Column by Hal Walter
Organic food – September 2003 – Colorado Central Magazine
AS A YOUNG TYKE, probably not yet five, I lived in a trailer court in Richmond, Virginia. Behind our trailer, which had a front end shaped like Wilma Flintstone’s hairdo, flowed a creek I suppose was really just a large ditch, perhaps four or five feet wide and two or three feet deep. A very steep hill of maybe 35 yards ran directly down to the ditch, with just the slightest rise before the water.
I don’t know how or why I got the idea, but it occurred to me one day to ride my tricycle down this embankment to a dramatic splashdown. Some neigh borhood kids gathered to watch as I put my feet up on the handlebars and shoved off. I still remember the bumpy trip down the hill, the liftoff as I caught air at the bottom, and the watery impact. It was a fine show that brought my mom out of the house to see what all the commotion was about. I was pulled from the water, back up the hill and directly into the trailer where I was placed in a very hot and soapy bathtub. The creek was not a clean place, I was told.
For some reason this aroused my curiosity. I noticed there were metal pipes jutting out into the ditch here and there, roughly behind each trailer. One day after using the bathroom I flushed and then sprinted outside and around to the back of the trailer. Sure enough, what had left the toilet came floating out the pipe and drifted slowly away on the current, perhaps a metaphor for a future career in journalism.
This story of course is complete in its irrelevancy and has nothing to do with the usual topics explored in this magazine. But friends and family have urged me to tell it in print and so I decided to do so here.
This brings us to Jennings Market. The landmark Westcliffe grocery apparently closed its doors this August. Several years ago a new “supermarket” opened at the west end of town, and people have been speculating since then about which grocery store would survive, or whether both could.
The new Westcliffe Supermarket was spacious, brightly lighted, had a parking lot and bigger produce section, video rental, a deli and bakery, a magazine rack, and fresh doughnuts; it stayed open later. Jennings had familiar faces, a meat counter where you could actually see people cutting meat; they wrapped it up for you in paper rather than leaving it out in plastic. As time went by Jennings started to stay open later, expanded its produce section and also served fresh doughnuts.
Though there were certainly exceptions, for the most part it seemed to me many people who have lived here a long time and full-time remained loyal to Jennings, while the new supermarket seemed to attract more newcomers and vacationers.
And so this went on for about a half decade until Jennings closed, for whatever reason. It doesn’t really matter why and I’ll leave that matter to the mainstream media. I’ll just say I don’t think it was entirely due to dwindling customers or loyalty, though I’m sure the split in the small customer base didn’t help matters. From a larger perspective, Jennings’ demise may be best viewed as a major turning point in the evolution of a small western town. And lest the celebration echo too loudly inside the steel walls of the other supermarket, keep in mind that a City Market or Safeway certainly looms in the future. It’s only a matter of time.
In recent years I have minimized my grocery purchases in Westcliffe. I live a good distance east of town, and thus head down Hardscrabble Pass to Pueblo where there is a larger selection of everything. In addition, a weekly trip to an urban area serves as a reminder of why I live up in the mountains while also offering a different geographical perspective.
More recently, however, I’ve had an overwhelming desire to get closer to the sources of my food and have made the acquaintance of some organic and natural food producers who farm near Avondale, east of Pueblo. These farmers are also involved with the Tres Rios Co-op, which supplies individuals, groups, stores and restaurants with organic and naturally raised foods from small farms in Colorado and New Mexico. For those who do not have the time or inclination to become acquainted with a farmer or become co-op members, Tres Rios also supplies many local health-food stores, including Simple Foods in Salida, Valley Food in Alamosa, and Villa Grove Trade, as well as farmers’ markets in Crestone, Alamosa, and other regional towns.
Doug Wiley, who is the president of Tres Rios, raises natural grass-fed beef and natural pork, as well as several row crops, including sweet corn, cantaloupe, watermelons, squash, tomatoes and other produce. For those who don’t know, “natural” in the meat industry means no hormones, antibiotics, or animal by-product feeds. Grass-fed means the animals are fed no grain and this yields a healthier fat profile within the meat. Doug’s Larga Vista Ranch supplies meat to a number of discerning consumers, including some of the finest restaurants in the region.
ANOTHER ORGANIC FARMER friend is Dan Hobbs who raises organic garlic, onions, beets, squash, fennel and wheat on his 15 irrigated acres near Avondale. Dan and wife Alison are in the process of making some life changes. While Dan puts a great deal of focus into an organization called NewFarms which offers various services for small organic farms, Alison is studying to become a pilates instructor. Their Avondale farm is for sale and they are shopping for irrigated farmland to buy or lease near Salida, where they are considering raising their children as well as organic produce.
On a recent trip to Avondale I found Dan inside his open-air shed, preparing an order for Tres Rios. Under the shade of Dan’s shed, heads of freshly harvested garlic were hanging from the rafters, and beets, leeks, and fennel were soaking in tubs of ice water. Dan cleaned up two boxes of garlic heads for the co-op before we traipsed out to his fields with a produce box.
A cement-lined irrigation ditch pours water out onto his certified-organic fields. Unlike conventional farm rows, some weeds and grass mix with these crops. Dan tries to keep this under control simply by cultivation since he does not use any herbicides, pesticides or chemical fertilizers on his fields. From the rows we pulled Chiogga beets ranging from golf-ball to baseball size, leeks, baby red onions and fennel. Returning to the shed, he bagged some fresh garlic for me. In my attempt to avoid big grocery stores, I drove away with not only a greater appreciation for small organic farms, but also more produce than I knew what to do with.
BACK AT HOME I washed some of the beets carefully and decided that I needed to cook some of these vegetables immediately. These Chiogga beets are an old-world heirloom variety and cutting into the roots reveals a red-and-white striped flesh. Most immediately intriguing were the beet tops and the baby red onions. Beet tops are a bitter phytonutrient-rich vegetable. Some of these had holes in them, evidence of insects. Some researchers believe organic plants which have been fed upon by bugs may actually produce even more phytonutrients in defense. Regardless, I thought they might be a nice addition to the wild coho salmon fillet that I caught either out of Hardscrabble Creek or the King Soopers fish counter on my way home.
A couple weeks later I visited the Avondale farms again, this time to check out some alfalfa hay and also the sweet corn harvest. Doug drove me out into a field and we walked among the rows of the corn as he selected some young ears for me to take home. He showed me where raccoons had eaten the low-growing ears. He explained that some non-organic growers spray their corn every three days. He shucked an ear and pointed out the worms which are common in the very tips of his organic corn since he doesn’t use pesticides. “If your corn doesn’t have a worm you don’t want to eat it,” he said.
As darkness approached we shuffled through the vines of tomatoes, cantaloupe and watermelons. The half moon was high in the sky and a huge cumulus cloud, red in the waning sunlight, towered over it all, offering a perspective not available in the mountains where I spend most of my days, or in any grocery store. Somehow it seemed far removed from that bumpy ride on a tricycle but once again my sense of curiosity had led me to a higher understanding.
Hal Walter grows organic prose and raises burros in the Wet Mountains.
