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HEMISPHERESMAGAZINE.COM
•
NOVEMBER 2012
107
SALAD DAYS
Left, a cornucopia of Clasby’s foraged fare that includes Blenheim
apricots, Rainier cherries, baby savoy cabbage, wild fennel, torpedo onions and
baby purple artichokes; above, Clasby at the Santa Barbara farmers’ market
Theywere Surprise avocados, she announced, before slicing one open
and divvying out pieces among us. Though we’d all eaten our share of
avocados, this was like nothing any of us had encountered. The skin, a
perfect shade of dark green, felt as thinas parchment. The fruit itself had
a creamy consistency. Spread across a hunk of bague e, it tasted as rich
as French bu er. As good as avocados
are, I never knew they could be
this
good. This was a special avocado. This
was an avocado that ruined all other
avocados for you.
And that kind of response—the
upending of expectations, the forcible
redefining of every preexisting idea
of what food can be—is what’s made
Kerry Clasby, professional forager, a
stealth weapon for many of the top
chefs in America.
A FEW MONTHS
and several phone
calls later, I’m si ing in the passenger
seat of a convertible with Clasby at the wheel, zipping along California
blacktop. She has agreed to give me a glimpse into the secret world of
rare, ultra-high-end produce. Our first stop is McGrath Family Farm, in
the town of Camarillo. Clasby comes here for greens, dandelions, baby
kale, purple curlymustard andwrinklyThumbelina carrots. The farmers
greet her with hugs and, of course, things to taste. “I give them a lot of
business,” she whispers, then pops a perfect strawberry into her mouth.
Her life wasn’t always lived so close to the land. The daughter of a
venture capitalist who helpedfinance the early days of high tech, Clasby
married a successful hotel developer in 1985 and seemed destined for a
life of private planes andhaute cuisine. Themarriage didn’t last, however,
and in 1999 Clasby was on her own, a single mother of two boys in L.A.
When one of her sons contracted
E. coli
,
Clasby vowed to feed her
familyonlyorganic food. “I grewtomatoesbiodynamically inmybackyard
and started going to farmers’ markets in the area,” she says. “Eventually I
“
THERE’S SOMETHING
ABOUT FARMERS
WHO AREWILLING
TO NOT MAKE HUGE
MONEY, AND DO
THE RIGHT THING,”
CLASBY SAYS. “I LOVE
THOSE GUYS.”
