By Judith M. Wilson
Photos by Stuart Lirette
The path through life can take some surprising turns.
Take Tara Smith and farming. Agriculture is a world
away from suburban Detroit, where she grew up, and
a marked contrast to her career as a businesswoman
selling long-term care insurance in San Rafael. But these
days, rural Sonoma County is the place that defines her.
It all started
in 2008, when
one of her
sons was a
student at
The Bran-
son School
in Ross.
Each year,
the school
encourages
parents to
read a book
and then
discuss it, and
the selection
was Michael
Pollan's "The
Omnivore's
Dilemma:
a Natural
History of four
Meals," which
traces the
ingredients in
four menus to their sources and raises questions about
agricultural practices and their effect on food. Discuss-
ing the book was a way for parents to get to know each
other, but, says Smith, "Jake brought it home, and it
changed my life.
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Tara Smith of Tara Firma Farms in
Petaluma. –Photo by Stuart Lirette
