Wanda HennigLeverage. Ubuntu. Sustainability. Transitions.

Story by Wanda Hennig

This story was first published in Food Illustrated magazine, London, with photography by Richard Jung

A visit to Greens in San Francisco is a celebration of the senses. Dip your spoon into a bowl of butternut squash soup and delight in the delicate harmony of lightly caramelized onions and apple confit blended with a hint of calvados. Feast your eyes on a salad that marries fresh ripe figs with Kodata, Mission and Calmyra olives, melon, watercress and creamy goat’s cheese. Inhale and delight …

Story and Pictures: Wanda Hennig

First appeared: East Bay Edible

“In Zen practice we want our intuition — our universal self — to come forth,” says Berkeley Zen Center abbot, Sojun Mel Weitsman Roshi. “When you’re doing simple tasks [like peeling broccoli or breaking lettuce into bite-size bits], your body, mind, the broccoli, the knife, your hand, the breath, are all involved. When you keep bringing your attention back to what you’re doing — when you are simply one with your activity — it’s the same as sitting zazen.”

She’s been called Alameda’s Julia Child and like Child, Weezie Mott is in a class of her own.
By Wanda Hennig
From Alameda magazine You know you’ve arrived at “The Motts” when you glance down and see it printed on the doormat. The appetizer-sized woman summoned by the doorbell simmers energy. She could be wearing her Ecole de Gastronomie Francaise Ritz-Escoffier apron that has her name, Weezie, custom-stitched in bold letters above the Paris-based cooking school motif. But there’s no class today. No guest chef coming in to cook, or culinary field …

What’s fabulously fresh, scrumptiously seasonal, lusciously local and satisfyingly sustainable?
By Wanda Hennig
First published in Alameda Magazine, November 2008
It’s 9:30 a.m. on a Saturday morning at Alameda’s Ploughshares Nursery, and Vera Ciammetti and Steve Rich are setting up an outdoor table. They fill a basket with long crispy loaves, fresh from the Feel Good Bakery oven. They slice the succulent heirloom tomatoes picked up from Dan’s Produce. They daub this impressionist’s palette of variegated shades of orange, yellow, red and green with leaves of fresh basil. They sprinkle sea salt …

The Slow Food Movement is, among other things, about making choices that nurture our families, the environment and our bodies.
Story by Wanda Hennig
First published in Oakland Magazine, November 2007
Diane Del Signore is poking around amid the 100 berry bushes and 25 fruit trees in her backyard orchard, looking for eggs. The six chickens that cluck, peck and scratch up little mounds of soil in this, their daytime hangout, routinely lay in the most unlikely spots. “They each produce an egg about every 29 hours, so we get four or …

Fruit, spice and all things nice …
By Wanda Hennig
From Alameda magazine, November 2008
Rachel Saunders is in the commercial kitchen space she rents on Santa Clara Avenue slicing melon. Not any melon, mind you. These are heirloom Charentais and Crenshaw melons that she came upon during yesterday’s farmers market forage. Also in her juicy, colorful and scrumptious world today is a box of ruby-red Satsuma plums that somebody gave her from their tree.
Slow Food Alameda charter member Saunders makes jams, jellies and marmalades from the freshest and most unusual fruit she …