Food for Ascension Café at Avalon Organic Gardens & EcoVillage is located in the historic warehouse district at 330 East 7th Street, in Tucson. The Café embraces a new paradigm of sustainable community by providing pure food through fair systems that interact to support a vibrant life, community and environment by serving the finest organic plantbased, locally sourced cuisine, tended from farm to fork.

The Café strives to bring food justice to the world by showcasing slow food preparation and providing a welcoming, home-cooked experience. More than 90 percent of the ingredients on the café’s menu are grown in the Tucson region.

Food For Ascension Café has developed synergistic relationships with passionate local growers, farmers and crafters that include Crooked Sky Farms, Forever Young, Manzo Gardens, Patagonia Greens, Ramona Farms and Seven Cups Chinese Tea, to name but a few. Seventy-five percent of the produce is provided by Avalon Organic Gardens & EcoVillage, a 185-acre sustainable eco-village in Tumacácori. “

Avalon Gardens is committed to preserving and cultivating natural diversity through the use and promotion of heritage crops such as white Sonora soft bread wheat used at the café,” states Avalon Gardens Master Gardener Tarenta Baldeschi.

Executive Chef Rani Olson shares, “There are definitely signs of a movement within the culinary arts in recognizing and appreciating the vegetable. Elevated eateries have been honing and experimenting with the delicate flavors and labor-intensive cooking techniques of meat, seafood and rich dairy products for centuries. The vegetable, however, has played second fiddle for far too long. What if for the sake of art and discovery, we approached the vegetable with the same awe, discovery, value and preciousness as say, the diver scallop, sweetbreads, or Kobe beef? That’s how I approach cooking, and it’s not hard when there’s a personal friendship with the farmers.”

The menu is creatively prepared in harmony with Mother Earth’s rhythmic cycle and changes as often as needed, based on the quantity, variety and accessibility of local produce. The café is planning to schedule cooking demonstrations, classes, lectures and workshops on locally sourced and naturally grown food and its preparation for the benefit of optimal health, disease prevention and wellness through nutritional education. These educational programs are sponsored by the nonprofit Soulistic Medical Institute.

For reservations or more information call 520-882-4736 or visit FoodForAscension.org.