Gatherers, locavores relish Florida's gulf

February 01, 2009|Patricia Borns, Globe Correspondent

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Down a wooded dirt road, things were going on all at once at Jack Simmons's Crescent Moon Farm. Out of the ground, obsessively enriched with vegetable composts and teas, came the most beautiful greens and sprouts, not to mention persimmons and Muscadine grapes. Biodiesel workshops were on offer - the tractor, backhoe, and truck run on free frying oil - and oil seed crops were being planned.

"We're trying to graduate to where we were in the 1940s," said Simmons, who used to run a 58-foot charter ketch in the Virgin Islands. The hands welcome visitors between turns on the tractor and you can buy direct on vegetable picking days. Simmons participates in World Wide Opportunities On Organic Farms, whose members offer food, accommodation, and learning opportunities in exchange for volunteer help.

Two miles away, Clayton Lewis rents kayaks for paddling the blackwater Sopchoppy River in Apalachicola National Forest, and also retails organic cherrystones from his own leased beds.

The culmination of Hastings's trip was a languorous meal composed of everything the land and water had offered up, prepared in a restaurant kitchen that he had helped design. Guests and friends were put to work shucking oysters, which were eaten as quickly as they were opened, and peeling shrimp for paella, until a long table overflowed with bountiful, simple foods.

The faces were pink-cheeked from the outdoors, the voices fervent. Tom McGee from Toronto spoke of feeling "a call to action, like starting a garden." Linda Ozment wanted her supermarket to carry locally grown produce. Carrie Ozment, a doctor, spoke of battling obesity with high nutrition foods.

Hastings looked happily around the table. A little of his passion had rubbed off.

Patricia Borns can be reached at patriciaborns@comcast.net.