San Diego Magazine's Happy Half Hour

As a young girl growing up on a farm in San Diego County, Lan Thai’s dad would hand her shrimp shells from that night’s dinner and tell her, “Go feed the trees.” Lan was too young to understand why, but she did. The trees grew gaudy with fruit. Years later, as she was becoming a chef and diving deeper into the nutritive and health properties of food, she learned you can’t grow healthy food without healthy soil. And shrimp shells are star soil-makers. Born in a Thai refugee camp as Lan’s family fled the communist takeover of Vietnam, they found their way here. Started growing their own sustenance, fishing local waters for proteins. Her father hadn’t studied soil science, or farming for that matter. “I asked my dad how he knew shrimp shells were good for soil,” she says. “He said ‘Grandma told me.’ So, in addition to science, I’m a strong believer in the wisdom of ancients.” On top of passed-down food wisdom, she started studying the scientific studies of healthy food. Her restaurant—Enclave, a small cafe insid