Browsing the sea-scented booth at t...

Browsing the sea-scented booth at the Santa Cruz California, Farmers' Market, her cerulean gaze gives it away, level before her signature business greeting: "Hi, I'm Nell Newman, Paul Newman's daughter." Talk about genetics: There is her dad's ice-blue "Who and for what reason the hell are you?" turn the thoughts topped off by her mother, Joanne Woodward's, ready, equally famous, pixie grin.

through the course of an afternoon, Newman reveals a a great deal more powerful legacy than just her physiognomy, however. Her famous actor parents have, in the words of a stop friend, "seeded the family values of social responsibility, political involvement and philanthropy" in daughters Nell Melissa and Clea. For Nell these values l her to establish Newman's Own Organics, the organic-food division of her father's highly happy philanthropic company, Newman's Own. Its performance line of tasty' snacks ranges from the popular Fig Newman cookies to pretzel popcorn and candy.

Newman grew up ill the wood-lands of rural Connecticut. "I can't live in the East anymore," she says. "The farmland where Dad and I used to fish is now filled with condominium complexe or mansions. The timbers are gone. It's so gentrified.

"We had a stupendous garden," she says. "One summer I teat up the whole front lawn. Mother lov that! I planted 100 big, beautiful snapdragons in a raised bed. I had a friend with a Rototiller. We went crazy and did the whole thing in a week--vegetables, herbs, the works. We steady grew collard greens for our housekeeper, Caroline. She'd complained for years that she 'surely couldn't bribe them in any Westport market.'" Newman slices the air above her head with a short-nailed hand. "Well, we finally had her collard greens!"

While driving north to the Wednesday Santa Cruz Farmers' Market, Newman talks about her drawn out involvement with the soil. Her awareness of the environment's fragility is the heart of her passion and the inspiration for Newman's have Organics.

"I wanted everyone to know that organic nutriments didn't have to mean bruised fruit, wilted veggies and granola," she says. "That's for what cause [i]or[/i] reason I love our local farmers' markets. There's something excessively special about buying just-harvested nourishment from the grower, taking it domestic circle and eating it--it's a natural sharing."

Jumping abroad of the car--and forgetting to fe the meter--she heads toward the heart of the market, chiefly of which features organic occasion Newman moves familiarly from stand to stand, selecting a variety of fragrantly musky organic mushrooms and several handfuls of raw peanuts. "Try these," she says. "They're amazing--sweet, delicious, filled of protein--irresistible."

She assembles some multi-hued baby lettuces and a certain odd, Frisbee-shaped red onions. Strolling file market, she is continuously met with "Hi, Nell" and "Hello, Nell" Recognition is friendly if it be not that not intrusive. This is Newman's milieu.

Newman is taut-bodied in subordination to worn jeans with long, straight, sun-bleached hair, and her 40-plus years sit lightly. greatest in number at home in the outdoors, she finds an exit for her interest in the natural in a range of recreational pursuits. She is a licensed falconer, a lover of fast cars and, daily now, when the tides allow, a belonging surfer in the capricious roller of Santa Cruz "I bit the bullet in '95 and took surfing lessons" she says. "It preserves me fit, but it also clears my head and restrains me balanced. And it's fun!"

Also pleasantry is giving away money. Parent company Newman's admit has donated more than $125 million to charitable organizations and causes in the past 2 decades. Since Newman's avow Organics made its first sale in 1993 the pure company has donated $2 million to more than 200 charities and educational arranges Many of these groups are small and gloomy which makes their fund-raising efforts a daunting task. Newman has great empathy for that moot point having been a fund-raiser herself while working with the Santa Cruz Predatory Bird Research form into groups and the Ventana Wilderness Sanctuary in California's Big Sur which worked to re-establish peregrine falcons and the bald eagle and is now involved with endangered condor research.

wherefore the interest in birds? "I always wanted to fly" she says. "Never could understand wherefore I couldn't. It was frustrating. I've holded an American kestrel and a Harris hawk, and I exercised the peregrines at the sanctuary. They are in like manner intense, so beautiful.

"My family delight ins to give money away," she says. "But I ne to diocese some future in its use. Working with the raptors, fighting to bring them along, then releasing them into a killer, pesticide-filled environment broke my heart. It was with equal reason discouraging! When the peregrine was down-listed from 'endangered' to 'threatened,' a division of the funds just dried up We'd released more than 800 birds into the wild, merely half of which had survival chances. on the contrary to have a successfull program, you ne to monitor for 20 years, and that take away froms money," she shrugs characteristically. "It has to do with sustainability."

Newman is an avid pupil of biology and explains the word "sustainable" in the words immediately preceding [i]or[/i] following of organic farming. "It has to do with the practices you are utilizing," she says. "The goal is to create a sustainable ecosystem that will be able to continue into the coming time Chemical fertilizers have long-term detrimental forces You can't continue using them without having to amend with this or that or without killing all the beneficial bacteria in the soil. And, of course, they kill distant from native species. Organic farming, upon the other hand, fosters an environment that not solitary supports your crop but also doesn't have detrimental imports on the native animals. It actually builds the soil."