Category: Words from Tobin

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Artificial Ingestion: Your Food and AI

It seems we can hardly go a day without hearing about some newfangled way that Artificial Intelligence is going to take all our jobs, then give us lives of all play and no work, then ultimately end humanity as we know it. Whether we like it or not, we now have new terms to keep track of like AI, GPT, LLM, Copilot, Gemini, Grok, and Claude.

When people talk about AI, what they’re really talking about are Large Language Models, or LLMs. Literally, large models of language. These models consist of a massive corpus of text (think all of Wikipedia), which are then distilled into “tokens” made up of each little variation of letters and symbols. Then count, sort, and categorize those tokens, and you’ve got yourself a Large Language Model.

How did we get here? In 2018, a little-known company called OpenAI released a Large Language Model called GPT1 to little fanfare, then followed that with GPT2 in 2019. These first two models were largely focused on text prediction, or as Google says, “they excel at generating coherent, human-like text from prompts”. Pay attention to that wording: generating; coherent; human-like. The world really took notice during Christmas break of 2022 when OpenAI graced us with GPT3. It was no longer just some math whizzes and programmers building a text-prediction and translation tool. LLMs would soon be shoved into every nook and cranny of every piece of software you’ve ever used, whether you asked for it or not.

How does it work? Imagine taking a batch of Wikipedia articles on the history of the United States, and cataloging how often each word appears,  how likely each word is to appear next to other words, and in which order. Next, use those probabilities as weights to predict the next word in a given sentence. Now, do that over and over and eventually you can generate a new wiki, but for, say, the history of Canada instead. What you will end up with is a document that reads like a plausible and grammatically accurate article, but with gaping holes in accuracy. However, these gaping holes will only be recognizable to those who know their Canadian history. To the untrained eye, the article will initially feel like it has substance, texture, story, meaning; as if you’re learning so much about Canada without trying very hard! How convenient! Upon closer inspection, you may be disappointed to find out that many of the facts, dates, and stats in the History of Canada are not, in fact, real. ChatGPT even states this right up front: “ChatGPT can make mistakes.” It’s a black box that gives you what it thinks you want, rather than what you need. It breaks down our language into its base parts, and then reconstructs a plausible facsimile, the mere appearance, of the real thing.

How about another example? Let’s say you gave the entire Shakespear catalog to an LLM, then said, “generate another play”. It’s true that our new generated play would have similar words and structure of Shakespear, the plausible flow of a classic play, the recognizable roller coaster of emotions, and character development to boot. However, it would also lack intentionality. It would have all the literary aspects of a masterpiece, except the integrity, the substance, or the taste. It would appear delicious to the eyes and ears but would be bland to the heart and soul. A document with big words, but lacking nourishment. Masquerading as something that it’s not.  Sounds a lot like our food labels.

Why do I tell you all this? Because we’ve lived this world already, but with our food system. We already know how this play ends. Our food system is designed to break down our food into its base nutrients, and then design, stack, and build back up the perfect ratio of what will look good, last long, transport safely, and store easily, and after all that is complete, it also needs the appearance of “food”. Just look at a label for coffee creamers, protein drinks, nut butters, or any snacks. This system, taken to its extreme, looks like food that has very little in common with what our body craves, food that is very expensive, food that we have no say in, and food we don’t know or even recognize. Eventually, we will be unable to recognize the difference between what is “real” food and what is “generated” food. Worse still, we may be unwilling to care.

But our story is not done being written, and we still have a choice. We can choose not to attend that play, and instead write our own play, with more taste. Eating local food is the best way to know your food and your makers and growers, and ensure the food is actually real.           

~ Tobin

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Meet Your Local Grower

Support a local business and add a boost of flavor to your next Box of Good delivery with the tiny but mighty plant shoots from Better Boat Farms, available now!

Open your next box and find these vibrant greens, harvested from Whidbey Island’s shores. 

New to shoots? Select your first box with Better Boat Farms greens

A Grower’s Story on Whidbey Island

Every misty morning on Whidbey Island, the ocean breeze stirs the air.  Demien is our local farmer at Better Boat Farms that tends vertical rows of young plant shoots bursting with life. It’s here among the walls of fresh greens that your next meal is nurtured from organic, non-GMO seeds. Grown delicately, sown with care, clipped at perfection, and packed sustainably.

At Box of Good, we partner with local producers like Better Boat Farms to bring stories like this to your doorstep all over the Puget Sound . It isn’t just farming; it’s a quiet revolution in freshness, and we strive to connect you directly to the hands that grow your food.  

It’s the story of good food doing good—nutritious, sustainable, and shared.

Not Your Average Greens

Young plant shoots aren’t your average greens. They are highly nutritious, harvested at the start of maturity allowing for a higher amount of vitamins and minerals compared to older greens.  Delivering peak nutrition in every crisp bite. Here’s what makes the Better Boat Farms Plant shoots unforgettable:

  • A daily staple for health, adding tender flavor and nutrients to your every day meals.
  • Grown with sustainable practices and lush, organic compost .
  • Bright, slightly sweet notes that elevate any dish.
  • Boost salads, bowls, sandwiches effortlessly. 
  • 24–48 hours from harvest to your Box.
  • Locally grown on Whidbey Island!

Pair shoots with other Box of Good locals: raw honey, rolled oats—customize here.

Healthy Food Everyday 

Delivered fresh, your young plant shoots will stay vibrant all week and are preservative free. Allowing you to turn ordinary meals into health inspired dishes.​

  • Salads that have peppery zing.
  • Sandwiches layered with garden crunch.
  • Grain bowls topped with color.
  • Eggs or soups finished with flair.

One box fuels a busy family’s plant-powered week. Ready to bring this story home? Customize your first Box of Good—your farmer’s waiting.

Roots That Reach Us All

There is a quiet satisfaction in knowing where your food comes from. Knowing the hands that harvested it and how your weekly box of good choices sends ripples among the community.

As you choose to support local farmers such as Better Boat Farms, you are helping sustain more than just crops. You are helping sustain courage— the courage it takes to run a small farm, to nurture something from seed, to invest in a place and its people. Your support allows our local ecosystem to flourish and for the community to show up for each other.

And that’s something truly worth tending.

Related Box of Good Reads

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Dying of Convenience

box of good dying of convenience

I have a favorite sweater that is head and shoulders better than any other sweater, and so much so, that I point out to Emily anytime I see another version of my sweater on a stranger out in the wild. It’s a little game I play. It’s similar to when someone in my family starts driving a new vehicle, and suddenly I start recognizing all the other people in our town that also (apparently) just started driving the same vehicle! Of course, people have been driving that vehicle for ages, long before I paid attention to their choice of transportation. But once you see it, you can’t unsee it.

There’s another area I play this game, although much more niche than sweaters or vehicles. I’m sure we’re all familiar with the popular saying, which states that the three most important things in real estate are “Location, location, location”. However, I’ve noticed a disturbing trend where this does not hold up. As I started to catalog more and more instances, a curious truth revealed itself. Just like I catalog and point out sweaters to Emily, now I catalog and point out locations that are in seemingly prime locations, but are instead either dead, or a revolving door of attempts to not be dead. Do you ever see an empty lot, or an abandoned building, or a space boarded-up, yet it’s right on a busy intersection? Or it is just next to the offramp of a highway? Despite having all the signage, all the visibility, all the access, it still cannot catch a breath of air for more than a few months before shuttering. Then a new tenant comes along, perhaps after being told by the property broker that “location is everything”, yet  a year later, it’s gone. Why is that? There are many locations off the top of my head that fall into this category, on Camano Island, Bellingham, Smokey Point, Seatac, Everett, Burlington, Stanwood, Lynnwood, etc, etc, etc. The actual city is not important, since it is not isolated to any specific legislation, ordinances, tax codes, or county laws. It’s much deeper, and more fundamental than that.

In addition to trees and mangoes, one of the things I love most in life is Bell Curves. And these abandoned storefronts and restaurants in primo locations follow a bell curve also: the bell curve of convenience. They were choked by the excess convenience. On the left side of the bell curve of convenience, it is very difficult to start a store, restaurant, or business in the backwoods, way off the beaten path. As you approach the middle of the bell curve, it is very valuable to be in a visible, convenient, accessible location where your mere presence does the talking. However, “more” is not always “better”, and increasing in convenience starts to have diminishing returns as you roll down the backside of the bell curve. A one-lane intersection with a roundabout or a four-way  stop is very accessible because there are natural breaks in traffic. When an intersection becomes so crowded that it needs a turn lane in the middle, or two lanes both ways, or a median down the center, things go downhill quickly. Now the road has become so popular, so convenient, that it has become very difficult, even dangerous, to get in and out. Perhaps you can only get in one direction and go out in only one direction? Perhaps you can only enter one way but exit through another place? Perhaps, like the grocery store near me, there’s a high chance of dying anytime you go near any of the entrances! When a location becomes too convenient, it cuts off the air supply of the nutrients it needs to survive, and it either becomes increasingly expensive to maintain, or it simply starts to wither away. The oxygen it needs, namely people, are unable to access it any longer. Pay attention to the overly convenient real estate near you. Maybe you’ll notice some that die from excess convenience.

How similar our food supply has become as we have sacrificed the essential nutrients our bodies need in exchange for convenience stores, fast food, easy bakes, quick mixes, and instant pots. Fresh, local, organic, and un-processed food is the “slow food” we need to keep the supply of nutrients our bodies need to be healthy, active, and long-lasting.

Tobin

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The Best Things Are the Ones You Weren’t Looking For

Emily and I spent Father’s day with her family perusing around a used bookstore, and not just any used bookstore. The kind of bookstore where you must be careful where you walk, and keep your arms in tight, lest you knock over piles of books. I was not successful at this, as simply brushing one stack of books created a domino effect with the nearby stacks of books. And trying to fix that stack inevitably knocked over another stack. Thankfully, the owner was all too familiar with the commotion coming from my corner of the shop, and I did not get a talking-to. Every ledge, every nook, every spare inch on floor is covered with stacks of books, and only loosely organized or categorized. One block away, there is a very well-known bookstore that gets plenty of publicity, is centrally located on the main street, and is very organized. The aisles are clear, the signage is prominent, and the books are categorized, new, and neatly facing outward. And I find it terribly sterile, and even a bit boring. The books are exactly where you would expect them to be, the titles are about the same. I can easily find exactly the book I’m looking for, but it’s unlikely I’ll stumble upon an even better book that I wasn’t looking for. A book I wish existed for my little niche of hobbies, but didn’t know someone else had that hobby too, and enough to bring it to print. Often, the joy and connection we have with something has less to do with the actual content or substance, and more to do with the way we discovered the thing. 

My wife and I have strong ties to London through family and friends. Emily did her master’s program in London, and my family lived in Manchester for 4 years while my dad got his PhD, so we make it back over the pond to visit as often as we can. The streets of London are perfectly suited to exploring via bicycle, because there is no grid system, it’s mostly flat, and it’s very densely populated. The density allows for many little cities within the cities, where the culture and feel of the place changes every few blocks. This increases the ratio of discovery, as you never know what’s around the next corner, and the streets aren’t laid out in an “expected” formation. There is no point of reference like a mountain or an ocean to keep you oriented, the streets are straight, and the buildings are tall enough to block your view of the one defining feature: the Thames River. But even that is not straight, so it will easily leave you disoriented. Because of this, two of my favorite spots to visit are special to me purely because of how I discovered them. One day, I was riding my Santander bike around London, and I had not looked up where I was nor where to go. I just followed the flow of the streets and what looked interesting up ahead. The worst thing that could happen is I return my bike to the nearest Tube station and find my train back home. After riding for awhile, I stumbled across an amazing outdoor market. A quasi-European Pike Place Market, but with less Starbucks. Amazing food stalls, fresh produce, all the international treats you could ask for. I always return there. Later on, I discovered this incredible collection of little pedestrian streets that all fed into a central hub, filled with food courts, tea shops, alleyways, and little shops you’d never find anywhere else. There was character, there was a sense of place, and there was uniqueness, there was a reason to be there. I felt like I found a little secret gathering place, tucked in the alleyways, away from the hustle and bustle of 9 million people right nearby. 

Some of my most memorable foods, recipes and meals and follow this pattern of discovery, as I’m sure yours do too when you stop and think about them. Emily and I had banana cream pie at our wedding because my grandma made them important to me. We have tea and chocolate at night because my parents did. My favorite meal is Dutch pancakes because my dad made them for us on our birthdays. I’m always on the lookout for a Chinese porn bun because as a kid, my aunt and uncle lived 4 hours away, and we met them in the middle at a Chinese restaurant. My grandpa made nasi goreng because the Dutch adopted it from Indonesia, and he made it for my dad, and then my dad made it for us. There are foods that I think I’m sure I would not like, nor even try, if I had discovered them by myself, or in different circumstances, or with different people (or no people), or different times in my life. But some of my favorite foods are tied to the way I discovered them. This is encouraging to me because it infers that we have a certain amount of control over what we like to eat. We are not simply born with foods we like, and foods we don’t. Sometimes, we like foods because of how they came to us, not because of what they are.  

Some of you already experience this “discovery” when you open your Box of Good without looking at the week’s menu beforehand. Some of you are scared to death when you get an item in your box that you don’t know what it is, why it is, or where it should go. I would only encourage you to create a memory around it; ask a friend for a recipe, have neighbors over and try out your new dish, ask us for some tips and tricks, or just venture out on your own and discover how it works best for you. You just might discover that you like it. 

~ Tobin Fekkes 

 

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Consistent, Yet Never the Same

Many years ago, I came across this lecture on the patterns and styles of architecture through the ages. Of course, I can’t for the life of me find it again, not even with the Mighty Google. The main point of the lecture was that the prominent pieces of each generation of architecture, the ones that stood the test of time both physically and emotionally, were both consistent and variable. The columns of stone had consistent spacing, but they also had offsets from each other to create a sense of depth. Mosaics and frescos had intricate designs with distinct lines to create order, but with sweeping beauty in curves and chaotic color. Windows, statues, paintings, and domes had their own balance of organization with artistic freedom. Order and Chaos, balanced. When the pendulum swings too far to the Order side, things become predictable, robotic, mundane, and we lose interest. However, when things swing over into Chaos, things become tumultuous, confusing, lawless. We like a degree of certainty, but not too much. We like an ounce of chaos, but not too much. The things that hold our attention, indeed, those that give us awe and wonder, are ones that are larger than ourselves, outside of our direct control, but still follow an unpredictable pattern. 

It’s likely that, on first glance, we think of things being both Consistent and Variable much like oil and water; they don’t mix. How can something be the same and different? But in fact, the world around us is in a constant state of consistent variability. The waves crash on the beach consistently, day and night, but with varying frequency and intensity. We can’t say whether this wave will be bigger than that wave, but we know the waves are coming. The clouds roll in with some semblance of certainty, but not so much that we can bet the farm on it every day. The wind blows through, and the trees move mostly as expected, generally, but not exactly. We know what wind does, but we can’t know what it will do next. The four seasons come and go with a degree of predictability, but not so much that we can know exactly what any one day will be like. Our galaxy’s stars would be boring if they were laid across the sky as predictable as a city block in New York City, like when you fly to a major city at night and descend amongst a million little stars in a neatly packed grid. How many hours we have wasted invested staring at the flames in a campfire, drawn to the beauty of the current flame, waiting expectantly for what the next flame will do. Knowing the flame will come, but not knowing what form it will take. How similarly we behave around lightning strikes and thunderstorms! Even snowflakes fall consistently, but never the same. We can know that a leaf will fall, but we couldn’t reliably pick where on the ground it will land. When something balances a healthy dose of structure with a hint of uncertainty, we are drawn in.  

Thankfully, our food follows the same patterns of Order and Chaos. We know that too much order in food and too much automation in food production creates “things” that are frighteningly identical in size, color, and shape. When our food becomes too predictable and formulaic, then it’s a good sign that it’s not meant for us. Things like frozen pizzas, cookies, snacks, and pre-packaged vegetables have a heavy dose of “order”, while things at the drive-thru and county fairs lean towards chaos! I love our fresh bread from Rachael because every loaf is just a little different.  

A good rule of thumb to use with the food you eat is to make sure it has both Consistency and Variability. Shout for joy when two peppers are oddly shaped, when squash are different sizes, and bananas are different colors. Be thankful that head of broccoli will take some knife skills, and the carrots aren’t as straight as they could be. That’s how you know your food wasn’t optimized for packaging, nor is it fit for pig food. Right in the middle is food that’s fit for you to eat. 

May we spend more hours gazing at the stars, listening to waves crash on the beach, watching the clouds drift by, following the dance of a fire, and creating and cooking our own food.  

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Stomachs over Storage

A couple years ago, a friend of a friend (and fellow Box of Good recipient!) was moving her small business to Snohomish, and she contracted me to set up all the technology for her new retail store. Before the computers, printers, Wi-Fi, POS station, credit card readers, and receipt printer worked, we needed to get a new internet router. So I went where everyone else goes, and headed to our local family-owned shop around the corner called Amazon. I picked out the right router that covered the appropriate square footage of her store and purchased it on a Thursday afternoon, around 1pm. I only needed it to arrive at her store by Monday to start setting up shop. But later that afternoon, she texted me to say that the router arrived at the new store! I was flabbergasted. 

While this complex system of distribution works great for consuming more and more cheaper items, it’s not such a great system for food that we actually consume. A router is not bothered by sitting on a shelf for a year, or in a container for 6 months, or a ship for 3 weeks. Nor do cell phone chargers, tires, a broom, a book or a rowing machine! My 94-year-old grandpa just bought himself a rowing machine from Amazon on his cell phone, delivered to his nursing-home “studio” in 3 days, because it’s still not too late to start something new! How long was that rowing machine waiting on a shelf for him? Who knows. 

Unfortunately, we’ve made our food system more like our non-food system, rather than the other way around. We’ve pushed too hard on the “convenience” button and tried to make every food item available all the time in whatever quantity we can dream up. Prioritizing food for storage and transport has come at the cost of the very nutrients we should be consuming. Too often, the same nutrients that our bodies desire also make food expire, but those are replaced with items that enhance their shipping and storage lives. If we were blindfolded and released into a grocery store and told to grab a handful of items, it’s more likely that your shopping cart would be full of items designed for the shelf, not for yourself. The main intention behind the shape, color, texture, presentation, density, price, and ingredients of each product is that it needs to be in a truck, freezer, cooler, warehouse, or storage for an unknown amount of time. It’s made to sustain the temperature changes, shaking, and squishing, rather than sustain our stomachs. 

But fresh local produce and grocery items flip the tradeoffs in our favor, so the nutrients we crave are left in the food, and the costs of a complex storage system are removed. The single-use plastic is eliminated, the gas and electricity are minimal from storing and moving items around between distribution centers. The fresh bread in your Box of Goodis baked by Rachael the morning that you receive it. The raw milk in your delivery comes from Tilly the day before you receive it. The bar of chocolate is made by Kevin the same week you receive it. The kale and carrots are grown by Ray and John, picked a day or two before you get it. The blueberries from Karen are picked a day or two before you eat them. That’s why I can’t eat just one pint! 

A famous person once said, just because it’s possible, doesn’t mean it’s beneficial.  

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Life of Pie

The Food and Drug Administration publishes the changes to our nutrition laws on their website, and it can be a dull read sometimes. Each year, the FDA makes changes to the National Register, which makes them part of the Law across the Land. I don’t know many people that keep up to date with the FDA regulations, so you’d be forgiven for missing the FDA alterations amongst other things like Twitter changing their name, or the Paris Olympics memes, or any other Very Important News®. Most years, the FDA makes a dozen or so updates to the food regulations, but so far in 2024, there have only been 3. We are 1) reducing sodium use, 2) updating “health” claims on yogurt, but the most riveting one is 3) revoking the standards for frozen cherry pie. What?!? 

In 1967, the FDA made a proposal to regulate the Standards of Identity for frozen cherry pies, meaning that the public was confused about what was and was not a frozen cherry pie. More specifically, the public was not sure whether the sweetener in the cherry goop was artificial or not.  A solid four years later, the proposal was finalized in 1971 and ever since then, we’ve had nothing but perfect frozen cherry pies. In 2020, the American Bakers Association (who else?!) petitioned to revoke the Standards of Identity around frozen cherry pies, asserting that “that non-standardized fruit pies have been sold throughout the country for many years without any evidence of public confusion”. So in March of 2024, the FDA relaxed the rules on frozen cherry pies, saying “the standards are no longer necessary to ensure that these products meet consumer expectations, and revoking the standards will provide greater flexibility and the opportunity for product innovation”. Keep an eye out for some innovative frozen cherry pies coming to a retailer near year! 

As we head into fall, we’re entering peak pie season. The usual pie suspects make this season go ‘round. The classic apple pie, pumpkin pie, pecan pie and chocolate pie are never far from reach. Or you can go the savory route and make sausage pies, delicata squash pies, turkey pies from Thanksgiving leftovers, cheddar pies, chicken pot pies. Quiche is even a pie! And don’t forget custard pies, meringue pies, or sweet potato pies. You name it, you can make a pie out of it! A pie is like the soup of the oven: throw all your extra ingredients in a pie crust, cover it with something, and bake it off! No one will be sure exactly what is in it, but it will taste good! 

If pies are not your thing or you need to be pulled away from the pies, Box of Good will begin offering nutritional classes In October. The class will be once a week for 5 weeks, and it’s a combination of 1 part nutritional education, 1 part sugar detox, and 1 part support group. Laura Conley is a Functional Nutritionist and will be leading the class through education around digestion, healthy fats, the impact of sugar and refined carbs, and how to fight back with whole foods, preferably local and organic when available. To register, look for more info on our website and the space will be limited. We will offer both daytime or evening classes to fit flexible schedules. 

A quick way to summarize the class is a great quote from author Michael Pollan: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” 

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Too Big To Follow

Every once in a while, a phrase makes it into our global lexicon. These phrases are usually tied to an event or time that we all collectively associate. We can often remember exactly where we were and what we were doing. I remember learning a new phrase shortly soon September 11th, 2001, where all the newspapers and TV shouted “Shock and Awe” on repeat. I’d never heard that before, but suddenly, it was everywhere!  

Shortly before that, we added the “Dot-com Bubble” to reference the fall-out from very speculative tech companies after reality settled in that they may not be as important as they thought. Then we added “Great Recession” and learned all sorts of fun new financial words like derivatives, credit default swaps, and subprime. Without wasting time, we quickly added “Occupy Wall Street” and “Top 1%”. Then we moved on very quickly to “Black Lives Matter” and “Cancel Culture”. Finally, we’ve rounded out the last four years with a plethora of phrases regarding “Social Distancing” and “Flattening the Curve”. 

One interesting thing reading these phrases is that you can often recognize feelings, images, thoughts, or memories surrounding those very phrases, without me providing any further context whatsoever. With just a few words, we can all remember a singular season of life and where we were or who we spoke to. I remember exactly where I was for the first videos of 9/11, as well as when Washington went into lockdown.  

My favorite phrase is “Too Big To Fail” because it is accurate enough to cover all sorts of time periods and events. It’s a timeless truth that can apply to the railroads in the 1800s, the oil companies in the 1900s, the car companies after that, then the telephone companies in the 80s, then finally the banks in 2008. Even now, we could still apply it to the tech companies of 2020s, or CrowdStrike in July 2024. We could even apply it to the United States itself across many individual decades. We could also apply it to the Romans, the Dutch, the British, and many other empires in between. The underlying sentiment is that something becomes so critical, so dependent, that even if it fails, it lives on. Very few other aspects of life get to operate in this spectrum. When my peach tree gets too big, too heavy, too far out from its trunk, and I don’t trim and thin it, the roots give out and it naturally snaps and falls over. As it should, since it can’t support its own weight. Last week, a couple of famous arches in the Utah desert collapsed, and we, so far, have not spent a billion dollars to prop them back up to maintain an unsustainable structure. 

Eventually, some companies become a little too big, a little too important, and a little too dependent. The tides slowly turn from producing lots of value for the local economy, to gradually sucking in all the value in a larger and larger radius. When a company starts taking more value than it produces, people are left wondering where it all went, and is it still worth it to maintain it? The cure for this lose-lose situation is to notice these patterns early, get off the train early, and decide that these companies are Too Big To Follow. 

In late 2023, Seattle’s local organic chocolatier, Theo’s, was merged into the massive American Licorice Company. To “ensure the future of the company”, they closed their original Seattle manufacturing plant, laid off 60 of the people that got them there, and moved the operations out east. Meanwhile, our friendly rep who worked with us turned into an automated inbox, our chocolate shipped from the East coast instead of Seattle, and the bars arrived further and further after their production date. They published an eye-opening press release of how they became too big and had to cut ties to their roots. That’s how trees fail too.  

We will always operate “upside-down” and when something gets Too Big to Follow, we’ll go the other direction and look local, look small. Next week, we will begin offering Miodo Chocolate, from our own backyard of Camano Island. Our friend, Kevin Miodonski, has been making single-origin, small-batch, dark chocolate for over 20 years. Our new fresh bread starting this week from Water Tank Bakery follows a similar pattern, from a small local baker using all Northwest ingredients to get bread to your door right after its baked. Stayed tuned for more hyper-local producers of honey, pasta, meat, pizza dough, salad dressing, hummus, even dishware and nutrition classes! We’re gearing up for a full harvest season!  

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Cream on Top

Greetings and salutations from Tobin and Emily! We’re beyond grateful for the opportunity to serve all our local families with fresh local food, and we couldn’t be happier to be “back in the saddle” at Box of Good. 

Between the two of us, we’ve been raised in a long line of gardeners of veggies, herbs, and flowers, even berries and orchards. With all that food to harvest, it also brought with it a lot of canning, pickling, juicing, jamming, pressing, and preserving. I’ve had many late nights with the kitchen windows steamed up from the pressure pot and water bath, preserving that day’s harvest.

My grandparents moved to Camano Island from Kodiak Island, Alaska in 1977. My grandma, Vivian, was an avid gardener, so much so that when she was done managing her own garden in the morning, she would come over to our house and manage ours too! I would race to get my school done early so that I could go outside and join her.  

When my grandparents passed away 10 years ago, I was fortunate enough to acquire their home and keep it in the family. With that came a box of original pictures of them tilling and forming and shaping the barren grass slopes into neat aisles of raised beds. Then they planted a group of saplings for the start of an orchard. Those trees are now so large that I can barely keep up with trimming them! 

A few years before passing, Vivian planted a frost peach tree in the garden, and that has been my favorite and best-producing tree each year. Like clockwork, the first 3 weeks of August will be overflowing with peaches, and I know I need to be in Canning Gear or else I will lose out on that harvest. There are so many fun things to do with peaches, especially when they’re coming out of your ears.  

One of most satisfying things about the canning process is the “click” you hear when the jars start to cool off from the water bath. The lid pops into place. That’s how you know you got a good seal. However, if you have 10 jars on the counter, you can’t tell which one popped, specifically. However, a successfully sealed jar will cause all the peaches to rise to the top, leaving a few inches of peach syrup at the bottom. I think this is amazing! Naturally, the best bits always rise to the top! 

There are other things that rise this way, as well. Raw milk still has the stuff that conventional milk only dreams of: cream on top! In July, we started partnering with Justin and Katrina Seckel at Camano Creamy to deliver super fresh, local, raw milk. They got into dairy farming because of a similarly long and storied family lineage of dairy farmers paving the way for the next generations. I love seeing all the milk jars come and go with the thick layer of cream, naturally rising to the top. You can make your own butter or ranch dressing or clotted cream with raw milk, because the richest, creamiest part of milk always rises to the top. 

Rising is also the main feature of a yummy loaf of bread. Watching dough rise and rise, over and over, as you knead it into shape. As we prepare to start offering fresh local breads (teaser!), I’m again reminded that natural things rise, organically, without anyone telling it what to do. The best rises to the top. 

Of course, that makes one ponder the reverse: which things in life don’t obey this natural law? Do all the inorganic structures and complex systems and institutions that we humans create follow suit? Does the “cream of the crop” also naturally rise to the top of the systems we’re in control of? Or do we surpress the cream from rising to the top of our own systems in order to squeeze out more and more of a quicker, cheaper solution? Perhaps we’d get better results in our diets, districts, or diplomats if we choose to play in arenas that allow nature to take it’s course more often, where there’s space to grow slowly in their own way, rather than dictate an unnaturally quick pace for a subpar harvest. 

When my grandparents moved to little ole Camano in ’77, they barely knew a soul here. But they found a modest home to move into and good community. My wife and I get to enjoy that home 50 years later. A home that was built by a close family relative of Justin and Katrina Seckel. Good things take time. 

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Grapefruit and Citrus

This newsletter is going way back to 1979 to a time when I was kid. My children have had a distinct advantage over me when I was growing up. I was a Hamburger Helper and Fruit Loops kid and wouldn’t have known a Fuji from a Granny Smith apple or a Navel from a Valencia Orange. My only experience with fresh produce are fond memories of shelling peas on grandma’s back porch and carrying the 4th of July “seeded” Watermelon to the family picnic. 
Fast forward to 1994, happily married with 3 of our own kiddos. This is when I began a career in retail produce. It wouldn’t be for another 4 years until Joelle and I would launch the Organic Produce Shoppe and then a few more years before we added farming and home delivery.

Those early years are where I gained a lot of experience about the seasonality and quality of produce. I have trimmed tens of thousand lettuce and spinach bunches, handled even more apples and citrus. At my core, I am a good food advocate and love working with quality growers and fresh produce.

I remember it as if it was yesterday, I was interviewing for a manager position after a few years of working in the industry. It was a walk and talk interview. It is not uncommon for me to ask questions when one enters my mind. I am just curious and like to learn. As we were walking through the fruit displays, I asked, “Where did you get grapefruit this time of year?” The manager hiring me said, “California???” This is not the question a potential manager candidate should have asked (smile). 

To be completely honest my only experience was in boutique high quality produce markets. The owner of the company where I started my career never carried grapefruit from California. He was partial to Texas and Florida, which are harvested at a different time. And for sure, those are two really good grapefruit growing regions, but California also grows some outstanding citrus. 

This week we are featuring some of that beautiful grapefruit from California. When I eat grapefruit, I am less likely to use a grapefruit spoon, but opt for cutting it into wedges and eating them like that. 

I did still get that job, because the manager was looking for a person with an eye for quality. Quality is still a driving factor for our small business and customer satisfaction. 
– Thank you for allowing our family to serve yours,

Tristan, Joelle, Alaina and the Box of Good crew