Edible Baja Arizona - September/October 2017

September/October 2017 • Issue No. 26

Celebrating the gastronomy of Tucson and the borderlands.

OLIVE US No. 26 September/October 2017

Detained and Deprived: The Immigrant's Ordeal Growing Baja Arizona • Local Seeds and Starts

Features

Contents 8 COYOTE TALKING 10 VOICES We asked the kids of Tucson chefs: What have your parents taught you about food?

22 GLEANINGS Geronimo’s Revenge, Robbs Family Farm, and Malta Joe’s Baked Goods.

30 BAJA EATS 40 THE PLATE The one thing they should never take off the menu.

48 EDIBLE INTERVIEW As executive director of the YWCA’s Microbusiness Advancement Center, Marisol Flores-Aguirre supports women entrepreneurs and start-up food businesses.

86 GATEWAY GARDENING Small, independently owned garden stores and nurseries offer locally grown or locally tested starts and seeds, unusual varieties, and a hands-on approach to educating Baja Arizona gardeners.

52 MEET YOUR FARMER At Sun Apiaries Farm in Avra Valley, Jaime and Kara de Zubeldia are taming Africanized honeybees to draw amber sweetness from the desert.

68 TABLE The Parish, a Southern fusion gastropub with an innovative bar, serves local flavors with a community-minded culture.

78 ARTISAN Tilted Halos is a vegan, gluten-free baked-goods business that also provides support to people re-entering the workforce after incarceration and addiction.

123 HOMESTEAD How to use manure in the Southwestern veggie garden; Cultivating the elder olive; Borderlands Restoration rehabs the environment.

136 FARM REPORT 140 SONORAN SKILLET Exploring the filling, flavorful world of vegetarian tacos.

148 BUZZ What makes a distillate native to its place?

106 DETAINED AND DEPRIVED In Arizona’s holding tanks and detention centers, detained immigrants wait in punishing conditions, subsisting on food ranging from inadequate to inedible.

160 A DAY IN BAJA ARIZONA Exploring Arivaca.

162 LAST BITE A Worm Runs Through It.

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Editor and Publisher Douglas Biggers Editor

Megan Kimble

Art Director

Steve McMackin

Director of Sales Jeff Isaac Business Coordinator Kate Kretschmann Online Editor

Shelby Thompson

Designer

Chloé Tarvin

Senior Contributing Editor Gary Paul Nabhan Copy Editor

Ford Burkhart

Proofreader

Charity Whiting

Contributors

Luke Anable, Wren Awry, Craig S. Baker, Amy Belk, Dena Cowan, Saraiya Kanning, Shelley Lawrence Kirkwood, Ken Lamberton, Cynthia Lancaster, Dennis Newman, Lisa O’Neill, Margaret Regan, Kate Selby, Melissa L. Sevigny, Rachel Wehr

On the cover and above: Olives harvested by Iskashitaa Refugee Network. Visit Iskashitaa.org to learn more about their Edible Art project.

Photos by Steven Meckler

Photographers & Artists Adela Antoinette, Logan Biggers, Julie DeMarre, Shelley Lawrence Kirkwood, William Lesch, Danny Martin, Steven Meckler, Nieves Montaño, Julius Schlosburg, Bridget Shanahan, Jeff Smith Interns

Hannah Dahl, Monique Irish, Angela Martinez, Leah Merrall, Amanda Oien, Jake O’Rourke

Distribution

Royce Davenport, Gil Mejias, Shiloh Walkosak-Mejias, Steve and Anne Bell Anderson

We’d love to hear from you

307 S. Convent Ave., Barrio Viejo Tucson, Arizona 85701 520.373.5196 info@edibleBajaArizona.com EdibleBajaArizona.com

Say hello on social media

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V OLUME 5, I SSUE 2.

Edible Baja Arizona (ISSN 2374-345X) is published six times annually

by Salt in Pepper Shaker, LLC. Subscriptions are available for $36 annually by phone or at EdibleBajaArizona.com. Copyright © 2017.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be used without the express written permission of the publisher. Member of the Association of Edible Publishers (AEP).

P R INTED

IN

A R IZONA

BY

C OUR IER G R APHICS C OR POR ATION

GET YOUR HANDS IN THE DIRT, SEEDS IN THE GROUND.

COYOTE TALKING

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47 summers in the Sonoran Desert, it’s become an annual obsession to divine subtle but unmistakable portents of fall in the waning days of August: a distinct crispness in an early morning breeze, the shifting light on the Santa Catalinas, the sudden appearance of flowers on the trail following late summer rains. As always in these matters, the calendar is our friend, regardless of wishful imaginings. There’s the sense of new possibilities and new beginnings as autumn releases us from the constraints of the desert heat once again.

A year ago, local foods enthusiast extraordinaire Shelby Thompson took the reins as our online editor. It’s been our distinct pleasure to work with a team member who exudes an almost preternatural positivity, leavened by an informed passion about sharing the joys of real food. Shelby has done a phenomenal job with all things related “August has passed, and yet summer to our digital realm. She wrangles continues by force to grow days. They sprout contributors to our blog (did you know there is fresh content on our website secretly between the chapters of the year, virtually every day?), deftly manages covertly included between its pages.” our social media platforms, oversees University of Arizona interns, and —Jonathan Safran Foer, Tree of Codes writes and photographs the Gleanings and The Plate sections in the magazine, among other creative tasks. Thanks, Shelby, for all you do to expand the reach of the magazine far and wide across the Internets!

We’re excited to welcome Jeff Isaac as our new director of sales who, with his wife, Heather, and daughter, Grace, picked up stakes in the Pacific Northwest to come to Tucson in the heart of summer. Jeff spent seven years working with local businesses at South Sound and 425 magazines in Tacoma and Seattle. Although he’s new to Baja Arizona, his expertise, sincerity, and passion for helping local businesses will enable him to provide outstanding service to our existing advertising partners and businesses that have yet to join us. Welcome, Jeff—we’re so pleased you are here!

AV ING SPENT

ONLINE twitter.com/EdibleBajaAZ We believe that EVERYBODY should have access to #fresh, #local #produce. Double Up #SNAP is making that possible.

instagram.com/EdibleBajaAZ

Nothing says Friday like a potbelly pig eating a prickly pear! Thanks to eBA reader Jessica Breen for sharing this adorable picture of her pet pig Charlotte.

facebook.com/ediblebajaarizona

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Margaret Regan is a Tucson treasure. A contributor to the Tucson Weekly since 1990, for the last 17 years she has done extraordinary reporting on immigration. Her acclaimed books Detained and Deported: Stories of Immigrant Families Under Fire and The Death of Josseline: Immigration Stories From the Arizona Borderlands (both from Beacon Press) delve deeply into the epic tragedy of human migration across the borderlands. Both are recommended reading.

In November 2016, she writes, U.S. District Judge David C. Bury took emergency action in response to a lawsuit against the Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector. A class-action lawsuit charged that immigrant detainees in the agency’s eight holding tanks across Arizona from Willcox to Ajo were being held in “inhumane and punitive conditions,” ranging from “filthy holding cells” to “brutally cold temperatures” to “denial of adequate food, water, medicine, and medical care.” Margaret takes us into the world of the detention centers in Eloy and Florence, where detainees consistently report abysmal food quality, among other outrages. Thanks to Danny Martin for the poignant illustrations.

“Desert gardening,” writes Dennis Newman in his feature story on small local growers and seed producers, “has as many advantages as it does challenges.”

He introduces us to sources for plant starts and locally adapted seeds that offer alternatives to gardeners seeking ways to become that much more attuned to the vagaries of growing vegetables and edible trees in the microclimates of Baja Arizona. Julie DeMarre’s photographs are a lovely complement to the story.

As always, there is so much more to discover in these pages. Our heartfelt thanks to the advertising partners whose sustaining support makes our mission possible. Please patronize and thank them!

We’ll see you around the table. ¡Buen provecho!

Tucson CSA veggies reminding us to love each other and #BeKind.

Photo by Shelby Thompson.

—Douglas Biggers, editor and publisher

Newsletter subscribers were treated to Summer Tortilla Stacks.

Subscribe at bit.ly/SubscribeEBA

OUR NALIST

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VOICES

We asked the kids of Tucson chefs: What have your parents taught you about food?

Then, we asked their parents: What have your kids taught you about food?

Interviews by Kate Selby | Photography by Steven Meckler John Hohn of Gap Ministries with Matthew, 7, and Christopher, 5 Matthew: I like food because it tastes good. Christopher: I like helping Dad cook because we can make something yummy. Dad taught me how to make green eggs and ham; you put green salt on the eggs. ( John notes it was actually sprinkles.) I learned how to cook eggs. I like to eat eggs, tomatoes, and carrots.

Matthew: We make pizza with our dad.

I like cheese pizza and chicken nugget pizza and M&M pizza. Christopher: We make good stuff, like we made cheesecake muffins. We got all the stuff and we stirred it—cream cheese, sugar, eggs, and flour. Matthew: We made breakfast for Momma—eggs, bacon, and cereal. We cracked eggs and stirred it.

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John: My kids taught me about making baby food instead of buying it; that was the start of it. I work with a bunch of foster parents, and they want to make sure that the kids eat, so they want to feed them food they like, whereas I want my kids to like what I want them to like. That was an interesting paradigm I hadn’t experienced before. A lot of what we do at Gap Ministries is to create meals following government guidelines for nutrition for the ages that we serve. I make sure that my kids get those food groups and quantities. The fruit, vegetable, and milk at every meal with protein and a grain is very important.

Travis Peters of The Parish with Abigail, 8 Abigail: I learned how to make eggs, help Dad cook on the grill … I’ve learned to try to new stuff—I liked mussels, and the taste of menudo. I didn’t like the texture of the cow stomach. I like going on adventures with him so we can try new foods. We went to Maine. I tried the lobster, clams, and shrimp. I kinda liked the fried shrimp. I liked the chile crickets—they tasted like the seasoning and were really crunchy. When I saw my dad on TV for Iron Chef Tucson, I was really proud of him. When I grow up I want to work at my dad’s restaurant and cook awesome stuff at home. My favorite food is my dad’s bacon popcorn. It’s kinda just popcorn, seasoning, and bacon.

Travis: I’ve always eaten adult food with Abby, since she was able to eat food, without thinking about it. We just ate food how we ate food. I’ve learned that just because they’re kids, you don’t have to treat them like they’re little kids.

I don’t really “kid it up” for her; Abby has taught me to rethink how I approach kids. She liked spicy food, and then one day it seemed that someone had warned her that spicy food could harm her, and it took years for her to start eating spicy food again. That made me realize, for better or worse, how kids can be easily influenced. She’s taught me to be adventurous and have fun with it, and to be creative to get her to like things that she might not like.

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Marcus van Winden of The Dutch Eatery with Carolien, 5, and Maddie, 3 Carolien: They taught us how to cook. Maddie: And bake. Cupcakes—banana cupcakes. Carolien: You have to put butter in the pan to make pancakes.

Maddie: When you make muffins you have to put milk in it. Carolien: Papa cooks in the restaurant and Mama cooks at home. We want to learn how to bake. Maddie: And cook! We can do both things. Carolien: We peel Brussels sprouts, and in the Brussels sprouts we found worms.

Maddie: To crack an egg, you do

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it on a glass bowl and you can open it. Papa cooks spinach here, but I haven’t, because I’m not a big girl.

Marcus: They’re very specific. We’ve learned how important food is, but for a much shorter timeline. I’m used to a formal dining experience; with kids, you get brought back to more normal stuff.

You pick where you go out to dinner based more on kids than anything else.

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Michael Elefante of Mama Louisa’s and Crystal Elefante with Addison, 4, and Joseph, 6 months Addison: You have to try it once.

Mommy cooks eggs with me. You crack them and they go in a bowl.

Then you mix them, then you put them in a pan, then you eat them. We cook pasta at home. I like cooking pasta with Daddy.

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Michael: I’ve learned how picky they can be. They can like one thing one day, and the next week they can hate it. Also, about making sure that you give them enough nutrition instead of just food.

Crystal: Consistency is key; if you make it with a slight deviation from the last time, then they probably won’t eat it. It’s a lot different when you have to think about nourishing someone else than when you’re just nourishing yourself.

When you’re feeding a tiny person, you have to make sure they’re growing well.

Devon Sanner of The Carriage House and Dolores Del Giorgio with Ariane, 3 Ariane: My parents teach me how to cook. Mama and Papa cook, and I cook sometimes with my mama and papa, I do that. I like to cook spicy ma po tofu and broccoli and French fries. I had broccoli when I was little, and I keep eating broccoli.

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Devon: She’s taught me that her palate is such even that if I don’t think she’s ready for something, she’s pretty adventurous and will try it—that there are people out there who are ready to experiment. I’ve learned to not be fearful of what people’s reactions will be, and to have a little faith in what people will be willing to try.

gleanings

After a career in the kitchen, Jeronimo Madril opened Geronimo’s Revenge in March of 2017. You can find the food truck parked outside of Che’s Lounge.

Feeding Fourth Avenue

Geronimo’s Revenge offers locally sourced food truck fare, with a side of community.

Text and photography by Shelby Thompson

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O O K I N G I S in Jeronimo Madril’s blood. The native Tucsonan grew up in the kitchen of Longhorn Bar and Grill in Amado, where his dad was the chef and owner until 2012. After working almost every job in the kitchen from dishwasher to line cook, Madril decided to open his own food truck as a way to feed the community he loves.

“I’ve always liked kitchens—the energy, the gratitude … what attracted me to being a chef was the people,” Madril said. He started busing tables at Longhorn Bar and Grill around age 8, moved on to tossing pizzas at the family pizzeria soon after, and at age 16 got a job at Delectables on Fourth Avenue, where Madril pushed his way to dishwashing, and eventually food preparation.

One busy night, he got called to work the line. “I got my ass kicked,” Madril said with a chuckle. And he wanted to learn more. As a 20-year-old culinary student at The Art Institute of Tucson, he learned about pastry, Asian cuisine, and fermentation, among other things. After graduating from The Art Institute in 2013, Madril got a job in catering at the former Marriott, now Tucson University Park Hotel, on University.

Madril had spent his teenage years skateboarding around Fourth Avenue and Barrio Centro, and still felt a deep sense of belonging there. “Growing up on Fourth Ave., if you ever get the opportunity to work at Che’s [Lounge], you do it,” he explained.

While working at Che’s Lounge, Madril connected with the Barrio Centro community through Flowers and Bullets, a local organization that encourages sustainable living in the Barrio by sharing skills, making connections, and listening.

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Flowers and Bullets encouraged Madril to start his own food truck, and offered him some of the connections and entrepreneurial knowledge he needed to do so. It was through Flowers and Bullets that Madril met André Newman, co-owner of Purple Tree Organic Açaí Blends, who gave him advice and sold him a food truck in 2015. “Without Flowers and Bullets I would never have met André or started the food truck,” Madril said. After two years of gradually buying equipment for the food truck, Madril opened Geronimo’s Revenge in March 2017.

Geronimo’s Revenge echoes the idea that, when you invest in your community, it affects everyone. “One of the biggest goals of the truck is to buy from local purveyors and people,” Madril said.

He sources as much food as possible from farmers’ markets, local farms, and backyard gardeners. Food that can be composted is composted; everything else goes to feed a friend’s pig. The mural on the side of the truck changes seasonally, features local artists, and promotes the idea that “you should get paid for your art,” Madril said. And the food is downright delicious.

The rotating menu at Geronimo’s Revenge caters to a broad spectrum of dietary needs and preferences. While The Tucsono, a bun stuffed with slow-simmered citrus pork, Black Forest ham, cabbage, and yogurt crema, is Madril’s favorite menu item, he realizes that “everyone has to eat.” And so, he serves vegan mac and cheese, provides healthy options, and stays open until 2 a.m. on the weekend. “When everybody works together, we can feed our awesome avenue and community,” Madril said.

Facebook.com/GeronimosRevengeFoodTruck

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Kathy and Alan Robbs grow 65 acres of pistachios and five acres of organic vegetables near Willcox.

A Family Nut

Robbs Family Farm offers fresh pistachios, organic produce, and sweet preserves.

Text and photography by Shelby Thompson

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on Kathy and Alan Robbs’ farmers’ market table sit boxes of pistachios crisp in their shells, jars of homemade apricot jam, clear plastic bins filled with multicolored beans, and a small photo album with images of their family. The Robbs want to feed Baja Arizonans the same way they feed their own family—with local, whole foods.

Robbs Family Farm has always been just that—a family farm.

Alan Robbs was raised on the land, once a 300-acre farm in Willcox where his father, Floyd, began growing animal feed and iceberg lettuce in 1955. In 1985, when labor and infrastructure became too expensive, Floyd planted pistachio trees. It was the same year that Floyd’s first grandson, Nicholas, was born. He called it his “grandfather act.”

Alan had moved to Bakersfield, California, for college, where he met and married his wife, Kathy. Five years after planting his first pistachio orchard, Floyd asked Alan and Kathy to return to Robbs Family Farm to continue his legacy. “I always wanted to live in the country,” said Kathy, a Bakersfield native. Her desire to grow plants—and their three boys—in the country made the decision to move from Bakersfield to Willcox an easy one. Since returning to Robbs Family Farm in 1990, Alan and Kathy have grown many things—but they haven’t looked back.

After growing acres of onions, sorghum, iceberg lettuce, and animal feed, the Robbs family now focuses on growing 65 acres of pistachios and five acres of organic vegetables on the land around their family home. While Alan and Kathy’s middle son, Zach, farms the pistachio trees, Alan and Kathy maintain the N A BLUE CHECK ER ED TABLECLOTH

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organic vegetable garden and go to local farmers’ markets to sell pistachios, organically grown vegetables, dried beans, and homemade preserves.

“If we don’t grow it or produce it, we know who did,” Kathy said, of their pledge to only sell foods that the Robbs use in their own kitchen. Their commitment to localism began after the couple read Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. After reading about how the former Tucsonan and her family ate only locally grown foods for an entire year, the Robbs were inspired to source their food locally and help others do the same. “It’s really been an educational experience for us,” Alan said. It’s also been good for business. “People like local,” he added.

After the Robbs’ 65-acres of mature pistachio trees are harvested in September and October, the pistachios are sent to Summit Nut Company in Cochise to be cleaned, dried, and put into cold storage until they’re roasted in small batches each month.

“They’re always fresh-roasted,” Kathy said, explaining that more than 95 percent of the pistachios available at grocery stores are grown in California, likely harvested and roasted long before you get them. Robbs’ pistachios “have never been out of the state,” Alan said. Robbs Family Farm sells pistachios in a variety of flavors: roasted and unsalted, garlic, jalapeño, hickory mesquite, and, their customers’ favorite, chile lime. Find the Robbs and their pistachios, organically grown produce, and preserves every week at the Green Valley Farmers’ Market, Santa Cruz River Farmers’ Market, Willcox Farmers’ Market, and Rillito Park Farmers’ Market.

RobbsFamilyFarm.Weebly.com.

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After deciding to start a pastizzi business in Tucson, Joe Gauci traveled to Malta to learn all things pastizzi from his extended family.

Cheesy Pastizzi

Joe Gauci returns to his roots with Malta Joe’s Baked Goods.

Text and photography by Shelby Thompson

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G AUCI still remembers the warm pastizzi his mother made for him and his three older sisters when they were growing up. “She used to leave a plate of them on the table to shut us up,” he said, laughing. Now, through his business, Malta Joe’s Baked Goods, Gauci is using the traditional Maltese pastry to earn a living and connect with his heritage.

Gauci wasn’t always a baker. The native New Yorker dedicated the first 30 years of his career to sound engineering in Manhattan, where he worked on shows like Nickelodeon’s The Ren & Stimpy Show, and Doug. Experience from unpaid internships, cutthroat jobs, and his own sound production company taught Gauci one important thing: how to maintain a good work ethic. While he had a strong passion for sound engineering, Gauci said that the Digital Age “changed everything” and encouraged him to try something new. That “something” was a move from New York City to Tucson.

Gauci and his wife, Karen Zollman, have always loved Tucson, where they spent many years vacationing before their move to the Sonoran Desert in 2012. After moving, Zollman redirected her focus to art and Gauci took a job as a medical coder for El Rio Community Health Center. After two years of medical coding, he realized what was lacking: creativity. Soon, one of the most popular pastries on Malta would fill the gap.

Gauci’s pastizzi revelation occurred while making Maltese cookies for his nieces and nephews one holiday season. Turning to the recipe for pastizzi in his mother’s cookbook, Gauci recalled OE

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the pastry’s light flaky dough, savory ricotta cheese, and split pea curry fillings, and remembered vivid scenes from his youth. From there, Gauci went full-force pastizzi. Without precise directions, recipes, or measurements, the first few batches of Gauci’s pastizzi left him wanting more. “I needed to take it to the next level,” Gauci explained. And so, to Malta he went.

Luckily for Gauci, most of his family still lives in Malta, where he says there’s “a pastizzeria in every town.” With trust in his aunts and uncles, pastizzeria bakers opened their shops to Gauci and shared with him their pastizzi knowledge, skills, and recipes.

Gauci revealed his pastizzi at the Westin La Paloma in June 2016 and began selling them at the Heirloom Farmers’ Market at Rillito Park every Sunday. “The second and third weeks we were getting repeat customers … the fourth week we were selling out … I knew I had something,” Gauci said. They’re offered with either ricotta or split pea curry fillings and come unbaked and frozen so that customers can bring the smell of this freshly baked Maltese pastry to their homes. When it comes to delivery, Gauci adds a personal touch, offering local customers the option to have their goods hand-delivered by the pastizzi maker himself.

Customers can order Gauci’s pastizzi by the dozen on Malta Joe’s website to experience a little taste of Malta in Baja Arizona.

MaltaJoe.com Shelby Thompson is the online editor of Edible Baja Arizona.

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AMA L OUISA ’ S Italian Restaurant has been serving up Italian-American food on Tucson’s southeast side for more than 60 years, so it’s no surprise that some regulars don’t bother to look at the menu. “You get people who come in, you hand them the menu, and they hand it back to you,” chef Michael Elefante says.

For diners who have been eating at Mama Louisa’s since it opened in 1956, Joe’s Special ($11)—featuring house-made linguini, hot pepper seeds, garlic oil, and the house red sauce—is the dish that they know and love. But when Elefante took the reins at his family’s restaurant in 2014, he felt it was time for a change.

He analyzed the previous 10 years of sales data and kept the bestsellers of the past, then added a section he’s calling the Third Generation Menu.

This gives the up-and-coming chef, who was the runner-up for Iron Chef Tucson 2017, room to play with fresh dishes and his own take on “the kind of food you’d eat for Sunday dinner at your Nana’s house” while still catering to the clientele who have kept their doors open for the past six decades. “If you still want to get your Joe’s Special, you can have the same

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the peppers; and tender and sweet pickled cipollini (pronounced chip-oh-LEE-nee) onions, which Elefante lets sit for two months before serving. There was plenty to go around, and one order can easily serve a table of four.

Next came the Mac ’n’ Cheese ($7), an appetizer that can easily function as an entrée. Featuring house-made campanelle pasta (all Mama Louisa’s Cannoli. of Mama Louisa’s pastas are made in-house) and a perfectly melted, salty, creamy blend of provolone, experience as you did 60 years ago, Parmesan, house-made mozzarella, but now you can also check out the pecorino, and white cheddar, this dish newer stuff on the menu,” he says. made both my inner child and my I arrived at Mama Louisa’s intending outer adult’s mac ’n’cheese-loving to do just that—after witnessing day. Why those particular cheeses? the peach-stuffed Ravioli Elefante Elefante chose the provolone and white created as part of his menu for Iron cheddar for sharpness, the mozzarella Chef Tucson, I was eager to see what for stringy, creaminess, the pecorino else he had up his sleeve. What I for saltiness, and the Parmesan discovered was a Third Generation because, “Well, it’s Parmesan.”

Menu worth venturing outside of your We chose the pork chop from the comfort zone—and your zip code.

Third Generation Menu. Brined in We started our meal with the Relish a mix of salt, sugar, and apple cider Tray ($13), a rotating selection of vinegar, the meat was tender and well modern takes on traditional pickled salted, with a beautiful char and smoke classics. Among my favorites: the flavor from the grill. Plated alongside Tuscan Gigante Bean Salad, featuring a small salad of greens dressed with large creamy beans and roasted red bell house vinaigrette, the pork chop was peppers dressed in a house vinaigrette; served on a bed of puréed polenta delicate mascarpone-filled Peppadew and drizzled with a sweet-but-notpeppers that beautifully transitioned too-sweet raspberry gastrique. The from a subtly sweet flavor from the polenta was smooth, rich, and savory, cheese to a spicy vinegary flavor from

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Mama Louisa’s Relish Tray.

cooked in milk and seasoned with mascarpone and Parmesan cheeses, leaving me wishing I could order a small bucketful to eat later.

No dinner at Nana’s house would be complete without dessert, and the Cannoli ($6) turned out to be exactly what we were looking for. Made from a fine-grain Tenera Ricotta, chocolate chips, cinnamon, sugar, and a secret warming ingredient that Elefante wasn’t willing to reveal, all wrapped in an extra-crispy shell from the bakers at Viro’s, the lightly sweet cannoli embodies what Elefante views as a traditional, Old World take on sweets. I asked him what makes a good cannoli. “The filling is the key component, and the shell,” he says.

“You don’t want to bite into it and have it taste like chalk and grittiness.

“You can’t do Italian food without being full,” Elefante says. “I want to make sure people are taken care of, like they just got done eating with family.” Mama Louisa’s has been run by his family for three generations and weathered 60 years of changes in Tucson’s food industry.

Now, Elefante says the restaurant is entering a new chapter. It’s worth making the trip to experience it.

Mama Louisa’s Italian Restaurant.

2041 S. Craycroft Road.

520.790.4702. MamaLouisas.com.

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DISCOVER ED Saguaro Corners when I was out looking to stargaze on the eastern edge of Tucson.

Its hand-painted sign, featuring a neon saguaro outline, proclaims that the restaurant has occupied its spot nestled in the desert, less than a quarter mile down the road from the eastern part of Saguaro National Park, since 1956.

A 1949 Chevy sits at the edge of the parking lot, adding to the sense that Saguaro Corners hails from the past— but its menu, and the chef behind it, are very much living in the now.

Chef CJ Hamm took over in 2016, revamping the menu right from the start. “You can’t call yourself a chef if

Saguaro Corners’ Shrimp and Grits.

it’s not your food,” he says. Hamm likes to update the menu on a seasonal basis, rotating dishes at least four times a year, and says the philosophy behind his menu is “Tucson comfort food that people want to eat.” While he’s happy to pull inspiration from just about any region, he describes the majority of Saguaro Corners’ food as “American classics with some Southwestern influence.” Adding to the variety, Saguaro Corners keeps 22 rotating craft beers on tap, with at least half of the taps occupied by Arizona brews.

Tempting beer list aside, I tried Saguaro Corner’s Jalapeño Moscow Mule ($8), and was not disappointed— plenty of spice from the ginger, a nice touch of heat from the jalapeño, and just the right amount of lime juice made this a sweet and refreshing cocktail to wash away a hot day in the desert.

We headed straight for the entrées.

Saguaro Corners offers a variety of mix-in options for their Classic Mac ($9 for the dish, $2 per mix-in), and we added caramelized onions, bacon, and mushrooms. The curly cavatappi pasta arrived coated in a creamy white cheddar cheese sauce, with a good amount of mushrooms, bacon, and onion scattered throughout, and was finished with a dusting of breadcrumbs.

Turns out we aren’t the only people who like that combination. When asked how he likes his mac ’n’ cheese, Hamm says, “You can never go wrong with bacon and mushroom.”

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The Saguaro Burger came with a EW T UCSON restaurant openings generous helping of golden, crispy have been more anticipated fries. The brioche bun was sweet, fluffy, than Twisted Tandoor’s and supported a stack of thick beef brick-and-mortar location. In 2015, patties, fresh veggies, fried jalapeño Mukhi and Roop Singh were on the slices, and fresh chunky guacamole. verge of opening the restaurant that The guacamole and brioche served would allow them to expand their to temper the spice of the jalapeños, popular food truck’s menu and bring making this a burger with appeal for their family’s take on traditional Indian all but the most heat-averse palates. food to a larger audience. Mukhi’s My favorite was the Shrimp and death the day they were set to open put Grits. The grits are prepared as a solid those plans on hold, as the community cake and pan-fried, instead of the more mourned the loss of a beloved man. common cereal format. “Grits dry out Two years later, with the help of if you keep them soft,” Hamm says. “I JAM Restaurant Concepts, Roop has liked the idea of frying it up and giving seen her dreams, and Mukhi’s, become it a different textural note.” He’s also reality. The restaurant is spacious, tweaked the flavors to have a more with chic décor and an open Southwestern edge, adding kitchen that Singh says roasted corn, jalapeños, recreates some of the and Oaxacan cheese feeling of the food into the grit cake. truck. Twisted The sauce poured Tandoor’s new over the top is rich location comes and lightly sweet, with another built on a base of change: “We mesquite-smoked used to cook the tomatoes, with food ourselves, and cream, butter, and a bit now someone else of the same citrusy velouté does,” says Singh. “We’re sauce Hamm uses for his salmon trying to get the food to how I dish. This gives the sauce a bit of make it, and it’s getting there,” extra acidity and creaminess, she says. Still, “You can make which complements the the same recipe, but when tender shrimp and savory somebody else makes it, andouille sausage. The it’s going to taste just inclusion of lightly sautéed a little bit different.” spinach added an element Singh makes sure to of freshness to the dish. greet guests when they Hamm says his plan is to come through the door, if stay the course: “I really she can. “We always had Twisted Tandoor’s like the direction we’re in a one-on-one interaction Tandoori Flower cocktail. and what we’re doing.” and knew everyone’s names Saguaro Corners has stayed busy, and when they came back to the truck,” he trusts his customers and staff to she says. Perhaps the biggest change let him know if he missteps when he Twisted Tandoor has undergone experiments with a dish. Hamm is also is marked by the smiling portrait on the lookout for things he can do of Mukhi that hangs on a wall better: “I don’t get complacent; you get overlooking the dining room. complacent, you get boring and lose One thing that hasn’t changed: your drive and creativity. I’m always Singh’s dedication to serving asking ‘What can I do to improve traditional dishes reminiscent of what this?’ I want to keep doing what we’re she ate growing up in a Punjabi family doing, but always keep improving it.” living near New Delhi. She says when people eat her food, they’re “surprised Saguaro Corners. 3750 S. Old that it’s not that hot, but Indian food Spanish Trail. 520.886.2020. isn’t really all that hot.” She says, SaguaroCorners.net.

“It really depends on where you’re 34 September /October 2017

from and what your palate allows.”

Instead of ordering a dish spiced mild, medium, or hot, Singh says in India people order the food that matches their palate: “You don’t want a lot of heat, you order a different dish.”

We started out our meal with the Amritsari Fish appetizer ($10), a tender white fish fried in chickpea batter, served with a mint and cilantro green chutney and a relish of red onions and tomatoes. The chickpea flour used in the batter is made from the gram chickpea, which Singh says has a nuttier flavor than its well-known beige cousin.

Paapdi Chaat ($6) is Twisted Tandoor’s take on a traditional Indian street food, featuring thick wheat flour crisps piled with kabuli chickpeas, roasted red potatoes, yogurt, and a sweet-and-savory chutney. “What makes this dish,” she says, “is the sauces and the yogurt.”

Think super nachos, Indian style.

The savory green chutney plays against the tangy sweetness of the tamarind chutney, and every bite is a messy, multitextured delight.

Twisted Tandoor now offers a cocktail menu. Singh says one of her favorites is the Tandoori Flower ($10), an elegant floral cocktail that is as pleasant to look at as it is to drink. A blend of rosewater and hibiscus results in a drink that is sweet without being saccharine, with an enthralling scent and complex flavor.

For our entrée, we went with something more familiar: Twisted Tandoor’s Chicken Tikka Masala, with its creamy orange sauce, tender chicken, fluffy rice, and red onion relish. I was surprised to learn from Singh that Tikka Masala is not a dish you’d be likely to find in India; it’s thought to have originated in the United Kingdom, though it does bear some similarities to the traditional Indian Butter Chicken.

Singh says the first time she ever made the dish was for the food truck, and she credits Tikka Masala with being a gateway food for people unfamiliar with Indian cuisine.

Twisted Tandoor. 4660 E. Camp Lowell Drive. 520.495.5499.

TheTwistedTandoor.com

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Piggies in a Bandera from a Gastronomic Union of Tucson dinner.

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HE FOUNDING of the Gastronomic Union of Tucson (GUT) may be the start of something big for Tucson’s culinary community. Devon Sanner, executive chef at The Carriage House in downtown Tucson, says it started out as a small Facebook group where Tucson chefs “shared pictures of dishes, solicited advice on purveyors and products, passed along kitchen/gallows humor, and celebrated the crazy life of [chef] sisterhood and brotherhood.” As the group grew, Sanner says, it became clear there were a number of members looking for a more direct way to “come together as a chef community,” and in September of 2016, a group of 20 chefs met at Ermanos Craft Beer & Wine Bar to discuss their goals for future collaborations. These chefs, and those who have joined them since, make up the membership of GUT, who describe their mission as “to foster a culinary community of creativity, professional development, and community engagement.”

Among GUT’s current efforts is an ongoing pop-up dinner series. Featuring five courses crafted by a rotating roster of local chefs, the dinners are a delicious and inspiring demonstration of just how strong Tucson’s food game can be.

The inaugural GUT Pop-Up Collaboration Dinner was in June 2017. Its theme, Snout to Tail,

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referenced GUT’s goal of cooking with a whole animal, and the locally raised pig, provided by E&R Pork and butchered by Forbes Meat Company, was just one example of their emphasis on locally sourced ingredients.

A few highlights: The bite-size appetizers offered big flavors: arepas stuffed with Fiore di Capra chèvre, local peach salsa, and bacon offered a chewy, savory contrast to the delicate and tangy melon and cucumber gazpacho verde garnished with a crisp piece of prosciutto. The salad, called Pig & Fig, featured tender handmade agnolotti pasta stuffed with a salty and rich guanciale, with a taste similar to bacon and a melt-in-your-mouth texture. This was topped by a cluster of pungent arugula dressed with Midnight Moon, fennel, orange, and Sambuca syrup. A scattering of sweet dried figs completed the salad. A dish called 3 Sisters, 1 Hog paid tribute to the primary crops of indigenous North American agriculture. A dense blue corn sope with perfectly crisped edges provided the base, with a creamy white tepary bean purée and a tender circle of smoked porchetta pibil were stacked on top. A tumble of calabacitas en escabeche and a generous drizzle of cilantro crema finished the arrangement, and the combination of textures and flavors to be had in every bite was delightful.

Perhaps the most appealing

aspect of attending a GUT dinner is the opportunity to watch culinary collaboration in action. While only a few member chefs are assigned to create the menu for a dinner, everyone works together to run the dinner service, and being able to observe chefs shift from an executive role during one course to being part of the crew during the next course was an inspiring demonstration of the group’s team spirit. Sanner says it isn’t easy to cook with an unfamiliar crew and he credits the success of the service to each chef being “mission-focused, egoless, and ready to lean into the strike zone to take one for the team.” GUT chefs who weren’t contributing to the first dinner’s menu took on the roles of commis, server, busser, and dishwasher, with some chefs “taking their only night off during the week to come plate up, bus tables, and wash dishes for this event.”

GUT’s dinner series is ongoing, with three goals in mind. “Foremost,” Sanner says, “we want our guests to be wowed by a great meal.” Secondly, he says GUT dinners “aim to be fun,” for guests and chefs alike. Finally, the hope is that those who join GUT for these monthly experiences will “come away with an appreciation of the quality of local product and the dedication of those who make it.”

Gastronomic Union of Tucson. GUTucson.org.

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A

S THEIR SLOGAN —Breakfast,

Lunch, Bacon—might suggest, The Oink Café goes through a lot of bacon: about 340 pounds per week and 17,500 pounds per year. This east side restaurant helps bacon-loving diners get their fix by incorporating salty, crispy bacon into everything from an eight-slice bacon flight served on a wooden board to a margarita that features pig-shaped ice, a bacon-salted rim, and a bacon garnish. I asked owner Heather Clauser to describe the philosophy behind The Oink Café’s menu. In a word? “Bacon,” she says.

“We tried to think of something that was on-trend when we opened, and we kind of built from that.”

If you prefer your breakfast and lunch pork-free, there are some delicious nonbacon and veggie-friendly options to choose from as well. As Clauser says, “You have to appeal to everyone.”

Hailing from the bacon-loving side of the menu, the Oink Bacon Bloody Mary ($8) features house-blended tomato juice, a bacon-salted rim, and a garnish of lemons, limes, and olives—and, of course, a slice of bacon alongside the standard celery stalk.

This Bloody Mary isn’t very spicy; let your server know if you like a Bloody Mary with more heat. The bacon-salted rim offered explosions of bacon flavor with every sip, backed up by the drink itself, which Clauser says is infused with a bacon syrup they make by boiling leftover bacon for four hours in water and brown sugar.

Staying on the bacon train: the Oink Breakfast Chimi ($11.49) comes slathered with a freshly made creamy chorizo cheese sauce and is stuffed with pork confit, home fries, scrambled eggs, and cheddar cheese, wrapped up in a fried and locally made tortilla. The confit is delicious, made from pork rendered for seven hours in a combination of its own juices and fat from Oink Café’s jalapeño bacon, the meat was fall-apart tender, with the kick of jalapeño and added richness from caramelized onions.

The tasty doesn’t stop with bacon.

The Oink Café’s French Toast ($3.99 for a side order and $10.49 38 September /October 2017

Oink Café’s Oink Bacon Bloody Mary.

for a full-size plate) comes drizzled with a scratch-made berry sauce and topped with whipped cream and fresh berries. The berry sauce was striking in its simplicity: thicker than syrup, with a sweetness that came primarily from the berries. But the pièce de résistance is the crumbled Captain Crunch cereal that coats the toast.

Each bite included a hint of crunch, adding a new texture to French toast.

The most popular item at The Oink Café is the Oink BLT ($10.49)—a sandwich with six slices of bacon, offered on bread or as a wrap. I opted for the wrap, choosing jalapeño bacon and adding avocado at Clauser’s suggestion.

The result was a wrap bursting with smoky bacon flavor. If you want something heartier, Clauser suggests the Oink Burger ($12.49), or, for maximum smoky bacon flavor the 50/50 Burger ($11.49) is a solid bet with its patty made of ground beef and bacon.

For dessert, try their Best of Phoenix award-winning Maple Bacon Donut ($2.49). Served warm, this doughnut is thick and crumbly and covered with a thick layer of bacon atop a maple glaze, and large enough to share with a friend. Still haven’t reached your bacon quota?

You can always order the Flight of Bacon ($9.49), which features eight slices of bacon, seven in standard flavors—applewood, jalapeño, sugar cured, apple cider, pepper, honey, and hickory—and one in a chef’s choice flavor that changes monthly.

If you love bacon, or if you love someone who loves bacon, and you’re looking to eat at a family-owned and operated restaurant for breakfast or lunch, The Oink Café has your back.

Or perhaps, your pork belly.

The Oink Café. 7131 E. Broadway Blvd. 520.296.6465. OinkCafe.com.

Kate Selby is a local living enthusiast and craft cocktail chaser living in Tucson. She received her bachelor’s degree in creative writing from the University of Arizona.

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1

2

The Plate Plate the

3

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The one dish they should never take off the menu.

1234 Photography by Shelby Thompson

House Ramen Fat Noodle House-made White Sonora Wheat ramen noodles, slaw, honey sesame park loin, shiitake mushrooms, soft boiled egg, green onions, Fat sauce, scallions, and Dashi in a 10-hour broth. $10.

Facebook.com/ TucsonFatNoodle

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Scallops Commoner and Co. Pan-seared scallops served over cauliflower purée with roasted cauliflower and root vegetable chips, topped with citrus calabrian gremolata. $29 6960 E. Sunrise Drive

Graze Double Grass Fed Burger Graze Premium Burgers Two ¼-pound Double Check Ranch grass-fed beef patties on a brioche bun with tomatoes, lettuce, red onion, American cheese, and Graze sauce. $9.75 2721 E. Speedway Blvd.

The Prosciutto Caprese Roma Imports Slices of fresh mozzarella layered with juicy red tomatoes, topped with ribbons of fresh basil and plenty of thinly sliced prosciutto. Served with balsamic vinaigrette. $8.50 627 S. Vine Ave.

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EDIBLE INTERVIEW

Arizona’s Latina Entrepreneurs Are Cooking As executive director of the YWCA’s Microbusiness Advancement Center, Marisol Flores-Aguirre supports women entrepreneurs and startup food businesses.

By Cynthia Lancaster | Photography by Jeff Smith

F

at the YWCA complex in South Tucson, Marisol Flores-Aguirre oversees construction of a commercial kitchen taking shape in a campus building.

The project is the latest in a series of programs designed to help entrepreneurs launch or expand a small business.

Flores-Aguirre is the executive director of the YWCA’s Microbusiness Advancement Center and manages an awardwinning Women’s Business Center and two developing programs: a Kitchen Business Incubator and a Women’s Impact Lending Fund, which will provide microloans of $500 to $50,000 to female entrepreneurs. The Women’s Business Center offers free services in both English and Spanish that include financial training and one-on-one counseling.

The construction of the commercial kitchen, which will open in November, is part of a Kitchen Business Incubator program that will give food entrepreneurs in South Tucson and on Tucson’s south side access to cooking, preparation, and storage space in a commercially licensed facility.

ROM HER OFFICE

The Microbusiness Advancement Center, or MAC, provides training, counseling, and access to capital for small-business entrepreneurs. Why the emphasis on entrepreneur development for women and other underserved clients?

When you look at the marketplace, you’re going to see a lot of focus on entrepreneurship, on startups, on tech. What you don’t see is an emphasis on being intentional about serving women.

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In Arizona, the faces of entrepreneurs are Latina women. Over 52 percent of all new enterprises started in Arizona have been started by a Latina woman. Yet we are one of the only, if not the only, business development organizations in Tucson that has a focus not only on supporting that marketplace but also on providing bilingual services, having bicultural staff, really being a culturally relevant space specifically for that demographic.

And so, that makes sense to us. For starting a food business, we’re right smack in the heart of 23 miles of Mexican food here in South Tucson. How are those entrepreneurs gaining access to support and service?

That’s really where we’re finding our place.

Is it still difficult for entrepreneurs to obtain loans?

Yes. We’ve done a lot of work around partnership development and trying to understand what it is that we need to do so that our clients are the best possible risk. We have seen tremendous growth in the last year, something like 624 percent, but we still do see reluctance to take a risk on a start-up, especially a food startup.

Through the YWCA’s Microbusiness Advancement Center, Marisol Flores-Aguirre focuses on offering support and mentorship to women entrepreneurs, particularly Latinas, who start 52 percent of new enterprises in Arizona.

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What life experiences prepared and motivated you to work as executive director of the Microbusiness Advancement Center?

I come from a family of entrepreneurs. My dad has his own small business that I worked in for many, many years. My grandparents were very industrious people, and my grandmother ran her own kitchen and had her own experiences. I think the entrepreneurial spirit is really alive and well in my family, and it’s something that I really value.

An organization like the YWCA is taking it a step further and saying it’s not enough to do economic development. You have to talk about economic justice and you have to talk about the lives of people. Those things inspire me to want to really make a difference and work within the community.

The Kitchen Business Incubator program will begin at the YWCA South Campus this fall. How does a commercial kitchen fit into your entrepreneur development mission?

When we looked at the Women’s Business Center and the type of clients we were serving, the majority of them were in food industries and food-related businesses.

With the new regulations through the health department, people could no longer work within their kitchen in their home the way that they used to be able to do. So, we did a gap analysis of how many commercial kitchens are there, of how people access commercial kitchen space.

When we started to do research last year around this time, we found there were a handful of commercial kitchens available for folks. When you dive through the giant list that’s provided by the health department, you find that the majority of those kitchens are in churches or schools—and they don’t provide long-term access to kitchen space.

For the entrepreneurs we were serving, that was a major pain point and we wanted to help solve that for them.

What are some entrepreneurial food businesses you’ve supported?

We serve a variety of food businesses, so we have a wide range of folks that we support. We really do run the gamut, from home cooks all the way to traditional brick-and-mortar restaurants.

Our typical client is somewhere in the middle. We’ve incubated a juicing company called Dish for Dosha for about three years now, and we had an amazing team

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that helped put together Benny’s Restaurant on Grant Road.

Most folks start out through catering, and that’s a completely different type of market. Our clients cater on the side.

They try to test and do proof of concept, and then go from there. Most are just looking for the place where they can test those ideas. They want somebody to talk about it with, and that’s really the purpose we serve.

Most of our clients already know what they’re doing in the kitchen. What they don’t know is how to create a business plan or how to project revenue, and that’s where the Women’s Business Center and MAC are really important.

What are some of your favorite memories of working with food entrepreneurs?

For our Women Who Kick @$$ Women in Food panel, the Women’s Business Center hosted four local successful restaurateurs to engage in dialogue and knowledge sharing with community members who were looking to start a food business. The exchange between panelists and attendees was an ah-ha! moment for many of the participants and for myself; this was one of the first events I hosted as director at the time, and I knew we were on to something. In creating this space for idea sharing, what emerged was more than just networking—it was empowerment.

One of the largest barriers entrepreneurs that we work with have is that they feel they don’t have mentors, or examples of “regular” people who have succeeded in their industry. In meeting and talking with restaurateurs, aspiring entrepreneurs felt closer to their dream and were able to get answers to their most burning questions.

Seeing folks light up as they shared both their experiences and passions is one of the coolest parts of working with entrepreneurs.

YWCA South Campus.

243 W. 33rd St., South Tucson. Visit YWCA.org.

Clients interested in free, personalized counseling must attend a Women’s Business Center orientation session, held every other Monday in English and Spanish at the YWCA South Campus.

Cynthia Lancaster is a freelance journalist living in Tucson.

MEET YOUR FARMER

Killer Honey Makers At Sun Apiaries Farm in Avra Valley, Jaime and Kara de Zubeldia are taming Africanized honeybees to draw amber sweetness from the desert.

By Ken Lamberton | Photography by William Lesch

O

N A M O N S O O N - S T I C K Y morning, Jaime de Zubeldia hands me a straw hat with attached veil and advises me to wear it. Then we walk past a dozen white, boxlike Langstroth beehives. The buzzing jumps a few decibels.

“You can hear them working,” he says through a veil that matches his dark hair. “If I haven’t been managing their resources correctly, they get cranky. Have you ever been stung before?”

I reach for my writing pen, thinking, I should have brought an EpiPen. The de Zubeldias work between 100 and 200 colonies of honeybees and hope to expand to 300 in the fall. But these aren’t the docile European variety, selected for thousands of years for their mild manner. Ninety percent of the de Zubeldia’s hives are Africanized.

You’ve probably heard about them. For more than two decades, since the honeybees first began appearing in the warm southern regions of the United States, reports of attacks

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have topped the news. The angry swarms chasing people for a quarter mile. The thousands of stings. The deaths. And how impossible it is to tell the difference between Africanized and the familiar European honeybees—until you disturb their hive by something as innocuous as mowing your lawn.

“I have a gut instinct that Africanized bees can be of some use,” Jaime says, explaining that the species is resistant to varroa mite infestation, tolerates environmental toxins like pesticides, and is supremely adapted to our desert conditions. They also happen to be good producers of honey.

“The downside is their temperament, which I’m working on. Once in a while—maybe 3 to 5 percent of the time—I run into a dangerously vicious hive that scares the pants off me.”

Jaime and Kara de Zubeldia designed their Avra Valley farm according to permaculture concepts; they work between 100 and 200 colonies of honeybees.

Ninety percent of the de Zubeldia’s hives are Africanized, well-adapted to desert conditions and resistant to varroa mite infestation. “The downside is their temperament, which I’m working on,” says Jaime.

J

AIME ’ S W IFE ,

Kara, is the assistant director for business consulting at the University of Arizona’s Eller College of Business Management, although Jaime says his goal is to someday hire her at the farm. They met in Tucson in 2008, he says, “during a spring when I had a bunch of extended family visiting from all over.” Jaime’s mother was born in the cornhusker state and his father grew up Jalisco, Mexico, and was “always planting things.” In 1986, the family moved from Colorado Springs to this mesquite-weary patch in Avra Valley because “Dad wanted more space and less winter.”

The family raised chickens and hogs and then Jaime took an interest in beekeeping. He started with three hives. Over the years, and with the addition of Kara, the two built a honey operation using permaculture concepts like organizing radiating circular zones according to plant and animal needs, creating guilds of plants and animals that work well together, conserving native species, and rainwater harvesting.

Today, we walk among the swales that ripple the property, some of them still holding runoff from last night’s thunderstorm. Mesquite branches hang with yellow catkins. The farm 54 September /October 2017

is an island of blooming trees where others across the valley look dark and skeletal. “Really dry over there,” Jaime says after I point out the difference. “It’s hard to produce a crop when mesquite honey is collected in the challenging months of May and June.”

We feed Scout and Annie, a pair of Nubian goats that are the family’s pets. Giant pallets of beetle-killed lumber stand beside his unfinished workshop where Jaime will plane the wood for bee boxes. “We’re supporting local companies by using locally sourced wood probably on its way out anyway. It’s enough to expand to 500 to 600 hives.”

He lifts the clear lid on a “solar wax-melter,” which looks like a hope chest propped at an angle. “We hold back the used wax to make new foundations for the bees to build their comb.

Expanding and contracting the hive is an art form,” he adds.

“Bees can’t heat and cool a space they aren’t ready for.”

“The keeping of bees is like the direction of sunbeams,” said Thoreau, who had an affinity for the insects himself. He believed the occupation suggested a nobler connection to nature. This one has been going on for 8,000 years.

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“It’s about reading the combs,” Jaime explains, “watching for clues and making adjustments.” Three castes are involved: the queen, the male drones, and tens of thousands of workers. The latter have different, age-related roles as nurse bees, house bees, undertakers, architects, honey-makers, and foragers— all supporting the colony and its single queen. When Jaime opens a hive, he looks for things like the levels of stored pollen, the construction of queen cells indicating a coming swarm, and how much food the nurse bees are feeding the larvae. “Are the babies fat and happy and floating on a surplus of jelly or do they look dried out?”

Then there’s what he calls “queen management”: “What I do is like playing music with other musicians. It could be beautiful or it could be a train wreck.”

This is where the de Zubeldias are on the front lines of advancing apiculture.

Beekeeping changed forever after 1957 when 26 Tanzanian queen bees (Apis mellifera scutellata), with their European worker bee swarms, accidentally escaped from an experimental apiary in Brazil. By the early 1990s, these Africanized bees had spread into the southern United States and had begun hybridizing with European honey bees. Today, researchers estimate that almost 100 percent of wild bee colonies in Arizona are Africanized.

Killer bees are here to stay.

“Drones are where the problem lies,” Jaime says. He says that virgin queens will come out of the hive and fly three or four miles to find a mate. “Africanized drones have a mating advantage over European—they’re lighter and faster.”

Historically, beekeepers positioned hives for opportune mating, hoping for the right drones from the right colonies (queens may mate with 15 to 20 drones from different colonies). In this way, they selected for good traits like disease resistance and mild temperament. Predictable behavior is the key. For 10 years, Jaime has been systematically selecting less aggressive Africanized bees as the base of his stock with the goal of selling mated queens to the public in the future.

Jaime checks on a hive, looking for levels of stored pollen and queen health, among other things.

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“It’s a numbers game,” he says. “Open mating controls only 50 percent of the equation. Instrumental insemination gives us another level of mating control to the point that either the occasional vicious hive is eliminated, or the aggression is significantly reduced.”

Instrumental insemination. I picture nanoliter micropipettes and bee drones and queens strapped to tiny gurneys.

The de Zubeldias recently received a Utah State University Western Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) grant that will allow them to apply the technique to his gentle Africanized strain and thereby control the source of the drone semen. Jaime has just returned from training in South Carolina.

“Complete elimination of aggression may be too optimistic, so we will also be measuring other pros and cons of open mating versus instrumental insemination using pure European stock and a hybrid of European and Africanized,” he says.

We retreat from the hives and cool shade of the mesquite trees, through the pomegranate and heirloom citrus, the Mexican lime he grew from seed, to his modest home in the center of the farm.

Jaime offers me a cup of tea, and while the water boils, he sets jars of honey in front of me. Then spoons.

“Try the tulip poplar,” he says.

“It’s from South Carolina. Along with clover, the flower is one of the best for producing honey.”

Mild with a hint of smoke. Next I sample a light, delicate holly honey from South Carolina. The flavor is as unfamiliar as its place of origin.

“This is our varietal,” he says, placing a large jar next to my steeping tea. “One hundred percent mesquite.”

I unscrew the lid and load the spoon.

It tastes like liquid sunlight.

Jaime de Zubeldia teaches hands-on beekeeping classes at the San Xavier Co-op Farm, where he also manages his hives and sells Sun Apiaries Mesquite Honey. He blogs at SunApiaries.com/blog.

Ken Lamberton’s latest book, Chasing Arizona, was a 2015 Southwest Book of the Year.

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TABLE

Gather, Parishioners The Parish, a Southern fusion gastropub with an innovative bar, serves local flavors with a community-minded culture.

By Wren Awry | Photography by Steven Meckler

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the first summer monsoon, Travis Peters is in the kitchen at The Parish, putting the finishing touches on a new brunch special. Egg whites—whipped to a stiff peak and dyed gray with activated charcoal—surround a salt-cured yolk and rest on a lightning-esque cheese crisp. In their table-ready iteration, the eggs will be topped with guajillo chile sauce, arugula caviar, and chicharrón dust.

“I’m calling them storm cloud eggs,” says Peters, The Parish’s executive chef. “I’ve toyed around with this idea for a while.

I knew I wanted to wait for the monsoons to happen, for the storm to crack.”

This might seem like an odd special for a restaurant that bills itself as a Southern fusion gastropub—and has a menu packed with down home classics like boiled peanuts, gumbo, and barbecue pork—but Peters and his co-owners, Steve Dunn and Bryce Zeagler, view southeastern cuisine as a starting point, rather than a constraint. Peters and The Parish kitchen team embrace a wide range of flavors and techniques, many of them local.

“I try to grab onto some Mexican influences and Arizona influences,” Peters says. The Parish serves a goat cheese relleno; its salmon is mesquite smoked; and Peters’ favorite dish, BBQ Tail Confit served with South Carolina gold sauce, comes with pickled onions and peaches.

“The pickled onions are straight up Tucson-style taco onions,” says Peters, who was born in Texas but grew up in Tucson and Prescott. Peaches—strongly associated with the South but also used in Southwestern dishes like peach salsa—have become a sort of lucky charm for the restaurant.

HE DAY AFTER

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In June, Peters, sous chef Ricazsandria Rances and prep management team member Jerry Morgan competed in—and won—Iron Chef Tucson. The annual Stella Artois-sponsored contest involves two teams of finalists—each led by a chef from an area restaurant—cooking on stage. Both teams are given the same secret ingredient, which has to appear at least once in each of the competition’s four courses.

“I told my business partner, ‘If we get peaches we’re going to win.’ Only because we use peaches so much,” says Peters, who was given a list of possible secret ingredients the night before the competition.

Peters’ confidence wasn’t misplaced. On the night of the competition, the sweet stone fruit was announced as the secret ingredient, and both crews—Chef Michael Elefante of Mama Louisa’s led the competing team—went to work. Peters, Rances, and Morgan raced the clock while dealing with numerous kitchen catastrophes—at one point, Peters’ glasses wouldn’t stay on, so he cooked nearly blind for about an hour.

Despite the setbacks, their four winning courses, including a soup incorporating Stella Artois Cidre, must have been delicious.

The best part?“All the chefs involved kind of made light of it,” Peters says. According to him, the attitude was: “Let’s have fun and be a community instead of ‘It’s us against you.’”

The Parish’s dining room is pure New Orleans: Walls striped two carnival shades of pink, velvet curtains, wood-topped tables, and wrought iron railings. There, diners can try dishes like the Executive chef Travis Peters led The Parish team to victory at Iron Chef Tucson in June of 2017.

Bartender Kris Carr attributes The Parish’s inventive bar program to the restaurant’s community-oriented culture.

Drunken Angel Pasta—angel hair noodles, shrimp, and crawfish in a lobster broth doused with red pepper cream sauce—and the award-winning, red onion marmalade-slicked Parish Burger.

Cocktails—both classic and signature—are prepared at an antique-looking wood bar illuminated by chandeliers. Alongside the typical array of wine and liquor bottles is a shelf full of The Parish’s homemade alcohol infusions, including blueberry vodka, jalapeño tequila, and brown butter bourbon, a nod to The Parish’s inventive bar program and award-winning bartenders.

In early June, bartenders Stephanie Kingman and Kris Carr competed alongside five bartending teams for a chance to have a cocktail they designed accompany a meal prepared by Janos Wilder and served at the UNESCO Creative Cities Network Conference, held outside of Paris on June 28. Wilder was at the conference representing Tucson, designated a UNESCO City of Gastronomy in 2015, and wanted a cocktail that would showcase local ingredients and talent.

“We were definitely viewed as the underdog,” Carr says.

The other finalists were bartenders from prominent downtown bars and restaurants, including 47 Scott, Downtown Kitchen + Cocktails, and The Tough Luck Club. The Parish, located on the north side, can sometimes feel far—certainly geographically, although not culinarily—from this trendy sphere of influence.

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But that evening, the duo’s sotol-based Ahumado Fresca flew off their table, along with baseball-sized recipe cards that listed the Fresca’s ingredients and explained that the drink was inspired by “one of Tucson’s favorite treats, raspados.”

The pink-hued Ahumado Fresca—inspired, in part, by the Hemingway Daiquiri—combines sotol reposado from Hacienda de Chihuahua with Kingman’s homemade tamarind syrup, local honey mesquite-smoked in-house, and lime juice. It’s light with a nice sweet-and-sour balance and a rich honey flavor that coats your lips as you drink it.

I ask Kingman and Carr, who both grew up in Tucson, how their work as bartenders connects to the UNESCO designation.

“It’s about our creativity. Being a food and drink city means not just making everything a margarita. It’s up to us to take that influence and those ingredients and do something different with it,” Carr says.

Both bartenders have signature drinks on The Parish’s summer menu. Kingman’s cocktail, the Southside Sandia, is made with raspberry gin, fresh watermelon chunks, tamarind, and Louisiana-style Crystal Hot Sauce, a nod to The Parish’s southern roots in a drink that’s also Old Pueblo-inspired.

“Sandía is watermelon in Spanish,” Carr says. “Southside is because of our heritage, hanging out at the Tanque Verde swap meet, where we’re trying pulparindos.”

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The Parish’s BBQ Tail Confit: Grilled pig tails with South Carolina gold sauce and house-pickled red onions.

Carr’s drink, the Swiftwater Snakebite, is named after the water that rushes through Tucson’s usually dry washes during monsoon season. It combines cold brew coffee, Dragoon IPA, bruto, and honey.

“It’s unique and yet there’s a familiarity to the f lavor,” Kingman says. “You recognize the hops and you recognize the cold brew bitterness. They come together in a way you didn’t think was possible.”

Kingman and Carr attribute their Cocktail Challenge win and The Parish’s inventive bar program to the restaurant’s community-oriented culture. “These guys are some of the best bosses I’ve ever worked for, because they really foster and nourish the creativity that we have,” Kingman says, referring to Peters, Dunn, and Zeagler.

And it’s a collaborative effort. The Parish bartenders—Kingman and Carr are two of an eight-person team—work together to experiment with flavors and build each season’s cocktail menu.

Peters says it’s important to him to project The Parish’s community ethos outward, so he tries to work with southern Arizona food producers and organizations. Of course, there are limitations. “We try to be as local and sustainable as possible,” Peters says, “But obviously we’re not getting any Tucson shrimp.”

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Shrimp and grits, a dish with its roots in the Lowcountry cuisine of South Carolina and Georgia, appears on The Parish’s menu in two distinct iterations. The Creamy BBQ Shrimp and Grit Bowl, served at brunch on Sundays from 9 a.m. until 3 p.m., comes with aged white cheddar and is topped with sunny-side-up eggs; the dinnertime shrimp and grits come with creole BBQ cream sauce, a white cheddar grit cake, and greens. They’re favorites among customers who come looking for Southern classics, although the most popular item by far, Peters tells me, is the bacon popcorn.

“We take raw bacon and the popcorn, and all of that cooks at the exact same time,” Peters says. “It’s just bacon fat, bacon, popcorn, salt, pepper, butter, done. Real simple, but people love it.”

Peters is among the 30 or so chefs and food professionals who have joined GUT, short for the Gastronomic Union of Tucson.

GUT’s mission is threefold: Building upon Tucson’s designation as a UNESCO City of Gastronomy, they aim to strengthen Tucson’s culinary community, as well as provide opportunities for professional development and community engagement. So far, this has meant a series of snout-to-tail pop-up dinners prepared by area chefs and featuring takes on local specialties.

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Bartender Stephanie Kingman’s summer cocktail creation was the Southside Sandia, made with raspberry gin, fresh watermelon chunks, tamarind, and Louisiana-style Crystal Hot Sauce.

While Peters is excited about this collaboration and figuring out how to incorporate Tucson’s UNESCO goals into The Parish’s menu, the newfound attention UNESCO is bringing to his hometown makes the chef a little nervous.

“It can be negative, too, you know? You get swarmed. I hope it doesn’t lose its personality,” Peters says, referring to Tucson. “I want the money to come and I want everybody to be successful but not forget our roots.”

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If The Parish’s homegrown talent, community-minded culture, and success in combining local flavors with Southern comfort foods are any indication, Tucson’s roots are deep, strong, and able to bend without breaking.

The Parish Gastropub. 6453 N. Oracle Road.

520.797.1233. TheParishTucson.com.

Wren Awry is an essayist, poet, and the education programs assistant at the University of Arizona Poetry Center.

ARTISAN

Cupcake Recovery Tilted Halos is a vegan, gluten-free baked-goods business that also provides transitional employment and support to people re-entering the workforce after incarceration and addiction.

By Lisa O’Neill | Photography by Julius Schlosburg

O

U TSIDE , the temperature climbs toward 110 degrees.

Inside, Mariel Montiel is baking cupcakes. Most Tucsonans avoid ovens during fierce summer heat, but Montiel is prepping for a summer deal she has put together: six cupcakes, six cookies, six brownies, delivered to your door for $25. In a white apron and hairnet, she sifts chickpea flour into a large plastic bowl. Nearby, employee Rebecca Drake builds cardboard boxes at a long card table. Wednesdays are big baking days for Tilted Halos, a vegan, gluten-free baked goods business with a mission.

Montiel stumbled into the baking business.

Her journey began with recovery from addiction. Four years ago, as she entered a sober lifestyle and watched her then-boyfriend facing release from prison, Montiel began thinking about the tremendous barriers people face when re-entering their communities after addiction and incarceration. In her 12-step program, Montiel met many people with one or more felonies. “I got to thinking how hard it is to get clean without any obstacles,” she says. “I don’t have a felony record. I have support from my parents, I had a car, I had a house—and it was very difficult to get back into the workforce.” She wondered what she could do to help.

Around the same time, Montiel starting eating a vegan diet and avoiding gluten. She began to experiment with recipes, using her friends as taste-testers. “And there was a particular cupcake recipe,” she says. “I thought: this is better than anything I’ve had.” She shared the cupcakes with a friend who confirmed their deliciousness.

Then, the vision came together for Tilted Halos: a baked goods business that also provides transitional employment and support to people re-entering the workforce after incarceration and addiction.

In March 2016, she sold her first cake.

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Montiel started small—taking decorating classes at Michael’s and selling goods at farmers’ markets. When her ex-boyfriend was released, he was her first employee. Since then, she has employed two other people: Drake, who began recovery at the same time as Montiel, and Michael Saaby, who was recently released from prison.

Tilted Halos operates through the cottage law. People who prepare food at home for sale must register with the Arizona Department of Health and stipulate that they are cooking in a home kitchen. Montiel can’t make products that need refrigeration, which works, as all her products are dairy free. The law also requires that she, as the sole resident, do all the baking.

Her employees help with prep work like labeling and decoration.

The day before the weekly farmers’ market at the Mercado San Augustín, Montiel bakes for three or four hours. Cupcake trays with Chocolate Churro and Chai Latte batter sit on the countertop, waiting to go in the oven. Lining the wall are mahogany shelves stacked with jars of coconut oil, containers of shortening and spices, and food-grade buckets holding chickpea and coconut flour. She bakes every item in her small vintage minioven, which is half the size of a standard oven and can be a bit temperamental.

“I didn’t choose this house knowing I wanted to do this,” she says, laughing. “It’s everything you wouldn’t want. But I made it work.”

Drake sits at the table punching out hearts in red fondant. “I really liked the larger scope of helping addicts in recovery,” she says. “’Cause we do a lot of damage when we use and that involves incarceration for a lot of addicts—that is directly connected to Mariel Montiel (right) and Michael Saaby sell Titled Halo’s latest creation: cupcakes in jars, which help the cupcakes keep their form on hot Tucson days.

After her own recovery from addiction, Montiel started Tilted Halos in March of 2016 in part to help provide transitional employment and support to people re-entering the workforce after incarceration and addiction.

their using. One of the hardest things to do is get a job and find steady employment … Being associated with something that is giving a positive push for people who really need it is really inspiring to me.”

Montiel makes brownies, cookies, and 12 flavors of cupcakes— the most popular are Churro, Cookies and Cream, and Triple Chocolate—and offers vegan and gluten-free lactation cookies.

Montiel also makes custom-f lavored cakes, including many requested by Narcotics Anonymous members to celebrate sobriety anniversaries.

Montiel says that in recovery she’s met “some of the most intelligent, creative, amazing people I’ve ever known. They’re smarter, more open-minded, loving. I feel that way about people in prison, too. I’m like: Why are these people not out here?” She paraphrases a quote attributed to Pope Francis: “I’m afraid we’ve incarcerated the majority of our moral leaders.”

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N A HOT J ULY DAY , Montiel and Michael Saaby set up for the farmers’ market. On the red and white polka-dotted tablecloth are containers of lavender shortbread cookies and Montiel’s newest creation: cupcakes in jars.

Saaby has been working with Mariel for four months while attending the University of Arizona to obtain his certificate as a recovery support specialist. This program will enable him to do peer-to-peer counseling for those recovering from addictive illness. In some ways, this certification is a continuation of work he did in prison. He was released in September 2016 after serving four years. Using literature sent in from the outside, he and two other men began a peer-led recovery program. By the time he left, there were 38 men involved. “Once I started changing my life, I liked doing it—so if I’m able to make it a career, it will make me feel good when I go to work, to be helping somebody,” he says.

Customers can buy a cupcake in a jar and bring the jar back for a discount on their next purchase.

One of the biggest obstacles of re-entry from incarceration, particularly for those with a felony, is finding a job. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, more than 650,000 Americans are released from prison annually, and approximately two-thirds are likely to be rearrested within three years. A 2008 study from the Urban Institute found that only 45 percent of Americans who had been to prison had a job eight months after release. Most of them found work through family and friends or by returning to their previous employer.

Saaby says stereotypes are often the biggest hurdle: “People see we have a record or see our charge, and automatically think we are messed up for life. We’re not bad people—give us a chance and you’ll see.”

In 2009, research funded by The National Institute of Justice revealed that in New York City “a criminal record reduced the likelihood of a callback or job offer by nearly 50 percent,” and that this negative effect was substantially larger for black applicants.

On the table, Montiel often places a board with information about Titled Halos’ mission and a sign-up sheet for her prison correspondence program, where she sends monthly cards with inspirational quotes to men and women in Arizona state prisons and jails. While many people have been supportive of the mission, others have questions. “One man said, ‘Why would you trust those people?’” she says, “And I’m like, ‘I am those people. I just haven’t gone to prison.’”

She explains, “I honestly feel like I was spared … I think because my father had money and is a lawyer, I had ways out. It’s so hard to stay clean. I know a lot of good people who have felony records and struggle.”

Part of her goal with employees is to help them reorient to engaging with people on the outside, which includes helping with communication skills. Montiel and Saaby often talk about recovery in lulls at the market. Montiel says, “I think there’s a better chance of re-entering society when you’re in an environment where you can be honest. You don’t have to hide what you’ve done.” She says, “Mikey thrives in it: he glows when he’s working. I want to work with people who want to change or are willing to change.”

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M

ONTIEL ’ S BUSINESS is self-sustaining but doesn’t yet pay all her bills, so she works part-time at a crisis hotline. Some weeks, when she has holiday deals, custom orders, the weekly farmers’ market, and donations to local fundraisers, she bakes every day, in addition to her part-time job. She makes it work because of her employees. “Mikey washed and cleaned my car [for deliveries], he did boxes, he cut business cards, and then Rebecca helped cut fondant decorations,” she says. “Without their help, there’s no way I could have taken all those orders.”

When she can, Montiel incorporates local ingredients, like Meyer Lemon Jam from We Be Jammin’. “The next mission of mine is trying to find more [local] products that work with mine,” she says. “I contacted Flowers and Bullets to get their prickly pear juice for a frosting.”

Drake shares Montiel’s satisfaction in providing baked goods to those who have allergies or dietary restrictions. “When I worked a couple markets with her, there’s such gratitude from people that they have found something they really enjoy that fills that spot of having a comfort food or treating themselves,” she says. “It’s cool to be a part of that.”

The name Tilted Halos came to Montiel while praying one day. “I was looking for a name that had something about redemption or a second chance,” she says. “And I was having a really hard time finding one.” She sat down with a Christianbased meditation book and read. “It said, ‘Jesus Christ ran with a group of Tilted Halos.’ I thought that was perfect. For me and the people working with me. I like people who overcome things.”

Outside her brick home is a large hanging ornament. “It’s funny,” Montiel says. “I got that about 10 years ago. Long before ‘Tilted Halos.’” The metal decoration is of a cupcake, iced, with a cherry on top.

TiltedHalos.org.

Lisa O’Neill is a freelance writer living in Tucson. Her work focuses on intersections of social justice issues including sustainability and food security. Visit LisaMOneill.com.

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edible Baja Arizona

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T

HE EX ASPER ATED GAR DENER . Jeau Allen of Aravaipa Heirlooms can spot one at the farmers’ market from a mile away. “They approach the table and they’ve already got their hands in the air, and you can see the frustration through their body language.”

No one ever said gardening in Baja Arizona was going to be easy. The blistering sun and heat of summer, the long weeks and months without meaningful rainfall, those winter nights when the temperature drops below freezing.

The challenges of desert gardening vex novice-to-experienced gardeners.

“People say ‘I want something that works,’” Allen says. “They say ‘I tried before, it was a disaster. I never want to grow another tomato again.’ But there they are with hope in their eyes.”

In an industry dominated by regional nurseries and big-box home improvement stores, small, independently owned garden stores and nurseries are filling a niche in the market by offering locally grown or locally tested starts and seeds, unusual varieties of fruits and vegetables (some of which are rare or endangered), a hands-on approach to educating fellow gardeners, and a deep appreciation of what makes Baja Arizona such a wonderful, yet sometimes frustrating place to grow food.

“People put enormous resources into their gardens,” says Allen. While her seeds may come from other parts of the country, Allen selects varieties she believes will do well in the desert. Then she puts them to the test, by growing them in her own nursery before she offers the plant starts to the public.

“It’s really important that plants be tested in the same microclimate,” Allen says. Locally grown plants, she says, are hardier. “They’re more resilient to the specific pests and diseases that we have here. They’re more resilient climatically.

They’re known to thrive here.”

Today she grows and sells as many as 150 species of heirloom tomatoes, peppers, herbs, and vegetables, depending on the season. She calls tomatoes a “gateway” vegetable, a way to introduce newcomers to desert gardening.

As for peppers, they’re an icon of Baja Arizona gastronomy.

Her passion comes out of a concern over the shrinking diversity in crops and seeds. The Food and Agriculture

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(Previous page) Carrots and artichoke from Honey Lane Organics.

(Above) Pomegranate grown at Nighthawk Natives Nursery.

Organization of the United Nations estimates that 90 percent of farm crops once grown around the world have disappeared since the beginning of the 20th century.

She tells the story of the Cherokee Purple tomato, one of the most popular varieties in the country. Only 30 years ago it was on the verge of extinction—until it was saved by a dedicated gardener in North Carolina.

“I love to get people excited about diversity,” she says. “I love to get them excited about the idea that, in their backyard garden, no bigger than five feet by five feet, they can save something from extinction. One person can’t save polar bears, but one person can save a variety.”

Like Allen, Lorien Tersey believes locally grown starts make a huge difference in the garden. “By growing them outdoors here, they’re getting the sun that we get, the wind that we get, the water, and they’re getting exposed to some of the pests and bugs,” says Tersey. “My starts don’t look perfect, they’re not going to be as pretty as the ones you can buy elsewhere. But they’re more likely to survive because they’ve been experiencing the same weather we have.”

Tersey says she’s been a gardener for longer than she can remember. “My mother started me before I could walk,” Tersey says. “She dragged me out into the garden when I was a baby.” The love of growing followed her from California to Oregon and eventually to Tucson where she began selling plant starts from her backyard garden at local farmers’ markets.

“They started encouraging me to come with more plants if I had more. That was about eight or nine years ago,” she says.

Since then, her backyard has grown into Dreamflower Garden, a full acre of starts, landscape plants, and flowers that she sells at the Thursday Santa Cruz River Farmers’ Market.

Developing a truly robust variety takes time. Seeds from the best plants of the season are saved and replanted.

With each succeeding generation, the hardiness, the drought tolerance, and the resilience improves.

“I save seeds from the tomatoes that produced in the heat of summer,” Tersey says, “not just the ones that were good in the spring or the fall. I’m saving seeds from that kale that survived two summers.

Every generation becomes better adapted to local conditions.”

F

G ATES P ASS , the road curves down the western flanks of the Tucson Mountains and opens to an expansive view of Avra Valley.

Beginning with the familiar saguaro, mesquite and palo verde, the landscape slowly dissolves into a broad plain of creosote, bursage, and thornscrub on the valley floor.

Tucked away in the bush and scrub off Sandario Road is Nighthawk Natives Nursery, a two-acre garden Berni Jilka and her husband began a little more than a decade ago.

ROM

No one ever said gardening in Baja Arizona was going to be easy.

While they primarily grow landscape and restoration plants, a section of the nursery is set aside for trees and other plants that bear edible fruit. Here you’ll find wild grape, Mexican elderberry, mesquite, figs, and pomegranates. Then there are the more exotic varieties, such as jujube, which produces a stone fruit that tastes like a date, and the loquat that bears a yellow plum-size fruit. Perhaps the most exotic of all is the moringa, sometimes called the “tree of life,” she says, because the entire tree, from the leaves to pods, bark, and root, is edible.

As with the other growers, Jilka is a plant detective. “I’m trying to find something that people will be excited about and want to plant because it’s so tough here,” she says. She often turns to friends and neighbors for cuttings.

“If someone’s bragging about their fruit then it’s worth checking out,” Jilka says.

The idea is that a plant that thrives in one person’s garden is likely to thrive nearby in another person’s garden. “You find a fruit you want, but is it going to be hardy here? You won’t know it until you get a cold winter and that may be two or three years. A lot of things are trial and error and it takes time to figure it out.”

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Berni Jilka of Nighthawk Natives Nursery says she tries to grow varieties "that people will be excited about and want to plant because it’s so tough here.”

Gardeners interested in unusual varieties and some help figuring things out may also find what they’re looking for at Honey Lane Organics in the small town of Amado.

Less than two years ago, Honey Lane owner Lynsey Lampkins was a stay-athome mom selling seeds on eBay. She’s still at home, but today home includes a building for seedlings, three gardens, and a greenhouse made from recycled materials donated by friends and neighbors. Honey Lane Organics grew from what she and her husband saw as an unmet need for organic and heirloom varieties in their community.

“Seeds are magic.

If you’ve never grown anything from seed you should try it at least once."

Depending on the season, her inventory may include tomatoes, berries, and peppers in spring and summer, as well as broccoli, cabbage, and greens in the fall. Lampkins also specializes in tropical fruit such as papaya, kiwi, and bananas she received from a friend in Arivaca. “I’ve always loved the banana plant,” says Lampkins.“They have beautiful leaves. They love the monsoon rains.” Even these exotics can do well in the desert, says Lampkins, if you keep them warm during winter.

If the idea of growing bananas in the desert turns on the light bulb in your head, then you’ve discovered another advantage of buying from local growers.

It’s the opportunity to learn about new varieties that bigger nurseries may not sell as well as hands-on instruction on how to succeed.

Turn to Lampkins for help and what often follows is a gardener’s version of 20 Questions. She’ll ask about where a customer wants to grow something, what side of the house will be used for planting, and how much time the customer has to water the plant.

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Lorien Tersey started Dreamflower Garden in her backyard, eventually planting a full acre of starts, landscape plants, and flowers that she sells at the Thursday Santa Cruz River Farmers’ Market.

For novices, she’ll recommend easy-tomanage varieties to build their skills. For more advanced gardeners she may suggest unusual varieties they’ve never tried before.

“There’s not a lot of knowledge passed down anymore from generations,” she says.

“People will say, ‘My uncle or dad grew the greatest tomatoes and I don’t know how he did it.’ I think our customers come in for the education and the confidence it brings.”

While these growers primarily sell plant starts, they also admit to having a special affinity for seeds. “Seeds are magic,” says Tersey of Dreamflower Garden. “If you’ve never grown anything from seed you should try it at least once. To see the plant grow, bloom, and produce seed, and to plant that seed again, is an incredible experience.”

Reggie Smith would agree. She began selling seeds in Tucson nearly 40 years ago, first at farmers’ markets and more recently exclusively online through her business Westwind Seeds. What motivated her to get started were the changes she saw at seed stores.

“I noticed I was having trouble getting the varieties I loved. They were hybridizing everything,” Smith recalls.

She went to the library to find farmers who were growing the kind of seeds she wanted to use in her own garden and bought from them in bulk. Starting with two-dozen varieties in 1980, Westwind Seeds now offers more than 225 kinds of vegetables and herbs, all open pollinated and heirloom varieties.

It’s a business built on relationships.

Smith still buys from the same farm families that she did four decades ago. “I don’t think I’d have the success that I had without that connection with people who really care about what they do,” she says.

In her search for what to buy, Smith zeros in on varieties that can handle the extremes of the desert and still taste good. But she doesn’t sell anything without testing it. “I grow every single variety I carry,” says Smith. “If it does well for me I’m confident and will buy more.”

Her tenure in the seed business gives Smith a chance to think about the trends she experienced, and what the future holds. She says a new generation, people in their 20s, are starting to think about what’s in their food— and what’s not in their food—and in the process are getting turned on to gardening.

“Growing your own food connects us back to what food should be. Going outside, digging in the dirt, watering it and watching it come up requires patience. It takes you back.”

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Reggie Smith began selling seeds in Tucson nearly 40 years ago; today, Westwind Seeds offers more than 225 kinds of vegetables and herbs, all open pollinated and heirloom varieties.

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W

A L K I N G into the seed bank at the nonprofit Native Seeds/SEARCH in Tucson is also like stepping back in time. Here, in a roomsized refrigerator, is a collection of more than 1,900 varieties of seeds native to the Southwestern United States and Northwestern Mexico, as well as non-native varieties that have adapted to the region. Many are rare or endangered.

“It’s really important that plants be tested in the same microclimate.

They’r e more resilient to the specific pests and diseases that we have here."

“There’s 4,000 years of history in there,” says conservation program manager Nicholas Garber. Moving past the shelves, Garber points out a wild tepary bean found on the Tohono O’odham Nation. It’s a bean high in nutrition and so drought tolerant that Garber says, “It’s almost allergic to water.”

Such a bean might come in handy if the predictions of a hotter and drier future for the Southwest come true.

Native Seeds/SEARCH was founded more than three decades ago to preserve the region’s traditional seeds for their genetic diversity, and the role they play in our cultural and gastronomic heritage.

Looking for traditional Native 96 September /October 2017

Lynsey Lampkins of Honey Lane Organics provides Amado gardeners with organic and heirloom plant varieties, as well as the education on how to grow them.

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Nearly 500 varieties of desert-adapted seeds are sold through Native Seeds/SEARCH, online or at the retail store on Campbell Avenue.

American beans, corn, and squash for your garden? You’ll find them here, as well as locally adapted broccoli, carrots, and lettuce. About 500 varieties from the seed bank are available online or at the retail store on Campbell Avenue.

Executive director Joy Hought says it’s not realistic to think that everyone will want to grow their own food or 100 September /October 2017

have a garden. But those who do, she says, often find joy and passion. “I think it’s wanting to connect with the self determination that maybe our grandparents had,” says Hought. “To provide something for ourselves that we don’t often get the opportunity to do, and to take back a little bit of that control for ourselves.”

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A handful of Arizona Silver Edged Squash seed from Native Seeds/SEARCH.

T

H E R E I S H O P E for the exasperated gardeners of Baja Arizona. Desert gardening has as many advantages as it does challenges. The key, these growers will tell you, is some education, a little persistence, and preparation.

“Tucson is a great place for plants,” says Jilka. “We can grow citrus, pomegranates. We can grow such a wide variety, even apples. It’s such a fun climate for growing.”

“We have a really great growing season all winter long,” adds Lampkins, “with the cabbage, carrots, broccoli and all the cold crops. As long as we provide irrigation and shade, most plants will make it through the tough part of the year.”

As Tersey reminds us, “Having your hands in the dirt feels good. We have so few things anymore that are hobbies where you’re actually doing something. It’s so easy to watch TV or sit at the computer. Gardening is visceral. It hits people in their hearts.”

“I always suggest to people, just do it,” says Allen. “Just dig in, don’t be afraid, don’t let fear stop you. Just do it and you’ll get better as you go.”

For more information: Aravaipa Heirlooms’ Allen sells her starts at the Sunday Heirloom Farmers’ Market at Rillito Park.

Visit Aravaipa.com or call 520.477.7637.

Look for Dreamflower Garden’s Tersey at the Thursday Santa Cruz River Farmers’ Market and at the Tucson Organic Gardeners plant sales in spring and fall. Call 520.591.2432.

Nighthawk Native Nursery doesn’t sell directly to the public, but Jilka’s figs, pomegranates, and other edible trees can be purchased through Trees for Tucson. TreesForTucson.org.

Honey Lane Organics is at 28674 S. Honey Lane in Amado, online at HoneyLaneOrganics.com, or call 520.870.7576.

Westwind Seeds can be purchased online at WestwindSeeds.com. Call 520.603.9925.

To purchase seeds and gardening supplies from Native Seeds/SEARCH, visit the retail store at 3061 N. Campbell Ave. Visit NativeSeeds.org or call 520.622.0830.

Dennis Newman is a freelance writer in Tucson who has written extensively about farming and how crops become food and beverages.

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DETAINED DEPRIVED

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In Arizona’s holding tanks and detention centers, detained immigrants wait in punishing conditions, subsisting on food ranging from inadequate to inedible.

By Margaret Regan Illustrations by Danny Martin

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L UZ M AR I A ’ S first night in the custody of the U.S. government, she was hungry. She was cold. And she was terrified.

Snatched from her two sons on the street just hours before, Luz Maria, 36, was locked up in Tucson’s notorious hielera, the “icebox,” the short-term holding tank in the Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector headquarters. Its nickname, coined by undocumented immigrants, is a bitter pun on ICE, the acronym for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The massive station-cum-jail, occupying a large swath of land at South Swan and Golf Links, is known far and wide among immigrants for its icy temperatures.

Luz Maria’s evening had begun with the most ordinary of errands. It was a warm summer night, and she had driven with her 10-year-old to pick up her elder son at a movie theater in a mall; at 14, he was big enough to go to the movies on his own with friends.

Luz Maria (not her real name) swung into the crowded parking lot and around back to the theater entrance. Her teenager was outside waiting for her. All was well.

When she pulled back out into the busy street, she made a wrong turn, then compounded her error by doing a U-turn. A siren blared instantly. Luz Maria glanced at her rearview mirror and saw the ominous sight of a Tucson cop car, its red roof light glowing in the twilight. She pulled over, and the officer lumbered over and scolded her for the traffic infraction. Then he asked for her driver’s license. Luz Maria handed him the only ID she had: her Mexican passport.

Things went fast from there. A Tucson police helicopter clattered over the scene, and a couple of Border Patrol agents arrived within minutes. In full view of her wailing boys, an agent “put handcuffs on me,” Luz Maria says, tearfully. “I never imagined I’d be in handcuffs.”

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The less private detention centers spend on prisoners, the more money t h ey m a ke .

She was allowed to call her sister to come pick up the kids, but not allowed to wait until her sister got there. The Border Patrol agents locked her into the back of their SUV. As she was driven away, she could see her sons, both of them U.S. citizens, in the custody of a complete stranger, a Tucson cop.

A soft-spoken wife and mother who’d never before been in trouble with the law, Luz Maria found herself in a nightmarish otherworld at the Border Patrol lockup. Harsh overhead lights beamed down all night on the cold concrete cell, and the guards were “groseros,” Luz Maria says, rude and gross. “They used bad words. They called us whores.”

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The only drinking water was in a common jug, to be shared by inmates. No cups were provided. The toilet was right in the room, and Luz Maria was mortified that the low wall around it gave her only limited privacy. Worst of all was the deep freeze.

Luz Maria and her cellmate tried to get some rest but “it was very cold,” she says, “We had a cement bench to sleep on,” with no sleeping mats or blankets to ward off the chill.

When it came time for a meal—two frozen beef and bean burritos heated up in a microwave—Luz Maria didn’t even try to eat. Instead, she remembers, “I held the hot burritos against my chest,” using the food to deliver warmth to her hands and her heart.

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after Luz Maria’s night in the hielera—just the first step in her month-long odyssey into America’s immigration detention system—a consortium of legal groups sued the Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector. Filed in 2015, the class-action lawsuit charged that detainees in the agency’s eight holding tanks across Arizona, from Willcox to Ajo, were being held in “inhumane and punitive conditions,” ranging from “filthy holding cells” to “brutally cold temperatures” to denial of “adequate food, water, medicine, and medical care.”

Junk food like the burritos that served as Luz Maria’s portable heaters are also high on the agenda.

“The food issue is one of the claims,” says Nora Preciado, lead attorney for the National Immigration Law Center, one of the parties to the suit. “We claim the food is inadequate nutritionally and in quality. Detainees are not given sufficient food and they often go hungry.”

OT LONG

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The case has yet to go to trial, but by November 2016 the federal judge in the case, U.S. District Judge David C. Bury, took emergency action, declaring that the plaintiffs had “presented persuasive evidence that the basic human needs of detainees are not being met.”

He issued a preliminary injunction, effective immediately, requiring the Border Patrol to provide, among other things, sleeping mats and bedding, cleaner cells, better access to drinking water, and regularly scheduled meals.

“The temperatures seem to be more comfortable now,” says Preciado, who has since conducted monthly inspections at the Tucson hielera to ensure that the Border Patrol is complying.

Detainees are sleeping on mats and wrapping themselves in Mylar “space blankets,” the silver sheets favored by campers. The cells and bathrooms are cleaner. And cups have been added so detainees don’t have to drink out of common water jugs.

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But the food? Not much has changed. The meals are being delivered on a more consistent schedule, Preciado says, but the menu is the same: freezer burritos, sugary juice, and highly processed crackers. Baby food is available only sometimes. And children and pregnant women are still not getting the extra—and more nutritious—food that they’re supposed to get.

And despite the court order, a Mexican immigrant named Miguel Angel, confined in the icebox for two nights in February this year—after the judge issued the injunction—has many of the same complaints as Luz Maria, who cycled through in the prelawsuit days. Caught while driving—a Pima County sheriff’s deputy claimed he was driving too close to another car on Congress Street—Miguel Angel, a 44-year-old construction worker and father of two young American citizens, was taken away by Border Patrol.

“I was in la hielera,” he says recently, sitting on a bench outside downtown’s immigration court, where he had just had a hearing. “It was disgusting.” The food was sparse, “cold sandwiches twice a day, a little juice, and no hot meals,” and his cell was teeming with men, but there were just four toilets, all of them dirty. The men slept on the floor, jammed together like “weenies,” he says, and the space blankets were useless against the chill.

“Always the light was on,” he says. “We were hungry and cold.”

Border Patrol declined to respond, citing a policy of not commenting on issues in litigation.

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P I-10 from Tucson, hidden away in the small towns of Eloy and Florence, four immigration detention centers f lourish, incarcerating people caught by Border Patrol or ICE. The private, for-profit prison company CoreCivic, formerly known as the Corrections Corporation of America, runs three of the centers under contract to ICE. ICE itself runs the fourth. Together, they’re doing their part to lock up some of the 400,000 immigrants the U.S. detains in any given year, at a cost to Americans of $2.3 billion. CoreCivic profits handsomely from this enterprise, raking in fees of about $124 per detainee per day.

Detained immigrants are under civil, not criminal, detention—that’s why they’re not entitled to a lawyer at the government’s expense. Some detainees have been convicted of crimes in the past, done time in jail, and now are in detention awaiting deportation hearings. Many, like Luz Maria and Miguel Angel, have committed no crimes—unlawful presence in the U.S. is a status offense, not a criminal offense. (Crossing the border without papers is a criminal offense.) Whichever group a detainee falls into—those with a conviction or those with a spotless criminal record—no one is supposed to be subjected to penal conditions.

ICE maintains that detention centers are not prisons; nevertheless, the buildings are structured like jails and the detainees are treated like prisoners. The immigrants are housed in tiny cells or crowded bunk rooms. Their days are highly regimented.

An evangelical preacher conducts a service in Eloy for Guatemalan men, many of whom are asylum seekers. Asylum seekers can be locked up for years, away from their families, as they await the outcome of their cases. They don’t know when they’ll get out.

Many suffer from depression. At this emotional service, men were breaking down crying and falling to their knees.

They’re frequently put on lockdown and surly guards threaten them with solitary confinement for infractions. But unlike criminal convicts, detainees have no idea when they’ll be released—or deported.

Some detainees—especially those few who manage to get a lawyer—are freed to pursue their cases on the outside after paying bonds as high as $20,000. But many, especially asylum seekers, can languish in detention for years as their appeals wend their way through the courts.

Seven ex-detainees held by CoreCivic and the spouse of one current detainee were unanimous in telling me that the food they were given was bad and sometimes inedible. Family visits are harshly restricted in CoreCivic’s centers and when family members do come, they’re forbidden to bring in favorite foods—or anything else.

“The food is one of the many things that make detention hard to bear,” says Nina Rabin, a professor at the James E. Rogers College of Law at the University of Arizona and a lawyer who has represented many detained women. “Food is an important 116 September /October 2017

piece. People often talk about stomach pains. The sheer amount of pasta and starch [means] people have low energy, they feel sick. It does impact the ability of people to hang in there and stick with their case.”

After being “processed” in the harrowing Border Patrol holding tank, Luz Maria was incarcerated for a month at CoreCivic’s Eloy Detention Center, infamous for its high death rates: 15 deaths, including five suicides, since 2003. Sprawling across worn-out fields where cotton once grew, co-ed Eloy has 1,596 beds, making it the third largest detention center in the nation. It’s the only one in Arizona that locks up women.

“The food is bad for everyone,” Luz Maria says. She was too distraught from her separation from her husband and two boys and too worried about possible deportation to eat much, but she does remember “no fresh fruits or vegetables” and for breakfast “very watery oatmeal.”

Alexis, a 22-year-construction worker brought from Mexico to the U.S. as a child, was released on July 3 from a one-month stint in Eloy and his memories are fresh.

“The food is one of the many things that make detention hard to bear.

People have low energy, they feel sick.

It does impact the ability of people to hang in there and stick with their case.� edible Baja Arizona

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“The food is so bad,” he says emphatically. “For breakfast we’d have egg that was not an egg: it was water and powder. We had a drink that was water with chemicals, like Kool-Aid ... The oatmeal was so bad no one ate it.”

Lunch might be “green beans from a can with tomato juice—it didn’t taste good.” And the portions were small, with the food scanty enough to fit in your hand, he says. Always hungry, he made do by buying soup in the in-house commissary store. “I waited for the night to eat my own soup.”

CoreCivic’s other Arizona properties, the Central Arizona Detention Center and Florence Correctional Center, are both in the historic prison town of Florence. Miguel Angel, after his two nights in the Tucson icebox, was locked up in Florence Correctional for more than two months, from late February to May this year. The menu was heavy on starches and mystery meats, light on fresh foods.

“The food was very bad,” Miguel Angel says. “We had potatoes at every meal.”

On a typical day, he might have had potatoes and beans for breakfast, he says, more potatoes with “horrible gravy” for lunch, and for dinner still more potatoes, accompanied by mystery meat and a “horrible salad that tasted like garbage.”

Miguel Angel had experienced firsthand the tastier food over at the ICE-run detention center. Before he was dispatched to the private operation, he’d been held at ICE’s Florence Service Processing Center for a couple of days. Known for allowing plenty of outdoor recreation and family visits seven days a week, SPC is admired for its food, so much so that it’s become a national model in the detention world.

“The food was better,” Miguel Angel says. Chicken was on the menu, and the men could enjoy their choice of sodas and juice from a soda bar just like one in a fast food joint. Later, when he’d be taken from CoreCivic to a court hearing in the ICE facility, he got a bag lunch from the ICE-run kitchen.

“It was a sandwich, an apple, potato chips,” he says enthusiastically. “That was the only time we had fresh fruit.”

Leah Sarat, an associate professor in Arizona State University’s School of Historical, Philosophical, and Religious Studies, took a class to visit the ICE center in the fall of 2015.

“The food is pretty good,” she says by phone from Newfoundland. “They prepared a tray for us. They were generous portions. They told us it’s the ‘country club of detention centers.’”

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Even the meat she was served was recognizable. Not so at Eloy, which Sarat visited in the fall of 2016. She and her students were given samples of the kitchen’s handiwork.

“It was bad, truly horrible,” she says. “We had what the menu called chicken-fried steak. But it was a patty, breaded on the outside. You couldn’t tell what type of meat it was. It was the consistency of sawdust. A disgusting mystery meat. It was like dog food.”

The all-beige meal was rounded out, she says, with a roll and maybe a potato.

The comparison between the food at the private centers and the publically run facilities gives ammunition to critics of the for-profits: the less they spend on prisoners, the more money they make. And some 60 percent of the nation’s 250 immigration detention centers are owned and operated by private prison corporations, nominally under the supervision of ICE. “The government pays them to feed you,” says John Ferron, 61, by phone from his home in Wisconsin. A Vietnam vet who came to the U.S. from Jamaica as a kid, in later life he was held in Eloy for three years. “Eloy will find the cheapest thing they can to feed you. The food is terrible. When you think you’re eating ground beef, it’s full of filler. The only real meat is chicken.”

Asked to respond, ICE spokeswoman Yasmeen Pitts O’Keefe said in a written statement that both Eloy and the private Florence detention center “meet ICE’s 2011 Performance Based National Detention Standards … those held at centers receive three meals daily using menus developed by a registered dietitian, who ensures individuals’ unique health, dietary and religious needs are met … The food must be visually appealing, palatable, and taste good.”

Food service at Eloy is contracted out to Trinity Services Group, a Florida-based outfit that calls itself the “leading food service provider to the corrections industry.” On its website, not only does Trinity promise to keep down costs, it also asserts that its food “help(s) reinforce a sense of order and control within your facility.” The nationwide company boasts about saving its customers money through “bulk procurement sourcing.”

Trinity—and Eloy—use detainee labor in the kitchen, a profitable choice that only adds to shareholders’ dividends. Instead of earning the Arizona minimum wage of $10 an hour, the detainees make $1 a day for a shift that typically lasts eight hours.

Elena, a 19-year-old asylum seeker who had escaped brutal violence in Honduras, ended up as a dollar-a-day kitchen worker in Eloy.

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Arriving at Eloy in July 2016 after a perilous journey through the desert, Elena took the kitchen job “to make the time go,” she says, speaking by phone from Texas, where she now lives with her brother after winning her asylum case. To earn that dollar a day, she worked 7½ hours on the breakfast shift, starting at 1 a.m. and finishing up at 8:30.

The watery breakfast eggs she served didn’t taste like eggs, Elena says, and she swears she never saw an actual egg in the kitchen. The morning hot drink was more black water than coffee. Lunch and dinner celebrated the trio of starches that were the lament of every ex-detainee I talked to: pasta, papas y pan. Pasta, potatoes, and bread, sometimes with a little rice thrown in.

“We had pasta always,” Elena sighs. “Hamburgers made of disgusting meat and hot dogs on bread. Chicken every two weeks—that was the only decent thing. They cooked it in the oven.”

Elena says that the tasteless oatmeal Luz Maria and others complained of about was worse than just watery: it was infested with worms.

“I saw them,” Elena says. “I was working in the kitchen and I saw them. I stopped eating the oatmeal and told the other people.”

Elena was released in November 2016, and the oatmeal worms were still thriving in the spring, according to a Mexican detainee named Ana. Ana didn’t arrive in Eloy until January of this year and the two women’s paths never crossed.

“I saw the worms” in another woman’s bowl of oatmeal, Ana says. “They were small and white.”

Agitated fellow detainees gathered around to see them, she recounts, and the guards, to quell the disturbance, marched the women back to their cells and punished them with an hours-long lockdown.

Released from Eloy after four months of detention, Ana is now living in a tidy rental home on Tucson’s south side. “The food at Eloy was very bad,” she says, speaking in her kitchen, where a glorious bunch of yellow bananas presided on a counter. “For breakfast we had pancakes, but they were frozen, hard and cold. There were cartons of milk that were frozen or expired.”

For lunch, they might have “frozen vegetables that were very cold to eat, pasta with green vegetables, rice with disgusting gravy, and everything mixed up together.”

Dinner might be potatoes with gravy or potatoes with mustard. There was always bread, but sometimes it was infected with green mold. On the days when it wasn’t, women would smuggle the bread back to their rooms to eat later, risking punishment.

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Mealtimes were rushed and stressful. “We had 20 minutes: to walk there, get in line, eat and walk back. The guards were always screaming for us to hurry up.”

Ana bought commissary food when her 18-year-old daughter, Stacey, could afford to put money in her account. That didn’t happen often, with Stacey working as a caregiver to pay the family bills, caring for her 8-year-old brother and going to Pima College. When Ana was flush, she’d buy a $7 block of cheese and Ramen noodles for 99 cents.

Ana developed chronic diarrhea in detention, a condition she attributed to the poor diet. Even after she was released, food made her sick. For a month, every time she tried to eat, she’d have an episode of diarrhea. “I was traumatized when I was released,” she says. After two months at home with her daughter and her son, she’s still having nightmares. What are the nightmares about?

“Being locked in a small cell in Eloy,” she says.

Nowadays, like Miguel Angel, Alexis, and John, she’s here legally while pursuing her case outside detention.

As a victim of domestic violence, she’s hoping for a U visa, awarded to immigrants victimized by crimes. And, she says with a smile, she’s taking comfort in her favorite food, chiles rellenos.

Luz Maria is in limbo. She was released from detention, but in the Trump era, when law-abiding mothers and fathers are being deported at higher rates, she fears she’ll be sent back to Mexico. For now, she takes joy in spending time with her jovial husband and her boys. The last time I saw her, she was sitting down to a family dinner, about to eat homemade enchiladas lovingly prepared by her husband.

Tucson journalist Margaret Regan is the author of two books on immigration, Detained and Deported: Stories of Immigrant Families Under Fire, and The Death of Josseline: Immigration Stories from the Arizona Borderlands, both from Beacon Press.

Source photography for illustrations by Jay Rochlin.

Editor’s note: Most of the former detainees interviewed in this article are identified only by their first names, to protect their privacy and safety and to ensure that their statements have no impact on their immigration cases. Pseudonyms are used for several people whose positions are precarious. John Ferron, identified by his full name, is the exception. Ferron has been vocal in the media about his case.

Homestead

Skills for self-sufficient living & eating

Scooping the Coop How to use manure in the Southwestern veggie garden.

By Amy Belk Illustrations by Adela Antoinette

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sing manure from your homestead to help grow the vegetables in your garden is the ultimate in recycling. It solves the problem of what to do with your homestead’s byproducts while helping to reduce the costs of producing your food and reducing the amount of waste that makes it to our landfills. Pima County’s recent amendment to Title 18 in the zoning code reduced some of the restrictions on raising chickens in our backyards, so you might be wondering how chicken manure stacks up to other fertilizers or manures, and how to make the best use of it.

Chicken, horse, and cow manures are most commonly used because they’re readily available and generally safe, but there are a lot of other critters living on our Baja Arizona landscapes, and each type of manure has its own risks and benefits. When aged or composted and used properly, manure can improve the structure and quality of your soil while providing some organic nutrition for your fruits and veggies. If used incorrectly, however, you could end up with burned plants or a nasty stomach bug. It takes patience, a little bit of planning, and a few easy, common sense measures to use most manures safely in your garden.

While it’s often thought of and used primarily as a soil builder rather than a complete fertilizer, manure does contribute slow-releasing nutrients that can energize your plants and the good microbes in your soil. The nutrients available from a manure compost will vary by the type of animal it came from, what it was fed, age of the manure,

and method of composting or aging. We can estimate the nutrient contents in many of the more common manures, but things change as time passes and organic materials are broken down.

The best way to determine how much of your composted material you should use is to get the compost and your garden soil tested.

Once you know the specific nutrient contents of your material and the state of your soil, you can figure out what your application rates should be. Your county extension office is likely to have a list of nearby soil testing laboratories, and they may also be able to help with rate recommendations once you have your results. If you have questions about the composting process, they can help with that, too.

There are a number of reasons why thorough composting is recommended before mixing manures into your soil. Six to 12 months of composting reduces bulk and odor, and breaks nitrogen down into less harmful forms that plants can absorb more easily without the risk of burning. It also kills most of the weed seeds and harmful microbes that can be present in fresh manure. This doesn’t mean that composted manure is completely safe; just that it’s a good deal safer than the fresh stuff. When you’re dealing with edibles you always want to err on the side of caution.

Wear rubber or vinyl gloves and boots that can be properly sanitized after you’re done. It’s best to spread manure well before planting crops, work it six to 10 inches into the soil, and water it thoroughly to leach out extra salts. Composted manure that isn’t

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being mixed into the soil immediately should be covered to help prevent nutrient loss while it waits.

A good time for many of us to plan this chore is just after the last fall harvest, but some of Baja Arizona enjoys a nearly year-round growing season, so a good rule to remember is to mix manure into the soil at least 120 days before harvesting crops that come into direct contact with the soil (carrots, greens), and 90 days before harvesting crops that can be kept off the soil surface (peppers, tomatoes).

Most manures shouldn’t be applied to edible crops that are already growing, even as a side-dressing.

After the compost has been tilled into the soil, add a two- to three-inch layer of mulch over the bed to give a good buffer zone between the soil and your crops. Mulching is a great idea whether you’re using manure or not. It reduces exposure to soilborne pathogens from direct contact with the soil, and from splashing onto plants during storms or overhead watering.

Mulching also aids in moisture retention, regulates soil temperature, and helps protect seeds and seedlings from predators. Trellises and grow cages can provide plants with extra support to keep fruit and branches up off of the ground wherever possible. (As always, wash your hands after working in the garden, and make sure to wash your fruits and veggies before putting them on your plate.)

For health reasons, don’t use manure from your dog or cat in the garden. Manure from herbivores is generally considered safe, but there are a lot of questions about the potential for carnivore manure to carry pathogens that transmit easily to humans.

I’ve excluded pig manure from this discussion for the same reason, even though its use isn’t uncommon.

How do they stack up? Compared to synthetic fertilizers and some organic fertilizers, the nutrient contents of most manures are fairly low. It will take more pounds of composted manure than pounds of synthetic fertilizer to get the right amount of nitrogen to your garden, but manure releases nutrients more slowly, and builds better soil in the process.

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Earthworm castings are the safest and easiest to use, and since a vermicomposting bin can be set up even in a studio apartment under the kitchen sink, this is an increasingly popular soil builder. The nutrients are extremely variable, depending on what the worms were fed to produce each batch of castings. This is the only manure on the list that you can use as a side dressing for plants that are already growing, but it can still burn the roots of sensitive seedlings. Use your castings to make a tea to get the biggest return for your efforts. (Check out Zotero Citlalcoatl’s three-part series “Grow Your Soil” at EdibleBajaArizona.com for the ultimate vermicomposting guide.)

Cow manure is easy to purchase (already composted) at super low rates. It’s popular because the bovine multistomach processing does a great job of breaking down the bad stuff and infusing the manure with lots of good gut bacteria that benefit our soil organisms. Dairy cows have a diet different from cattle, so their patties are different, too. Dairy cow manure has around 0.5 to 2 percent nitrogen, 0.1 to 0.5 percent phosphorus, and 0.3 to 1.5 percent potassium. Steer manure has 0.5 to 1.5 percent nitrogen, 0.2 to 0.7 percent phosphorus, and 0.5 to 2 percent potassium.

Don’t use more than one pound per square foot per year.

Chicken manure is high in nitrogen, which is why it’s sometimes called “hot.” It’s normally weed and disease free, especially after composting, but using it fresh or using too much can easily burn your plants.

This manure is more like a fertilizer than the others; it breaks down quickly and doesn’t last very long.

On average, fresh chicken manure contains 1.6 to 4.3 percent nitrogen, 0.5 to 2 percent phosphorus, and 0.9 to 2 percent potassium. Generally, don’t add more than half a pound per square foot per year.

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Horses don’t have the fantastic stomach setup that cows do. Their manure is more likely to contain some unpleasant seeds, so it should always be composted before adding it to your garden. Of course, if the horses are yours then you have a lot of influence on the quality of feed and thus the quality of their manure. Horse manure has about 0.5 to to 0.9 percent nitrogen, 0.1 to 0.15 percent phosphorus, and 0.2 to 0.6 percent potassium. It’s rich in nitrogen but tends to have lower levels of phosphorus and potassium, so it’s a better choice for leafy veggies than it is for the ones that we want to flower. Limit applications to 1¼ pounds per square foot per year.

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Rabbit manure comes in small, convenient pellets that are also virtually odorless. The high phosphorus content is great for a boost to flowering, but also helps plants with resiliency and drought tolerance. Earthworms are pretty fond of this stuff, so you might consider starting a worm bin directly under the hutch for a jump start on the composting. Rabbit droppings are variable in nutrient content, but averages are around 2.4 to 3 percent nitrogen, 1.4 to 2.8 percent phosphorus, and 0.6 to 1.3 percent potassium.

Goat and sheep manures are favored by some for being nearly odorless, and they have lower nitrogen contents, so they’re less likely to burn your plants. They start out fairly dry, are easy to compost, and benefit the soil over a longer period of time. Diets, and thus nutrient contents, can vary, but averages are around 0.7 to 2 percent nitrogen (or up to 4 percent in pellets from holding pens), 0.2 to 0.6 percent phosphorus, and 0.7 to 2.8 percent potassium for sheep and goat manure. Use no more than ⅔ pound per square foot per year.

Amy Belk is a garden writer and photographer, a certified arborist, and a certified nursery professional who has been learning from her garden for 16 years. She and her husband homestead on a little piece of the desert in the heart of Tucson.

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Homestead

The Elder Olive Considering a new cultivation.

By Dena Cowan | Illustrations by Adela Antoinette

W

hen I was growing up in Tucson, the

most hideous chore at our house was picking up the zillions of shriveled little purple olives off the gravel where they had fallen from the big old olive tree. That tree was already big and old when my family moved into the house in 1968.

Apart from some runoff from the roof, it has never been irrigated, and still it is an extremely productive and resilient tree. In that yard there were also several citrus trees, but they all succumbed over the years to varying diseases, leaving the old olive alone to shade and preside majestically over our entryway.

Considering that a mature olive tree can produce 400 pounds of olives per year, it may have yielded 19,200 pounds of fruit since my family moved into the house, and yet it had never occurred to us to cure those olives and render them edible. We just despised having to pick them up.

Times have changed.

Olea europaea is an evergreen of Mediterranean origin. It is heat and drought tolerant, prefers poor alkaline soils, and withstands some frost. Olives are slow growing and can live up to thousands of years.

Easily propagated from cuttings, they were brought into cultivation on the southwestern coast of the Levant 10,000 years ago. Phoenicians took them to Iberia, where bread, wine, and olive oil became the essential diet. Spanish colonists introduced them into the Pimeria Alta in the 1750s. Olives thrived so well under cultivation in colonial North America that King Charles III of Spain found it necessary to impose a protectionist embargo and in 1777 ordered the destruction of all existing olives in New Spain.

The towering olive trees on the University of Arizona campus are among Tucson’s oldest trees, planted in the 1890s by Robert Forbes, the dean of the university’s

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foundational College of Agriculture. He believed growers should adapt to the land (not vice versa), so for Arizona he experimented with crops such as olives, cotton, and dates from Mediterranean regions with similar climates and soil types. While both cotton and dates became successful cash crops for Arizona, olives never really took off. Producers couldn’t compete with the low price of imported olive products from abroad.

Today, the European Union spends billions of euros every year subsidizing olive production, which has become such a lucrative business that it has led to massive exploitation of a single crop system. Traditionally olives were grown in limited areas, but now are planted on every possible inch of land, causing environmental degradation and increased susceptibility to disease, such as the Xylella fastidiosa, a bacterial pathogen that is rapidly spreading throughout Mediterranean olive growing lands. In a sea of olives the spread of a pathogen like this could potentially wipe out the entire industry.

I recently visited an ancient olive grove belonging to my friends Juani and Salva in a small town in Jaen, Spain. Juani’s father was a professional olive tree pruner and her family’s olive grove is inherited from the Moors. Some of their trees are 600 years old and yet they were laden with hundreds of pounds of fruit. They showed me how with proper care and traditional pruning methods that ensure productive branches are never rough and wrinkly, but smooth and supple, the trees renew themselves and can remain perpetually youthful and productive.

Unfortunately for olive lovers in Pima County, it is currently illegal to plant food-bearing olive trees. During the mid-20th century many doctors recommended that patients with respiratory ailments move to places with arid climates such as Arizona. Large numbers of allergy-afflicted people did move here and their progeny may have inherited a predisposition to allergies. In 1984, when the Pima County Board of Supervisors passed the nation’s only ordinance banning the sale and planting of olive trees, Tucson had twice the national rate of respiratory allergies. At that time the value of producing food locally was not widely recognized. Is it time to reassess this ban?

With a pressing need to adopt heat- and drought-tolerant crops and increasing appreciation for the Mediterranean diet, especially the health benefits of olive oil, there are a few new commercial olive-growing initiatives around Arizona, for a total of 500 acres in Yuma County, the Gila River Indian Community, the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation, and Queen Creek Olive Farm and Mill (the only olive oil processing mill in Arizona). In Mexico, since 1975, there has been a push to revive olive cultivation. In the 130 September /October 2017

region of Caborca, Sonora, there are some 5,000 acres devoted to groves for table olives. Olives grow best in USDA Hardiness Zones 9 to 11; the lowlands of central and western Baja Arizona range from Zones 9a to 10a. Olives will survive and produce with very little irrigation, although for mature trees approximately 30 inches of water a year is optimal. Many other tree crops, such as citrus, require almost twice that amount.

In Baja Arizona, olives generally ripen from October to December. The best time to harvest is when the skin is still firm and beginning to blush. Table olives must be cured to rid them of bitterness. This entails soaking them in a lye or salt solution, or dry salt. There are many recipes for seasoning olives once they have been cured.

In the fall of 2015, Tucson olive trees produced a bumper crop.

My partner and I harvested many pounds from a few branches of the old tree at my childhood home. We tried several different curing methods: soaking in brine for several weeks, turning every day or every few days, until the bitterness was down to desired level; soaking in brine, rinsing olives and changing brine every day, or every few days, for several weeks, to taste; and covering with rock salt, until olives had released bitterness. The dry-salted olives need no seasoning, just a coat of olive oil. To flavor the brine-soaked olives I used what I had in the kitchen: a few cloves of garlic, dried oregano, dried cilantro seeds, cured lemon rinds and a couple of small chiles.

I cut slits in the olives before brining, to let the flavor in, and topped off the jars with fresh water and a few drops of olive oil to insulate the olives from the air.

During our family gathering at Christmas we brought out our bottles of the first edible olives ever to be wrought from the old tree, along with some of our favorite olives from the Caravan Mideastern Foods store. We ladled each of the different olives into little bowls that we laid out in a row on the table, and hosted our family’s first annual blind olive taste-test. Although my partner insists I somehow tipped the scale in my favor, my recipe won first place. As I gloated over this triumph, I thought back to the despicable task of picking up the dreaded droppings from that old tree. I could never have imagined how I would eventually come to cherish it so.

Dena Cowan is community outreach coordinator at Mission Garden, Tucson’s Agricultural Heritage Museum. The Garden has an exemption from the Pima County olive ban, and was granted special permission to plant olive trees collected from the UA trees that Robert Forbes planted in the 1890s. They are Mission and Manzanilla varieties, which Forbes determined were best suited to our region.

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Homestead

Rehabbing the Environment Borderlands Restoration has been supporting ecosystem regeneration on public and private lands across Baja Arizona since 2012.

By Craig S. Baker | Photography Nieves MontaÑo

I

M AGINE :

You’re standing at the high point of a desert watershed—a hilltop with mesquite, aloe, and ocotillo scattered amid a sea of desert shrubs, grasses, and wildflowers. Too many species to name. The numerous pollinators supported by those plants—several hundred species of native bees, more than 200 types of butterflies, plus moths, hummingbirds, and bats—dart about in search of the sweet nectar hidden inside each individual flower. That nectar-seeking behavior increases the productivity of the plants, and the resulting feast of fruits, seeds, and flowers attracts a cadre of reptiles, mammals, and birds to the area. Those animals draw others, too—not to gorge on hyperproductive plants, but to eat the other animals. The droppings they leave fertilize the soil and deposit undigested seeds. Nutrients recycle into the earth as old growth decays, further increasing the diversity and resilience of the ecosystem.

Then something changes. A shift in policy, say, opens the previously undeveloped land to use by ranchers. Cattle and horses begin to nibble at the greenery. And though the environmental impact of this particular sort of human use falls far short of highway construction, residential development, or mining, nothing is without its effect. The livestock pull up mouthfuls of native plants by the roots, methodically grazing until the layer of dirt below is revealed, then move on to the next patch and repeat.

The rains come. Water flows from the hilltop down to the surrounding plains, before it ultimately evaporates, infiltrates the ground, pools, or finds the sea. But, with the diverse tangle of plants that once covered this imaginary watershed thinned, the water moves faster across the land than ever before. It cuts into the earth forming gullies, trenches, and washes that continue to deepen over time. The ecosystem naturally begins to favor drought-tolerant plants. Water-loving species disappear, along with their flowers, and a portion of the pollinators abandon the area. With the diversity of pollinators goes the supercharged plant productivity, and other species follow. Imagine an ecosystem in decline.

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Now imagine that there’s something you can do about it.

Just north of Patagonia, Deep Dirt Farm Institute (DDFI) sits on 34 acres of rolling hills and desert grassland. Kate Tirion, DDFI’s founder and executive director, says that although many ecominded individuals have been made to feel “kind of hopeless” with regard to their ability to act against human-caused environmental destruction, DDFI is a place of empowerment.

“When you actually give people an opportunity … to do a hands-on project,” Tirion says, “when you’re actually touching that work, you’re physically engaged in it, there’s a memory that happens in your cells and it says ‘Yes, I can, as an individual, do something about the global situation.’”

DDFI is the demonstration site for the local naturalist group known as Borderlands Restoration. At DDFI, you’ll find numerous structures made with reclaimed and sustainable materials fitted to harvest rainwater, a roughly 1,400-square-foot greenhouse with food plants and native pollinator species, composting and soil-enrichment systems, and a small orchard meant to provide food and hardwood resources in the long term. “What we’re demonstrating here is the restoration of the underlying processes of the watershed,” says Tirion. “So we’re dealing first and foremost with erosion and rainwater infiltration, then we’re growing and putting in native pollinator plants in support of wildlife.” The idea, she says, is to both rehabilitate and maximize the production of the natural landscape, and to then integrate those processes with human demands on the land. And, she says, their success has been measurable—DDFI has infiltrated more rainwater into the water table than they’ve used over the last five years.

Where the efforts of DDFI have shown that small-scale habitat restoration is achievable, partner organization Borderlands Kate Tirion is the founder of Deep Dirt Farm Institute, the demonstration site for the Patagonia-based naturalist group known as Borderlands Restoration.

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Restoration has been implementing the same habitat solutions on public and private lands across Baja Arizona since 2012. Operating on a budget of $500,000 a year, most of which comes from grants from organizations like the Bureau of Land Management or the U.S. Forest Service, cofounder and executive director David Seibert sees the group as stewards of what he calls “the actual infrastructure of the nation—the ground we walk on.”

Although there is currently no public entity entrusted with maintaining and improving the country’s habitats and ecosystems in the face of threats like soil degradation, flooding, or fire damage, Seibert doesn’t think it’s “too much of a stretch” to imagine such a network in place at some point. In the same way that governments put money aside to fight wildfires, for example, Seibert says it seems rational to do the same in order to rehabilitate land after a fire. And, he says, Borderlands Restoration and a number of their partner groups would be more than happy to be seen as the “hotshot crews of restoration.”

Today, Borderlands Restoration is at work on 16 contracts, ranging from creating wildlife habitat and linkages between those habitats, to propagating and planting pollinator species, to restoring and managing water flow on a variety of public and private watersheds. They offer a handful of volunteer opportunities during which participants can learn about the care and propagation of native plant species and, beginning this year, thanks to a six-figure grant from the nonprofit Biophilia Foundation, Borderlands was able to hold the first six-week session focused on teaching that methodology to students at their newly established Borderlands Restoration Leadership Institute—a program they intend to continue indefinitely.

For those looking to get their hands dirty before the next round of Borderlands classes kicks off in 2018, Tirion says that, although DDFI currently has no regular volunteer opportunities to speak of, they are willing to work with interested community members to build custom workshops around their needs.

For more information on Borderlands Restoration or the Borderlands Restoration Leadership Institute, visit BorderlandsRestoration.org and BorderlandsInstitute.org. For more on Deep Dirt Farm Institute, visit DeepDirtInstitute.org.

Craig S. Baker is a local freelance writer. You can see more of his work at CraigSBaker.com.

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Farm Report What’s in season on Baja Arizona farms.

By Rachel Wehr | Photography by Liora K

E

A R LY FA L L in Baja Arizona offers a sneak peek into cooler nights and relief from overwhelming summer heat. Nevertheless, temperatures remain high and days continue to be long, offering between 11 and 12 hours of daylight through the end of October. For farmers, these months are focused on extending the season of summer crops, harvesting, and preparing for the winter ahead.

For Jeremy Markley of Markley Farms in Sunsites, east of the Dragoon Mountains, these months bring a bounty of tomatoes to be harvested from the greenhouse. “September and October are really busy because we still have a lot of hours of sunlight,” says Markley. For Markley, hours of sunlight translate to tomato production. “We will be harvesting on a daily basis,” he says.

Markley also pollinates every day by hand. Typically, tomatoes grown in the field are wind-pollinated. But with little wind movement within a greenhouse, farmers have the choice of mechanically pollinating the flowers or maintaining a beehive within the greenhouse. Markley uses a homemade

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pollinator made with a weight and a counterbalance attached to a stick that vibrates and scatters the pollen. This is a careful process. “You don’t touch the flowers themselves or else the tomatoes would get scarred,” says Markley. “You touch the calyx and watch the pollen move.” The calyx includes the green sepals that surround the stem.

Other farm duties include minor grafting of tomato plants.

At Markley Farms, each tomato plant is grafted onto another plant in order to increase its height. “Every couple of months we will graft again,” says Markley. “We will do it by September and October to fill up the greenhouse for the winter.”

Markley Farms grows 20 tomato varieties, including cherry tomatoes, big red tomatoes, and a blend of heirloom varieties.

Markley’s personal favorites are the Steak Sandwich, a classic big red tomato, and Japanese black trifele, a dark rich-flavored tomato. Other popular varieties include Lorenzo, an acid-free variety; Tie-Dye (hybrid); Sun Gold; and Black Cherry. All 20 varieties are sold at the Heirloom Farmers’ Market at Rillito Park and the Rincon Valley Farmers’ Market.

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These months are not only for continuing production of warm weather crops, but preparing for and planting winter crops as well. “During September through April and May, we can grow a phenomenal amount of different kinds of produce because the temperatures are milder,” says Eunice Park, co-owner of Larry’s Veggies in Marana. “We consider that our summer,” says Park, comparing Baja Arizona’s mild fall, winter, and spring to the summer growing season in other parts of the country.

“In September and October, we will be finishing off summer crops and rounding off the end of the season,” says Park. Summer crops at market will include canary melons, potatoes, onions, garlic, okra, summer squash, and eggplant. Larry’s Veggies also hopes to be harvesting jalapeños, assuming the plants make it through monsoon season. “We grow outdoors so it’s susceptible to whatever Mother Nature decides that she wants to bring to us,” says Park.

“We will be working diligently on fall and winter crops,” says Park. Fall and winter crops at the farm include greens like kale, spinach, lettuce, and chard as well as cauliflower and beets. Fall also marks the beginning season of hard squashes like butternut and spaghetti squash. Larry’s Veggies sells at the Heirloom Farmers’ Market at Rillito Park, Green Valley, Trail Dust Town, and Oro Valley.

For young crops bolstered by monsoon rains, September and October bring strong plants with much to harvest. “We will most likely have our squash coming up and our 60-day white corn ready to harvest,” says Raymond Antone, food production assistant at San Xavier Co-op Farm in Tucson. The farm grows a variety of traditional O’odham crops including yellow-fleshed melons, squash, and a few varieties of both corn and beans.

“We should have some good-sized ha:l by September and October,” says Antone. H:al (pronounced, roughly, haahr) is a traditional Tohono O’odham squash harvested soft-skinned in summer, hard-shelled in fall for winter storage. These giant, well-loved squash have a mild, sweet f lavor. The squash is typically prepared by steaming or boiling and is delicious in both sweet and savory dishes. “You can eat the seeds too,” says Antone. “It’s very versatile.”

Chile plants on the farm will produce through September and October. San Xavier will also be harvesting white tepary, red tepary beans, and cowpeas by late October. Fall fruits are also a jewel to keep an eye out for in early fall. “By October, we will have lots of pomegranates, both white and red,” says Antone.

Crops from the San Xavier Co-op Farm are at sold at the farm store just south of Tucson and at the Santa Cruz River Farmers’ Market at Mercado San Agustín on Thursdays.

Rachel Wehr is a Tucson-based freelance journalist. She spends her free time in nature among cactus and pines.

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Tacos Are Always In Season Exploring the filling, flavorful world of vegetarian tacos.

Text and photography by Shelley Lawrence Kirkwood

L

reasonable people, I love tacos. More specifically, I love the ones with lots of meat.

The tacos of my youth were stuffed with dubiously seasoned ground beef; bits of shredded cheese and anemic produce scattered with each crunchy bite. You know the ones.

Grocery shelves across America are still stocked with those preternaturally yellow stacks of rounded shells for good reason.

It wasn’t really until my college years that I understood the breadth of flavors and ingredients that tacos could encompass.

La Veracruzana, an always-busy counter service restaurant in Western Massachusetts, was the locus for my initial education in Mexican cooking. In retrospect, I probably got more out of that experience than the liberal arts degree. Over the course of a few years of working at La V, my Mexican and Salvadoran coworkers patiently helped me to learn Spanish and make tortillas, enfrijoladas, aguas frescas, rice pudding, and mole. I also learned that spectacular vegetarian food existed outside the realm of Tofurky and tempeh-style meat replacement.

IKE MOST

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Thinking about my time in that one-car-garage-size kitchen helped inspire this group of taco recipes. The guiding premise was to develop a sense of meatiness and balance in the fillings, without actually including meat. I find that I am often turned off by vegetarian tacos because they are either too starchy, or lacking in depth of both flavor and oppositional textures. So these recipes are designed to hit the spot, but also to nourish. Be sure each taco includes some fat and some crunch; cilantro, toasted pepitas, lime wedges, avocado, radish should ideally be on the table, along with the crema, pickled carrots, extra lettuce, and pomegranates in the recipes. A bowl of queso fresco is a good idea as well. Many of the ingredients will still be available in the fresh markets in the early fall months, including beans, pomegranates, cilantro, basil, corn, radishes, and carrots. You should even be able to find a few ripe peaches.

This is the best food for a backyard gathering for the cooler evenings to come—though tacos are always in season.

Pinquito Tacos with Peach and Onion Jam Santa Maria Pinquito beans can be found at the Sunday Heirloom Farmers’ Market at Rillito Park. The beans are native to California, and often used with barbecue, but I love their meaty flavor and diminutive size. I like to cook them slightly al dente. Plain pinto beans will work great, too. Buy them fresh, and be sure to soak and cook with salt to avoid mushy starchiness.

Ingredients: 2 cups cooked Pinquito or pinto beans 3-4 small, very ripe peaches, diced to ½ inch 1 cup yellow onion, diced 1½ tablespoons light brown sugar 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil 1 tablespoon lime juice 1 cup chiffonade romaine lettuce 1 cup pomegranate seeds

Instructions: Soak beans for at least 8 hours or overnight, rinse and follow cooking instructions. Sauté the onions with olive oil for 5 minutes over medium heat. Add the sugar and sauté another 7 minutes. Increase heat to high for 2 minutes. In a separate pan, cook the peaches over medium heat for 10 minutes, adding small amounts of water if the liquid from the peaches dries completely. Combine peaches and onions. Add lime juice. Serve the taco with a layer of the cooked peach mixture, a layer of beans, and some lettuce.

Garnish with pomegranate seeds. Serves 10.

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Double Corn Tortillas After breaking a few tortilla presses over the years, I have decided that handrolling tortillas is easy enough, so I just opt to save the shelf space. The fresh corn will add texture and dimension to your tortilla. I use Rick Bayless’ advice and cook between two cast-iron skillets set at different temperatures, in part because I find the two griddles makes it easier and faster to create an assembly line, particularly if I am making a large volume of tortillas. Use ghee in place of butter if you enjoy the flavor. For this, and for all the recipes, I recommend using Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt. Leave some fleur de sel or other finishing salt on the table, too.

Ingredients: 2 cups hot filtered water 3 cups masa harina de maíz 1 cup fresh corn, preferably cut fresh from 1 large, steamed or roasted ear 2 tablespoons butter 2 sheets plastic wrap, approximately 12 by 12 inches Instructions: Melt butter. Combine masa, butter, and water with a spatula. Knead the dough for 2 to 3 minutes. If the dough is too dry, add water 1 teaspoon at a time until it is pliable, but not sticky.

Cover with plastic and allow the dough to sit for 30 minutes. The wait time is important. Knead in the corn, and roll golfball-sized balls of dough. After resting, the dough will probably need a touch more water. Roll each ball to ⅛-inch thickness using a rolling pin, or press between two flat surfaces, such as cake pans. If the edges begin to crack, press against the edges through the plastic wrap to smooth.

Flip each tortilla into your palm before placing on a cast-iron skillet at medium heat. Cook for 30 seconds. Transfer to the medium-high skillet, and cook the other side for 30 seconds, and go back to the first side for 30-45 seconds, being careful not to overcook. Stack and cover with a clean hand towel. Makes 20 tortillas.

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Cashew, Basil, and Avocado Crema This is an item that should be made close to when you are eating and finished the same night. It doesn’t refrigerate well.

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Ingredients: ¾ cup raw cashews 1 large Haas avocado ½ cup fresh lime juice ⅓ cup water 1 shallot, minced 4-5 large basil leaves Kosher salt to taste

Instructions: Pour 2 cups boiling water over the cashews and soak for 1 to 3 hours.

Using a food processor, combine all ingredients, and blend until smooth. Add water gradually until it reaches desired consistency.

Carrot Quick Pickles These are great on tacos, salads, and sandwiches.

Ingredients: 2 large or 3 medium carrots, shredded 1 cup filtered water 1 cup apple cider vinegar 1 tablespoon local honey (I use Freddy Terry’s Apiaries) ½ teaspoon turmeric ½ teaspoon salt ½ jalapeño, seeded and diced (optional) Instructions: Bring water, vinegar, honey, turmeric, jalapeño, and salt to a simmer. Turn off heat. Place carrots in a jar and pour the brine over. Cover and refrigerate. Ideally, eat within 1 to 48 hours, but keep them for up to a week.

Potato and Carrot Tacos I like to add avocado to these tacos, plus a pinch of picked carrots and a sprinkle of queso fresco.

Ingredients: 3 medium Yukon Gold potatoes diced into ¼-inch cubes 2 medium carrots, diced into ¼ inch cubes 1 medium-to-large shallot, finely minced 2 cloves garlic, minced 1½ teaspoon Hungarian paprika ½ teaspoon cumin Handful cilantro, chopped 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil or ghee 1 teaspoons salt Instructions: Put potato and carrots in a saucepan. Cover with water and add 1 teaspoon of salt. Bring to a boil, and par-cook for 5 minutes. Dry on paper towels.

Warm 2 tablespoons oil or ghee on medium-high heat, ideally in cast iron, and add spices. Cook for about a minute, until fragrant. Add shallots.

Cook until translucent. Add potato and carrot.

Sauté for about six minutes. Add garlic, and remaining oil. Sauté for about 5 more minutes, until fragrant and slightly browned. Be sure to keep the vegetables moving over the heat so that they do not burn. Add cilantro. Serves 10.

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Smoky Mushroom “Chorizo” and Egg My goal in devising the recipe was to maintain a drier consistency, so (as always) do not wash your mushrooms.

Instead, brush them or wipe with a paper towel, and do not add water or oil to the pan when you cook them down. This dish can be served with or with-out the scrambled egg (or tofu if you go vegan).

I make it with fresh, soft-scrambled egg.

Ingredients: 12 ounces (about 20 to 25) button or baby portabella mushrooms, diced to a nearly a ground-beef-like consistency 2 medium shallots, finely diced ½ sweet white onion, finely diced 2 medium cloves fresh garlic, minced 1 cup cooked quinoa 1 teaspoon smoked Spanish paprika 1 teaspoon Hungarian paprika 1 teaspoon ancho chile powder 1 teaspoon dried Mexican oregano 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar 1 teaspoon salt Sprinkle of coriander 3 fresh eggs Instructions: Follow quinoa directions on bag, but be sure to rinse well before cooking to remove its bitter flavor. Cook mushrooms on medium high in a cast-iron skillet, stirring constantly until water evaporates. Set aside in a mesh strainer. Add oil to the pan. Add the spices, shallots, and onion. Cook until translucent. Add the mushrooms, quinoa, vinegar, and salt. Sauté, for about 5 more minutes. If you are adding egg, whisk, lower the heat, and cook until just done. Be sure not to rubberize the eggs. Serves 10.

Shelley Lawrence Kirkwood earned her MFA in photography from the University of Arizona in 2003. She is a devoted home cook and mother of two children. She has written for The Boston Globe, Connecticut Magazine, and Art Papers Magazine.

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BUZZ

Spirit of Local What makes a distillate native to its place?

By Luke Anable | Photography by Julie De Marre

S

PIR ITS 101: A spirit is the product of distillation. Alcohol is created through fermentation, the natural process in which yeast consume available sugars and produce alcohol. So, a quick family tree of two basic spirits: Grains are fermented into beer and can be distilled into whiskey; grapes are fermented in wine and can be distilled into brandy or grappa.

Distilled spirits, then, are at least two degrees of evolution from their origin—tertiary transformations (beer into whiskey) based on secondary transformations (grain into beer). The further a product is from its raw state, the more complicated the question of its localism becomes. Although the ingredients used in a distillate are important, the techniques and human choices that transform those ingredients also play a part in a spirit’s composition.

So what, then, constitutes a capital L Local spirit? A whiskey that was distilled locally? A whiskey made from Arizona grain? A gin flavored with native microflora? A brandy aged in a Sonoita wine cellar?

“The more I think about it,” says Nathan Thompson Avelino, the head distiller of Hamilton Distillers, “the more I’m not a fan of that word, ‘local.’ The term itself is black and white but it’s not that cut-and-dried with spirits … There are so many phases and stages and metamorphoses that take place—if you get an orange from California and bring it to a farmers’ market in Arizona and say it’s local, that’s disingenuous.”

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In the world of spirits, the equivalent of this California orange is known as GNS, grain neutral spirit. GNS is shorthand for industrially produced, bulk alcohol made by constantly redistilling grain until the character of the raw materials has been completely stripped away. The resulting spirit is pure but without complexity or nuance. A small distillery may purchase GNS and manipulate it in some way—it can be redistilled, diluted, aged, flavored—but whether these manipulations constitutes a local spirit is up for debate. For instance, “If you source GNS and bring it to your distillery there’s a lot of decisions you still have to make,” says Thompson Avelino. Not to mention: “It’s probably going to live through a Tucson summer or two.”

Even if the raw ingredients weren’t cultivated locally, the regional climate will affect how the spirit evolves—a whiskey matures differently in Tucson than it does in Kentucky (or, for that matter, in Scotland) due to differences in humidity, atmospheric pressure, and daily temperature fluctuations. In this sense, a spirit aged in Tucson, even if it wasn’t made here, will bear the traces of our local environment and have a legitimate claim to a sense of regionalism. And while Hamilton Distillers does make everything they age, not everyone does. The difference between the two degrees of localism is often unclear.

Flying Leap's custom-made still is a temple of copper, steel, and glass that marries form and function.

Like many American agricultural products, the recent history of spirits is one of monopolization, industrialized production, and savvy marketing. These processes erase both the origins of a product and the labor invested in it. To understand what “localism” means in terms of spirits, then, is to rediscover their raw origins and the productive practices that created them.

“Obviously all spirits used to be local,” says Thompson Avelino.

“Now we’re reverse engineering it.”

Hamilton Distillers was built around a simple-sounding idea: To make a scotch-like local whiskey using mesquite smoke rather than the traditional peat smoke used in Scotland.

The crux of this idea, the mesquite smoking, meant that Hamilton had to malt grain, a process which is typically

outsourced by American whiskey makers, craft or otherwise.

Malting is the difficult process of sprouting barley seeds with heat and moisture and then lightly kilning them so as to halt the germination process. Once Thompson Avelino and Hamilton Distillers’ founder, Stephen Paul, learned how to malt, their in-house malting process made their smoked whiskey, Dorado, one of the most local, labor intensive and, even on a national scale, innovative spirits on the market.

Learning to malt barley has also given the distillery the option of working with locally grown grain. Local, it seems, begets local. “We’re lucky that Stephen made a product that required local ingredients and a hands-on approach that’s built in,” says Thompson Avelino.

(From left) Mark Beres, Rolf-Peter Sasse, and Marc Moeller distill excess grapes from their Elgin winery.

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(From left) Hamilton Distillers' Stephen Paul, Nathan Thompson Avelino, and Ramon Olivas take raw grain and distill it into whiskey.

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O PU T I T ANOT H E R WAY , when “the authenticity of the product is a function of the product itself,” the producer isn’t forced “to do any of the fake phony bullshit that goes on,” says Mark Beres, a cofounder of Flying Leap Vineyards & Distillery, a winery in Elgin. Beres and his partner, Marc Moeller, began distilling some of their extra grape harvest last year, and the authenticity of his products—grape cordials, vodkas, and brandies distilled from the wineries own grapes—is unassailable.

Beres’ decision to build a distillery was a solution to a problem that had dogged the winery for years—overproduction, which he describes as “the kiss of death around here.” Forty of Flying Leap’s 100 acres of land are in cultivation. These

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vineyards produce about 100 tons of grapes, a significant volume of fruit that, when processed, yields more wine than the regional market can support.

With distillation, says Beres, “I can take the surplus, condense it down to something I can easily store. It doesn’t cost me that much to make it, I can sell it for a pretty good margin, and I can get it to market quickly … It’s win-win.”

The fact that, for Flying Leap, distillation is a solution to a problem is crucial to Beres. “I’m a businessman,” he says. The decision to produce spirits “is the manifestation of a business strategy … not some guys toying around.” Because the goal of this business strategy is to deal with a surplus of estate-grown grapes, the distillery will never source nonlocal grapes. In this way, Flying

(Top) Flying Leap's Arizona-grown and -distilled brandy.

(Bottom) From left: Whiskey del Bac's Clear Mesquite Smoked, Distillers Cut Cask Strength, and Dorado Mesquite Smoked whiskeys.

Leap, like Hamilton Distillers, is protected from compromising what they feel is the authenticity of their product.

When the source of a product is less transparent, to use one of Beres’ favorite words, the “chicanery” begins. The not-uncommon “idea that taking purchased neutral corn spirit, sticking it in your still, and redistilling it and then cutting it with your well water somehow makes it distinctively local,” Beres says, “is 100 percent pure bullshit.”

As Beres describes the massive undertaking that was building the facility, he speaks with both an expert’s articulate remove and a youthful wonderment at the sheer scale of the project. Building a distillery that can process tens or hundreds of tons of raw material is daunting and, regionally, unprecedented. “The infrastructure

needed,” says Beres, “and the training required to produce wine are like child’s play compared to making spirits.”

If the decisions and intentions of the distillery contribute to a product’s localism, as Thompson Avelino suggested, then Flying Leap’s distinct brand of ambition surely leaves a mark on the products created in its still. A temple of copper, steel, and glass that marries form and function, the custom-made still gives Flying Leap’s head distiller Rolf-Peter Sasse options and control over the process. Depending on where the alcohol vapors that boil up from the bottom of the copper pot still are directed, the distiller can create a super refined vodka-type of spirit, ready to be sold immediately, or a more rustic, complex brandy-like spirit which can then mature in barrels. While the latter ages, arguably

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Noel Patterson discovered distilling after making a batch of prickly pear wine that fell flat.

becoming more “local” as it interacts with the seasons and climate, the former is sold out of the tasting room and helps maintain the cash flow at Flying Leap. And even if we are compelled to think of one type of spirit as more local than the other—vodka, arguably, lacks the complexity in which one finds something like terroir in spirits—one could not exist with out the other.

Similarly, Hamilton Distillers also offers a white spirit, the unaged version of their mesquite whiskey, which was crucial to their early success, generating cash flow while their other whiskeys aged in barrels. Tucson’s embrace of this unaged spirit allowed the distillery to gradually increase both the length of time and the size of the barrel in which their aged whiskeys rested.

It is these recent, relatively older, whiskeys that have garnered press from the likes of Esquire magazine (listed among “The 10 Best Whiskeys in the Country”) and Forbes (“10 Best American Craft Whiskies for Father’s Day”).

But Hamilton “would not be making the whiskey they’re making now if Tucson hadn’t supported them through the initial steps,” says Noel Patterson, a friend, fan, and fellow local distiller.

In the debate over localism in spirits, it is important to note that regional distilleries, like their products, mature over time.

A neomoonshiner of sorts himself, Patterson paused to consider “the word itself, to distill.” In a literary sense, we often borrow this term when we want to describe the action of “concentrating something to its truest, most essential form,” says 154 September /October 2017

Patterson. He discovered the truth of this phenomenon when making a batch of wild prickly pear wine. The harvest was one of the best he had witnessed; the cactus fruit was ripe and abundant and had what he felt was the perfect balance of sweetness and acidity. Unfortunately the wine he made from the fruit was flat, funky, and acrid. Unwilling to dump the product of so much labor, Patterson put together a DIY pot still and began slowly boiling the fermented prickly pear juice and condensing it into a prickly pear brandy. “What came out the other side,” Patterson remembers, wistfully, “was just lavender, rose water, wet earth.

It was incredible.”

Distillation has always been associated with something singular and pure. Sixteenth-century alchemists called spirits “aqua vitae,” (the etymological root of the English word whiskey, the French eau de vie, and the Danish akvavit) which translates to “water of life.” As Patterson found, distillation can remove impurities, uncovering the essence of a thing that can, in turn, tell us about the essence of a place.

Hamilton Distillers. 2106 N. Forbes Blvd. No. 103.

520.628.9244. HamiltonDistillers.com.

Flying Leap Vineyards & Distillery. 342 Elgin Road, Elgin. 520.455.5499. FlyingLeapVineyards.com.

Luke Anable is a Tucson transplant, natural wine protagonist, and beverage consultant for independent restaurants.

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A Day in

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Arivaca

By Saraiya Kanning | Photography by Logan Biggers

A

N HOUR southwest of Tucson, ochre hills of desert grassland surround the small town of Arivaca. Baboquivari Peak rises to the west, a sacred mountain considered the center of the universe by the Tohono O’odham. Arivaca Cienega flows close to town, a critical feature of this otherwise dry and desolate landscape. This precious water gave the town its name: “Aribac,” an Akimel O’odham word that means “little spring.”

To reach Arivaca, head south from Tucson on I-19. Take Exit 48 through Amado, passing the famous cow skull storefront at The Cow Palace, and follow Arivaca Road for another 23 miles. Look right for the Gadsden Coffee Company, a café with a 20-year coffee roasting legacy started by Tom Shook. Shook named the café after the Gadsden Purchase.

He thought the territory should break away from the state.

“He was kind of an anarchist,” says current roastmaster Bradley Knaub, who learned from Shook.

The café serves shadegrown coffee as well as food and drink, including peach-pear-apricot smoothies for sweltering summers.

Visit Friday evenings and enjoy live acoustic music.

On your way out, grab a copy of Arivaca’s community journal, The Connection, for a listing of upcoming patio concerts, celebrations, yoga sessions, and other events.

Follow Arivaca Road another mile and look for the Arivaca Cienega trailhead, a section of the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge, on the left. Known for its endangered masked bobwhite, an endemic rust-red quail found in a limited range within the Altar Valley, the national wildlife refuge preserves prime grassland and wetland habitat in southern

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Arizona. Outside the refuge, cattle ranching has disturbed grassland ecosystems, transforming native grass savanna into mesquite thickets with swaths of invasive grass.

Walkers on this easy trail should keep eyes and ears open for yellow-billed cuckoo, gray hawks, javelina, white-tailed deer, coyote, and more.

Continue into town before noon to visit Marian’s Farmers’ Market, marked by a painted sign easily spotted on the short drive through town. The farmers’ market includes vendors from nearby farms as well as the community garden.

Conditions in this landscape are harsh, characterized by soaring summer temperatures and crop-raiding grasshoppers.

Those farming in Arivaca consider their hard-earned paradise a group effort.

Residents band together to support their community in

creative ways. “Everybody’s concerned about everybody,” says Jay Rivett of Jay’s Garden Variety. He sells dried herbs, seasonal specialties like white pomegranate, and sticky buns made from local honey.

“You have to be fairly independent to live here,” says Bill Stern, manager of the Arivaca Community Garden. “At the same time, there is a pretty cohesive community.” Residents volunteer to run the community garden table at the market, which includes an assortment of seasonal produce, with roasted green chiles in September.

The four-acre community garden, located outside of town on a dirt road, produces about 15,000 pounds of produce annually. A quarter of this produce goes directly to the Amado and Green Valley food banks. Those who volunteer are invited to take home a small portion.

3

2 “We generate all this stuff ourselves,” says community garden volunteer Ari Ellis. “It’s really fulfilling that way.”

Rivett and Ellis also participate in a local grassroots group, Regenerating Arivaca, which gathers monthly to talk about growing, group buys, and opportunities to donate excess produce. “We’re trying to make the town sustainable. We’re trying to help ourselves,” says Rivett.

A short walk down the street, the outdoor restaurant La Rancherita offers another kind of community. Owner and cook Virginia Engle has set her kitchen among stone ruins. Blue chairs and tables are surrounded by potted flowers and a birdbath. Butterflies sip from orange blooms.

Engle offers bread for visiting sparrows and chorizo breakfast burritos for visiting humans.

Engle grew up in Obregón, moved to Arivaca 32 years ago, and started La Rancherita in

5 2006. Though most customers come in winter, she continues to cook in midsummer heat for the occasional passersby.

Open on weekends, her menu offers dishes from both sides of the border, with a bacon cheeseburger and carne asada burro.

“It’s a restaurant for the people, it’s a restaurant for the birds, it’s a restaurant for the butterflies,” says Engle.

Across the street, the Arivaca Artists’ Co-op Gallery displays a sampling of local artwork available for sale, including stone sculptures, gourds, leatherwork, clay, and stained glass. From October through May guests to the gallery will meet at least one artist.

Courageous adventurers with a sturdy vehicle may wish to visit Ruby, a ghost town 12 miles south of Arivaca on a pothole-riddled, paved road that later gives way to dirt. The scenic vistas and tour of the land

4

6 prove worth the bumps. This winding drive reveals wideopen views of rolling knolls, like folds in a giant blanket.

Ruby began in the 1870s as the Montana Mine for gold and silver, transitioning to lead and zinc. In 1912, postmaster Julius Andrews renamed the town in celebration of his wife, Lillie Ruby. Though the camp population peaked at 1,200 people in 1937, with 300 men employed through mining operations, ore production dwindled in 1938 and residents left for work elsewhere. The mine closed in 1940. A cluster of eerily well-preserved buildings remains today, including a one-room school, post office, playground, and mercantile.

Returning to Arivaca, be sure to stop by Arivaca Lake, a wildlife viewing area maintained by the Arizona Game and Fish Department. Visitors can canoe, fish for catfish or blue gill, and admire the rocky bluffs.

Stand on the side of Ruby Road and listen to wind through grass and buzzing insects. All seems calm. Indeed, a wave of 1970s “flower children” shunned city life to revel in this remote, off-thegrid quietude. Whether delving into history or participating in Bikram Yoga at the community garden greenhouse, day voyagers to Arivaca can expect a friendly, delightfully quirky small town experience.

Saraiya Kanning is a freelance writer, silk painter, and birder living in Tucson.

1. A mountain view just outside of Arivaca. 2. Surveying the Arivaca community garden.

3. Grab a cup of coffee at the

Gadsden Coffee Company.

4. Inside one of the many

greenhouses at the Arivaca community garden. 5. “You have to be fairly independent to live here,” says Bill Stern. 6. The view of La Rancherita from the street.

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LAST BITE

A Worm Runs Through It

By Melissa L. Sevigny | Illustration by Adela Antoinette

W

E CLAMBER ED down the bank to Tonto Creek just below the fish hatchery, abristle with fishing rods.

Kasondra, the most determined angler among us, fished her way downstream to a churning pool cradled in slick stone. Jessica clung to her infant daughter’s hand.

I like pan-fried trout as much as anyone, but I was hungrier for the creek’s scent and sound. I’d brought a Styrofoam bucket of nightcrawlers and gave wordless thanks as I baited my hook. Wordless, because I couldn’t think of a prayer to thank a worm that might give you a fish that might fill your dinner plate. The sun and the rain and the apple seed, yes, as the childhood rhyme goes, but not a writhing invertebrate with a hook in its digestive tract.

Robin Wall Kimmerer writes of reciprocity: If an animal feeds you, she says, you should return a gift in kind. What gift can I give a worm?

I wondered. Or a fat freckled trout from a stream? The question stuck in my mind as the afternoon blued into evening. Not a bite, but I didn’t really mind. My last worm still had some kick in it (metaphorically speaking) so I released it into the leaf mulch, aglow in this moment of mercy. Later, driving home, I remembered European nightcrawlers are invasive in North America. So much for reciprocity.

Earthworms evolved on Pangea and became global citizens when the supercontinent broke up. Glaciers flattened a good chunk of North America during the last Ice Age, and their retreat left a wormless world behind. Northern trees came to rely on thick blankets of duff that kept their roots from freezing. When Europeans arrived, they brought worms with them, in potted plants and the seams of their shoes. The underground invaders munched and mixed the soil, to the detriment of native plants. One study in Minnesota found the leading edge of an earthworm invasion can eat 10 centimeters of leaf litter down to bare dirt.

Glaciers never touched Arizona. Perhaps native worms thrived here. Perhaps oak, pine, and columbine wouldn’t mind the uninvited guest. I emailed ecologist Mac Callaham, who wrote back: “The short answer to your question is that I don’t know. I have long suspected

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that there are native worms in wet spots of the Southwest, but the truth is that nobody has really systematically sampled the earthworms in these habitats.”

Nobody knows if native worms live in Arizona. It seemed so fundamental, so simple: worms or no worms? The gap in knowledge troubled me.

Wherever we end up on the journey toward reciprocity, surely we must start by knowing our neighbors’ names.

Callaham explained that invasive worms move fast—not under their own steam, but shipped in crates of soil or sold at bait shops, aided and abetted by anglers like me. He said, “If you go into any city or town or farmstead in the country and you dig a shovelful of soil, the likelihood is probably 95 percent that you will find an earthworm of European origin. Maybe more like 99 percent.

They’re extremely well-adapted to moving around with human beings.”

I confessed I left a worm at Tonto Creek on my fishing trip.

“You really shouldn’t do that,” he said.

Everyone’s personal ecology is a haphazard mix of harm and healing—we eat, but we also plant. We approach the land that sustains us with both gratitude and grief. Neither response is possible if we don’t know what’s worth protecting and what’s already been lost.

Callaham gave me his answer to this dilemma: When he goes fishing, he uses lures.

Momentarily I had a crazy, bigger vision: to replace European worms with native ones on fishhooks and in compost heaps. I could see the signs in the bait shop windows: Local Cage-Free Worms Sold Here! But it’s just a story in my head, a world that doesn’t exist. What does exist is this dark soil beneath my feet, terra incognita.

What is real is the tug on the fishing line, the trout sizzling in the pan.

One Sunday afternoon, my sister Kasondra and I sat at the kitchen table and she taught me how to tie trout flies.

Feather, fur, twist of silk: benign imitation for a hypothetical fish.

As we worked, I learned their names: woolly bugger, elk hair caddis, pheasant tail prince.

Melissa L. Sevigny is the author of Mythical River and Under Desert Skies. She lives in Flagstaff.