(birds chirping) - My name is Sylvia Davatz.

I garden in Vermont.

I grow my own food, I do seed saving, and I dabble in permaculture, just simply by introducing as many food producing plants into the landscape as possible.

(gentle piano music) One of the things that has emerged in people's consciousness in the pandemic is how incredibly fragile and unsustainable our industrial food system is.

The centralization of it has been destructive of the environment, of the livelihoods of small farmers.

And to me, decentralizing, that is at the core of what we need to be doing, I think, just in terms of climate change, as well to reduce the burning of fossil fuels, by having a local food system.

The food is healthier.

The livelihoods are healthier.

We know who's growing our food.

There's nothing not to like about it.

I'm deeply interested in generating a year-round food supply, so not just in the summer, but what are we gonna be eating in January?

What's in our pantry?

Grains connect you to the very, very beginning of domestic agriculture.

They go back 10 or 14,000 years.

To me, you cannot get more elemental than grains.

Everything about them is just absolutely enchanting.

And there's nothing like a loaf of bread that you've baked from the grain that you've grown yourself.

Growing grains is easier than people realize.

Many people are surprised that we can grow grains in Vermont, even though, in the middle of the 19th century, Vermont was the bread basket of New England.

There are so many older heritage varieties that have been lost in recent times that are begging to be reintroduced into cultivation, because of their flavor, their nutritional value, their ease of growing, and their ability to supply us with a year-round food supply.

So the urgency in finding them, bringing them back, it's of the utmost importance.

It's up to us to rescue these varieties.

And if we don't do that, there is a risk that they will be lost.

And if they are gone, they are gone forever, that's it.

There's a farmer up in Quebec.

And he wrote to me and he said, "Oh, I've read about this fantastic variety called Touzelle anone.

I can't find the seed anywhere.

Do you happen to have any?"

And I was able to send him seed.

And he is now growing it routinely.

So that is perhaps a variety that was on the brink and that we've managed to bring back, and to have grown on a larger scale, and be used in baking.

I believe that seeds are to be shared.

They belong to everyone because they feed all of us.

The grains, once they're harvested, get bundled and tied into sheaves.

They get labeled with the name of the variety and the harvest date.

They are then hung in my greenhouse to dry, which they will do probably through September.

At which point, I bring them out and I thresh them.

The threshing simply means separating the grain itself from the plant parts, so that's step one.

And then winnowing is the second step.

And winnowing means removing the chaff from the grain.

The chaff is always lighter in weight than the grain, so it's a simple process.

So today, I'm making a wheat berry salad.

The wheat that we are using for it is called globe wheat.

It is different in appearance from every other grain that I grow.

The grains are almost perfectly round.

They have a wonderful flavor.

I soak the grains overnight and cook it.

And if the grains are relatively fresh, it might take half an hour, 40 minutes.

And then drain it, and then use it for whatever you want to make with it.

You can make a simple salad with them.

Then there are infinite variations, depending on what time of year it is and what other ingredients you have on hand.

You can adapt it for a summer salad, or a winter salad, or a grain risotto with mushrooms.

I mean, there's so many things that combine well with grains.

They're a wonderful vehicle for all kinds of other different flavors.

I came up with this recipe when I was wanting to use as many ingredients that I could grow in my own garden.

So the ingredients are the grain, of course, and shallots from the garden, dill from the garden, parsley from the garden, scallions from the garden.

Hazelnuts from a dear friend of mine who is growing them in her garden, just a couple of towns away.

(gentle piano music) And the feta cheese, a local feta cheese, made in Vermont.

So the only ingredients in it that are not local are the olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper.

And this is one of the things that I love experimenting with, how many ingredients can I use, in any recipe that I make, that come from my own garden?

The flavor of anything that you grow yourself, it surpasses anything that you could buy in a store.

(gentle piano music continues)