Something is afoot in the SCV. In a place once known as the paragon of American bedroom communities, the exurb against which other exurbs are judged, a place that’s experienced by many only when they are asleep and by others only when they are on the freeway out of town, there is a tiny seed of culture and uniqueness that has taken root against all odds, and it’s transforming us already.
What is it? What is this thing that threatens (to some) and promises (to others) to change life in the SCV?
Food.
Consider what we’ve been witness to in the last few weeks and the last several years. Farmers Markets are spreading all around town. Chief among them is the popular Sunday COC Farmers Market, where regional growers are met week after week by thousands of loyal SCV shoppers who peg their culinary adventures to the growers’ calendars and get to know farmers and growers by name. But it’s not just there: the Newhall Farmer’s Market, once panned as a false farmer’s market, is now enjoying legitimacy and increased traffic in our revitalized Old Town Newhall.
And then last weekend: a food truck bonanza. I never thought 8,000 Santa Claritans would gather in the same place for anything other than a classic Hart vs Valencia football game, but we did on Saturday night in Bridgeport, not for football but for food. A full 3.2% of the SCV’s population came out to Bridgeport just to try some food from LA food truck operators, and while the event was somewhat poorly planned and the logistics weren’t well thought out, it turned out to be a great social occasion for many. Friends met friends. Hell, even SCVTalk’s old ideological nemesis Petz broke gourmet bread with regular SCVTalk readers and contributors. And families enjoyed time together and famous chefs came out to cater to us in a shared, outdoor, social environment.
And now, the next wave: Community gardening. Fast forward through Councilwoman Laurene Weste’s State of the City video (and her lovely, simply fabulous costumes) to about 3:35 in the video where she talks about the future half-acre Central Park community garden:
Now to many SCVers, particularly the Tea Party set, a “community garden” might smack of collectivist agriculture. And well, it is (we’re even going to give excess produce to the poor!). I don’t deny the irony here: in a place owned by a single capitalist farming-turned-development company (Newhall Land & Farming, we forget the last part it seems) which was built on the land-holdings of an old-school California land baron, we’re now coming together to open up space to the public so that gardening hobbyists and amateur farmers can attempt to grow their own beets, avocados, tomatoes and tangerines. Why?
Just because.
Wait a minute. Collectivism. Here? Did I fall asleep and wake up in Venice? No, it’s true. This is happening in SCV. And Laurene Weste says it is but the first of several in Santa Clarita.
In this brave new SCV, we don’t just go to the old Ralphs and Vons supermarket to buy shrink-wrapped, pre-packaged foods trucked in from America’s prairie lands. Hell, we don’t even go to Whole Foods. We go out and seek after our food, ideally from someone who has grown it themselves in Ventura County or points north. In this new SCV, we’re adventurous enough to stand & socialize with our neighbors for an hour as we wait for Ludo’s latest creation or pine for the cupcake truck’s tasty deserts. And in the not-too-distant SCV, people will gather to plant, cultivate and harvest their own food on land whose title reads, “We the people.”
The point is we’re sharing and socializing together over food, often times in public, outdoor places. We are connecting with each other and creating communities online and off, and we’re investing time, money and energy in our town. This is a big change from the SCV I grew up in, where acquiring food amounted to a solitary trip in the car to the grocery store and later, boxed mashed potatoes and canned green beens enjoyed in front of the television.
In a place designed to isolate people from each other, procuring and eating food is becoming social and even cool and we are now seeing the SCV grow up and become more mature as it develops its own unique shared culture, a culture beyond youth sports and the PTA, a culture that everyone can enjoy. And I think it’s pretty neat and tasty.
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