(upbeat classical music)
- [Dennis] If you plucked people from all across the country
and said we have a farm, the image that they have
of who's that farmer would not be Kristyn Leach.
- My name is Kristyn Leach,
and I'm a farmer in Winters, California;
and I grow predominantly Korean and East Asian herbs
and vegetables.
(gentle music)
I was born in Daegu, Korea; I was adopted as an infant;
I grew up on Long Island in New York.
The regional cuisine of Long Island is pizza and bagels,
so that's what I was just sort of raised on.
I just had never really explored Korean heritage,
but I did get curious about the food.
Oh wait, this is a really good little one.
I worked on organic farms when I was a teenager,
and so I just thought like, oh, well, I know how to grow
plants, maybe I should grow some of these plants
from Korea just to better understand this place
where I'm from.
I went back to Korea for the first time since I left.
I spent just like three weeks traveling around
and was learning from all of these farmers
and visiting different farms.
It felt like a pretty profound way
to actually engage with identity
because it answered for me a sense of
what place I could find within, like,
a bigger story of Korean history.
(upbeat music)
I practice a style of farming that's referred to
as natural farming in Korea and Japan.
Everything on the farm is grown organically,
and, essentially, it's the way just like peasant
subsistence farmers farm.
Some of the heritage crops that we focus on here are
the Korean sesame leaf,
the flavor is kind of licore-y and minty.
Chamoe, Korean melon, is somewhere between like a cucumber
and melon in flavor; it's really, really crunchy.
Chili peppers, a really beloved staple,
and Japanese eggplant, just a small, baseball-sized
eggplant; it's super dense and really creamy.
Three times a week, I'll usually head to the Bay
to make a delivery.
(upbeat music)
Namu Gaji is a restaurant in the Mission District
in San Francisco, all of the produce goes directly
to their restaurant.
- Hey, Kristyn!
- Hey, how's it going?
And their chefs and cooks figure out
how to kind of design a menu around it.
- My name's Dennis Lee. I'm the chef and owner
of Namu Gaji in San Francisco.
(upbeat classical music)
Right now we're doing a really nice, simple
grilled eggplant dish with a really heavy dusting
of minced perilla.
We're doing a nice melon salad right now
with watermelon and Korean melon.
We have a chili oil that we serve with our ramen
that has Korean chilis from the farm.
It's a restaurant that's operated by Korean Americans,
so you see that in what we do.
The way that our relationship works with Kristyn
is totally unique because it's tied to who she is.
To be able to support an Asian woman
and co-create a platform to express ourselves
and share our story with people, that's pretty special.
- The food that Dennis is making
allows itself to just be really original,
and it doesn't feel like it's trying to just reproduce
a mold of what is Korean or what is Asian-American.
I'm learning about, like, my lineage;
I'm trying to figure out a sense of belonging.
The experience of adoption is so complicated.
I feel really grateful to have farming
be the way that I interact with my culture.