Community Seafood now has Sunday pickups at the Santa Monica Farmer's Market.

This community-supported fishery (CSF) out of Santa Barbara is modeled after community-supported agricultural programs (CSAs). The founder is a Bren School alum who launched her business with a group of local fishermen and help from a UCSB Coastal Fund. Their goal is help seafood harvested in the Santa Barbara channel stay in Santa Barbara. Before they got started, most folks in Santa Barbara were buying seafood caught elsewhere and most Santa Barbara-based fishermen had a 90% exportation rate. Now, the fishermen make more money and folks in Santa Barbara (and now Santa Monica) have more direct access to locally harvested fish.

I'm really excited to join the CSF. It's a great way to support the people earning their livelihoods in the waters around California's Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), and I'm eager to see communities benefit from the increased biodiversity and ecosystem health promised by MPAs.

I'm always interested in an empirical approach to understanding where my food comes from. I think tracking your food back to the source is an excellent way to learn about geography, ecology, and agriculture. The "eat local" movement has been really interesting to watch over the years and it has helped bolster various groups of growers and producers as well as an awareness of agricultural, environmental, and economic issues, which is great.

While people in colder climates may not be able to enjoy a varied diet of fresh foods and eat local, I'm glad to be in Mediterranean climate where I have an abundance of fresh, local options available to me year round. Of course, my coffee always comes from farther afield. This isn't the tropics.

Pictured above: This is not a CSF dinner, but it is a Channel Islands dinner. You're looking at grouper & sand dabs grilled and served on a bed of grilled green tomatoes drizzled with bourbon-basil butter.