• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • RSS
  • Twitter

Alice Dishes

Adventures and Real Food

  • Design
  • Life
  • Recipes
  • Reviews
  • Travel

November 30, 2012

A roundabout route to Sonoma

Gathering, preparing and eating “real food” – anything, as Pollan puts it “that your grandmother would recognize” –  was an intrinsic part of my upbringing in suburban England in the 1970s and 80s.

During my college years, which I spent in Nottingham, a big city in the middle of England, some of those good eating habits fell by the wayside, although I never lost my desire to eat great food. Like millions before and after me, I followed the well-trodden path of surviving my miserly student’s budget on scrambled eggs, baked beans on toast, and of course, tuna pasta. I loved returning home at weekends and during breaks to enjoy Sunday roasts, gorge on my dad’s phenomenal Chinese cooking, and raid my mum’s jam-packed larder (pantry).

After graduating, I spent a few penniless years in London at the start of my PR career. It was the early 1990s and what I earned could hardly be called a living wage. It was just enough to cover my rent and utility bills, pay for my monthly train pass and buy some food. Luckily, I worked in Soho and in amongst the tawdry strip clubs, sex shops and smoky pubs, my friends and I managed to find the cheapest eateries. I recall one Italian cafe, Pollo Bar, which we’d squeeze into on rainy summer nights to eat Stracciatella, Italian egg drop soup, for less than two quid. As many as five of us would sit elbow-to-elbow in a booth, opposite strangers. This was only on special occasions, mind you.

I reveled in my Dad’s occasional visits to the Big Smoke when he’d take me and my boyfriend out to the latest, fine restaurants like Terence Conran’s Quaglino’s, which in the mid-1990s was quite the place to see and be seen in London. Funnily enough, it was the ashtrays that everyone really lusted after. I still have mine, filched during a visit.

Mostly I cooked at home, buying provisions from the local supermarket. Even then, “Buy British” was a mantra being proclaimed throughout the aisles. With hindsight, I guess it was the beginning of the locavore movement, although it lacked the fancy name. Back then, organic food was only for the quackiest, enlightened intelligentsia, like Prince Charles who earned a reputation for being a bit mad. (Such is the blight of the enlightened.)

Then in 1998 I exported myself to San Francisco, ostensibly to enjoy the ocean, the mountains and all the Bay Area had to offer, yet finding myself working harder than ever before, during and after the dot.com boom. Along the way, I gained and lost a husband, acquired a Lab, bore a son, then in a moment of pure insanity, got another Lab, and always worked like a dog.

Throughout it all I enjoyed the amazing culinary delights that San Francisco had to offer. From dim sum in Chinatown, to the Mission’s exploding food scene: Bar Tartine, Locanda, and my long-time favorites, Foreign Cinema, as well as Nopa across town.  And then, in the blink of an eye, it was 2010 and I had a copy of Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food in my hands and something in me awoke. It was at that time I watched Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution on TV and was horrified to see what well-intended mothers were feeding their kids. I remember one mom, whose son was clinically obese, being so proud of her home-cooked breakfasts: deep fried donuts.

The Universe likes to make sure we really get a message when it’s intended for us, so within a month my beloved yoga teacher mentioned a book called Ravenous, by her friend Dayna Macy, chronicling Macy’s travels across the country, meeting with farmers, food artisans, butchers, a Zen chef, a forager, a chocolatier, and others. It swung wide open the door for me to adopt a more authentic real food lifestyle at home. Before I’d even finished the book, I’d signed up for a weekly CSA farm box from Terra Firma Farm (more on this here), was embarking on regular 200 mile round-trips to go on farm tours at weekends, and started to exclusively buy pastured meats, milk and eggs.

New calf at Full Belly Farms in the Capay Valley

And then it dawned on me. Instead of trying to bring real food to the city, I should take my city girl self to the home of real food. So it was, that after 14 years’ holding off the damp fog that lingers over “the city” from April to late September, I found myself seduced by the idea of moving to a climate that would allow me, the most inexperienced of gardeners, to grow mildew-free roses and pluck ripe tomatoes bursting with flavor from my own backyard. After all, I’d left England in search of warmer climes and it was time for that dream to come true. And so it was that my adventures in real food really began…

Filed Under: Life Tagged With: jamie oliver, locavore, michael pollan, real food, san francisco, Sonoma County

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

About Alice

A bit about me... I grew up in the UK and moved to Northern California in the late 1990s, drawn here, like so many others, by the lure of ...

Read More

Popular Posts

  • holey_grail_donutsThe Best Places to Eat in Hanalei, Kauai
  • 10 Things to Do in Sea Ranch, CA10 Things to Do in Sea Ranch, CA
  • When All Is Said And Done: 7 Things That Really Matter in LifeWhen All Is Said And Done: 7 Things That Really…
  • Stunning Beet and Cauliflower SoupStunning Beet and Cauliflower Soup

People are Talking About

No People Food

A Lesson in Salt From Samin Nosrat

Madeleines by Monkey

When All Is Said And Done: 7 Things That Really Matter in Life

Alice’s Favorites

101 Cookbooks
Chef on a Mission
Cook, Taste, Eat
Food Politics
Golden
Good Eggs
Healthy Cooking
Jamie Oliver Food Revolution
Mary Vance
Michael Pollan
Nina Planck
Not Without Salt
Nourish Network
Samin Nosrat
The Healthy Home Economist

alicedishes

Lover of life, Labs & horses. Visit AliceDishes.com blog for travel, recipes, design & life. Area VI #morganhorse #blacklab #eventing #interiors

Alice Dishes. Eat, Bark, Ride
Staying alive and getting it done on xc - so much Staying alive and getting it done on xc - so much fun 🤩 #areavi #eventinghorse #morganmare
A little bit of our dressage and SJ action from th A little bit of our dressage and SJ action from the weekend @twinrivershorsepark - Q and I were either great or mediocre during dressage to give us a 36.4 which made it hard to be competitive, but the goal was to finish on our dressage score and feel confident all weekend ✅. We moved up 4 places over the weekend and jumped double clear in both SJ and XC for a top 10 finish. Our rhythm and timing in SJ was probably our best yet. #eventing #areavi #comeback
The sunset was spectacular last night in Paso Robl The sunset was spectacular last night in Paso Robles! #sunset #pasorobles
So fun to watch @tommygreengard on these two speci So fun to watch @tommygreengard on these two special boys: Barry and Josh. 😍
The boy is back in town! Rogee had a blast doing X The boy is back in town! Rogee had a blast doing XC schooling for the first time since February. He was relaxed (shocker!), said yes to everything and although he wanted to shred up the track he listened and was a very good boy 😍😍😍 - so happy with him and I think he had the best day ever 🙌  Looking forward to showing him at @woodsidehorsepark in Oct! #xc #eventing #eventinghorse
My little pocket 🚀 was on 🔥today! I couldn’t have been happier. We jumped all the Training things and tackled some challenging questions. We’ve had a lot of ups and downs since losing some confidence. At one point in June I froze jumping a x-rail 🤷‍♀️. But we have fought our way back, filling in gaps and ultimately our partnership has become even stronger. I’m so proud of her. I have lots of work to do to be fully deserving of this brave girl, but after a day like today it feels like we could conquer anything! (Except dressage 😂 - but we are working on that too!) #eventing #eventinghorse #xc #morganmare #comeback
Fun working on our jumping at home today 1) no st Fun working on our jumping at home today 
1) no stirrups 2) trot verticals 3) adjust canter 4) work a related distance ✅. Felt great. She was keen and took me to the fences 😍 #eventinghorse #morganmare
🎉 New blog post alert! My first story about our 🎉 New blog post alert! My first story about our trip to the Baja peninsula is live - link in bio.  Read all about the fun we had staying and tequila tasting at  @thecapehotel, massages at @cabosurfhotel delicious food at @florafarms and @elhuertof2t  #bajacalifornia #vacationvibes #cabosanlucas #beachday @thecapehotel @florafarms @cabosurfhotel
My handsome boy. The many faces of King Arthur. #b My handsome boy. The many faces of King Arthur. #blacklab #blacklabrador
I would choose them both every time. It’s defin I would choose them both every time.  It’s definitely not easy having two horses and one rider. But I am going to make it work as long as I possibly can because they are part of me. 😍 Can you have two ❤️ horses for different reasons? Because I might have just got that lucky.
It makes me so happy to see Rogee fit, strong and It makes me so happy to see Rogee fit, strong and enjoying his rehabbed body. He’s really learning what he’s can do with himself these days physically and it’s also really rewarding to see his personality shift down a few gears to a generally more relaxed state… #goodboy
I planted these at the end of April - and finally I planted these at the end of April - and finally I get my first harvest!!
Burghley Revisited. What a terrific time we had. # Burghley Revisited. What a terrific time we had. #eventing #5* #burghleyhorsetrials
This 15.1hh stallion stole my heart. Does Q need a This 15.1hh stallion stole my heart. Does Q need a husband? 😍 I mean, that jump. Very much my ride!!!
Scenes of St Paul’s, Trafalgar Square and Fulham Scenes of St Paul’s, Trafalgar Square and Fulham Palace Road at dusk #london
Load More Follow on Instagram

Footer

A bit about me... I grew up in the UK and moved to Northern California in the late 1990s, drawn here, like so many others, by the lure of the dot.com ...

Read More

More to Explore

All Posts Archive

Stay Connected

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • RSS
  • Twitter

Never Miss a Post

Copyright© 2023 · Alice Dishes

website by lobstervine