You like tomato and I like tomato

Farm Fresh to You is a great Californian company that delivers 100% certified organic produce to your home or office once a week in a nice (recyclable) box.  You get a mix of whatever fruit or veg is in season, all sourced from a family-run farm up in Capay, CA.

How very Berkeley, you might say, but they currently have over 6000 subscribers.  We're not among them (we only buy food from Chevron gas stations) but Lauren, Evan and Logan are, and so they were invited to the farm's annual tomato festival this weekend!  Thankfully they invited us too, possibly for our wonderful company but more probably for our large tent.

Temperatures soared as we headed up past Sacramento, and were nudging triple Fahrenheit digits as we pulled into the farm and were shown to our pitch among the peach trees.  Unfortunately no one had thought to flatten the ground from the deep tractor tracks, but a little cunning engineering - driving their 4x4 backwards and forwards a few times - helped things out.

Camp set, we wandered down to the festivities.  There were tomato tasting booths all around, each variety desperately canvassing for your vote to be named top tomato of the year.  Full-sized and cherry tomatoes were judged separately, for obvious reasons, but the variety of shapes and colours on display was quite incredible.  Usually my only interaction with a tomato is the ketchup on my burger, but I have a new found respect.

Though tomatoes dominated, there was also strawberry and fennel picking, organic food and drink aplenty, tractor rides (tip: do not sit directly behind the tractor unless you like the taste of dust), and live bands late into the night.  They had both types of music: country and western.

I'm not sure if it was the surfeit of tomatoes, the uneven ground, or the bright moonlight that caused me to not sleep too well, but at least it was cooler when we awoke this morning.  Hannah made her traditional blueberry pancake camping breakfast (she had threatened to switch blueberries for tomatoes) and we came home and jumped into the pool.  Well, I didn't want to get our shower dirty with all that dust!

Yep, a nicely furrowed camping spot.

Luckily Logan had packed some diggers, so he and Evan got straight to work.

And then we marked our territory (the tomato, white and blue).

Down at the festival, where they managed to get people to pay to pick their own fruit!  That's marketing genius.

Hannah gets her jaws around some of the juicy contenders.

Tomatoes!

More tomatoes!

A tomato with the head of a man!  I thought they weren't genetically modified.

Ready to ride (and get incredibly dusty).

With an MBA, you too could be a farm worker.

Picking and eating.

Picking...

...and eating.

A field of fennel.  We also found a few cloves of organic garlic in there.  And a snake!

After all that hard work, it was time to party.

Hickory hoedown.

Into the night with the great Old Man Markley (punk bluegrass).

Into the wild

It was another Concord Children's Center field trip today!  Possibly not quite up to the awesomeness of going to a fire station, but still pretty good as we went to Tilden Park and did a nature walk with Ranger Anthony.

The were plenty of shouts of "ewww" and "gross" as these urban children were introduced to bird poo, ponds, and a half-eaten deer.  This continued when we got to the farm, where the smell was apparently too much for most of them (and Concord doesn't exactly smell that sweet).

I got to ride on a yellow school bus!  A big moment for me.

Heading into the woods with Ranger Anthony.

Pond life.

A bit of an animal.

A bobcat, standing very still in the museum.

Down on the farm.

Wondering if children in blue t-shirts are edible.

Wondering if goats are edible.

Flock photo.

A somewhat hostile takeover of the play ground.

It all turned out to be a bit much for my seat partners on the way home.

Asserting her independence

Today is when we traditionally celebrate ridding the Empire of its more troublesome, less valuable colonies.  This is quite tough to communicate in America, where endless barbecues, parades, and firework displays make it seem like they declared independence from us!  Imagine.

We once again fulfilled the role of sole Brits at a barbecue with the Muckers and Murnanes, where cocktails and jingoistic humour flowed freely.  I got in on the japes by replacing the US flag hanging outside their house with the more traditional red, white and blue one, only to be roundly condemned by two-year-old Claire!  She didn't like that flag, and I had to put the other one back.  Even Vince's suggestion that I could fly it for an hour met with a hostile response, so as she looked on with arms folded I replaced the Union Jack with the Stars and Stripes again. Ha!

After that, grillmaster Vince spoiled us with his barbecued corn, beef, and hotdogs, while Jack followed up with oysters.  Unfortunately we had to leave to get back to the (hot) north before the traditional watching of The Big Lebowski and accompanying White Russians.  It was the usual, fabulous American holiday.  This land is their land, etc.

Um, no, this land is my land, says Claire.

Further indoctrination.

She did, however, want to join in with the paper-chain making (royal wedding party leftovers).

Jim and I enjoy a little frisbee dog before lunch.

Texan rock star chick Claire looks on.

Vince grills before the flag (demoted to the back of the house from the front).  I was waiting for a spark to "accidentally" leap off the barbecue and ignite it.

Jack finds a convenient tray to hold his food and drink.

Posing with our American cousins.  They were honoured...and then ritually expelled us from their house (until next time, at least).

All you can eat

Just when you think you've seen everything this great nation has to offer, along comes a new and unexplored peak in the cultural landscape.  Today it was Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest.

This competitive eating event is held annually on 4th of July at a Nathan's Famous in Brooklyn.  Competitors from around the world, most of whom have qualified through regional heats, arrive on the "Bus of Champions" and are introduced to a 40,000+ crowd of in the style of heavyweight boxers.  Then they have to eat as many hotdogs as they can in ten minutes.  Simple.

Or not!  The variety of body shapes, consumption methods, and contestant specialities (Sean "Flash" Gordon consumed 6 lbs of french fries is 10 minutes) makes this an absorbing and thrilling event.  Well, almost.  Given the competitive way to eat hotdogs seems to be to dip them in a cup of water first, the whole thing is pretty disgusting to watch.  Which is why it's shown live on ESPN to an audience of around two million.

I embed two videos below, and the second one, of the competition itself, is certainly not for the faint hearted.  All I'll say is that the winner and defending champion, Joey Chestnut, managed to put away 62 sausages-in-buns, so you have been warned.  Personally, I'm off to find some ketchup and mustard.



This one's safe, just the introductions.  See how seriously they take it.



Be careful!

Down by the sea

The central coast of California is, as previously reported many times, beautiful.  Unfortunately Monterey, where we're spending 4th July weekend with the southern ex-Haas contingent, sits permanently under a bank of sea fog.  The higher the temperature is, the more fog appears.  "The coldest winter I ever saw was the summer I spent in San Francisco," Mark Twain apparently said, because he'd never visited Monterey.

Which is a shame, because if he'd taken the Pacific Coast Highway down here he would have passed through Santa Cruz.  This is the real California - beaches, boardwalks, bars.  And lots of sunshine.  I'd been to the Mystery Spot here before but never ventured down to the seafront, which is dominated by the Beach Boardwalk theme park.

Hannah and I stuck to the park's sedate Skyglider, while Amanda and Jack took their lives in their hands on the 1924-built wooden Giant Dipper.  It also turns out that Claire is an adrenalin junkie, asking to go on the mini-roller coaster and loving it (Vince looked a lot more scared in the official pic than his daughter).

After the parents and kids went home the rest of us sought out some ice cream.  Turns out that Santa Cruz has the best ice cream in Northern California at Marianne's.  It was certainly the busiest ice cream shop, with a ticket system to deal with the line out the door.  But our waiting time was well spent trying to decide from the 60+ flavours on offer (cardamom pistachio?  Lavender?  Cinnamon caramel?)  Although we still crumbled under the stress of being asked "what would you like?" when our number was called.  Luckily you can have unlimited free samples.

What's the perfect way to start the day?

Breakfast made by Jack!

Quickly followed by Lava Flows in Santa Cruz.

Claire entertains.

Ladies on the beach.

Hmmm.  This guy has apparently announced that he is running for President in 2012.

I want to go on that one!

Up and away on the Skyglider.

Looking down at the beach.

Looking down at the people.

But even up here, business never takes a holiday.  Hannah checks on crude oil prices.

Yum.

Artillery office Vince sees if his skills are still up to scratch.

Walking home through the Santa Cruz surf.

Later, trying to make decisions under pressure.  The MBA never prepared them for this.

Hannah, happy with her choice of Heaven and Oatmeal Raisin Cookie Dough.

Start with a Hawaiian cocktail, end with a Hawaiian cocktail.  Jack enjoys his double Zombie at the fabulous Hula's Island Grill.