local food heroes
MEET SOME OF THE STARS OF THE WEST SOUND’S FOOD SCENE
Words & photos by Leif Utne & David Albright
Local food. It’s fresher, tastier and healthier than the packaged fare trucked from afar. It’s better for the environment. It creates jobs for local farmers. And it fosters stronger, more resilient communities. The people profiled here are just a few of the bright lights in the West Sound’s food community. Dozens more have toiled to make this vibrant food system what it is today.
THE URBAN FARM
Roderick Camarce stands by a row of waist-high garlic plants and gestures across the street to the line of cars snaking into the Taco Bell drive-thru, “Everyone wants convenience these days,” he says.
But convenience is not the goal of Camarce’s Ridgetop Urban Farm, the 1/10th acre he nurtures behind his family’s duplex. He gained an appreciation for growing food while living in the Philippines from 2013-2017, and still connects with his heritage through some of the vegetables he grows—calamansi, bok choy, saluyot.
He readily admits that the past five years have been a grind, and he’s watched other urban farms in Bremerton come and go. “It’s easy to burn out.”
Several government programs have helped. The Kitsap Conservation District’s Farm to Food Pantry program provides financial assistance for farmers to grow food for local food banks, and he is awaiting delivery of two new greenhouses funded by the USDA’s High Tunnel Initiative.
But more than anything, he’s sustained by his passion for doing this work. “I found a sense of healing through gardening. A lot of people don’t care that I’m here doing this,” he says, eyeing that line of cars across the street. “But that’s OK! I know that I care.” / D.A.
THE FARM-TO-TABLE BAKERY & CAFE
Darice Grass keeps a pot of oxalis on the shelf as a reminder of what she’s trying to accomplish with her Poulsbo café, Oxalis Kitchen. “Some people hear the name and they laugh,” she says, “because they think it’s a weed.” But to Darice, the edible ground cover reflects finding joy in the commonplace.
Her menus—featuring items like farro salad with beets, and an Asian rice bowl with pac choi and radish—rotate around local availability. With a degree in economics, she understands the balancing act it takes to stay in business. But she believes that connecting to the local food system has its own value. “I’d never go back to a local farm and ask them for a lower price,” she says.
She’s also forged a unique partnership with another small business, Sweets and Savories. Together they’ve created Poulsbo Kitchen Collective. If you walk into the cafe on Monday or Tuesday, you’ll find Sweets and Savories. On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, Oxalis Kitchen. The arrangement allows both businesses to save on operating costs while providing a work-life balance. oxaliskitchen.com / D.A.
THE INSTAGRAM GARDENING INFLUENCER
When I caught up with Nikki Parks working the Roots Farm booth at the Bremerton Farmers Market, she was talking to a customer about fava beans. She enthusiastically showed off the bulbous green pods and explained how to prepare them.
She makes the sale, then fills me in on what it took to get those beans to market. They were planted in October at Roots Farm in Poulsbo, one bean every three inches in a compost-filled furrow.
When Nikki’s not talking vegetables at the farmers market or at her monthly Garden Talks at Crane’s Castle Brewing, she’s sharing via her Instagram.
“Gardening is really not difficult!” she tells me, “I just want to teach people—to take the hard part out of gardening, and get as many people growing food as possible.” @urbangnomestead / D.A.
THE COMMUNITY FOOD CO-OP
When Erin Falcone first got involved with the Kitsap Community Food Co-op (KCFC) as a volunteer, the organization was on life support. A group had tried for seven years to open a new, member-owned cooperative grocery somewhere in Bremerton.
By 2015, they had burned through nearly $150,000 on consultants who insisted that they needed at least $3 million in startup capital, a large store and thousands of members.
But Falcone wasn’t ready to give up on the idea of a food co-op supporting a web of local sustainable farmers across the Kitsap Peninsula.
Elected KCFC president, she recruited a new board of directors around a mission of opening a small store in Bremerton’s economically depressed downtown core, starting with a popup shop inside the (now closed) Sweet and Smokey Diner.
The popup gained traction and the group was able to lease a 1,500-square-foot retail space next door to the diner. After an extensive remodel, the Kitsap Community Food Coop opened its Park Avenue doors in July of 2019.
One unexpected key to KCFC’s success was COVID. “The pandemic saved the store,” says Falcone, as people began cooking at home in record numbers. To meet the spike in demand, they built an online ordering system.
Since then, the co-op’s membership has swelled to over 1,250. Next year, Falcone hopes to expand to about 2,500 square feet and add a commercial kitchen. Longer term, she envisions a network of small co-op stores in neighborhoods all over Kitsap County. kitsapfood.coop / L.U.
THE ONLINE FARMERS MARKET
Kitsap Fresh is essentially an online farmer’s market. The producer-owned cooperative was created, general manager Erin Smith says, “to give local farmers another outlet besides farmers markets, CSAs and farm stands,”
Smith explains how Kitsap Fresh works as we walk past rows of shelves in their Poulsbo warehouse.
Every Friday, the co-op’s 45 suppliers log onto the website and enter whatever products they have available—from fresh tomatoes and turnips to pickles and chocolate. Customers have until midnight on Sunday to enter their order. On Tuesday and Wednesday, producers drop their products at the warehouse. Staff sort customers’ orders, then drive them to seven distribution spots throughout the county. Or, for an extra home delivery fee, customers can have their order brought straight to their door. kitsapfresh.org / L.U.
THE FARMER’S ADVOCATE
For years, Seattle’s overheated housing market has created problems for West Sound farmers. Soaring land values have incentivized aging farmers to sell their land to developers. Meanwhile, sky-high rents throughout Kitsap County have made it difficult for farmers to find workers. This is especially true on Bainbridge Island, where listing prices of homes this summer averaged $1.3 million and affordable rentals are virtually nonexistent.
Thanks to the advocacy of Bainbridge nonprofit Friends of the Farms, founded in 2001, the island boasts 10 working farms today, up from seven a decade ago.
The group’s latest initiative is the ReHome Project, an innovative effort to provide affordable housing for young farmers by building a cluster of three tiny houses on Morales Farm, one of several city-owned agricultural properties on Bainbridge. Each 400-square-foot home will house two farmers or interns.
The homes will be built from donated, repurposed and recycled materials, with design, construction and project management donated by Coates Design, Clark Construction and Housing Resources Bainbridge, respectively.
While three tiny houses may sound like small potatoes, Friends of the Farms has its sights set higher, according to executive director Heather Burger. She’s working on a master plan for a larger farmer housing project at Suyematsu Farm on Day Road that would house up to 20 people. friendsofthefarms.org / L.U.
THE POLICY WONK
The Kitsap Conservation District is the main agricultural policy body in the county, offering technical assistance to farmers on federal and state farm policies and farming practices. “That’s a funny way of saying if you have a question you can give us a call,” resource planner Diane Fish quips.
Fish and her colleagues help farmers and other landowners build rain gardens, protect salmon habitat and design irrigation and drainage systems to keep manure and pesticides from contaminating groundwater. The district also runs a one-acre demonstration farm next to its headquarters on Central Valley Road and administers several pots of grant money aimed at getting more fresh vegetables into the hands of low-income residents. Last year, the district paid farmers over $30,000 to provide fresh produce to local food banks. And Fish is working with local school districts to add the area’s produce to cafeteria menus.
If that wasn’t enough, Fish is helping farmers address the problem of high land values through measures like transfer of development rights, creative financing and cooperative farming. kitsapcd.org / L.U.
THE INTEGRATED FARM-TO-TABLE EXPERIENCE
No one understands the relational power of food better than Tadao Mitsui, owner of Heyday Farm on Bainbridge Island. It’s right in Heyday’s tagline: “Your food has a story.”
In addition to selling organic produce through local markets and restaurants, Heyday supplies food banks throughout Kitsap County, owns and operates the Farm Kitchen Bakery, and hosts gourmet community dinners on weekends in its farmhouse restaurant.
Chef Tad began his career as a gourmet chef in Seattle before becoming a farmer, and his customer experience ethos permeates everything about Heyday Farm. From the native flowers in the landscaping to the European-style community tables in the farmhouse restaurant, every detail evokes a sense of connection to the bounty of this historic farmstead. heydayfarm.com/ L.U.
