ORGANIC PRODUCE - AUDREY'S TRIP TO THE COUNTRYSIDE

Last year when Jim was here alone, he made friends with Tom Bremer, an American who lives here and grows organic produce. We turned Tom on to Territorial Seeds, the seed company out of Oregon. Tom was excited to get some pepper, lettuce and tomato seeds from there to try out in his greenhouses. Tom's biggest crop is tomatoes. He sells his produce to local restaurants, such as the Kookaburra. I had one of their salads (with his lettuce and tomatoes) which was outstanding.

Here is Kookaburra co-owner Jenny showing me Tom's Flashy Trout's Back Lettuce.


(For more about the Kookabura, see Nancy's blog http://www.watsontravels.blogspot.com/)

The other great thing about Tom is that his uncle by marriage is a tailor here in Cuenca. We discovered that we can bring fabric and buttons to Cuenca and give the tailor a pattern shirt and he will make Jim a new shirt for $8. This is great for us, because those of you who know me well know that I am a fabric junkie and have a closet FULL of fabric. So when we were in Hawaii recently, we shopped for some more fun hawaiian shirt fabric to add to some from our fabric closet to bring to Ecuador.

So, when we arrived this time, Jim called Tom to make an appointment to take fabric to his uncle. Tom invited Jim to his greenhouses to see the progress from last year. Jim readily agreed and they settled on a time.

Meantime, Jim's upper denture had broken in half a few days before we left for Ecuador. He decided to bring the broken plate to see if it could be repaired (that will be a different blog). Chuck has a dentist he really likes, who speaks English, so he called to get Jim an appointment. As it turns out the appointment was for the next day, when Jim was scheduled to go with Tom. So, I got to go to the tailor and to the greenhouses while Jim went to the dentist.

The tailor is in Cuenca, about a 20 minute drive from the Carolina Bookstore, where Tom picked me up. On the way there Tom suddenly waved at a car coming the opposite direction and pulled over. He got out, saying "I'm going to say hello to my wife." After he got back in the car he explained that he was happy to run in to her before getting to the tailor's shop because he lives in a small neighborhood and people might talk about him having a strange woman in the car.

After the business was concluded at the tailor (we ordered 8 new shirts) we continued on to Tom's greenhouses in the country. Tom is married to a local girl - she's from a small town outside of Cuenca called Sigsig. His wife's family have acreage in the country outside out Cuenca which is where Tom's greenhouses are. We went over some amazingly pot-holed dirt roads to get there. When we arrived we were in a lovely valley surrounded by mountains. This burro was there to welcome us with his braying:


Tom has three nice sized greenhouses where he growns mostly tomatoes, lettuce and peppers. Here's a picture of one of his tomato plants.

Tom put me to work picking cherry tomatoes. I was glad to be inside when a loud thunderstorm started. It didn't last long but sure sounded impressive. I got to meet Juan, the man who built Tom's greenhouses. He and Tom discussed the pros and cons of cherry tomatoes - they taste really good but it takes about a thousand of them to make up a pound!

Tom generously gave me some tomatoes and radishes, which I used in a terrific salad for tonight's dinner. I was so fortunate to get to have this look into the rural life in Ecuador.

Hasta manana,

Audrey