Food & Farm – David M Frey

The Last of the Arabbers

by David Frey | Oct 9, 2014 | Food & Farm, News, Travel

As he leads a painted horse cart brimming with oranges and bananas and peaches past housing projects and boarded-up buildings, B.J. looks like the king of West Baltimore. Friends shout his name, grasp his hand, lean over to share hugs. He greets, chats, and moves on, calling out his wares in the grimmest part of town, through streets strewn with garbage and smelling of urine.

“Yeah, pretty red tomato, tomatoooo. Yeah, watermelon, watermelon, watermelon.”

The syllables melt into a tune that, to the uninitiated, might sound like nonsense.

“Wat-oh, wat-oh, wat-oh, oh-oh…”

It sounds like a voice from the past as it echoes off brick and formstone walls, and many Baltimoreans fear that it will be. B.J. may be the end of a nearly 150-year-old lineage. The last of the arabbers.

Go to the story on Eater.com.

Down on the Farm

by David Frey | Jul 23, 2014 | Environment, Food & Farm

BETHESDA MAGAZINE

Students who graduate from Bethesda’s Walt Whitman High School, where SAT scores are typically among the highest in the county’s public schools, often end up pursuing jobs in high-paying careers after college. Greg Glenn had a different idea: He came home to be a farmer. (more…)

The Endless Season

by David Frey | Feb 28, 2013 | Environment, Food & Farm, Travel

BETHESDA MAGAZINE

Tal Petty is a contrarian. While his friends head to Eastern Shore beach houses on weekends, Petty spirals 60 miles south in his Volvo SUV from his home in Bethesda to the family farm near Hollywood, Md.

On the 300-acre spread his mother named Tranquility Farm, he raises grass-fed Angus beef, a few sheep, a couple chickens—and about a million oysters. (more…)

A Veneto Journey to Farm and Table in One

by David Frey | Nov 19, 2012 | Food & Farm, Travel

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

I went looking for a slice of ancient Italy and somehow landed in Iowa.

Past the town of Treviso, in the hills far above the canals of Venice, we had left that morning, is a little dairy farm where the Gallina family is in its fourth generation of making cheese. I don’t know what I expected a fourth-generation Italian artisanal cheese maker to look like, but when Luca Gallina welcomed us sporting a plaid shirt, baseball cap and faded jeans, he looked more Cedar Rapids farmer than keeper of ancient Italian culinary rites. (more…)

Tea for Tulips, Moo for Tea

by David Frey | Jun 12, 2012 | Food & Farm

Photo courtesy Authentic Haven Brand.

OUT HERE MAGAZINE

Annie Haven’s family farm in San Juan Capistrano, Calif., has been many things over four generations. It began as a seed farm, supplying some of the biggest seed catalogs in the business. It’s raised thousands of hogs, and supplied beef to some of the biggest stars of Hollywood’s Golden Age. It’s still a cattle farm, but its main product isn’t beef. It’s tea. Well, tea for tulips and tomatoes, at least. (more…)

The Surprising Face of Cashmere

by David Frey | Jun 12, 2012 | Food & Farm

Photo courtesy Inn at Valley Farms via Flickr.

OUT HERE MAGAZINE

Norma Bromley has lots of friends with cashmere sweaters. Their names are Northrop, Nike and Nancy, Ranger, Ruby and Raven, Zephyr, Zenith, Zeta and Zeb, just to name a few.

They’re goats – cashmere goats – and if you didn’t know cashmere came from goats, well, you’re not alone. (more…)