(light music) - [Stephfond] Tonight on "WPBS Weekly: Inside the Stories".

With fall officially here, outdoor activities are shifting.

But for many, walking, biking, even canoeing are still open game.

And Johnny Spezzano heats things up in the kitchen with Dani Baker of Cross Island Farms on Wellesley Island to make a farm-to-table brick oven pizza.

Your stories, your region, coming up right now on "WPBS Weekly: Inside the Stories".

(theatrical music) - [Announcer] "WPBS Weekly: Inside the Stories" is brought to you by: the Daisy Marquis Jones Foundation, the Watertown Oswego Small Business Development Center, Carthage Savings, CSX, the Oswego County Community Foundation at the Central New York Community Foundation, the Richard S. Shineman Foundation, and The Badenhausen Legacy Fund at the Northern New York Community Foundation.

- Good Tuesday evening, everyone and welcome to this edition of "WPBS Weekly: Inside the Stories".

I'm Stephfond Brunson.

With fall officially here, outdoor activities are shifting.

But for many, walking, biking, even canoeing are still open game.

Discover how some Ottowans are spending their days this fall and how it's benefiting their mental health.

(soft music) - My name is Betty Hope-Gittens and I'm a walker.

(light upbeat music) The reason I'm a walker is because our bodies are designed to walk.

It's really the best exercise.

It's the most natural.

I've been doing it for 47 years, minimum 10 and 15 kilometers a day.

I'm 82 now.

I still take no medication and I walk every day, just enjoying God's creation.

That's what my day is filled with.

There's so much around us to enjoy.

Ottawa is absolutely, absolutely beautiful.

We have miles and miles or kilometers, whatever you speak, in walking paths, cycling paths all over the city.

This is one of my favorite, Mooney's Bay.

(gentle music) Hog's Back.

(water running) Vincent-Massey Park.

Down behind Carlton University.

I do see a lot of cyclists, walkers.

I really do, and that really warms my heart to see them getting out.

I'd like to see more.

So if you do it, I feel we won't have to be so dependent on the long-term care homes.

- Hi, I'm Jim Watson, Mayor of the city of Ottawa.

It's my pleasure to thank the Elder Care Foundation of Ottawa for hosting their new event, the Virtual Betty's Walk, recognizing a local community service champion, Betty Hope-Gittens.

I encourage everyone to help raise money for Ottawa's 13 not-for-profit long-term care homes and local seniors.

- On our way supporting seniors.

Betty's Walk.

- We collect money to enable older people living in those homes to have a better quality of life.

We had made 60,000.

All the people in the long-term care homes that really, with some exercise, we could be less dependent on the homes.

I feel great.

I feel absolutely great, and I wish more people would get out and walk.

- I'm Declan Lo Monaco.

I'm 18-years-old and I love bike riding.

(light upbeat music) When I first started, I just kind of like just going around, sort of like a fast way to get wherever I wanted to go.

But my joy and love for bike riding really took off was when I actually started going long distances.

I have been bike riding, I'd say, for around 12 years.

I normally go 40 kilometers a week, I would say.

I get the exercise.

I get the fresh air.

I find one good thing about biking is the sort of like the independence.

Everything is sort of like all to myself and I don't have to adapt to anything.

Biking in Ottawa, it's obviously no Amsterdam, but I've had some good experiences.

Some bad, too.

There are some roads that are safer than others, but fortunately there're bike paths that can take you to all these different routes, like the one down by the canal.

There's also one that goes through the Experimental Farm, which I find is cool.

I have been biking throughout the pandemic.

I guess people were very, at the time, scared to go outside, but I just really, for my own mental sanity, I needed to get out and I needed to be active to cope with the pandemic.

And biking has helped tremendously, especially during the earlier days of the pandemic.

Biking has helped me, at least, with school.

It provided a good way to sort of balance the work and free time.

So like, I'd go for a little bike ride, clear my head, and then get back to working.

I was awarded the Student Recognition Award for my school.

It's given to one graduating student per school, in every school throughout the board.

It's supposed to showcase the student who showed the best perseverance, teamwork, school spirit, sort of all that.

And keeping my mental sanity through biking and stuff has definitely, definitely helped.

Give it a try.

You can go anywhere you want, and that's one of the coolest things about cycling is just going anywhere you want at your own pace.

Not waiting for like a bus or anything.

It's really great.

- My name is Max Finkeltein and I'm a paddler.

So I've been a biologist, a park planner, a documentary filmmaker, a bureaucrat, (chuckles) but what links them all together is in my heart, I'm a paddler.

(relaxing music) I did not grow up canoeing.

My father didn't paddle, but we spent a lot of time on water, fishing, and I'd see a canoe every now and then and I thought, "I'd really like that."

I like the idea of just peacefully gliding through the water like an otter, and it's just been a growing passion since then.

You can get to places that nobody else can get to except with the canoe.

And that's what I love most.

This is the best way to see Ottawa.

This is how it was founded.

You're not going on the highways outside of the town.

You're going through the heart of the town, past the foot of the parliament buildings, the ancient portages.

This is a route that's 8,000 years old.

For me, Ottawa is the center of the universe.

With a canoe in Ottawa you can go anywhere in the world.

And I can go left (laughs) and I'll end up in the Arctic Ocean or the Pacific Ocean, or I can go right and I'll end up in the Atlantic Ocean or the Gulf of Mexico.

And indeed, I've gone all those places from Ottawa.

I stopped counting how many kilometers I paddled when I got to 25,000 kilometers.

That's about 16,000 miles.

I'm putting a lot of miles under the hull still.

Most recently, from Ottawa to Washington, D.C., to advocate for our both countries working together to take better care of our rivers.

And so we went via New York City, 'cause we thought that would be cool.

Paddling into New York City had to be one of the most amazing canoeing experiences of my life.

We were in a big 36-foot canoe, about 10 people paddling it.

It was so great.

There's a little back channel of the Ottawa River and you can walk out here now that the water's so low and catch bass fishing.

There used to be sturgeon when I was a kid, but I don't see sturgeon in the city anymore, but there's no reason they shouldn't be here.

I have a kind of a dream for the Ottawa River.

It was the Ottawa river that started me on sort of river conservation.

Because what I remembered as a kid, which was a really polluted river, much more so than now with all the pulp and paper industry on it in Ottawa, which has moved away.

Yet, there's a lot of life missing that I'd like to see come back.

Eels used to be a very abundant critter in the river.

Nobody really likes eels, but they're pretty amazing creatures.

The eels are pretty well gone because of the hydro dams, stops their migration route.

The sturgeon are struggling for the same reason.

So this is kind of my vision.

I would like to come below the Deschênes Rapids and watch the sturgeon rolling in the river.

Stand in the water and see the eels swimming around my legs.

This is not an unattainable vision.

It's very attainable.

My role in all this is really just to take people out on the water and see how beautiful it is.

Like I really think that's my role at this point in my life.

(light music) - Speaking of fall, farm fresh veggies and herbs atop a fire grilled pizza is ideal for the beginning of comfort food season.

On this segment of "Johnny on Fire", Dani Baker of Cross Island Farms on Wellesley Island in Alexandria Bay joins Johnny in the kitchen for their take of a farm-to-table pizza bursting with flavor.

(soft music) (rock music) - Hey, come on!

(rock upbeat music) This is "Johnny on Fire", where we take great recipes and we cook 'em with fire.

I'm here with Dani Baker from Cross Island Farms and we have a whole selection of fresh, locally grown, organic veggies, even some goat sausage.

- That's right.

- And we're gonna make a farm-to-table pizza today.

First of all, tell us a little bit about Cross Island Farms.

- Okay, well Cross Island Farms is a certified organic farm, 102-acres on Wellesley Island.

We raise annual vegetables.

We raise beef and goat that's certified 100% grass-fed.

We have some pigs, chickens and ducks, and we have the Enchanted Edible Forest.

- The Enchanted Edible Forest.

Well talk more about this.

Show me what you brought with you today.

- Okay.

I'm happy to.

So from the annual vegetable garden, I have Italian red torpedo onions with green tops.

I have Lincoln leeks.

I have some really nice garlic, some sungold tomatoes that are sweet as sugar.

I have yellow zucchini.

- [Johnny] They're beautiful.

- [Dani] Yep.

And from the Edible Forest, I have some red currants, some fresh oregano, and this is called anise hyssop and it has a lovely licorice flavor.

- Well, we're gonna chop some of these up and add them to our dough.

- Okay, sounds good.

- So, while we're doing it, we'll talk.

- Okay.

- All right, so we're gonna need the, you start, I'm gonna grab this oregano.

- Sounds good.

- Let me smell this.

- All right.

- Oh, okay.

So this of course, you gotta have with pizza, especially if you're gonna do a red sauce.

You have to have a little bit of oregano.

- Fresh oregano.

That's right.

- [Johnny] You've written a book.

- [Dani] That's right.

- [Johnny] What's it called?

- "The HomScale Forest Garden: How to Plan, Plant, and Tend a Resilient Edible Landscape."

- Now, the forest garden, - Yes.

- I like this idea.

What is a forest garden?

- Well, it's modeled after a forest edge.

Basically, you wanna use all the vertical space you have.

So if you can go up, like with a tall tree to 80 feet, do it.

But if you're under an eve of a roof and you can only go to 10 or 12 feet, that's fine, too.

And you have layers below and you build in all of the plants that you need to provide nutrients for your fruit producing plants.

And it's all perennial, so it takes care of itself over time.

- You mentioned to me, when things grow in the forest, no one's there mulching them, tending to them.

- That's right.

That's right, weeding or watering.

When you have lots of layers, the water is preserved 'cause there's lots of shade.

The ground is covered, it stays cool.

The ground is covered, where weed's gonna grow?

- You mentioned the perennials.

- Yes.

- So what's the earliest you can get stuff out of the ground?

- Oh well, March.

- March?

- Yeah, I dig my sunchokes in March, yep.

They're tubers underground that are sweetened up by the winter.

And I dig 'em in March and then starting in April I have all kinds of herbs.

And once the leaves start coming out in early May, I've got tree leaves that are edible and all kinds of things.

And then of course fruits begin in June and they're still coming right till November.

- Well, this is a great bounty that you brought with us today.

- Well, thank you.

- I can't wait to try it out on the pizza.

- All right.

(upbeat music) - So Dani, I stretched out the dough.

We're ready, we've chopped all the veggies up.

We've got your amazing goat Italian sausage all sauteed.

We're gonna use red sauce, but I kind of think garlic would be great because you brought that fresh garlic.

- I did.

- [Both] Yeah.

- What were you telling me about your garlic?

- It's very pungent.

(laughs) - Yeah, and what makes it so good?

- It's grown organically, We don't, no fertilizer.

No artificial fertilizers, that is.

- I've got some room temperature butter here.

Look at this.

- [Dani] Yep.

- [Johnny] And it's got your fresh oregano as well, which, hold that up and show to everybody that one.

- That's from my Edible Forest, the oregano.

- [Johnny] The Edible Forest.

- [Dani] Yes.

- [Johnny] Are there gnomes that live out there or anything fun like that?

- [Dani] No, but I have a couple of, I have Froggy.

Froggy is a nine-foot long frog, - Okay.

- anatomically correct, - Oh my!

- [Dani] and he's nestled under a tree.

He looks like a big dinosaur, actually.

So, I have some.

- Be on the lookout for Froggy if you're ever at the Cross Island Farm's Edible Forest.

So what do you wanna put on first?

- So I'm gonna just- - Wait, I got a little cheese.

- Oh yeah, do the cheese.

- We'll just do a little provolone.

- [Dani] No, cheese is good.

I love cheese.

- [Johnny] A little provolone and then we're gonna add some of these fresh veggies.

- [Dani] Okay, great.

- [Johnny] So you chopped up what?

- I chopped up Lincoln leeks, very tender young leek.

They're very tall.

That's why they're called Lincoln leeks.

- Okay.

- And I chopped up a red, an Italian red torpedo onion.

So we're gonna sprinkle some of that stuff.

Maybe we can separate this stuff.

- [Johnny] All farm-to-table.

- [Dani] Yep.

So these are from my annual vegetable garden.

We grow annual vegetables.

- [Johnny] Perfect.

Go another color now.

What else- - All right, we're gonna put sungold cherry tomatoes that have been halved, and they'll be roasting.

- [Johnny] How would you describe that variety?

- [Dani] Well, you taste and tell me.

Here.

- (laughs) I can't wait.

Mmm.

Oh, delicious.

They're so sweet.

- Very sweet.

Very sweet.

- Okay, that's good.

- [Dani] Okay, now we're gonna add a little yellow zucchini.

- [Johnny] Perfect, right there.

Stop.

Now let's go with this.

I don't want it to be too heavy.

- I like more vegetables.

- All right.

Dani, go ahead.

Okay, that's it.

It's all you get.

- It's healthy.

- Now we're gonna add the goat - Sausage.

- Italian sausage.

- [Dani] Yep, hot Italian sausage.

- [Johnny] Hot Italian sausage.

- So we raise our goats on the farm, organically raised, and they're also, they don't eat any grain.

Grass-fed.

- Okay.

- Yep, and then we're gonna sprinkle some lovely red currants just for color and a little sour, sweet, sour - How exciting.

- flavor.

Yeah, okay.

- [Johnny] All right.

- [Dani] Is that what you want?

Oh, and one more thing.

- Do we wanna put that on when it comes out of the oven?

- I think we'll put it on when it comes out.

Yes, good call.

- So here is our farm-to-table pizza.

All organic, locally grown right on Wellesley Island.

I'm super excited to get this pizza in the oven.

Are we ready?

Is the fire ready?

Okay, let's go.

(light rock music) Dani!

Look at this.

- It is magnificent.

Look at that.

- Oh my gosh!

- [Dani] Wow.

You are quite the chef.

- [Johnny] Thank you so much.

- And I'm just, as a finishing touch, I'm gonna sprinkle a little of these flowers there.

It's anise hyssop.

It's an anise flavored flower.

So we got a little taste of licorice.

- All right.

So we don't wanna burn our mouth.

We're gonna let it cool for a second.

- Sounds good.

- So, how did you become an organic farmer?

- Well, it was basically, I was afraid of having too much idle time when I retired, 'cause I'm not good with that.

So we found this land, we bought it, and then we took a course at the local cooperative extension.

It inspired us to try our hand at farming, and the rest is history.

17 years ago - 17 years.

- we started the farm.

- Yeah.

And of course, you still give tours up there.

- Yes, we give tours of the entire farm operation and a special tour now of the Enchanted Edible Forest since I wrote a book.

- Yeah.

I wanna talk about this book.

"The Home-Scale Forest Garden", who is this perfect for?

- Anyone who wants to grow food.

It doesn't have to be a farm.

It can be just a foundation planting on one side of your house or a tree in your backyard surrounded by other edibles.

Or even an edible wind break to feed the birds and you.

- Aw, that's nice.

I think a lot of us learned while we were home and had a lot of free time that we could do things to feed ourselves.

- [Dani] That's right.

- And I think that's pretty, pretty cool.

- And you know, with inflation and everything, there's a monitoring motivation to produce your own food as well.

- Yeah.

Now, do you guys, come fall, have to pack up and do you do a lot of jarring and canning and any of this kind of stuff to get you through the winter?

- Well I do a lot of freezing of the vegetables.

And the berries, I love to make jams 'cause I don't, no additives.

Just raw sugar and the berries.

No water, no pectin, and they're so dense and rich.

They're just delicious.

- Well, I can't wait to dig into this pizza.

It's again, a farm-to-table pizza.

Gonna get that cutter and we're gonna dig in.

(light rock music) Look at this.

Ooh!

- I love crust, too.

And you've got lots of - You do?

Good - chewy crust.

It looks fabulous.

- [Johnny] All right.

- [Dani] All right.

- I'm gonna give you a small piece to start.

- That's perfect.

- Look at that crust, it's perfect.

- I'm a messy eater.

Small is perfect.

Thank you.

- [Johnny] That's good, okay.

You get the first bite.

I'll get the second bite.

- [Dani] All right.

- Actually I'll race you.

(Johnny laughs) Farm-to-table pizza.

All wood fired.

- [Dani] Yum.

- Mmm.

- [Dani] That is wonderful.

- Ooh my God.

- Boy, that butter garlic sauce is just fabulous.

- That worked good with the veggies, didn't it?

- [Dani] Wonderful.

- So good.

My guest Dani Baker, Cross Island Farms, really appreciate you tuning in, and we're gonna keep enjoying this.

If you get time, check out the "Dinner at Johnny's" podcast.

I'm "Johnny on Fire".

Mmm.

- Thanks for having me.

(light rock music) - Good.

- Before we leave you tonight, we wanna tell you about an incredible documentary headed your way on WPBS this October 4th.

"Making Black America: Through the Grapevine" is a four-part series produced, written, and hosted by Henry Louis Gates.

Black joy, love, resilience, and pride are explored in this documentary.

The film takes us on a 200-year journey exploring all aspects of Black culture that shapes America today.

(soft music) - [Player] Watching the game of bid whist like going to the Apollo on - [Players] amateur night!

(laughs) - There is a magic to this game that makes it the Black national pass time.

(all exclaiming) - Where did that queen come from?

(players laughing) I think they cheated.

(light orchestral music) - [Henry] Throughout our history, Black Americans have, with great ingenuity and imagination, created a world with its own values and rules.

A world defined by unfettered racial self-expression.

A world behind what W.E.B.

Du Bois called The Veil.

- When we talk about networks of Black people, we're talking about different types of associations.

There's a social type, fraternal and intellectual organizations.

- How were each of you shaped by Black social institutions?

- I grew up in an African preschool.

I didn't learn "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves".

I learned "Coal Black and the Seven Zebra".

(Henry laughing) (upbeat music) - [Henry] What does Black joy mean to you?

- Black joy means being in a safe space and feeling free.

Where you can really be yourself and shed that skin.

(upbeat music) - Wherever you have a large concentration of African Americans, you have business districts that rise up, that meet the needs in these communities.

- Annie Malone and Madam C. J. Walker basically developed hair straightening.

Was that a good thing for Black beauty?

- Part of our magic is that we can do anything with our hair.

I can straighten it, I'm still gonna be dope Julie, Black Julie.

- [Henry] Black social networks, Black institutions, they are like barrier islands.

They protect us from the storms of this country.

- When we come together, what time is it?

(people exclaiming) - So what happens when we begin to see the deterioration of Black institutional life?

(light music) - There been people who have argued that our community was better off before integration.

- When I was growing up, everybody in my sphere was Black.

There was just that sense of, everybody in this together.

I think we've lost that.

- When we look now in the 21st century, we see many of the same issues our Black foremothers and forefathers faced.

Economic disenfranchisement, anti-Black violence.

(Protest member speaking indistinctly) - [Protesters] No, P!

- But we're facing them without many of the institutions that Black people had to sustain them during the first round.

- Constantly I'm thinking about what it means to occupy my identities.

I do surround myself with blackness.

- As long as race counts in America, Black networks and institutions will always matter.

- From the founding of the Prince Hall Masons to Black Twitter, African Americans have forged networks in their own image as the ultimate act of resistance and survival.

(light upbeat music) - That does it for us this Tuesday evening.

Join us next week for a fresh look inside the stories.

- I walked out of the house and ran down the hill, and that was the last time I was at home.

- [Stephfond] We take you to St. Lawrence County where one author shares his exit from the Amish community.

And what's new on Parliament Hill.

Step inside the Hill Times newsroom for the latest.

Meantime, we wanna tell your story.

If you or someone in your community has something meaningful, historic, inspirational or educational to share, please email us at wpbsweekly@wpbstv.org and let's share it with the region.

That's it for now, everyone.

We'll see you again next week.

Goodnight.

- [Announcer] "WPBS Weekly: Inside The Stories" is brought to you by: the Daisy Marque Jones Foundation, dedicated to improving the wellbeing of communities by helping disadvantaged children and families.

Online at dmjf.org; the Watertown Oswego Small Business Development Center, a free resource offering confidential business advice for those interested in starting or expanding their small business.

Serving Jefferson, Lewis, and Oswego counties since 1986.

Online at watertown.nysbdc.org; Carthage Savings has been here for generations, donated time and resources to this community.

They're proud to support WPBS TV.

Online at carthagesavings.com.

Carthage Savings, mortgage solutions since 1888.

Additional funding provided by CSX, the Oswego County Community Foundation at the Central New York Community Foundation, the Richard S. Shineman Foundation, and The Badenhausen Legacy Fund at the Northern New York Community Foundation.

- Look at this.

- It is magnificent.

Look at that.

- Oh my gosh!

- [Dani] Wow.

You are quite the chef.

- [Johnny] Thank you so much.

- And I'm just, as a finishing touch, I'm gonna sprinkle a little of these flowers there.

(gentle music)