0:06

I'm Hugh Atchison, and this is

0:08

another kind of episode

0:11

of the Passenger. It's

0:13

been pretty weird in my industry this week yet

0:15

again kind of three and a half

0:18

weeks into this nonsense, and uh,

0:21

it's a pretty scary pandemic out

0:23

there. I equated two restaurants

0:25

just being the first line

0:28

that fell pretty quickly

0:30

because we had to to ensure public safety,

0:33

so we took the hit. The CARES

0:35

Act is going to help immensely. A lot

0:37

of us will get back open. A lot of people

0:39

just have lost interest in the industry.

0:42

That's really hard in normal

0:44

times. But as

0:46

I look at the coronavirus COVID nineteen

0:49

global cases by the Center for Systems

0:51

Science and Engineering, which is the Johns

0:53

Hopkins site that updates

0:56

UH pretty often, You've got eight d

0:58

eighty seven thousand firmed cases.

1:02

A lot of people dealing with us in different

1:04

ways. CDC is pretty much now

1:06

mandating that you probably should wear a mask. Um,

1:09

let's talk about rubber gloves, Latex

1:12

gloves. They're there for safety,

1:14

but as in restaurants, they

1:16

only work if you treat them like gloves

1:18

and your conscious of what they've touched. They

1:21

don't protect everything if you touch

1:23

a surface that's

1:26

got stuff on it, you might

1:28

as well not be wearing gloves at that point. So

1:30

you just gotta keep going to be smart. Um

1:33

we have ways uh in systems

1:36

at the restaurant right now. Empire State

1:38

South is my only restaurant that's operational doing

1:40

pretty lavish to go food. And then

1:43

a really big system of with an

1:45

amazing law firm up the street, and with the

1:47

Blank Family Foundation, we've

1:49

been feeding first responders and

1:52

a lot of people in the medical community. So

1:54

first response or first responders

1:57

being the police officers, an ambulance

1:59

and all those nine on one

2:01

response people um SO, and

2:04

then doctors and nurses and hospital

2:06

workers and all those people are on the front lines

2:08

who are right now our heroes.

2:11

They are our army, and

2:13

we need to keep them nutritionally fed. Now,

2:16

the big thing about you know, you can always deliver a

2:18

pizza. I love pizza too, but in

2:21

this time, I think people who work sixteen

2:23

to twenty hours shifts need nourishment. And

2:26

the big thing about food and what

2:28

I do every day is that we nourish

2:30

people. And that's

2:32

cooking food with heart and

2:34

it's safe and good for

2:37

them and give some energy

2:39

and spirit and that

2:41

they know is made by a human who cares about them.

2:44

And I think that's the most important thing we can do right

2:46

now. Still checking on my neighbors,

2:49

the elderly women across the street's good, gotta

2:52

some toilet paper the other day, you know, I gotta

2:54

keep them, keep people uh

2:58

having what they need. The Chinese

3:00

graduate student who's very quiet next

3:02

door, he's safe and sound check

3:05

on him every other day or so from

3:08

afar, kind of yelling into his window, very nicely

3:10

yelling, but just still yelling. It's

3:12

really interesting to me the economic

3:15

impact that chatting down the hospitality industry

3:17

has. And we don't think about the

3:20

tentacles of of an economy,

3:23

and the economy of restaurants

3:26

and hospitality is like fifteen million

3:28

employees in the United States. We account

3:30

for like four percent of GDP in the country,

3:33

so it's pretty huge. But then when you really spread

3:35

out the tentacle, it's one of the things that were really concerned

3:37

about. His farms, and a lot of the farms

3:39

that we deal with are are people we know and

3:42

people we know well in the community and around

3:44

Athens in Atlanta, and

3:46

who work really hard and the

3:49

majority of what they raise, and uh,

3:52

you know that they harvest goes to

3:54

restaurants, and so west restaurants

3:57

are dark and only buying immediate

3:59

supplies and emergency supplies to feither

4:01

people or to can make simpler to

4:03

go food. Um. Oftentimes

4:05

the farms that are uh such

4:08

amazing sustainable and organic

4:10

places, they're getting squashed

4:13

right now. So we're gonna call somebody

4:15

in a little bit um who is

4:17

a very good friend and a wonderful

4:20

human and that's Molly Chester. And

4:23

Molly runs Apricot

4:25

Lane Farm in Moore Park, California,

4:28

just over the hills north of

4:30

Los Angeles, and she and her husband

4:33

John john Chester did an amazing documentary

4:35

recently called The Biggest Little

4:37

Farm that won a ton of awards

4:39

and accolades. And it's a wonderful documentary

4:42

that you can go online and get and and

4:44

watch or rent or whatever and stream.

4:47

Um. But you should go do that because it shows

4:49

the impact and the the amount of work

4:51

that it takes to really do

4:53

do diversified farming in America today

4:56

on a small scale and be successful in it.

4:59

But Molly and On Johnson documentary

5:01

filmmaker as well, and he did the whole film himself

5:03

and Molly runs the farm with John

5:05

and they're just amazing people and

5:07

really it should be an interesting call. Let

5:10

me get Molly Chester on the phone. We're

5:12

gonna go and talk about how

5:15

this crazy pandemic is affecting

5:18

small farms that do amazing

5:28

Molly Chester, you're on the phone

5:30

from Moore Park, California. How are you, hi,

5:33

Hugh. I'm doing well. How are you? I'm

5:35

getting through days? It seems like everything

5:38

is different every day and it's like just

5:41

dealing with newfound things I've

5:43

never had to deal with before. Yeah.

5:45

No, that's the honest response, because that's

5:47

pretty much what we're doing

5:49

over here too. It's it's grueling.

5:52

Okay, let's talk about what Apricot Lane Farms

5:55

does because a lot of the listeners won't

5:57

understand the diversity involved. Um,

6:00

but they can always go watch Biggest Little Farm,

6:02

which is the most amazing documentary about the

6:04

farm, about Molly and her husband

6:06

John. But Molly, tell me about

6:08

what the farm does in the diversity

6:11

that's inherently important to you guys. Yeah.

6:14

So, um, we are two

6:16

and fourteen acre biodynamic and

6:18

organic farm and um, really,

6:21

as a sum total, it's we practice

6:24

regenerative farming, so it's looking

6:26

at our farm as an ecosystem and trying

6:28

to figure out how that we can build

6:31

fertility and create fertility

6:33

from the inside out. And

6:36

uh so, then animals become a really

6:38

big part of that because we use their

6:40

manure as fertilizer and

6:43

UM it's very very diverse,

6:46

which is kind of the key to UM

6:49

preventative with making

6:52

sure our microbes have enough diversity

6:54

to be healthy and happy.

6:56

And in that diversity, it's very complicated,

6:59

which makes a time like this a little

7:01

extra nuanced for us. So

7:04

you guys raise a lot of fruit and

7:06

originally the the area was really no for

7:08

avocados, and you've got about eight or

7:11

million different types of avocados on the property.

7:13

What's coming into harvest right

7:16

now, Well, the half season

7:18

just started, so that's a

7:20

big majority of our trees and

7:23

UM we we do those

7:25

very well. It's something that we're known for.

7:27

And really one of the keys is that

7:29

you focus on the soil,

7:31

but then you also wait to harvest them

7:34

for when they're ready, because so often they get

7:36

harvested in January, they aren't anywhere

7:38

near to the oils being developed. So

7:41

UM we wait until the very

7:43

last week in March to do that. So they

7:45

are coming in and lemons are here right

7:47

now, and we have sold out so quickly

7:50

on meat that we're going to have to face

7:53

UM some some more slaughter

7:55

to restock that, but that will

7:57

be a slow process with everything going on. Yeah,

8:00

that's interesting. It's like the

8:03

organic firms in Georgia have been to impacted

8:05

because they've lost the review of restaurants

8:07

predominantly, but I think on the other side,

8:09

they're still having vast successive farmers markets

8:11

if they're planned right. So what

8:14

initiatives there are you guys taking a farmer's markets

8:16

to ensure safety. Yeah,

8:18

that's really the

8:20

the hard part. UM. We have changed

8:24

our stands to be a um

8:27

where people walk up and they request what they

8:29

want and then we bag it up for them and

8:32

so no customers are touching the produce

8:34

and we're using gloves and keeping

8:37

it as sanitary as we possibly

8:39

can. UM. Thankfully, my

8:41

sales um manager is

8:44

a former chef, so cross

8:46

contamination and things like that come

8:48

very naturally to him, so he was

8:50

able to really look at it from that perspective

8:52

and we ended up setting the tone for other

8:55

farmers in the region who switched. There's

8:58

to that kind of white walk ups of

9:00

us as well, which was great. Yeah, I

9:02

think we're all walking Hassett plans

9:04

now, mitigating

9:06

disease at every step. Yeah, what's

9:09

what's the I mean the percentage

9:12

of restaurants sales that you had before?

9:14

I mean, what have you lost or any of them still ordering?

9:17

We actually because our farmers market operation

9:20

gained popularity so much, we UM

9:22

we ended up we don't

9:24

have a lot of restaurant sales. We have a little bit,

9:27

but we're able to redistribute that food

9:30

if needed. And UM our

9:32

farmers markets have been going strong. So

9:35

from a sales perspective, it's really UM

9:37

been okay. It's just been a huge hardship

9:40

on our team UM

9:42

because of all the different measures

9:44

we've had to put in place on the farm and it's

9:46

just it's it's scary for them.

9:49

We're managing emotions. UM

9:51

so much for all of us about how

9:53

to do this best. And then even though

9:55

we have every safety measure in place, it's

9:58

a very courageous UM team

10:00

member to work those farmers markets

10:02

because you are interacting with the public.

10:05

Yeah, in in the

10:07

realm of things that have happened to your

10:09

area in the last five years, given

10:12

droughts and uh fires

10:14

and now a pandemic

10:17

um what comes next locusts,

10:20

Oh my gosh, I know it feels like that, and

10:22

you know it is. This

10:24

is definitely for our team. It's been

10:27

the most emotionally difficult

10:29

because of all the loss that you feel.

10:31

It's just the loss of connection.

10:34

We're all people that focus

10:36

on building microbial

10:39

populations and we don't sanitize.

10:42

That's the opposite of who we are. Defense

10:44

is not something that we naturally slide

10:47

into, and so that's been very

10:49

grueling for us to figure that out. However,

10:52

the silver lining is that nature John

10:54

likes to my husband, John likes to say nature

10:57

is still open and it is

10:59

very much so. The solace that you

11:01

feel by being on a farm right now, whether

11:04

it's a bit um of optics

11:06

or not, is because

11:08

you still have people and you're still interacting. It

11:11

feels very good to go on those walks

11:13

these days, as I know everyone feels

11:15

and knows in their own homes,

11:17

and it brings you closer to

11:20

nature because there's such an appreciation for

11:22

the safety that that's providing. Right now. Yeah,

11:25

it's it is really interesting. So

11:28

in in the regular day to day operations the

11:30

farm and the biodynamic I mean, biodynamism

11:33

is a big circle. I mean it's it's

11:35

you're feeding into it to get results out of it. Um.

11:38

So what are these hurdles

11:41

that you're seeing now given the pandemic. Well,

11:45

just the fact that we've had to completely

11:47

restructure our team because we

11:49

do have animals to feed and plants

11:51

to at least water at a bare minimum,

11:54

and if the coronavirus happened

11:56

to UM, happen to one of

11:58

our team members on the farm, with

12:00

the different regulations, we'd end up having to quarantine

12:03

anyone that that person came into contact

12:05

with. So we've had to really put our

12:07

heads together and come up with a system

12:10

that's going to be implemented this coming

12:12

week, UM, where we have an A team

12:14

and a B team so that they're switching

12:16

off weeks so if we do have a challenge,

12:18

it doesn't take down everything

12:21

that's needed to just make us safe

12:23

with feeding those animals and taking care of

12:25

the trees. So that's been very

12:27

difficult and all of our forward

12:29

progress, as I'm sure everybody feels,

12:32

um we're dealing with this collective grief,

12:34

and you just can't be in a state

12:37

of UM progress

12:39

and spearheading right now. So we've

12:42

had to scale back to UM really

12:45

maintenance, and that is a loss

12:47

for us because it's springtime

12:49

right now and everything that

12:52

you know, this is go time for farmers. You

12:54

can literally feel the buzz of the earth

12:56

when spring comes. And

12:59

now we just we we don't

13:01

have the team members here. We can't focus

13:03

on the fertility in the ways that we ordinarily

13:06

would. We aren't UM able to

13:08

build more composts in the ways that we always

13:10

are, so we're going to feel the repercussions of this

13:12

for long after it's over. Yeah,

13:15

it's funny that the the team would

13:17

be I mean, because the nature

13:20

of taking care of animals is so constant. It's kind

13:22

of like it's one team, so you can't just kind of have a

13:24

breakout scenario of saying you can't

13:26

isolate one person really that easily.

13:29

I was talking to Hosanis the other day about,

13:31

you know, how this is going to go and how they deal with in Wuhan

13:34

eventually. You know, if if the pandemic gets

13:36

that bad here, then my idea

13:39

is to take all of my cooks and deliver

13:41

them supplies to their house. They each make meal

13:43

through fifty people a day, and we get those

13:46

out of the neighborhood. Somehow say because

13:49

well, because we have to unit like put

13:51

individual units, because then one

13:54

cook goes down, it's okay

13:57

that we can get them out of the chain. Um.

14:00

I think it's kind of borrowing from like terror

14:02

cells. But hey, maybe it's good organizational

14:05

spirit that they have. UM

14:07

it is, that's an interesting perspective,

14:09

and it is forcing a different

14:12

type of um patchwork

14:14

community that probably will have some

14:16

positives when we get to the other side of

14:18

this. But it's so um

14:21

isolating. I think so

14:23

too that there are some positives that come

14:25

out of it. I mean, I think that the way we think about

14:27

feeding people, the fact that I go to the

14:30

regular grocery store and see the dry

14:32

denial totally barren right now

14:34

makes me proud somewhat that maybe

14:36

America is understanding and can

14:39

cook, which is really important,

14:41

as you and I know we think that they

14:43

don't really. Jose

14:45

Andreas also said this is really interesting.

14:48

He's like, we talk a lot, and he's

14:50

an old friend, but he was he was just like you

14:52

you give timtnso blentels to an old

14:54

Italian woman with two handhocks and

14:57

they'll feed everybody. She's

14:59

like, we don't do that in America, and

15:01

I was like, yeah, I know, but I think maybe

15:04

you're being proven wrong now. So I think

15:06

that there's good things, you know. I mean, I'm

15:08

checking on my neighbor now, the

15:11

elderly woman who lives across the street, and

15:13

we've waved each other before, but now we're

15:15

on a first name basis, and we talked from a

15:18

twelve foot distance each day, and I

15:20

go and get her supplies. And I talked

15:23

to my Chinese graduate student neighbor

15:25

on the other side, who is very

15:27

quiet guy, and I was just worried

15:29

about him, so checked on him and got him some

15:32

food. And you know, so I think

15:34

that you can get this distanced

15:36

community'd be even tighter than it was

15:39

smartly. And that's really that's good.

15:43

Tell me about the success of the documentary.

15:46

That was a wonderful success and um

15:48

it so it was in twenty

15:50

some countries around the world. The coronavirus

15:53

did affect a few of the rollouts. Japan

15:56

had this beautiful launch plan and

15:58

it literally happened as

16:00

Corona started, so that put a dampener there.

16:02

But UM in the United States

16:04

it was very successful. We the

16:07

last set of tours, which now have been canceled,

16:09

so again there's kind of positive negative.

16:12

But we UM this spring we

16:14

rolled out our first couple of tours and first

16:17

couple. We have some v I P tours too, and

16:19

we put all those up on the website and we sold

16:22

it was something like eight d seventy five

16:24

tickets in seventeen minutes, so

16:27

it definitely has helped the exposure

16:29

for regenerative agriculture. The

16:32

people that are into the film are the

16:34

most wonderful group

16:36

of individuals. They're all so inspired,

16:39

so lovely, and so it's actually been quite

16:41

a joy. So people,

16:44

that's biggest little firm. And you

16:46

can get it. Where where can you stream

16:48

it? So I know it's on Hulu,

16:50

I know it's on the paid streaming services

16:53

like Amazon things like that, and I

16:56

it's not on Netflix in the United States,

16:58

it is in some other countries, but it is so

17:02

every everybody can get it. And people,

17:04

you've got a lot of time these days and

17:07

watch a great documentary that's award winning

17:09

and depicts Apricot Lane Farm, which

17:11

is one of the most beautiful places full

17:13

of beautiful things that I've ever been

17:15

to, so it's a good place to be. Well,

17:18

Molly, thanks for filling us in on

17:20

your world and how this affects you, and

17:22

we wish you good luck and best to all

17:24

your crew. Thank you very much you and best

17:27

to you guys down there in Athens too. I'm

17:30

Hugh Attriston. You're listening to The Passenger from my

17:32

Heart Radio. We'll be back after

17:34

this quick break. I'm

17:43

Hugh Atchison. This is the Passenger.

17:47

I still want to talk about other impacts that we're doing

17:49

and what you need to think about in this world

17:51

of how you help restaurants UM. A

17:53

lot of chefs have been

17:56

asking me for advice and chiming

17:58

in with different ideas, and there's a lot of sharing

18:01

on social media of what what's working and

18:03

what's not. A lot of us have put

18:05

our hearts into trying to create small to go offerings

18:08

and depending on the how many regulars

18:10

you have, how big your city is, maybe that's sustainable

18:12

and maybe it's not. For most

18:14

people, it's probably not. UM.

18:17

Selling gift certificates is is a

18:19

good way of helping restaurants out and buying

18:21

them a good way of helping up places.

18:24

Um, But I'm shying away from that a little bit because

18:26

I just don't want all the gift certificates. We use

18:28

the money to pay salary, payrolls

18:31

and um insurance and

18:33

rents and utilities and all that in the interim

18:35

and while we're closed. But I

18:37

don't want to spend all that money and then

18:39

haven't come back and gift certificates of

18:41

money that I've already spent when we reopened in

18:43

the first two weeks, because that kind of terrifies

18:45

me. Then we'd have no cash. But

18:49

I've been doing very sort of uh

18:53

I think a relatively smart thing. I'm selling

18:55

advanced caterings so people

18:58

in the next two years can set a day and

19:00

I will come to their house and cook for tend to forty

19:02

people and on their cutler and

19:05

their silver and their plates and

19:07

whatnot. With their glassware. They provide the beverage,

19:09

but I just bring all the food, and um,

19:11

my amazing chef friends

19:13

who works for me, Sam Herndon, and

19:16

I would will will cook an amazing five

19:18

course meal. And it's amazing how

19:20

benevolent people and generous people

19:22

are in these times, there's

19:25

a lot of stuff that comes out um

19:27

where people do not act as good citizens.

19:29

But man, for the most part, people

19:32

are freaking awesome and they really

19:34

rise to the challenge, because we need to rise the challenge

19:36

right now. This is a pandemic

19:39

that that we can we can squash

19:41

if we're smart. And but

19:44

it looks like it's going to take a pretty heavy toll. Um.

19:48

I the older sisters

19:50

being self quarantine right now. Um

19:53

so it lives in California. She's

19:56

got good health care, so we're

19:58

not to worry. But you know, show us

20:00

so as diabetes and uh, that's

20:03

a hard previousting condition to

20:05

to work around with something that's ah

20:08

that's got pretty sudden onset like OVID nineteen.

20:10

So but we'll keep you informed

20:12

on how that goes. I

20:15

I'm living on a positive note these days,

20:18

just try to get by, trying to support my

20:20

people. My kids came over the

20:22

other day and we hung out. They've been

20:24

actualating for their mom's house, which is like three blocks

20:26

away, but they came over with Kaitan

20:29

and has roasted chicken, hung

20:31

out talk for a while. So

20:34

it was good. You gotta feed your people, nurse

20:36

your people. You've

20:40

been listening to The Passenger. This

20:43

is the production of I Heart Radio created

20:45

by Hugh Atchison and Christopher Hassiotas,

20:48

were produced and edited by Mike Johns.

20:51

A researcher is Jescelyn Shields

20:53

and Christopher Hassiotas as our executive

20:56

producer. Special thanks to Gabrielle

20:58

Collins, Crystal Waters, and

21:00

the rest of the crew. If you like The Passenger,

21:03

leave us a review on Apple podcast It helps

21:05

other people like you. I'm the show. If

21:08

you're a local and you want to let me know

21:10

what I missed and where should go on our

21:12

next visit, Or if you've

21:14

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Thanks for listening.