presently, her and i are based out of Maryville, Tennessee, in the rolling foothills of the great smoky mountains. After leaving our lives in brooklyn behind, and spending the interim learning how to farm in Athens, Georgia, we are now apprenticing under the direction of the executive management at Blackberry farm—rated by travel and leisure as 2011’s number one resort in north america.
we are searching for land in northern california, and developing plans for a farm driven hospitality, culinary, and wellness experience called be here now farm.
at the break of 2010, I left new york for georgia with the plans of studying “some sort of farm with an added value, entrepreneurial business vertically integrated on top of it.” I had seen the blossoming farm-to-table scene in brooklyn, and it instantly captured my attention. at that time in the story, I was working on the floor of the new york stock exchange for a small, private brokerage firm, and spending every waking minute outside of work teaching myself to cook. I became obsessed. with freshly polished shoes and a knot around my neck I would race from wall st, to the C train, to my truck, to the butcher shop, and immediately back to my kitchen to whip up some sort of feast cobbled together from things I had seen on the internet earlier in the day.
a friend, over for one such dinner, noticed my enthusiasm and budding passion for food, and suggested I photograph it and start a blog. this was the birth of im high on cooking.
I look back at those early writings with half closed eyes. in a good mood, the archives make me smile, and in a more somber mood, I cant even read it. in a public forum I was exhibiting three skills of which I had no training nor experience: cooking, writing, and taking photos. with awkward alliteration, and ill focused angles, I poured my heart out to fifteens of people.
since those beginnings I have written several hundreds of postings and shared thousands of photographs from my experiences home and abroad. I have connected with hundreds of people around the country and world to exchange ideas on food and farming and the future. I have had the honor to represent my country as a farmer and an entrepreneur as a delegate at slow food international biannual terra madre conference in Turino, Italia. I have spoken to dozens of groups of eager students, curious journalists and writers, and hardened farmers alike. I was reborn into a new world and in these two years time I feel an entire universe has come and passed.
the seed idea from which I left new york--learn from an “entrepreneurial enterprise stacked on top of a farm”--crystallized as I left the city and rooted down in rural georgia. I spent my first year apprenticing for jason mann—farmer and owner of full moon farms (a cooperative of organic vegetable farms), farmer and owner of moonshine meats (a regional grass-fed meat cooperative), and a family of restaurants in georgia of which he supplies the showcased ingredients—farm 255 in athens and farm burger with two locations in atlanta (decatur/buckhead). My focus during this year, beyond the basics of raising vegetables, and selling restaurant quality produce, was on learning to manage a grass-fed beef and pasture pork operation. after a few short weeks living near downtown athens, I moved into a house a quarter mile away from the animals, and began an intensive education of managing, raising, slaughtering, and selling premium quality products to local farm to table restaurants.
my second season in georgia, craving a shift from livestock to vegetables, we seized on a surprise opportunity to rent our own turn-key, extremely fertile vegetable farm forty five minutes outside of athens. after meeting her cousin, the root man, a self taught farmer from the heartland of puerto rico, we agreed that he would move up to georgia for the season and help me tackle the budding project.
the root man’s grassroots understanding of growing vegetables with extremely little resources was an invaluable perspective to have by my side. and for him, exposure to the business side of local agriculture, as demonstrated by jason’s network of farm and food service collaborations, was a priceless lesson to take back and implement on the island. it was a cross cultural, agricultural, and spiritual experiment that enriched us all.
since leaving new york based on a hunch in my gut, our ideas of a farm based restaurant have grown into much more. our roots in georgia helped shape our vision and expectations from all sorts of angles not visible in new york. our backgrounds in the corporate halls of manhattan—I, in finance, and her, in marketing—coupled with the bustling, alternative and cooperative economics anchored by jason’s restaurants in georgia, brought our passions and energies into 20/20 focus.
we were in the flow, and we knew it. everything smoothly cascaded from one event to the next—one amazing connection to the next—one supposedly serendipitous moment after serendipitous moment after gosh darn coincidence after the next-----how many times do you have to have one of these “but how?” moments before you can just surrender to the flow of what’s happening? for us, it took about three years.
what I enjoyed so much about those early dinners in brooklyn was not simply the cooking. working nine to five on wall street was like being cranked inside a box—the real me, the jack, could only pop out for brief moments of the day. cooking became my blank canvas, my punching bag, and my guitar. cooking let me think and be creative in ways that nothing else could. but it turned out to be the tip of the iceberg.
what I was drawn to was the entire process. how working in the soil, and bleeding and sweating and problem solving could produce a product that was not only delicious, and beautiful—but life sustaining! to bring people together. to host them! it was all too good to be true. the idea of hosting—just in general, nothing too specific—became the driving factor of our agrarian journey.
so now, in the present day, we are calmly but intentionally travelling down a furious and gentle path towards northern california. taking our roots in georgia and melding them with the world class services blackberry farm has to offer, we are developing a boutique farm, hotel, culinary destination, and wellness center to share with the world. with the support of our family and friends we have left everything we once knew behind in an attempt to capture a specific—yet unknown—future.
this website is an ongoing chronicle of our journey down this road. for those who have been there from the beginning, you can attest that the pace of the writings, as well as the topics, ebb and flow with the realities of our lives. but at any moment in time, this website will be both a tool for sharing our story and our progress, as well as a tool for me to focus my ideas.
what began as a plate in brooklyn grew into a farm in georgia. seeds from the experience have taken root in Tennessee, and our eyes look westward to the future. it’s my privilege to share my thoughts with you, and look forward to hosting you soon.
old "about me"
written 9.10.10
born on long island, and raised in the suburbs of new jersey. pee wee football, chasing the ice cream man, percussion ensemble, lacrosse goalie. barbeque chicken, snackwell's cookies, and a personal trainer running a gym in the basement—calls herself mom. oberlin college: four years of full throttle binging on a multitude of excesses—edible and chemical. dog, check. jewfro, check. fifty pounds, check.
new york city, the big apple. lacking any solid connection to any particular industry or career i followed the path my brother and father had successfully navigated before me: wall street. it's been a part of my life as long as i can remember, and felt like the one of least resistance.
i was hired as an intern for a small, privately owned, direct access brokerage firm on the floor of the new york stock exchange. although i was never passionate about the industry, i worked hard, and did well at my job. the internship turned full time, and i was in. for a while, doing well at something—even if it wasn't the thing--was satisfying enough.
i met her and fell in love. feeling poisoned by the city, we sought health in many forms: weight training, meditation, nutrition. this shift in wants resulted in an explosion of home cooking and personal discovery. before long the inspiration food provided carried me straight through the work day—where they nicknamed me the weirdo when i decided to bring my own food to work and opt out of their pizza, hoagie, french fry, burrito joint, china express, popeye's chicken rotation.
food became my focus, and the blog was born. i truly was, high on cooking.
farmer's markets, marlow and daughters, the meat hook, and the dumbo csa. the hours of nine to five no longer mattered, and the hours after became increasingly more precious. vacations, too, became precious, and after a trip to the california wine region i could hardly stomach being in the city. brooklyn's now flourishing local food movement was in the process of exploding around us, and the borough was blessed with an unholy bounty. before long, as middle men disappeared, and sources were revealed, i became filled with an urgent passion unlike anything in my life. i was so close to the source. i wanted more.
in the late fall of 'oh nine i fell ill with—i swear, this is no joke—the swine flu, and believe me, it was horrible. it was during this week off, however, that i read joel salatin's book, you can farm, and i knew that i had to make the change. for over a year at this point, i had been going to work every day—five forty five wake up, treadmill on, eggs on, suit on, walk dog, hail cab, security guards, stock exchange, closing bell, subway home—and the entire time i was not living in the present. for a moment, i wasn't even there at all. i was dreaming. wishing. begging. stressing. waiting. after work, with those few golden hours available before i'd pass out and do it all over again, i'd think about farming.
the last couple months in new york were a complete whirlwind. people saying goodbye, boxes to pack, and doctors to visit. most of all, i squeezed her tight, and did my best to ease her fears over the upcoming separation. at this point, i was already fully committed to a six month apprenticeship in athens, ga, and everything was about to change.
presently, as i write this, it's september 'oh ten, and i've been farming for the past nine months. i have a full summer—one of the hottest ones on the books--of growing vegetables under the georgia sun to cross off the list, and am currently responsible for the lives of our growing herd of grass fed cattle and pasture raised heritage hogs.
she spent our time apart earning her yoga certification, and moved down here in july. her, i, and our faithful hound moses, are happily living in a small home just down the road from the animal farm. the city life is still fresh in our rearview mirror, but driven by a mission to build a sustainable and healthful life for ourselves, our children (children in the sense of they are the future, not they're in her belly), and our community, we have cut our concrete city roots and broken into the dirty red clay of the south.
it would be my great privilege for you to follow along as we begin our path towards developing a multi functional farm/retreat focusing on wellness for us farmers, our land, and our future customers. come with us as we survive the south, turn our heads west, and follow the call.