Fruits of Labor...

The other day, one of our members finished working with some oyster mushrooms.  If you do not know, it is a tedious and time consuming process.  Spores and mycelium have to be cultivated and watched.  Mold has to be battled and we have to worry about substrates, etc.  Then one day...you have mushrooms.  Lots of things are popping out of our gardens and it is great that a lot of people are going to be getting some really great food.

There are some really great things going on with 99Knives and it is great to see a growing system where we understand every aspect of the process.  This particular member is a chef.  Is there more to be gained from eating if the person who cooked it also planted it and raised it?  We like to think that we are working on an amazing concept.  Perhaps it is not new, but the idea that food is not only prepared by chefs, but also grown by them is rare.

We are getting into this on every level that we can.  Can we look at ways to grow more food and do it with a direct result in mind?

People work hard to produce good food, but when we look at what it means to be fully engaged in our food and what it means to bring it to the table.

This chef learned to make compost and drove around and in the middle of the night collecting buckets of compostable matter.

This chef learned to grow things, how to put that compost into the soil.

This chef learned to manage earthworms.

This chef learned to grow mushrooms.

So, at what point can we say that this person is not JUST a chef anymore?

I listened to him babble forever about how the mushroom tasted and how the next goal is to duplicate it and grow many many more.  We are also growing tomatoes and onions and more.  The goal is to have food with not just a farmer's stamp of approval, but a chef's too?