Celebrate the the beauty of the world we eat!

Offered: Fall 2010
Location: Commonweal Garden, Bolinas, California
Instructors: Carin McKay, and special guests

Eating for the well-being of ourselves and the planet

• Deepen your connection with nature
• Celebrate the bounty of homegrown and local food
• Create healthier eating habits

Eating may be the most intimate relationship we have with the natural world.  When we make conscious and well-informed choices about the food we eat, we can create health and well-being for ourselves and for the planet.  

For many of us, simply creating healthy eating habits is overwhelming.  How do we create eating habits that give nourishment back to the earth, as well? 

The Earth Café is a practical, interactive, personalized program that will empower you to build a healthier lifestyle, for yourself and for the planet, through the exploration of food.  The program weaves together hands on gardening, culinary and food-crafting skills, nutritional education, as well as nature based personal wellness practice. The program will inspire you to deepen your relationship with food, strengthen your personal health, and develop a deeper connection to the natural world.

Key elements of the Earth Café Program include:

• Seed to Table:  Want to begin growing some of your own food?  We will explore basic techniques of home-scale vegetable gardens, urban homesteading, honey cultivation, caring for goats and chickens, and more. 

• Regenerative Kitchen:  Discover traditional food culture integrated with modern nutrition. Participants will harvest directly from our gardens, as well as forage wild foods. You will learn to choose the highest quality cultivated foods for your health needs. There will be cooking demonstrations and hands on skill building – from meal planning to food preparation.

• Traditional Food crafting:  Prepare delicious high quality products like sourdough bread, cheese, pickles, preserves, and other traditional, naturally processed foods easily at home.

• Inner Ecology:  Learn nature-based practices to strengthen your health and overcome common ailments at home.  Design a regenerative health plan for yourself, and receive support in paired sharing exercises to help you implement your food and wellness plan during each three-month program. Explore plant medicine, simple remedies and home care, healing with the seasons, movement and energy practices skills to understand and balance your health.

• Study:  There will be a list of recommended books that you can read along as you take the course to help inspire your food adventures.

Video: See Carin McKay making Nettle Goat Cheese Quiche!

Example Curriculum from Spring 2010. 

Content and activities may change for Fall 2010 series.  More details coming soon.

April 3 – Foundations of Regenerative Food and Wellness
• Food-growing basics, part 1

• Personal regenerative design and daily self diagnosis
• 
Basic skills: cutting styles and knife care

• The gift of greens: wild food foraging and preparation 

May 1 – Kitchen Traditions 
• Food-growing basics, part 2
• 
Urban homesteading with K Ruby Blume
• 
Basic cheese making and lacto-fermented drinks with K Ruby Blume

June 5 – Healing Foods & Remedies
• 

Food-growing basics, part 3
• 
Natural health care and remedies, herbal first aid kits
• 
Cooking in the raw with Savrah Kramer: learn to prepare five delicious raw, vegan recipes

Food-Growing Basics

Part 1 – The program will cover the basics of getting your garden started with seeds. Identifying the materials used for appropriate soil mixes for seedlings and building a nice mix together. We will learn about proper seed storage and germination of various garden vegetables and then plant some. Participants will be able to take home some seedlings to nurse along until planting time.

Part 2 – Compost happens! We will be discussing various composting methods and then build a pile together using on-site materials. We will explain the needs of the compost pile and give suggestions for various styles compatible with rural to urban environments. We will also look at our vermiculture system and how to design a worm bin for your food scraps.

Part 3 – Time to transplant seedlings and get the starts planted out into the soil. We will practice garden bed preparation and proper spacing for various crops and then plant some crops out into the garden beds.

Urban Homesteading with Ruby Blume

What is Urban Homesteading? Can it save the world? Or even just save us some money? What is the relationship between homesteading and permaculture? Some of these questions and more will be addressed in a slideshow surveying some of the possibilities, followed by discussion.  We will talk about urban agriculture including integrating animals, greywater systems, urban food forests, rainwater catchment and more. 

Beginning Cheese Making 

This segment will introduce participants to concepts and techniques of milk transformation and preservation. We will learn about equipment, ingredients and cultures used and get hands-on practice making a simple fresh cheese and a mozarella.  Time allowing we will talk about the hard cheese process, uses for whey and the history of cheese making.  We will be working with fresh goats milk from the site.

Ferment! Lacto-Fermenting for Flavor & Health

Fermenting foods is a healthful and amazingly easy way to preserve and enhance the flavor and nutrition of food. Sadly some of the healthier ferments have passed out of common usage because they are impractical for commercial production. In this class we will learn about different types of fermentation and cultures including pickling vegetables, ginger beer, traditional sodas and more. We will learn how to preserve food with lactic fermentation, a technique that requires neither canning nor vinegar (includes fresh sauerkraut and kim chee) and will prepare one lacto-fermented soda and one fermented veggie medley.

Cooking in the Raw with Savrah Kramer

Raw Foods That Heal Your Soul – In this segment, participants will learn to prepare five simple raw, vegan recipes that are deeply healing to the body and soul, not to mention, absolutely delicious!  On the menu is kale salad, sea palm-macadamia nut alfredo, green smoothies, chocolate macaroons- and Savrah’s special recipe for delectable sauerkraut.

Location

The course takes place at Commonweal Garden, our 17-acre permaculture demonstration site in Bolinas, on the northern California coast. Nestled into its own quiet valley, the site features multiple grey water systems, production green house, ponds, seasonal stream, springs, a yurt classroom, goats, sheep, and chickens, and a Registered Organic production garden.

What To Know

Our What To Know page has information on things you will need to know for your time at Commonweal Garden, including directions.

Course Fees

All fees must be paid in full prior to the start of class.

$375 for three part series

Early bird discount: 
$325 for three part series, paid 6 weeks in advance

Registration

Registration information coming soon.

Regenerative Design Institute
P.O. Box 923
Bolinas, CA 94924

For questions or additional information, contact:
415·868 9681 voicemail or email us

Refund Policy
Cancellations up to 2 weeks before the workshop will be refunded, excluding a $50 processing fee.