稻香村;  roughly translated into “Village of Fragrant Rice”). I liked it so much that I went there multiple times during my stay, and brought some of its products back to the US as gifts.

Daoxiangcun started as a single store but has now grown into hundreds of outlets across China. There are tens of outlets in Beijing alone. It sells all kinds of sweet and salty, probably bad-for-you snacks. Most of them are uniquely Chinese, but there are also many Western items. It allows you to buy only one piece of an item so I got to try MANY things.

Some sweets I tried: traditional pastries with fillings of adzuki bean paste, mung bean paste, red date paste, black sesame seed paste, osmanthus paste, pineapple paste; walnut and honey cakes; wafers with peanut paste; fried dough in twists (mahua). Savories: ready-t0-eat shredded tofu sheets, marinated tofu nuggets and mock meat.

Daoxiangcun treats VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Almost everything tasted great and was good value. I knew I wouldn’t go wrong as many locals buy Daoxiangcun products for themselves or as gifts. The cost of living in Beijing is surprisingly high (many categories are on par with Hong Kong), so Daoxiangcun is a relative bargain.

I spent two days in Shanghai with my parents. My dad was kind enough to suggest going to a vegetarian restaurant for dinner because both my mom and I are vegetarians. I found Jichancao (吉祥草; roughly translated into “Auspicious Grass”) on Dianping, China’s version of Yelp.

Jichancao’s storefront

Located in the leafy former French Concession, Jichancao has a modern, Zen-style décor with a small Buddhist bookstore appended to it. We ordered savory dishes (pumpkin stew, braised tofu, etc.), Northern dim-sums (steamed dumplings, Chinese flatbread/shaobing), noodles, and sweet rice dumplings to round out the meal. Overall the food was delicious in a Shanghainese way (greasy with a hint of sweetness). The meal was not expensive either given Shanghai’s living standards.

Braised tofu with tomatoes, mushrooms, napa cabbage, Chinese celery

(From left) Pumpkin stew, sweet rice dumplings, Chinese flatbread with diced dill fillings

The most elaborate meal I had during my trip was in Hong Kong. My mom managed to book a table at the talk-of-the-town Amy’s House (愛美素食坊), a vegetarian “private kitchen” in a residential building that serves only one table during each meal period. We had lunch there, and chef Amy presented eight courses typical of a Cantonese dinner banquet. Completely self-taught and now in her late 50s or even 60s, Amy created an innovative feast of different flavors and textures from appetizers to desserts.

The best course was the coral seaweed salad appetizer with shredded carrots, cucumbers, tomatoes, and guavas. Then there were imitations of Cantonese classics such as pan-fried shark’s fin, steamed chicken, and braised pork belly. Amy gave each dish a poetic name and asked us to guess its ingredients before putting it onto the table. The entire experience was like a show.

Best in show: coral seaweed salad with wasabi soy sauce

More appetizers: spring rolls and fried Chinese squash

Pan-fried imitation shark’s fin topped with braised pumpkin and snow peas

Imitation steamed chicken (tofu sheets) topped with bok choy, minced ginger and spring onions

No doubt Amy is a masterful cook given the complexity of each dish, but the cooking sometimes masked the original flavors of the ingredients. I found the imitation braised beef taste too much like real beef too. Don’t get me wrong: the meal was wonderful, and I appreciated that my mom arranged it for me.

Back in the US, I felt even more grateful to be living in the Bay Area. Although Amy bought her ingredients fresh from the market daily, the quality of the produce here seems better.

Like the last time I was in Hong Kong, I enjoyed eating at home with my family the most though. Too bad I only had time to do this once on the trip.

To my family and friends, happy 2011 wherever you are!

Drenched in vanilla and cinnamon

My pan de muerto, fresh from the oven

What better time than the holidays to forget about dieting and go all out for decadent treats? The problem is I already indulge myself year-round. In late October I attended a Mexican bread making workshop, and I still feel guilty about the ridiculous amounts of butter and sugar we used to make our bread.

La Cocina, San Francisco’s food entrepreneur incubator, organized the Day of the Dead (Dia de los Muerto) traditional bread workshop. I like Mexican bread for its dense, scone-like texture and was curious to know how it’s made. The opportunity to bake my own bread and taste it fresh from the oven was too good to pass.

Chef Luis of Chaac Mool Yucatecan Food, a beneficiary of La Cocina, was our instructor. More than 20 of us made it to La Cocina’s kitchen in the Mission District on a weekday night, wore the apron provided to us, and listened attentively to Chef Luis’s introduction of the pan de muerto (Bread of the Dead) traditions and the recipes we would be making.

Dia de los Muerto offerings on a makeshift altar

Pan de muerto, a type of yeasted sweet bread, is offered to the dead as part of the Dia De Los Muerto celebrations. Mexican families set up an altar in their homes and present deceased family and friends with their favorite foods and beverages. The occasion is meant to be festive and not somber – just look at the colorful paper-cut decorations on the altar.

Because Chef Luis doesn’t speak English, a translator repeated what he said in Spanish in English. Although I don’t understand Spanish, I could tell Chef Luis, in his crisp chef uniform, spoke assertively and eloquently. La Cocina does a great service helping immigrant entrepreneurs like Chef Luis tap into their culinary talents and broaden the reach of their home-country cuisines in the Bay Area. He now runs a Yucatan food stand in San Francisco’s Fort Mason Center.

Chef Luis and his translator addressing the group

We first made the standard pan de muerto. Chef Luis already mixed and leavened the dough for us, and each of us got a ball of dough. Suffice to say that the dough contained a lot of sugar, butter, milk, and eggs. There's also a hint of citrus because of the lemon and orange zests and juices mixed into it.

We took some extra dough and rolled it into decorations for the bread. Never good at crafts, I placed a simple cross on top of my dough. Then I sprinkled some sesame seeds onto it.

Finished decorating the dough and chilling

My pan de muerto before baking with the cross on top

After placing our pan de muerto into the oven, we moved on to the next recipe: pan patas de crema. Chef Luis said this sweet bread is his family specialty. We first made a cinnamon cream by mixing cinnamon, sugar, vanilla extract, butter, and flour together, then rolled the same dough we used for the pan de muerto over the cream.

Because the cinnamon cream was too watery and didn’t stick to the dough initially, we had to keep adding butter and flour to the cream. It’s unbelievable how much butter we used.

Our hands were all dirty and smelled of vanilla and cinnamon by the time we shaped the dough into a log (maybe this is why the bread is called pan patas because patas means limbs in Spanish). Chef Luis suggested that we brush the dough with more cinnamon cream to give the bread a golden-brown color. I was still coming to terms with the high-fat, high-sugar content of the dough so I resisted.

Chef Luis’s family specialty: pan patas de crema

Pan patas de crema out of the oven

After the pan patas de crema went into the oven, we finally had dinner. Coincidentally, the woman next to me and I were the only vegetarians in the group. Our dinner platter consisted of mushrooms cooked in cheese, refried beans, a tostada – all topped with a black, mole-like chimole sauce. Chimole is a Yucatan condiment made from chili peppers, onion, garlic, spices and has a smoky flavor. The non-vegetarians got turkey.

Vegetarian dinner platter: mushrooms, cheese, refried beans, and tostada in chimole sauce

The dinner was decent but no match for the ever-stronger smell of fresh baked bread wafting through the kitchen. Out of the oven, the breads were huge with a hard surface. We were like kids marveling at our creations and taking pictures. This might be the best part of baking: the magical feeling of creating something delicious out of such simple ingredients as flour, butter, and sugar.

Because Whole Foods was a sponsor of the event (most of the ingredients were from its 365 brand), we all left with a Whole Foods shopping bag to carry our bread. The bread was warm and supposedly we should let it cool before eating, but the smell of vanilla and cinnamon won over my self-control.

As I walked to the 24th Street BART station,  I couldn’t stop nibbling on the crunchy coating and dense interior of the pan patas de crema. I finished the entire loaf of bread when I arrived at the station. Guess how long I could keep my hands off the pan de muerto for the rest of my trip home.

Sweets in Portland

Yummy fresh mint flake and banana cream pie ice cream from Ruby Jewel

You don’t think I would miss out on sweets during my trip to Portland, OR, do you? I need a separate post on all the ones I tried.

As a foodie city, Portland has great dessert options, especially on the vegan front. Like savories, some of the most interesting sweets are from food carts.

Along Mississippi Avenue I found Flavorspot, a long-standing waffle sandwich cart. I ordered a sweet cream and jam waffle. Because the waffle was made on the spot, it was warm and crisp. The fillings were not cloyingly sweet. It was a simple yet satisfying sandwich.

Flavorspot “food cart,” though it’s really a stand

Freshly made sweet cream and jam waffle

In the Hawthorne cart pod, Perierra Crêperie offers a wide variety of savory and sweet crêpes. I got something simple here too: a lemon and sugar crêpe. The girl who took my order zested the lemons, poured the batter onto the crêpe pan, then finished the crêpe in a couple of minutes.

A taste of France: Perierra Crêperie

My lemon and sugar crêpe

The crêpe was fresh (half of what makes a good crêpe) but bland-tasting. Luckily, the vibe of the cart made up for it. The two girls running the cart wore retro-style aprons and played French-sounding songs in the background. They were cheerful, full of energy, and having fun. It’d be a stretch to say I felt I were in Paris, but they put me in a groovy mood.

Portland was hot when I was there, so ice cream immediately came to mind. I read a Portland Monthly Magazine article on the best ice cream in Portland, and managed to try one of the places featured. Lovely’s Fifty-Fifty on Mississippi Avenue (yes, this street has a lot of great food) is a pizzeria that also sells house-made ice cream. I tried the cherry and salted caramel flavors. Both were rich and intense and I even bit into chunks of cherries. It certainly didn’t skimp on ingredients.

Excellent cherry and salted caramel ice cream from Lovely’s Fifty-Fifty

Just a couple blocks down from Lovely’s Fifty-Fifty is Ruby Jewel, a local ice cream producer known for its ice cream sandwiches. The store is a cavernous space with a nostalgic, diner-style décor meant for people to linger. It has a larger menu than Lovely’s Fifty-Fifty, and even several vegan flavors. However, the vegan blueberry lavender flavor I tasted didn’t impress me, so I went with fresh mint flake and banana cream pie.

Welcoming Ruby Jewel ice cream store

The ice cream was excellent. As American-style ice cream, it was almost as good as San Francisco’s favorite Bi-Rite Creamery. But I liked the lighter, gelato-like variant at Lovely’s Fifty-Fifty better.

Well, I had dessert for breakfast too. The vegan Black Sheep Bakery has a stand in the mainstream PSU Farmers' Market – another proof that Portland is vegan haven. My huge apple-spice crumb cake was wonderfully moist, and didn’t have the off-taste often found in vegan cakes that contain no eggs.

Black Sheep Bakery’s apple-spice crumb cake

The best dessert that I had? A slice of vegan hazelnut cake with strawberry frosting from the vegan Back to Eden Bakery in the Alberta Arts District.  My cake was perfect, especially its slightly coarse texture due to the ground hazelnuts in the batter. The frosting was at just the right level of sweetness.

Perfect vegan hazelnut cake with strawberry frosting

All-vegan Back to Eden Bakery

I also spoke to the two owners of the bakery. They were young, charming, or even innocent-looking. The bakery’s website says it is committed to “a love for the animals, and a love for this planet,” and this is evident from the artwork lining the walls and the carefully picked green merchandise. They really put their heart into the store.

Perhaps this is the best part of Portland: young people following their ideals and trying out ideas, be they a food cart or vegan bakery, which might otherwise be impossible in more expensive cities such as New York and San Francisco.

Sweetpea Baking Company in Portland’s “vegan mall” complex

I was disappointed with Sweetpea Baking Company though - the vegan bakery supposed to represent Portland’s vegan scene. I might have gone there too late in the afternoon; there wasn’t much to buy. Maybe the staff were being laid-back, but they seemed too hip or busy with whatever they were doing to talk to me.

Redwoods in Portland’s beautiful Hoyt Arboretum

Portland’s International Rose Test Garden in full bloom

With its beautiful outdoors, youthful spirit, offbeat yet authentic character, Portland is a great place to visit, whether you’re vegan or not. I left Portland with a full stomach and hoped I would soon return.

Veg and hip: not SF

Yes, you read right.

Portland, Oregon consistently ranks as one of the most vegetarian-friendly cities in the U.S, even ahead of San Francisco. It’s also known for being hip and progressive. During my stay there over Labor Day weekend, I experienced all these and more.

Bustling Portland Saturday Farmers’ Market

Nowhere I’ve been takes vegetarians and vegans more seriously than Portland. I rarely have problems finding things to eat at restaurants in the U.S., but in many cases I need to ask whether a dish contains meat. In Portland, restaurants indicate vegetarian and vegan options clearly, not to mention the large number of vegetarian spots, given Portland’s small size. You won’t draw a blank look if you tell people you’re a vegan.

Vegetarian food in Portland is not only abundant, but also creative and affordable. This is most evident from its 500+ food cart scene. While some carts serve regular fast food, many pride themselves on artisan/gourmet/one-of-a-kind offerings normally found (or not found) in restaurants. My most interesting meals in Portland were all from the carts.

The carts are clustered in “pods” scattered across the city. There is usually a communal dining area with picnic tables in each pod. I checked out various pods, and liked the two in the residential area where I stayed in northeastern Portland the most.

In the Mississippi Marketplace pod, I tried the chickpea sandwich ($6.5) from the Garden State cart. The made-t0-order sandwich consisted of a fried chickpea patty, shredded carrots, radishes, lettuces, and lemon aioli layered between ciabatta bread. The sandwich had a great bite, the fillings were warm and crunchy, and the crispy bread soaked up the creamy aioli sauce. It was the first thing I ate in Portland and I was blown away.

Garden State food cart

Warm, made-to-order chickpea sandwich

Then I had the quinoa pancake ($4.5) from the organic, all-vegan Ruby Dragon cart. The cart owner wore a thick beard and dreadlocks – probably what a visitor expects Portland’s hippies to look like. But Ruby Dragon puts out seriously good food. The “Tiger’s Paw” pancake is made from fresh ground quinoa flour and hempseeds, with blueberries and walnuts mixed into the batter.  Also made-to-order then topped with maple syrup, it had a fragrant, nutty flavor and complex texture. One of the best pancakes I’ve ever had.

Ruby Dragon food cart

One of the best I’ve ever had: quinoa and hempseed pancake

For dinner, how about a Venezuelan platter from the Fuego de Lotus (literally fire of lotus) food cart in the Alberta Arts District? This was the first time I had Venezuelan food and I loved it. The “Revolutionaries Plate” ($7) included arepas (masa cakes), cilantro rice, black beans topped with cotija (a sharp, white cheese of Mexican origin), and cabbage salad. The warm, homey food was the perfect antidote to a breezy night.

Venezuelan “Revolutionaries Plate”

Another upside of this pod: diners eat under a cabana-like structure with decorative light strings dangling over the beams. It felt DIY yet elegant. I could see the sky and a few lonesome stars when I ate. With music blaring in the background, this would be a wonderful date spot.

Fuego de Lotus food cart

The other night I got a slice of vegan pizza ($3.5) at Bella Faccia Pizzeria on Alberta Street. The pizza was decent: tempeh crumbles, onions, bell peppers, tomatoes on top of a “cashew/roasted pepper/tomato base” and thin crust. A very small but growing number of pizzerias now offer vegan pizzas, but you usually have to order an entire pie. I was impressed that Bella Faccia had vegan slices readily available.

Vegan pizza slice from Bella Faccia Pizzeria

But there were misses too. One was the vegan poutine ($4.5) from the popular Potato Champion cart in the offbeat Hawthorne District. Poutine is a classic Quebec dish of Belgian frites and cheese curds doused in gravy. Maybe I should have tried the regular version, but the gravy smothering the frites and tofu (instead of cheese) in my vegan version was too thick. I could almost taste the cornstarch in it.

Potato Champion food cart specializing in fried potato

Vegan poutine from Potato Champion

Most food carts in Portland are run by young people about my age. I wondered whether they did this as a career, or a stepping stone to something else, like becoming a chef at a restaurant. I felt it’s the former.

Running a food cart is tough – almost like running an outdoor restaurant – but the cart owners seemed content with it. They chatted with one another in the pod over cigarettes and beer during downtime. Their life looked carefree to an outsider. Is this what being a hippie in Portland means?

My best food experience in Portland, however, didn’t require psychoanalysis and was strikingly simple. I came across Freddy Guys Hazelnuts at the Portland State University Saturday Market, the city’s flagship farmers’ market. The dry roasted hazelnuts ($5) I bought there were heaven.

Best of Portland: farm-fresh dry roasted hazelnuts

The hazelnuts had a fresh, intense, slightly sweet flavor, and were super-crunchy after they were roasted. Salt was unnecessary. After I opened the package, I couldn’t stop eating. (Well, this happens whenever I eat nuts.) California produces top-quality almonds and walnuts – but no hazelnuts. I will probably order from Freddy Guys in the future.

Stay tuned for my second post on my trip to Portland. You might have noticed that a whole category of food is conspicuously missing from this post…

Sampling two Mission District favorites

Because of my job transition, I had a couple of free days during the week last month. There were several popular food spots in San Francisco’s Mission District I had long wanted to try, but the weekend crowds kept deterring me. Finally I could check out these places without the ridiculous wait.

TARTINE BAKERY

I went to Tartine Bakery on a Wednesday afternoon. Many consider Tartine to be the best bakery in San Francisco, and it’s most well-known for its French bread, croissant, and banana cream tart.

I was pleasantly surprised to see no line in the store. The croissants are often sold out before lunch, but there were still many on the counter today. I had checked the menu repeatedly before coming, so I knew what to get right away.

I ordered a croissant and a slice of passion fruit lime bavarian cake to go. The svelte young woman behind the counter carefully placed the pastries into a bag and a box. The kind of service you’d expect at an upscale patisserie. Tartine is not cheap; I spent almost $10 on just two items.

Perfect croissant

Deliciously buttery and flaky layers

Nowhere is better than nearby Mission Dolores Park to enjoy the pastries. Although it was a work day, the park was filled with young hipsters chatting, sunbathing, or playing Frisbee. I sat under a tree and tried the croissant first. The perfectly shaped croissant was rich, buttery, both crispy and chewy as if it had a thousand layers. It’d be even better if served warm. It definitely lived up to the hype.

Cake layered with passion fruit bavarian cream

Too bad the cake was just mediocre. It was moist and had a nice lime flavor, but I could hardly taste the passion fruit in the bavarian cream between the cake layers. While the cake looked great and was topped with coconut flakes – my favorite – I expected more at this price.

FLOUR AND WATER

The other night my friend and I got to the immensely popular Californian-Italian restaurant Flour and Water, before it opened at 5:30 pm. Already there was a line of about 10 people. Because the restaurant doesn’t take reservations for small groups, many people (us included) came early to snag a table.

Warm dining room at Flour and Water

Flour and Water has won the hearts of food critics in the press including the San Francisco Chronicle and SF Eater since its opening last year. It isn’t uncommon for people to wait past 10 pm to get in on a weekend night. Fortunately the maître d’, who seemed unperturbed by the early crowd, promptly seated us in the cozy, earth-toned dining room.

The menu was short so it didn’t take us long to make our choices. As a vegetarian, I often don’t have many options anyway. I ordered a shaved cantaloupe salad with tender greens, pickled peppers, and shaved pecorino as my appetizer, then a thin-crust pizza - the restaurant’s claim to fame – topped with arugula and cherry tomatoes as my main course.

Incredibly fresh cantaloupe salad with greens

The greens in my salad tasted incredibly fresh. The unexpected combination of flavors: sweet from the cantaloupe, tangy from the pecorino, with a little bit of heat from the peppers thrown in, immediately set the restaurant apart from its peers.

My main course: thin-crust pizza topped with arugula and cherry tomatoes

The pizza was excellent too. I liked that the crust was firm while still airy and chewy. The fresh toppings, especially the cheese, were remarkable. I’m usually not crazy about cheese, but this cheese had a unusually clean flavor and smooth texture. I should have written down the name of the cheese.

Warm polenta cake with fresh blueberries and corn ice cream

Unfortunately, like at many top-rated restaurants I’ve been to , the dessert was disappointing. My friend got a warm polenta cake with fresh blueberries and corn ice cream from talk-of-the-town ice cream parlor Humphrey Slocombe. The cake was ordinary, and the ice cream didn’t taste of corn at all.

Still, Flour and Water was outstanding overall, perhaps slightly better than another great Italian restaurant, Barbacco, that I tried several months ago. I felt more comfortable with Flour and Water’s neighborly vibe too. Service was at just the right level: attentive but not overbearing. I thought the experience was well worth the $35 (including tips) that we each paid.

P.S. check out this wonderful insider guide to San Francisco in the revamped Wall Street Journal weekend edition, which featured many lesser-known, interesting spots including Mr. and Mrs. Miscellaneous, my new favorite ice cream shop. With flavors such as candied violet and burnt sugar, its offerings are at least as good as that of Bi-Rite Creamery, widely regarded as having the best ice cream in town.

Another dreamy farm tour

I love the country, but because I don’t have a car, I jump on any chance to get out there through other means. I had a wonderful time on the Pacific Coast Farmers’ Market Association farm tour along the San Mateo Coast last year, so I signed up for this year’s tour to Watsonville as soon as I learned about it.

Watsonville is close to Santa Cruz and known for its agricultural produce. We visited three farms on this trip: Phil Foster Ranches, Far West Fungi, and Hillview Farm. Like last year, we enjoyed an outdoor farm-to-table lunch prepared on the spot in the middle of the trip.

Each farm operates very differently from one another. Phil Foster Ranches is a large, commercial, all-organic farm that hires tens of workers and uses machinery extensively. It grows a wide range of crops. During our trip in late August, we saw leeks, lettuces, chards, summer squash, strawberries, and the early crop of apples.

So liberating to be on a farm like this

Rows of chards

These are summer squash actually

When Phil encouraged us to go into the fields to taste the strawberries and apples, we were like kids unleashed and scouted for the plumpest fruits. Nothing beats the taste of freshly picked fruits; the strawberries were amazing.

Strawberries still on the plant

The scenery was also picture-perfect. Imagine a boundless clear sky under which long, parallel rows of crops gradually converge into a backdrop of gently sloping mountains. Phil was proud of his farm; even his dog was having fun when showing us around. Obviously it was an idealized picture, but I wondered what it’d be like to live and work on a farm like this.

Apple trees

Phil’s dog taking a break

We then moved on to Far West Fungi. Before we toured the farm, we sat down to have lunch made using produce from Phil Foster Ranches and mushrooms from Far West Fungi. The vegetarian menu included crostini topped with pureed broccoli and grilled mushrooms, cauliflower soup, and a salad of tomatoes, cucumbers, red onions, and feta.

Farm-to-table alfresco lunch

The most delicious items were those that brought out the freshness of the ingredients, such as the mushrooms and salad. It was a hot day, so the aqua fresca the chefs made from several types of melons served as a great thirst quencher.

Far West Fungi is a small, multi-generation family business. It sells both edible and medicinal mushrooms, and has a store in the San Francisco Ferry Building. The farm has great views of the Pacific Ocean, but it’s far from quaint. This was my first time seeing mushrooms grown on a commercial scale, and I quickly realized that they don’t come from enchanted forests we read about in fairy tales.

Different kinds of mushrooms grown at Far West Fungi

Instead, the mushrooms sprouted from “blocks” of organic matter housed in dark, damp container-like structures. I can’t remember exactly, but the organic matter was something like compost or dead wood. It takes months for the mushrooms to break down the organic matter and grow big enough for human consumption. The blocks were placed on rows of shelves, and it’s a bit eerie walking past blocks of protruding mushrooms in various shapes.

John, the owner, holding one of the “blocks” and explaining how to grow mushrooms

Yellow-headed mushrooms, but I couldn’t remember the name

Intimidating-looking matsutake mushrooms

Before we left the containers, the owner offered some maitake mushrooms for us to taste raw. But the smell of decay inside the containers put me off and I didn’t taste any.

Our final stop of the tour was Hillview Farm, another family-run business that grows 100+ varieties of apples and other fruits. Walking among the apple trees under the sun is like experiencing California in the movies, and I couldn’t help marveling the bounty.

Apples for tasting before the tour at Hillview Farm

California’s bounty – apples everywhere

Since everything seemed so perfect, it was a letdown when the owner told us he sprayed the apples and couldn’t afford to go organic. I understand organic farming is expensive, but as a consumer, I was reluctant to taste any more apples on the farm after the revelation. Perhaps there’s a better way for the owner to convey that piece of information?

As we were heading back to San Jose at the end of the tour, I felt thankful that I could join a tour like this again. Call it a marketing ploy on the part of the farmers if you want, but it makes a huge difference for me to know the person who grows my food, given the problems of our faceless, industrial food system. I’m now more determined to buy from farmers’ markets whenever possible.