Brunch in Paradise

Sundays bring about an air of nostalgia. Birds chirp and kids are heard playing in the streets. The newspaper is read and coffee is sipped leisurely. Time seems to slow down on a Sunday. As a day of rest where you gladly soak in that extra hour of sleep, it is no wonder that brunch on a Sunday is so fitting.

I just wanted to write a short blurb about how fantastic our most recent Brunch In Paradise was. The weather was perfect and it had that Sunday morning nostalgic essence where time slows down and you want the day to last forever.

An amazing group totaling about 75 guests came out. We even had a group of guests called 'The Villagers', who are dedicated to the restoration and preservation of historic sites in Miami. The farm was in full bloom and there were many flowers to taste and smell. Our crops were lush and burgeoning with life's energy. The warmth of the sun was like a gentle hug and the food, as always, was farm fresh and delicious! We wanted the food to last forever, too!

We eagerly await the next Brunch in Paradise! The pictures below are the from the Brunch.

Farm Tour

We have a feel good philosophy that food is medicine and we feel it important to steward that belief to younger generations. Health begins with what all living things need – food – so we really are what we eat. There is an undeniable connection that one creates with the earth when one sees how and where food grows, just like the connection one feels to the land upon seeing a beautiful mountainscape. That being said, we host farm tours with lunch, a chance for educational tour groups to smell, taste, and see where their food comes from. A chance for them to understand why it is so important to have local sustainable food growing practices and to eat healthy.

The pictures are from a farm tour where we hosted groups from Florida International University College of Medicine Green Family Foundation NeighborhoodHELP and from the Celebrity Kids Club & Childcare Center. These groups provide nutrition education sessions, cooking demonstrations, and other activities designed to promote a healthy lifestyle from a young age.

One of the chaperones in charge stated, "one of the experiences we want to bring to the kids is seeing the process of their fruits and vegetables from seeds to their plate. We want to do this by bringing the children, ranging in ages from 3-5 years, to your farm to give them some education on the different fruits and vegetables."
We are so happy that we can steward such positive, healthy influences upon younger children! Great tour, great day, (great local lunch!), and the kids loved it!

Our firsts of the season, part 2

The growing season is ON here in south Florida and it has just been an abundance of fruits, vegetables, baby greens, and edible flowers! Below is a picture of our farm manager, Landy, with our carrot harvest! These carrots were picture perfect even upon pulling and we can already imagine their crisp sweetness. Yum!

Below is a picture of our cherry tomato harvest. It’s January and we are eating fresh ripe tomatoes. Isn’t Florida great? These little cherry tomatoes are quite robust –during the long, hot, and wet August months, we still found these tomatoes all over the farm. Between the heat and the heavy drenching rains, August is quite a straining month for plants, a feat daring for even warm weather loving tomatoes. But yet there we were, tomatoes in hand and in belly. These guys were able to hold up to August and we are excited to have them now with growing conditions in their favor!

Our firsts of the season, part 1

We recently celebrated many firsts of the season! We celebrated our first Dinner in Paradise on December 11^th, sharing the evening with about 50 guests. The evening was wonderful and exuded positive energy all around. Yet again, we could not find a better word to describe a Dinner in Paradise as anything but whimsical. Here’s why:

Many of our guests arrive fresh from Miami, where the stop and go of traffic is the everyday lull. As our guests arrive at the farm and the roar of their car engines fade out, it seems like absolute silence to many. But as they enter the farm, they are swept into the pace of Mother Nature. One becomes aware of the alluring scent of flowers, and perhaps one notices just how blue the sky looks today.

We always start with a tour of the farm so that guests can see, smell, and feel where much of the food they are about to eat is coming from. After smelling and tasting this and that, our guests’ senses are piqued and they are ready to experience the delicious meal awaiting just ahead: Miami’s most talented chefs have lent their culinary ingenuity and artistry to prepare an outstanding meal at our little paradise. Once the meal is over, guests head to their cars. And somewhere between leaving the farm and the ride home to the city, one feels as if they have just stumbled across a dream.

The Miami New Times wrote up a short story about their experience at our December 11^th Dinner in Paradise. Here is the link: http://blogs.miaminewtimes.com/shortorder/2011/12/dinner_in_paradise_a_photo_rec.php. The dishes were excellent and the chefs really wowed everyone with their creativity. One of our favorites was risotto in a bowl, garnished with an herb, moss, and hot rocks wreath (pictured below).

We would like to thank our wonderful guests, the stellar chef lineup, and the gracious assistance of Johnson & Wales students for making the dinner such a fun and unique experience! The next dinner is January 8^th and tickets are selling fast! We hope to share our farm with you and see you in the near future!

Once upon a Groupon

We recently featured a Groupon deal for an in-depth tour of our farm, hands-on gardening session, a fresh lunch, and a Q&A with Gabriele, founder of our beautiful farm. Our excitement only grew as guests began arriving armed with pen and paper, comfortable clothes (i.e. were ready for some hands on experience!), and an eagerness to learn and converse about organic gardening.

We love utilizing our farm as a setting for which to learn about organic gardening. We don’t teach in a sterile classroom setting; our “classroom” teems with the life forces we teach about. It is this live interaction with the subtleties of nature that inspires both questions and amazement.

…And so we started our guests off with a tour of the farm.

There is much to learn about our subtropical climate, one that is unique to the rest of the continental United States. Our summers are quite long and it is rare for our winters to see temperatures below freezing, a breaking point for many plants. We do not take for granted our location and work in harmony with nature to ensure year round fruit and vegetable growth and year round floral beauty.

Above we have Will Dukes discussing oyster mushrooms. To learn more about oyster mushrooms, please visit our blog post titled “The Fun Guy who grows the fungi”. There were a lot of great questions and a lot of great insights as we toured the farm and by the time we concluded the farm tour, everyone was super excited to apply all that we learned! We got our soil ready by giving a final sift to the nutrient rich compost, and then we dug in! We had seeds at the ready, some of which were harvested from our own plants, a very sustainable way to garden indeed! With seeds all planted, smiles were stretched ear to ear. Anyone who’s ever planted a seed knows how great it feels! Things could only get happier as lunch was served.

A meal at Paradise Farms always brings the whole experience wonderfully full circle as guests dine on plants they’ve seen, touched, and smelled. We had a great time and were so glad we were able to connect and reach out to an even greater audience interested in organic gardening philosophies and knowledge. Though the tour started with a sprinkling of rain, it was short lived and the day turned out to have beautiful weather, a beautiful sun, and a really great group(on) of guests!

Miami Culinary Institute Official Opening

Phew, what a blast we had! The official opening of the Miami Culinary Institute’s edible garden could not have been more beautiful. The magical energy in the air was incredible, as it always is when everyone is gathered to celebrate the unveiling of their collaborative efforts alongside friends, family, and newcomers. Over 100 people – students, administrators, and passerby alike – joined us for the opening!

Right before the opening, we were worried because of the rainy weather forecast. But the rain was turned out to be the perfect christening of the garden. Throughout the entire duration of the presentation, the rain fell and fell. But right when it was time to give the tour of the garden, the rain let up, leaving everything with beautiful droplets upon their leaves and flowers. The rain also served as a reminder to us of Mother Nature, and her amazing powers to perpetuate the cycle and recycle of rain and growth.

The garden was installed by Natural Greenscapes. Natural Greenscapes is a newly formed partnership between Gabriele and Diane Sugimoto, which plans, installs, and transforms commercial urban spaces into luscious edible greeneries. Both are excited to have been a part of what they and the Miami Culinary Institute are calling a new Soil to Soil initiative. This cutting edge initiative effects change in how future chefs come to know their ingredients – fresh, local, seasonal, and sustainable. In a world that is full of scientific food manipulation such as GMO and monoculture farming, this living classroom affords the students an intimate relationship with good healthy food. Food scraps from the Institute’s kitchen will also be composted and used in the garden for a true ‘soil to soil’ sustainable process.

Before After

(notice how much happier the Royal Poinciana tree at the bottom right is after some TLC!)

Since its inception, Gabriele has been honored to be a part of this amazing initiative. This is the first edible garden associated with a public culinary school in the US and we are hoping it is the first of many. She would like to give a most appreciative thank you to the MCI culinary team, under the direction of Chef Rich Achaia; John Richards and Victoria Nodarse of Miami Dade College; Diane Sugimoto, partner of Natural Greenscapes; and the local community; for their tremendous efforts and awesome support. Thank you, thank you.

For those interested, Gabriele will also be teaching a class as part of the Institute’s Enthusiasts Program, as the garden becomes the platform for growing culinary gardeners.

Pictures are worth a thousand words, so here are some more from the opening:

John Richards, Director of MCI, admiring a lime tree.

Just imagine: we cannot wait for the chain link fence to be covered with trellising plants! In another year, this garden will look even more transformed and plush with plants!

The Natural Greenscapes team!

Food compliments of the garden and the students!

The deep blue clitoria flowers are from our farm as they had not yet flowered in the garden. All food was prepared by MCI students!

Having some fun, inspired by Grant Woods ‘American Gothic’ painting!

Notice in the background how everything has taken amazingly - all the plants are just thriving in their new home! Paradise Farms and Natural Greenscapes feel like proud parents!

Farm tour

We had received numerous phone calls and emails from individuals who wanted to take a tour of our farm. Excited energy is certainly contagious and so we had decided to open our farm to the public for a tour!

The tour went great! We were so excited to talk organic gardening as this was a group that came specifically for a tour of our farm. It might be July, but there was still much to see, smell, and taste on our lush farm. I think the favorite part of the tour group was the cranberry hibiscus. This beautiful plant is makes an attractive leafy addition to any garden and the leaves and flowers are both edible. The leaves are slightly tart, maybe even a hint salty. Either way, they make a tasty and eye-catching addition to any salad. They could even be used as a garnish for a dish that needs a little tang on top of every bite. I did a quick Google search of cranberry hibiscus and found that the flowers are commonly made into a smoothie with a little sugar and lime. I personally have only had the leaves in salad, but I would imagine the flowers would make a delicious smoothie! (Who doesn’t love a smoothie?!)


Everyone had a blast. We inspired many to begin a backyard organic garden and we felt ‘mission accomplished’! The tour was this past Saturday and despite the warming summer months and subtropical rainy season, beautiful weather prevailed! Not one rain drop fell from the time that the first guest arrived to the time that the very last guest left. As soon as we exchanged goodbyes with the last guest, the sky broke and heavy rain drops began to fall.