Neighbors inspiring neighbors – Taz Love

We hope with this recognition to keep fresh the experiences of the past twelve months of pandemic reality, and the fragility that we feel when food security, health and safety are of real concern.  We want to hold onto the resilience and connectedness and community that were created through these experiences, and the bonds that were forged through mutual need.  We want to honor all of this, and to invite appreciation for the uncertainty that lingers still, trusting that this fragility and uncertainty can lead us toward the healthy community and healthy Earth we need.

With this recognition we want to honor the day-to-day efforts and vision of people in our community who have inspired us during this past year.  And so we will mark the anniversary of each month of the pandemic by highlighting a member of our local farm community whose sense of community and agri-culture and sustainability can point the way for all of us and reawaken our own commitments.  The first person we want to honor is a young woman who has always had a passion for food, and who sees her cooking as a bridge.  Taz, thank you for the inspiration that you have been for our family during this time.  We are certain that the rippling effect of your commitment to health, community and agri-culture will continue to inspire many others.

I first met Taz Love several years ago at the Port Angeles Farmers’ market.  I was always a happy farmer when Taz would come toward the end and purchase the last of our few remaining vegetables.  She often came in multi-family groups of neighbors with kids in tow.  As she wandered the booths in the last minutes of sales, she was offered many freshly harvested fruits and vegetables, and with her kids would eat many of them on the spot.  She always shared the food she bought, even among the vendors, making friends with many through her friendliness, generosity, and great enthusiasm for our food.  

Taz shares that she has always had a love for food, and like many of us, often craves food for comfort.  The temptation is frequently toward food that is quick, convenient and less healthy.  But in recent years, she says, she has been discovering the joy of cooking for others as a way to work with (instead of fighting) that drive. She has found that sharing food opens opportunities to nurture relationships with neighbors. It feels good to share, and she enjoys the positive responses as she offers the food that she purchases and food that she cooks. 

This hasn’t always been the case.  She is concerned for the health of her parents, experiencing firsthand the health problems that can accompany a diet rich in processed foods.  Taz describes this as “a black hole toward illness, weakness and mental health.”  A hole that she hopes to avoid for herself and her children.  Her intention is to “invest in nutrition” to avoid investing later in medical care.

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Last March when the pandemic lockdown began, Taz was 9 months pregnant with her fourth child.  Encouraged by her homebirth midwife, Carol Gautschi, Taz had been determined to provide her child, beginning in utero, with holistic nutrition.  But how to accomplish that on a limited budget, with limited transportation in the middle of a lockdown?

It was at this time last year that our farm responded to the closure of the Farmers’ Market by offering overwintered and foraged vegetables from a drop off location at the parking lot of the Holy Trinity Lutheran Church.  Taz jumped at the opportunity to order online, and as she continued her (delightful) tendency to make large purchases of meat, eggs and produce with her government benefits, Wild Edge Farm discovered the joy of home deliveries.  While still pregnant Taz had found the walk to the parking lot a great chance for exercise, as long as she had a stroller or friends to help her get the food home.  But once her son Qi was born, she relaxed into a full “nesting” mode, and out of love for her vulnerable little dependent, stayed happily at home. 

Reflecting back now, a year later, Taz noted that these home deliveries, and the offerings of other friends and neighbors, provided much of the food she needed at that time.  It was a great relief as well as a revelation to realize that she could make it with this support.

The home delivery relationship was great for the farmers, too.  I enjoyed the chance to bask briefly in the warm glow of newborn sweetness and motherly care in those first weeks of food deliveries.  And it gave me the chance to notice Taz’s innovation and determination with milk crate planter boxes.  She was taking advantage of a little space and southern exposure at her back patio to sprout a few herbs, kale plants and strawberries.  I noted, too, the compost bucket right alongside them.

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Growing up, Taz’s father had been a worm composter, and it had fallen to Taz to assume the chore of dumping the excess food into the compost pile.  She had developed a fascination for watching how their food scraps would convert into humus, the mystery of lifting up that lid and finding that the leftovers had been transformed by the worms into rich and fragrant soil.  Years later at the Port Angeles 5^th Street Community Garden she was able to participate in a workshop on composting and see how much the plants loved that composted soil.  Taz continues to find great joy fostering her family commitment to participating in this food cycle.  Now she is able to deliver their family compost to her co-parent Brendon, who lives on a small plot of land toward Sequim and is able to offer it to his chickens.  These composting connections continue to nurture her desire to work the soil, and fuel her longing to participate in a community that works the land and produces food from the earth.

Taz’s attraction to community gardens comes from a desire to participate in creating a reversal of the current climate crisis.  So many of the current methods of growing, weeding, transporting and selling food do damage to our global and local ecosystems.  By choosing to eat fresh, local, organically grown food, and shop at the farmers’ market, volunteer on farms, and draw neighbors together around food, Taz has made lots of local connections, a big step toward her family’s resilience, and by extension, a resilient local food system.

Last week I visited Taz in front of the apartment she shares with her children.  The sun was shining and kids from neighboring apartments had come over to play with Seren and Shalom, and to admire baby Qi as he toddled around the yard with a stalk of celery in his hand. We navigated to a small playground where the kids ran around while the moms discussed a range of topics from breast feeding, to sugar and caffeine intake, to elementary school classrooms, clearly feeling the support brought by common experiences.  As Taz pointed out the neighbor with whom she had shared an oxtail for soup, and the woman who was expecting a baby soon, I was not at all surprised to see how well inserted Taz and her family are in their neighborhood apartment complex. 

Taz’s interest in cooking has led her to explore many new recipes and ingredients.  She was able to participate in a cooking/culinary class at Lincoln Center a few years ago, and now she experiments with recipes that are healthy and will appeal to her kids.  She showed me her favorite recipe for sausage where she slips in 3-6 ounces of ground or chopped liver to the mix to add extra nourishment, then handed me a pound of the sausage to take home and try.  I confess that my family is pretty much on to my efforts to sneak extra nutrition in the form of greens into my cooking, and I rarely get positive responses from meals with liver, so I was quite curious to see how they would react to the sausage.  They loved it! Everyone wanted Taz’s recipe, and no one noticed the liver. 

The summer of 2019 Taz often brought her ukulele to the farmers’ market, and as vendors were putting away their wares, she would sit on the concrete in front of their booths and play, sometimes joking around with an improv promotional song about the products a particular vendor was selling.  This year it could be fun to work together on a catchy tune to play at the market, something along the lines of Taz’s closing words to me last week about the preciousness of our eco-system, with an invitation to work together to create healthy food systems and healthy people.