Coming Alive: A Query Applied on a Mediterranean Olive Oil Road

 “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

Howard Thurman 1974

Spring quarter of my Senior year at Evergreen began with the intention of a capstone project studying the relationship between Oleotourism (Olive Oil Tourism) and the preservation of Millennial Olive Trees throughout the Mediterranean. And I did that, I developed a 15-week ILC (Independent Learning Contract) spanning Winter and Spring Quarters where I traveled to Greece, Italy and Spain and met with olive oil producers and tour industry professionals looking at this relationship. 

Athena’s Olive Tree Akropolis
Crete – 800 Years Old
Farga de l’Arion – 1700 years old

This trip and work were so much more than I expected. I knew from past experience and projects how valuable experiential learning is, especially for me personally and I developed this trip to explore that relationship deeper with the knowledge that I would discover more than I could imagine. I of course learned more about the relationship between big old olive trees and how tourism is helping to preserve them than I thought possible – I am still surprised at the amount of information I can present when asked about Olive Trees and Olive Oil.  But as I now know, these experiences were only the tiniest of gems I got out of the entire trip. As I prepared this Capstone project, I kept returning to how in awe I was that I was able to get here, to travel and discover and learn and write – this type of work has been a dream of mine, that I never thought possible and here I was doing it. I will continue to write about my study of olive oil tourism and millennial olive trees and my time abroad – and that will have to be another time and another place.  For here and now, the real Capstone project, turns out, is the answering of a question I have had for a very long time – which I have identified as The Query.

The Query:

How do I develop an idea, an interest, a curiosity of mine; research, learn about it, deep dive into its world, travel and experience it – touch it, taste it, feel it – then process the information and share it with others? I want to observe and learn how things relate, specifically to nourishment: food, community, history, culture, people. Who are they, the ones involved in making these things happen, what are their obstacles, motivations,  challenges and joys -  how does their involvement connect them to their community, locally and globally? I want to be a good steward of these stories and share them in multiple ways – academically, ethically, engaging, inspiring and fun.  These questions have lovingly become The Query.

I never thought it possible that I – me – could form an education or a professional career out of The Query, in fact anytime I would ponder it, I never got further than that, it was only an unattainable dream. And yet suddenly here I was doing it: I was learning how to take an interest of mine and following it through, experiencing and sharing it with others – I was using The Query to shape my education. This, this is the real education. I now have a degree in multiple paths that are applicable to the real world. Writing, communication, hospitality, travel, content, food culture, sociology, food agriculture, and more all through applying this ‘unattainable dream’ of mine, this set of questioning and processes to an interest. As I wrote about my discoveries of the relationship between Ancient Olive Trees and Tourism I looked back through my education and realized it was all guided by these questions, so I decided to change course and share the story of my education and how I answered one question, The Query , which was the most impactful part of my time here at Evergreen.  

This site is where I take you down my educational road, scroll down, follow the posts and links, join my world of discovery.

Shedding Notions

Returning to Evergreen after 25 years of life experience was inspiring and it turns out the perfect time to answer The Query. I did not know at the beginning but this time in my life I had  the courage to work through and let go of the outdated, unworkable educational parameters I was taught that I had to adhere to. I allowed myself to challenge the norms, the way education is supposed to look. I allowed myself to play, discover, see where my curiosity took me. It was challenging and more rewarding than I could have imagined.  I am happier and more content than I can ever remember being.

When I decided to return to school The Query was not clear to me, it had been rattling around in my brain for many many years, in hindsight it’s been there my whole life. But here I was ready to complete my education, having very little clue as to what path to take. I knew I wanted to write and share about people and food in some way.  I didn’t come to school with clarity and openness. I thought to legitimately and responsibly return to school in my mid 40’s as a single mother I would need to know exactly what I wanted to do and it had to be a concrete career path that would have good job prospects, The Query did not look like a responsible path. Having transferred with 2 years of credits, I only had 2 years to figure this out and the pressure was on.  My real interest, The Query, though not a “responsible” career path was there, poking its way into my dreams and begging to be paid attention to. I was too busy at the beginning making sure that I fit the mold – education with a clear end goal to a good paying job and career – no room for exploration. I took some courses in Food Policy, Writing and language hoping I would fall into a concrete path. During this time, I took a class with Carmen Hoover in the Native Pathways Program: World of Writing. One particular assignment had The Query smiling at me, reminding me that it was there, waiting.   I wrote an essay on Sobremesa, a cultural practice in many areas of the world meaning the  time spent after a meal, talking and connecting with loved ones around the table.   It had me examine for myself the importance of taking time to ponder, wonder, work out ideas and thoughts in a relaxing and open way. I began to look at what it would look like to apply this concept to my education and learn in a way that worked better for me, a different way than what I was taught I was supposed to – what would it look like to allow myself discovery?

Sobremesa-Final-Draft-WOW-Jennifer-Ball-Winter-1Download

The Beginning of Adventure

Spring of 2023 I found myself invited by my partners family to join them on a 3-week trip to Spain and the opportunity to complete a quarter of research, travel and writing was laid out before me.  I contacted Sarah Williams who would become an integral teacher and guide for the years to come. With her help I created my first ILC: Tasting Spain a Food Adventure: The Food and Culture of Catalan, Basque and Andalucia. I had always wondered how people travel, meet people who are doing amazing things with food and history and culture and write about them.  I set out to research the areas in Spain that were on our itinerary and one of the writers I came across was Claudia Rodan, a cookbook author but so much more, she is a historian, a storyteller a documentarian of a story of a place and its people  told through food.  I was inspired tremendously by her and connected to her in that we were both setting out on a food adventure in similar times of our lives, 50 years apart. I gathered some courage and decided to extend my trip and after 3 weeks of traveling with companions in the north of Spain I would venture out on my own for the first time and travel solo to the South of Spain for 10 days.   The Query was coming to life.  Remember at this point I was thinking it was impossible to create my education and career path around The Query, yet here is a quote from this trip that shows it was there all along, guiding me:

“It is always interesting to me to follow the humble beginnings of a dish that then becomes an integral part of a culture. I would like to choose a few of these foods and follow them through time.”

This quarter, this project was a turning point, I got more than a taste of adventure and discovery and I wanted to share it with everyone.  I created a WordPress of my experiences and the food and culture of Spain through writing, recipes and images.   I learned that just 4 weeks of travel could produce endless research and writing to share.  And on a little drive across Spain, olive trees whisking by The Query firmly planted the interest I would choose to continue my education at Evergreen and beyond.

Tasting Spain: A Food Adventure, the food and culture of Catalan, Basque and Andalusia

Tasting Spain: Cooking, Writing, Research

I returned home with much more information than I could have shared in one quarter.  This was exciting! The information and connection to Claudia Rodan had me wanting to dive into how she did it – how does she travel and experience, research and learn then share her experiences.  One particular interest at this point, that I still did not think I was capable of was how did she meet the people that she learned from and had experiences with while on the road?  How did she set out and end up having dinner in the home of the person who grew the artichokes, or the person who was preserving the traditions of a food culture passed down for generations that she baked with – was she just extremely gregarious?  I did not feel I was.  During this trip I played around with talking to strangers, asking questions and connecting with the people of the place through food.  It was awkward and I fumbled through it with out any real success. I thought about this a lot after I came home, The Query not letting me alone about it.  

I decided to use summer quarter 2023 to work through all I learned, experienced and gathered from my trip and write about it, I had so many more questions than answers. I decided learning how Claudia Rodan did it was the way to go so I read and cooked through her magnum opus The Food of Spain, a gigantic tome of history culture and recipes – it’s beautiful.  I allowed myself to play around with discovery of how I wanted to organize myself going forward, I knew I would continue to travel that bug being firmly planted and was already planning on how to get back to Spain to learn more.  The Query began to appear over and over in it’s true form, how could I make it work, how could I take these interests and research, experience, and share them? It was tangible now, instead of looking for a career path that I was supposed to take, maybe I could make one out of this, other people have, I was beginning to see this. 

 So, I spent the summer cooking and reading and pondering my next steps, allowing myself to think about all of this without having to have all the answers, I was beginning to have faith in myself and the power of doing something that lights you up. So I spent the summer playing around with documenting my trip and working through Rodan’s book.  My friends were fed very well that summer.

Tasting Spain: Cooking, Writing, Research

Nosedives Land Based Learning Foodways Program Fall 2023

I knew I wanted to go back to Spain, do it again, follow a foodway but how?  I investigated scholarships, travel abroad ILC options and met with anyone I could who could support my vision.  I always thought I needed to know everything before I set out to accomplish a goal – I was beginning to see that the main point of accomplishing a goal is to learn how to do it whether you accomplish it or not. Writing this it seems silly, but it really was my belief – how could I do something if I didn’t know how to do it to begin with?  This notion was unraveling for me and began to allow myself to explore the things that were of interest to me, unapologetically, against what I was taught, instead I trusted myself and did it anyway. So I took a leap of faith.  The Query was forefront and taking advantage of my newfound freedom with my education, lying in wait to pounce once I let go of all that held me back.  I enjoyed working with Sarah Williams for the past two quarters and knew I had a lot more to learn from not only her wealth of knowledge in food and agriculture studies but even more her drive and encouragement to question and explore. This course seemed the perfect home base as an inquiry driven course on land, story and foodways.  The beginning of this quarter was outlined by a few quotes and one of them set me free:

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

Howard Thurman 1974

This quarter felt alive, I was able to reconnect with cooking from the land and sharing that with my peers. Using texts like An Everlasting Meal by Tamar Adler to connect food and conservation and joy.

Landbased Learning Fall 2024: Cooking From the Land

I practiced storytelling, beginning with storying my experiences with land, food and education. This was a formative practice and helped me visualize and experience point of view in storytelling.

Landbased Learning Fall 2024: Storying Your Relations

We practiced “nosedives” little queries into our surroundings and daily activities, looking at connections to land, food and ourselves. I wrote about my mini versions of The Query, working on the Evergreen farm, connections from my travels in Spain to a trip to Mexico and more, read about them here:

Landbased Learning Fall 2024: Nosedives

Setting Out

As Winter quarter of the program began, my leaping into The Query was in full force. I had procured funding through scholarships and loans to embark on a 15-week trip through the Mediterranean – even now as I write this after having lived it I am still in awe of myself that I did this! Winter quarter we were tasked with finding our “grouse”.  One of our texts was NoseDive by Harlod McGee where he ate a grouse at a restaurant and that one bite left him speechless. He then proceeded to search for meaning through chemistry of taste and so much more to explain why that one bite had that intense of an effect on him.  It is an astounding work in many ways. This was McGee’s version of The Query, his account of deep diving, nosediving into something that interested him that he researched, explored, experienced and shared with others.  Here I was learning how to accomplish The Query by looking and learning through someone who has done it!  I dove into the meat and bones of tasks to accomplish this.  What does it mean to be a writer, how do I develop a writing practice?  How do I research for these types of questions and queries? We developed our own “grouse” question and as I thought of the million things I wanted to run with here, I kept going back to those fields of olive trees I drove through in Spain.  Why, what, how were they there?  I dove in and instantly discovered these big huge ancient trees, monumental to the history, culture, people and land.  I would go, I would go find out about them, study them and share what I have found. 

I developed a research question for a Literature review looking at the relationship between oleotourism and the preservation of millennial olive trees in the Mediterranean.  This is the question I based my research, itinerary and exploration on as I planned my 15-week trip.  I researched and learned to research. I contacted producers and industry professionals – a lot of cold calls and emails.  They were very fruitful.  I kept letting go of what it is supposed to look like, I did not have every single second planned as I left. I went out on a limb and relied on preparation of what I could control.  I played with how to do things and learned as I went, being ok that I did not know exactly what I was doing. By the time I boarded the plane on February 26th, 2024 I knew more about monumental olive trees and olive oil than I could have imagined, and surely more than I felt I knew. 

Landbased Learning Winter 23/24: Research

I began in Greece, knowing one of the oldest olive trees in the world is on the Island of Crete.  There are older trees in Palestine, I could not start there and am heartbroken that that history is being destroyed.   At this point The Query was in the driver seat, and I had completely let go of the constraints of what I was told an educational experience looks like. I was on my own, making my own way and I was learning more through this process than any other modality that has been thrown at me.  I set out on my own, diving in shedding fear as I soaked it all up. The pure excitement of allowing a dream to happen is otherworldly, even as I write this, almost a year after the fact, I don’t know how to process the joy, pride, excitement and emotions of this experience. I wondered how Claudia Rodan went out and met people, connected through history and food – with strangers and here I was, doing it.  This education has me inspired.  McGee states, “. . . at this very moment there’s a world swirling all around you, and into you, that teems with the makings of delight, disgust, understanding, and wonderment.” What better than the realization that you are in that moment, in that swirl and you feel every molecule of it.

Landbased Learning Winter 23/24: Culinary Travel

I spent the remainder of the year through spring quarter traveling across the Mediterranean.  From Crete I landed in Puglia, Italy – the heel of the boot.  Here I discovered the largest concentration of monumental olive trees in the world – a sea of giant olive trees thousands of years old. I met with people who are working to save these trees from a dangerous bacterium and the advancement of agricultural practices that have no place for preserving them.  I traveled to Sicily and met trees in ancient ruins and tasted the oil form them and at last I found myself back in Spain, where it all began, touching the tree that lit up The Query all those months before and had me standing next to it. What I thought I would experience and what I actually experienced were so vastly different, my experience being a universe richer than expected. I again returned home with so much more to share than I could have accomplished within the parameters of a quarter. McGee worked on his query of the grouse for over 10 years, at first, I thought this extreme and yet here I am in understanding as I could make this one question of mine into a lifetime of work. Here are some of the multitudes of experiences I had on this trip, though they don’t even skim the surface.

The Mediterranean Olive Oil Road

I plan to go on, continue to share about my travels and complete the story of my olive trees. I will deepen my studies through graduate school. The Query will continue to drive me to discover and explore and share, I see it now, and it is tangible, I have found what makes me come alive and I am doing it.