Exactly one week ago on March 26, about 150 people descended onto the Headlands Center for the Arts in Marin (just north of SF) for an OPENharvest food and art collective event. The Headlands hosted OPENharvest in a former gymnasium nestled within two...
Remember when Yoko and I went to Japan last year with the OPEN crew? God, it seems like forever ago. We had so many rad, eye-opening opportunities, like rice harvesting in Niigata, visiting farms in Nagano and organizing a line of pop-ups on...
By Sasha Wizansky On October 27, a crew from OPENharvest woke up at 5am and headed up into the mountains, into Nagano prefecture, for a series of farm and producer visits. As usual we made a few pitstops along the way. Tal,...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9TPBDpeDyQ&feature=channel_video_title This is a short video by Tokyo-based photographer Nahoko Morimoto, which marvelously captures Yoko and my trip to Japan with the OPENharvest team. We spent three jam-packed weeks visiting farms, markets, taking brewery/distillery tours, and eating + drinking our way through Japan--all culminating in a huge event...
Frostopia Farm. Saitama, Japan. Photo by Kelly Ishikawa, a San Francisco-based photographer and the co-owner of The Perish Trust.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wWPEHuTbYo&feature=channel_video_title
By Howie Correa Within half a day of arrival from Ireland, I was excited to be heading out of endless Tokyo to visit a radiation testing facility at Natural Harmony, a produce distribution site in Chiba. It was a trip that seemed to be...
By Sasha Wizansky On October 21st, chef Kanji Nakatani took a small group of the OPENharvest crew on a trip to the Hokutei Fish Market to visit fish purveyor, Katsuhiro Sato. Apparently, Sato was kicked out of the main local fish market many...
Look at this tuna head! It was fucking HUGE--I could easily fit my own head into its mouth. Its eyeball was so clear, it looked as though it were still alive, looking deep into my soul, prodding me to try its precious ruby red flesh. Sorry...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=AwoE-59pMqc The OPENharvest group visited the Hachisu residence in Kodama-gun in Saitama Prefecture. We enjoyed a Japanese farm food meal which included fresh edamame, natto, fall vegetable soup, ohitashi (blanched spinach) and mochi. After the meal, Harigaya-san and his troupe performed a shishimai (lion dance).
http://youtu.be/DW8TaQeeGB8 Last Wednesday, I went with the OPENharvest group to a rice farm in Uonuma, Niigata. We harvested one paddy of rice from cutting the rice plants to hanging them to dry on a rack. Rice farmer Satoshi Imai gave me the run down on why his rice is special...
At 5am on a Thursday morning, groggy and jetlagged, 20 of us OPENharvest participants, with Food Light Project members piled into three vans headed for Niigata prefecture. As we drove through the quiet morning streets of Tokyo, we eagerly anticipated the adventures ahead....
I am ecstatic, beyond words, to announce that Yoko and I will be joining the Bay Area-based art and food collective, OPENrestaurant, on a special trip to Japan in October. We will be there for three weeks, visiting farms and fisheries,...
