The Fall

We are being prepared for the quiet. For the rooting and the digging in that offers great clarity and full nourishment. We are in the Fall, moving towards even cooler times. We are being given the opportunity to go inside and seek the warmth that will carry us through the cold season. There is the blessing of not only memories in the Sun, but through the preservations of abundant harvest, we have tangible access to that which brightens up our experiences and nourishes our bodies. What I will  bring with me are the conversations centered around the lessons learned from yellow jacket stings and the seasonal habits of carpenter bees. 

Growing and serving has blessed us with a growing community. We will gather around fire pits to process corn into masa harina and sorrel into herbal tea blends. As our laughter and tears echo off the trees we will gather in community sipping the Amaranth and Sorghum porridge that has now replaced our cold fruit smoothies. From our abundant Green harvest, we will nourish  our blood and fortify our organ systems with “Green Shots” and wild harvested herb tinctures. Ginger and Clove will color our Pumpkin Stews cooked slow over wood, clay and flame. Peppers from summer’s harvest will be pickled and made into hot sauces, bringing the sweetness of the Sun to the Fall and Winter, and provide a burst of Sunshine to every meal. 

In the large scheme of this Earth, this work, this exchange and experience matters. Nature gives us endless opportunities to be amazed and to be humbled. She is gracious and she is exact. She is balanced and her subtleties and flairs are all filled with purpose and grand design. Through communion with her we will be informed and instructed on how to continue to move forward through not just the Fall and the Chill, but through it all. Nature yearns for the interaction, for the relationship and she entices us with rich experiences and intense healing. She shocks us into inspiration and calls upon our attentiveness and ability to serve. Nature fortifies and we preserve what she gifts and shares with us. And we are all made whole from the exchange.

My Kitchen Sounds Like: "Simply Beautiful" by Al Green

Feed Your Farmer!

Here at MaituFoods we just launched our Feed Your Farmer initiative.  For all of our Grow Where You Are farmers and farm volunteers, we will now provide Vegan Meals prepared in Maitu's kitchen utilizing produce from the farms. Without our farmers we don't eat. Yet we realize that farmers and farming communities are the least served and the most undervalued in society. Oftentimes the very same farmers, who grow and harvest our food are food poor and live in poverty.

According to studies conducted by the world bank, 75% (883 million people at the US $1 a day poverty level) of the world's poor live in rural areas. Most of the rural poor depend directly or indirectly on agriculture for their well-being. It's a source of livelihood for roughly 86% (2.5 billion) of rural people and provides jobs for 1.3 billion smallholders and landless workers. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, whereas farmers produce the majority of the world's food, they are generally much poorer than the rest of the population and are less food secure than even the urban poor. It can be said that there are efforts underway to increase small farming, not only in efforts to eradicate hunger but to also improve the livelihood of farmers. However, it still remains that farmers, especially in rural areas remain marginalized and impoverished.

MaituFoods with this small gesture, hopes to bring more attention and awareness to this issue. Also to let our farmers know that we appreciate them and value their work. So from our kitchen, to our farmers' tables, Come Eat!  #FeedYourFarmer #FarmersEatFirst

Know Your Grower

KNOW YOUR GROWER ATLANTA

Gratitude to the folks over at Know Your Grower Atlanta for adding MaituFoods' owner to the Know Your Grower Atlanta website. Check out the story and bio by clicking on the link. Its an honor to be in the web of people doing such honorable work for and within the community. Love!

My Kitchen Sounds Like: "Intention" by Jah9

Grow Where You Are E-Book is Available!!!!

Yes! It is here. Now you can have the Grow Where You Are reader, sent directly to your email address in E-Book form. Check out the Grow Where You Are Reader link to pay directly through paypal or go to gebsite.com to get your copy today!!!

Keep it Moving

There is this anecdote that we like to often quote, partly for amusement but more so for the contextual relevance and incentive. So it goes, that Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer came to Bob Marley and said, "Hey, for a number of reasons we don't want to do the Wailers like this anymore." Bob's response was "Great." Just like that. Simply put. Lol! The eloquence of that response. Not only was it an acknowledgement of their rightful decision, but it was a strong stance in his own. Of course Bob took that great and went on to become just that.

I can remember 2008 and as with most defining moments the pressure was on to, do, be, or make something happen in our lives. Our first child together was on the way, I had recently quit my job and I had no clue how to continue to move forward, in any manner. I only knew that something had to be done. With a idea, a very simple idea, to feed the children at our neighborhood school where they didn't have a lunch program, the first brick in the foundation of what is today MaituFoods was laid.

It's amazing to look back and realize that before there was a "farm to school" movement, before local food was the hipster term and urban farming was a category, MaituFoods and Grow Where You Are with the support of the West End and Cascade community members established a vegan school lunch program for 4 private schools and daycares within that respective community. Together we have cultivated the land and installed green spaces and gardens in homes and communities that were considered food deserts. Without it being hip, or lucrative and profitable we established local, Vegan food programs for Pregnant Women, Post Natal Women and their families, to ensure they have access to nutritious, unprocessed foods. For schools in neighborhoods which people have forgotten or thrown away (until gentrification becomes ideal) we along with our extended team have developed curriculums along with teachers and staffs and install gardens and nutrition and skills programs for our youth all over Atlanta. We have even (with a tremendous amount of grace) been afforded the opportunity to leave the country and learn and teach in East Africa the techniques and skill set that we employ in our work.

We know, if no one else does that the last 6 years have been faced with tons of opposition, unnecessary idle-born conflict, and huge obstacles and yet we keep it moving. Because we know, like Bob, the goal is so much bigger than what we can often see in the moment and the work has to be, must be, done. Even in spite of ourselves. So in the face of negative profit margins, the financial statements in the red, the sometimes little to no support, we keep pushing. We acknowledge our place in this life and in this movement and we carry it forth to the best of our abilities, one meal and one seed at a time, in Greatness.

Go back and check out some of our beginning blog posts and see the journey:

Greetings from Planet Maitu Nov. 2009
Community Jan. 2010
Birthing Community Feb. 2010




My Kitchen Sounds Like: "Clouds" by Prince

Maitu's Channel

So we have a MaituFoods youtube channel!!!! Check out our latest videos including our Maitu's tips channel where we give you some face-time with Maitu as we demonstrate what's happening in our kitchen and garden.

Check out our most recent video on tree planting:

All Love!!!

Gotta Respect the Process

The process deserves its respect. Demands its respect. Its the process that gets us to the end result and therefore it should be canonized. Ok that's a stretch, especially when in the midst of the process. When things are coming together but have not quite taken off, when the ingredients are all there but the dish is still just its diverse, individual parts waiting for its fulfillment into the amazingness you have the desire to serve up and share. The truth is the process is tedious and sometimes extravagant. Sometimes in the process its hard to see the end result, to taste the sweetness in the labor. And that's the kick, hence the previous litany of gratitude for the process. There is sweetness in the labor. The process is what conditions you, what makes you. Its going through the process and coming out on the other side that makes it all worthwhile. Not just because of the end result, but because of who you become standing side by side with the greatness that is the end result. The awesomeness of this process of growing food, of exploring food culture and ritual, of serving our community from the best of ourselves is that it never ends, and therefore the lessons, the growth, the experience never ends.

My gratitude to the many people who have for the past few months been a part of and helped make this process, this journey that MaituFoods is upon worthwhile. From our private clients and families, to the Green For All and WAWA teams, LRAM collective, Georgia State, Whole Foods Farmer's Market, UGRO, the whole Grow Where You Are family, all the contributors and supporters for our Campaign and all the community members and organizations who have and are supporting us. Our gratitude like the impact of your support is immeasurable. Know that there is always a place for you at Maitu's table. All Love.



My Kitchen Sounds Like: "The Grind Date" by De La Soul