"What's Cooking Fresno?" is about building culture, community, cuisines, and dreams.
It was a two-day event that took place on Sunday, March 12 and Sunday, April 2 at Manchester Mall. It was an event, but much more than an event. It was part of a larger process.
Tara Hamilton has written another volume from her heart. The first was Cook, Grow, Love where she unfolded a legacy of sharing love through food that ultimately led her to become a chef and a farmer as well as a “farmacist,” and local food advocate in the Fresno area.
Care Fresno has been making a difference in Fresno for over 20 years. From the early days, when Gordon Donoho first introduced the ministry to me, through the leadership of Nick Jones, and now under Randy Mewhirter, there have been many changes, but also much consistency. Care Fresno’s Mission is central to its work: “Training People and Churches to Address Poverty by Investing in Under-Resourced Communities and Mentoring At-Risk Youth and Families!”
I am on a journey. It is a journey for life and health, wellness and joy. Like Hippocrates, the ancient physician, I have been learning “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.”
We so often stagger through life encumbered with the pressures of everyday problems and phantom concerns. We are sensitive to slightest slight and the subtlest gesture. We are quick to take offense and slow to receive healing when offended, much less to extend forgiveness. We step gingerly into new experiences and tremble at the very suggestion of risk or danger. We take our cues about our self-concepts from other people’s words and evaluations. We speak our minds and hearts with question marks. We timidly go where many have gone before and wouldn’t think of venturing where none have trod.
IQ, Intelligence Quotient, is an important tool for measuring cognitive ability. EQ, Emotion Quotient, is a new device for measuring emotional health and capacity. However, to adequately measure the value of a noodle, one needs NQ and, more specifically, Noodle Q near the southeast corner of Fresno Street and Ashlan.
Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is a way for consumers to buy local, seasonal produce directly from a farmer in their community. It is a method of closing the gap between the farmer and the consumer, assuring that families can receive local, healthy food in season. CSA is a form of handshake where everyone wins. The farmer and the consumer save money and high quality, organic produce is delivered to the people and places where it is needed. There are several such providers in the greater Fresno area. We will look at two, OOOOBY and Abundant Harvest and mention a third.
It is an open, inviting, and friendly environment for shopping and learning. Yes! Learning! The staff is there to stock shelves, check out customers, and to educate. It is not that everyone knows about everything, but everyone knows how to find the person who knows about the thing you want to know.
“On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.” - Revelation 22:2
The tree stands at 2139 Kern St. between M and L Streets. Inside the Tree of Life Café are the fruits of many local trees along with other delicacies prepared by Chef Phillip Ocheltree, under the watchful and proud eyes of his parents, Steve and Carolyn.
“At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had ever been laid.” – John 19:41
It was early in the morning, very early indeed. There was no alarm to awaken them. They dutifully arose and still asleep, walked silently to the place they had no desire to be to do the thing they had no desire to do.
