One day, my husband came home with a big bag of “weeds” and a big smile on his face. He explained that what looked to me like weeds was actually a vegetable. He had volunteered to help in the garden at the Zen Center and they wanted to throw them away. Back home, he explained, they use it in salads, sauté it with tomato and onions, or make a soup. The name he gave in Arabic was “barbeen” (which sounded a little like “berbeen”). We tried cooking it as a soup with tomato sauce and fried onions, and it was delicious. I was hooked. “Weeds” could be very tasty. We later found the very same green for sale at the market with the Spanish name “verdolaga” ("purslane" in English and pictured right), but it was always expensive. I later learned that Henry Thoreau swore by purslane as a nutritious, filling meal.

The next wild green he brought home is called “mallow” or "cheeseweed” in English. He called it by its Turkish name, “penjer”. This is an exquisite leafy plant that can be used in the same way as purslane, but I prefer to sauté it with onions and tomatoes or to make it into a soup. I have never seen mallow in the grocery stores, so I considered this a rare commodity. One Saturday after several days of rain, we left the car with the mechanic and walked to a library to spend the hour reading. On the way to the library there is a nice park where the grass had grown almost a half-foot due to the rain. Also growing among the grass in a big patch was some nice, tender mallow. We came back the next morning with some plastic bags and filled them. (Click "read more" for the rest of the article.)

I was asked to write an article about how to start a produce cooperative. The easiest way to start is to tell you a little bit about mine. The Hillside Produce Cooperative is a once-a-month FREE exchange of fruits, vegetables, herbs and flowers in North East Los Angeles. My objective in starting this project was to feed everyone on my hill for FREE with all the gorgeous local organic produce we grow in our yards that would otherwise go to waste.

Here's how it works: once a month I send out an email asking who among our 250 or so members is interested in participating in the next exchange. If they are, they RSVP by email, letting me know roughly what they will have to contribute food-wise, or if they'd like to volunteer to bag or deliver. Once the tallies are in, I put my energies toward higher mathematics (!) and discern how many volunteers we'll need versus how much food we'll have to go around. Once I figure that out (!), I cross my fingers and send out an email with the final details.

The final details are always the same: First, the exchange is always on a SATURDAY and takes place at my house (I was given use of the neighborhood community center at one point, but quickly realized the exchange needed to be held in a place to which I had the keys.) On the chosen SATURDAY, food contributors drop off their grapefruits and rosemary, their apples and avocados, their tomatoes and bay leaves, spring onions, beets and celery, their lemons and lemon verbena and lemon curd, their homemade bread and jam, their persimmons and kale, their Thai chili peppers, their burning sage, etc., before NOON. When I open my door Saturday morning it's like Christmas - my steps are covered in bags and boxes of this incredible fresh food – smelling like a spicy feast of citrus, earth, herbs and generosity. Wow. It always takes my breath away. (Click "read more" for the rest of the article.)