What\'s Up

A few months ago Monica Downen, owner of Monica’s Waterfront Bakery and Cafe in old town Silverdale, took to the pages of What’s Up with a periodical column about eating fresh and local. Downen, 42, who lives with her husband Mark in Olalla, has owned Monica’s since 2006. What’s Up decided to put together a Q&A so our readers can get to know her a bit better, and we learned some fun (and surprising!) things.

First, here’s something Monica wrote about her and Mark’s daily activities that I think sums up her outlook in a lovely way:

“Right now we are immersed in the cafe and we love it. We are tired and happy and even when business is slow and a little scary, we are excited to keep trying new things and see what our community wants. I absolutely adore being active in our community and supporting our local authors, artists, and other local businesses. Even if I won the lottery tomorrow I would still be doing this… I would do some things differently and get a few days off now and then, but I would be doing it nonetheless.”

And here is the Q&A. Enjoy:

WU: How did you get started in the food industry?

MD: Oh my, that is reaching back… I was 16 years old at my first job, a bus-girl at the Renton Sheraton Hotel restaurant. I did room service, bussed tables, and helped in catering. I worked my way through high school and college in full service restaurants and catering and once I earned my BA in criminal justice I thought I would never go back to food service again. My chosen career path was derailed by health issues and I ended up working as a dispatcher, which I loved, for 15 years. I have always loved cooking and, more importantly, feeding those around me, and when I decided it was time to move my life in a new direction, my family and friends strongly urged me to get into food service. I spent a few months researching, interviewing owners of restaurants that I admired, and finding mentors to talk with. My new path revealed itself relatively quickly and I decided that I wanted a restaurant of my own. This place is bigger and more involved than I ever thought I would be!

WU: What is your favorite item on the Monica’s Waterfront Bakery menu?

MD: That is tough… my favorite thing on our permanent menu is our focaccia. I love the bread and even though the chicken is really good, the roasted veggie is my favorite between the two.

WU: What would people be surprised to know about you?

MD: I think people would be surprised to know that I have fibromyalgia, and that is what began a more intense foray into the world of all natural, organic (foods), etc. I tried the western medicine route to deal with it when I was diagnosed 12 years ago, and that did not work for me. I did some research and decided to become a certified nutritional herbalist. I still practice, though I was never good at charging money for it, so I mostly offer my services to friends and family, and I don’t have much time to even do that these days. I am also a Reiki master and (this one may really surprise them the most) an ordained minister.

WU: What is the best thing about living in Kitsap?

MD: Being surrounded by nature and natural beauty. We are so blessed with that all over this state and yet I feel it more intensely here than anywhere else that I have lived. I love the ’small town’ feel, as well.

WU: Why is the Eat Local cause so important to you? (And why should it be important to others as well?)

MD: Gosh, there are so many layers to this answer. The most basic answer to both sides of the question is that it tastes better! There are many environmental reasons (greenhouse gases are reduced automatically with lower transportation distances); economical reasons (When a farmer sends food to a grocery store s/he gets about 9 cents per dollar for what they sell. If s/he sells it locally through farmer’s markets, csa’s, direct farm sales, food co-op, etc. the farmer keeps closer to 90 cents of every dollar made. It keeps pricing down, more of the money stays in the local community, it allows the farmer and markets to hire more people, and so on. It has been proven that small businesses have longer lasting, and more benefits to local economies, than having a large ‘anchor’ business, like Boeing or Walmart); and I can go on for a long time about things like that. The one reason that I think should effect every one of us the most though, is the global hunger issue.
U.S. citizens, and the world, have been led to believe that there is not enough food being grown, and that is why people are going hungry everywhere; it is simply not true. Indeed, there will be over 9 billion people by 2050, and indeed, with less than 7 billion today, people still go hungry. But we don’t need to increase crop yields to feed these people. In 2008, globally, we grew enough food to feed over 11 billion people. We grew 4,000 calories per day per person — roughly twice what people need to eat.
Eric Holt Gimenez, of Food First (The Institute for Food and Development Policy) put it eloquently in a conversation earlier last year: “In 2008 more food was grown than ever before in history. In 2008 more people were obese than ever before in history. In 2008 more profit was made by food companies than ever before in history. And in 2008 more people went hungry than ever before in history.”
Hunger is not a global production problem. It is a global justice problem. We need to increase global equity, not global yields. There may be profit to be made in exporting our high-tech, input-reliant, greenhouse-gas-emitting agricultural systems to the developing world. But let us not pretend it will solve global hunger or address climate change. After all, high-tech, input-reliant, commodity agricultural is a major cause of global hunger and climate change.
According to Fast Food Nation: Americans now spend more money on fast food than on higher education, personal computers, computer software, or new cars. They spend more on fast food than on movies, books, magazines, newspapers, videos, and recorded music – combined.” If they were spending a little less on fast food and a little more on locally produced food, if our local producers had a friendlier, more easily accessible market place, if our restaurants could easily and consistently access local products, if our schools could easily use fresh, local foods, this problem of global hunger would be massively reduced, and I believe that over a long time it could be eradicated almost everywhere. In the U.S. we can do an easy thing: start eating local foods more often. If everyone moves that direction and can be supported no matter where they are on that path, we will all end up at a communal table eating the best meal of our lives!

WU: Do you have a favorite fresh food recipe?

MD: Yes I have lots of those! It depends on the food in season… I regularly post recipes on our blog for the cafe at www.waterfrontbakery.com/blogs. Our soups and salads are frequently examples of great local flavors and soup is always a winner with me. In hot weather we do chilled soups and you have to have the most flavorful ingredients to make that work. I absolutely love going to the farmer’s market and finding whatever is fresh and making up recipes at home. This season I am going to start a project called “Meet Monica at the Market”! Twitter will post which market I am going to on our web site and to our facebook page and whenever I can get to a farmer’s market I will come bearing recipes for what is fresh that day. Anyone can meet me there and we can talk to the farmers together, taste some fresh produce and discuss menus and recipes. I am really excited about it! WU