Umami Mart Gift Guide

Nagano Road Trip

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,...

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OPENharvest Trip (Video)

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...

Hanging Onions

Frostopia Farm. Saitama, Japan. Photo by Kelly Ishikawa, a San Francisco-based photographer and the co-owner of The Perish Trust.

Mochi Tsuki and Shishimai Performance (Saitama)

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).

Rice Harvesting in Niigata

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....

OPENeducation: Bob Cannard of Green String Farm

PREFACE OPENeducation: Napa Valley Bee Company +++ My A-HA! moment during OPENeducation in Berkeley was when Bob Cannard asked me "Who was the last person that made noodles in your family?" When I became red-faced and unable to answer the question, he followed up...

OPENeducation: Napa Valley Bee Company

OPENeducation was a daytime event at the Berkeley Art Museum, and part of the Chez Panisse 40th Anniversary weekend. The event gathered 15 or so organizations creating an outdoor classroom, with kids and adults doing the educating, learning and eating....