Where does Food come from?

Today was the first day back to school! Schedules are crazy, students are confused, but the adventure of the new year has begun. I started off today with our exciting new course called Food! at June Jordan School for Equity. I'm co-teaching the course with one of the school's Directors, Mr. Alexander.

Today we asked the question, "Where does our Food come from?" and students traced their favorite foods back to the source: plants and animals growing at happy, healthy farms. . . RIGHT?! All our first images of farms were tall red barns, green grass, animals grazing. Tomorrow we'll debate whether these images represent illusion or reality.

Here are some students' maps of the path of their food:

RIBS

PEACHES

Food Politics: "What can I do?"

Before school starts, while I still have a minute to think about MY life, I've been reading up on ways we as consumers can vote with our dollars and support healthy, local, sustainably- and justly-grown foods. I've noticed Britt Bravo writing about such things a lot lately, so here are some links to hers and other bloggers' thoughts on how to make a difference through eating.

• Britt writes about how great it is to shop at Farmers' Markets, she interviewed Anna Lappé about her work helping people eat local, sustainable and fair foods, and now she's written about chocolate growers and child labor in Africa.
• The Eat Local Challenge blog gives 10 Reasons to Eat Local Food.
• Green LA girl writes about the Coffee Crisis, the problems facing coffee growers (and consumers) and what companies like Starbucks are or are not doing about it.
• Sustainable Table keeps you updated on why and how to eat sustainably-grown food.
• And I liked this post by Latina Lista ruminating on the connections between eating salsa, US-Mexico relations, and farmers in Mexico.

This year June Jordan School for Equity's teacher and co-director Matt Alexander has asked me to work with him on a course on food, and we hope to help students explore many of these issues. Stay tuned!

(Picture of Soil Born Farm, Sacramento, CA)

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Wedding Bells in the Garden!

A little personal news . . . I got married! On July 29th in Los Altos, CA, in the beautiful garden of a close family friend, I tied the knot with Dennis Jaramillo. Be sure to note the name change: I am now Abby Jaramillo!! Can you believe it? E-mail me if you want to see more pics!

By the way, my entire wedding was planned and orchestrated by young people. Three high school students ran the show as their senior project--they even got school credit! This was a wonderful experience--I recommend it. Organic flowers from UC Santa Cruz Farm & Garden.