Green acres is the place for me.
Farm living is the life I see.
Land spreading’ out so far and wide,
Keep Manhattan, just give me that country side. 

Frankly, I always related more to the urban Zsa Zsa Eva Gabor character on that quirky late ’60s comedy Green Acres, (who countered  “I just adore a penthouse view, dahling I love you but give me Park Avenue!”), than I did with her simple-life-seeking husband, Eddie Albert. But that was then. That was before I ever walked the farm behind the Cocina Del Canta at Rancho La Puerta in Baja California, Mexico.

That was all before I took my students (for the three classes I taught there last week) out into the kitchen garden (7 acres or so..it’s not my little herb, tomato and zucchini plot I have at home, no…), to “shop” for the produce we’d be using for that day’s class menu.

Here we are alternating between gathering and eating….and that’s just the strawberries…

Farm manager Salvatore, who’s joy for what he does, his respect and wonder at all that takes place in this Eden he calls his workplace—from the bugs to the broccoli—is so apparent here as he uproots a sweet onion and offers us all a taste, and muscles a bundle of stubborn fennel from the ground for our dinner.

Next post…inside the RLP Cocina and recipes that use those strawberries and fennel!