An urban oasis supermarket

WASHINGTON, June 19 (UPI) -- When Safeway closed its branch in Anacostia, Washington's low-income neighborhood east of the eponymous river, in 1998, the community lost its only supermarket.

A sector prone to high rates of infant mortality, cancer, diabetes and other food-related diseases, Ward 8, with this one stroke, was stripped of access to fresh produce.

In stepped Urban Oasis. The non-profit group began an organic farm in the grounds of St. Elizabeth's Hospital to supply vegetables to the community.

The campus sits right in the middle of Anacostia, on a river-girdled parkland hill with one of the best views of the capital. It's a secret treasure, a forgotten complex of unused buildings established in 1855 as the Government Hospital for the Insane.

Wounded Civil War soldiers were brought here for treatment. In a tiny cemetery, 300 soldiers, Union and Confederate, black and white, lie buried under white headstones that form a cross which can be seen from over the river when the trees are bare of leaves.

Ezra Pound was incarcerated here. And John Hinkley, attempted assassin of President Reagan still is, in the working wing of the hospital over the road.

Now the D.C. Office of Planning is considering what is described in bureau-speak as 'strategies for redeveloping the St. Elizabeth's campus, which include creating partnerships between public agencies and the private sector.

In a generous world, this could mean the vast grounds and impressive buildings would be developed to provide imaginative housing locally, a further education campus, artists' studios, performance spaces, cafés -- an opportunity to integrate the citizens of the south and north of the river, and create a revitalized, hopeful community.

At any rate, after 5 years making the soil good at the site and establishing itself in the neighborhood, Urban Oasis only has until November to continue its good work there.

Until it moves, the one-acre farm is managed by Nicole Georges-Abeyiean, an open-gazed young graduate of Swarthmore and the College of Agriculture at the University of Maryland.

In battered hat and crumpled chinos, she arrives almost at the crack of dawn each day, to weed and sow. She harvests by herself the vegetables that are sold weekly at the farmers' markets at Union Temple Baptist Church and the Old Congress Heights School.

She grows "three sisters corn" -- a symbiotic process that plants squash at its feet to shade the ground and control the weeds, and beans that use its stalks for support.

There are peppers, lettuces, heirloom tomatoes, garlic, broccoli, cabbages, kale, cucumbers, onions and collard greens. And there are watermelons, honeydew melons, tomatillos and beets.

Children come by yellow bus from schools across the city, learning from organizer of the summer program, Susan Topping, as they creep about among the dirt and bugs, the importance of fresh food, nutrition, plant and soil science.

The farm is organic. But, says, Nicole George-Abeyiean, the key lesson is, '"Organics" is not this fancy stuff you do chi-chi things to. It's food as simple as you can get.'

Area restaurants buy herbs and some vegetables from the farm. But while farming volunteers come from all over town, the main customers for produce are the locals.

"The elderly people," says Allison Hughes of Community Harvest, who sold at the markets last year, "grew up on farms in North Carolina. They would talk to me about how they used to grow this or that vegetable and the process of growing it."

Teen moms with two kids and $5 vouchers from Women Infants and Children for spending only at the markets would, by contrast, spend it all on onions.

"They didn't know what to do with stuff like tomatoes." Hughes would like to see the program extended to educating on meal preparation.

The teens might consider the easy Greek summer dish -- horiatiki salad.

Buy farmers' market tomatoes, a cucumber and a red onion, some black olives and feta cheese. (The Sunday morning market at Washington D.C.'s Dupont Circle sells free-range Jersey-cow feta from The Keswick Creamery).

Slice the tomatoes in eight from stalk to tip, a medium peeled onion in fine slivers from stalk to tip, the peeled and halved cucumber in quarter-inch wide slices. Turn together in a shallow bowl with the olives and crumbled feta and sprinkle with salt and some grinds of fresh black pepper. Slosh over a generous quantity of good olive oil, but no vinegar -- the acid is in the tomatoes. Then eat with a crusty loaf and feel happy and healthy.

To participate in a presentation on the future of St. Elizabeth's at The National Building Museum, 401 F St NW, on 26th June at 6.30, call (202) 272-2448 to register. Tickets are $15 for non-members.

For Anacostia and other farmers' market details, or to volunteer at Urban Oasis, click on www.goodfooddc.org.