Not all superheroes wear capes

This women’s history month, we celebrate the empowered and inspired women chefs, sustainability leaders, farmers, and collaborators who embody the west~bourne spirit. From community cultivators to storytellers and tastemakers, these female forces' approaches to sustainability inspire us to do better every step of the way - one family meal at a time.

Can't Get Enough: Avocado oil

What we eat is a significant contributor to climate change. The good news is that we can do something about it. Did you know that avocado trees are planted with companion crops like coffee or chocolate on regenerative farms? This practice is knows a as layered or "alley cropping" in agro-forestry. The lower crop like coffee receives necessary shade from the avocado trees while covering any exposed soil. The result? Maximized water and nutrient use efficiency, enhanced integrated pest management, and an increase in both yield and quality of the crops.

Founded by Camilla Marcus, west~bourne on a mission to eat well and do better by challenging conventional ideas about our food systems and environmental stewardship.

Reading: On Thriving by Brandi Sellerz-Jackson

Brandi Sellerz-Jackson is a storyteller, birth and postpartum doula, and the creator of Not So Private Parts. Initially created as a women’s lifestyle blog, Not So Private Parts has evolved into a resource removing the shame and stigma surrounding women’s issues. Sellerz-Jackson is the co-founder of Moms in Color, a Black mom collective centered around celebrating diversity within the motherhood space. Her book shares powerful lessons on healing and thriving through the murky seasons of life in this moving, intimate guide to deeper self-awareness and radical joy.

Like-Minded Community: Suay

Suay is a Los Angeles based 100% vertical sewing and production shop founded in 2017 by by Lindsay Rose Medoff and Tina Dosewell - the two met in 2004 through the local sewing community. Pioneering the clean up economy, Suay products are created from a combination of post-consumer waste, deadstock and domestically, organically grown fibers. Operating out of a 5,000 sq. ft sew shop and retail space in Northeast L.A., Suay is cultivating a new workforce of textile recyclers within the garment industry with a team of thirty employees dedicated to eradicating the massive amount of destructive waste from the fashion industry. 

Scent: BODHA Moon Vibration Perfume Oil 

BODHA is a meditative fragrance studio based in Los Angeles. Founded in 2014 by perfumer Emily L’Ami & designer Fred L’Ami, BODHA explores scents’ unique ability to create moments of connection & calm. From therapeutic ingredients to tactile packaging design, BODHA taps into the ways we can move beyond thought to deepen our experience of life.

The new vegan and sustainably sources Moon Vibration Perfume Oil has become an everyday staple in our routine. A spacious shimmering fragrance of powdery minerals, soft woods & a hint of smoke. Reflective and meditative, this living perfume connects you with the Moon’s magnetic energy.

Art: Nadia Yaron

Nadia Yaron is an artist born in Sao Paulo, Brazil and raised in New York. She is currently based in upstate New York where she sculpts with wood, stone, and metal to reflect fragility, impermanence, and oneness with nature, often informed by her idyllic rural surroundings. Yaron demonstrates impermanence by honoring small transient events such as a fallen leaf, a gust of wind, a flower blooming, or a pink cloud.  These precious moments are made in solid materials to bring a sense of permanence to our ever-changing world.

She often stacks her individual sculptures to create large human scale forms that parallel the oneness of humans with nature referred to as landscape sculptures. Often her sculptures reveal a hole, an all seeing eye, a gentle reminder of where we came from. 

Currently Listening: Billie Eilish 

While we love cranking Billie's music while we garden, it's her work otwards sustainability that we are v~into. Eilish has made lowering the environmental footprint of her music a top priority. This includes ditching fast fashion and opting for upcycled looks on the red carpet to prioritizing plant-based and vegan foods. Billie is championing the next wave of consumers to protect our planet and for that, we can't thank her enough. 

Self Care: Anything Tata Harper

A pioneer in natural luxury skincare and first champion of the farm to face movement, Tata Harper couldn't find 100% natural products that were up to her impeccable standards of efficacy, quality, and purity. So, in 2010 she started Tata Harper Skincare from her 1,200 acre farm in Vermont - making all natural, small batch skincare. Since launching she’s transformed the former dairy farm into a state-of-the-art facility from which she’s introduced more than 60 products, overseeing every aspect of production on-site.

Watching: Common Ground

Common Ground is the highly anticipated sequel to the juggernaut success documentary,Kiss the Ground, which touched over 1 billion people globally and inspired the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to put $20 billion toward soil health. By fusing journalistic expose’ with deeply personal stories from those on the front lines of the food movement, Common Ground unveils a dark web of money, power, and politics behind our broken food system. The film reveals how unjust practices forged our current farm system in which farmers of all colors are literally dying to feed us. The film profiles a hopeful and uplifting movement of white, black, and indigenous farmers who are using alternative “regenerative” models of agriculture that could balance the climate, save our health, and stabilize America’s economy – before it’s too late.

Nested in the Los Padres National Forest in Ojai, California sits Big Picture Ranch – an organic avocado farm that also operates 24/7 as a soup-to-nuts film studio. Founders Josh and Rebecca Tickell are Sundance Award-Winning documentarians. Big Picture Ranch creates content that changes the global narrative around important environmental issues. Filmmakers Josh & Rebecca Tickell released the internationally recognized KISS THE GROUND, won the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival with their first film FUEL, premiered their oil spill documentary THE BIG FIX as an official selection at Cannes, and are launching their first scripted feature film, HEARTLAND soon.

Design Inspo: OR.CA 

OR.CA, founded by  Molly Sedlacek, is a landscape design and outdoor product studio that uses plants and natural materials in their rawest forms to re/connect people with the earth.

The work embodies the cycles of nature: The pent up energy of a seed, a rock carved by years of water, old growth redwood with a journal of scars, the native grass that persists season after season to claim its land, the decay and death of matter. And beginning this revolution of seasons and change again and again. Their designs balance permanence and impermanence. 

In Our Kitchens: Simpli

SIMPLi is on a mission to connect people around the world through the joy of food. Founded in 2020, SIMPLi co-founders Sarela Herrada and Matt Cohen sought to bring the best single-origin ingredients from around the world directly to you in a way that equally benefits people, producers, and the planet. SIMPLi partners directly with farmers to source the finest ingredients and make them accessible to consumers nationwide in stores, restaurants, and online. Their work is revolutionizing the food system, empowering smallholder farmers worldwide, and healing the planet through regenerative organic farming practices.

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