Man: "Modern Pioneering" is funded in part by wild blueberry farmers of Maine.

Wild blueberries are full of flavor and nutrients, a pop full of blueberry taste for your favorite smoothie, breakfast, or dessert.

Learn more at wildblueberries.com.

Woman: At Muir Glen, we believe that organic farming benefits consumers, farmers, and ecosystems.

Man: And made possible by... ...and many other generous donors.

A complete list is available at GeorgiaPellegrini.com.

Ryan: To me, regenerative agriculture is something that's iterable.

It's something that I can do for the rest of my life on the same piece of land.

And the next generation can come back, and it's in the same state or better.

For me, regenerative agriculture is not profit-motivated.

That's certainly an influence, but the goal is that it is sustainable over generations.

Living here has really taught me so much responsibility.

The animals eat before we eat.

I have maybe a cup of coffee before I go out the door -- and often not.

I've definitely grown a lot and learned some hard lessons.

Most of my life, I've been totally divorced of knowing how my food was raised or where it came from.

And it's incredibly meaningful to know that I'm growing food that's not only sustaining our family, but also our community and our community of organisms and biology that lives around here.

♪♪ ♪♪ Pellegrini: The places we've called home are woven into our souls.

They stay with us as we walk through life along the thin, miraculous skin of soil that carries us all.

And when we return to the places that shaped us, we don't come back the same.

We bring what the world has worked into us -- new perspective, new patience, new responsibility.

In choosing to turn toward small scale communities, we step into a kind of closeness where our hands can touch the outcome and we can witness the quiet, everyday miracles of ordinary life.

Today, we're following one story of that choice a choice to return home with fresh eyes, to regenerate a piece of land and be changed by it.

♪♪ Singer: ♪ You're taking me back to the sleepless nights ♪ ♪ Phone calls and candle lights ♪ ♪ Those were the things I liked the most ♪ Alexis: I grew up in this house.

This was my childhood home and I loved it, but I never thought I was going to come back.

Ryan: COVID hit, and I said, "Why don't we go hang out on the farm and just ride it out?"

Alexis: And I was like, "Well, okay, but we're gonna move back to LA.

We'll be back in six months.

This is just for winter.

Like, this is six months."

Ryan: She insisted on getting a storage unit.

And I said, "I don't think we're gonna need that."

[ Chuckles ] 'Cause I think I knew.

Alexis: I didn't know.

I was -- I was surprised.

But I will say that we drove across the country, and when we got here, it felt really good.

I think it felt immediately really good to both of us.

Ryan: Something spiritually felt right about it.

Alexis: Totally.

Ryan: Immediately has stuck.

Singer: ♪ When the world was smaller ♪ ♪ And everything was ours ♪ ♪ You're taking me back ♪ ♪ You're taking me back ♪ Alexis: There was this amazing community.

We found that so many people had moved upstate.

There was this real, like, creative feeling around us, and suddenly there was amazing food.

That felt really exciting, I think, to both of us.

Ryan: I went to film school.

I always wanted to be a filmmaker.

I got an internship that was making a film about the meat industry.

And I was vegetarian at the time, and so I was like, "Great, I'm gonna go expose the horrors of factory farms."

So, you know, I signed up.

I was like, "Great, I'm gonna do this internship."

And it brought me to some factory farms and that kind of thing, but I also saw people that were doing things a lot differently.

And I had this -- I don't know.

It was almost a spiritual experience that I felt this calling to do this.

I thought, "Well, am I on the wrong path?"

Alexis: [ Chuckles ] Ryan: And I ended up going to a farm down in Virginia called Polyface Farm, which a lot of people in the sustainable ag movement now credit to kind of inspiring them to want to start farming.

The farm population in the US is dwindling.

You know, the average age of the farmer in America is 65.

We don't have a new generation that looks at it as something appealing.

Ever since I had that visit on that farm, there was a seed planted in me.

And when the pandemic hit and I had met this promising young woman... Alexis: [ Laughs ] Ryan: ...who had a family farm in upstate New York, the gears started turning.

Alexis: It all comes together now.

Ryan: And I thought, "This -- This is it."

Singer: ♪ You're taking me back ♪ ♪ You're taking me back ♪ Alexis: Growing up in a rural community and growing up with horses and growing up with my classmates who were farmers, the idea of farming felt very intense to me and, frankly, not very appealing.

Ryan: We look at farming and agriculture and work in general as drudgery, something to be avoided.

But I see it as something that can be incredibly meaningful.

Being from Kentucky, I was heavily influenced by the author Wendell Berry, who writes beautifully about the cultural attitude towards agriculture and why our environment looks the way it does, why there's environmental degradation.

It's because we don't value it.

And so I had this shift of how I saw the world and how I was relating to nature.

And I think that was partly the drive of why I felt I needed to be on a farm and be participating in my own sustenance.

'Cause you're so disconnected, you know?

You go to the grocery store, and it's such an unnatural experience to have, you know, rows of packaged chicken in the freezer aisle and a picture of a field with a sunset.

Singer: ♪ You're taking me back to better days ♪ Pellegrini: At first, the farm was simply a refuge, a place to land, to catch their breath, to be with the horses and wait out the world.

But as seasons turned, so did their sense of what this land could hold.

They began a small working system where chickens now shared the pasture.

The pastures began to hum with new life chickens moving through grass, soil coming back to health, a new rhythm and ecosystem that grew into a working experiment in regeneration.

Alexis: We've been practicing rotational grazing for a few years with the horses, but I think it got really exciting to us when we added the chickens to the mix.

Ryan: Very much so.

We practice here what's called adaptive multi-paddock grazing.

You can call it rotational grazing.

You can call it management-intensive grazing.

Lots of different names for it, but the idea is to take the blueprint of wild ruminants that you find -- so, for example, the buffalo herd across the Great Plains.

All of that soil was built on millions of years of ruminants moving across the landscape.

So, we're basically taking that and trying to model that as best we can on our 100 acres.

So, the idea is that we do a very intensive short period of grazing that has a high impact on the soil and the grass, and then we move on.

And those horses don't touch that, for sometimes up to 120 days.

We can extend our grazing season and not have to buy hay because the grass is allowed to rest.

And by the time they get back around to this part of the field over here, there's plenty of grass.

And so we're much more drought-tolerant, and we're also maintaining habitat for insects and birds.

Singer: ♪ Dancing on the way home ♪ ♪ Spinning at the day gone, I knew ♪ Ryan: So, when I showed up to the farm and I noticed that, you know, the pastures were poor, it's been overgrazed, I immediately hearkened back to seeing what was going on, on Polyface Farms.

They were running chickens in open-bottom shelters that allowed the chickens to scratch and peck and eat worms, but also deposit manure on the ground.

And so when you move the chickens every single day to a fresh salad bar for them, what's left behind for me is fertilizer that I don't have to move, I don't have to turn on an engine to distribute.

If they're raised in a barn, you got to scoop it up, put it in a manure spreader, spread it on the field.

They're providing all these services for me.

They are stimulating the soil microbiology.

And I find that incredible to watch because when we turn the horses onto the pasture where the chickens were maybe a month or two before, the grass is lush and green and shoots up super strong on that square where the chickens were.

And you can literally see that across the landscape.

Alexis: It's dark green.

It's -- It's thicker grass.

It's luscious.

And it's like you can literally see the difference.

Ryan: Mm-hmm.

Alexis: And so we've now practiced this in a few different parts of the farm.

We have this opportunity.

Wherever the soil needs a little boost we're gonna move the chickens to.

Ryan: I kind of think of the chickens as, like, a paintbrush, where I can literally paint good grass over the pasture that needs improvement.

Singer: ♪ All the lights, they'd fall on your shoulders ♪ ♪ Sun sets the city on fire behind you ♪ Ryan: Most people probably don't realize that most chicken that they eat lives its entire life in a barn on wood shavings and it's heated.

Everything is controlled, their water supply, their food.

And they spend their entire short life in a barn, never getting off of their own manure.

It's incredibly efficient, it's affordable, and it serves a purpose.

You know, I think we're a niche market.

Alexis: Yeah.

Ryan: And part of the impetus for wanting to grow our own food was because food is expensive.

Organic, regeneratively grown food is labor-intensive, but it's human-scale.

You know, regenerative to me is that I'm not taking away from what's out there in the soil and in the environment.

And if anything, I'm creating an environment for life to thrive.

I forget who said it, but you pull on a string, and you find it's connected to the rest of the world.

You know, every little thing that you do has a greater impact.

And so when you think about things in those terms, you really have to consider every single action you take on the farm.

Singer: ♪ I got a lot of lessons left to learn ♪ ♪ But I'm not even close ♪ Alexis: Obviously, seeing you so fulfilled has been amazing, and I think it took me a bit longer to really get on board.

My mom and I have always gardened, and that part was really exciting for me.

But seeing the greater vision took a bit more time.

But as a cook, as a recipe developer, as a cookbook author, there is really no greater joy than getting to see the animal we are raising and then getting to prepare it and share it.

And then not only does it taste amazing, but I think being so connected to that process has really kind of transformed my perception on what we're doing.

Singer: ♪ But I know a love like this ♪ ♪ Doesn't come around every day ♪ Alexis: People see the horses, and they think, "This is so romantic."

And I think about this day last winter when we got three feet of snow and all the fence lines got taken down and the horses all got out.

We're on the top of the mountain.

We were trudging through waist-deep snow to get them.

And at first, the first hour, I was like, "This is charming."

And then the second hour, I was just swearing and screaming at them.

We got back.

There's no power.

You're freezing, just sitting by the fire.

And I'm like, "What a gift.

What a gift to get to do something every day that we love and to be on this land that we love.

and this land that I've known almost my entire life and know every bend and curve and rock.

And what a gift."

Ryan: I'll take that over sitting on an LA freeway any day.

Pellegrini: Every season has its work, and this one tastes like apples and leeks.

After the long days of fences and feed, the reward shows up right here in the garden, under an old apple tree, in what they'll cook tonight.

This is how the rhythm continues.

Care for the land, then cook from it.

Singer: ♪ It's like a sunrise warming us up ♪ Pellegrini: You really undersold it.

This is quite abundant.

Alexis: I mean, the sage is really out of control.

This is all sage... Pellegrini: Ah, the scent!

Alexis: ...which is like -- You know, we can also pick some for the chicken later.

Singer: ♪ Been spending all your time lifting me up ♪ Alexis: Our days have gotten so much busier.

We don't have the luxury of, you know, thinking about what's for dinner for three hours.

Being here, I was just thinking about food in a really different way.

You know, while I feel like we are guided by the seasons, I also felt more conscious of how people around me were cooking.

Singer: ♪ Sunshine, betting on a good time ♪ ♪ I've been chasing butterflies all afternoon ♪ Pellegrini: How do you decide every year what you're gonna grow?

Just kind of what you're feeling or...?

Alexis: Just kind of what we're feel-- I mean, usually, there's, you know, the classics, the kale and chard and things that we know grow well here.

There's always tomatoes.

And then there's, like, the fun stuff, like the cucamelons, which is like, you know, what do we want to experiment with this year?

What feels, like, exciting?

I really want to develop easy, delicious recipes that can really make an impact on people's lives, whether you have kids or you have a busy job or maybe you have both and you're like, "How do I feed my family?

How do I feed myself?"

As we have been much more short on time because we are juggling so many hats.

While I'm living more seasonally, I'm just trying to think more efficiently for other people.

They're just -- They're, like, amazing apples.

Pellegrini: Should we pick some for dessert?

Alexis: Definitely.

Pellegrini: [ Chuckles ] Alexis: Shake the branches.

Pellegrini: [ Chuckles ] Alexis: Okay.

Ready?

Pellegrini: Okay.

[ Laughs ] Ooh!

Alexis: Raining apples.

Pellegrini: There's something grounding about it, to pull what's left of summer from the soil, to taste fall before it's gone, to pull down apples and stir brown butter.

[ Both laugh ] Alexis: There we go.

Look at you.

Pellegrini: Ooh!

Alexis: I'm gonna make a brown butter apple cake from my first cookbook, "To the Last Bite."

It was actually inspired by the apple tree which we picked apples from earlier.

Pellegrini: I love it.

Alexis: We start by peeling apples, so I think that's where we should start.

Pellegrini: The apples that we picked?

Alexis: The apples that we picked.

Pellegrini: What's so beautiful is that these are sort of imperfect and they have more flavor, I think, when they're imperfect.

Alexis: 100%.

Pellegrini: How many of these do you think we'll do -- all of them?

Alexis: I feel like -- So, the recipe calls for three, and I feel like between this kind of, like, lopsided six, we're gonna be perfect.

Pellegrini: Okay.

Alexis: I am kind of cutting them into, like, half-inch hunks.

Pellegrini: Okay.

Get those cores out, essentially, in any kind of -- generally the same-size pieces, but it doesn't have to be perfect.

Alexis: Exactly.

Okay, perfect.

We'll set these aside.

And first step is to crack the eggs in the bowl.

Pellegrini: Love to.

Thank you.

Alexis: Pressure.

[ Chuckles ] And then I'm just gonna beat these up until fluffy.

So, we've got the eggs in.

Next is the sugar.

That's 3/4 cup.

Like, I'm not a huge sweet tooth, so I like to keep the sugar on the lower side.

Pellegrini: So, it's nice and white and fluffy and creamy.

Alexis: Yes, exactly.

And then we're gonna add some brown butter.

It's less sugar, but it is a stick and a half of butter.

But it's so worth it.

And then we'll do a splash of vanilla.

Pellegrini: Okay.

Alexis: Barely any work at all.

And then we're gonna add a cup of flour.

Pellegrini: Okay.

Alexis: Teaspoon of baking powder.

Pellegrini: Okay.

Ooh, cardamom.

My favorite spice.

Alexis: My favorite spice!

Pellegrini: Really?

Alexis: Ryan says -- he's like, "You've got to chill on the cardamom."

And I'm like, "No way."

I think you can just, you know, just... Pellegrini: However much my heart desires?

Alexis: Exactly, and I do add a bit of cinnamon, too, just to, like, counter it.

Pellegrini: Nice.

Alexis: But yeah, the cardamom just gives those, like, amazing spiced undertones.

And of course, all desserts should have a bit of salt to bring out the sweetness.

Pellegrini: Yeah.

Alexis: And you may have the honors.

Pellegrini: Ooh, thank you.

These beautiful apples we picked having their moment.

Alexis: Perfect.

Pellegrini: Great.

Alexis: And then I just fold it all together, and that's when I get those last bits of flour in.

Pellegrini: Okay.

Alexis: And then we just pour it into a greased springform.

Pellegrini: Okay.

So, you grease the whole thing, just the bottom?

Alexis: Whole thing.

Pellegrini: Okay.

Alexis: The oven's at 350, and we bake it for 40 minutes.

Pellegrini: Okay.

Alexis: And then I like to finish it with a little sprinkle of sugar just to get that kind of like cracked, shiny topping.

It's gonna double in height.

Pellegrini: Okay.

Alexis: And it's gonna be puffed and golden brown.

That's it.

Pellegrini: Love it.

Easy.

Alexis: Easy.

Pellegrini: What else are you gonna teach me now?

Alexis: One of my favorite ways to cook a chicken -- taking the backbone out, flattening it, and it means that it cooks evenly and faster.

Pellegrini: Yeah.

Alexis: So, instead of, you know, maybe an hour or hour 10 to do this, we'll probably be done in like 35, 40 minutes.

We've got the chicken breast side up.

And that's -- You know, if you were roasting it, typically, that's how you would do it, but we're gonna flip it over.

Pellegrini: Okay.

Alexis: And this is the backbone of the chicken.

And then I just take kitchen shears and you can do this from either side.

Pellegrini: Okay.

Alexis: And you just go to the very edge of the backbone, and you start cutting all the way through.

Take the backbone out, and then you flip the chicken over.

Pellegrini: Okay.

Alexis: And you kind of splay the legs out like this.

Pellegrini: Mm-hmm.

Alexis: Then you've got the breast here and then I just go on top and I'm gonna push down until it snaps.

[ Bones snapping ] Pellegrini: And that helps flatten it nicely onto that pan.

Alexis: Totally, and, like, to make this an easy, you know, weeknight dinner, we're just gonna add some parboiled potatoes.

Pellegrini: Lovely.

Alexis: So you can just add that straight to the pan.

Pellegrini: Okay.

Alexis: And I've salted the water generously, so there's already some salt here.

And then we're gonna add some of that sage that we picked in the garden.

Pellegrini: Beautiful.

I'll break it up and distribute it evenly in those chicken juices.

Alexis: Perfect.

And then I'm gonna put the chicken right on top.

I'm tucking the wings down.

And then I'm just gonna salt it all over.

And then, of course, all those chicken juices are gonna drip onto the potatoes and add even more flavor there.

Pellegrini: Mmm, the sage is gonna steam up into the chicken.

Alexis: Yeah, it's gonna be -- You know, this is, like, a meal from the farm.

Pellegrini: Yeah.

♪♪ ♪♪ Alexis: I think about my mom, how she kind of came here on this unexpected journey because of me and then loved it and decided to stay.

And three decades later, we came on this unexpected journey and loved it so much and decided to stay.

And we're kind of building upon this amazing foundation of what she's created and set up for us.

And now we get to really dream big.

You know, it's unconventional in our culture to live with your parent, especially for so many years, but I think, in the challenges, we also see that, like, there's such opportunity.

Ryan: Mm.

Yeah, I don't think I'll ever be able to pay back Heleen for the foundation that she's built here, and I guess I'll just try every day to be grateful.

She's such a visionary.

I think she saw this dream, and I'm hoping that we're able to continue her legacy in a way that's meaningful to her and meaningful to us and generations to come.

Pellegrini: After all the talk of soil and stewardship, we land here, hands in the small, ordinary work of beauty.

Singer: ♪ I got more than just words ♪ ♪ You bring me songs, sweet like the birds ♪ ♪ I got more than just words ♪ Heleen: Well, we have some zinnias here, but... uh, they're at the end.

Pellegrini: I think they're sort of pretty when they're at the end.

It's sort of got its own dramatic look.

I heard that you know the Latin names of many flowers.

My great aunt was that way.

Heleen: I find that fairly crucial, because that way you can order plants and find them online, like all over the world, because it's the same.

Singer: ♪ The lights are so much brighter ♪ Pellegrini: Out in Heleen's garden, home reveals itself in details.

A volunteer that chose its own spot, nasturtiums that belong in a vase and on a plate.

We strip the lower leaves, the way my great aunt taught me, the way my daughter does now without asking, and suddenly the day feels braided together.

What you learn, what you pass on, what you bring to the table.

I love how tame yet wild it looks.

It's -- Everything is sort of doing a dance together.

Heleen: Which I kind of really cherish.

This is awesome.

We'll take this one here because soon... Pellegrini: What is that called?

Heleen: Nicotiana.

Pellegrini: Nicotiana?

Heleen: Yeah.

A tobacco plant.

Pellegrini: Okay.

How did you learn all of these Latin names?

Heleen: Oh, it takes a while.

Pellegrini: Practice?

Heleen: My bedtime reading used to be plant catalogs.

Pellegrini: Really?

Heleen: Yeah.

Like, over and over and over.

Singer: ♪ The colors so much deeper ♪ Helen: Snowberry -- Symphoricarpos is, again, the Latin name.

Pellegrini: I can't believe your knowledge of the Latin name.

It's incredible.

I'm inspired now.

I'm gonna start reading plant catalogs at bedtime.

Heleen: [ Laughs ] Pellegrini: What about these?

Heleen: Okay, this is a very old-fashioned plant, and the common name is pretty cool.

Kiss-me-over-the-garden-gate.

Pellegrini: [ Laughs ] Singer: ♪ You're the bird's-eye view ♪ ♪ And I see much clearer ♪ Pellegrini: It must be fun to see the fruits of your labor from many years ago.

Heleen: I planted a lot of trees.

Pellegrini: Uh-huh.

Heleen: Again, as nothing.

Pellegrini: Mm-hmm.

Heleen: Nothingness.

And now to see them, as suddenly they seem to be 20, 30, 40 feet high... Pellegrini: Mm-hmm.

Heleen: ...and, um, it's like, "Yes!

It's -- It's happened."

Pellegrini: [ Chuckles ] Yeah.

Do you arrange in threes, the way some people often say?

Heleen: Yeah, usually.

Yeah.

Pellegrini: Mm-hmm.

Heleen: But you think there's a formula, and then... Pellegrini: You just sort of see where the spirit leads you.

Heleen: And then it changes.

Pellegrini: Sure.

There's few things that make me happier than flower arranging.

Heleen: Oh!

I'm so glad.

I think you're in the right place.

Pellegrini: I think it's a meditative practice.

Heleen: It is.

Yes.

Singer: ♪ Till we got our own ♪ ♪ Kind of paradise ♪ ♪ Follow the lights ♪ ♪ Follow the signs ♪ Alexis: I know people are connected to home, but I'm really, really deeply connected to this home in particular.

I always think it's funny that when people ask how we got here, I'm like, "It was Ryan."

You know?

Ryan gets the credit for this homecoming.

But I think, really, in the last five years, what has been so special is to see how he has kind of adapted to this place that is so special and so dear to me and runs so deeply.

I think that's been kind of an interesting and humbling experience.

Singer: ♪ Feel it in my dreams ♪ ♪ Electrify my heart ♪ ♪ Come and dance with me ♪ ♪ Till the lights come on ♪ ♪ Flying till we're free ♪ Ryan: Having a small farm, you get really good at raising animals, but you don't realize that you need to be even better at marketing.

And so I get all excited about grass and soil microbiology, how the system works symbiotically, but if I'm not economically viable, it's not gonna be sustainable.

When someone comes up to you at the farmers' market and they say, "I haven't tasted chicken like that in 20 years, like, I can't buy chicken at the grocery store anymore," you know, that's incredibly meaningful, and it kind of makes those mornings in the pouring rain, feeding the chickens and moving them to fresh grass worth it.

I'm not reinventing the wheel here.

I'm standing on the shoulders of giants.

I'm very, very grateful that people have gone before me and have served as mentors, even if it's just in books.

I'm forever indebted to people like that.

You know, there's a writer, Gary Snyder.

He said, "Probably the most radical thing you can do is to stay home."

So we're -- we're giving that a go.

Singer: ♪ Feel it in my dreams ♪ ♪ Electrify my heart ♪ ♪ Come and dance with me ♪ ♪ Till the lights come on ♪ ♪ Flying till we're free ♪ ♪ Sparkling in the dark ♪ ♪ Come and dance with me ♪ ♪ Till the lights come on ♪ Man: To learn more about the topics featured on this episode, log on to GeorgiaPellegrini.com or follow along on Georgia's Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube channel for weekly pioneering adventures, tips, and recipes.

"Modern Pioneering" is funded in part by wild blueberry farmers of Maine.

Wild blueberries are full of flavor and nutrients, a pop full of blueberry taste for your favorite smoothie, breakfast, or dessert.

Learn more at wildblueberries.com.

Woman: At Muir Glen, we believe that organic farming benefits consumers, farmers, and ecosystems.

Man: And made possible by... ...and many other generous donors.

A complete list is available at GeorgiaPellegrini.com.