Photos by Chirag Patel & Shawn Jones
It’s a brisk morning as I walk upon the storied wooden planks of the Malibu Pier, overlooking a striking emerald-blue ocean full of choppy waves courtesy of the Santa Ana winds from the previous night. I pass by giggling children and lazy fishermen toward the twin structures that adorn the end of the pier, in particular the quaint eatery on the right with the extraordinary ocean view.
I’m here to meet purveyor Helene Henderson, and as I enter the building full of boisterous patrons enjoying their breakfast I find her tucked away to the side working on a laptop. She greets me with a smile and we sit to chat about how her restaurant, Malibu Farm, has come to occupy the prime real estate that is the Malibu Pier.
Henderson was born in the north of Sweden, where she grew up learning about farming and foraging in the surrounding forests near her family cottage. Her mother was a waitress, and Henderson became familiar with working in a professional kitchen at an early age. 
“I knew about cooking, but I didn’t think of cooking as a professional path,” said Henderson, who after moving to the United States “with a one-way ticket and only $500,” worked in design before moving back into the kitchen purely by accident. Filling in for an injured friend who was cooking for a private party, Henderson made a strong impression with her dishes and was invited to cook again.
“Other people from other places wanted me to cook and then all of a sudden I had a catering company,” laughed Henderson, who would go on to run her own company for nearly 15 years, in addition to spending time as a personal chef. Henderson admitted she didn’t have a clear vision for what she was doing and was unable to explore her culinary creativity when forced to tailor her dishes to clients who had a stringent set of needs.
Henderson would eventually purchase a home in the Point Dume area that needed a lot of work, a property that would become her own private farm. She bought some goats to clear the land, planted some vegetable beds, added a vineyard and a chicken coup, restored a hidden fruit orchard and brought in a pet pig named Arnold.
As her private farm grew, friends would ask her to host cooking classes where they would pick fresh fruits and vegetables from the property to make a unique farm-to-fork meal.
“My cooking class had a rule … it had to be fun for me,” said Henderson, who developed the class into a unique exploration of simple, organic meals. She shunned developing recipes beforehand and instead looked for in-the-moment inspiration in the garden to create the meal for the day, blogging about it afterward for those interested in recreating what they learned.
“Everything just grew from that point on, and suddenly it was 20 people taking the class, then 100 people taking the class, then people calling in saying they’re coming in from New York asking how they can take the class,” Henderson said.
The classes turned into hosted dinner events around Malibu, allowing guests to try a number of dishes tied in to local organic foods – dishes designed around fresh produce found at a number of farms in the community. The growing popularity of these events brought Henderson to the attention of the master concessionaire for the Malibu Pier, who offered Henderson the opportunity to host a pop-up style dining experience in the historic space.
“It required a lot of work,” said Henderson, who had to redesign the entire location and reacquire the necessary permits to get the old structure at the end of the pier in working condition. “It was me and two Pepperdine students and two line cooks who we hired … people were laughing. The rent was super low because even the landlord was laughing,” Henderson admitted.
But it worked. Henderson brought in produce picked fresh from her own farm to cook the meals. As business grew, she partnered with local growers to supply the demand, sticking to her belief in only sourcing local, fresh and organic foods.
“My philosophy for any food is just to keep it as simple as possible,” Henderson said. “I don’t like things that are over thought … my basic thought is to just get a really good piece of chicken … or a really good tomato and do nothing to it.”
Henderson is a strong believer in producing quality food, allowing natural flavors to take center stage. No additives, no processing, no freezing — just real, fresh food.
“The worse the product you get, the more you have to do to it. The better the product you get, the less you have to do to it,” Henderson said.
What was once envisioned as a temporary pop-up is shaping into a permanent cafe on the pier, with Henderson working on expanding the reach of the business with longer hours, an online blog at www.malibu-farm.com and future events to showcase her unique and healthy dishes.
I leave the pier and head north on PCH to a quiet ocean-side neighborhood near Paradise Cove. I arrive at a beautifully designed rustic home and am greeted by my host, who takes me around back to explore the hidden garden on the other side.
She walks barefooted through an ocean of green, as she guides me nimbly past vegetable beds, a green house, compost heaps, a lively chicken coop and a bee colony surrounded by the sweet aroma of natural honey. There are bananas and guavas and mangos, an assortment of growing herbs and berries, citrus fruits and vegetables. It’s a forager’s paradise full of color, mouth-watering scents and the sounds of chirping birds.
We stop at a tree bearing an odd looking bud, a large and fuzzy green pod that my host picks off and begins to tear open. The inside of the pod houses a ghost white fruit that is soft, watery, sweet and incredibly delicious. The Inga tree has been growing for nearly three years now, and we have just taken the first ever taste of its fruit, referred to as the “ice cream bean.”
The quarter-acre sized garden is full of similarly exotic foods alongside more traditional American staples, and we continue to pick and eat fresh produce as we explore. The garden is the work of my host June Louks, a local supporter of organic living in Malibu and the author of “A Malibu Mom’s Manifesto On Fresh Whole Foods,” a cookbook and healthy lifestyle guide.
Louks suffered a health crisis a few years back and made a shift in her life to eat healthier and live better, an example she shares with her four daughters and other interested members of the Malibu community.
“I had no interest in growing my own food. This was supposed to be a paddle tennis court,” said Louks. “But then I had this health crisis which was very humbling. I came face to face with death, and when you have those moments you look at the larger picture.”
Louks started to look into healthier eating, and began to learn about the benefits of eating organically while simultaneously learning about the struggles associated with procuring and producing organic foods.
She learned about the importance of soil cultivation and composting when she first started to build her garden, and of the damaging effects of pesticides in the growth process. Even more surprising was the mishandling of the term “organic” itself, where Louks discovered that products labeled as organic are often times misleading and flat out false.
“Anytime food is grown for profit, it’s not going to have the value, the love, the nourishment as something that we can grow in our own backyard,” Louks said.
Over the course of six years, Louks has continued to grow and diversify her backyard garden, creating a truly unique and wholly sustainable environment from which she can grow quality foods to make healthier meals.
“This is a total labor of love,” Louks said. “We play every day out here. We craft and we are having a blast. But it’s definitely an investment of time.”
Her book came about from her desire to impart her health habits onto her kids, a struggle in and of itself. It’s a guide for other families who are looking at developing better eating habits based on the experiences of her own family.
“Getting the kids to eat [healthy food] in comparison to a Snickers or an Oreo cookie … those hydrogenated fats that are so addictive … I had to figure out how to sell it to my kids,” Louks said. “It was out of that passion, that love for them that got me to figure out great recipes from a ton of research on all these great, healthy, traditional foods.”
In addition to her book, Louks has founded the Malibu Agricultural Society, an organization of like-minded local farmers and organic health advocates who meet once a month to discuss their experiences and share their expertise on sustainable living.
“It’s been a venue for anyone who moves to Malibu and is interested in growing their own food,” Louks said. Many of the members have also been involved in advocating for local community and health ordinances, including labeling GMO’s, marine protection, rodenticide bans and moderating chain stores in the community.
It’s a wondrous undertaking that Louks seems to hold dear, and one that she hopes will continue to grow as the local community becomes more invested in healthier eating. Her garden is a unique example of how a little ingenuity and hard work can make a huge difference in the way we approach our eating habits.
“There is an incredible joy that comes from being in the garden and working in connection with nature that money can’t buy,” Louks said. “I think that is important for people to know.”
It’s past mid-day when I take my leave of the garden and my host. It’s been an interesting adventure meeting these two unique individuals who embody the farm-to-fork movement to the fullest. It’s a modest endeavor with a massive payout, and a small taste of the full plate that is Malibu’s food culture.
