I sold seaweed last weekend at the NOFA summer conference. I attended a few workshops on natural beekeeping and apitherapy (healing with bee products). Sally Fallon Morell was a key note speaker. The focus of her talk was salt. In case you don’t know Sally, she’s written a well known whole foods cook book called Nourishing Traditions and she is all about consuming animal fats. The oils from animal products, according to Sally, are necessary for many functions of our bodies, brain function finding it’s way to the top. She emphasizes the importance of vitamin D, it helps curb depression. There is a TON of vitamin D in lard. She’s also a proponent of fermented foods. I Just got some homemade miso and home brewed rhubarb beer from my friend Michael. Tonight I made a so so so delicious seaweed miso soup. Michael and I also peeked into his top bar beehive.

Talk about nourishing foods! Seaweed, animal fats and miso! Lots of fresh veggies from the garden and farmer’s market. So back to salt, according to the FDA’s up to date dietary guidelines people should be eating less salt. They are pushing the low sodium foods. A new synthetic salty flavoring will be taking the place of salt. Eeek! Sounds like a similarly evil cousin of Aspartame. Salt is essential! So many people ask me about the salt in seaweed. Do you wash it off? Should I? no… sea salts are complex- full of minerals, and they are beneficial to our health. Salts activate digestive enzymes. The brain not only need fats (non hydrogenated) but it needs salt. Kombu (laminaria digitata) is recommended for lowering blood pressure and cholesterol. Kombu and Kelp are high in potassium and chloride which help prevent heart disease. They also strengthen the nervous system and reduce hypertension. Less stress and a stronger nervous and circulatory system sound much better than cutting out salt. Ugh! The nerve of the “experts”. But! No fear. I, seaweed girl, (my 6 year old friend Gillis made up a super hero after me) and other seaweed mongers are here to protect you from the evil corporate backed fools that so many people trust to tell them what their bodies need. So, buy up your seaweed and sea salt and indulge, please. Salt definitely does your body good. Protect your internal ocean.

Sweet Spot at Little Ledge

Our last harvest for this set of tides was Monday. My friend Maria showed up on Sunday afternoon- fresh from a permaculture course she took in Southern Maine. Lovely gal she is, I put her right to work packaging seaweed, and she taught me a beautiful song while we worked. “I’ve got this everlasting light/ shining like the sun/ and it shines on everyone/ and the more that I give/ the more I’ve got to give/ It’s the way that I live/ It’s what I’m living for.”  The following morning we scurried to package orders. We shipped out the last box for the Iron Chef. Did I mention that the Iron Chef tv show is going to be using a variety of our seaweed- they are filming tomorrow but the show will air months from now. We taped up the last giant box of seaweed for that order and then we stretched our wet suits over our already heated bodies and scurried out for a noon time harvest.

This time we went out to Bonny Chess to harvest Alaria esculenta (Atlantic Wakame). Bonny chess is a series of rocks and ledges covered with barnacles. The water can get pretty turbulent around these rocks so we attempt to visit them when the seas are most calm. Soon into our harvest the water began to rise and the waves began to push us around. We crept around on the rocks like creatures that had just landed on a foreign planet- watching the waves as if they were wild creatures we didn’t quite know how to approach. Harvesting alaria often feels as if we are stealing the seaweeds from just within the oceans reach. We scaled the edges of Bonny Chess, with the high sun beating down on us. We watched the water rushing over the weeds wondering when the golden midribs would untangle, allowing us to grasp with the right hand, cut with the left, lift and drag sometimes hearty fists full of long thin glistening fronds to safety, out of the hungry seas reach.

We left Bonny Chess with a very modest load of alaria. It seems that I’ve been finding the best spots to harvest just as the tide is about to swallow up the last of the days visible catch. On the boat ride home we watched the seals and cormorants sunning. We got back to the house in a ravished and exhausted state. We cooked up a heap of food. Then closed our eyes and sunk into our own comfy corners of the house, for about forty minutes. Seaweed swaying back and forth in the cove waiting to be hung before dusk, dried seaweed resting lightly in boxes beneath us waiting to be packaged. The work continues for a few more weeks.

Oh yea! We got a kitten, and we want to name her Misha Ram ram Hare.

Casey and I are off to Vermont for the weekend. Then back for the seaweed talk I will give next Wednesday evening in Blue Hill.

Kacie with a hank of Alaria

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Full Boat of Digitata

Casey and I have been talking about what it means to be kinesthetic and visual learners. I have been learning this trade for more or less three years, this being my fourth summer on the water. At the beginning of the season I will usually make a mental list of some of the information I would like to take away from my apprenticing experience. Friends and visitors will come and ask Larch questions that I feel I should know the answers to and I wonder why I haven’t retained all of these details. So that’s what I am working with in the midst of sore muscles and foggy tired brain, trying to remember details. How much seaweed do we harvest during the course of the season? What does that equal in dried pounds? How many dried pounds is one bushel of seaweed equal to? How does the seaweed reproduce? What’s the difference between the sub tidal and intertidal zones, and what grows and lives there? How do you tie a sheet bend knot? There are so many more questions and the answers seem to float in and out of my brain as they please.  More than retaining facts and numbers, I have been returning to this work for the satisfaction of physically working my body, and I am constantly reminded by the beauty of the seascape and just why I am doing this work. Often standing in awe of the biodiversity.

The first week is always about reminding my body of how physical this work really is. Yesterday, we went out to the Sally Islands, the seals, ducks and gulls greeted us. The seals taking position out in the water a distance from us, circling us, watching as we entered into a calm pool of water encircled by the island and ledges. We harvested Digitata and Alaria around and off the edge of these islands. We were out on the water for five hours. Nina, Larch’s partner, is a photographer. Each night after dinner Casey and I are gifted with the opportunity to look at slide shows of Nina’s photography. Last night we looked at the photographs Nina took out and around Sally Island. There are photos of Larch and I rowing in the surf, photos of Casey and I harvesting digitata out from one of the punts, beautiful seascapes of the very foggy nature of the ocean this time of year, and stealth silhouettes of Larch, Casey and I scoping out Alaria.  I will post some of these photos soon. So yes, early mornings four, five, six am and then long afternoons, between three and seven hours hanging wet seaweeds and sorting dried. I told Casey that this place is part time hard work and part time retreat. We make time for yoga, mediation and qui gong. This afternoon we have a group of people coming for a few nights, they will be exploring tide pools. Tomorrow morning we will be out on the water harvesting alaria, if the fog decides (subsides).

Hanging Laminaria Longicrurus

I am really looking forward to going up to Maine where one of my closest college friends, also named Casey, will be waiting for me. Casey Burger and I harvested and gathered medicinal plants at Warren Wilson College 3 years ago and I have not see her since! In July we will be harvesting seaweed together, maybe she can even help me finish those Windsor chairs I started to build a few years ago! I am hoping for this summer to be a beautiful affirmation of my shifting paths on the journey of life.  I will have time on the water experiencing polarities of stillness and motion. There will be many many sweet songs. My hands will be both in the soil and plunging into the salty seawaters. It is due time to reconnect with some of my favorite people up in Maine.

At the end of the summer I plan to journey to a few different places. Both North Carolina and California. Currently I am approaching my final week working at a fantastic Charter School in Western Ma. I am sorry to go! For two years I have been assisting a woman who is an exuberant musician, dancer, gardener, beginner beekeeper, animal keeper, builder, teacher, community builder…..and we have worked nicely together teaching music. I have been spending the last few weeks watching the children I work with, in awe, of their beauty, their energy! and their ability. That goes for the teachers as well. I will miss this community, but it is time to venture!

I leave you with a photo of me, silly, with a small swatch of a red Pacific seaweed. I hope to explore more where it came from.

I am spending my Spring gardening a bit, visiting farmers markets and vending seaweed at others, working as busy as a bee at the charter school, singing with Amandla Chorus and jogging around town getting a sense of the changing landscape- lots of annuals and perennials going in, beautifying the landscape that we so radically changed. I kind of think of myself as an annual. I have not transitioned into my perennial stage of life yet. Planting new seeds each season; I spring up in new places adding a bit of color and sharing somethings from the heart. Gathering the patience and wisdom it takes to really take root one day.

This is a wonderful valley; I’ve only begun to peek around corners, but I am planning to make a big exciting transition soon. First to the coast, to the kelp beds and shady crevices, wind blowing through sea grasses, light illuminating each seed and blade, long afternoons stretching my arms to the clouds as I do dancing Israeli folk dances with the children. Oh water! Mayim! Some of us only use it for our necessities, some of us have to conserve every drop, some push off into it from shore and return with a bounty, and some of us send our troubles down river… some of us catch it from the sky in buckets and tarps and make further use of it, and some of us understand the ancient knowledge it holds, others waste it. We could go on for days!

After Maine and seaweed harvesting, maybe I’ll set off to the mountains of North Carolina and then perhaps to the West coast. Many of the friends and family I’ve accumulated over the past few years have encouraged me to follow my bliss and I intend on doing that, or maybe it’ll find me! All of you wonderful seaweed lovers have added to my treasure chest over the past year, some of you by purchasing sea veggies, some in friendship and others in ideas and encouragement.

I am anticipating vending at the same markets I attended last season, so please come out and restock your seaweed supply. First I’ll be at the New Amsterdam Market at South Street Seaport end of June, after harvesting and packaging up more seaweed you’ll find me at NOFA summer conference, New Amsterdam once more, then the Common Ground Fair. If anyone has other ideas for vending opportunities August into early October please let me know! If you can’t catch me purchase online. Look for my entries of my adventures out on the water in July.

Aside from sharing my seaweed with a roomful of friendly city dwelling foodies a few weekends ago- I would like tell you about some press I’ve recently received. There is a page and a half article about my seaweed endeavors in this month’s issue of BUST Magazine… check it out! As for an article you can hop right over too, check out this write up in NY Magazine about the much anticipated New Amsterdam Market where my seaweed is highlighted! The Next market season at south street seaport is going to kick off on June 27, 2010. Thanks to the New Amsterdam Market I have been able to network with a number of people, leading to some great press and friendly business happenings.

I’m going to be interviewed on Sunday morning, April 4th. If you want to hear check out the radio show Food and Wine with Chef Jaime Gwen KFWB News talk 980 LA 8am-10am PST Check out her website Chef Jamie to listen online. Pretty exciting!

It’s Spring! I am enjoying the rain… maybe the skies will get out the bulk of it now so our summer is not quite as wet as last. I did love the veil of fog floating above our little seaweed islands last summer though!

Next weekend I will be attending a dinner in Brooklyn, NY- the dinner has the title Fish Tails and Tall Tales, hosted by NY Communal Table. There I will talk about my experience harvesting and answer questions. Other fishermen and fish mongers will talk about their trades. Working with seaweeds has really enriched my connection to the ocean. I remember working in the garden at school in NC, longing for the ocean, I would taste saltiness in plants, particularly nettles. We were asked to choose a few plants to read up on- I choose Avena sativa (oats) and nettles. I was inspired by the mythology of Avena representing the collision of the land and sea. Little did I know… Years later I would be working so closely with the tides and out in the surf.

Growing up with a fisherman for a dad, I developed an appreciation for seafood early on. A really adorable photo of me exists, two years old, holding lobster antennae above my head looking completely wiped out. The project of cracking into a lobster is quite involved! I’ve enjoyed clam boils and crab feasts many. Card tables lined our cape cottage’s front lawn- covered in newspaper, bowls, crackers, miniature forks and of course plenty of butter. This weekend I will experience a seafood feast NYC style.

I am really interested in learning more about the health of the oceans and the foods that it provides. If anyone has links to viable information of overfishing, health of ocean species, ocean acidification and related subjects please email me!

I’m visiting my friend Liina in San Francisco this week. Meanwhile an article about my business emerged through the publication Tasting Table- Follow the link. Usually I receive 1-3 email per week relating to She Sells Seaweed. The emails and orders are streaming in. I like the action! I don’t mind delaying my now routine walk through Golden Gate Park to answer emails. Though I would like to get out to see the Buffalo this morning!

I will be shipping out the most recent orders this coming Tuesday or Wednesday so look for your seaweed towards at the end of the week.

My kelp in San Fran

Great way to start the New Year: selling seaweed to a healthy handful of the 700 plus farmers that attended the NOFA Massachusetts Winter Conference. You could call me a “farmer of the sea” as one fellow did yesterday except that I simply gather a natural resource, and gladly share it. I work on the more strenuous end of the wild crafting spectrum! I received so many excellent questions that challenged my knowledge on the trade. The inquiries lead to many wonderful conversations ranging from the water quality of our bay to how the body assimilates minerals from seaweed- raw vs. cooked. I met a woman that had harvested seaweed with Ryan Drum a West Coast seaweed guru. I would love to visit him. I met someone that graduated from my high school 40 years before me and is also a teacher and farmer. I also saw the familiar faces of seaweed customers and enthusiasts encountered over the past year from Maine, RI, and Ma. Being set up alongside mostly exhibitors, at an educational event, I wasn’t sure that I would sell as much seaweed as I do at markets. People approached my table very eager to learn all about the harvest, few left without a bag of seaweed in hand. The conference was the perfect environment for me to educate people about seaweed, the main reason why I started this project/business. I really felt that I had found my niche and many people expressed their appreciation. At one point I though, I get it! People want to support me and buy my seaweed because unlike other seaweed companies I am filling a nice out in the communities connecting with people. I wouldn’t be able to do it if I didn’t have the customers. I am so drawn to the culture of farmer’s markets and eager to learn about opportunities related to food education. If anyone that attended the conference reads this and would like to share a bit about their experience at the NOFA conference please post a comment as I missed out of the workshops. Thanks to everyone I met Saturday for being so open and supportive!