Umami Podcast

SUMMARY KEYWORDS
food, eat, people, harvest, plants, wild, land, community, happening, food sovereignty, grow, talking, nettle, bit, years, incredible, salmon, find, moon, season
Chris 00:00
That's right. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Where are you driving through Valerie?

Valerie 00:06
I'm actually my daughter does karate at this time, like four days a week. And so I'm sitting in my car while she's in there getting. She has a stripe test today. So Oh, wow, she's tested. Yeah.

Chris 00:20
What style is she practicing?

Valerie 00:22
It's taekwondo. She's a orange belt.

Chris 00:26
Yeah, I studied that for a long time. That's great. Yeah. Hi, I'm Chris, by the way.

Valerie 00:33
Me too, Chris. Nice meeting you as well.

Elise Ballard 00:38
Well, great, I guess we'll just kind of dive into this.

Valerie 00:43
Is this gonna be okay, i My office is like a minute down the road if it needs to quieter? Well, maybe not. I don't have my keys with me.

Chris 00:55
Yeah, yeah. The sound the sound is good.

Valerie 00:59
Okay, great.

Elise Ballard 01:01
Sound is good in your car. Okay, good. Great. Well, wait, welcome Valerie to the Umami Podcast. We're excited to talk to you. It seems like we've been sort of working toward this for a long time. And we're really excited about this, this conversation. I hope you don't mind our just getting started diving right into a question that starts was basically how did you get started in food and nutrition?

Valerie 01:37
Well, I was hungry. I think that for me, I had a lifetime of mentorship with just the way my my mom always encouraged me to celebrate food and culture, and her sisters, my aunties who all are just sort of fierce, environmentalist women who always had a love with food and recipe and local traditions. I kind of felt like I was really set up for that. That's

Elise Ballard 02:17
great. I saw in a piece that you wrote, where you call nettle, your first plant teacher. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?

Valerie 02:28
Of course, yeah, there are so many just moments of sort of reckoning in your life and nettle was at the center of one of those for me. I was in my senior year, studying nutrition at Bastyr University, and I took a class with a woman named Jennifer Adler, who is an incredible nutrition educator and counselor. She's, I think, in Croatia, now leading food tours, doing something amazing as always, and she brought us outside. And we talked about wild foods along the trails of St. Edward's Park, and then came inside and she had a cup of tea waiting for us for all of her students. And so we sat down and started drinking this cup of tea. And at the time I was eating this really pristine, you know, diet like a nutritionist, someone geeking out on food would and was still like kind of chronically ill felt really stressed out just because I was a student. And and when I drink that cup of tea, I just felt like something rooted out of my body. And then I was returning in to some place of wellness and strength. And I just felt so fortified and became completely obsessed with nettles. It was a cup of tea was was stinging nettle. I mean, we drink in in silence for three minutes. And there was just something about that moment, like connecting with your body and being mindful of what's going on around you and how you're connecting to that food. That your innate wisdom of your human body. When you give it a chance, we'll let you know exactly what you need and how powerful food can make you feel good and bad. And so I began drinking nettle every day and stinging myself with it and finding it and growing it and harvesting it and telling anybody I could all about nettle and it's wonderful nourishment and healing powers in this world. And to this day, I still consider myself a student of nettle. I mean, you can't get me to stop talking about it. Obviously. Right Elise?

Chris 04:45
Well you talk quite a bit about food sovereignty and I think you just nailed some of the mind and body health benefits for eating, you know locally or what? Oh the the climate and culture that you grow up in will also help you nourish how your body grows in that climate and culture. Can you speak more on that, and that kind of health tie between what's grown locally, and if you devour it locally?

Valerie 05:15
Yeah, I think for me, food sovereignty also deploys the power of community and eating collectively. Because when we collectively choose what to eat, there are so many more transformational impacts that can be made. Like we we learn to cherish deeply what is directly around us, and how to care for it, and how to advocate for it and how to gift it to one another. And we know the like, true weight of its meaning when we can, when we can do that, because, because it's so inherently who we are to, to eat those local foods and, and build community and get to know your local producer, food producer, be it a fisherman or harvester or farmer, that we all, you know, I don't think that we've ever in all of human history been this far removed from the source of our food. And so why not like to dive deep into knowing where your water comes from? And then sharing that information with your community? So we can all be better advocates? That, to me is like, the power of food sovereignty?

Elise Ballard 06:43
And is that the sort of fire that was lit for you that got you in this to begin with? And that got you to begin speaking out?

Valerie 06:54
Yeah, I think so. I didn't want to be the kind of nutritionist that came back to my community and counseled people on a diet that I knew they had a hard time accessing in the first place. You know, for us, we know that. Diabetes is a symptom, really of a bigger problem, which for tribal communities is the removal. And the severing of our ties from a food system that fed us for 1000s of years and organized our culture. I mean, it's the an original animator of our culture. And, and then another diet was superimposed, you know, it's not like we woke up one day and decided to stop eating our traditional foods. And so part of the healing process is returning to those food traditions. And doing that alongside people, because I wasn't, you know, some master foodie of Muckleshoot foods, I had to learn from my community, and a lot of mentors, and a lot of people, a lot of elders, who have passed who still hold me up, who were from Muckleshoot, and surrounding communities that really spent time teaching me about our foods and food traditions. But, but that discovery, and that return is part of the healing journey. And so I didn't want to, I didn't want to take that opportunity away from people. And that means that we all have to do the work together. And how fun is that? That we get to like, celebrate our foods in this lifetime? I really believe it was the it is this work that we're carrying is the, the visions that our ancestors always had for us. And so I feel so blessed to be able to live in this time and don't know how I would live, you know, my life in any other way.

Chris 08:39
What's, what's one of the ingredients or that you've discovered recently? That is, that kind of tipped your cap back a little bit?

Valerie 08:51
Oh, my gosh, there's always so many, like, every year I'm taken by something

Chris 08:56
is gonna start to jump in. But I mean, the Puget Sound area is is and I hope you agree with this is a really diverse and vast ecosystem. I love exploring it myself. And I think about all the delicious things that I have no idea about that are just either were stepping over or paddling by. So. Okay, please continue.

Valerie 09:17
1,000% I totally agree our, our, you know, over 300 Different kinds of foods were eaten here pre contact in the Puget Sound region alone, that's just like 50 miles from white cap to white cap. So there really has been, you know, there's a lot to choose from. And I think it can be overwhelming too at first because there's so much to choose from. And I always go back to the teaching that that we have in our community that you don't teach all your children the same thing. You teach each of them something different, because if we all knew everything we needed to know, then we wouldn't need each other and then the world would fall apart. And so I just tried to like commit to one thing at a time, obviously, like, metals are my first commitment and they continue to be. But getting back to your question, the food recently that I've just become really intrigued with, and I'm almost like scared to say it, because I know where it could lead. But um, is mushrooms like, I've, I've not liked mushrooms and I don't like I'm not like it's a texture thing. I've tried it more than a dozen times I've wanted to like them so badly, but

Chris 10:38
my gateway to mushrooms was on pizza. I was like, Okay, it's it's kind of slimy ish on there. I don't know how to cook it yet. It was that and portobellos on a grill with some nice olive oil and some salt and stuff. Those were that's that's how I started. It kind of roping that in. I identify with this with with introducing mushrooms into a diet. Yeah,

Elise Ballard 11:02
Mushrooms are our our logo. That's our -- we're all about the chanterelle mushroom with The Umami Podcast. And that's because I love them I have for a very long time when I discovered a wait wild I didn't even think about that it it lit a fire for me. So that’s neat that your, your that's your latest interest. Tell us more about that. Like which types and where are you getting them?

Valerie 11:28
Oh my gosh, well, right now I'm on the hunt for morels because it's the season so we're like we're in torrential aquatic in the sky, aquatic River in the sky moments here. So that means we need a couple sunny days. And then I think you know morels will be popping up through the earth. I've I just find their presence. So incredible, and mysterious. And the I cooked a bunch of--So last year for Mother's Day, we got a fresh spring salmon from the Columbia and we just cooked a whole bunch of stuff--wild foods over the fire all day. And I had this batch of my morels that someone had gifted me and wild ramps. And, and I just sort of tossed them on the grill and salted them and I threw some rosemary, you know, down next to it. And they were like incredible, all of our moms that came over couldn't get there couldn't keep their hands off of these morels. And I was like that's the power of mushrooms. I just started like, reach out and grab onto you, you know something about that I

Chris 12:37
They promote a network, they promote communal eating, they promote communication. It's really neat, and I never get tired of seeing them grow in time lapse, I don't care what type it is just watching they really do just come up out of the ground and just activate and kind of never restful until they're done,

Valerie 12:58
So true. And they do work like they heal and restore the land and in our bodies. Like how cool is that?

Chris 13:07
That makes me think of this, how much trial and error or maybe some other kind of communication went into figuring out what foods around here to eat and and kind of what to use as medicines and what treated this to that went with this? I mean, can you speak on that at all?

Valerie 13:30
Um, I have learned kind of a method of studying and deliberating and figuring out what's best to share as well like there, you know, there's this sort of perception that the Pacific Northwest is this wild, untamed land untouched by man. I mean, that's I think the definition of wild or wilderness. It's like untamed, uninhabited land. But that's not the case, like this was a very cultivated, intentionally cultivated foodscape for 1000s of years, even fish management, salmon management, elk herd management that was all happening. And so just trying to figure out what those foods are that can be shared that do enjoy being harvested in a good way of course, like not going out and back hauling up all the you know, thimbleberry you can find or whatever, but like actually being able to harvest something that you know is going to return in abundance next year. It relies on your harvest. And those are food like strawberry, which are really prolific and wild blackberry and salmon berry salal berry. There are so many berries and stuck on that right now. But then. But then there are also plants that need to be harvested that aren't given as much attention like camus and chocolate lily or fritillaria and wild onions you know those bulbs and roots, those prairie plants that have been kind of overlooked in over developed in our region, I think are really important to pay close attention to and start planting more of everywhere in your garden. Ferns--we've got fiddlehead ferns, that's a food that's out right now, that's a traditional food. And so the, you know, sort of diving into this tradition was finding the elders who are carrying the work and working alongside them as much as possible. I give great thanks to Hank Goeben from delay loop, who really spent hours and hours and hours mentoring me days and days and days and, and Rudy Ryser, a Cowlitz elder who, you know, had been just a champion of traditional foods, and still is, he's the director for the Center of World Indigenous Studies, and Kimberly Miller from Skokomish, who has been just holding it up in her community for so long. All those people really welcomed me in and lifted me up and handed on their their knowledge knowing that I would care for it as best as I possibly could. So I try really hard not to let them down.

Elise Ballard 16:22
Would you say that your book, Indigenous Home Cooking is a survey of what you have learned from people like that, from the people you just mentioned? Is it is a list of sorts of of what's available here and what traditions have come? Is it a writing down of something that was formerly just passed on?

Valerie 16:47
I feel like that book indigenous home cooking was an aha moment that I had with several other food advocates across the country. So that is co-authored with the Indigenous Food Lab. The founders of indigenous food lab are Sean Sherman and Dana Thompson, who is Sioux Chef. Both of them founded the Oamni Restaurant in Minneapolis, which is like impossible apparently to eat at now. Because it's so wildly successful. That's great. But we you know, we did a lot of touring around the country together talking about this topic, we're talking about tonight, about, about this, and I had done this quick study on how most Americans (this is an enhanced study) where most Americans are not reaching their daily dietary allowances on micronutrients, like minerals, you know, calcium, magnesium iron, the only thing we seem to be getting enough of is sodium. And so when I started looking at that, and comparing it to what co Salish ancestors would be eating, I saw this in, like, the standards don't even get close to what my ancestors were eating. And when I started researching what foods are highest in those things, it was always a first food of North America, it was always pumpkin seed, oysters, raspberries, strawberries, you know, blueberries, like all of the foods that are from here, are turns out needs to, you know, our remedies that we need as it as a culture. And when we look at other countries around the globe, how well they fully embrace their food culture, that is mostly from their own lands. I think it's time for us as a country to do that, to really define and learn to be advocates and protect our first foods of this land of these lands. Because they're the remedy. They're what we need.

Chris 18:47
And it seems we're such a large piece of land that it would be diverse from one section to the other, it's not just Italian food, or, you know, we're entirely too large and have too many diverse ecosystems. So it brings me back to the idea of how it sustains yourself, you know, healthy in the example of, if you eat honey from the area that you grow up in, you're going to maybe fortify yourself against some of those allergies in that area or, you know, sustains you a little bit more because it's not shipped across the country, and it's not processed this way and made to be kept this way. It's, it's the solutions right in front of us. We just need to kind of have a little bit more awareness about it. Maybe a little more education too.

Valerie 19:38
I fully agree. When we're versed in the foods of our area, we promote food security, food sustainability, we're eating things seasonally when they're at their peak vitality, which means we receive that medicine. There are so many reasons to get to know you know, the lands that you come from. It's one It helps to tune us to where we live and thrive and belong.

Elise Ballard 20:06
I think that you're saying being well versed in those things is important. And I think that's a really important way to phrase that because it isn't just about, okay, here's the list of ingredients that are that go way back from the Pacific Northwest, they grow here indigenously, or whatever. It's also about, how do you recognize them? How do you cultivate them? How do you prepare them? Can you say a little bit more about that? Like, where does that knowledge come from? Now, now that we've become divorced from those things so much?

Valerie 20:42
I feel like, I remember some of my friends, I grew up in the desert, like in Fallon, Nevada in the middle of nowhere, where you could see nothing for miles, but sagebrush, like gigantic tumbleweeds. And I remember my friends coming to visit and being so overwhelmed by all the green around here, like they felt like they were just being swallowed up. And I could see that and I also want us all to remember that we have superpowers as human beings, and one of those superpowers is to be able to look at something and identify what it is. And we spend a lot of time doing that with logos and old diplomats, you know, presidents of this country, like, we can look at something and say, I know what that Starbucks logo means I know what it's good for, I know where to find it, I know what I'm gonna get from it, you know, we're good at that, we can do that same thing with plants, we can just spend a little bit of time does, it really takes no time to learn 10 plants 10 native plants, you could really you could knock that out this week. My daughter's have been doing this with me, you know, since as early as I could take them out to the nettle patch. Like I have pictures of them doing it at two years old. They can name easily 30 native plants and what they're used for. They know how to how to make rose hip food out of rose hips, and, you know, evergreen tree tips. And they know how to harvest nettles and tell other people how to harvest nettles. So kids too like i This isn't this is knowledge that anybody can tap into. And it's so empowering.

Elise Ballard 22:17
Yeah, I love that as a call to action. And I think that's what we try to you know, we try to elicit that on this show. What is the call to action? What are we supposed to do about these things that we're discussing and so I love that as one which is teach your kids and you break it down in a way that makes it so much more approachable the you know, just learn 10 Ingredients learn about 10 things that grow wild here are there some other ones like that that some other ways in the kitchen perhaps?

Chris 22:52
Maybe like a nice gateway introduction into by put this ingredient now in your food like nettles, like if I were to go make a nettle tea in two three days from now or so what's the what are my steps?

Elise Ballard 23:08
Um

Valerie 23:12
I would say yeah, right now is a good time to kind of start some some nettle spots are ready for harvesting for tea

Chris 23:22
when it's ready, how about when it when it's ready? And also when is it going to be ready? You haven't taken season?

Valerie 23:29
So yeah, no, nettles are great, they're useful and all you know season so they're food first in the early spring and then in like late spring summertime, they become the leaves get more fibrous, so you just wouldn't want to eat them. They're better for like tossing in a pot of hot water, you know. And, and so when they get about waist high, I would say you can harvest the leaf for tea and you would want to dry it out. And then there's some thing to making sure it's dried and then reconstituting it and hot water just sort of cracks open the cell walls and then the water gets in there and does its solvent thing where it pulls out and extracts the minerals really efficiently. And what versus it being like osmosis, right like straight water cell the water isn't you won't work as as well. And I would encourage you know one cup of nettle tea is equivalent to one calcium supplement. Except you don't have to worry about if it's actually calcium or if it's chalk. And you're getting that like that benefit of the flavor of wherever you're harvesting it from So you're sort of you know, in ceremony with the land in that way, which is pretty cool.

Elise Ballard 24:49
You talked about ramps too, wild onions. I guess that's another thing that so we've got morels we've got we've got ramps So, those are a couple of great examples. I wonder about some of the things that are not necessarily, you know, some of the situations in which we can't access something out of the ground. We don't know to get it. We're not around it. We're in concrete, whatever. You have talked a little bit about foods that are North American foods that are indigenous foods that are available in like a mainstream supermarket. Can you talk about a few of those?

Valerie 25:32
Yeah. Squash comes to mind, right, like corn beans, squash, sunflower seeds. One of my favorite recipes that Shawn and Dana ena make are sunflower butter cookies. Oh my god, it's so good. They take like sunflower seeds, and then sunflower butter and they wind up in a food processor and then they pan fry it in a cast iron skillet and put some like jam on top of it high and you know good quality fats, minerals, fiber, sunflower has some zinc in it. So to help boost your immune system and your positive mental attitude, I mean, it's, you know, you can make that really quick. They also tossed some maple syrup in there for sweetening it, and to kind of bind it up together. I mean, it's a really simple a really simple addition and they put pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds on top of squash and it just makes me crazy. It's so good. It's super delicious. And surprisingly, there are a lot of you know, you can find nettle tea in the in the tea aisle at stores. You can find dandelion root tea, at most grocery stores now and we love to make dandelion root lattes whereyou sort of boil it up for simmer it for like 20 minutes and then add equal parts? Almond or hazelnut milk would be like the because hazelnuts are native here, right? So hazelnut milk, or you could do coconut milk or oat milk. But it is the most delicious thing ever. And dandelion roots incredible for your liver. It helps with like people who have kind of brain fog. I've been using it a lot for people who have long term COVID Who is specifically had sort of skin eruptions happen out of it. So dandelion root has been really effective, effective at helping them to stand back up again. That like long haul I feel tired. Yeah.

Chris 27:38
Sure. Wow.

Elise Ballard 27:42
That's great. I wonder about some of the foods that are also well, first of all, let me ask a question about dandelion root. Could you feasibly just find a dandelion and dig up the root? And could that is that it?

Valerie 28:01
Yes. That's all you do anywhere?

Elise Ballard 28:03
Wherever it is.

Chris 28:05
The first part go back again.

Valerie 28:08
Yeah, wow. Wanted to harvest dandelion, you would just go out into your yard, make sure like no dogs don't chill out there, right. That's not fun. But like, yeah, you go out. And you would pluck the whole entire plant right out of the ground. And you're there for also weeding your garden, which everyone loves and aerating the soil. I would I would recommend only harvesting dandelion root in the fall season, like after the flower dies back after it's done it seeding thing because then the root gets really fat and all the medicine and vitality is in that spot in the plant. But yeah, it's really simple. You just look for that famous dandelion flower one stem, one flower, the denti-lion’s tooth, right, the tooth of the lion leaf and pull that route right out of the ground.

Elise Ballard 29:02
That's a really great illustration for how simple and how basic and how right under our noses some of these things are. And I love the the idea of just sort of like opening, opening that portal into the world. If you were able to just suddenly go outside and see everything as a potential source of nutrition. What a gift that would be, you know, what a dimension that would offer.

Valerie 29:34
Yeah, a total paradigm shift to from the way we treat dandelions in the broad media, right, like, grab that pesticide spray and spray it and it burst into flames like it's actually really big medicine.

Chris 29:49
Remove it from my sight

Valerie 29:52
It's free food right outside your door

Chris 29:56
and being able to find food like this and and incorporate it into your cooking. I guess the backhanded benefit if someone's not really paying attention is the the custodianship that you will now have the understanding that you continue to grow with what's your actual surroundings, and then how you influence them, and they influence you, it's a bit, you know, a really nice connection that you get with the land, even if it was just because you wanted to eat something delicious. Yeah,

Valerie 30:31
that is so important to the, you're reminding me to say that we're not just, we're not separate from our environment. And unfortunately, our built environments kind of train us to think that way. But when we, you know, we're, as humans, we study the ecosystem. And we also have to recognize that we are a part of it, when you see those pictures of like, here's a wetland and the ducks are there and the cat tails are there and the irises are there. We're also there, and what how we choose to show up and that space, can promote the sustainability and thrive, like help things thrive in that space, or not, we can also just ignore it, and what an unfortunate opportunity that we are missing.

Elise Ballard 31:24
yeah, yeah, yeah, I It also makes me think about, you know, some of the things that are happening right now to affect the sources of this wild food and access to them, you know, everything from just the abundance of concrete to the, you know, homogenization of the crops that that we cultivate, and that we grow. Is some of your work. undoing that or taking us reversing that damage. Or what maybe you can comment on what is the work out there that is reducing that damage, or reversing it?

Valerie 32:07
Right, I've had some moments in my classes like that, where, you know, I've had almost 100 Muckleshoot come through a class I taught called, “Honoring The Gift of Native Foods”. And it's a three month course, couple that we meet a couple times a week, and everyone sort of is charged with one sort of principle to live by for the week. And when we got to talking about processed meats. In particular, I think that had the greatest impact when we look at, you know, our treaty rights, one of our treaty rights here is to be able to harvest our own wild game, we get one milk, and, and we fill our freezers, but then we might go to the grocery store and buy like ground beef. And this is not to vilify ground beef. But at least we know where that animal came from, and that it's like one animal and there's probably a cool hunting story behind it, you know, versus like, the mystery of that meat, that sort of real sterile looking with the saran wrap on top that you just treat with the extra special care. So yeah, I've heard a lot of people at the end of that class be like, I'm going home, and I'm gonna make elk like, you're gonna

Elise Ballard 33:32
end even if you're not hunting your own elk. I like this just very action of just knowing where your meat comes from. That's a step in that direction. Hopefully.

Valerie 33:42
Yeah, for all of us recovering vegetarians out there. You know, we live in a time where we have some better options. I've I've seen that change in my lifetime. And I appreciate that. I really do. There was yeah, a solid decade I abstained from meat, because it was just too questionable. For me, and I couldn't find something that really aligned with my values. And yeah.

Elise Ballard 34:07
Yeah. I think that's a really important the meat piece is something that we will be coming back to again and again with this with this show. Because yes, because Because vegetarianism is part of the answer. And if we are going to eat meat, is there a way to do it more thoughtfully and more sustainably?

Valerie 34:32
Yeah, I think it's Michael Pollan said like, eat more plants. That's the one thing all nutritionists can agree on, right? We could all just eat more plants.

Elise Ballard 34:42
Something like eat food, mostly plants, not too much or something like that is his is his motto. One of his amazing mottos. Yeah, he's got a few.

Chris 34:53
Now Valerie, do you have a favorite spot and a favorite time of year to visit it here in the Puget Sound, it doesn't have to be the number one, but just in up in there, you said one of your favorite spots to, to, to go out there. And just basketball in

Valerie 35:11
so hard. I have two that actually come to mind. And this is important because it's telling of the span of the breach that my tribe has. You know, my ancestors are so grounded. We weren't a stationary place. We moved along with the plants and fish as they came into season. And so for me, I love being out in Elliot Bay fishing with the man of my dreams. My partner Lillian Garrow, who's a lifelong fishermen, Muckleshoot fisherman, and seeing the Seattle like skyline, the Olympics, rainier, that whole like being in the middle of somewhere, and then filling our fish box and the smell of salmon, like a whole thing. I love all all of it. And then my birthday is in September, September 1 For anybody who wants to send me a birthday gift. But huckleberries are usually in their prime at that time, and we go up to the Huckleberry Meadows. And then we go to a really special spot, a couple of special spots up there. But I always like to think of that as being nature's gift to me. Birthday. But it's like, you're at the top of the mountain and you're just eating it, you know, and so many times we look at Mount Tahoma or Mount Rainier, and we say, no, let's make me hungry. Like just like, I want to eat that mountain. And birthday every year, I get some of that.

Chris 36:45
That's fantastic. It is a beautiful area that that we are fortunate enough to live in.

Valerie 36:53
It's gorgeous, the center of the universe.

Chris 36:57
Just a side question. Does he fish on the Duwamish? Yeah, yeah. There's Yeah, I live on the Duwamish. Literally on a sailboat on the Duwamish. And I, I you know, I bet I've seen this man of your dreams drive at some point. Let me get anywhere from wearing rain gear, is it? Are we talking about the same person?

Elise Ballard 37:21
Yeah. Yeah, that's beautiful. You talked about in your TED talk, you talked about plant and animal communities, which is such a, an intimate and inclusionary phrasing. I love that idea of an ecosystem. What role does that kind of perspective play in the work that you do, and in the way that you look at nature and wild food?

Valerie 37:52
We Yeah, we, you know, refer to the trees as the tree people and the salmon as the salmon people. And there's something about giving it personhood. I think that makes you consider it in a different way. There's something about that different level of respect, and understanding that our foods are more than just our like resources and commodities to be extracted from the land. They have something to teach us. And they that's how they sort of personify who we are as Coast Salish people, you know, they're the our greatest teachers, they teach us how to live on the land and with the land and be advocates for the land. We were just talking about this with kelp and seaweed, and how they're like community builders, you know, the kelp forests, the bullet kelp, that's that quintessential long tube with the bulbous end, and the big, wavy long, you know, fern, or fronds that come out of the wings, and, and how they create habitat for all of the all of the things on the land. And then they're also like, super tasty, and they're also really good for your thyroid. And if you're feeling tired, and you can't stand back up again, we give you a kelp, you know, it's just it's such a builder. And that's, it does that by just being a living example of how to be a builder. And so, you know, we might ask ourselves, how we might be more like, bullet kelp. I love it.

Elise Ballard 39:28
Wow, that's such an alluring metaphor. That just makes so much sense the community aspect of it. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about communities like actual communities, like you know, maybe start with the Muckleshoot. What, how are people coming together here? I know that you've been involved in a number of different things, but can you just give us kind of a rundown of what's happening among your community and and others like it to rebuild our food system and reconnect with what's indigenous.

Valerie 40:09
I think that this, the work that I do has been happening for a very long time, it's just my time to do it. And it looks like, you know, being called food sovereignty. I think about the treaty right negotiations in the 1850s. And this was coming out of like, a time of apocalypse, you know, cultural collapse entirely for the Muckleshoot people for for everyone in the northwest, who had, who had just watched pandemics, you know, wipe out their, their communities for almost 100 years, smallpox, influenza, tuberculosis, and then all these new arrivers had happened this, these new settlers to the Northwest, and they sat down, I wrote treaties. They negotiated those to cede millions of acres of land to the US government in return for certain rights. And those rights were at first, the very first thing they negotiated was the food. Because they knew that, you know, that was part of our creation story and who we are, and, and then there's been a generation that's held it up ever since. And this in this generation, it's really about, you know, what you just said, like, being able to return and restore those connections, because it's, we're moving out of this sort of survival mode into a time of opportunity to heal. And so rekindling our relationships with those things are incredible. And, and I'm saying that, in that in that facet, but on the community level, but tribes are incredible advocates for you know, Muckleshoot has seen incredible success with our salmon recovery efforts in one of the most challenging ecosystems in this country, we have been able to bring back entire runs of salmon through our our management systems. And so and, you know, we do that for every two fish that we that we are putting out of these hatcheries. One of them is ours, and the other goes to commercial industry, we're doing that because we're generous, because we are generous people. And also because without the resource, there is no right. And without the resource, there is no Muckleshoot like work, that is who you are. And so we have to maintain that work. And that's just one tribe--Puyallip has killer programs, Tulalip, Suquamish, like the whole, every tribe has a fisheries project that they're working on lower Elwha, like what they're doing with the dam removal and the restoration of that run. It's really powerful. And every, you know, that has led me to be really curious about what else is going on across the country, and every tribe across this country has some sort of food movement going on, which is so cool. It's just like, what a good time what an honor to wit and all that work.

Elise Ballard 43:04
Wow, that's powerful. What's the reason that it's becoming? It's coming into the general lexicon? Am I right about that? Or is that just that I've started paying attention to it? Is there more prominence? Is there more awareness? Is there more of a movement happening right now? I think so I

Valerie 43:26
think it's telling of our time, like 100 years ago, I would be put in jail for talking like this, you know, as a native woman, I, you know, 20 years ago, probably wouldn't even have been considered on a podcast. I don't even know if they existed 20 years ago, but like, you know, the presentation and the programs and all the stuff that has happened, it really is the time that we're in, it's telling is telling of our time, the strength of the movement, the Yeah, the fact that we're in the sort of orbit of consciousness writ large. But for them, it seems like the first time

Chris 44:02
and the ability to communicate, to communicate quickly to kind of tie all these voices together, or at least to have a common dialogue between all these voices. It seems like we're in an unprecedented time right now of this global communication. And however locally, we want to keep it seems that that's, I imagine there's a lot of connection between some of these tribes talking about this.

Valerie 44:27
I agree. Yeah, that's true. The whole social media realm. Everyone has access to, you know, getting information out in the world nowadays. That's new, that's new,

Chris 44:40
it's pretty fresh. And we're and I mean that in both ways to take it. Where would you like to see this subject and this conversation continue maybe in just the short term?

Valerie 44:54
I I'm right now I'm really curious to know not just about the native producers, food producers in our area, but what their needs are to be able to like build capacity and reach whatever goal they have. To me, I get asked a lot like how do we buy food from a native food producer? And, and there are a couple of great resources out there. But I also am just wanting to know what they need to be able to grow. And if they will even want to grow. Maybe they just want to feed their own people, or maybe they want to be on school lunch menus? I don't know. So I'm really curious about that, at this time. Can't think of anything else?

Elise Ballard 45:40
You've also got a podcast you're working on? Am I right about that?

Valerie 45:46
Yeah, we're in the second year of “Live with the Seasons”, which we release a seasonal episode. We're gonna we're actually doing our recording for the spring episode, this week. And really, that podcast is about helping people to sort of like get in touch with the cycles of the season and the cycles of life. And here's some plants to think about. And here are some sort of actions and social emotional steps we can take and hold in this season. And most of it is like when you hear it, you're like, oh, yeah, I do that unconsciously. I think we're more, you know, motivated by seasons.

Elise Ballard 46:28
You mean? Yeah.

Valerie 46:31
Yeah. Live with live with the seasons? Yeah, I think we're more motivated by the plants and nature around us than we think we are.

Chris 46:41
I think about that with the night sky in that every person in the entire on the entire planet until light pollution became a thing was way more tied into the seasons and the night skies, you know, changing. And I think about that with plants growing with, you know, early springs and late summers and how that shifts in itself. And I haven't been able to break the code, and maybe you can help me with this. I kind of feel like there's way more than four seasons. I think we can split this up on into again, with the custodian ship and eating from the land. This is at this window, and then this window happens. It's just seems like it keeps getting more fractional. The more you the more you appreciate it.

Valerie 47:34
Oh, yeah, totally. We did an episode last year called Late summer because there's summer and then there's late summer. There's something else that happens or there's just sort of undeniable shift in the energy. Yeah.

Chris 47:49
It's almost like a boomerang effect. It's like you think summer and then it comes back. It gives you a little juice, right before you get into that, that offseason. And I've found you know, November and December in the in the Pacific Northwest can hit like a hammer, it's there's a there's a switch. It's real volatile, weather shifting, and then it starts to settle down again. And that's like the first part of winter. I love. I'll talk about weather forever. I love it. So sorry to sorry to take this over but this has been whether chat with Chris.

Elise Ballard 48:25
But it's related, right? I mean, it seems

Valerie 48:28
it totally is. Yeah, no, we have every culture globally has been sort of operating off of a lunar calendar forever. Until very recently, we moved over to this sort of Gregorian 12 month calendar. But if you look back into those moons and what they're named after the 13 moons, you know, there's a windy time in the northwest, there's a time when frogs talk. There's the moon of salal, there's the mood of blackberry, there's the moon of king salmon, there's the moon of chum salmon. There's the moon when the elk meeting cry happens. You know, that's just here, everywhere has everywhere where you're from I'm sure Australia has, you know, at least 13 moon calendar to that helps you sort of know what food is at its peak season. What action is happening nature?

Elise Ballard 49:24
Yes. Yeah, those are things that we just most people, I don't even think it even occurs, but it does seem that there is this sort of renaissance of that, of that way of thinking and it isn't. It isn't a renaissance. It's something that's been there all along, but maybe we're turning our focus back to it now. I certainly hope that that's the case.

Valerie 49:54
Me too.

Elise Ballard 49:55
Let me ask a couple of questions that we kind of like to ask all of our guests. If you You don't mind? What is What are you eating or drinking lately that you're really excited about? You mentioned morels. So that's one.

Valerie 50:11
Mm hmm. Well, this morning I was out harvesting chickweed and cleavers because they just sort of sprouted up over the weekend. And those are just those early wild spring greens that are growing in your garden sort of bugging you a little bit but are so good and tasty and really nutritious.

Elise Ballard 50:31
Should a person just anytime they see a weed or a sprout of a plant, they don't know, should they just taste it? No. No, that doesn't work across the board, get to

Valerie 50:46
Get to know what it is. First, make sure you're eating the right there are some poison foods out there. You know, and depending on where you're at, like in our area, poison hemlock looks just like wild carrot like, Ooh, you really want to make sure you know what you're harvesting.

Chris 50:58
That's what I was wondering about the trial and error earlier in the conversation is, how was it figured out? What is the healthy mushroom to eat? And which one will just put you down for a week? You know, same thing with a with the word you had just mentioned as well, I don't need an answer necessarily to that. But it's just something that always, you know, who was the first person to eat a carrot? You know, those kinds of those kinds of questions. What led you to it? And what were you listening to, or what was speaking to you that made you say this is this is a safe bet, or this goes with this illness.

Valerie 51:31
A lot of our creation stories about how foods became foods for the people were either gifted to us by Duke Cova creator Snoqualmie like he has a bunch of different names here in the north northwest, the moon, basically, the changers is the moon. And also they have come to us in dreams. And like the teaching is is to say a prayer to ask for help to humble yourself. Listen to your dream and then act on it. And and that's how Huckleberry became food for the people, you know, for medicine for the people too

Elise Ballard 52:08
wow. Yeah. Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. And in terms of in terms of reading, what's what what's on your radar right now?

Valerie 52:23
I am I feel like I should say something that's like so totally aligned with what I'm talking about. And it kind of is, but I'm reading a book my cousin told me about called, oh my gosh, what is it called? it's about French babies. I can't remember a raising baby or something like that. But it's about how the French just so like, inherently raise their kids to like, babies are sleeping at eight weeks old. And that's so not what we're taught. And, and then there they also sit down and like quietly eat meals and we're trying to figure out the answer is like, starve them basically, like don't let them snack. Anyways, it's a really, it's a really interesting book about what we what we just accept in our psyche and and then that there are actual ways to not have to live like that. So

Elise Ballard 53:26
and that does seem related to what what your focus what you focus on. And it ties back to what you were talking about earlier in terms of orienting children, to think in these ways to think in these ways of seeing the world as something that we are a part of that we cultivate that we make arrangements with agreements with, would you say it's, it's, it's in line with that?

Valerie 53:54
100%. Yeah, and just understanding like how, you know, I'm outnumbered, to be honest, like, I can do all these things for my children, but then they go out in the world. And there's a whole world out there that's promoting other things that I really that don't align with what I'm trying to give them the best skills to cope with, you know, like the whole heroes and holidays curriculum basically at their school, like K 12. That's all they get. And it's like, insane. Yeah.

Chris 54:23
I love it put like that too. heroes and holidays. It was very, very nice.

Elise Ballard 54:31
That's a quotable. That's a good one. Let me also ask you, and maybe this ends up sort of bringing us to toward the end here, but who do you want to know about the work that you've done that doesn't know about it yet? Hmm.

Valerie 54:51
That's such a good question. I don't know how to answer that.

Elise Ballard 54:57
It's a tough one too.

Chris 55:00
At least I got anxiety listening to you pose that question and was glad it wasn't anywhere near me. That is a good it's a good one.

Elise Ballard 55:11
It's all right. It's, it's just gonna have to be. Okay,

Valerie 55:17
whoever's ready to hear it, you know,

Elise Ballard 55:19
I never want to stump you. That's not at all my, like, Don't

Chris 55:23
thinking about it even.

Elise Ballard 55:27
Wow, yeah, it does seem I feel this general, great desire to make sure that you have the word gets out that the work that you've done is spread. And you know, and we will, when we publish this episode will should will point our listeners to a whole bunch of resources that you've called out and things that you are featured on or that you have published. And make sure that that that is spread in that way. So that's a good thing. The TED Talk and the podcast and indigenous home cooking things like that.

Chris 56:01
Absolutely. And it seems like we're gonna wrap this up soon. And evaluate, I have to say, I enjoyed your TED talk. And I scrolled through the comments. It was the only thing I've ever scrolled through that had all positive comments. It was. It was amazing. It was fair. I again, I really enjoyed your delivery and what you were speaking about. And when I went down that list, everybody seems to be on the same page. So

Elise Ballard 56:31
yeah, that was super tight. Great job. By the way, I imagine that takes a ton of work and to be to have that whole thing memorized. I don't know how you do it. It's amazing.

Valerie 56:41
I really appreciate that. I've never read the comments, because it requires me.

Chris 56:49
We did the work for you. You don't have to go and check it out. But if you do, you're going to be you'll be happy that you did I hope i went through maybe like 40 so that you know anything past that. I'm just I don't have ownership over. What do you say Elise? Are we going to wrap this up? I think we can wrap this up. I think there's a bit of a promotion that needs to be addressed. And yeah,

Valerie 57:12
Yep the Karate Kid got in the car. Yeah. Okay. All right.

Chris 57:18
Thank you, Valerie, for my conversation. Appreciate

Valerie 57:20
it. Keep in touch.

Elise Ballard 57:22
Okay, thank you, Valerie moving by. Alright,

Chris 57:30
I mean, do you want to join in? It looks like you're listening.

Elise Ballard 57:36
I don't think she can do. Yeah, I don't think she can from the way that she's dialed in. This is capturing like the transcript and stuff like that. Gotcha. Anyway, hi, guys.

Chris 57:50
What's up at least sorry about

Elise Ballard 57:52
fusion. I thought for so. So right now it's 6:35pm? Yes. Are you? Okay? All right. Noted. Yes. There has been a the time change happened here last week. I don't know it. It's all been very confused. Weird

Chris 58:09
out there. It's weird out there in the streets. Plus, the toilets are flush in all different directions. Yeah, you get a broken ankle. You're all discombobulated.

Elise Ballard 58:17
I know. Yeah. Yeah. Well, so I know, I think Heidi asked you a question about the audio thing. And that's an area where I'm going to dive in as much as I can. This week. I think we're going to want to go back and do a little bit more. Cutting back of some arms and ahhs and things that just I want it to just be natural. I don't want to be it to be a really hard edit. But I do. There are a couple of areas where it's like, we should probably cut that. There are even a couple of questions that I have asked where I'm like, That's not okay, that's not you didn't pose that correctly, or something like that.

Chris 59:06
More of a statement than a question, kind of like what I was doing tonight a little bit where you're like, I thought I was about to ask a question. Turns out I just made a statement.

Elise Ballard 59:18
I mean, not necessarily like what you were doing tonight. I didn't see that. But yeah, just you know, just Yeah. Anyway, so and, again, want to be mindful of your time. So is it a thing? I don't know. Well, I just just wanted to throw that out there.

Jared 59:37
I did just see that email before we get together. Yeah, that's, that's great. And actually that program that she has that audacity that she started, if I can, oh, I didn't need to do this. What I would need to do is once we have the interview done, it all sweetened up, get all the levels correctly. And that's The software that she uses in Audacity is more than powerful enough to cut paste you know do all the actual editing and subtracting of things it's actually easier because I can just give her a single mono file she doesn't have to worry about who's tracks are what cut at will and it's non destructive because I'll always a in the program it's non destructive she can always undo everything and also I will always have a master copy if you like

Chris 1:00:30
gone too far and lost it whatever.

Jared 1:00:32
Okay always a backup Yeah, no problem with that as well to you know, get on here with her and give her some pointers little cooler if

Elise Ballard 1:00:49
necessary. Okay, that sounds really good. Could be How else is how was how were vacations? Good. Good. Good. Yeah.

1:01:01
Didn't get too sunburned. So

Elise Ballard 1:01:02
it was okay.

1:01:05
I tried to shoot up a flare. See if you can see it. I was halfway to either or noise.

Elise Ballard 1:01:09
Yeah, that's right. You were halfway to us. How do you went to the Big Island you said to get some surfing done? No. Snorkeling done? Snorkeling. That's that counts. Okay. That's cool. Relaxing. The best part? What about you, Chris? You went somewhere too, didn't you?

Chris 1:01:31
I was in I was in Philly. I did. I did Philly, and then Long Island. Both both were good. Both a good state. I didn't get a cheesesteak. Yeah, not for many places famous. Yeah, I did drink Andy that cheesesteak at like, I think the nation's oldest pub or something. Like oh,

Elise Ballard 1:01:51
how was that?

Chris 1:01:53
Lose? Everything tasted stale Greg Franklin pissed on the bar. But it was it was like Confederate soldiers would drink here after they, you know.

Elise Ballard 1:02:09
But you make it to that there's this weird old like Mennonites style food market. Oh, nice indoors

Chris 1:02:21
in Philly?

Elise Ballard 1:02:22
Yeah.

Chris 1:02:23
Oh, that sounds that sounds Oh, I probably wouldn't get anything to eat. I'm not sure what they eat is butter. Imagine butters in there.

Elise Ballard 1:02:32
I guess would be good. Lots of pickles.

Chris 1:02:34
You know a huge fan of pickles but respect their place and pallets. No, I got to walk around for one day in Philly. And it was it was really cool. It was sunny out and I went to you know some historical sites and shit like that. walked by six and a half mile