Tagged: pork

Recently, I headed to Newport Beach for a bodysurfing session with friends at The Wedge. The Wedge isn’t just any surf spot, but the spot for bodysurfing in Southern California. It’s a steep wave and you have to know what you’re doing to ride it (and to avoid getting hurt). As is the case with many top-tier surf spots, there is a pecking order to surfing The Wedge and a crew of locals who doggedly enforce that hierarchy.

I know, it may seem weird that I’m talking bodysurfing instead of food, but the two worlds aren’t that different — both are tight-knit groups and both tend to have one-track minds (the only difference being surfers focus on waves instead of food). The crew at the Wedge has a long-standing reputation of being abrasive and confrontational if brushed the wrong way, so, when my friends decided to brave the wave that was well beyond my skill level, I made like a wallflower and minded my own business from the comfort of the jetty.

And then I met one of the crew. He’s a stocky, middle-aged, bodysurfer named Potato, because, well, I have no idea why, but it’s a great nickname all the same. Upon meeting him, I quickly learned two things: he’s very kind and very much a chatterbox. We talked the whole time my friends were in the water — first about the beach, the waves, Newport, and finally about food. I figured food came up because he knew I cooked, but turns out it was because Potato is a part-time cook and a full-time farmer. While he grows all sorts of produce, Potato’s main crop is lavender. (I know, you were hoping it would be potatoes, weren’t you?)
Continue Reading: The Bodysurfing Lavender Farmer →