California farmers are well versed in extreme conditions. In recent years, they’ve been forced to navigate everything from droughts to wildfires. But Covid-19 is something very different.
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Emma Bengtsson has purple streaks running through her blonde hair, dances a Latin-based style called bachata and oversees a kitchen staff of almost twenty. As the executive chef of Aquavit, a two-Michelin-starred restaurant (stars she retained in the 2016 announcement this week), not only does she have time to dance, but she also runs to the farmers' market at least three times a week. Even on Wednesdays, which are her "small" days. The trick? Other than not sleeping much, she plans her menu with enough flexibility to accommodate last-minute tweaks.
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It’s a sunny day at Windfall Farms in upstate New York, and Morse Pitts, the owner, is trying to explain to me one of the many reasons his microgreens cost so damn much: every shoot sold comes from a single seed. A sunflower shoot can take up to three weeks to mature. New seeds are planted twice a week for the duration of winter—which, this past year, lasted four and a half months. To keep their white plastic bins stocked for the three days a week they’re at Manhattan greenmarkets, they planted over 750 pounds of seeds—for just one of their dozen-plus offerings. And a fifty-pound bag of sunflower seeds costs $185.
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