“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.” Mark Twain

This blog is dedicated to a new path I have been carving out for myself as a food producer and entrepreneur. That’s the best title I can come up with. I am not a farmer, though I have been putting in a time here and there at a local garden – and I am not a chef, though I absolutely love to cook – and I am not a baker, though everyone knows I’ve been trying. The past 6 months I have been trying my hand at shortening the distance between people and their food via me, a food producer. In my view, the shorter the distance between people and their food:

1) the more local the food is likely to be, both locally grown and locally produced;

2) the more healthy the food is likely to be; and

3) the more likely a sense of community is to grow due to the personal connection between people, their food producers and food growers.

I will leave it to other blog posts to further expound on my reasoning behind these assumptions. Just bear with me for now.

I have designed organically, if that’s possible, a series of  “food projects”. These are a collection of food-related experiments, designed to test my hypothesis of the connection between people and their food. They are disparate in business model, approach, client base, product and status, but all involve me making food (bread, street food, etc) and directly connecting with the customer who eventually eats the food. Most importantly, they have all relied upon friends and family to become a reality.

The food projects that I have begun to date are:

• Pandora’s Box Community-Supported Bakery – similar in structure and business model to a farm community-supported agriculture program, subscribers to Pandora’s Box receive a “box” of baked good weekly that I produce in my home and
• Indilicious Street Food Cart – jointly started and run with my good friend Brian, Indilicious is a guerilla street food cart that sells delicious, affordable and high-quality homemade Indian food on the streets of San Francisco.

Other food projects I am hoping to embark on soon include:

• Underground Farmer’s Market – ForageSF is hosting their second Underground Farmer’s Market where home producers facing challenges selling at a conventional farmer’s market can set-up and sell their goods; hopefully I’ll be selling baked goods there later this month; and
• Algarden Lunch Café – in concert with my good friend and amazing urban farmer, Patricia, I am hoping to prepare and serve lunch at the Algarden using products cultivated at the Algarden, including fruits, vegetables, eggs and honey.

For now, this blog will focus on Pandora’s Box and the week-to-week events associated with home bread production. I will attempt to share insights and relevant details with you all; sometimes that may be articles that are too good to not pass on, but may not have much to do with bread, sometimes they may be tidbits from the other food projects. For now I only have the time and energy for one blog so the Indilicious blog and the Algarden Lunch Café blog will just have to wait. In any case, anything I post will be pertinent to the goals I have set forth.

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”  Lao-tzu

What are some of your thoughts on my theory? Am I just a nut?

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