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My husband Todd and I started Happy Girl Kitchen because we had an innate desire to preserve. Preserve something perfect that would otherwise go to waste (or in our case, compost). While sourcing ingredients from local farms, we noticed that there was a huge amount of the harvest that was pristine, but would not make it to a customer in time to be enjoyed. Our preserves could capture this otherwise neglected harvest. Word got out and soon Todd and I were fielding calls from all of our farming friends and some of their friends with pleas like "I have 40 flats of strawberries left after market, is there something you can do with them?" or "We have 1000 pounds of extra tomatoes this week. Please do something with them." It is hard for me to say no to my friends. I found myself expanding my line to fill the needs of the local excess; thus, came favorites like strawberry lemonade, apricot jam, pickled beets and preserved heirloom tomatoes.

It was at a local farmer's market in Santa Cruz that we met Tom Bros of Live Earth Farm. He has a homestead farm that does farmers' markets and has a CSA with about 1200 members.  He is a visionary who wants the people eating his fruits and vegetables to have a connection to the land on which they were grown and to the people who are responsible for growing them. He really emphasizes the word community in CSA through monthly events at his farm and a very open door policy for his members. When you visit the farm, you often see parents with their children of all ages hanging out with the chickens, petting the goats, or picking strawberries. It has a very welcoming feel. I have been one of those parents with my own children, aged 2 and 6. 

Tom was interested in preserving some of his harvest that would otherwise go to waste, but he couldn't figure out how to add it into his already very full schedule.  One Monday he called us to say he had 35 flats of strawberries leftover from the weekend markets; could we make some jam for him to sell at markets?  The conversation ended with Happy Girl agreeing to make strawberry jam in small batches throughout the season, by the end of which he would have enough to distribute to his CSA members during the winter.  When tomato season arrived we decided to do the same, and we preserved his dry farmed and heirloom tomatoes in two unique recipes enabling his members to enjoy tomatoes from their favorite farm year round.  

This relationship between Happy Girl and Live Earth Farm has developed into a symbiotic partnership. This past year we inaugurated a winter preserves share, creating 18 different recipes for the farm's CSA members to receive all winter long. That means Happy Girl was able to get creative and wild in the kitchen using the finest fruits and vegetables that would otherwise be unappreciated. 

The love affair between Happy Girl and Live Earth is so fervent that it has broadened beyond creating products from farm ingredients to include teaching people how to preserve in their own kitchens. Todd and I have been teaching workshops from a barn in Oakland for several years, but last fall we expanded our workshop schedule to classes on Live Earth Farm. Now we offer workshops in a kitchen overlooking the fields where the food being preserved is grown, and we incorporate our amazing location into the day with a morning harvest of the ingredients we will be later using. At these workshops, Todd and I share many of the secrets we have unearthed by being obsessed with food preservation for a decade.  It is so satisfying for me to witness people receive the answers for which they are looking and walk away with the confidence to start making their own jams, pickles, cheese, sauerkraut and tomato preserves.  These workshops at Live Earth have a distinct flavor to them that really stood out during our first workshop there. Many workshop participants already had so much in common with one another by receiving their CSA box from the farm every week. They were sharing cooking recipes, and that exchange escalated to a much higher volume. They were comfortable, rambunctious, and really into food. It was so easy to be inspired by their enthusiasm. It was a Live Earth workshop that introduced an editor at Sunset Magazine to Happy Girl. And our workshops were a January 2010 editor's pick! Live Earth workshops have become an exciting twist to our always colorful schedule. 

As I looked back on 2009 and planned for 2010, one of my proudest accomplishments has been the deepening of our partnership with Live Earth. With years of farm management and field experience between us, Todd and I could have started our own farm in support of the food revolution. We decided to create another path and compliment the efforts of already existing farmers--farmers struggling for outlets for their abundant harvests. We hope to channel our experience with Live Earth to support and partner with even more diversified family farms. We celebrate our relationship with Live Earth and all our farmer friends.