Lower Bottom Healthy Living Street Festival

Come visit Forage Oakland's table at the Lower Bottom Healthy Living Street Festival happening today in West Oakland between 1:00 pm and 5:00 pm! I will be presenting information on how to establish a West Oakland chapter of Forage Oakland, and other projects we love will also be represented, i.e. City Slicker Farms.

RSVP

Thanks to all who've rsvp-ed for dinner on 7 June and for the Localize! event at the Berkeley Art Museum. This Sunday, I will send an email to all those coming to dinner and will give you a bit more information, i.e. exact location. There is still space available for dinner.

If you cannot come to dinner but would still like to support the work of Forage Oakland, and specifically the work taking place this summer/ autumn, your donations will be welcome. Between June and November of this year, I will work on writing a guide of sorts, lessons I've learned from working on this project for the past 1+ year. This work will take place in Biella, Italy, and when I return, the guide will be made available to anyone who'd like to establish his or her own urban backyard barter network. Look to the right sidebar and scroll down to the 'Donate' button. Thank you!

Sincerely,
Asiya

Loquats, an open call

Now is the time of year, the liminal time when we can fairly say we are sated with citrus, but stone fruit is not quite ready for harvest. What does that leave us? It leaves us the loquat. Loquats are often overlooked, and this year, I'd like to harvest- en masse- the loquat. If you have a tree and would like to make it available for harvest, please do email forageoakland@gmail.com and we can arrange a harvest time. Loquats make good chutneys, jams, and jellies.

7 June: Moroccan Feast + Benefit for Forage Oakland

Dinner will be chef-ed by Jerome Waag, Chez Panisse and OPEN Restaurant cook.
Also, dinner will be served at 7:00 pm
Post this announcement widely!

Forage Oakland & KQED

If you're near your radio and in the Bay Area, tune it to 88.5 FM and listen to the California Report, which is featuring a story on urban foraging (with Forage Oakland). The story airs at 4:30 pm and 6:00 pm.

7 June, Save the Date

You are all cordially invited to attend a going away (for now) party, which will take place 7 June, Sunday, at a house in South Berkeley. Hopefully, I will also introduce the team of people who will manage Forage Oakland while I am away.

Earlier in the evening, there will be a formal dinner in the backyard, a sliding scale fundraiser of sorts. Jerome Waag of OPEN Restaurant and Chez Panisse will be chef-ing, which guarantees a delicious meal. Ticket prices will be posted soon, as well as the exact location of the event (once I assure that publicly posting it is okay with the kind hosts).

Lastly, 7 June is also the Localize! Community Activism at the Grassroots show at the Berkeley Arts Museum. Do come to the museum between 11:00 am and 3:00 pm to participate in a public jam exchange (sponsored by Forage Oakland), among other great events. Bring the family, bring the marmalade and jam, and bring yourselves.

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Meet your neighbors

hachiya persimmons, circa 2005 in my former Lawton Ave kitchen

Here is something heart warming and inspiring:

Fifteen months ago, after spending more than two years creating micro neighborhood maps detailing the edibles in my various North Oakland neighborhoods, I formally embarked on attempting to share what I'd learned over my time harvesting backyard fruit in North Oakland and South Berkeley. As a transplant to this area, I believe I will never stop being completely in awe of the prolific bounty of fruit that can be found in backyards in Oakland, and I will also always be fascinated by fruit tree owners' relationship with the trees they find growing in the front and backyards. These trees might have been planted years ago and the original planters may have long ago moved on, leaving the tree they planted as a monument to an era when we planted fruit trees out of necessity and nostalgia. Now, a generation later, there is the totem that- sadly- may be forgotten every late summer, and rather than longing for the sweet black mission figs of late summer, we may see them as a curse, a nuisance, or a burden. This is a result of our lives becoming so busy that rather than harvesting our backyard apples, we opt for the convenience of buying apples at the supermarket.

But, if you ever find yourself so downtrodden about the state of the state, I urge you to meander down your street and neighboring streets and make a tentative map of the fruit trees that you can spot from the sidewalk. Armed with that map, muster up a bit of courage and knock on the door of a neighbor and ask if you might sample- at this time of the year- an orange, a grapefruit, a meyer lemon, a loquat. I assure you that if you ask politely and introduce yourself as a neighbor, you will so disarm the person at the door, and they will undoubtedly, resoundingly, say yes. It is heartwarming and inspiring to know that in our cities, these small and meaningful intervention can take place. I see interventions such as this working to recreate the fabric of our cities, weaving a landscape that is earnest, kind, and self-sufficient.

Or, if you'd like to give your neighbor time to ruminate, here is an example of a card you can leave said neighbor:

Each time I leave a note or knock on a front door, the introvert in me is terrified for a short moment, but that quickly subsides when some kind soul answers the door- a bit skeptical at first. That changes when it's realized that all I'd really like are green walnuts in exchange for Santa Rosa plums. Visit your neighbors. Chances are, they'll teach you something new.