Living the food trucker dream, introducing Zea May's Kitchen

So I’m going to veer slightly off course of the usual Farm Office Sunday series to fill you in on an exciting happening.

A board member of Weaver’s Way Co-op, of which I’m a member, Sue Wasserkrug, opened a food truck recently in Philadelphia. The truck is called Zea May’s Kitchen, a play on the scientific name for corn (maize). I worked alongside Wasserkrug this weekend for Zea May’s maiden journey. We rolled to Love Park on Saturday and then hosted a friends and family lunch on Sunday in Mount Airy.

Zea May’s Kitchen serves up Native American minded foods, as the slogan reads “Native foods, native flavors”. Wasserkrug’s interest in the Native American culture was further enriched when she received a M.S. in anthropology from the University of Arizona, specializing in Native American civilizations. She lists the Navajo and Hopi as two of her favorite tribes.

This weekend on Zea May’s, we served up buffalo hot dogs (sourced from a Lancaster, Pa buffalo farm) served on a challah bun from Philadelphia bakery Wild Flour, with a homemade cranberry relish, sweet potato and mushroom empanadas (separately), a vegan-friendly wild rice salad with Jerusalem artichokes, pumpkin seeds and mushrooms dressed with a maple vinaigrette. There was even a yogurt parfait with ‘ancient’ granola (think pumpkin seeds, dried berries, oats) for the early crowd. Sue is the de facto chef of the operation, and I helped her out in the front of the house…er…truck. To drink, we served a flavorful hibiscus cooler. If you’re thinking this doesn’t sound like your run of the mill greasy food truck, you’re right. Wasserkrug is not only sourcing locally whenever possible, she’s making people feel good about eating from her stand.

Down the pipeline, the former lawyer is trying to narrow down all kinds of tasty ideas. In the near future you may see a buffalo chili, buffalo empanada, quinoa salad, chocolate tamales and Navajo iced tea. There was an attempt to convince her to deep fry the buffalo hot dogs, but she wasn’t going for it (I tried to tell her our ancestors ate them like that).

Wasserkrug’s background is fascinating, with three graduate degrees (including a J.D.). She’s moved all around the country with her husband, who’s a doctor for the University of Pennsylvania healthcare system. She practiced law for several years in Philadelphia before deciding to enter the food truck game. A full-on interview and pictures with her is planned for the upcoming weeks, but today’s story is just a sneak peek!

Zea May’s Kitchen’s summer schedule is nearly complete, with weekly appearances at Love Park (Monday), two South Philadelphia farmer’s markets (Sunday/Tuesday) and the Weaver’s Way farmer’s market (Thursday). To stay updated, check the Twitter and Facebook pages @zeamayskitchen. Once we get going, Twitter is your best bet for finding the truck at any given moment.

Local and fresh in Cranbury, N.J. is how the Kemper family rolls

Philadelphia, Pa- Jerry Kemper, a retired locksmith and current home gardener in Cranbury, N.J., tried to kill a chicken once. His wife Michele- who became fast friends with my mother in 1968 at Pennsbury High School, and their youngest son Fred-both can attest to ‘The Incident’.

“Fred, don’t go in there, especially not before you’ve had your coffee,” said Michele Kemper, early one morning about the family’s connected two-car garage.

Enter a chicken screeching for its’ life.

“What the hell is Dad doing?” asked Fred.

What Jerry was doing was killing his very own free-range chicken, which he had raised from birth. It was his first time doing such a thing, and it was proving more difficult than expected. After the deed was done, Michele popped the de-feathered bird into a pot of piping hot water-only to have the bird’s legs and wings pop straight up as rigor mortis (which sounded more like rigamortus in her faint but still-there Staten Island accent) set in. She couldn’t fit the bird into the oven properly, and to top everything off the damn thing didn’t even taste that great (free-range chickens have more muscle than fat, which gives them a gamier, tougher taste than a factory raised, hormone induced bird).

The Kemper backyard, with raised beds and a chicken coop.

While his wife was cooking, Kemper, blood-stained from the event, headed off to Home Depot to pick up a few last minute items he had forgotten pre-kill, duct tape and a tarp.

“I couldn’t believe no one stopped him in there (Home Depot), he looked like he had just murdered someone,” Michele recalled.

Meet the Kempers- a loveable baby-boomer duo who raised their two boys in Staten Island, N.Y., and now live on a half-acre of land in Cranbury, N.J., a sleepy historic town surrounded by commercial farms and quaint Victorian residences that neighbors Princeton. As Kemper entered retirement, he decided to use some of his property to start growing a few things. And grow he did. He now has several raised beds for vegetables, several fruit trees, newly planted fruit bushes, grape vines and a chicken coop to boot.

This summer, Kemper will have watermelons, peppers, tomatoes, eggplants, lettuce, bok choy, spinach, zucchini, herbs, onions and potatoes all available in his backyard. His fruit tree collection is astounding for a home grower: cherry, pear, peach, apple, plum and figs will all be just an arm length away from his kitchen. I was already dreaming of my next visit to the Kemper homestead when the fruit trees would be ripe-I could imagine the plum juice dribbling down my chin as we chatted into the evening as the chickens pock-pocked in the background.

Kemper whistled to his chickens as we neared their coop, which he built himself, on the day I came to visit. He has nine birds, who he lets forage in the yard when they aren’t in the coop. They are good egg layers and healthy birds, he says.

“Hey baby, what’ve you got there?” Kemper asked as he entered the chicken coop.

He reached under a Rhode Island Red to reveal a warm, freshly laid egg. He placed it in my hand and pulled out two more. I couldn’t believe how warm and wonderful it felt. Kemper’s chickens lay six to seven eggs a day, on average. The older the birds get, the less frequently they lay, but the bigger the eggs are. Kemper is constantly cooing, bickering, loving and shooing his chickens like any parent would. He now uses the birds strictly for eggs, he doesn’t have any desire to eat them after ‘The Incident’.

In the summer, if the Kempers didn’t want to, they wouldn’t have to go to the grocery store at all.

“I only use milk for my creamer, so we could be pretty self sustaining here,” Kemper said.

Using raised beds for most of his produce, Kemper showed me some of the various contraptions he has created for his garden. He has a cold frame, which is a portable, mini green house for his seedlings, which he moves in and out everyday for optimal sunlight and waters individually with a turkey baster each day (he has hundreds and hundreds of seedlings).  He built the chicken coop himself, without any blueprint and made a bendable piping to hold up his tomatoes so they can move with the wind.

With a big, green thumbprint, Kemper claims gardening isn’t even his passion.

“My passion is fishing, this is secondary,” he said.

In the summer, Kemper gets out on his boat every chance he has and uses several fishing rods simultaneously to reel in his catch. He uses fishing nets to capture his own bait, and freezes the excess for the next season. The most ironic part- Jerry and Michele don’t even eat fish, they give it all away. They just started eating fluke (summer flounder) last year. 

So with chickens they don’t kill, fish they won’t eat and an abundance of fruits and vegetables, the Kemper garden seems to truly be a labor of love. What they have created in an ordinary suburban setting proves that there are many more people in our communities who have the resources necessary to become more sustainable citizens. The question is, who will follow the Kempers example?

The not-so-sexy side of farming

By: Sarah Punderson

Nina Berryman, Farm Office's 'Resident Farmer'.

Philadelphia, Pa- There’s a new sheriff…I mean farmer…in town, and her name is Nina Berryman. Well she’s not exactly new, and she’s the opposite of a sheriff (the only firearms she carries are clippers and a hoe), but guess what- she’s going to be the ‘Resident Farmer’ here in the virtual world of Farm Office, so we can ask her all kinds of questions all season long and have answers directly from the source!

I’ve had the pleasure of working alongside Ms. Berryman, farm manager at Henry Got Crops! farm on Ridge Avenue in the Roxborough section of Philadelphia, for the past two years. Henry Got Crops! is affiliated with Weaver’s Way Co-op and is also an educational farm serving W.B. Saul Agricultural High School, the largest agricultural farm school in the United States.

With a bale of hale as our backdrop, I chatted Berryman up about what kind of unglamorous  things she’s been doing at the farm thus far and how to get creative as an urban gardener.

“Every year I tend to forget how rigorous early April is,” said Berryman. “The winter obligations of getting ready for the new season are not quite wrapped up and my staff and I are also full-time, full-speed ahead into spring planting.”

“Some of the things I did over the winter included: ordering seeds, organizing crop rotation and mapping out my planting schedule,” she said. “I spend a lot of time getting the CSA (community supported agriculture) members re-enrolled and signed up for the season.”

Berryman has noticed that if her CSA isn’t full by April, it’s because people often forget to sign up until its warm when they remember-time to join the CSA. She spends her evenings and weekends in the winter and early spring on the computer, poring over membership, farm statistics and spreadsheets- not what you’d necessarily picture a farmer doing.

During the week, she’s out in the field all day- planting, seeding, spreading compost, prepping beds, pruning perennials, getting irrigation hooked up- basically getting dirty.

“This time of year I have broccoli, cauliflower, kale, collards, lettuce, and kohlrabi in the ground,” Berryman said. “Late spring harvests are in the hoop house (greenhouse) like tomatoes and cucumbers. It’s time to start seeding carrots, beets, turnips, radishes. The list goes on- a lot needs to go into the ground right now!”

As for those like me who are urban dwellers, Berryman has some ideas for us.

“It’s fun to grow things that develop quickly and don’t need a lot of soil for their roots- lettuce heads and lettuce mix are quick and are light feeders- meaning they don’t need a ton of nutrients (good for window boxes and pots on a balcony),” she said. “Radishes are quick and you can get many plantings of them in one season. Things that are possible in pots but need space and lots of water (heavy feeders) are tomatoes and cucumbers, peppers and eggplants. Those do take longer, so you’ll have to be patient.”

The bottom line is- grow what you like because it’s always more work than you’ll expect and you need a reward at the end of the day.

“There’s nothing more satisfying than eating something that you love and you grew yourself,” said Berryman. “People ask me all the time, what should I plant? I ask them, what do you eat? If it grows in this climate and you have space for it, then that’s what you should do.”

Most vegetables need heavy sunlight, often a limiting factor in the city. Berryman suggested that cool weather crops can get by in shadier, cooler areas which include: lettuce mix, radishes and turnips-which can be good in partial sun.

Berryman’s staff has expanded to three people this season- a full-time intern (Matt Steuer), a full-time apprentice (Chris O’Brien) and part-time intern Nancy Anderson. Last year at this time she had one apprentice. She’s already advising them on how to treat sore muscles, suggesting they pack a lunch each day and essentially serving as not only farm manager but farm mom.

There’s excitement in the air at Henry Got Crops! in the form of the farm’s first-ever tractor (I used to joke with Berryman that not only was she running an organic farm, but also an Amish one), and a brand spankin’ new red barn.

“It’s shiny and red and everything you could dream of for a barn,” said Berryman.

Weaver’s Way still needs to pay for the new piece of machinery (details, details), so check out their www.kickstarter.com fundraiser that will commence on April 15^th.

Send in your farm/garden/urban jungle questions to Farm Office for our new resident farmer, in the form of either a comment below this article or to my email at spunderson@gmail.com and Berryman will be answering our quandaries all summer long.

Ragin’ Cajun Lesha Meyer shows Philly her brand of CrossFit

Philadelphia, Pa- Dynamite comes in small packages- at least in the case of five foot two Lesha Meyer. She's the co-owner of CrossFit Novem in Philadelphia. CrossFit is a new type of gym, and affiliates are popping up all over the country and Philadelphia alone has nine.

According to the CrossFit website, it’s described as the principal strength and conditioning program for many police academies and tactical operations teams, military special operations units, champion martial artists, and hundreds of other elite and professional athletes worldwide.

If you want to know more about CrossFit, read last week’s Farm Office article that gives more background information on the topic.

Lesha Meyer, co-owner of CrossFit Novem in Philadelphia.

When I met with Meyer the morning after St. Patty’s Day, I had a headache the size of a kettle bell and bumping in my head that neatly matched the booming bass coming from the gym’s sound system. However, as soon as I met Meyer, I knew the interview would be worth the headache (quite literally).

Meyer got her start in high octane power lifting at her high school in Alexandria, Louisiana, where the squad had been national champions. In college at Northwestern State University, Meyer was an art student and played intramurals there, while pursuing a degree in graphic design. It was during this time that Meyer decided to transfer to Moore College of Art & Design in Philadelphia.

“At art college (Moore), there weren’t intramurals or club teams, we tried to do a flag football team and that fell through,” said Meyer. “I needed an outlet.”

She found what she was looking for in 2003 when upon graduating, she stumbled into the sport of rugby. Rugby provided the community Meyer had been craving, although admittedly it came with its’ vices. There were drink-ups- post-game parties with the other team- where showing up showered was frowned upon. Combine copious amounts of adult beverages with rugby rosters that average well over 30 women each and there’s bound to be the usual team drama.

“I realized I wasn’t fit enough for rugby, so I started doing various forms of cross training in 2008 in Mount Airy, which was the first form of CrossFit that I tried,” said Meyer. “I stuck with it and I saw my rugby performance improving.”

Around the same time, Meyer got a job as a graphic designer/production artist. She was feeling good about her job and at the same time as she started working out at CrossFit, Meyer was promoted. With the promotion came additional stress, which affected all facets of her life.

“Rugby wasn’t fun anymore because I was stressed out and by then I was surrounded by high level players who I couldn’t compete with- at that point the truth came out,” said Meyer.  “I was too small and my skill level had reached its limit.”

Things came to a screeching halt in the fall of 2008, when Meyer got crushed on the rugby pitch- she was sent to the hospital with one collapsed lung and a fractured a rib.

“Five minutes into the season, I was out,” Meyer winced. “It was really depressing and I let work take over my life. I was unhappy.”

Months later after an extensive recovery, Meyer decided it was time to hang up her rugby jersey after a six and a half year career. With a void to fill, Meyer joined a CrossFit gym in South Philadelphia, known as Fearless Athletics in 2009.  Missing her rugby buddies, she also found fitness friends at CrossFit.

“I found a new passion there,” Meyer said.

All of a sudden, Meyer established a new level of fitness for herself. Only a few months in, she was assisting the trainers at the gym and got her Level 1 certification in early 2010. The L1 certification gave her a better understanding of how to better use CrossFit methods in her own training and provided an initial education to begin training others.

 “I found inspiration in watching people succeed,” said Meyer.

Fearless Athletics continued to grow, moving into a newer, bigger space to accommodate all the new members. Meyer was coaching five to seven times a week and working out the same amount herself. She was still juggling her full-time graphic design job to boot. She was enthralled with her newfound love for CrossFit.

“My work-life really sucked at that point,” Meyer said. “I realized I had outgrown my place as a coach in South Philly and was ready to move on to do my own thing.”

Wanting to grow her own business, Meyer was approached by Joe Ling, who she had originally trained and then coached with at Fearless. Ling wanted to start up a CrossFit gym and proposed that Meyer be his business partner.

“I said absolutely. Absolutely,” said Meyer, who turns 35 this summer. “How’s this going to work? I have no idea.”

They met over six months, making plans, which included drafting a business agreement with a lawyer. Meyer was still working 60-70 a week during all this, doing the nine-five and then coaching CrossFitters in the evening. Giving credit to Ling, Meyer knows he is as much a part of this as she.

“I couldn’t have done it without Joe,” Meyer said. “Joe and I built a community here and there’s something really inspirational about that.”

CrossFit Novem officially opened on October 3^rd, 2011 with four members. They now have 70. The maximum goal for their current space is 120 members. The CrossFit Novem name came from nine in Latin, as Ling and Meyer’s facility is the ninth CrossFit in Philly. Clients learn nine fundamental movements in CrossFit as well, so the number seemed to fit on several levels.

Sandwiched between two popular bar/restaurants in Philly (Johnny Brenda’s and Frankford Hall), Meyer has chosen a hot spot for her entrepreneurial debut.  Running, lifting, gymnastics, playing- whatever it is, Meyer and Ling keep their clients sweating with smiles on their faces. They want members strengthening their movements so when they’re old and gray they can still walk up the stairs.

“Adults don’t play enough,” said Meyer. “We try to do that here.”

With plans to quit her office job pending, Meyer is excited to take on CrossFit fulltime. Although her business demands much upfront, Meyer knows that rewards lie ahead.

“By taking my steady salary, health insurance, phone plan and saying I don’t need this from somebody else, that builds my confidence,” said Meyer. “That’s life, being able to push yourself through things you never thought you could.”

Looking ahead, Meyer and Ling may be bringing in a third trainer (part-time) and keeping up the status quo of their budding business. So far, Novem has thrived without any marketing, but that may change come summer when the gym will look to reach their membership goals.  

As for what’s she’s learned through all of this, Meyer is, as usual, quick with positive advice:

“Learn how to listen and communicate effectively- with your business partners, clients, and the community your business resides in.”

That may be just what we needed to hear.

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