From Amaranth to Worms!

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noreply@blogger.com (Pattie Baker) — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 18:18:00 +0000

MEALS

One Local Summer: Keeping it Real and Keeping It Simple

I was thinking about dropping out of One Local Summer. Not because I don't cook with locally-sourced ingredients, but because my cooking is hardly the thing to write home about. In my house, I think through the week something like this: "a pasta thing, a rice thing, an egg thing, a meat or tofu and two sides, a soup, a pizza thing or a something totally different thing, and, if I'm lucky and we haven't eaten all the leftovers for lunch, a Week in Review." That's the week.

Which night is which changes. And the exact ingredients of each meal are completely dependent on what I find in the garden, in the CSA box, in the freezer, and at the farmers market. "A pasta thing" may have sausage, peas and spinach and a creamy sauce (every meal has a vegetarian version for me, which has been really no big deal. So I throw in beans instead of sausage). It may have homemade pesto and diced tomatoes. It may be a ravioli with garden sage and homemade butter (shake cream in a jar. Not hard). Who knows? Who cares? It's still "a pasta thing" when my family asks if I have planned anything for dinner. And chances are, they'll never have the exact meal again, since I rarely use a recipe and the very nature of fresh, local ingredients means the meals are never really the same twice. So we appreciate each one on its own merits.

Hardly any of my meals are completely local, but just about every single snack and meal has something local, right down to the lemon balm and peppermint iced tea. Many of the meals, especially "a pasta thing" and "a rice thing," are hardly photogenic. So after these first few weeks, when I have presented "an egg thing" (a frittata), a soup, a meat or tofu and two sides, and something completely different (cheesy grits casserole) as One Local Summer meals, I wonder just how exciting the rest will be to you. There will no doubt be a pizza. "A rice thing," which very well may feature farro or quinoa instead of rice. Homemade veggie burgers, and other vegetarian choices. And more of "a pasta thing, "an egg thing" and soup (a nice summer gazpacho, perhaps?).

So I thought of dropping out, of letting the real chefs among the bloggers participating in One Local Summer inspire you. But I've decided to stay, and to just do what I do, and hope perhaps it inspires someone to let loose a little and have some fun in the kitchen. To keep it simple and real. To discover that sauteeing greens takes no time at all and can then be thrown into "an egg thing," "a pasta thing" or "a rice thing" with equal ease. That taking care of dinner takes care of lunch (there are always leftovers around). That having fresh, local produce, grains, meats, and dairy around means whipping up a local meal is not a big deal. That sometimes it's fast--mere minutes to cut some fresh greens, spread them with local, fresh chevre and a dollop of honey--and sometimes it's an all-day affair, but that it's always a pleasure, hardly a chore.

So, no, you don't have to cook for the week on Sunday, as a reporter named Leslie Kaufman recently wrote in her article, "Mom Puts Family on Her Food Plan" in the New York Times. And, no, you don't have to spend a fortune. And, no you don't have to go to cooking school. In fact, you don't even have to cook. It's pretty much impossible to beat a fresh, local salad with warm-from-the-vine crops. Or the occasional homemade ice cream for dinner :)

MEMORY

MemoryShed

I came across a brief mention of Lily Popcorn, a company started in 1946 that produced the original movie-house popcorn, and I got all excited because Lily Popcorn is local! Oh, well, no, not local now, in my current foodshed, but local when I was growing up in Mineola, NY. So, um, local in my, uh, memoryshed! Yes, my memoryshed!

And so, today, I coin this new word, to mean all the things that are or were local in all the places that you've ever lived or traveled. And I invite you to sit back and close your eyes a moment and go there, to one or more of these places from your past. And smell, feel, taste what it was like, that local delicacy. The way the nice lady at the corner bakery put those butter cookies in that box and then the "string machine" wrapped candy-striped red-and-white string around it, sealing it securely so there was no chance you could sneak a few sitting in the back seat of the car on the way to some family party over the bridge with your parents. Or the dozens of flavors of Italian ice from the Lemon Ice King of Corona, including your favorite, watermelon, even though it had pits, that you got to eat from that little white paper dental cup as you watched the old men play bocce ball.

Or the Lily Popcorn Factory that we passed on the way home from school, rubber bands holding up my required grey knee socks, my books covered in recycled brown paper grocery bags from the A & P. We'd knock on the factory's back door, where the nice ladies worked, and they would give us little bags of still-warm popcorn. We'd walk and sing, crossing the tracks, passing O'Daughterty's Bar on the corner where unfortunately we always knew someone coming or going. We'd pass the deli and the barber shop with that tell-tale relic of a striped barber shop pole outside that you never see anymore, while eating our buttery yellow popcorn the whole way, eventually peeling off, little by little as we each turned down our respective blocks to our blue-gravel-driveway houses. There were no parents around, no carpools, no afterschool activities that start in ten minutes, hurry up or you'll be late, and very little homework. Just a long, lazy afternoon and a bag of still-warm popcorn.

What's in your memoryshed?

MINT

Invasive

The sweet smell of mint and lemon wafts through my house now every day as we make our daily pot of herbal tea. Our methodology has simplified--it used to involve cheese cloth and string and much mess but now we simply fill a pot three-quarters-full with water, fill a medium-sized colander with fresh mint and lemon balm and lemon thyme (perhaps some dried blackberry or strawberry leaves as well) and place the colander on the lip of the pot so that the herbs are barely submerged in the water.

Boil for a few minutes and then let it steep for awhile until the color looks just right, remove the colander (give the worms the herbs) and there it is. The best herbal tea you'd ever want to have. We add agave nectar for iced tea or local, raw honey for hot tea. The kids of Open Garden drank this up in no time at all the other day, and John of the Bottle Tree, who came for lunch Tuesday, proclaimed it the best iced tea he ever had.

So now, when I mention mint to folks and they say, "Isn't mint invasive?" as if that's some sort of disease, I think about this daily tea. And a cold mint pesto/pasta/tomato salad yet to come on a hot summer day. And the sprigs of mint I stick in lunchboxes and bouquets. And the fragrance that explodes beneath my feet as I walk the hay-lined, mint-speckled paths in my garden each day.

And I say one word and one word only . . .

Invade!

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noreply@blogger.com (Pattie Baker) — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 13:09:00 +0000

ONIONS

Vidalia Onions

So I called my friend Norm, an 80-year-old, white-ponytailed, earringed artist about whom I wrote an article in the Spring issue of Edible Atlanta, after I heard he had been hired by the Vidalia Onion Commission to do a painting. He came over yesterday to have blackberry/zucchini muffins and iced herbal tea with me in my garden and he brought the painting with him. How he ever captured so much sweetness, warmth and emotion in a painting about onions, I can't explain. I just want to sit on that blanket and take a bite out of those slices like an apple.

"Ya' want some onions? They sent me forty pounds to paint," Norm said, lugging a bag of the fat, flat, yellow beauties. Immediately thinking onion tart, onion soup, baked onions, I held out my hands. Who would turn down Vidalia onions?

Vidalia onions are grown in a production area regulated by law, sort of like Champagne and Parmesan cheese. They are grown in twenty south Georgia counties that include and surround Vidalia, Georgia and are sweet because of the varieties grown, the climate, and the low amount of sulfur in the soil in that area. Yes, when you eat a Vidalia onion, you experience definite "terroir," or taste of the land. Because of their unique characteristics, the Georgia-passed Vidalia Onion Act of 1986 issued a trademark to Vidalia onions.

Vidalia onions are good sources of vitamin C and potassium, and the perfect compliment in the pan to all those southern greens. Harvested from late-April through mid-June, vidalia onions are available in stores until December, but that involves that questionable controlled atmosphere storage technology. So now is the time to buy them.

As for Norm, I got to show him all my Dr-Seussian onion plants, their stalks tall, thick and bending to a rhythm only they hear and their round spheres of tiny white flowers towering high above their gardenmates like sentries. These humble, simple root vegetables are quite beautiful in the later stage of life. Not unlike people.

To see more of Norm's paintings, go to www.normcitron.com. To find out more about Vidalia onions, check out the official Vidalia onion website. Or check out at your local grocery store. With a bag of them.

One Local Summer Update:

Breakfast: Muffins baked with blackberries, the first of the zucchini, beet greens and amaranth leaves (the garden) and local, raw honey (Weeks Honey)

Lunch: Amaranth leaves (the garden) on my veggie burger, leftover frittata sandwiches from dinner last night in the lunchboxes

Dinner: Farrow (a delicious plump and nutty grain)(Anson Mills) with grated cheese (Sweet Grass Dairy) and various greens (the garden)

Iced herbal tea: blackberry leaves, lemon balm and mint (the garden)

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noreply@blogger.com (Pattie Baker) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 10:52:00 +0000

PARENTING

"Behave, and You Get to Do Cool Things"

When I was a kid, my parents dragged me all over the place as they went about their business, and it was expected that I would behave myself appropriately and lose myself in a daydream or drawing if I was bored. I was quite shy as a child (still am, actually), and I discovered ways to fade into the background as much as possible (which is probably why I write and shoot photos all the time now!). I have very fond memories of the hours I spent at civic meetings, lumber yards and hardware stores, my mother's sewing classes, and even on days off from school at my mother's job at a dentist's office where I would hole up in an empty examining room for up to six hours with nothing but paper, markers and perhaps a stuffed animal. You would never have known I was there.

And so it is the most natural thing in the world for me to include my children when I am on assignment for food system-related stories. I mean, c'mon, this is not corporate work. I can't imagine having some of the experiences I'm having without sharing them with them, and I want them to learn from these wonderful, inspiring people whose paths I am so fortunate to cross. They have joined me in touring goat dairies and juice processing plants, farms and farmers markets, and they have eaten at some very lovely restaurants. They know the rule: "Behave, and you get to do cool things." Yet, I am continually reminded that we live in a society that segments our children, considers their attention spans to be miniscule, and has low expectations for their ability to sustain any kind of activity that is not specifically geared to entertain them continually.

Case in point: they joined me at a short (1-hour) whole grains cooking demonstration last night at a supermarket cooking school (not some fancy, shmancy place). I signed us up two weeks earlier and paid the $10 for each of us. There was no age restriction. I didn't consider it a big deal to bring them since they both like quinoa, amaranth (which, yes, that's me harvesting in our garden!) and buckwheat and were looking forward to trying millet. They love to cook. And an hour-long class seemed perfect. I mean, even if it were horrible, who can't get lost in their imaginations for a simple hour? (For those who say, why not take them to a children's-only cooking class--I ask, how many times do they need to learn how to put shredded cheese and sauce on pizza dough?)

Yet, when we entered the large room, in which there were less than 10 other students, I overheard a woman asking the class administrator why there were children there. The administrator, to her credit, told her that they were welcome, just like anyone else, as long as they were not disruptive. FYI: I'm with everyone who doesn't like to be disturbed by rude behavior (whether from children or anyone). I am the first one to remove my family from any situation where I feel as if behavior is not appropriate. Yet, if we never even give children a chance, and we have such low expectations for them, what do we suppose the outcome is going to be?

"Seeds We Need to Grow, Mom."

My younger daughter handed me a sheet of paper on which she had written ferociously on both sides. With great urgency in her voice, she said, "These are seeds we need to grow, Mom." Her teacher pulled me aside and said, "I'm not sure what she was working on this morning, but she couldn't be stopped. It was very important to her." Turns out she had read a book about wild plants and jotted down what she thought we needed to know. She was moved to action in a way I had not seen before.

"Chicory grows in fields all over the country," she had written. "California poppy grows in yards and fields. Wild strawberries grow in dry, sunny places and open places and on hills. Queen Anne's Lace is sometimes called 'birds nest' because the old flowers curl up and turn brown."

Yes. The light had gone on. The light that went on for me when I was maybe eight or nine years old and I used my allowance money to buy my first subscription to the National Wildlife Federation's magazine. The light that burned inside me, telling me, without question or the need to ask my parents' opinion or permission, "This I need to do."

The next day or so, I read a wonderful article on CNN.com by a writer named Melody Warner, titled 10 Ways to Get Kids Environmentally Involved. I thought it would be the same old, same old--recycle, grow a garden, save the world--all of which we're already doing (or trying to do!) in one way or another. But no. Melody had some fun, creative ideas that breathe new life into old ideas, and had me already thinking of ways to extend the ideas even further.

* Turning a neighborhood cleanup into a scavenger hunt--or how about an art project like the enormous bug the kids created at E. Rivers Elementary School out of plastic container lids? How about visiting our local dump or reycling center?

* Building toys out of trash, or how about other items in nature? Rocks? Shells? Pinecones?

* Spinning an eco-tune--or how about writing and recording one?

* Having a No Electricity Day--or how about actually visiting our electric company? How about finally getting to the Southface Eco Office or Energy and Environment Resource Center? Been meaning to do that.

The dark days of winter are coming, and the crops will one day slow or disappear altogether (although, really, a four-season garden is very possible here in Atlanta). And so, now is the time for "planting the seeds," not just in our gardens but in our children, in each other, in ourselves. And nurturing the ones that are already sprouting in our children, that have shown their small, green leaves and are begging to be fed and watered. So that we can emerge, come spring, more committed and aware than we are today.

And so, today I embrace a child's need to share her new passion for these wild plants. To know them, truly know them. And to feel as if she has made a difference in their survival. And I use that a springboard to provide more potentially transformational experiences to FoodShed Planet's Kids.

I can do more. And, now, inspired by words written in No.2 pencil on a ripped sheet of notebook paper ("milkweed grows in fields, roadsides or even dumps"), I will.

Look for posts tagged FoodShed Planet Kids for specific websites, experiences, ideas, resources, and more, relating to increasing and embracing environmental awareness in kids (and perhaps the kid in all of us).

The Largest Mass of Exposed Granite in the World

One of the very first places I went when I moved to Atlanta (18 years ago last week) was Stone Mountain. The largest mass of exposed granite in the world, Stone Mountain appears like a hippo surfacing in the water as you come around a bend on Route 78 towards Athens, Georgia. A 1.3-mile trek from the base to the summit up the back of the hippo is more achievable than it appears from the distance, and I have hiked that mountain many Easter mornings at 4:30 AM, flashlight in hand, in a line of climbers that looks somewhat like the Von Trapp family escaping Austria, in order to make it to the summit for the interdenominational sunrise service (a truly extraordinary experience, by the way).

This past weekend, however, we didn't hike the mountain. Stone Mountain has changed a lot in 18 years and the mountain is barely the centerpiece anymore. It's a full-scale theme park, with pseudo-experiences like faux tree houses, a 4D theater, an amphibious sightseeing experience, and a faux-1870s Southern town. New attractions, rides, shops, and events keep coming. The largest mass of exposed granite in the world is clearly not enough anymore (and to be fair, there are also pedal boats and camping and other more-simple and affordable things to do at the park, and we did enjoy the pie-eating contest pictured above, and have been pining for a nice, local pumpkin pie all week). Even the website makes it hard to find out basic facts about the mountain itself. (But you'll find answers to what to do if you have tickets to Coca Cola Snow Mountain, which was cancelled because of the drought.)

The historic Stone Mountain railroad runs the five miles around the base of the mountain, and it is there that I finally got my desired dose of history. Apparently, when the rail line was first built, in the mid-1800s, it connected the city of Atlanta with the town of Stone Mountain, which was then a weekend getaway. Like trains everywhere, it changed lives.

As the sun set at 7 and the crisp chill of evening enveloped us, we laid out our blankets on the large, grassy lawn in front of the face of the mountain, where a carving depicts three Confederate heroes of the Civil War (Confederate President Jefferson Davis, General Robert E. Lee and Lt. General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson). (The carving is so big, by the way, that workers were able to stand in the horses' nostrils.) We had an hour until the World's Largest Laser Show Spectacular, and we pulled blankets around us and lied down on our backs.

And there it was. An endless stretch of sky sprinkled with thousands of stars. Having left our wallets in the car, the constant stream of vendors selling glow sticks and cotton candy were no temptation and we could simply enjoy the connection we felt. To each other. To the universe. And to a mountain treasure that has stood the test of time, however much activity swirls around it.

I've thought of that starry sky all week, and I'd have to say that might have been one of the ten best experiences of my life.

Remains of the Day

When I walk out in my garden to cover up my cold frame for the night, I find it, the remains of the day, of the afternoon hour or two (a Green Hour, I suppose, as recommended by the National Wildlife Federation) that one or both of my kids spent frolicking out there.

There's a hula hoop hanging from a tree, for reasons I don't know. The table that is usually over there, under the Carolina jasmine, has been dragged to the middle of the yard and is covered with little plates of bright green moss, as if there had been a fairy luncheon. A basket of dominos mingles with rocks. The hammock, empty of leaves and other fall debris, holds a forgotten book and a pair of socks that came off feet that are almost my size now, warmed by the sudden afternoon sun. That hole on the edge of the yard seems to be getting larger and now has a bridge across it built from sticks. And the shells, gathered at sunrise morning-after-morning on our annual trips to south Florida, sit in carefully-arranged circles as if they were Stonehenge itself.

I clean up none of it, nor do I ask the kids to clean it up. For, by now, I know, that the remains of today are the starting point of tomorrow. And a well-thought-out game that has sprung from pure imagination is a beautiful thing.

And so another day passes where I know one thing for sure. The toy stores have nothing over my backyard.

Their Own Little Kid Nation

It had been going on for a month or so with the kids at school and their obsessive desire to run into the woods right after the bell rang at the end of the day. The parents knew vaguely what was happening in there. There were two teams, apparently, and they were building forts but then destroying each other's, in a tag-you're-it sort of exchange. It was a game, but of course, there were tears and fights. Although a few parents got involved briefly, it had already become abundantly clear that what was happening in those woods simply didn't involve grown-ups.

Then, finally, one weekend three of the children came and built for hours. When the opposing team saw what they had built, they knew. Intrinsically, they just knew. This was something good, something not to destroy. Something to keep, to care for, to love.

And the two teams joined forces and collaborated on making the world they had created in the woods even better. They assigned jobs. They strengthened the structure. They started doing water runs to the creek to make clay pots out of the red Georgia soil. They designated a spot for celebrations and decorated a Christmas tree. The shouting stopped. The tears stopped. The running at each other with sticks stopped. And their own little Kid Nation emerged.

Nothing prepared me for the beauty of the structure, which I saw for the first time last Friday. These kids hadn't been part of the reality TV show, Kid Nation (which, by the way, I absolutely adored). They hadn't read Richard Louv's book, Last Child in the Woods, about the fact that this generation spends little time in nature and suffers in many ways as a result, or seen the site for the Children and Nature Network, a non-profit organization working to reconnect kids and the outdoors. They had given no thought to the need for a daily Green Hour, as advocated by the National Wildlife Federation. They had been simply given time. Free time. Without parents hovering. And this is what happened.

My daughter was not part of this effort. She saw this secret world for the first time with me. As we stepped over tree roots and walked down a trail to leave the woods, she pulled me aside and whispered, "Ask how people can join, Mom."

I thought for sure the kids would say that it was a closed club, that they had built it and it was just for them. But no. When I asked, open, kind faces replied, "Anyone can join, as long as they don't knock down what we've built."

Don't knock it down. When you see something good, my friends, just don't knock it down.

Top of the World

I got tagged yesterday by Tim of Nature's Harmony Farm!

"Wow, Mom, this is like a chain letter for bloggers. How cute!" my older daughter said. "What are you going to say?"

I apparently have to tell you seven things you don't know about me. I sat there stumped at the dinner table.

"I think they know everything about me," I answered.

"Do they know about the unicycling?" she asked.

Yes, I've talked about that.

"Do they know that we all train in karate together?"

Hmmm. Not sure. I think so.

"Do they know your friend got her head stuck in the Eiffel Tower?"

But that's about my friend, not me. Even though I had to pry it out for her.

"I think I'll tell them about my inclusion in the Guinness Book of World Records for participating in the largest group of tap dancers performing a single choreography."

"But . . ." my daughter interrupted. "You know what we just discovered about that. Will you tell them the whole truth?"

"That's the tragic part," I answered. "So what if I thought we broke the record and then just recently discovered that we didn't? We were still more than 6,000 people in front of Macy's in New York City, tap dancing away after hours of practice learning the same dance. And I was five months pregnant with your sister. I got a lot of mileage out of that story while it lasted. Maybe I'll tell about the editor-in-chief thing from high school . . ."

"But that's tragic, too," she added.

"I know, I know," I agreed. "But I really learned from that experience."

I had been named editor-in-chief of my high school newspaper when I was just a junior, but I was so freaked out about being in over my head that I quit right at the start of school. The article announcing me was already prepared, and the photo was already taken. So the staff changed the article to say that the editor-in-chief would be revealed shortly and then cut out my face and put a question mark there. This newspaper, with my clearly identifiable hair and outfit, was distributed all over the school and I swear I wanted to die. It still haunts me, and I kick myself for not having asked for help so I could rise to the challenge.

"Well, if you're going to go tragic, why not tell about the gay boyfriend in college?"

Now, now, he hadn't actually admitted this to himself until after we were dating two full years. But, in all fairness, he was one of the best friends I ever had.

"And that first job, remember, the one you got fired from?"

My goodness, I've told this child a whole lot. But she's right, that job story is a bit tragic as well.

My first job out of college, I worked on Wall Street in New York City. My boss took me to a bar for lunch, which was my first sign something was not right. I ordered soup instead of a martini like him. He ordered another, and another, and I finally said I needed to get back to work. I was fired shortly after. When he fired me, first thing in the morning, I replied, "Would you like me to finish the day?" I've always been proud of that response. And I did go on to have a 10-year corporate career with better experiences at other companies, until I finally started my own business.

And so, yes, in everything that has happened, however tragic it might have seemed at the time, good prevailed.

How about that my mom and I were going to go on a hot-air balloon ride when she turned 50, but then she was diagnosed with cancer? Twenty years later, I found a long-lost Life List I had written about things I wanted to do in life. I spent a year knocking things off it--learning to knit, making cheese, winning the lottery (no millions here, folks, but it only said "win," not how much!), watching all 79 episodes of my husband's favorite show (the original Star Trek). And yes, going up in a hot air balloon. With my mother. We actually got featured in a story in the Atlanta Journal Constitution about it. The fuzzy picture above is the one that got printed--sorry I couldn't post a better copy. Having the newspaper come and take a picture of my mom and me was one of the greatest pleasures of my life.

How about that my first published article after college (yes, I did find my way back to journalism after my traumatic high school experience) was titled Blind Date Etiquette: How to Go In with Both Eyes Open? And yes, I did meet my husband on a blind date.

Is that seven?

Not yet? Okay, back to Paris. My friend Julie from Portland, Maine and I backpacked through 10 European countries on less than 20 dollars a day. I'd have to say that that experience was the biggest turning point of my life. There is not a day that goes by that I am not grateful for that experience. And the only reason I got to go? My grandmother had left me $2000 that I didn't know about. Julie asked me to go with her. I told her I didn't have the money. My mother handed my grandmother's money to me and said, "Go." Thanks, Mom.

And finally, my very first favorite song was The Carpenters' Top of the World. Remember that one? I'm thinking I was about ten years old. Here are the lyrics:

Such a feelin's comin over me
There is wonder in most everything I see
Not a cloud in the sky
Got the sun in my eyes
And I won't be surprised if it's a dream

Everything I want the world to be
Is now coming true especially for me
And the reason is clear
It's because you are here
You're the nearest thing to heaven that I've seen

*I'm on the top of the world lookin' down on creation
And the only explanation I can find
Is the love that I've found ever since you've been around
Your love's put me at the top of the world

Something in the wind has learned my name
And it's tellin me that things are not the same
In the leaves on the trees and the touch of the breeze
There's a pleasin' sense of happiness for me

There is only one wish on my mind
When this day is through I hope that I will find
That tomorrow will be just the same for you and me
All I need will be mine if you are here

*(Back to refrain)

I still feel as if I'm on the top of the world.

"The Seeds We Planted Grew!"

So the kids and their parents came pouring into my garden again for Open Garden, and one little girl saw it immediately. The little seedlings from seeds the kids had planted several weeks ago.

"The seeds we planted grew!" she exclaimed.

Someone else discovered that the sorrel was growing again, and the kids descended upon it, munching the tart, lemony leaves they love so much. I told them it was growing in two other places as well and challenged them to find it. They did.

We made paper with leaves and sticks and recycled newspaper that they all gathered and added to the blender for pulp, in which we also added seeds. They each left with a little cup of soil with a piece of the seeded paper buried in it, to see if it would grow. I asked them to report back on what happens, so we can learn together what works and what doesn't.

The kids planted onions all around a few beds, like little green guardians to keep the rabbits out. They painted. They made bird feeders in honor of The Great Backyard Bird Count this weekend. And, mostly, when I looked around the garden, they worked in little teams, doing what needed to be done, or simply having fun, without having to be directed quite as much as before.

Although I tell the kids when it gets a little out-of-hand to bring it down because "plants are sleeping in the beds," they know as well as I do, now that they know the garden--the plants are waking up. To their now-trained eyes, they see what would have been barely perceptible before. And when some "new" kids showed up and started throwing hay around--a veritable hay free-for-all--they got a bit upset. One mother emailed me to tell me that her daughter felt "territorial" when that happened.

And I guess that's what it's all about. Feeling a sense of responsibility. Ownership. Pride. Caring for a piece of earth--perhaps for some, for the first time in their lives. And seeing the results of their efforts. And knowing it matters.

And so, off we go, to another week on our FoodShed Planet. I can't wait to tell you about some folks I've found who are doing some amazing things, and some new products I love!

This week on FoodShed Planet:

* Tea, chocolate and wine!
* The question on everyone's mind: What is Farmer D up to?
* Team Pattie Victory Garden update: Meet new gardeners from Hawaii and England!
* A daily email that can change the course of your day
* And a book (and its authors) that can change the world!

Ah, it's good to be back.

Tesselations (And Why That Word Has Suddenly Changed My View of the World)

So my younger daughter and I walked home from school yesterday (mornings are still a bit dark and cold right now), which, at this time of the year in Atlanta, means a joyous stroll of discovery as we noticed the buds on the trees and crocuses and daffodils and other signs that the land was "waking up."

And then she started telling me about what she's learning in school.

"Tesselations," she said.

What on earth are tesselations? I wondered.

"They're single-shaped polygons that connect to cover a plane without overlaps or gaps," she explained.

What on earth is she talking about? my blank mind questioned.

She saw the look of sheer confusion on my face, and said, simply, "Mom, like a tile floor."

"Like a honeycomb?" I asked.

Yes! We finally had a common language.

Tesselations. Isn't that a fun word to say? Think M.C. Escher. Think wallpaper. Think quilts.

And think of the world. Think of covering its surface without overlap or gaps. Covering its surface with good without gaps. Covering the bases. Covering the needs. Covering humanity.

As the day slipped into evening, I thought of Tulsi Tea, recently introduced in the United States by a company named Organic India, and the letter I received from the publisher of Yoga Journal magazine about it. The envelope included two free teabags and coupons for two free boxes. It talked about sustainable ecology and social harmony. It said that "Organic India has been responsible for converting tens of thousands of impoverished farmland acres in India to robust organic, sustainable farms. During this time, Organic India has revitalized whole communities through fair price agreements, professional training, medical care, and community-building programs." I added it to my list of companies covering more ground and filling more holes in our society. Completing the tesselation.

I thought of Banrock Station, a wine company in South Australia (which makes it part of my "FriendShed") that showcases a Wine and Wetland Centre on its property along the Murray River and donates a portion of its proceeds to local conservation projects worldwide. Here in Atlanta, a portion of proceeds of the sale of its wines goes to The Chattahoochee Hill Country Conservancy, which includes the fabulous community of Serenbe. According to a press release: "Banrock Station has worked with The Conservation Fund in the United States to help protect and restore wetlands, working with local organizations in thirteen different states. On a broader platform, Banrock Station has championed wetland conservation worldwide by donating over AUD $3 million to over 40 projects in 9 different countries." Click here to find out what conservation efforts Banrock Station is helping near you.

A link on the Banrock Station website takes you to a site called Landcare Australia, which is all about water conservation. And it reminds me that both Adelaide, where Kate and Maggie live, and Atlanta are suffering severe droughts.

And then I thought of the rest of our walk home yesterday, when we passed the sign I show above. I pondered how whole new business segments would now start appearing here in Atlanta in reaction to the drought, and how excited I feel by the swirling energy of creativity and ingenuity percolating in the face of challenge, by people who see a need and fill the gap. Completing the tesselation.

Finally, I thought of the lunar eclipse last night, high in the sky just outside my front door, and the rusty, dusty reflection of the earth's light as the moon filled the gaps between the sun and the earth.

And that takes you up to now, as I sit here, alone, with the question of the day. Where is the true gap in the world that I can fill and not simply overlap with duplicating efforts? How can I help complete the tesselation of actions that join us together across our FoodShed Planet?

Hmmmm. I like this "new math."

Little Ears Are Listening

No, I'm not promoting Coca Cola (even though it's local here in Atlanta), but can you tell me why my children's doctor is? I took one of my kids to the doctor yesterday and we were put in examining room #15 (if you can believe there are so many), which is a room we haven't been in before.

My daughter noticed it immediately. Coca Cola wallpaper. I was literally speechless, not just because I am an advocate for commercial-free environments for our children but because, for goodness sake, this is our doctor's office. And it's not even like it was advertising Coca Cola's water or juice products. One 20-ounce bottle of soda has 17 teaspoons of sugar, 250 calories and caffeine. Consuming soda puts children at risk for obesity, osteoporosis, tooth decay, and more. Between 16 and 33 percent of American children are obese, and the obesity rate of children is increasing worldwide.

I said to the nurse, "Coca Cola?!" and she said, "Oh, this is our teen room," as if that then makes it understandable. The average teenage boy drinks 700 cans of soda a year. The average teenage girl drinks 500. Is passively encouraging the use of soda the message you expect your child to receive in a doctor's office?

So there I was, with my child. Little ears are listening, I tell myself when the kids are with me. Now is where the rubber meets the road, I whispered inside. Silence equals support. (And, for the record, I said something years ago when a different doctor handed me a tip sheet for my newborn that included sponsor messages from baby formula companies).

"Will you please switch us to a different room?" I asked. "This one is not appropriate."

She immediately agreed and took us down the hall. I couldn't help myself as she opened the other door. "Does this one have Chick-fil-A?" I quipped. (For those who don't know, that is a fast-food restaurant that has somehow managed to work its way into every single school I know as a sponsor). Okay, I made her laugh. Does that count toward Show Your Smile Week?

"Please tell the doctor your thoughts on this," she said nicely as she left us.

As we waited for the doctor, we talked about the wallpaper and why it didn't really seem like a good idea in a doctor's office. I told my daughter that I was going to say something to the doctor, that if I sat there silently, it was as good as if I agreed, that change would never happen if people are silent.

So, after the exam, I said, "I must mention how concerned I am about the Coca Cola wallpaper in room 15." I went on a bit, trying not to get so soap-boxy, and he turned to me and said, "You know what? You are absolutely right. I am going to talk to the office manager about that."

And I asked the question that I've started asking lately when these types of things happen, because I am so surprised that I even have to have these conversations.

"Am I the only parent from whom you've heard this?" I asked.

He thought a moment and then answered, "Yes, you are."

I believe change does not necessarily happen in big strides. It happens in a series of little steps that add up, both negatively (Coca Cola wallpaper at the doctor's office, fast food sponsorships at school) and positively (one parent, one doctor, one conversation).

Yet there is one thing I know for sure. If there is something in which I believe, and I see something that I think is wrong, silence will get me nowhere. Especially when little ears are listening.

When Necessity and Desire Collide

The latest issue of Yoga Journal has an amazing article about fashion designers who are recycling second-hand clothing to make gorgeous new creations. Turns out something like 60% of clothing recovered by thrift stores is being shipped overseas, which of course involves lots of fuel but also perhaps replaces traditionally locally-made textiles and reeks economical and cultural havoc. By reusing what we already have in circulation here in our country, we reduce our use of new resources, we cut through the constant materialistic pursuit of more, and we help preserve local artisan methodologies worldwide.

This story about recycled fashion hit home for me. You see, I simply hate going to the mall. If I get there twice a year, for reasons you can be sure I tried to avoid, that's a lot. And so, as a result, my older daughter is growing, out of fashion necessity, into a resourcesful recycling designer as well. She picked up a book titled Generation T: 108 Ways to Transform a T-Shirt, took a big, ole' oversized t-shirt and created this cute halter top in about two hours.

She has been sewing with my mom for years (started with doll clothes and moved on to her own clothes) so she's already surprisingly skilled with a needle and thread, and she's always had a bit of her own vision in her head. We went through this same sort of thing last year when I kept putting off taking her to Claire's, the mall-based accessory shop, to use a gift card she had gotten. She ended up designing her own earrings and loved it so much that by the time we got to Claire's, she simply studied the styles, decided to make her own, and used the gift card for a gift for a friend. It's not uncommon now for her to whip up a pair of earrings in the morning to match her outfit.

And so, what's my point? Well, first, I love the whole recycled fashion thing (and check out the designers from the article here, here, here, and here). But more importantly, I love the possibilities that emerge when necessity and desire collide, without the easy buy-your-way-out-it solution of money-exchange at the mall.

I especially love the look on a child's face when she realizes that she is wearing things that are completely, totally, 100% original. And she realizes, that, by extension, so is she.

What Happened During Open Garden When the Angels Blew Their Horns

And so it happened, the big moment when the angels blew their horns and the skies cleared and I saw, in full glory, the reason why I have been flinging open my garden gate each week and inviting whoever wants to show up to come and share in the chores and joys of an organic kitchen garden. The kids (there are up to 15 kids each week, plus parents) knew it, too, and together we pretty much gasped at the realization.

Here's what happened.

The kids were making paper (which has turned into their favorite thing to do in the garden), and they had gotten so proficient at it that I was no longer involved. They scrambled around the garden, adding herbs and straw and hairy vetch to the blender, plus scraps of junk mail and newspaper and other stuff. After they had made four sheets of paper, speckled with blue from that flyer that came home from school for about the fifth time, it was pretty much time to leave.

The kids cleaned up and all the parents had already left. A few of the kids and I were sitting in the straw munching on chickweed when one of them asked this question.

"Ya' know, if we leave scrap paper out of the pulp and just use things from the garden, then wouldn't that be edible paper?"

We all just sat there, jaws open, as it occurred to each of us in turn. Yes! That would be edible paper!

Immediately, we all started planning for the following week. I would need to clean all the equipment very well. The kids started looking around the garden and saying what they would include. We would let the edible paper dry and then rip it off and taste it at the following Open Garden (which, by the way, will be the last one this spring because of how hot is has gotten out there and we can't turn the sprinkler on because of the drought).

The excitement was palpable. And in that moment, I saw what fruit these Open Garden hours hade bore--kids who make connections beyond the borders of the box, who come up with original ideas that empower them, and who, I'm sure, will forever have a profound relationship with the seeds of possibility that grow in a garden. And, lest I overlook something important, these kids are patient. The thought of waiting three weeks from concept to conclusion on this project did not concern them at all, perhaps because they are still waiting for those radishes and carrots and potatoes that they planted to grow! Patience. Yes, the kids have moved to a new level of patience.

The edible paper moment was so powerful that this week, at Open Garden, when we talked about the idea, no less than three of the kids claimed it as their idea. Perhaps that is the sign of a great idea--everyone feels ownership.

And so they made the paper. They charged around the garden, choosing what was edible and what they had discovered tastes good. Sorrel, first of all, because they love that. Lettuce, mint, lemon balm, chickweed, all things they've tasted or smelled and liked. Those yellow flowerheads of the tatsoi plants that taste like broccoli. Yes, those made it in there, too. The kids' enthusiasm was contagious, and I noticed that several parents joined them in gathering things this week as well. Suggestions filled the air like honeybees. "If we bake the paper, wouldn't we have crackers?" one person suggested. "If we freeze the paper, then it won't rot," another added.

This photo is of the paper, still wet, and the hand of one of the children who made it. Still drying on my dining room table, the paper pulses with life, with hope, with promise. And, as a result of these past three months of Open Garden, so do I.

This week on FoodShed Planet:

* Indigenous cultures (or how I ended up with wattle seeds)

* A company whose actions speak louder than words

* Pesticide-free lawn update!

* Why Atlanta will make the news yet again (can you say Trucker Strike?)

"Litte Eyes Are Watching" (Especially If They Are Teenagers)

I stood there at the kitchen sink, my hands in that sweet-smelling GreenWorks soapy water, scrubbing the heavy-duty plastic plates I had tossed into my bag the other day when packing for the party I just hosted.

I hadn't really intended to go so "eco" but when I went to put in plates, why not reusable? Then, napkins, why not cloth? Then a garbage bag, why not my blue recycling bag? My mom had already made a pile of beautiful scarves out of scrap fabrics as the party favors--and they had turned into the entertainment, with the teenagers twirling and tying them creatively into halter tops and sarongs and headbands.

When I pulled out the cloth napkins, the girls' eyes lit up. I hadn't considered the fact that every one of these girls had dined at my home throughout the years and they all had memories attached to these napkins. I simply hadn't considered that.

"I always take the one with the strawberries on it!" one girl exclaimed. I hadn't known that.

"I love the extra-thin ones," said another. The extra-thin, ones. The ones that are starting to show wear and tear. The ones with the most history.

"The yellow one, Mrs. Baker! The yellow one, please!" a third girl said, her arm outstretched.

We saved the tissue paper from the gifts and I told the girls that we would turn their gift paper into homemade paper with which we'd make thank-you notes, so that, technically, their gifts would come back, in this small way, to them.

"That is sooo cool!" one teenager said, her cell phone long abandoned, her iPod packed away.

And so, as I packed up the car with a bag of dirty plates to be washed, I wondered why I had complicated my life like that, having to wash those dishes on a day when I was already very tired.

Yet as I stood there washing, the sun streaming in the window, the light breeze blowing, those big yellow butterflies that have recently appeared in my garden flittering from crimson clover flower to hairy vetch and back again, I remembered their faces. Their comments. Their beauty in those scarves, and their complete acceptance of an earth-friendly approach as normal. And I felt the incredible joy that comes from slowing down, keeping things simple (even if they seem more complicated at first), and savoring the stops along the way on the journey. Even if they involve washing dishes.

And so, for Every Monday Matters today, I chose Number 12: Party with a Purpose. The book suggests throwing a party to raise money for charity. But with this party just complete, Earth Day this week, and our last Open Garden coming up fast, I think the Parties with a Purpose for me are times to make sure Planet Earth is an honored guest, and to remember that "little eyes are watching," even if they are teenagers. Perhaps especially if they are teenagers.

Awareness

We were walking through the woods a couple weeks ago, my younger daughter and I, on the way to school and we smelled them.

"That smell," I said, tickling memory slightly. And we both looked up, with an instinct only a year old for us now, at the towering tulip poplar trees, and sure enough, they were blooming.

We had only discovered them this time last year after I read Richard Louv's excellent and illuminating book, Last Child in the Woods, about the disconnnect today's children have with nature and the cognitive, behavioral and other effects this has on their lives and the world at large. That's about when we started walking through the woods each morning, and when we first discovered these beautiful flowers falling from the tallest hardwood tree in the shady stand of pines and vines that make up the sweet little cut-through through which we pass.

And sure enough, now, the floor of the forest is littered with these flowers, usually two or three of them on a small piece of branch, like a still-life just waiting to be photographed.

I was curious how things were going with Richard Louv since writing that book. I knew that The National Wildlife Federation was encouraging something called a Green Hour, I had seen pushes for "less screen time, more green time" and, of course, I was now intrigued (okay, on my usual path to obsession) by the concept of Earth Skills (also called Primitive Living Skills, apparently).

Turns out that the revised edition of Last Child in the Woods was just released this month. This edition includes a "Field Guide" with 100 practical actions we can take; 35 discussion points for book groups, classrooms, and communities; new and updated research from the U.S. and abroad; and a progress report on the movement.

Richard also directed me to the Children & Nature Network (which he chairs), where there is tons of great info and many links. I was particularly excited to find out that April is Children and Nature Awareness Month, and that I could squeak in with this post on the last day of the month.

Awareness. A primitive living skills expert named Tom Elpel says that awareness is the single most important survival skill. He writes:

It doesn't matter if you are in an emergency survival situation, out for a weekend camping trip, or even in your own home. You might be running a business, tackling a social or environmental problem, or simply investing money in the stock market. In any situation, the most important skills is always awareness or consciousness about the potential opportunities and threats around you. Awareness not only alerts you to what is around you, but also brings you inward so that deep learning and understanding can take place on a physical, mental and emotional level.

Richard Louv talks about how when kids are involved in nature, they develop a 360-degree awareness, as opposed to much less than that if they are involved predominantly in screen-based indoor pursuits. He also suggests that instead of telling our children to "Be careful!" we would do our children a benefit to instead encourage them to "Be aware!" It puts them in an active and powerful position rather than a reactive, fearful one.

And so, as we rode bikes yesterday morning (we switch it up with walking in the woods), my younger daughter instinctively stopped her bike and let me go ahead when she heard the slight sound at first of the large, rambling, unleashed, unlocked dog who often bounds down a particular driveway at us. She wasn't scared. She was aware, and she took that simple action to enable me to block the dog's momentum and keep it from knocking her over.

She was aware of the cracks on the sidewalk, and the corner where cars usually speed, and the need to slow down at one particular spot because there are usually garbage cans in our path, and the way that she has to hold her bike differently once we get on the wood chip path at school.

She likes to take the lead now, something I was at first reluctant to let her do because of all these variables (don't even get me going on how so few cars stop at the crosswalk that we go a half mile out of our way to cross at).

She turned to me one day, however, and said, "Mom, I know every inch of our journey to school. I can do it."

And when I watch her now, from the bike behind her, I know she knows not just every inch of the road but every inch of the air and sky that surrounds her as well.

When the Rubber Hits the Road

So we're in the middle of a very busy intersection, in an equilateral triangle formed by the intersection of crosswalks, and I dismount from my bike and tell my older daughter, who has simply put her feet on the ground, to do so as well.

"Why?" she asks, our turn to cross almost up.

"Because we have to cross like pedestrians in a situation like this," I answer.

"Why?" she asks again.

The light changes. The little white man on the signal indicates it's our turn.

"Because I'm a graduate of Safety Town!" I yell, leading the way.

We get to the other side, safely, which is always a bit of a surprise considering Atlanta traffic, and she says, "Safety Town! WHAT on earth is Safety Town?!"

It has been probably 35 years since I've mentioned Safety Town, since I was an elementary school student in Nassau County, Long Island, New York, going on field trips there with my class. Located in a county park named Eisenhower Park (formerly known as Salisbury Park), Safety Town is a complete miniature town, with buildings and roads and sidewalks, all built to 1/3 scale. It is run by the county police department and is used to teach a wide variety of safety rules and skills to schoolchildren.

I remember the routine exactly. Our class divides into three groups and we rotate through the three roles we get to play: car driver (in little electric cars), bike rider, and pedestrian. The pedestrian was the role folks liked least, until they discovered that the pedestrian had the right of way, and therefore the power, over the driver. Bike riders have to behave like car drivers, riding on the right, stopping at stop signs, using hand signals, yielding to pedestrians, etc. So changing from a bike rider to a pedestrian at a busy intersection suddenly gives you the power again.

And so I explain all this to my daughter, right there on the side of the road, and her eyes are wide at the thought that there is actually a place called Safety Town. It surprises even me, that after all these years of riding with her, I had never taught her hand signals and other basic road rules, but now that we are riding on busier streets to schools, rather than just in the neighborhood, these skills are necessary. It also blows me away to think that the majority of teenagers are put behind the wheel of the car without ever having this chance to ride their bikes to school and learn these rules.

(What else do they need to learn? How else can I develop Open Garden to teach the things these kids are missing? What are the Ten Top Things you think kids need to know to be independent and confident adults, and compassionate world citizens?)

Anyway, so we get to school finally (it is several miles away), and we realize that we don't have a bike lock (we had used it at the other school with my younger daughter--they had never both ridden to school on the same day!) My older daughter looks at me and says, "I'm going to put my trust in the people," grabs her violin and backpack and lunch from my panniers and heads off.

I stand there, knowing full well, unfortunately, that that bike will be gone if I just leave it. This is a school where a cell phone doesn't make it through the week, or so we hear from the notices that come home frequently.

I wait, realizing this is when the rubber hits the road, when everything I believe about the goodness of human nature gets tested. Yet . . . I just don't feel good about this, and the officers at Safety Town told me to trust my instincts.

But what to do?

Hmmmm.

I tie a string around the bike, thinking that perhaps if a child is going to steal this bike, he or she will at least have a moment to reconsider while untying the string.

I'm about to leave, when suddenly he appears. A boy named Michael, riding only the fourth bike in the bike rack (out of a school of over 1000 students, on maybe the prettiest morning of the year).

"Excuse me," I say. "Do you leave right after school?"

"Yes," he answers.

"Would you mind locking my daughter's bike up with yours?"

He smiles, happily adds her bike to his and we chat about where he lives and how he gets straight A's and how frankly, this boy is one of the nicest kids I've met in a long time.

Several hours later, my daughter calls and asks if she can stay late to practice Vivaldi's Spring, a beautiful song that she has been playing at night after the buzz of day quiets, as her sister drifts off to sleep.

I say sure, and then add, "But, hon, you have to meet a boy named Michael right after school and bring your bike into the orchestra room . . ."

Do I trust humanity? Yes. I do.

But perhaps only one person at a time.

Dollars for Dandelions

I read recently of a guy who said that in the 1970s in the United States, lawns were fascinating places where kids could play for hours, just discovering all the diversity that was there. As you know, I live in a neighborhood with pesticide-laden monoculture lawns and I am on a little bit of a journey to reverse that at my own home. Our backyard has been pesticide-free for three years now, and, let me tell you, that guy would have a field day out there.

In addition to the two types of clover I plant in my garden, the wild Dutch clover is blooming as well and my younger daughter sits there and picks the flowers and plays some sort of game that I can't hear, peering at her from the kitchen window as I clean up after dinner.

Every other thing growing on that lawn looks like it would do just fine with a splash of balsamic vinegar. The weediest part of the yard, however, is where the water flows from my neighbor's yards when it rains, and since their yards are still chemically-treated, the salad bowl has to stay inside. Ah yes, we are all connected.

My younger daughter made the innocent childish "mistake" of rolling on a nearby lawn the other day and whatever chemical was on it made her entire body break out in a rash within about an hour.

"You can't roll on lawns that have pesticides," I told my daughter.

"What lawns have pesticides?" she asked.

Gosh, this was a sad conversation to me.

"Most of them, honey," I answered, thinking about her playing some game with that clover, thinking about that man who remembered being a boy, playing on lawns.

"At least I can play on ours," she answered, and I nodded and kissed her goodnight. Soon she will be able to play freely on the front lawn as well, since I've canceled the chemical guy (but unfortunately, he showed up recently when I wasn't here and gave one last killer treatment--the day before my final Open Garden, by the way. Oh, how I loved sharing all my eco-ideas with folks as we sidestepped the sea of toxicity!)

I saw my friend Mitzie the next morning and told her about this and she told me her son's face blew up just the other day after playing on some grass. I asked her when was the last time she saw children doing gymnmastics on their front lawns, something my friends and I did for hours, days, months, years. (I can still do a mean handspring!) We both stood there speechless.

When was the last time you saw children play on a front lawn? And not toddlers with moms standing nearby visiting. Older elementary and middle school kids, who are out there of their own volition, with bats and balls or arms upstretched in preparation for a handstand forward roll or front walkover (wasn't the friend who could do the back walkover the most envied kid on the block?)

I started a "Dollars for Dandelions" program here at the Baker house a few weeks ago, when it was clear that my back lawn would be a sea of yellow before long. I offered a nickle a dandelion, and then got wiped out of $20 bucks before I could finish making breakfast. And so eventually it morphed to the current pay scale--a penny for three dandelions. The kids don't make a ton of money, and 10% goes in the charity jar, but they have fun out there on the lawn.

Fun on the lawn. What a concept.

Dollars for Dandelions--A few bucks a week.
Fun on the Lawn--Priceless.

Garbage Day Treasures

My dad used to ride around on his bike the night before Garbage Day, in my little town of Mineola on Long Island in New York, and search for broken lawn chairs. He would then go back with his car to pick up any treasures he discovered. He had rolls of webbing, in multicolors, that he would use to repair these chairs, and the collection of them in our garage grew and grew and grew.

We had many barbecues in our backyard and my father took great pleasure in pulling out all these chairs and setting them up in a big circle before guests would arrive. My bedroom was just above the yard and I would fall asleep on nights like this to the tinkling of ice in glasses and the hushed conversations of grownups punctuated by sudden peals of laughter.

And so, now, on Garbage Day, here, 900 miles away, I scan the curbs in my morning travels, occasionally stopping for a big clay pot or a willow basket, recycled valuables that now blend seamlessly into my garden.

One day while walking to school, my younger daughter and I fell upon a rare and glorious find. These windows. These beautiful windows. We both just stood there.

"This is a good one, Mom," my daughter said

But we were walking. How on earth could I get even one of these windows home? (And there were many.)

While on my way back home, just past the windows, my friend Mark pulled up and said the magic words, "Do you want a ride?" He does this sort of often, and usually I just take a lift up the monster hill and then leap out, a minute and a half of friendship shared. But this day, I said, "Oh, Mark! It's our lucky day! We get to have an adventure!" Mark is used to me, thank goodness, and smiled at this.

Next thing you knew, we loaded up five of these windows in the back of his car. He drove me home and I was on a cloud with my bounty. When my daughter got off the bus that day, the first thing she said was, "Did you get the windows?"

And so, now, what to do with them . . . We were at an art festival the following weekend and saw windows like ours painted with flowers. My daughter likes this idea, and there will surely be a day soon that involves windows and paint. I also called Richard and suggested we do a little "cold frame" project, with a hinged window as the top--we'd do one for him and one for me. "It will be fun!" I said. And we'll be so proud of ourselves come winter when we have a little greenhouse of lettuces.

But more than anything, I just like looking at the windows and imagining their possibilities. And imagining mine.

The Question That Made Me Stop in My Tracks

Beyond the traffic and the asphalt, tucked at the end of a riverside residential block lined with mansions, is a dirt-packed parking lot in which people of all ages congregate, all seemingly fit and dressed for the experience ahead of them--a run, a bike ride, a hike, a walk with a friend or a dog. They are “in” on one of Atlanta’s best-kept secrets, the 48-mile connection of protected park units that run from Atlanta northeast to Lake Sydney Lanier and make up the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area.

There is no Thames or Seine or Tiber that runs through the center of Atlanta, splitting it into fashionable districts. There is no “riverwalk” or harbor or shopping and entertainment center along a bank. Atlanta, in fact, was formed not on the side of a river but at the terminus of a rail road, which is why its original name was Terminus. Therefore, it grew up not around a river at all.

Yet, there is a river. The Chattahoochee, which means “river of painted rocks” to the Cherokees and “red rock” to the Creek Indians, both of whom were indigenous to this area, slips and slides rather secretly around the city of Atlanta, hidden in such a way that I would guess many folks who have lived here for many years have yet to lay eyes on it, or simply cross its murky brown waters, filled with Georgia’s famous red clay, while commuting to work on the highway.

I have been going to several spots on the river for years, some with my girls, like the one where there is a playground and lots of ducks. But this special one, this three-mile loop through a meadow and marshlands and along the river and ending through a stand of woods, has been a bit of a secret hideaway for me (and my friend Janet, with whom I’ve walked this path for over ten years now). The couple times I’d brought the kids, years ago, the path had been too hard for them to ride on their bikes and too long for them to walk.

Until now. Our months of bike riding to school each day have yielded strong, confident riders and have convinced me that it was time to travel farther from home. A grueling ride to the library the other day, with traffic zooming all around us and each road we crossed leaving my heart in my stomach, however, left me aching for a place where we could just ride, unencumbered by traffic, surrounded by beauty, each lost in our thoughts.

And so I took them to the river, to this secret place of mine called Cochran Shoals, where vestiges of old-growth and hickory stands still survive, where we watched a couple cranes build a nest high in a tree and saved a turtle from getting crushed by bike tires, and spotted beaver dams and watched the geese bob on the tumbling white water of the river over rocks way too far exposed because of the drought.

“This is nature,” exclaimed my younger daughter, oohing and aahing at the infinite beauty we passed and drawing a contrast to the “nature centers” that we frequent, with their neatly lined paths and carefully-orchestrated faux-nature experiences, and the Atlanta Zoo which we visited just last week, with its well-researched and planned “natural habitats,” including a small pen of kangaroos laying around as if they were pigs.

And then she asked me the question that made me stop in my tracks.

“Why is this here for us?” she asked me, as if she had fallen upon a glorious, free feast whose purpose she couldn't fathom. “I mean, why do we even have this?”

And so, there I stood, straddled on my bike in the middle of a dusty path, surrounded by wetlands filled with cattails, thinking about how the guy who wrote Weed ‘Em and Reap eats cattails, and I told her that some humans have determined that preserving nature is a value in which they believe, and they have fought to do so, even though others who value commerce and construction more have fought to do away with nature. This is called conservation, I told her, and it is important, because once places like this are gone, they are gone.

As we turned along the river, the roots of grand trees exposed for up to ten feet along the drought-ravaged riverbank, I thought about my daughter’s question, and it sort of saddened me that instead of asking “Why do we build all this?” in the city, she asked, “Why do we have all this?” in this unspoiled natural refuge, as if preserving nature is somehow odd. Will there one day be a time when our children don’t question so-called “progress” at all, and the flip side to that, don’t fight to preserve nature?

Never Underestimate the Power of Tie-Dye

So, here's what happens when a teenager hardly ever goes to the mall . . .

She makes her own clothes.

What has happened over the years, as a result, is that I see her looking at things when she does go to the mall, studying the hem, analyzing the cut, evaluating the colors, and then, within days, cutting, stitching, dying and creating something completely original from some springboard for design she discovered in the land of mass-produced, same-old, same-old.

Her latest obsession is a technique called batik, which her Social Studies teacher taught the class as a concluding activity to their year-long study of Africa and South Asia. This wax-resist textile-dying technique is found in many regions of that part of the world but it is considered an art form in Indonesia. Centered in Java but touching everywhere in Indonesia, women hand-paint fabrics in traditional patterns that are either geometric or reflect the local flora and fauna. These fabrics have been very valuable in trade. When worn as saris and other items of clothing, they hold great religious and cultural meaning.

The basic technique, as taught to a class in Atlanta, Georgia, involves melting wax, painting a design with the hot wax on a t-shirt, letting the wax dry, tie-dying the shirt, letting it dry, ironing off the wax (under newspaper), and washing the completed shirt (alone).

Every plain t-shirt in our house is making its way through this process, it seems, and emerging as a brand new, recycled creation that spreads the beauty of an artisan skill from halfway around the world. My future contribution to this project is to finally learn how to make some natural dyes from my garden plants (let's face it--my Easter eggs were not a hit).

I told my daughter that I wanted to post pictures of some of the things she (and her sister) have made--these shirts, the skirt my older daughter designed and made out of old quilting scraps of my mother's, the little tank top they tie-dyed, the doll and bear dresses. She said, "But they're not organic. I'm trying to find better fabrics to use."

But I told her that sustainability is not just about using organic fabric. It's about using what we have. It's about re-using, re-imagining, re-inventing. It's about keeping things in circulation rather than throwing them away. It's about making old things new again.

And there are many ways to do that with clothes. You can make pillows and blankets out of old shirts (my mom knows someone who made a quilt out of t-shirts she collected from all the charity runs in which she raced). You can make skirts and handbags out of jeans. You can even use scraps of fabric and scarves to wrap gifts or hold up cantaloupes in the garden!

So, as you clean out closets and consider buying new things, take a second look at what you have. And perhaps give some items a second chance. And never, ever, ever understimate the power of tie-dye!

Her Mother's Teenage Journal

So, which would it be, I wondered? Which of the two books I am reading would qualify for the final FoodShed Summer Reading Pick of the Week for 2008? Each day this past week came and went, yet I have yet to finish either of the books. They are both slow going--one, boringly, and one, deliciously.

Then, just yesterday, my older daughter said, out of the blue, "Can I read your old journals?"

I forget about them, the journals, that for so many years, probably close to twenty, comprised my most beloved daily ritual. All through high school. All through college. All through those first couple years living in New York City, first Brooklyn, then Manhattan. I stopped writing them shortly after I got married, since little by little I found myself not being so blatantly open in them out of consideration of not hurting anyone's feelings if something were to happen to me. Once you start thinking like that, let's face it, the journal days are pretty much numbered.

Yet all these earlier ones exist, and years ago I had told myself that I would let the girls read them when they were the age I was when I wrote each one. Now, don't worry, I somehow had the foresight to develop a complex code when I was in 6th grade that I could write just as fast as English and that I used consistently throughout all the journals for anything that was really, really private. You can be reading along and then, suddenly, a line or two (or paragraph, or page!) in code appears. (I didn't feel at all comfortable using this code once I got married.)

And so, I found myself on the floor in the closet (all the journals are in one of my three "in case of emergency evacuation" boxes), wrapped up in the daily grind and moments of insight of all my former selves. Frankly, much of it was quite painful, the person I've become today really a very different person in many ways from the hungry-to-be-understood teenager I had been. Yet the love of the outdoors, the intense attraction to the beauty of the changing light, and the desire for simplicity was all there, right from the beginning.

Obviously, I can't give you these books to read. It was all I could do to knock on my daughter's door last night and hand her the first real one (I have written them since I was about eight, but the first handful are more like date books rather than journals). I suggested it might be less weird to try to read it like a novel instead of like her mother's teenage journal, but, in reality, I just need to shut up and let her do what she wants with it. Knowing her, she'll probably crack my code, and then I'm doomed! But imagine the conversations we'll get to have . . .

So, as my final FoodShed Planet Summer Reading Pick of the Week (yes, school starts again Monday here in Atlanta, if you can believe it), I invite you to go find your former selves, wherever they may live in your closet or dusty attic, in whatever form you saved them. And visit with them, remind yourself who you were and how far you've come. Discover some old dreams you may have forgotten. Play that instrument. Use those pastels. Tie on those sports shoes. And celebrate not just the changing light but the parts of the changing you that still live deep inside you.

As a Favor to Randy

When I first watched The Last Lecture video about two months ago, I deemed it the most important 11-minutes of the day and emailed the link to several friends. By now, for sure, you've seen this thing. If not, in brief, here it is: a professor at Carnegie Mellon University delivers his last lecture, a tradition there that challenges professors to think of what they would say if they had one last lecture to give before leaving teaching (even though they weren't really leaving). Except Randy Pausch just hit the end of the line on treatment for pancreatic cancer and was told he had just months to live. So it was truly going to be his last lecture.

And he chooses to give a speech on living, not dying.

The part that made the biggest impression on me was when Randy told how his parents let him paint the walls of his room--not just choose a color and we'll paint it for you--but literally go loose and do what you want.

Flash forward.

Last week, my daughter and I took MARTA to the mall closest to us (yes, that's two mall visits in one summer for me--a record). This mall has a store called Anthropologie. It is truly a beautiful store with many interesting household items, recycled stationery, clothes and more from around the world. I didn't see any claims either in the store or on its website regarding sustainability, so I'll hold my raves until I find out more, but here's what happened. My daughter saw this wire decoration hanging from the ceiling, with green duct tape wrapped around it in little balls every few inches and dangling flowers made out of paper at the ends--I don't even think it was something for sale. She stood there and looked at it for ages.

On the way home, we fell upon sweet gum seed pods on the ground--little spiky balls from the sweet gum tree--that we collected. The next thing I knew, she had made a replica of this wire decoration, complete with the sweet gum balls painted green and pink and a dangly flower. We hung this contraption from her ceiling right over her bed and she told me when she lies under it, she feels like she has fallen down the volcano hole in Journey to the Center of the Earth. She then told me she wanted to paint her walls, that she had a "vision."

Now, when a child tells you she has a vision, I pretty much believe you step out of the way and let it happen, but, in all honesty, I saw nice, neat paint in the color of her choice (preferably not clashing with the rug) going up on those walls.

And then Randy Pausch died. Last Friday.

I had given the book, The Last Lecture, written after the video had already become a sensation and providing more background and details, to my mother and she had given it back to me to read, but I hadn't picked it up yet. This past weekend, in honor of Randy, I decided to read it. Yet again, the part that jumped out at me was the part about the room. The title of the chapter is The Elevator in the Ranch House. In addition to a pretend elevator with up, down and floor indicators, Randy (along with his brother and sister) painted a quadratic equation, some sayings, Pandora's box, chess pieces, and a submarine and periscope.

Randy wrote that friends who came over would always say, "I can't believe your parents let you do this," and that the room became a highlight when his mom gave tours of the house. His mom never painted over it, and Randy loved to come home, as an adult, and see it again. It is completely obvious that the freedom Randy was given to visualize his dreams on those walls changed his life.

And then he wrote:

Anybody out there who is a parent, if your kids want to paint their bedrooms, as a favor to me, let them do it. It'll be OK. Don't worry about resale value on the house.

And so yesterday, we went to Home Depot and got a gallon of paint (the new no-VOC paint--that was my only requirement). A wall full of bubbles seems to be on my daughter's mind, and I'm not sure how she will pull this off. On the way home, I said to her, "Ya' know, if you also want to write on your wall with a permanent marker, you can, you know."

Silence.

"But how will we get that off?" she asked.

"We won't," I answered, much to her shock. "So put something up there that you really want."

I know that someday in the future another gallon of paint will cover it all up, my child's dreams. And we'll put in a new carpet to replace the one so worn with the imprints of our daily life, and change the kitchen floor now frequented by scooters and skates and an occasional unicycle, and stick a for-sale sign on the pesticide-free front lawn, and we'll pack our lives in boxes, and we'll leave. But for now, we live here. We live here.

And for today, thanks to Randy, I'm focusing more on recall value than resale value.

"Paint a Wall. Change Her World."

So I'm reading Good magazine the other day and I fall upon an ad for the very paint my daughter used recently to paint her room as a result of a personal request by Randy Pausch to parents everywhere. Named The Fresh Aire Choice, it has no volatile organic compounds (VOCs/bad toxic things). The headline of the ad reads, and I kid you not, "Paint a wall. Change her world."

And so, it occurred to me that I hadn't showed you how things ended up (or where they are at, since is wall-painting ever a done deal?)

First of all, the practical info--we loved the paint. It did not smell at all. My husband came home at night and would not even have known my daughter painted her room if we hadn't told him.

Second of all, the paint went on so smoothly, easily covering (with just one coat) a bright red and pink castle that was on the wall from the last painting extravaganaza a few years ago. And it dried very quickly. I honestly can't say enough good things about how this paint performed.

Finally, of course, there is my daughter, and the pride I could see growing in her as she climbed that ladder, brush in hand, and dabbed every little spot of that wall (and snippets of the ceiling as well). Left alone to fully realize her vision, she added big bubbles with glow-in-the-dark paint so that when you go in her room at night, you see both the bubbles and the glow-in-the-dark seed pods from the sweet gum tree that are attached to wire and form the rectangle on the ceiling.

My desire to "touch it up" was great, especially in the few spots that got on the ceiling and the baseboard. She told me she liked it just the way it was, and I resisted. Now, when I go in her room, I see the clear evidence of her hand at work, the marks on the ceiling a visible reminder that yes, indeed, she had made her own mark on the world.

I told her she could write with permanent marker on the wall, but to give it some thought first so that she wrote something she'd want to be there for awhile. I gave the same offer to my older daughter, and so far neither of them have taken me up on it.

Maybe just knowing you can write on the wall is enough.

The Teen Connection to Sustainable Food

When my kids were little, how we ate was sort of weird. We avoided high-fructose corn syrup, artificial sweeteners, white sugar, white flour, and artificial flavorings and colorings (still do). Plus, we had (and have) a big "just say no" policy about fast food and soda. Cuts out lots of stuff from mainstream society. Yet, I told them that one day the kind of food we ate would be more common, and that many of their friends would eat the same way as well.

And guess what? It is happening. It is truly happening. One of the fastest growing segments of society for local, sustainable, organic food is colleges. Right here in Atlanta, Emory University has set an ambitious sustainable food goal of 75 percent local or sustainably grown food in its hospitals and cafeterias by 2015, and already has a farmers' market, green dormitories and its own vegetable gardens. The Yale University Sustainable Food Project directs a sustainable dining program at Yale, manages an organic farm on campus, and runs diverse programs that support exploration and academic inquiry related to food and agriculture (see its brand new blog here). Brown University strives to purchase locally grown and fairly traded foods through its Community Harvest program. (See more of what Brown is doing here.) The list goes on and on. (Check out The College Sustainability Report Card here.)

And although it is still years before my daughter goes to college, I can see her, more and more, at her "home away from home," drinking carrot juice and eating local apples after class, like she often does now, or picking through a CSA box and chopping multicolored peppers and eggplants for dinner like she did last night, or lapping up a panful of sauteed turnip greens and begging for more, as is her habit.

There will be no grand epiphany about "where my food comes from" for her. There will just be more and more people who eat like her, and more and more food that tastes wonderful and is good for her, and more and more reasons to be glad that the comfort food of her childhood is the food she will find far from home.

How we eat is no longer considered weird (and yes, by the way, we have our occasional birthday cake, Halloween candy and ice cream cone without checking the labels while out and about). In fact, how we eat is sort of "in" now, as least for college-age kids. And, you know what? After all these years and all the hard decisions I've made along the way, that feels pretty good.

"If You Leave Them, They Will Rake"

I held the final Open Garden last week. Now, I'm not saying that I won't still have folks over to my garden for lunch or after school and that there won't still be plenty of opportunities for children to dig and plant and learn. I'm just saying that Open Garden has run its course and I am now ready to take what I have learned there and apply it elsewhere, in scalable ways that may perhaps touch more people.

The mix of Open Garden participants was completely different than just a couple months ago. Yes, there were one or two neighbors, but the rest of the people were my new "sustainability" friends--the entire team from Sustainable Peachtree Corners and the writer of Sustainable Alpharetta (in his snazzy orange hybrid car) all came, as did three other people I had never met before but had collaborated with on local sustainability initiatives via email. It even rained right before the start time of Open Garden, yet all these people came. There must have been about 30 people total.

We planted garlic and pansies. We made butter and paper. We measured the 18-feet that Lake Lanier, Atlanta's water source, is low. And I shared seedlings since many of these people have their own kitchen gardens as well.

But then, near the end, I looked to see what was engrossing the children so much. And there they were. Raking. Raking a big pile of leaves in which to jump. Raking a path through the leaves through which to walk. Raking, raking, raking. Working together. Laughing. Even as the rain started coming down again, they continued raking. I had left four rakes against the fence and as they say in the movie, Field of Dreams, "If you build it, they will come." And I stood there and thought to myself, "If you leave them, they will rake." And it's as simple as that.

Alone in my kitchen after everyone left and darkness descended quickly, I thought about how much my life had changed this past year, since the first day I threw my garden gate open and invited in neighbors, friends, and a long line of strangers who are now part of my life. Last week's Open Garden participants showed up bearing some of the most simple and precious gifts I could imagine--a bag of arugula from the Cane Creek Farm CSA, some half-filled packets of Seeds of Change seeds, two butternut squashes from Charlotte's CSA, homemade vegetarian soup from farm-fresh ingredients, and fresh-milled whole-grain cookies and muffins. I realized, that just as water seeks its own level, so do people, and I had finally found like-minded people who want to join me on the journey to increase food security, learn and transfer almost-lost knowledge, and make a difference in the sustainability of our communities and our world.

And so the rakes are staying out there for awhile. And although Open Garden is now officially done, the garden gate will swing wide open far more often.

Here are a few past posts about Open Garden:

"Your Life Is an Occasion. Rise to It."

One Blooming Potato Flower at a Time

Something New, Something Beautiful, Somewhere Else

The Particular Place I Call Home

I start thinking about it, my garden, in that suspended time and place 30,000 feet up, coming back from visiting my father-in-law in South Florida, where it had been a bit chilly but nothing like here in Atlanta, where it apparently snowed.

"The lettuces will be fine. The kale, downright happy. But the potatoes. They may be goners," I think to myself, imagining their leaves black and lifeless, knowing I had planted them too early, knowing I always do.

I walk through the garage door into the house and then out the back one, just like that, in one sweeping motion, no pause to check the mail or see if the hamsters are alive or breathe in that distinct smell of home. Because that smell isn't there, in my house, after these days away but rather outside, where I brush against the rosemary and lavender on my way to the paths, where mint sprigs crush beneath my flip-flopped feet. The potatoes have made it. The snow must have been brief. The cold, fleeting.

The sun never rises the next day. Sheets of rain and marbles of hail pellet the house. The laundry is piled up. The dishwasher is full. The stacks of things to be read and sorted cover the counter. Yet, I add the yeast to the the warm water, measure the whole wheat and grind the flax seeds and within moments the heels of my hands are pushing, folding, turning, pushing, folding, turning, rhythmically, mindlessly, and I am once again home.

My younger daughter asks if she can knead and I acquiesce reluctantly, missing the soft fullness of the dough the moment my hands stop. She tries to copy my rhythm but quickly changes cadence, her head bending down, her voice rising slightly to announce, "I have my own way of doing it," as well she should, as we each do when we make bread.

A long while later, her hands still busy, she calls to me and proclaims, "Look, Mom, a dough man!" I smile, and then tell her that, of course, the dough still needs to rise so the shape won't be retained, and I could almost kick myself for squashing her moment like that. But she replies, a content smile on her face, "I know. That doesn't matter."

That doesn't matter. That doesn't matter. I think of that, looking out across the soaking yard, a river of water racing from my neighbor's yard through mine, and onward downhill to the neighbor's yard beyond. The hammock swings gently in the downpour, singing out to me even in its sopping state.

I think of the night I wandered out from my father-in-law's condo and turned a corner I hadn't turned in the 19 years I've visited him and fell upon a grand old Southern oak tree I had never seen before, draped with Spanish moss. I called for my younger daughter, knowing she would revel at this find along with me, and sure enough, she did, pulling at the moss, climbing the tree, wondering if the fibers were usable, if we could knit a scarf from it or if it would dry out. . .

The next day, I ease onto the interstate, the wonderful NPR radio show Splendid Table accompanying me the way it has since my first of these seven organic farming classes when I first discovered it, this time with an interview with a winemaker from New Zealand and Australia. I think of how lovely she sounds, how gently she handles the interview, how the striations of the early morning light on my way to Cumming, Georgia match the lilt in her voice so far away so perfectly. I pass sleepy barns and horses grazing and everywhere wisteria dangling from trees, the sugar-sweet grapey smell of them permeating the air like some lost memory, like every lost memory.

At lunchtime, my fellow farm students and I linger around the outdoor tables with the Pughs of Cane Creek Farm and the former students who had returned to share their stories with us, bowls of a cheese-specked Mexican-inspired potato soup before us. We stretch and move seamlessly to the asparagus patch where we spread wheat straw, and on to the berry patch where we weed and talk, and talk some more, and finally to the hoop house where we pluck the suckers from the tomato plants, and then part once more to go back to our everyday lives.

Yet I don't want to go back, not to the everyday life from before this past week. No. Because the light has changed. The season has changed. The crops have changed, settled now in their spaces, reaching out, growing. The house is filled with the fragrance of baked bread. And the hammock calls.

All over the world, perhaps, the pace picks up with spring's new growth. But I live in the Southeastern United States, where heat will be rolling into town with the next train, and, although my work will somehow still get done, I have found my own way of doing it, a way that fits the particular place I call home. The abundant lemon balm outside my door makes one thing perfectly clear to me. It is time for tea.

PATAGONIA

Lead An Examined Life

So I'm tooling around Buckhead (a neighborhood in Atlanta) the other day, after dropping my older daughter at an event, and I take a turn down some little side street (yes, I love side streets!) that I hadn't been on before and there, right in front of me, is Patagonia, the outdoor apparel and gear store about which I just read in the Stonyfield Farm guy's book. {Pages 30-40 summarize the journey of eco-committed Patagonia-founder Yvon Chouinard).

I had never been in a Patagonia store before, and no wonder, because it turns out this odd, off-the-beaten-path location in a particularly tony part of town is the only one in all of the Southeast.

Looks like a regular mall store, really, at first. Not as down-to-earth and inviting as REI, for instance. But I persist, and walk around the store, touching the garments and awaiting the inevitable attack of the salespeople. Two strappingly handsome young guys appear at my side and we start to talk. I tell them I just read about Patagonia in the book and then I ask them the question that has been blazing in my mind ever since I read that Patagonia is such a great place for employees that for every job opening, it gets 700 applications.

"So, are you really as happy as you're made out to be?"

They both look at me a little funny, and one of them says, "You mean because we work here?"

"Yes," I answer. Oh, don't I have a way with handsome young men? This is why I spent almost every single Saturday night as a teenager watching Love Boat (which would explain why I shouted to my children when they were little and looking to me to entertain them, "Find something to do! I am not Julie McCoy, Cruise Director!")

The two guys look at each other for a second and then almost simultaneously answer something like, "Yeah, we are, actually. Patagonia is a truly great company."

Then the one guy adds, "But I only work here half the year."

"What do you do the other half?" I ask. Perhaps a student, I guess, inside.

"I lead Outward Bound expeditions."

Oh. Naturally.

Anyway, my stroll to the back of the store reveals a whole section devoted to activist information, books, even a big table for sitting and reading or perhaps having save-the-river-and-change-the-world meetings. I grab a handful of handouts and find myself knee-deep in Patagonia activism and grant information. These folks live by their mission statement:

Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.

I took one note during my walk through the store, the one I show in the photo above (and, by the way, that little round white imperfection on the dress on the right is called a hickey in "printing jargon" and most companies would toss that batch--it caught my eye, in a positive way, that Patagonia didn't).

Anyway, organic cotton items are consistently expensive. Patagonia, owner of Beneficial T's, North America's largest distributor of organic cotton T-shirt blanks, has some very cute organic cotton dresses in a handful of colors for 50 bucks each. Now, 50 bucks is not petty cash but it's not a fortune, either, when you consider the other organic cotton options in the marketplace right now. And at least it's from a company that donates 1% of sales (or more) to hundreds of grassroots environmental groups all over the world.

Patagonia brochures often include the line, "Lead an examined life." Its Environmental Initiatives 2007 brochure goes further:

1. Lead an examined life. (Know the consequences of our actions.)

2. Clean up our act. (Once we understand our actions, change them.)

3. Do our pennance. (Give back.)

4. Support civil democracy. (Activist groups on the front lines are the most effective agents of change.)

5. Influence other companies. (Lead by example.)

What a blueprint for businesses, and for individuals as well. What would happen if I approached my life as a business, and truly examined every single aspect of it for efficiency, effectiveness and adherence to my mission statement? What mission stement?! I clearly need a mission statement.

All this happened before I made it back out the front door, waving goodbye to my handsome young friends and promising to return one day soon. And although I love the outdoors, I do have to be honest. Camping in my backyard kind of creeped me out, I get a little nervous by a dog off the leash, and I'm still trying to figure out how to use a compass. I'm not sure how much gear I'll be buying at Patagonia. But I am impressed with what I've discovered about the company. And I do like those little dresses.

PESTICIDES

Silent Night (And I'm Not Talking About the Christmas Song Here)

"It came! It came!" I exclaimed into the phone late yesterday afternoon.

"The frog CD?" Richard of the Worms asked, knowing me all too well, knowing that during this season of catalogs and cards and party invitations, Calls of the Wild: Vocalizations of Georgia's Frogs was my most anticipated piece of mail, and, was, of course, part of a nutty project into which I had dragged him as well.

"It will be fun!" I had said about a month ago, after reading an article in the Atlant Journal Constitution with the headline, "Do You Speak Frog?" The Georgia Department of Natural Resources was looking for Citizen Scientists who, granted, didn't need to actually speak frog but could identify the 31 species that are present in Georgia and would commit to monitoring a stretch of wetland three nights a year for three years, stopping every five minutes to identify and tabulate the frog species present as part of the North American Amphibian Monitoring Program. Now, doesn't that sound like fun?

"I'll go with you," Richard had said.

"Well, first we have to pass an auditory test offered online that shows at least a 65% expertise in identifying frog mating calls," I said. "We need the CD. In fact, we each need a CD, because I'm going to need to listen to mine absolutely all the time. This is not going to be easy."

Although I think I am most interested in simply being able to say "I speak frog," (I mean, how cool would that be on a resume? How fun will I be at a party? Or am I completely delusional?!), Richard has been interested in the declining frog population for quite some time now. He lives right across the street from a little lake and the nighttime croaks of frogs and toads has silenced, little by little, year after year. Instead of Silent Spring, it has become silent night (and I'm not talking about the Christmas song here).

Because they breathe through their skin and they are in and out of water so much, amphibians are pretty much the "canary in the coal mine" for environmental destruction. And they are increasingly developing malformations and dying off as a result of our pesticide-laden waters. It apparently doesn't take much, and the combination of EPA-approved chemicals (can you say lawn pesticides?) that run off into our waterways makes the water even more toxic. In fact, a report issued just yesterday states:

U.S. scientists studying 10 of the world's most popular approved pesticides say, when combined, the chemicals caused 99 percent mortality in tadpoles.

University of Pittsburgh researchers said the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency-approved pesticides, when mixed together, can decimate amphibian populations even if the concentration of the individual chemicals is within limits considered safe.

Such "cocktails of contaminants" are frequently detected in nature, the scientists said, noting their findings offer the first illustration of how a large mixture of pesticides can adversely impact the environment.

Associate Professor Rick Relyea, the study's lead author, exposed gray tree frog and leopard frog tadpoles to small amounts of the 10 pesticides -- insecticides carbaryl, chlorpyrifos, diazinon, endosulfan, and malathion, as well as five herbicides: acetochlor, atrazine, glyphosate, metolachlor, and 2,4-D.

He used each of the pesticides alone, the insecticides combined, a mix of the five herbicides, or all 10 of the poisons.

Relyea found a mixture of all 10 chemicals killed 99 percent of leopard frog tadpoles, as did the insecticide-only mixture.

The study is detailed in the online edition of the journal Oecologia.

Also, there have been reports of "feminization" of male frogs in the wild, again attributed to specific pesticides.

"I'm not going to get the CD," Richard told me.

"What do you mean?" I asked, incredulously. "How are you going to learn the frog calls?"

"There are no frogs, Pattie," he said. "There's nothing to learn. This will be the easiest monitoring job ever."

"But don't you want to learn how to speak frog?" I asked. I mean, c'mon, who wouldn't?

"It's a dying language."

So now frog is like Latin? Yet Latin is the root of so much of our language. Our medical terms. Our botany. Our life. What's at the root of this frog problem?

"But you can't be an official citizen scientist in this program if you don't pass the auditory test!" I added, desperately.

"I'm writing to my neighbors," Richard said. "I'm telling them the frogs are gone from the lake. I'm telling them why."

Okay. Can't argue with action like that. Can't argue that Richard is on his own path to make a difference.

But I still need him to pass the frog test. Because, otherwise, how am I going to talk him into the other programs sponsored by the Georgia Natural Resources Department? The bald eagle survey? The swallow-tailed kite initiative? Manatee tracking? Sea turtle nest protection? Right whale surveys? Peregrine falcon nest monitoring? And my favorite of the ones listed on the little flyer that came with the frog CD--caves harboring endangered bats? C'mon, Richard--doesn't that sound like fun?

PLASTIC

The Weight of the Monster Frankenstein

Quick plastic bag update--my neighborhood Publix is selling these canvas bags for 99 cents (as Kroger has been doing for awhile), and a sign in the store encourages use by saying that each canvas tote takes the place of four plastic bags (there is no sign at Kroger). Whole Foods has finally dropped the price of their bags down to 99 cents as well, and they subtract a dime for each canvas bag used from your grocery bill. Clerks continue to ask, "Paper or plastic?", I continue to say, "Neither, I have my own bags," baggers seem to be getting less annoyed about the canvas bags, yet I continue to hardly ever see anyone else using them as well.

It is rare that I bring a plastic bag into my home now, which means I run into trouble finding a bag to use for cleaning out the hamster cages and the fireplace and all those other little reasons a leftover plastic bag comes in handy (like when Richard needs more food scraps for his worms!). I'm using my little wheelbarrow when I can, and working through the leftover plastic Target bags that are still stuffed in my closet.

I use cloth napkins and thermoses and little reusable containers in the lunchboxes as much as I can, but I still can't seem to get away from all those little baggies. Plus, every product imaginable seems to come in some sort of plastic packaging or be made of plastic.

And herein lies the problem. Turns out, according to this truly shocking and straight-shooting article, that almost all the plastic ever manufactured is still around, much of it floating in toxic soup in the oceans (one such ever-growing collection of it is in the Pacific Ocean and is larger than the size of two states of Texas!), and that we and all other living creatures are constantly ingesting plastic toxins that are increasingly proven to disrupt gene activity. Think recycling is the answer? Think again. According to this article:

With plastic, recycling is more complicated. Unfortunately, that promising-looking triangle of arrows that appears on products doesn’t always signify endless reuse; it merely identifies which type of plastic the item is made from. And of the seven different plastics in common use, only two of them—PET (labeled with #1 inside the triangle and used in soda bottles) and HDPE (labeled with #2 inside the triangle and used in milk jugs)—have much of an aftermarket. So no matter how virtuously you toss your chip bags and shampoo bottles into your blue bin, few of them will escape the landfill—only 3 to 5 percent of plastics are recycled in any way.

True cradle-to-cradle product design that uses biodegradable materials and repurposes materials innovatively, plus a reduction in packaging and product use by consumers, seem to be promising trends for the future, starting to be embraced by a growing list of companies today (like that Preserve toothbrush company).

Each of us apparently tosses 180 pounds of plastic a year. That's as if every one of us tossed the weight of a grown man in the ocean each year, the weight of the monster Frankenstein, which, in reality, is what plastic has become. And yes, I think many of us agree that it's time we stop "throwing our weight around." But how? Notice how many times you touch plastic today. Your shampoo bottle. Your coffee maker. Your car interior. Your eco-lip balm container. Not as easy as it sounds to avoid the stuff.

Like the raw milk issue, and school lunches, and toxic lawns, I'm not finished with this topic yet.

An Enthusiastic Thumbs Up

So I'm fairly intelligent and semi-savvy scientifically, and I have read at least a dozen articles on this whole plastic thing, but it's still a swirl of long words and vague facts in my head. I think it boils down to this--don't put boiling water in those baby bottles! It seems like plastic water bottles, yes, but also the harder plastic (think baby bottles and Nalgene trail bottles) leach bad stuff when they get heated (think cup holder in the car on a summer day!). This bad stuff apparently disrupts the endocrine system, which certainly doesn't sound good. Hmm, quick research needed here:

Although we rarely think about them, the glands of the endocrine system and the hormones they release influence almost every cell, organ, and function of our bodies. The endocrine system is instrumental in regulating mood, growth and development, tissue function, and metabolism, as well as sexual function and reproductive processes. (from www.kidshealh.org)

This baby bottle problem was big in the news a month or so ago, and just yesterday there was an editorial in the New York Times about it. Apparently, our friendly and far more environmentally sound friends to the north, Canada, have announced plans to restrict the use of this horrible stuff, bisphenol-a (BPA).

Here in the States? There's a task force, folks. Oh, that makes me feel confident. And retailers such as Wal-Mart plan to pull the plastic baby bottles by early next year. So, let's see, a baby born today, in May, will be 8 months old by January, 2009. That's a lot of bottles (yet another supporting reason for breastfeeding).

I don't need a lot of facts and figures on this one, folks. Plastic=bad, especially when used for drink or food and heated. I have a small collection of hard plastic water bottles, none of which I have really liked, for other reasons besides the leaching of poison. That Go Green, Live Rich book I read during my week-long eco immersion that resulted in a long action list included the recommendation for this stainless steel water bottle, Klean Kanteen. Stainless steel is the only material currently used for water bottles that don't contain or leach the bad stuff. Many stainless steel water bottles, by the way, contain a plastic liner inside, so watch out for that. Klean Kanteen doesn't.

So that's what we've been using for about a month now. I didn't want to write about it until I was sure that I liked it, and I can say that these bottles get an enthusiastic thumbs up from both my daughters and me. And, they come with or without a sports cap and in various comvenient sizes. I just got a small one for my younger daughter's lunch box and the cashier at REI (which may be my new favorite place, by the way, but I'll write more about that another day) told me the little ones don't sell so well. The children are the ones most effected by this endocrine-disruption, so this doesn't make sense to me. I would think the little ones would sell out first.

For a one-time price of between 15 and 20 bucks, you can say goodbye to disposable plastic water bottle waste and leaching BPA. And that makes Klean Kanteen an Ecomomical choice, in my book.

PATH

Scratching Below the Surface

Wheat-straw paths surround my garden beds and I have been replenishing the straw several times a year for six years now. And so it shouldn't have come as a suprise to me, yet it did, that when I accidentally scratched on a patch of ground beneath the straw between two of my beds, the once-hard and red clay underneath was soft and black and gorgeous. And so I wondered, while I had been covering my paths all these years, had I, in fact, been unknowingly making fertile soil?

I scratched more and loosened this rich and beautiful composted straw, and then, as I do continuously in the garden, I decided to do an experiment. I would plant in this patch, without any further soil amendments. And I would see what was possible.

Sure enough, now when I go out to the garden and see the spring crops stretching and smiling and growing seemingly overnight, I see this patch of red-leaf lettuces keeping pace with its companions. And I glance around my garden, its 11 beds all surrounded by this same straw, ambundant paths everywhere that are most likely just as fertile underneath. And I, like that soil, feel suddenly rich.

My mind starts swirling with possibility. Do I plant in the paths this year and effectively double my gardening space? Do I flip the beds and the paths so that the paths can produce and the beds can take a break? Do I add Dutch clover to the paths and increase their fertility? Do I finally have room for a respectable stand of corn?

And I wonder about what's happening underneath, under cover. Not just in my garden, but in the world. About what's getting more fertile. For change. For imagination. For possibility.

I think about GOOD magazine. Bioneers. Center for Ecoliteracy. The World Wildlife Fund. The Oakhurst Community Garden. Grameen Bank's micro-credit loans that are lifting poor people with incredible talents out of poverty and empowering them to blaze a previously unforeseen path to a previously unimagined future. The lady at my daughter's school who just got chickens, here in suburbia. The list is endless. Artists and businesspeople and philanthropists and neighbors and friends and family who are changing the path. Who are scratching below the surface. And who are finding that the ground is ready. That the time is now.

POKEWEED

When You Let Things Go

Each time I open my kitchen door now to go to the garden, the mockingbirds fly away. They have discovered the pokeweed, which is almost like a tree now, the leaves of which have turned a crimson red and the berries of which are deep purple. I had let it grow, this weed, in one of my veggie beds because I had seen it growing up at the log cabin my family rents once a year in the Blue Ridge Mountains and I thought it was pretty, that it had a purpose. And, sure enough, it does.

The berries are poisonous for mammals to eat, but the birds love them. I leave the sorghum and amaranth stalks, too, because the birds eat the seedheads. And my large, privacy-giving clumps of canna, although looking spent and sorry now at the end of their season, give shelter for animals throughout the winter.

The blackberry bushes are spreading in directions I wouldn't have chosen for them, but instead of pulling them up as I had in previous years, I am letting some of them meander where they want to go. For goodness sake, I like to meander--why shouldn't they? Mint is everywhere, with lemon balm right behind. Clover and hairy vetch is filling in all the spaces between this and that. The vegetable seedlings are growing, seemingly only as an afterthought, I think to myself sometimes.

I hear that ink made from the berries of the pokeweed was used to sign the Declaration of Independence, and that these berries, no surprise, make a wonderful fabric dye. I finally found the alum for which I had been searching in order to experiment with homemade dyes for my older daughter's hand-dyed shirt business, and here they are, the berries, waiting.

Funny how things go when you just let them.

PROPERTY VALUES

Keeping Up with the Greens

So I mentioned Xeriscaping to a neighbor the other day and was told about concern for "property values," especially if folks turn their front yards into desert-stricken pebble gardens. Considering that the City of Atlanta Department of Watershed Management is offering free Xeriscaping classes and that Lake Lanier, from where we get our water, is the lowest it has been since 1957 (when it was man-made), I found this comment surprising (will I ever cease to be surprised?!)

Property values. It all comes down to that, doesn't it? Well, guess what? Those who are making eco-improvements in their homes are most likely improving their property values. Soon, it's not going to be about keeping up with the Jones. It's going to be about keeping up with the Greens. And here's why. According to the National Society of Green Agents and Brokers, a home with eco-improvements can save money on energy and utility bills, is more comfortable with climate fluctuations, has better air quality and other health-enhancing benefits, and helps do its part to repair the world.

A recent study in Canada found that:

Green friendly home improvements will likely yield a solid return on investment come selling time as almost three quarters of Canadians (72%) say they will look for a green-improved property in their next home purchase, and 63 per cent will be willing to pay more for an environmentally friendly home, according to the Royal LePage Eco Home Survey released today.

The joint Royal LePage National Association of Green Agents and Brokers Eco Home Survey, which examines the attitudes and opinions of Canadians with respect to green living, found that Canadians are willing to pony up cash for greener home features. In fact, 62 per cent of respondents are willing to pay between $5,000 and $20,000, for green features, while eight per cent (8%) of respondents are willing to spend $20,000 or more on a home deemed green.

In the United States, a group called EcoBrokers offers brokers courses ranging from wind and solar energy to indoor air quality to rainwater retention systems in order to become certified as an EcoBroker (here's the blog of a certified EcoBroker in Atlanta). There are currently about 300 certified EcoBrokers nationwide and they are particularly alert to features other agents may overlook--reclaimed materials in renovations, native plantings, the value of a solar water heating system, the peace of mind a parent or pet owner can enjoy from a pesticide-free lawn.

With the current mortgage lending crisis and the downturn in home sales, many people are renovating instead of relocating. If you are replacing carpeting, painting or adding on to your house, why not at least consider more environmentally-friendly choices? Consumer interest in a healthy home environment is increasing exponentially, and you're bound to be asked about it if you sell in the future. What's more, if you are trying to sell right now or will be trying soon, it's a great way to differentiate your property from the glut of other homes for sale.

As for Xeriscaping, less lawn and more native plantings means reduced work, reduced water, and increased savings. And if it's done right, it should actually increase property values. What's not to love about that?

See you next week on FoodShed Planet for:

* Earth Day!

* A Tale of Two Worm Bins (and the exciting return of Richard of the Worms!)

* How to Party with the Planet in Mind

* and Food for Thought from My Suburban Kitchen Garden!

PUDDING

Stir Continuously

Too busy. Out of balance. Need to slow down.

Time to make pudding.

It's a bit of a contradiction that the thing I need most when I have the least time is to do something that takes time. That makes me step away from the continuously stirring details of my life. That requires me to stand there, at the stove, for ten or fifteen solid minutes (which, my goodness, is clearly no time at all but can feel like infinity when there are places to be and things to do) and literally stir continuously.

There are microwave directions that would shorten this chore, this pudding-making, to just a couple minutes. But then I wouldn't lean against the counter, a wooden spoon twirling rhythmically from my hand to the silver pot, steam slowly rising, a book bent back in my other hand and my rare attention focused on it, the sun's striations streaming in the window, the sweet strains of a child's violin lilting in the air, distant laughter, a lone dog barking, the omnipresent scent of rosemary strikingly strong and distinct for just a moment, working its alchemy on me, tickling memories awake, indelibly imprinting this memory, this moment in my mind.

My mother told me that she was the only one in her household that her mother trusted to make the pudding. That she was the only one who would stand there, patiently, and stir. For many years, I thought that my grandmother had simply hoodwinked my mom and made her think that this tedious chore was actually an honor. Yet, now I know the truth. That it is a gift.

PUMPKIN

Tchaikovsky and a Couple of Shlumps

Kate wrote about the smell of chestnuts flowering right now in Australia (a smell I can't imagine), but that took me back in time, 19 years, to the smell of chestnuts roasting, yes, on an open fire, on the sidewalks of New York City the December I fell in love with the man who was to become my husband. We met on a blind date and we were engaged six weeks later. That's how it happens sometimes.

But that December. Ahhh. Let me just visit my MemoryShed a minute. Because if you ever have the chance to fall in love at Christmastime in New York City, do yourself a favor and let it happen. The memory of it will sustain you the rest of your life. The tree salesmen on the street corners smiling broader when you pass, arm in arm, the vendors with hats and purses and books that line the avenues knowing you're a sucker for a sale, the shoppers with bags bustling past you, the singers, the shows, the lights, the pretzels. The unpreceded joy of tapping out the notes of Tchaikovsky's classic music in each other's palms during the first magical Nutcracker together.

It's as if Central Casting had supplied them all for your singular joy and amusement. And then a light snow falls. And a restaurant with a lit fire beckons. And the chill of night and the warmth of your heart commingle until you feel as if you are going to explode with happiness.

And so all this ran through my head the other day as I went to empty the "pumpkin people" we had made from old clothes and wheat straw that had been sitting on our front bench for Halloween with pumpkin heads that have since rotted. I moved the bodies to the back because I wanted to spread the straw in the garden, but then I saw them sitting there outside my window and I laughed.

"It's us!" I thought. My husband and me. Nineteen years later. A couple of shlumps. No, I don't think we look like that--at least, I hope not. But we feel like that. But in a good way. Settled in. Comfortable. Relaxed. We laugh more. We're easier on each other. We understand why I don't like loud conversations and why he can't stand clutter in the garage. We know who can solve the technology problems (him) and who can solve the spatial ones (me). We scribble notes to each other all over the newspaper. And we know that if we go somewhere that says events will occur both indoors and out, he will dress light and I will dress warm.

And as I stood there with these swirling thoughts, like snow that comes here once a year but skipped last year and doesn't look too promising right now, I heard it. The strains of our daughter's violin.

Playing selections from The Nutcracker.

Flip Flops and Cover Crops

To appreciate what happened to me yesterday, you have to know the pumpkin story. It's one of those classics in my house because I bring it up just about every time I see a pumpkin, which I didn't do yesterday, but stay with me here.

You see, when I was five, my best friend Mary McLafferty had to have her tonsils out on the exact day that our kindergarten class was going on a much-anticipated field trip to a pumpkin farm, so she was home recuperating while I was trotting around that farm (as happy as can be, as I recall).

We were all allowed to choose one pumpkin to bring back and we all chose the biggest ones our little arms could hold. As we were about to leave to board the bus to return to school, I saw a little tiny pumpkin and I thought of Mary. I asked the teacher if I could take that one for Mary, and she said yes. I felt like the most amazing friend in the world.

Until I got to Mary's house.

I made the horrible mistake of giving her her tiny pumpkin, seeing her eyes light up, and then saying, "Would you like to see MY pumpkin?" I dragged out my monster of a specimen . . . and she burst into tears.

It didn't occur to me to give her that big one, and every year during pumpkin season, I felt bad about it when I thought of it, more so each year as I got older. We stayed friends through elementary school but then went our separate ways in high school. However, when I was about 16, I finally bought the biggest pumpkin I could find and left it at her door with a note apologizing for that little one so many years ago. I think of the pumpkin whenever I am faced with a decision about giving something to someone when I really want to keep it for myself.

I never really thought I'd cross paths with Mary again. But about two weeks ago, Mary found me through Facebook. We wrote, we talked, we shared pix. She's as beautiful and funny and full of life as I remember her. What's more, turns out she works for Deckers Outdoor (they make Teva, Simple, Ugg and other outdoor, sports and recreational shoes) in California. So yesterday, when I got home from first visiting Farmer Sue at The Art Barn at Morning Glory Farm (see Sustainable Dunwoody post!) and then swinging by Farmer D's for a wide range of cover crops, I got a package from Mary. Two pairs of flip flops. One from Teva. One from Simple (which has amazing eco-stats, by the way--check it out here). I adore them both (and I am not an easy shoe buyer, which is why I buy perhaps one pair a year). It's forty years later, and Mary knows me perfectly. And one pair of them is orange. Coincidence? I think not.

So now, today, when I plant my cover crops in my new orange sandals, I will think, once again, of Mary. And it's almost time to plant the pumpkins. Mary, you'll be getting one from my garden this year. The biggest one I grow.

R

noreply@blogger.com (Pattie Baker) — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 10:05:00 +0000

RADISHES

I Have My Butter Knife Ready

I find myself craving them now, those oblong French breakfast radishes that inevitably show up in early spring and early fall in my CSA box, and which I have always planted reluctantly in my garden simply because they grow fast. Yet, a week after they arrive or I pick them fresh and full of pride, a wilted bundle of radishes often hides out in the back of the refrigerator, embarrassed and disappointed in how it has been treated by me.

This past spring, however, I had a bit of a breakthrough. Sliced radishes on warm whole grain bread with a bit of sweet, homemade butter changed my opinion about the radishes completely. The butter tempered their spice and created a brand new taste sensation. And I started packing these radish sandwiches in lunchboxes and taking them with me as snacks after meetings. And suddenly, the arrival of the radishes no longer elicted guilt for the inevitable compost waste I knew they would become. The radishes had now earned some respect.

And so, now, when the crops are at least a month late here because of the drought, I wait impatiently. For the buttery soft lettuces. The handfuls of kale. And, yes, the fast-growing, too-spicy radishes. And I have my butter knife ready.

RATATOUILLE

Love and Laughter and Song and Cats

Saw Pixar's movie, Ratatouille, recently. Liked it, didn't love it. The main rat, Remy, was cute and completely anthropomorphic, but things got a little too realistic for my tastes when it got to his extended family. The best scene, for me, however, was when the food critic had a flashback to his French country childhood. This depiction of a transformational experience, locked in his memory bank, really almost moved me to tears. But then again, most things do :) Reminded me of the first time I had ratatouille. I had taken Amtrak from New York City to Montreal to meet a friend. We stayed with a French Canadian couple named Marc and Sylvie who had an apartment full of cats and song. Marc made ratatouille for dinner and strummed his guitar while it simmered, singing in his charming accent:

You've got to give a little, take a little,
and let your poor heart break a little.
That's the story of, that's the glory of love.

So ratatouille makes me think of love and laughter and song and cats, and now rats. And I've been chewing over a couple things all week. One, how brave it was for Pixar to name this movie after a dish most Americans have never heard of or tried and most cannot pronounce or certainly spell. As an ex-Turner Broadcasting sales promotion manager, I've sat in those meetings with movie studio marketing folks and I know how every little detail can get debated to death. How amazing that Ratatouille survived as the name.

Yet.

My daughter and I talked several times after the movie about the ratatouille dish served in the story. It is unlike any version I have ever seen or eaten. An elegant stack of small, round slices of eggplant and yellow squash in a tomato coulis. Served more like an appetizer. It was shown several times in the movie and looked beautiful and inviting each time. My daughter and I both wanted to try this version.

So we went to the Ratatouille website, expecting at least to find a still photo of the dish and hoping, perhaps, to find an actual recipe of their version. Non. The studio that was brave enough to name a movie Ratatouille included neither photo nor recipe of the star dish.

So we made it up. Using all local ingredients (for once!), we stacked round slices of Bill Yoder's yellow squash and Dave's Japanese eggplant with Jeremy and Jessica's goat cheese in the middle of each layer and baked it for about thirty minutes. We cooked down Melissa's heirloom tomatoes and threw in a handful of chopped basil from the garden to make the coulis, and we tried our best to recreate the look and feel of the dish from the movie.

Did we succeed? Well, to a point. There were no rats in the kitchen.

And now, because there is a very strong chance that you can't get that song out of your head, here are the rest of the lyrics. Sing away while simmering!

You've got to give a little, take a little,
and let your poor heart break a little.
That's the story of, that's the glory of love.

You've got to laugh a little, cry a little,
until the clouds roll by a little.
That's the story of, that's the glory of love.

As long as there's the two of us,
we've got the world and all it's charms.
And when the world is through with us,
we've got each other's arms.

You've got to win a little, lose a little,
yes, and always have the blues a little.
That's the story of, that's the glory of love.
That's the story of, that's the glory of love.

P.S. Pixar Marketing Director! Please send me a photo of that ratatouille dish and I'll post it! Thanks!

UPDATE: July 24, 2007

Thanks to Matt--here is the link to the actual recipe used for the star dish in Ratatouille. It was created by Thomas Keller of The French Laundry.

RECYCLING

Considering the Possibilities

Needed a couple gifts yesterday and went to my go-to place for gifts, Ten Thousand Villages, which sells beautiful, unique items from fairly paid artisans from around the world. This pin was made from recycled soda cans and coiled wire by a woman at the Bombolulu Workshop for the Handicapped, located in Mombasa, Kenya.

Recycled soda cans. That was the second time I had seen them recently. The other time was at an office as hand-crafted airplanes suspended from the ceiling. Very clever, and I didn't mind the soda cans this time (as opposed to the Coca Cola wallpaper in that doctor's examining room a couple weeks back).

Recycled soda cans. This got me thinking. You've heard about the whole Grameen Bank micro-credit loan thing, right? Where Mohammed Yunus gave small, collateral-free loans to poor folks needing a little cash to bring their barely-surviving businesses to a sustainable level? He ended up starting a small business revolution and winning the Nobel Peace Prize. The Whole Foods Foundation now donates to micro-credit loans, to folks like a woman who makes gorgeous beaded belts but could only afford to make one belt at a time and thereby could not take advantage of quantity discounts for purchasing beads. A few hundred bucks from a micro-credit loan and she has been able to buy her beads cheaper and increase her profits 33%, which enables her to send her kids to school, put money back in to the local economy, change her life. Stuff like that.

Anyway, it appears that these recycled soda can projects I've seen are made using cans from Coke products. So wouldn't that be something if the Coca Cola Foundation would somehow get involved with artisans around the world who are recycling their cans in innovative ways?

The Coca Cola Foundation's big issue is clean water, obviously because the major ingredient in most of their products is water and having a reliable source of it is critical for their future. Water is clearly a major (if not the major) issue of our times, and so I applaud what the Coca Cola Foundation is doing (and intend to find out more, and write about it, soon).

But recycled cans. Cans that become art that change lives. Isn't there a place for that, considering Extender Producer Responsibility? Considering what's happening at Bombolulu? Considering the possibilities?

And speaking of recycling drinking containers, I'll tell you what we're doing with that dead Christmas tree I dragged home from my friend John's house the other day. We're making a traditional Southern folklore bottle tree (catches the evil spirits!) with it. There's one of these in the jungle-like yard of that lady the kids think is a witch, Gloria Dump, in the excellent movie Because of Winn Dixie (from the Newbery Honor book of the same name, written by Kate DiCamillo), if you happened to see it.

Our bottle tree will have recycled plastic water bottles instead of glass bottles on it in an effort to make a 21st-century statement while honoring and preserving a cultural tradition brought from slaves from the Congo to the southern United States hundreds of years ago. Stay tuned for pictures as the project develops!

As for the recycled cans and Coca Cola, I'm not done with that one yet. As for Ten Thousand Villages, if you're here in Atlanta, swing by the Sandy Springs location of this shop (CityWalk by Whole Foods on Hammond Drive by Roswell Road) and tell Melanie (the manager) that Pattie sent you. She'll give you a 15% discount on an item for the next two weeks. I lean toward the jewelry (for gifts), the Fair Trade chocolate (for me!) and that's where I got that amazing cookbook with the perfect oatmeal bread recipe (I make several loaves a week, sometimes with olives and herbs and other things, and they always come out great).

Recycling a Series of Moments

I continue to search for ways to recycle materials, both practically and artistically. And so it was that I stood there in my kitchen the other day, the sun yet again streaming in the window, its head cocked to one side, thinking perhaps I was making pudding once more but surprised to find me ripping pieces of newspaper, leftover tissue paper and junk mail into a blender filled with water. I stepped outside and cut a fistful of rosemary and added that to the mixture, too.

And here you can see the pulp this combination made, captured on a screen and about to be blotted and ironed and left to dry overnight under a heavy book (the beautiful Fields of Plenty by Michael Ableman). These simple steps somehow miraculously resulted in a piece of fragrant, vibrant handmade paper.

And so, I find my mind running through fields of plenty as well as I have been turning my home into a health care facility in preparation for my mother's arrival from the hospital today.

"If I add seeds to the pulp, and then cut hearts out of the paper, and make Valentines Day cards, and mail them to friends far away, they can plant them in their gardens," I find my mind saying.

"I wonder how thick the paper can be that I put in the pulp," I find myself pondering as I get yet another postcard or catalog in the mail.

"Hmmmm, do you think fresh herbs will rot in the paper?" I wonder aloud, remembering that year I stuck fresh herbs in bottles of oil as holiday gifts and they all grew enormous amounts of mold.

"What if I make a piece of paper a week, with that week's junk mail and some samples of what's growing in the garden, and then at the end of the year, I make a gardening scrapbook with photos from throughout the year as well?" I finally land on, thinking about the pictures I already have, of the children at Open Garden holding those worms, of David with the pitchfork, of my mom at Team Chicken.

Michael Ableman's book may be "a farmer's journey in search of real food and the people who grow it," but my book may be simply a gardener recycling a series of moments. On paper.

Buying Just One Roll

Okay, I'll admit I'm a latecomer to this simple help-the-earth tip. And I'm also hesitant to write a post that includes the words "bathroom" and "virgin" in it, but here goes.

We're a household that has three females in it. As my husband often comments, "Man, women go through a lot of toilet paper." And if that toilet paper is not recycled, it uses virgin wood, is bleached with harmful chemicals, and contributes to yet more landfill when we don't recycle the cardboard rolls at the end.

Turns out that if every household in the United States used one--just one--roll of recycled toilet paper, we could save something like half a million trees. I can hardly put my arms around that--how much is half a million trees? But one roll. Just one. Not five rolls a week, every week, every year. But, of course, do the math for those weeks and months and years and you'll see that this one little change has the potential to be truly earth-changing.

And those cardboard rolls? Recyclable, of course, in my weekly blue bin. But they also make great bird feeders when smeared with peanut butter and dipped in bird seeds. And fabulous instruments for the Open Garden Rhythm Circle when filled with dried rice or beans and secured with tape on the ends.

Even more importantly? This little fact about the one roll of toilet paper flings the window of my imagination open yet again. If one roll can make such a difference, what else can we do that we have not yet thought of? What other opportunities are we missing as a society? How creative, and innovative, can we be?

Ah, a challenge . . .

Interested in buying your one roll (or more)? Check out this site for brand comparisons.

And, of course, I can't show a picture of a Seventh Generation product without, once again, mentioning how much I love that quote on their products from the Great Law of the Iroquois Confederacy:

"In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations."

Hmmm. I didn't even use the word "bathroom." Whoops. Just did.

Making Chickens

Scrap paper is the number one American export, by volume. We're shipping it halfway around the world by the boatload to China as well as India, Indonesia, Japan and South Korea, where there is a shortage of wood pulp and where it is converted into mostly shipping boxes so that these countries can import yet more things back to us. These countries also produce recycled paper far cheaper than the U.S., based on labor costs. Therefore, as demand continues to rise, U.S. paper mills are getting priced out of the recycled paper market.

Lately, however, scrap paper has not even been leaving my house. I have been continuing to recycle pieces of my life into homemade paper. Tissue paper from gifts. My children's homework, once returned from school. The handout I got when I donated blood. Direct mail postcards. Arts brochures. Catalogs. Notes I took for an article I wrote. Everyday stuff that used to stuff the garbage, or the recycling bin. Plus, herbs and straw and seeds from the garden. Things I love.

Here is a sample of the result so far. Sheets of paper, in varying hues, each one more beautiful to me than the next. It is literally impossible to see this paper in person and not touch it.

The chicken? Oh, that's something I've been making for a few years, the exact same chicken, sort of like when I was in a high school photography class and I used the same photo of a horse for every project, simply changing the technique in order to have a different result.

My original chickens were made out of foam and feathers. I then moved on to car tires and water bottles, but I didn't like the results of either of those. The tires were too thick and the water bottles bent too much. This chicken's body is made from a piece of one of the handmade sheets of paper, and I pushed the recycling angle further. The feet are dried calendula flowers, the wing is dried rosemary, and the beak is a rose petal (all from my garden). The shell dangling from the pin was picked up by me or perhaps one of my kids during a sunrise stroll on a beach on the east coast of Florida, looking out at the world across that vast Atlantic Ocean.

My dream? To find just the right materials to recycle for these chickens--or perhaps a variety that works. And then to start a company called Happy Chicken Farm (I already reserved the Blogger address, as part of my "put the intention in the world" philosophy) where a group of employees--perhaps high school kids who have never had a connection to the garden before--could hand-assemble these and we'd sell them, with a percentage of profits to benefit environmental efforts. They make great pins and magnets and I even glued this one on a journal made out of other sheets of the handmade paper and tied with jute twine.

And yes, of course, Happy Chicken Farm would need to have a live flock. A small flock. Just a few chickens. I'll get those chickens yet!

And so a million things need doing in my house and life. A dozen work assignments beckon for more attention. They'll all get their due. In the meantime, you'll find me out in the garden, at least for a little bit each day, making chickens.

Beth's Baskets (Or How to Reduce Your Daily Five Pounds)

If you are a typical American, you will throw out five pounds of waste today, half of which will be food. You will join your fellow Americans (who represent only 5% of the world's population) in using 23% of the world's energy, 15% of its meat, and 28% of its paper.

If you are like me, you will try to recycle more each day, yet it seems that every time I make a change for the better, I run into little problems. It is these little problems that I think trip folks up because there are not always easily-identifiable solutions for them (like the plastic bags and the dog waste from yesterday's post).

You may have run into my "new problem." Since I'm recycling more and more (and trying to use less packaging to begin with), my garbage can sits half-full for numerous days now, and it sometimes smells! And so I went out looking for a smaller garbage can, but then realized I didn't have 70 bucks for that cute metal garbage can and I didn't want to buy any more plastic. So I decided to wash my existing can and use smaller bags instead, but I don't want to buy virgin plastic anymore. I bring my own cloth bags when I shop, so I don't have many plastic bags lying around. And so, another little dilemma . . . Do I start asking for paper bags now just so I have garbage bags? What do you do?

As for acquiring new things, I'd like to say that I'm done acquiring, but the truth is that some things wear out and some of the changes on my plan for living lighter on the land do require some new (or, at least, new to me) things, such as a couple ceiling fans and a screen door (for which I'm still looking) to reduce my energy use. I finally joined Freecycle about two weeks ago. Have you discovered this phenomenal worldwide movement yet? According to its website:

The Freecycle Network™ is made up of 4,390 groups with 5,197,000 members across the globe. It's a grassroots and entirely nonprofit movement of people who are giving (& getting) stuff for free in their own towns. It's all about reuse and keeping good stuff out of landfills. Each local group is moderated by a local volunteer. Membership is free.

I get these daily emails that tell me what's available, what's been taken and what folks want. Today, for instance, a chandelier is offered, some bird feeders have been taken, and someone is looking for a fireplace screen.

I saw an offer the other day for willow baskets, from someone who didn't live far from me. I like baskets because I can use them instead of boxes or bags for gifts, thereby reducing waste, plus I like to photograph the stuff I get from the farmers market, CSA and my garden in them for this blog. So I emailed and then talked to the person offering them (yes, remember all your mom's rules about being careful with strangers). I went over and met this lovely woman who had dragged these baskets from Long Island to Iowa to Georgia, remnants, I'm sure, of birthday flowers and baby gifts and other momentous occasions in her life. And I kept them from the landfill and brought them home.

So look for them, these baskets, when they appear. They were Beth's baskets. And they would have been part of her Daily Five Pounds.

Thanks, Beth.

The Waste of Our Lives

So I left my home in a bit of a rush yesterday when I noticed the row of garbage cans up and down the street and realized it was Garbage Day and I had forgotten to put mine out. I went back home, grabbed the garbage can and started to drag it to the curb when I realized something odd. I opened the lid, looked in, closed it, opened it, looked in again, closed it. I walked back to my daughter, my head shaking.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"We have no garbage," I answered.

"What do you mean, we have no garbage?"

"We have no garbage," I repeated.

We both just stood there. This was the first time this had happened since we started recycling last April for Earth Day. I suppose it makes sense that our garbage has gotten less over time, between the recycling; the increased use of whole, bulk foods and less packaging; the making of homemade paper out of our junk mail; and our reliance on our garden, farmers market and CSA. But no garbage on Garbage Day? Wow. I guess all these little things really do add up. And so our garbage can stayed there, against the side door of the garage, all day.

And so, of course, this got me thinking. What else is possible? I remembered a report I heard the other morning on NPR (National Public Radio) about what's called Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR). This is a shifting of responsibility for disposal of goods (specifically those with toxic parts such as electronics) from taxpayer dollars to corporate responsbility. Plans for proper disposal of the product after its intended use must be built into the design and production of the product. Thirteen states are considering legistation to mandate this, and this is already a popular and accepted concept in many countries around the world. Extended producer responsibility laws are a perfect way to encourage more creative cradle-to-cradle design (such as that of that Preserve toothbrush that I love so much that uses recycled Stonyfield Farm yogurt containers as its material and then is recycled after its use into a building material used to make park benches).

Speaking of Stonyfield Farm, I started Stonyfield Farm "CE-Yo" Gary Hirschberg's book yesterday (Stirring It Up: How to Make Money and Save the World). He (and I) believe in the power of business to change the world. He writes:

Ecologically sound practices are also economically sound over the long term. Indeed, saving the planet can prove profitable in both a fiscally narrow sense and in a much broader context of job creation and greatly expanded economic development. Addressing climate and environmental challenges will give twenty-first century businesspeople and ordinary citizens the chance to grasp what Pogo called "insurmountable oppoprtunities," possibilities that may exceed anything humankind has ever seen before.

I am on chapter three and it is already an I-can't-put-this-book-down experience. Gary talks about numerous other companies (even my fave, Costco, is in there!) and the writing is in-depth and intelligent, offering something new for folks like us who have read a ton on this topic already. I'll report back more fully about this book after I finish it (which, I'm guessing will be soon!).

The last time I felt this way about a business book was when, several years ago, I read True to Our Roots: Fermenting a Business Revolution, by Paul Dolan of Fetzer Vineyards (and Bonterra, made with organically-grown grapes). This is the life-changing book that made me decide, right then and there on the couch I didn't leave for two days, that I would commit my career to sustainability issues.

And, so, although this is an odd sentence I'm about to write, it is the absolute honest truth. Now is an exciting time for garbage, for from it innovation and opportunity is starting to spring forth. The future of our world depends on the brilliant breakthroughs that we experience each Monday and Thursday (or whatever days are your garbage days) when we stand there, face to face, alone, with the waste of our lives.

Staggering from One Awareness to Another

'Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.' - Aristotle

Okay, Aristotle, I'm not so sure that excellence is a habit, but I can tell you hands-down that paper towel use is! That's because I was using something like a roll of paper towels every couple days and stopped, cold turkey, on April 6 when I made that exhaustive list of things I wanted to change. And this photo, my friends, is the remaining paper towels from that very roll of Marcal recycled paper towels that I started that day. (It is a very nice, strong paper towel, by the way, that has worked perfectly, if you are looking for a recycled paper towel recommendation.) (And speaking of product recommendations, I'm killing the blog Ecomomical. I just don't love enough products to make that sustainable!)

So, does it matter, this paper towel thing? Well, considering that something like 70% of all garbage in landfills is paper, I would say it does. And considering that the United States is shipping tons of its "garbage" paper to China, where it is then recycled into mostly cardboard boxes (but I recently saw "eco stationery" at Target that was made from recycled paper--and made in China; Real eco, huh? Shipped around the world twice), then my little paper towel habit starts to really add up.

But where I think it matters most is in the realization that habits can change. I read this great quote in an article titled Trying to Build a Greener Britain, Home by Home:

"We didn't start out to reduce our carbon footprint--we've staggered from one awareness to another."

And I guess that's what I'm doing. Staggering from one awareness to another. And being blown away at the staggering difference little changes can make.

Eight Cents a Pound

Our HOA board is possibly about to replace all our mailboxes so that they are uniform, and to change the covenants to reflect this (if 90% of homeowners agree). I asked about the recycling of those mailboxes and volunteered to find a way to do it. Many are metal, a couple are plastic and the rest are wood. This project is only at its beginning (letters must be sent, agreement must be reached that this is our neighborhood's pressing priority), so I have time.

Yet, yesterday morning as I was walking down my driveway with my red bucket full of little bouquets of herbs and flowers to leave for passersby to take, a young family in a truck drove up and stopped next to the wheelbarrow I had left out by the curb. The man pointed to it and I told him it was broken, that I had tried to make it work, first to haul stuff and then I actually planted lettuce in it, but it was falling apart.

"May I take it?" he asked, his brown eyes soft and warm. "I don't have a job, so I am selling scrap metal."

"Yes, take it," I told him, as his young wife got out of the car and tenderly helped him put the wheelbarrow in the back of the truck. I peeked in the vehicle and saw a little girl, maybe four years old, with long dark hair and big, almost-black eyes. I reached into my red bucket and handed her a bouquet of zinnias and French tarragon and rosemary. Her smile filled the truck in a way I hoped scrap metal would soon.

"How much do you get for it?" I asked the man, standing there on the side of the road with me.

"Eight cents a pound," he answered, his eyes dropping slightly but his shoulders holding firm and strong and proud.

Eight cents a pound. And I could only imagine how much he was spending in gas, in a metro area that currently has a gas shortage (read my Sustainable Dunwoody post about this here) and escalated prices when you can find a gas station that has it.

I told the man about the mailboxes, that there might be more metal soon. He wrote down his name, Feliciomo, and phone number on a piece of notepad paper from Marriott, where perhaps his wife worked cleaning rooms, that had imprinted on it the words "Leave a trail of genius."

As Feliciomo and his family drove away, I stood there shaking, feeling perhaps that somehow the appearance of this family in my life was not a coincidence. As the world financial situation teeters on the edge of collapse, as my city continues forward another day without gas or rain, as Haiti drowns and Africa suffers and homes foreclose and contaminated food kills and prices rise, I have looked into the eyes of honor and felt the pride of a family taking a small step to save themselves. I have seen love between a couple and heard the laughter of a little girl. And I will never look at eight cents the same way again.

Yes, this simple, humble family that happened upon my life in the most unassuming of ways, on a day when they were needed as a reminder of the resiliency of the human spirit, most definitely left behind them a trail of genius.

RICE

Trust-Falling into the World's Energy

I bought this monster container of brown rice a while back at Costco and have had spotty success with cooking a cup or two at a time--sometimes good, sometimes lumpy and sticky and gross. I eat it anyway, yet more discriminating palates in my house reject it outright. So it was time for the rice cooker, which I will inaugrate this weekend, as well as my New Year's Resolution dive into learning how to cook more ethnic dishes, starting with Japan.

Japan has a rich history of rice culture, and high tariffs on imported rice result in most rice consumed in the country being local. The Japanese traditionally eat rice at every meal, and make a big pot of it each morning to sustain them through the day. Plus, vegetarian dishes such as soba noodles, pickled turnips, miso soup (without bonito flakes, which are fish), and vegetables flavored with dashi, seaweed seasoning and sesame sauce would all be new to me.

And here's the freaky part, the phenomenon that continually surprises me even though it happens again and again and again. As soon as I decided to focus on Japan for this week's "Around the World" post, like within less than an hour, I got an email from Stephanie at the Oakhurst Community Garden about upcoming classes. And there it was. Three weeks of Japanese cooking classes, including one dedicated to vegetarian meals.

If there were still any seeds of doubt in my mind about the power of "putting it out there" and letting the world answer me, it's now gone. I trust completely. I am, from now on, trust-falling into the hands of the world's energy and enjoying the ride.

ROSEMARY

Smart Nun--UPDATED

I wanted to do Number 13, Donate Books, in Every Monday Matters today and start with that Go Green, Live Rich book that tormented me last week with its stupid carbon calculator recommendation!

But, alas, this week is my younger daughter's turn to pick, and considering it is the first day back from Spring Break, she chose #50, Thank a Teacher. Her particular teacher is retiring in six weeks, after something like 42 years of teaching, so this is that teacher's very last time coming back to school from Spring Break.

I send in fistfuls of herbs each Friday to this teacher, although we haven't in awhile because the only herb that grows through the winter here is rosemary (and a sprig or two will last a few weeks), but now the lemon balm and oregano and lavender are stretching tall and proud again and can join the rosemary in a respectable little bouquet. And so out we'll go this morning, by the light of the moon and stars and pick the dewy stems, the oil of the rosemary lingering on our hands all morning.

Rosemary is an herb of remembrance and has been used traditionally at weddings and funerals (not to mention in making memorable meals--I particularly recall a meal I had at the Sonona Mission Inn & Spa many years ago, before the kids, where a sprig of rosemary stood upright in my mashed potatoes like a little Christmas tree and I thought that was the most clever use of rosemary yet). Its strong and memorable fragrance is bound to bring you back to somewhere in the memory bank of your life, perhaps to a teacher who somehow changed the direction of your path, or whose words ring in your ears all these years later.

I almost became a high school English teacher, but in my very last semester of college I had a moment of complete confusion while walking across campus about this career direction. I called my mother from a nearby pay phone, for yet another memorable mother/daughter conversation. You see, my mom was a nun when she was my age at the time! So any advice I asked her was always told from the point of view of someone wearing the traditional black-and-white clothing and living in a communal convent!

So she said to me, as I cried into a phone long-distance, feeling directionless and as if I was about to throw away the last couple years of my education, "When I went up for my final vows, I told the Mother Superior that I didn't think it was my calling."

"And what did she say?" I asked through sobs.

"She said, 'Why do you want to be a nun?' I answered, 'Because I'm good at it.' And she replied, 'You'll be good at lots of things. But what is it that you want to do?'"

Smart nun.

"Thanks, Mom," I said, hanging up the phone. (Don't even ask about our sex talk!)

And so I remembered the words scrawled across an essay of mine in 11th grade by an English teacher named Miss Gillespie. "You write with grace, wit and intelligence," she wrote. I knew then what I would do. I met with my advisor and told him I was leaving the Secondary Education part of my college coursework. He was gravely disappointed in me, and made it clear. I was graduated with a degree in English, moved back to New York City and held a series of jobs as a project manager and writer. I wrote to Dr. Manley years later and told him how my career had developed and how often in my job and life I felt like I was teaching (or at least sharing my discoveries) with others through my writing. He wrote a beautiful letter back to me, for which I was extremely grateful.

And so, all these years later, with rosemary in my hands, I'd like to thank Miss Gillespie, and Dr. Manley.

And Mom.

What teacher(s) would you thank?

UPDATE--several hours later

Sprig.com is running video tips from the guy who wrote the Go Green book. What do you think?

RYE

An Interconnected Tribe

It sways out there in the late-Spring breezes, the rye cover crop I planted last fall, adding height and beauty and interest to my garden. Surrounding a sandy pit that serves as a place for kids to dig makes it look almost like a beach dune, warming the soul of this now land-locked former beach girl.

Rye, the cereal (not the grass), is grown mostly for forage and as a cover crop. A member of the wheat "tribe," it is the main bread cereal (used to make rye and pumpernickel breads) in Russia, Poland, Germany, Belarus and the Ukraine. As a cover crop, its deep roots loosen soil, draw nutrients from the soil and prevent weeds.

I think it is stunningly beautiful, especially when the late afternoon sun streams through the long golden strands that surround its kernels. I find myself out there in the garden staring at the kernels, endlessly intrigued by the way they interlap and support each other and fit together like a perfect puzzle.

A tribe. A member of the wheat tribe. This term comes to mind immediately when I hear from my friend Judy about the second week of her new Charlotte CSA drop, which currently includes 65 families. This week, a handful of moms stood there in a line as a human chain, like the kernels of this rye floret, and handed the boxes off to each other, from the back of the truck to their temporary storage spot from which all the other moms would come and take them home to nourish their families.

We are a tribe, an interconnected tribe of humans. We are the rye that digs our roots deep in the soil. We are the seeds that lean on each other and team with energy that can move soil or boxes or mountains.

Yet, already, after only two weeks, Judy says that although all of the CSA participants have been very gracious and thankful to both Judy and Charlotte, the inevitable complaining from a small faction has started. "Too many greens in the boxes." "I found a snail and I want to cancel." "I don't know how to cook this stuff." "Where are the tomatoes?" And already, the kernels are blowing off in the wind, leaving a smaller seed spikelet to withstand the elements.

And so, for those of you just starting in CSAs, I offer a couple of suggestions to help you stand strong in your commitment to supporting local farmers and eating fresh, healthy local food:

1. If your CSA has a newsletter, ask for copies of last year's issues so that you can anticipate the order in which crops will be coming if you are not aware of seasonality in your locale. Or just let go and ride it out, seeing it as an adventure, even when the unknown makes you a bit uncomfortable.

2. On the day you receive your CSA box, plan to process the contents (should take about two hours total). That means, wash, chop and sautee greens, wash and prepare a big bowl of salad, wash and chop anything else that can stay in the refrigerator a few days, consume anything else that looks very perishable that night for dinner, blanch and freeze anything that you have in abundance that you don't think you are going to consume in the next three days.

Put on some music, open the window, sing out loud and rejoice in this meditative action that fulfills your good intention toward your family and the earth. When I take the time to do this, I find that nothing goes to waste and adding these farm-fresh ingredients to meals is easy. (Plus, Wednesday afternoons have become one of my favorite times of the week.)

3. When in doubt, chop it in the food processor and add it to muffins (I do this regularly with kale, collards and Swiss chard). Add (organic dark) chocolate chips and the kids will eat it. Also, never underestimate the power of olive oil and sea salt to transform dishes into delicacies.

Stand firm. Hold tight. Work together. And work through the discomfort that is a natural byproduct of doing something a little bit differently. Sway in the gentle breeze of change and let the beauty of a new day, and a new way of eating, shine through you.

S

noreply@blogger.com (Pattie Baker) — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 09:30:00 +0000

SCHOOL

Summer School

We were playing pool the other night in a rented log cabin on the top of a mountain in Blue Ridge, Georgia, about an hour and a half north of Atlanta. We go about once a year and toy with thoughts of moving there permanently. It is beautiful, and yes, the mountains are bluish in the morning when the mist rises from the rivers and creeks and lakes.

Anyway, the ball I wanted to hit was blocked so I banked the white ball off the opposite side of the table to come at the ball from a different angle. It somehow miraculously worked and the ball I was trying to hit snapped out from the wall where it was blocked and rolled effortlessly into the far hole.

"Trigonometry," I told my older daughter, who was my partner. "Just think triangles." And so, right there, right then, a year of math came alive and made sense and had purpose.

The hammock on the lower deck had a rope hanging above it that was attached to the bottom of the deck above. If you pulled the rope, you caused the hammock to sway.

"Physics," I said.

The path down the steep slope to the whitewater creek was lined with shiny rocks that my younger daughter noticed flaked and fell apart. She also discovered that, when used like chalk, they write in silver and can make interesting pictures. It was muscovite mica, the crystals of which are six-sided and soft, measuring 2 to 4 on Mohs' hardness scale. The name mica apparently comes from the Latin word micare, meaning "to shine."

Geology. Art. Latin.

Along the creek, rhododendrons were in full bloom. Turns out this species, the Rosebay Rhododendron, dominates the "understory" of the Appalachian forest. This, of course, led to discussion of the movie we saw the night before, Wall-E, at one of the last drive-ins left in the United States (the Swan Drive-in in the town of Blue Ridge) and which characters were the "supporting characters," and about supporting characters in film and literature in general.

Language Arts.

The hike back up to the cabin from the creek, on a path of switchbacks, caused muscles to burn (mostly the glutamous maximus!).

Anatomy. Physical Education.

And then, of course, there were the sounds--the rushing water, the birds, and the varying beat of the gravel against our car tires on the unpaved driveway when we zoomed up it (a necessity in order to make it to the top) or drove carefully down it.

Music.

And finally, on our trip home, we stopped at Mercier Orchards, a family-run orchard since 1943 (History), where the first crop of peaches of the season were for sale, as well as delicious fudge. We got home right before a storm that watered my garden for me, I turned on the movie James and the Giant Peach, which is based on the book by Roald Dahl (who also wrote Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), and we all kicked back and relaxed, peach juice running down our chins, with a chaser of fudge.

Homework.

Now, that's my kind of summer school.

Washing My Hands of Triclosan--UPDATED!

This is a bar of soap. You use it with water, and it actually works to reduce germs. This is apparently becoming an antiquated way of washing your hands.

Triclosan. That is a word of which I had never heard just two days ago. Then, I got the jarring mid-summer email from the elementary school that listed the school supplies for the new school year, which starts here in Atlanta on the shockingly early date of August 11. And sure enough, there it was--one bottle of hand sanitizer or liquid soap. As this product category has soared with the addition of "antimicrobial" properties, I decided to finally figure out what's in these things.

Triclosan.

According to the stack of research I read last night, triclosan is a pesticide that kills bacteria. Like the overuse of antibiotics, the overuse of triclosan contributes to the growing catastrophic problem of bacterial resistance. What's more, there is concern over a link between the escalating numbers of people with allergies and asthma and our increasingly antiseptic lifestyle. Additionally, triclosan "bioaccumulates" in both wildlife and humans, and has been found in fish, human breast milk, and the umbilical cord blood of newborns. Finally, triclosan contains small amounts of dioxin and can be converted to additional dioxin when heated by the sun. Dioxin is a known carcinogen.

Both the CDC and the FDA state that the use of antimicrobial personal care products offers no benefit over the use of regular soap and water. Okay, so why are schools across our country asking parents to bring this stuff in? Got me. But I can't fight every battle, folks. I just can't do it. I'm worn out from the school lunch thing and happy about our decision years ago to simply pack our own. I will provide my child with regular soap and tell the teacher that my daughter is not allowed to use antimicrobial products. If asked for a reason, I will be happy to provide some research, but lord knows I'm not barreling into the PTA meeting and screaming about this. I will vote with my dollar and try to influence change with my family's personal actions. That seems to be more effective anyway.

Okay, so far so good, right? Well, we're walking home from the public bus stop and I keep telling my daughter not to walk on people's lawns because I don't want her dragging their pesticides into our house on the bottoms of her sneakers. I somehow use this an opportunity to rave yet again about my Teva sport sandals, which I bought from REI about a month or so ago. I absolutely adore these shoes and have been happily walking and biking miles in them. I tell my daughter we will get her some sport sandals so she doesn't have to wear those hot sneakers and socks all the time.

So we go to REI and we get the sandals. We get home and I look at this little tag hanging from them. Microban. What on earth is that? A little research reveals--yes, you guessed it. Triclosan. Turns out Microban is the brand name for triclosan when used in footwear, protective wear and sporting gear. Its brand name when used in fibers is BioFresh. Its marketing hook is that it eliminates odors and that it lasts for the lifetime of the item.

Yes, these "environmentally friendly" children's sandals are made with a lifetime supply of pesticides. And I was worried about her walking on the lawns?

And so, of course, the sandals are going back. My daughter asks if she can get Crocs instead, a purchase we have somehow avoided during all these years of their popularity. I say, "Let's check them out." We go to their website and it says they are made with this proprietary material that is neither rubber nor plastic. And yes, it is antimicrobial, but we don't see any mention of Microban.

So I call Customer Service and get a very nice woman named Sharon. Poor, sweet Sharon.

I ask her, "Can you tell me what it is in Crocs that makes them antimicrobial?"

She is silent for a moment, and then says, "I don't know!"

I say, "Well, I'm trying to find out if they contain Microban, which is the brand name for triclosan."

She says she will find out, puts me on hold, and comes back a few minutes later with this, "No one I asked knows, but I'm going to find out. I have to ask the engineers and it may take a few days to get back to you with an answer."

I then ask the question I'm now wondering, "Sharon, am I the first person who has asked you this question?"

And she says, "Yes."

And so, the Crocs will have to wait. But this gets me curious. What else has triclosan? Turns out there's a list a mile long. Numerous soaps, of course, but also certain daily face washes, toothpastes, lipsticks, deodorants, shaving gels, cutting boards, computer keyobards and mouse pads, socks, toys, paints, laminate floors, blankets and towels.

Listen, folks, I don't want pesticides on my apples. I don't want pesticides on my lawn. I certainly don't want them, as an active ingredient, no less, in items I use or wear on a daily basis, especially if research shows that they are harmful. And I'm guessing most people don't know what or where triclosan is. Except for the Tevas, I don't see any other items I use on the extended list, but of course, this got me curious. Here's a great site where you can check out the products that you actually use or are considering purchasing for detailed information about the hazards of their ingredients (including triclosan). You will also find tons of information about "unsettling facts that you have a right to know."

I was telling my mother about this last night and she said, in a hushed and worried tone, "Is Crest on the list?" I know how she feels. The last thing you want is a product you've been using your whole life to betray you. I told her that the Crest products come up with a score of 2 (a low score) to 6 (quite high) for hazards, and that by checking the site, she could choose the formula that was on the low end. This would help product selection when standing there in the aisle looking at the sea of options.

If we, as consumers and as parents, continue to let the marketing machine of Big Business sell us on the benefits (none of which have been proven) of triclosan in our everyday products (and those of our children), then we are, once again, asleep at the wheel. As for me, I'm washing my hands of triclosan. Effective immediately.

I guess that means I need to return my beloved sport sandals, huh?

Ouch.

UPDATE: July 20, 2008

Two things:

1. I called Sharon at Crocs after not hearing from her for over a week. She said she was still awaiting an answer about whether or not Crocs shoes contain triclosan. It has been another week and still no answer. Frankly, I think I have my answer.

2. While shopping for back-to-school supplies today, I saw this: row after row of scissors with Microban! The package says "fights stain and odor-causing bacteria." Have your scissors been smelly and stainy? Is this product claim even remotely realistic? Something is very, very wrong here, folks. We literally had to HUNT for a pair of scissors without this pesticide in them! WHAT is going on?!

Teachable Moments

When I had my older daughter, I was working at the global headquarters of a Fortune 500 company. After a three-month maternity leave, I went back to my job for six of the most difficult weeks of my life, when, as luck would have it, the company offered a voluntary "retirement" package to all employees and I took it, which gave me the opportunity to launch my marketing writing business, and that's what I've been doing ever since.

Launching a business isn't easy, but I was fortunate to be very busy right away. However, please remember I had a four-month old baby! I kept her in the full-time daycare where she had already started, yet I lived only a mile away and had more flexibility about when to bring her in, pick her up and how to handle sick days, etc. so it was actually quite a good situation.

What I didn't realize was that my daughter would meet four other girls in that class of infants who would go on to be the best friends of her life, or that all of us parents of those babies would become, over time, like relatives to each other. In fact, my friend-who-gave-me-the-magic-camera who died three years ago last month, if you can believe it (and yes, the hydrangeas are blooming again) was the mother of one of those girls.

So I've known these girls forever. Teenagers now, they work as junior counselors for a month each summer at a camp at the community center where they had been babies together. After they finish work, they usually like to stop by the whirlpool to relax and chat a bit. The rules that had been posted for years said you had to be over 13 to go in the whirlpool without an adult, and these girls adhered to the rules to the letter.

So this year comes, and this new sign is posted that limits any user of the whirlpool to 18 years old and older (you used to be able to go in with an adult if you were over the age of five, for a time limit of ten minutes. My kids would dip their feet when they were younger and we spent much time talking about how the whirlpool can help people and how we must be respectful of others who are using it). I ran into the girls when I rode my bike over to pick up my younger daughter and they were very upset. Long story short (although when people say that, it means the story is already too long!), I told them I'd find out some background info and then if they wanted to go further with it (and perhaps try to change the rule back), I'd help them.

Initially, I was told me that the Department of Health required the new rule. Easy research on my part revealed a 61-page document in our county code that did not, in fact, specify the age of 18 as a requirement. After several conversations, I was finally told, "Well, we made this decision because of liability and insurance risk because kids were roughhousing in the whirlpool." It appears as if the kids who were mostly causing the problems were younger children whose parents weren't supervising them appropriately and non-members from a high school swim team who rented the pool one night a week. I suggested possible solutions that would not penalize those who had followed the rules, but I could see I wasn't going to get anywhere.

I had a talk with the head of the center about the "teachable moment" here for a group of girls who felt as if an injustice was done and that they were being denied access to a community benefit for which they had previously had access, at no fault of their own. I told him they would like to present their case to him, and he told me pretty much that there was no chance of change but he would listen to them or reply to a letter from them.

So I saw the girls and I shared what I had discovered, especially how important it is in life to "go to the source" of information and not rely on what you are being told for facts (particularly when the facts just don't sound right).

The girls were upset and explored numerous directions that they could argue. One of them did recognize the chance for change was slim to none, and the fact that they were only going to be working here for another two weeks.

And then I added the lesson I've learned from all my advocacy work for local food, sustainability and the other issues close to my heart:

"Okay, listen, this issue is probably not a big one in the realm of things for which to fight. But one day, there will be something that truly matters to you. Something for which you will be willing to go to the mat. And what you learn now about building a case and presenting a point of view will help you then. So, no, you may not change any thing this time. But if you embrace this opportunity to express yourself persuasively, I can guarantee you one thing for sure. You will change. And that will make a difference in your life."

"Oh, no, Mrs. Baker is going to cry," one girl said, and they all laughed, because that's what I always do at moments like these. Teachable moments. Life moments. Moments when I look into the faces of emerging adults and see the babies they were just yesterday, it seems, and the leaders in our society, with strong voices and confident actions, that they will be tomorrow.

Truly Changing What's Clearly Not Working

Hmmm, the bees or the beef? About which should I write this morning? How about both?

Haagen-Daz (the ice cream folks) just announced that bees are responsible for pollinating the flowers that create fruits for 40% of their 60 flavors--including consumer-favorites strawberry, toasted pecan and banana split. Apparently, Haagen-Daz is introducing a new flavor, Vanilla Honey Bee, this spring in order to raise awareness for the honeybee issue and will donate part of the profits of the sale of that flavor to help the bees. How, who knows? (I also hear that bats are dying, by the way, but that's a post for another day.) And, by the way, I've seen "cute" headlines like "If Ice Cream Prices Rise, Blame the Bees." Are we ready to stop blaming the bees and start truly changing what's clearly not working?

Now, let's touch base on the beef issue this morning, and the fact that we're in the midst of the largest beef recall in U.S. history, with the majority of the beef having been distributed to our nation's schools.

Can good come from this? Yes! Finally, the lights are starting to go on and parents are starting to say, "What's up with that?"

As longtime readers of FoodShed Planet know, I've been working on the school lunch issue for awhile now. Here's the article I wrote for Georgia Organics (click on Fall 2007: Farm Fresh Produce Goes to the Head of the Class), and I also spoke at a state-wide school lunch conference back in the fall. My local elementary school is finally, finally, trying to do something about improving the lunches, and I sent a version of the following points to the new wellness committee chairpeople as a "transfer of knowledge" for moving forward since our county has a new nutrition director and does not know what bases we had already covered. I'm hearing from parents at other schools as well and thought this information may be helpful to anyone who wants some suggestions for questions to ask their county's school nutrition director:

1. Milk. Something like 75% of African Americans and 90% of Asians are lactose intolerant. More and more children are experiencing milk-related allergies. Additionally, many parents do not want their children drinking hormone-laden industrial milk. Ask your county for a daily soy milk option, made from organic soybeans (almost all non-organic soybeans are genetically modified). Additionally, request an organic milk option (both of these changes may require an additional cost). And I, for one, do not consider Horizon (and any other "organic" milk supplied by Aurora) an acceptable organic option. It is currently under investigation for not meeting organic standards. Aurora/Horizon--you are going to have to earn our trust back, and ads with happy cows don't do it. We're not stupid.

2. Juice. A "juice drink" option is often offered because its added calcium supposedly makes it nutritionally comparable to milk and fulfills that federal requirement. However, I was told by the county that this decision was made before 100% juice with added calcium was available as a product choice. I was told that in order to switch to the 100% juice option, individual schools simply needed to request it. Ask your county for 100% fruit juice. A high fructose corn syrup-laden juice drink is not an acceptable option for our children. And, as one parent so innocently asked at a recent meeting, "Why do the kids have to get calcium from orange juice anyway?" That's the kind of thinking that will truly make a difference. Ever hear of yogurt? Cottage cheese? Collards, broccoli, kale? And let's stop saying kids won't eat that stuff. They do, if they have grown up with it.

3. Fresh Fruits and Veggies. My National School Lunch Program (NSLP) research indicates that farm-fresh food procured through the Department of Defense's Procurement Buying Office qualifies for federal reimbursement if it meets certain criteria. Not only that, but a provision within the NSLP requires schools to buy local and buy fresh, when available. It IS available. We can and should know exactly what fruits and vegetables are procured locally or regionally. Questions: Is your county procuring any food locally? Does the county have a relationship with your regional DOD PBO buyer? If not, you can forge that relationship.

4. Water. Must we really fight for the availability of water for our children at lunch? My younger daughter is not allowed to get up and fill her water bottle during lunch. Or, if she is really allowed to do this, she believes she's not allowed because the administration has put so much fear into the children about talking, moving, breathing or otherwise disrupting their overcrowded school.

4. Real Change. Schools that are truly improving their school lunch programs are working outside the parameters of the NSLP. Let's face it--the program is a dumping ground for the lowest quality meat in our country, and if you think the beef thing that happened in the last couple weeks is an exception, you are mistaken. What's more, the vegetables are grown with pesticides and synthetic fertilizers and shipped cross-country. The grains are loaded with GMOs. Everything is processed. But the county cannot change that alone--it requires activism on the federal level and changes in the Farm Bill to make a difference on our nation's children's lunchtime plates. See www.angrymoms.org. We are not alone.

Innovative school lunch programs include three important components: organic farm-to-school food availability, school gardens (required in every single California public school, as stated in California Assembly Bill 1535), and nutrition education. Ask the county what is available through its office in these three areas, and what the county would be willing to add to its office's efforts through designation of select schools as a pilot program for your county in a truly comprehensive and real school lunch improvement program. The next questions, then, become what are the parents willing to pay for out-of-pocket? And what is the PTA willing to fund?

Do I dare even suggest that we make some sort of attempt to make mealtime pleasant for our children and teach them how to honor their food, rather than bogging them down with cafeteria rules?

My number one recommendation is zero tolerance for things that don't make sense and that are compromises regarding our children's health. If we as moms don't say, "Enough," then no one will.

Schools Go Green

Heard buzzing in my garden the other day and thought it was the bees that have reappeared, big and fat and hungry, zipping from tatsoi to arugula flowerheads. But no. It's the ever-growing buzz of Earth Day 2008 in the air. This April 22 will be the biggest, most important Earth Day since the launch of that event in 1970 (when I performed as a tree on my elementary school stage!) Not a day goes by now without me getting another press release about some amazing Earth Day happening, partnership or call-to-action. The one I received the other day made me sit up and exclaim, "Wonders never cease!"

Turns out my very own school district, Dekalb County, Georgia, is taking a leadership position on becoming a more environmentally conscious school district, with plans that include green cleaning, water conservation, a lighting improvement plan and a system-wide recycling program (no mention of a single organic carrot, however). Dekalb's efforts to "go green" go hand-in-hand with the district's new partnership with The Clean Air Campaign. Apparently, Dekalb County School System is the first system in the United States to develop a comprehensive partnership with The Clean Air Campaign.

Hmmm. Times, they are a changin'. Right here in little ole' Georgia. Right here in my backyard, and I don't mean because of the bees. There was even mention about the Dekalb Master Gardening Program, a research-based learning program that uses the environment as an integrated context for learning (although there is no specific mention of organic school gardens). This could be huge, especially considering my younger daughter's school has an outdoor classroom that is just about a year old now and I have yet to see anyone use it, and my older daughter goes to a brand new school with tons of greenspace that is completely covered with pesticide-laden grass and the children stay inside the hermetically-sealed building all day long.

Want your school district to get in on the action? Here's a great way to start--go to earthday.net and click on the clever Green Schools apple/globe graphic on the left. Find out what your school district can do about food changes, environmental curriculum integration, policies and civics, and facilities improvements. The program's goal is to "green" all of the nation's k-12 schools within a generation.

There's hope, folks. There's hope.

The Exciting Return of Flat Stanley!

I opened an envelope from my niece in New Jersey the other day and, lo and behold, who came bounding out to say hello? Flat Stanley! He was a little shorter and a little wider than the one that my daughter brought home back in the fall, the one that longtime readers of FoodShed Planet will remember went to visit Kate and Maggie in Australia and somehow ended up touring the 2008 Olympic city of Beijing with the most lovely Chinese children.

For those who don't know, Flat Stanley is a book about a kid named Stanley Lambchop (gotta' love that name) who becomes flat accidentally and mails himself. It is a bit of a rite of passage to read this book in one of the lower grades in elementary school in the United States and then to make your own Flat Stanley and mail him to someone. It is a great honor to receive a Flat Stanley in the mail, to know that of all the options that that child had, he or she chose you.

And so I felt extraordinarily humbled by this honorable selection, and after seeing what Kate and Maggie did with my daughter's Flat Stanley, I also felt a bit inadequate. I don't have a boat to take Flat Stanley sailing, the way Kate did, or the exciting wattleseed bush and ice cream to show Flat Stanley enjoying, like Maggie did. Atlanta has nothing near as picturesque and newsworthy as Tiananmen Square in Beijing, and the Olympic hoopla has long since vanished from our 1996 Olympic city.

There, in the letter from my niece, however, was a mention that her class was particularly interested in showing what Flat Stanley did to be of help. Ahhhhh. Now I was on more solid ground. If Stanley wanted to help, help he would.

And so I will be sending pictures to my niece this week of Stanley using a rain barrel and reducing his (albeit tiny) carbon footprint by bike riding and mowing the lawn. Of Stanley enjoying the recycled go-cart we picked from a garbage and helping my mom in her wheelchair and playing in a contemporary bottle tree (made with recycled water bottles and a "repurposed" Christmas tree). In short, of Stanley moving in with us and living our life, day in and day out, in all its simplicity. And perhaps, just as my children have never seen a live kangaroo (although my daughter's Flat Stanley has!), perhaps my niece has never seen a rain barrel. Or a push reel lawn mower. Or chives when they flower. And perhaps she'll find that cool.

At least that's my hope.

The Year the Lights Came On

The main road in my town is on the top of a ridge, like Mulholland Drive in Los Angeles but without the view of Hollywood. It's an old Cherokee trail, I hear, and from its vantage point you can see down in the valley, although there is no river, just a long row of power lines, which always remind me of Terry Kay's touching novel, The Year the Lights Came On (about when electricity finally came to the poor side of a rural Northeast Georgia town, the same year the main character, an 11-year-old boy, fell in love for the first time). A calf-busting steep hill, illuminated by a crescent moon and the brightness of Polaris, gets us out of our neighborhood and onto the ridge. Then, a long, fun, who-needs-amusement-parks descent on the other side of the road where hardly anyone stops to let us cross, even though we ride out of our way to go to the crosswalk, gets us to school.

On the ride home, alone, the sun pops over the horizon as I blink the blinding light away and soak my exhilerated muscles in its sudden warmth. Passing a line of bumper-to-bumper cars filled with office workers drinking coffee and talking on cell phones, I smell the cloyingly sweet aroma of honeysuckle yet again, like the smell of Dunkin Donuts when you ascend from the Long Island Railroad on track 19 at Penn Station in New York.

And in that moment, when I turn into my neighborhood for the final gift of a downhill and stick my nose into the wind like a dog in the backseat of a 1970s wood-paneled station wagon, anything is possible.

And I think about the reports that came out this week, nothing new, really, that our nation's kids are not getting enough exercise, and I hear the parent who told me that his child earns this or that, I don't remember, an iPod perhaps, if she rides her bike to school ten times. I hear Ralph Waldo Emerson's words in my mind right then. The reward of a thing well done is to have done it. And I want to shout, "The reward for riding to school ten times is riding to school ten times."

I take a final, wide turn into my driveway, and lean into the momentum so I zip up to the garage with no effort at all. I squeeze my brakes to stop, kick down the kickstand, snap off my helmet and shake my hair loose. I have been to school, to Los Angeles and to New York in the last 40 minutes. I have traveled with Cherokees, touched hearts with great writers, and even discovered my inner Bassett Hound. No. I don't need an iPod.

The Big Dog

I used to walk to school every day, and as an obsessive Virgo my whole life, I always made a point to arrive early, even after kicking a rock the whole way (which was not easy down those stairs and through that tunnel under the Long Island Rail Road tracks).

In the dead of winter, we'd line the hallways with our snow-covered boots and they'd drip into puddles until the whole hallway was a bit of a sloshy mess. Our gloves and hats and scarves would lay across the radiators in the classroom, crusting up with hardness and cracking when we again put them on. But getting to school early meant I would be the only person in the hall, and I loved the quiet and stillness of that time of the day. Still do.

When I was in third grade, I got to enjoy an extra treat, because my teacher would display a famous poem on a door-sized piece of butcher paper, which she would change each month (which was as good as Christmas to me). I would stand in the hall in my wet boots, alone and happy, and memorize it.

And so, it is with great joy that I walk my children into each of their schools. And every so often, I see something new in the hallway that makes me stand there, gape-mouthed with wonder, as if I were back at Corpus Christi School in Mineola again. And the other day, this was it. Simple sheets of black construction paper, on which children had stuck those little gold star stickers and used chalk lines to connect them to form the constellations. Each star had a hole poked in it, and through it were Christmas lights that connected down the line, from constellation to constellation.

My daughter's teacher, seeing me standing there and perhaps recognizing the little girl in me, took the plug from the lights, which was dangling near the door, and plugged it in just inside the classroom. As Canis Major and the others came to life, it literally took my breath away.

The bell now rung, children poured down the hall. If we had been up North, it would only have been moments until the Boot Puddle formed. One after another, the children stopped short and gasped along with me. They pointed. They grabbed their friends to show them. They oohed and aahed.

My daughter's teacher smiled broadly beneath her glasses. Because, after 42 years of teaching, she knows. The lights are not just going on for those constellations. The lights are going on--and staying on--inside these children. With or without boots.

Canis Major is the Big Dog in the Sky, who follows the hunter Orion. The brightest star in the sky, Sirius, forms its nose. The three main stars of Canis Major are called The Winter Triangle in the Northern Hemisphere, and the Summer Triangle in the Southern Hemisphere (another shout-out to my friends in Australia here!)

As a special gift to my daughter's teacher, my third grade teacher, and teachers and poem-lovers everywhere, I share with you this poem by Robert Frost:

Canis Major

The great Overdog
That heavenly beast
With a star in one eye
Gives a leap in the east.
He dances upright
All the way to the west
And never once drops
On his forefeet to rest.
I'm a poor underdog,
But to-night I will bark
With the great Overdog
That romps through the dark.

--by Robert Frost

For us Northern Hemisphere folks, the dead of winter may have us huddling inside more. But this poem reminds me to head on outside on a starry night. And look up. Because even though many of us are celebrating holidays punctuated by lights and candles right now, I am humbled by the great show of lights that happens each night in the sky, which we can all enjoy together, whatever it is we celebrate and wherever we are.

But right now, I have something special to do, something I should have started doing a long time ago.

And, yes, it involves butcher paper and a fat magic marker.

SPIDERS

"Come Back. It's Time."

The zipper spiders have arrived! Also known as a yellow spider, banana spider, and writer spider, this spider is officially called an Argiope aurantia. Although enormous and sort of scary looking, argiopes won't bother you (or the children who love to observe them). In fact, they pretty much just hang out there in their very cool, large webs with the zig-zag through it and catch bugs, unless they are hiding by a leaf in the heat of the day.

Once they appear in my garden, always at this time of the year, I spend far too much time out there photographing them from every angle. So I may start inundating you with Daily Argiope photos! Frankly, I think the purpose, for me, of the argiope's arrival is to get me back out in the garden, observing, weeding, connecting on a daily basis, after a few months of doing the bare minimum because of the heat. The argiope is nature's way of saying, "Come back. It's time."

Even now, in the dark of morning, I feel anxious to see my argiope. She (the big ones are females) made her web between a window screen and a lavender bush, right on the edge of the herb garden bed that butts up to my house. In other words, when I open my back kitchen door, there she is. I imagine, perhaps, deep inside, that one day I'm going to walk out there and see that, instead of a zipper, she has written me a message. Unlike Charlotte from Charlotte's Web, who wrote "Some pig," the words Wilbur needed to hear, I wonder what words my argiope will write me? What words do I need to hear?

E.B. White, the author of Charlotte's Web, wrote in a letter to a young fan:

In real life, a spider doesn't spin words in her web . . . But real life is only one kind of life—there is also the life of the imagination. And although my stories are imaginary, I like to think that there is some truth in them, too—truth about the way people and animals feel and think and act.

SPROUTS

Ethnically-Diverse New York City Subway Car at Rush Hour

Yes! Success! My little sprout container is working like a charm, and a candy-shop-full-of-beans is sprouting as we speak. Mung beans. Adzuki beans. Cow peas. Chickpeas. Lentils. Beet and broccoli sprouts. I threw them all in there and they're riding the train from seed to sprout like an ethnically-diverse New York City subway car at rush hour.

Mung beans, also called Chinese bean sprouts in the States and green grams in Europe, are originally from India (where they are the most prized lentil) but are now grown extensively in southeast Asia, South America and Australia (and in my kitchen in Atlanta, Georgia). A handful of mung bean sprouts has two-thirds of an adult's daily requirement of vitamin C. Protein-packed, energy-dense and sweetly crunchy, mung beans (and these other sprouts as well) are a vegetarian's dream. I threw a bunch on my just-picked-from-the-garden-salad last night of tatsoi, arugula, buttercrunch and deer's tongue lettuces, collard greens, Swiss chard, lemon balm and cilantro. Mmmmm. For those of you not yet harvesting from your kitchen garden, growing sprouts is a great way to "dig in" early.

I'm new to this seed sprouting effort, so I don't have a lot of recommendations for you yet. The big lesson I've learned so far? You absolutely have to rinse the seeds twice a day in order to keep them from getting moldy. That's where I suppose the seed sprouter device (mine was about twenty bucks) comes in more handy than simply sprouting seeds on a paper towel (although you can do that, too, apparently). The device has holes in it so rinsing is easy and air circulates freely.

And so, I'm searching for a source of bulk organic sprouting seeds (I'll be going through lots of seeds every week, if I keep this up). This site looks promising.

I'm reading up on the different types of "grain legumes." Here's a particularly interesting site from France.

And I'm rinsing. Twice a day.

STRAWBERRIES

There's No Business Like Grow Business

Ethel Merman may have sang, "There's no business like show business," but when it comes to strawberries, a toxic chemical named methyl bromide would probably sing, "There's no business like grow business." That's because industrial strawberry growers, as well as growers of more than 100 crops on industrial farms, depend on this toxic chemical to control insects, nematodes, weeds, and pathogens. Strawberry and tomato fields are regularly fumigated with methyl bromide before the crops are planted.

The shocking part? Methyl bromide should have been gone by now. Under the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, the EPA was directed to implement aspects of the Montreal Protocol, a treaty to phase out chemicals that destroy the Earth's protective ozone layer. As a result, production of methyl bromide was supposed to end January 1, 2005 except for "critical uses" for which there are no safer alternatives.

Additionally, according to the National Cancer Institute:

The latest report from the AHS evaluated the role of 45 pesticides and found that only a few of them showed evidence of a possible association with prostate cancer among pesticide applicators. Methyl bromide was linked to the risk of prostate cancer in the entire group, while exposure to six other pesticides was associated with an increased risk of prostate cancer only among men with a family history of the disease.

The good news? Methyl bromide use has definately dropped, with ongoing signs of declining use.

The bad news? Those big, fat strawberries you see in the supermarket for that wonderful price of 2 packages for $5 were probably bathing in the stuff.

The alternative? I know, I know; organic strawberries are hard to find. They're small. They're irregularly shaped. And they spoil quickly. But the flavor is like nothing else, and the health benefits to our bodies and planet are hard for me to ignore. And when my family polished off the strawberries (pictured above) we received in our first CSA delivery of the year yesterday from Riverview Farms, I knew I could feel good about it.

By the way, the Environmental Working Group's pesticide score for strawberries (the scale goes from 1-100, with 100 being the worst)is 82. It is #6 on the "Dirty Dozen" list (see the list here). Food for thought.

The $64 Question

I'm limiting my gas to $35 a week. I canceled the lawn guy. I gave up paper napkins and plastic cups and water bottles. Yes, to help the environment, but let's face it, with the way the economy is going, to save money, too, or at least not raise total expenditures. Because, in all honesty, if you're in touch with your food, there's no denying that food prices are going up, up, up. In fact, this year is the first year in something like the last ten that sales of organic food are showing declines instead of increases, not because folks don't continue to value organics over pesticide-grown or GMO foods but because they are trying to find ways to cut back on their bills. Hell, when I rode my bike to Kroger the other day and bought only enough that I could carry in my not-large panniers, it cost me almost a hundred bucks.

And so, when Charlotte's email came last week offering flats of her delicious organic strawberries, I sat there and debated. The strawberries are here now, and then they will be gone. If I buy a flat, I get my hands on a good supply, since I can hardly ever find organic strawberries at the supermarket (and strawberries are one of those things of which I really only want the organic version).

But $36 a flat? And how big is a flat anyway?

My friend Judy emailed me to see if I could pick up a flat for her, too, if I decided to get one. Okay, now, if I ordered two flats, the price dropped to $32 a flat. I would freeze them. Judy wanted to make jam. So we ordered.

The delivery was set for last Thursday, to Parsley's Catering, the same drop for our weekly CSA from Charlotte (which starts at the vague "end of May"). Charlotte usually arrives arround 10:30 AM, so I started calling Parsley's at about 11:30, and then each hour after that until I had to to leave for school and life beyond my home. No Charlotte. No Charlotte. No Charlotte. I called Judy and asked her the $64 question, "Are these strawberries really worth it?"

I was ready to cancel. But how do you cancel with a farmer who has picked her crop fresh for you, and is currently in transit to deliver it to you? You don't. But how do you turn your day upside down in order to acquire these delicacies? You just do. And that is definitely the challenge with buying local from a farmer you know in a city filled with traffic and a life filled with commitments. Judy has started a brand new CSA drop with Charlotte, which involves 64 families and has already resulted in a payment of mega-thousands of dollars to Charlotte. Managing expectations and encouraging folks to be flexible is going to be Judy's biggest challenge, I think. And mine, even after 6 years of this kind of challenging meet-up-with-the-farmer thing.

It was 6 PM before the strawberries and I connected. The strawberries were loose in the flat and frankly, although strikingly beautiful with a fragrance that permeated the car, the total number of strawberries was definitely less than I expected.

I made a quick phone call to Judy to let her know "the eagle had landed," and then Judy, who doesn't live around the block, came over in the rain, in the dark, for her flat.

She stood there and looked at it.

"That's it?" she exclaimed, which made me feel, at least, like I wasn't greedy and unrealistic.

I called Marc at Parsley's the next day, since he had ordered a flat, too.

"Was it what you expected?" I asked him, and he said yes, that a flat is 12 pints for about $3-$3.50 a pint, and he thought Charlotte's delivery was right on target. What's more, he said the pros at Parsley's did a quick taste test comparing Charlotte's strawberries, strawberries from another local organic farm, and non-organic strawberries from the supermarket and he said Charlotte's strawberries blew the other ones away.

Taste. I forgot about taste. We barreled through half the strawberries in no time at all, and the rest are in the freezer, precious strawberries that will be doled out like jewels.

I packed some for lunch and told the kids, "Cherish these." They know they cost almost a week's worth of gas. They know I spent an entire day trying to track them down, and then drove out of my way to pick them up. They know I stood there at the sink late at night washing them and laying them flat on a cookie tray to freeze them. They know that Charlotte grew them with care and intention. They know they matter.

Was it worth it? Well, if these are the last organic strawberries I eat this year, at least I know I had the best.

SUSTAINABILITY

Looking Underneath

The beautiful purple and yellow flowers of eggplants grow facing down, so you can't really see what's going on with them unless you lie on the ground and look up at them, or lift them up and look underneath. It's sort of like that with "green changes," too. You sometimes have to stop and look underneath the hustle and bustle of daily life to really see how you're doing.

Seven months ago, I read that Go Green book and took that carbon footprint test and made the laundry list of things we as a family could do to live lighter on the land. I'm going to "lift up" the flower and show what's been going on underneath:

* Our usage of every single utility (gas, water and electric) has been LOWER this year over last year, since April. Our big change? Awareness. That's it. What could we achieve if we actually try?!

* My auto gasoline bill has been slashed, slashed, slashed. Last month, my total gasoline costs were $67, during a month where gasoline hit $4.50 a gallon. I would say I'm averaging about 70 miles of driving a week now, usually because one weekend day usually involves a bit of an outing. Days go by without me getting in the car now. I actively look for ways to avoid it, especially by do more things locally and with alternative transportation. This past Saturday, for instance, we almost went ice skating or to the river to ride bikes, both of which would have involved about an hour of driving round-trip. Instead, we walked to the bus stop and took the bus to a book store (and a neighbor teenager tagged along for her first ride ever on the bus). We then walked to that bus stop and read our books (I had a book already, the girls bought one) before riding the bus and walking home. Very, very nice.

Here are the other items on the list that I was able to check off:

• Buy stainless steel water bottles and eliminate plastic water bottles
• Buy Brita water purifier container and reduce bottled water use
• Call utility company and inquire about green energy options
• Close doors to rooms when not in use and reduce energy use
• Reduce car trips. Period. Make chart to follow progress week-to-week
• Make exclusively vegetarian meals at home (reduces carbon output 50%)
• Limit showers to 5 minutes and save water
• Use rain barrel for watering plants
• Use cloth napkins only
• Reduce paper towel use (use hand towels) and use 80% post consumer
• Use glasses instead of paper cups
• Make homemade herbal tea and eliminate store-bought packaging
• Eliminate dry cleaning as an option
• Reduce lawn
• Eliminate gas-based lawn care and all chemicals
• Find a natural shampoo and conditioner that actually works
• Buy a reusable coffee filter and eliminate paper filters
• Increase yields of kitchen garden and reduce store-bought food needs
• Add food and native plantings to front and side yards
• Eliminate unwanted catalog mailings
• Let most magazine subscriptions run out (read online or at library)
• Never buy greeting cards or wrapping paper again
• Sign up at freecycle.com

These changes have become pretty seamless parts of my everyday life now. There are still lots of challenges--reducing packaging is the biggest one since there are very few bulk food options within twenty minutes of my home. Since I believe waste is a design failure, I am on the hunt to solve this problem (no shopping at Trader Joe's, for instance, where just about everything is overpackaged).

As for food, I have been able to maintain costs from last year even though prices have risen significantly. Unlike many people written about in the news lately, I have not altered my commitment to organics at all. In fact, I've probably increased it. The veg thing is the big difference, but I'm also making more and more things from scratch (veggie burgers, for instance, rather than buying a box of four for 5 bucks) and continuing to eat whatever my local farmers have, and whatever is growing in my garden. Finally, I'm allowing certain foods to become "treats" again. Olives. Grapes. Ice cream. Somehow, over the years, these had become everyday items, even though to get good, organic versions was expensive. And so we still have the good stuff. But far less often.

What we are doing comes nowhere near comparing to what off-the-grid homesteaders are doing. We're just a regular suburban family, living in a subdivision, going to work and school, seeing friends and movies and plays, being involved in our community, trying to make a little bit of a difference. And feeling richer than we did a year ago, despite everything that's happening "out there," because we've been focusing on what's "underneath," and on each other.

SUSTAINABLE CITY

Seeds of a New City

It rained and rained and rained this past weekend, glorious, welcome, much-needed rain. I could practically see my winter crops grow right in front of my eyes, the way-too-many tatsoi seeds I've planted, the radishes and mustard greens and lettuces and beets. And as I crouched out there yet again, a constant cool mist falling on my face between downpours, nibbling arugula like a little rodent, I thought of the other seeds I planted just four months ago, after the night I had that glass of beer at that tavern while finishing that book called Superbia and realizing I had a distinct opportunity right in my backyard as citizens of my Atlanta suburb had just voted to create a brand new city.

Except for a post here and there, I haven't told you all that much about it since then. Well, here is what has happened:

* I launched Sustainable Dunwoody, a daily blog with the intention of bearing witness to the creation of a new city and perhaps influencing a move toward sustainability.

* Two nearby communities launched sustainability blogs as well. We have since formed a loose Sustainable North Atlanta Alliance, and have connected with numerous other nearby communities and cities as well.

* At least half the City Council members read my blog regularly. Three of the members have expressed interest in pursuing Atlanta Regional Commission Green Communities certification for our new city. One of the members has been very vocal about this and is joining me in actively pursuing this, starting next week at a Green Communities workshop.

* I have laid out some potential initiatives for developing the framework for a local food security system for our city. With this in mind, I have signed up for an organic farming course sponsored by Georgia Organics and given at a farm not all that far away for seven solid Saturdays (7 hours a day) starting in late January, 2009 in order to build my knowledge base so that I can be more valuable to my community regarding food security (specifically, community gardening).

* I have been given a monthly column in the local nature center's newsletter to talk about sustainability issues. I invited citizens to answer a survey about what sustainability skills they would like to learn, and have received commitment from the nature center to hold free Sustainable U classes there, organized along with my friend Tracy and taught by citizens who have already volunteered to help. (Here is the survey, if you want to do something like this where you live).

* I have attended my first City Council meeting, interacted almost daily with council members, and am working toward the formation of a Citizen's Advisory Committee on Sustainability. I have accepted the very odd fact in my life that I am now actively involved (and loving) politics.

* I have learned that if you seek like-minded people, you will find them. That if you speak up, you will be heard. And that, yes, you can build a more beautiful city, state, country, world if you make that your intention.

And so, today, December 1, 2008, Dunwoody, Georgia is officially a city. And although I might have initially intended to have a front-row seat to watch its creation, I did what gardeners all over tend to do. I dug in.

And, you know what? It feels great.

Building a Beautiful World

This past July, the residents of my Atlanta suburb voted to become a city, as regular readers of Foodshed Planet know. Right then, right there, I decided to launch Sustainable Dunwoody, because I had nothing better to do than get up even earlier and write even more as part of my ever-growing commitment to advocating for sustainability close to home and around the world. It felt like something I just had to do, without questioning, mostly because I had made that list of things kids need to learn that they are not learning at school or in society anymore. Remember that? Here it is:

* How to grow your own food (and how to store it)
* How to ride a bike
* How to swim
* How to take care of where you live
* General etiquette/manners (and awareness of how it differs across cultures)
* How to access resources (physical resources as well as information)
* Basic "earth skill" survival knowledge
* Basic self defense
* Basic car maintenance
* How to use a variety of tools
* How to earn, manage, invest and share money
* How to recognize and follow your passion
* How to navigate a mass transit system
* How government works, and what influences it, both now and historically
* How to be a good citizen
* How to continually challenge yourself to broaden your mind and not settle for complacency
* The first-hand experience of volunteering
* How to sit still for two hours and read a book
* How to ask questions and not just give answers
* The pride and joy of memorizing a beloved poem. My personal fave is The Road Not Taken, by Robert Frost, especially since I memorized it while hiking in the woods.

And so, this city-at-our-doorstep opportunity became my passion. I collected all the advertisements candidates sent so we could read and compare them. I attended a candidate forum and stayed to meet several candidates. I emailed candidates, interviewed some on the phone, and met another in person to specifically discuss sustainability in our soon-to-be-city. I followed one candidate's blog religiously, and I displayed another one's sign on my pesticide-free front lawn, moving it to mow. I talked about all of this to my family, friends and neighbors obsessively. And yesterday, when my younger daughter and I rode our bikes in the dark, with our little lights on, to the voting place, she knew every single candidate and what he or she stood for. When we left, we ran into one of the candidates and it was as if we had run into a celebrity. She knew his name. She knew his platform. She knew his kids.

She knew his kids because they attend her school. And here's the thing that I suppose shouldn't have surprised me, but did. Even though her class is learning about democracy, even though they are specifically studying the difference between rural, suburban and urban, even though candidate signs are spinkled on lawns all the way to and from school, and even though several of those candidates are parents of children at this school, this right-here-in-our-backyard election was never once mentioned in school. It was never used as a learning opportunity. Civic responsibility was never discussed. The fact that government is made up of regular people that we know and pass each day at supermarkets and sporting events was never highlighted, enabling these young impressionable minds to imagine themselves one day making a difference in their own communities. Granted, I know the teachers have their own lesson plans and state and national requirements and I'm not asking them to change them. I'm just pointing this out as a crack that needs to be filled, apparently outside of school.

And so, my feelings about our "Things Kids Should Learn in Life" list above grow even stronger. The kids are not going to learn these things unless we teach them. Period. (I know that schools should not be responsible for teaching everything, but in the past kids would pick up lots of the knowledge above just from daily life. In today's world, they don't.)

In the meantime, our city council has been elected (and, by the way, only one person threw his hat in the ring for mayor, a 39-year-old man who is now the mayor of a 40,000-citizen city, without ever having to take out an ad or send a postcard or attend a forum. Kind of amazing). (Another fun fact--the person who won with the largest percentage was someone who accepted ZERO contributions and did NO advertising. How did he communicate? A blog!)

Our city starts operating December 1. And I continue to meet new people each day interested in sustainability. Yes, we can build a beautiful city. But, more importantly, we can develop knowledgeable children who will have the tools they need to build a beautiful world.

Each Dancing to Our Very Own Sound of Music

We were back up at the log cabin in Blue Ridge for New Year's Eve, and early that chilly morning, I sat on the wooden swing on the deck with my younger daughter and watched the trees blowing from side to side.

"They bend, you see, so that they don't break," I told her. Flexible, I thought to myself. They need to be flexible. I need to be flexible.

"They look like they are doing modern dance," my daughter replied, standing and raising her arms over her head. Swaying to a music only she could hear.

I thought about that the rest of the day, how life is a dance and how much more beautiful it is when we move with it. And how we each hear our own music, our own inspiration to move in a particular direction, if only we stop to listen for it.

And so, that brings me to the big news I have for you. Right before Christmas, my brand new city's City Council passed the resolution for which I had been advocating these last few months--to establish official sustainability objectives. Here is the resolution. The City is now officially pursuing Atlanta Regional Commission Green City Certification and has established an official Sustainability Board. And guess who was named Chair? A blogger kitchen-gardener with a little bit of passion. Yep, me.

I've spent the last few weeks working almost non-stop on this (along with all those holidays, and had I ever mentioned to you that my kids were in twenty five performances of The Sound of Music during the month of December?!). I've been reading, researching, meeting. Establishing my committee. Setting up flexible communications tools that make being on the board more sustainable when considering the demands on people's everyday lives and schedules. (Let's start at the very beginning. A very good place to start. When you read you begin with A-B-C. When you sing you begin with do-re-mi, I sang to myself.)

And as I watched those trees sway, I realized my life had changed, and that I had just been handed an enormous opportunity to make a measurable difference. I'd like to "climb every mountain" I'm facing right now. I'd like to do my very best job, and I'd like to develop my city's sustainability solutions in a way that is potentially scalable for others to use in their cities as well.

I'll be writing FoodShed Planet once a week now, on Sundays, to give you updates on what's happening here. To tell you about that farming course I'm taking (which starts at the end of January). To share insights I gain from the garden, of course. To let you know the latest on Richard of the Worms and Tracy of the Chickens (both of whom are on the sustainability board, by the way, along with my friends Ashley and Lisa and a number of folks I haven't even met in person yet) and Farmer D and Alan of the Appalachian Trail and David of the Stage and Judy of the CSA and Feliciomo (yes, we donated all those mailboxes to him to recycle for eight cents a pound) and all the others you've met along our journey together, plus the new "cast of characters" I'm about to meet.

And together, we can bend with the wind. Change with the times. And each hear our very own sound of music.

New Reasons to Work Together (or How the Bloodmobile Got Me Thinking)

My neighbor, Jennifer, arranged for the Bloodmobile to come right into our neighborhood yesterday, and a couple dozen of us donated blood (and yes, my vegetarian-fueled iron was way up!). The "blood people" told us that they hadn't gone to a neighborhood in as long as they can remember (they usually go to places of business and worship, schools, and community events) and I felt grateful that our neighborhood appears to be coming together a bit more lately.

As we hung out at the Bloodmobile, each taking our turns and lingering with snacks afterwards, we got to talking about how nice this was to get together like this to do something positive. How about helping build a house for Habitat for Humanity? Serving at a soup kitchen? Having an electronics recycling drive or a food bank drive? Not necessarily novel thoughts, but a new year. New connections. And new opportunities, and perhaps reasons, to work together.

I kept reading and rereading the words from the t-shirt we each received--my family, my community, my responsibility--and thinking about how much I've changed this last year. Here are the two biggest things I'm learning:

* Growth is incremental. I've noticed that each next step feels completely natural. What I wasn't capable of handling yesterday, I seem to be capable of handling today. And tomorrow, perhaps even more, if I continually allow myself to "trust the journey."

* Collaboration can be powerful. I can only accomplish so much sitting alone in my office, no matter how many technology tools I have at my fingertips. But joining with others can multiply my potential effect. However, it means letting go, trusting, and allowing group ideas to percolate to the top, in their own due time, in their own unique form. And for self-starter loners like me, that's a toughie, but I'm working on it.

So, much is happening here in my brand new city. I'm currently developing some communications tools that I hope will be scalable (with local customizations worldwide). In my new spirit of collaboration, I'd love your feedback on my "working copy" right now for a citizen sustainability brochure.

Thoughts While Chopping Beets (And a First Glimpse at Our Sustainable City Communications Materials)

It has been a solid month now since my CSA deliveries ended, and about three weeks since my garden got crippled from the cold (although the tatsoi marches on!), so it was no surprise to me how edgy I was becoming. Richard of the Worms even said to me the other day, "How long has it been since you've worked in your garden? Go outside!" For those of us who consider the daily touch and smell and bounty of that soil the elixir of life, three weeks away is an eternity.

Okay, fine, it wasn't from a local farm, but I went to Whole Foods and filled a big canvas bag with collard greens and kale and beets and the other things that I would get from Charlotte now, if now were a month sooner or later. And, as luck or serendipity or the divine forces of the universe would have it, the light streamed in just right in my kitchen that afternoon, causing me to stop, mid-sentence, mid breath, and just be in the moment. I pulled out the cutting board that had sat idle for awhile and stood there in the sun's striations slicing, the blood of the beets covering my knife and hands and counter in a glorious homage to life and death and its quiet intersection at this time of year, when all seems hopeless for ever gardening again yet magnolia buds round their furry heads and the garlic that the children of Open Garden planted on that raining day in November poke up and stretch their arms as if to say, "Time to get up!"

And I lingered there, at the kitchen sink, thinking, as I tend to do, the rhythmic slicing of the knife my soundtrack. This past week found me at City Hall (or, at least, my city's temporary rental space until we move into a space to which the City is now committed to renovating with LEED standards). I had gathered together members of the Atlanta Regional Commission, our sustainability citizens advisory board, our City Council, our City Manager and heads and representatives of our city's departments of finance and administration, community development, and public works. Commitments were made. Relationships were started. Forward progress was forged.

Yet I came home tired that day. Exhausted, actually. Mentally spent. But as I held in my hand the brochure design created by the wonderful Debbie Smith of Idbids fame (remember when she came over? How cool is that that we are now working to create something new together?!), I realized what a unique place we are at in our city. We voted for self-determination just seven months ago. We started operating as a city just six weeks ago. And we, each of us, continue to vote for the kind of city the place we call home will become each and every day, with the conversations we have, the policy decisions we impact, and the individual and collective actions we take.

Note how the flow of energy comes out of Dunwoody's location on the map. The colors represent the three aspects of sustainability: environment (green), business/economy (blue) and people (we're thinking the orange should be yellow in order to give a visual "nod" to the color of the Dunwoody street toppers that are already around our city in order to have branding cohesiveness with the City). I'd suggest the word "we" be italized so that it is highlighted more since we actually do have the power to create the city of our dreams!

I could really see something like this on a t-shirt or reusable shopping bag, couldn't you? The icon on the bottom could play out nicely as a series of icons that represent various aspects of sustainability--Walk Ability, Bike Ability, Recycle Ability, etc. Those would look great as small marks on bike racks, reusable coffee mugs, recycling receptacles around the City, etc.

Oh, and why not just do "Dunwoody Goes Green" and stick a leaf on a sketch of the farmhouse? Well, it appears to me that cities nationwide (and worldwide) have moved beyond just green to the bigger picture of three-pronged sustainability and it is my professional opinion as a marketing communicator that we would be wise to create something in line with this global reality.

What do you think? I am currently gathering examples of sustainability communications materials from cities around the world. If your city has something you think is particularly good, please post a comment that includes its link or send me the printed brochure, sticker or other materials at:

Pattie Baker
P.O. Box 88043
Atlanta, GA 30356
USA

We, each of us, can create a more sustainable city. And together? A better world. Let's do it!

Trying to Save Our Farmers Market (or How a Community Is Coming Together When the Rubber Hits the Road)

This may not look like much to you, but this parking lot (and many others around my new city of Dunwoody) is at the center of a flurry of "reply to all" emails sent this weekend among dozens of people in leadership positions from end to end of Dunwoody's 12-square miles.

The topic? Trying to save our farmers market. Yes, the one with Corinna and Melissa and Poppy the Goose and Cutie the Duck. That one. You see, the location where that market has been held the past few years will become unavailable this spring because of construction. Corinna, as market manager, has been trying to find a nearby location to which to relocate the market but has been getting tepid response. I told her that "supporting a farmers market" is on the Atlanta Regional Commission Green Community certification checklist, and since we are in official pursuit of that certification, and since I am chairing the Dunwoody Sustainability Commission citizen advisory board, I would bring it the attention of the city leaders with the hope that we could probably find a new spot.

I thought it would be easy. We have tons of unused space all over the city, with so much parking that you wouldn't believe it, with sidewalks that connect everywhere. The market already has a very loyal customer base, and frankly, it's just a group of tents for four hours one morning a week. How hard could this be?

Well, the first two days resulted in a sea of emails that went something like this:

1. Here are a bunch of potential locations.

2. Here are the problems with all those locations.

I drove around in the rain and took photos of the locations under consideration so that we could immediately rule out any that were too small (or that involved pesticide lawns, in my opinion) and so that we could more easily see the potential of the ones that seem to fit the bill.

This resulted in:

3. More emails about zoning ordinances and how farmers markets are not allowed.

At this point, I realized I was starting to do the "uphill climb." And for those of you who have known me awhile, you know I only do one uphill climb, and that's the one getting out of my neighborhood on foot or bike. When I start to meet the kind of resistance I was now meeting, I realize that the community may simply not be ready or may just not deem this issue important and it is time to walk away. So I sent an email that said:

"Gosh, could it really be this hard in Dunwoody to relocate a successful farmers market? How do so many other communities across the country do this? Have we come so far that something as simple as a farmers market is so complicated?"

I then asked if I should suggest to my farmer friends that they join the farmers market that is about to launch in a neighboring community (the one where Judy of the CSA lives). I ended with a completely honest thought: I'm not looking to waste anyone's time here. If farmers markets are too hard in Dunwoody, so be it.

When I went to bed last night, I was already thinking about the new way I would need to get my farm-fresh food this year. It would involve driving rather than bike riding, as I had been hoping, but it was still "doable." It would mean that my community had become a "local food desert," but I still had options. Besides, the 7-week, 35-hour farming course I'm taking starts next week so I'm anticipating that I will be able to increase my garden yields, so that will help. And I saw Farmer D and his adorable new shop the other morning (and check out his new show on the Mother Nature Network!) and we're talking about collaborating on rejuvenating a children's garden right here in Dunwoody, so that's good . . . . Focus on the positive, I told myself. Let the city go for now . . . All in due time . . . There are plenty of other good things here . . .

And then I woke up, and received emails from all ends of our city that the farmers market is something we want in this city, and that we will find a way to make it happen.

And you know what? It is clear to me that this farmers market is now ours, all of ours, and that the power we claim to have as an independent city is not just lip action. When the "rubber hits the road," like now with this farmers market, we truly have the ability to create a more sustainable city. And you know what? I think we will!

That wet and gray parking lot in the photo (and the ones in the sidebar today)? I can already smell the basil.

SWEET POTATOES

Having Us All Home in the "Lair"

It was one of those Sundays yesterday, where the sun streamed in the windows just so and a forgiving breeze blew and butterflies kept constant vigil at the zinnias. And we, my whole family, cooked, unexpectedly, from morning 'til night, with breaks for walks in the woods, planting fall transplants and seeds, reading, talking, laughing. My husband had the football game on and then the baseball game, a happy sports fan during that brief time of year when these two sports overlap, sort of like now in the garden when the summer and fall crops intersect like a Venn Diagram.

By the end of the day:

* We had made a batch of my Meal Muffins, with local raw honey and two big, fat white pattypan squashes from my garden in them.

* We made sweet potato pie (pictured above) with sweet potatoes from Alabama and the recipe from Cafe Sunflower.

* We made apple pie, with apples from Washington State, if you can believe it, because that was sounding downright local after the other options of apples from Brazil and New Zealand (and this, at Whole Foods, no less).

* We made vanilla ice cream, with local, free-range eggs, because for goodness sake, you don't make apple pie without it.

* And finally, we made a couple pizzas--one vegetarian (with Sweet Grass Dairy goat cheese), one with browned local ground turkey. Both with oregano and basil from my garden, and local heirloom tomatoes.

My kids like cracking the eggs, and working the apple peeler, and test-tasting the ice cream, and kneading the pizza dough. My husband likes seeing us all together, having us all home in the "lair." I like walking outside and then back in just to smell the cinnamon and sweet potatoes, apples and pizza yet again. But mostly, I like the way the day sort of stood still, suspended in time, separate from our everyday lives. The way we nourished our souls and spirits.

One of my children turned to me at the end of the day and said, "Today was like Thanksgiving!"

And yes, it was.

T

noreply@blogger.com (Pattie Baker) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 09:41:00 +0000

TERROIR

Linked to a Land I Am Growing to Love

As I was crossing the border from my sister-foodshed in Florida the other day, back to my foodshed, I stopped to buy some locally-grown goods that span both foodsheds, and I actually felt my heart swell with pride! Now, I've crossed this border many times before and never really felt this way. But this year, the oranges, grapefruits, peanuts, pecans, and Vidalia onions linked me to a land I am growing to truly love.

Even gazing out the window during my 13-hour drive, I reveled in the changing landscape, from palm trees to orange groves to live oaks dripping with Spanish moss, to my favorite, the perfectly lined-up pecan trees, their long elegant arms and Spring green leaves reaching for the sky. Georgia leads the nation in pecan production, and pecans are the only tree nuts truly native to the United States. (And by the way, I grew up, up North, saying "pe'-can" and am always thrilled to hear the soothing, elegant Southern pronunciation "pe-con'."

Locally-made chocolate from Chamberlain's (www.WeAreSweet.com) greeted my family Easter morning, as did the local, raw honey and grass-fed goat's milk cheeses from a foray I made to South Georgia a few weeks ago.

Ah, local. I feel the earth pulsating all around me with new growth and can only imagine the bounty ahead.

Discover Your Own Unique Terroir

This is Melissa. She is an organic farmer, and ask her to tell you that in sign language and she will, because Melissa is the Farmer Most Likely to Make Everyone Feel Included. I bought a purple basil plant from her this past Wednesday at the opening of the Farmer's Market (which really wasn't all that different from the unofficial farmers market meet-ups all winter, except now the farmers set up their booths). It is long and leggy and sort of needy, and Melissa patted it and smiled proudly as I nestled it under my arm like a lost kitten.

Cutie the Duck, who belongs to Corinna's kids, made her first official appearance of the season, and rumor has it there's a gosling preparing for its public debut soon as well. Wakeba is back from her winter selling shea butter in Miami Beach and the Gulla Festival on the coast in South Carolina. Chad the Milk Man now morphs into Rock Star Chad again as folks mill about waiting for his momentous arrival at 10:30 on a white steed (or, rather, in a white truck). Farmer Jeff with the herbs wasn't there, nor was Tommy Searcy with grass-fed meats, or a few of the other semi-regulars. But the season is young yet and hope springs eternal for a banner year at this small-but-growing market.

As I came home and dug a small hole to plant the basil, smiling at the thought of how rich my life has become, I realized something. Something important. Something that I'd love for those of you who are thinking about starting gardens to know.

It wasn't long ago that I first dug my fingers into soil warmed from sudden days of abundant sunshine, assessing its ability to house carrots and potatoes, beets and onions. Sweet humus, my life composted, now fills the space where once hard, red clay had been, here somewhere between Longitudes 81 to 85 degrees West and Latitudes 30 to 35 degrees North.

This place called Georgia, from which I do not hail yet now call home, holds seeds that feed my family beneath the soil. It is where I have tasted a tomato picked with the heat of the day still on its back, and where I have held the living, beating heart of this land in my hands, and in doing so, have put down roots.

I wonder about this sense of place, a sense of belonging to a distinct geographic region, a sense of taste that sometimes defies description—and for which we long when we are not here. A sense of what the wine folks call terroir.

I had the distinct pleasure of writing an article for Georgia Organics recently that was just published in Restaurant Forum, the official magazine of the Georgia Restaurant Association (which, interestingly, now has a growing constituency called The Green Foodservice Alliance). I titled it A Taste Called Georgia, and I talk about the role terroir plays in farm-fresh local food, now enjoying increasingly starring roles on restaurant menus (yes, those are my photos in the article of Jason Mann of Farm 255/Full Moon Cooperative and cheese from Sweet Grass Dairy).

I talk about how terroir means not just the discernible taste of specific geographic characteristics such as the length of the day, the slope of the land, and the mineral content of the soil, but also the length of conversations, the meandering slope of memory, and the content of relationships.

It can mean not just nuance that you taste, but that you feel, deep in your being. Hence, the presence of Melissa's laugh, and Corinna's knowledge, and Chad's graciousness in the food that graces my table.

As for me and my garden, I kneel on the wheat straw path beside my garden beds, and snip the last of the lettuce leaves, releasing the white, watery elixir of life they hold inside. I work my way around the garden, filling the bowl, walking and kneeling on paths that are slowly and continually decomposing into “black gold.”

I will eventually toss this enriched compost beneath the straw onto the beds and once more feed the plants that will feed my family, and my soul. I will taste the richness of this soil, this terroir, and the memory of this moment in the sun, and the intention with which I care for my little place of earth. And I will know that I am home.

And this powerful ability to finally define where it is that I call home is a surprise to me, a gift of "eating close to home" that I never expected.

And so, to you, reluctant gardeners who are thinking that perhaps it is time to put hands and hoes in that dirt beyond your door, I offer you encouragement. Find your way home. Plant your garden today. And discover your own unique terroir.

Don't know where to start? Start here.

TOMATOES

They're Baaaaaaaaaaack!

Oh, no. Every year I think, "maybe not this year," and sure enough, there comes a day when I see the telltale signs, the decimated remains of whole branches of my tomato plants. And I know they are there. I know it. I stand still and look, carefully, up and down each branch, confident that the Japanese-horror-flick-like tomato hornworm is right before my eyes. That I just don't see it, camouflaged so perfectly that I sometimes touch its fat and squishy body, a truly horrible sensation, before seeing it. And then, there it is, in all its prehistoric glory--or should I say gory. A rush of adrenalin surges through my body. I even think I hear the theme song from Jaws.

And I wonder. What else is right before my eyes that I don't see? What else is camouflaged in my life--or what do I camouflage about myself that keeps me hidden from others? What am I missing? And what do I do with that information once I discover it?

Back to the tomato hornworm. I clip the branch on which it grips and drop it into a large cup of soapy water, as every gardener book recommends. Yet. I. Feel. Bad.

Please--don't email me to tell me to get over it. I can't help it, or rather, I don't want to rationalize away this new feeling. I don't want to camouflage it. I have come to the belief that the delicate balance in my garden is necessary, that the rabbits who eat my purple beans and the chipminks who run off with every sunflower seed and the birds who dip into the berries are all necessary. And I welcome them, along with the bees and butterflies who pollinate and the other beneficial insects who add obvious value.

What good does that tomato hornworm do? Or is it just that I do good by feeding a living creature, without judgment? And does that positive energy then come back to me, or get added to the world, in other ways? And if I decide, okay, I'm not going to drop tomato hornworms in cups of soapy water anymore, what do I do so that they don't destroy my whole crop? Or do I care? How do I more fully embrace this Zen of gardening? Or have I truly gone over the deep end?

Cool! Let Me Get My Camera!

We all have our own way of measuring our growth in life. Physically, on the door frame, an inch at a time. Mentally, with a seemingly sudden ability to finally do a particular math computation or understand a French idiom. Spiritually, that moment when we can finally let go and trust.

And, what would this be? Emotionally, I suppose, when we come across a tomato hornworm by surprise and DON'T SCREAM, as opposed to the last time we saw one. When we don't get that sinking, sick feeling in the belly of our being. When the thought of touching it doesn't turn our knees to slop. And when we no longer have an immediate desire to drown it in soapy water.

And so, I am proud to report my undeniable emotional growth when I encountered this beauty the other day. It went something like this,

"Cool! Let me get my camera!"

Yes, I have changed.

TRANSPORTATION

A First-in-the-Nation Partnership

I tapped into my local newspaper yesterday and saw a detail that had me exclaiming, "Well, wouldja' look at that!" Turns out Dr. Crawford Lewis, the Superintentendent of my county's school system, delivered a speech this past Saturday (when I was at a party at my local chocolatier's!) that included mention of the school system's partnership with the Clean Air Campaign. Apparently, it is the most comprehensive, "first-in-the-nation" partnership between a school system and a state-wide non-profit dedicated to motivating its state's residents and businesses to take action to improve air quality and reduce traffic congestion.

So I called the Clean Air Campaign and reached the Director of Programs and Employee Services, Michael Williams. He told me that the Clean Air Campaign's program with Dekalb County offers $3 per day to teachers for using commute alternatives such as biking, walking, or carpooling to work. Additionally, employees for whom it makes sense will be encouraged to telecommute. And "school pool" carpool matching will encourage parents to carpool when dropping off kids, reducing car congestion and pollution.

Additionally, the Clean Air Campaign offers free expert consulting services and approved curriculums for grades 4 through 8. It also has an anti-idling campaign, and my goodness, folks can idle all day long here in Atlanta. I've seen parents sit in idling cars for over an hour, especially in the heat of summer while their children are concluding their eight solid hours at an outdoor camp, just keeping cool and chatting on the cellphone.

In addition to this new partnership, the Dekalb County school system also has the first and only sugar-free school in the United States. There is hope, my friends. There is hope. We'll get included in that Organic Gardening list of "cities going green" yet!

I wrote a whole slew of things about commute alternatives for the Atlanta Regional Commission (an organization that works with other community partners, such as the Clean Air Campaign, to maintain and improve Atlanta's quality of life) about 12 years ago, including materials that encouraged commute options during the 1996 Olympics here in Atlanta. At the time, talk of such things was pretty new. I asked Mr. Williams how Atlanta businesses have embraced commute alternatives since then. Turns out:

1000 employers in Atlanta (with at least 100 employees each) have officially signed partnerships with the Clean Air Campaign.

This means they offer commute alternative options to their employees, which, when utilized, reduce traffic congestion, improve air quality, potentially improve their employee's health and often serve as a recruitment and retention tool.

So, back to the schools. If this partnership is voluntary, it requires a champion at each school. And frankly, at my children's overcrowded, over-tested schools, I'm not sure what will come of it. But I know that the crossing guard (who also works in my favorite health food store) almost got hit the other morning by a parent racing through traffic. And I witnessed a car in the carpool lane do a series of unsafe, downright rude things just yesterday morning, illustrating even more the breakdown in civility that is happening here in Atlanta. So I already put a call in to the PTA president. And I continue to do what I think I do best. Hope. (And think of catchy tag lines for the campaign!)

Wait--one final thought. What is the deal with us parents driving our kids to school anyway? There was absolutely no such thing as a car drop-off lane outside a school when I was a kid. You either took the bus, walked or rode your bike. Period. What on earth has happened to us?

A Breakdown in Southern Hospitality

So getting out of my neighborhood gets harder and harder, for two clearly identifiable reasons--one, traffic, which has increased exponentially since I moved to Atlanta from New York 18 years ago (has it been that long already? Where am I from anymore?), and two, what I'm guessing we can call a bit of a breakdown in the infamous Southern hospitality that so blew me away years ago when drivers would actually back up to let folks in.

And after countless mornings of close-call moments where I felt like my life was hanging in the balance trying to make a left onto the main road, I threw up my hands and exclaimed, "That's it. In 2008, I make only right hand turns. I'm done with lefts." And every day in December I thought about this. Could I do it? Could I only make rights? Of course I would need to write about it, so my mind got filled with thoughts of that, of how making only right hand turns could lead to trying to make only right decisions. And what, exactly, is right? And what would I call this exciting, sure-to-fly-off-the-shelves memoir? No Left Turns? Right Turns Only? You can see the abyss to which I descended rapidly on this fruitless journey.

My family hated the idea. My friends scoffed. I then shared this with a client of mine, whose office, thankfully, is to the right, and he said, "Pattie, get a pencil and paper. Now try to get to your child's school. You're going in a circle, Pattie, don't you see? You're not going to get anywhere! You're going to waste time--and gas. It doesn't work."

Okay, he had a point. But if I started riding my bike to the supermarket . . . And taking the bus to karate . . . And doing all business meetings by phone . . . And never leaving my house . . .

And it was about then when I heard about someone else who had this idea. Someone big.

I represent just one vehicle. But what if I were a global corporation with 88,000 vehicles and 15 million daily deliveries and I decided not to make left hand turns? What if I used package flow technologies that include preloading vehicles in the morning, routing drivers according to volume and favoring right-hand turns? Well, if I were UPS, the worldwide package delivery company (at whose headquarters here in Atlanta I worked, by the way, as a marketing communications project manager specializing in national sales), and I decided to do this, I would save time (rights are faster), I would save fuel (54 million gallons a year for a cost savings of something like 150 million dollars), and yes, by making this one little change, I would help save the planet. Not to mention my sanity.

Bravo to UPS for recognizing that little things matter. Now, if a UPS driver would just let me out of my neighborhood this morning, I'd appreciate it!

A Path that Connects

There is a path that runs between my house and my neighors' house. Years ago, when the kids were little, they ran from house to house down the path. I'd look outside my kitchen window and the neighbor kids would have suddenly appeared, now digging with my kids in the dirt.

But over time, their lives got busy. Our lives got busy. And the blackberry brambles took over the path. I'd still clear it out once or twice a year, and the kids would still come over. Sometimes.

Last year, I don't think I cleared it out at all. Little trees started to grow. Sweet Carolina jasmine wound its way up and down and across the scratchy juniper bushes, which pushed ever onward into the once-open carefree space that connected our worlds.

At the last Open Garden, the kids who came moved all the wood they had been chopping for the last few weeks onto this barely-perceptible path. Then, I ran into my neighbors twice last week, out and about in our town. Their children are taller, older versions of the children that I knew. They haven't joined us yet at Open Garden since they are not home at that time of the day. But they are home lots of other times. And the path connects us. Or could.

So, yesterday, I took those big clippers and out I went. I fought back the thorny blackberry canes (and picked the thorns out of my clothes for ages afterwards). I trimmed the juniper bushes and pulled the Carolina jasmine until long ropes of it were in my arms. I added all this to the compost pile, and spread wheat straw down the path. I shouted to my kids to come look, and their eyes grew wide when they turned the corner and saw it, beckoning to them for the first time in a long time. A simple symbol that nurtures people. A path that connects.

I looked over the fence but never saw my neighbors while I was working. I suppose they weren't home, or were busy inside. I suppose they have no idea I did this yet. I'm tempted not to call them, to just let them discover the fresh straw and the clear path. And to find their way back, as I am trying to find mine.

Civic Duty (Or, What Happened to My Mom, According to a Nice Man Named Brian)

This is my mother, whom you have met in several stories of mine this past week. Yesterday, she joined my daughters and me at Team Chicken. Here is she is, just after sweeping out the coop. Happy.

As my younger daughter said when we went out for a snack after hanging out with the chickens for a very long while, "This is one of the best days of my life." As my mother said, "I love to join all of you on your adventures."

Right now, my mother is in the hospital, with several broken bones, on her way into surgery. Her car was hit by someone who ran a red light. A very kind man named Brian called me and told me how he witnessed the accident. How my mother's car spun around several times and is now completely totaled. How the man in the other car admitted to the police officer that he ran the light.

And so, as I wait, here with sleeping children, for my husband to call again from the hospital, I am braced for whatever I need to do to help my mother. But first, I wanted to take this moment to say thank you to this Brian, this stranger, who told me he was simply doing his civic duty.

Perhaps more of us can remember to do our civic duty when we are driving. When we are in a hurry. When we don't want to get stuck for that red light. Perhaps we can remember that the person in that other car is a grandmother. Or a dad. Or a sister. Or a friend. Perhaps we can remember that life is precious, and that it can be gone in a blink.

Perhaps we can just slow down.

What Is My Limit?

Two Fridays ago, when I stopped at the gas station to fill up, I saw the others around me doing the same thing, watching the meter tick, tick, tick ever higher, the difference between "gallon" and "dollars" growing ever wider. It seems like only yesterday that gas was about a dollar a gallon and these two numbers were almost identical.

This day, my meter was going abnormally slow so I had time to think, and every gallon suddenly seemed intentional. I looked up at the sign that listed the cost of a gallon and asked the guy next to me the rhetorical, exasperated question, "What is the limit?"

And then it hit me. The question, for me, as an individual, is not, "What is the limit?" It is, "What is my limit?"

I did quick calculations and decided that, with all the bases I have to cover in a day, between work and kids and life, I'd be willing to pay $7 in gas. If I were in NY and were taking mass transit, I'd pay that amount easily. So $49 for the week. That is my limit, I decided right then and there. And when the meter got to $49, I stopped. Period. I replaced the gas pump and patted it gently and said, "See you next Friday, pal."

And so I told my family my plan. I wasn't putting a drop more gas into that car for another week. We rode buses and bikes and walked and skipped some trips and doubled-up on others--all things that we were already doing, but last week we did more of it. Friday came and went and I still had plenty of gas.

My older daughter and I ran some quick numbers on how much gas we used that week, and how much money we saved for every mile we didn't drive.

"We can do even better," she told me.

I stopped by to see my pal, Pumpy, again yesterday. And this time I put $35 of gas in my car instead of $49. Because this, we can do.

I hear bike sales are skyrocketing. Mass transit is packed. Sales of smaller, more energy-efficient cars are through the roof. Together, we have power. We determine the limit. And we can change the world.

As for Every Monday Matters? I'm leaving the book behind now, folks. Because I have my own trail to blaze. On foot.

The Most Surprising and Wonderful Thing Has Happened

(Click on the video above for musical accompaniment to this post)

So I'm riding my bike home after riding with both my daughters to their schools and picking up a newspaper for my dad yesterday morning, as opposed to sitting in this typical morning traffic, and I chatted with a MARTA bus driver (he gets two new passengers every time the gas price goes up ten cents), and a new MARTA rider (he has been riding for a week now and is saving eight dollars a day). I had lovely conversations with no less than six senior citizens out walking. I waved hello to the guy watering the plants (with grey water, I hope!) at a nearby coffee shop. I shouted hello to the guard at the community center. I discussed wood rot with a neighbor of mine who was up on a ladder fixing some. And I made it past several dogs who are now so used to me they no longer bark when I ride by.

And then, coming down that last hill, I broke out in the song that seemed to fit best:

Sunny Day
Sweepin' the clouds away
On my way to where the air is sweet

Can you tell me how to get,
How to get to Sesame Street

Come and play
Everything's A-OK
Friendly neighbors there
That's where we meet

Can you tell me how to get
How to get to Sesame Street

It's a magic carpet ride
Every door will open wide
To Happy people like you--
Happy people like
What a beautiful

Sunny Day
Sweepin' the clouds away
On my way to where the air is sweet

Yes, my friends. After all these months of bike riding around my town, after now feeling like I know every single crack, every single shop owner and jogger and walker and dog, the most surprising and wonderful thing has happened. I, apparently, have moved to Sesame Street. And I didn't even have to sell my house.

How Things Have Changed

"Wow!" my husband exclaimed when he opened the bill for my gasoline card (I charge it on a designated card for easy recordkeeping). For the entire month of June, during which time I rode my bike a total of about 80-100 miles, I spent $105 on gasoline. As I committed to doing back at the beginning of May, I go to the gas station no more than once a week (I have waited as long as 12 days) and put in exactly 35 dollars worth of gas.

And here is what has happened:

* Confidence and Fitness. Both my kids seem more aware and more confident than before we started this bike-riding (as long-time FoodShed Planet readers know, we had been riding to school for awhile as well). They are also very strong. Atlanta is a hard place to ride, for many reasons (urban planning issues such as no bike lanes and safety issues such as speeding cars), but predominantly because it is very, very hilly. It took us awhile to get to the point where we had sufficient strength and cardio-fitness, but now that we do, bike-riding is extremely enjoyable. Hard work=achievement=enjoyment. Not a bad lesson.

* A Growing Movement. We seem to have joined in solidarity with every other "alternative commuter." This is a particularly fun development. Every bus driver, moped rider, walker, bike rider and an occasional Smart Car or 3-wheeled ZapCar driver waves at us. We clap and cheer for all of them, and somehow we are all becoming connected into a woven fabric in our community. Strangers come up to us when we are locking our bikes and say, "I bike, too," as if we share a secret handshake.

* Community Connections. We know more of our neighbors. We stop and pet dogs. We chat at corners. We buy lemonade from children's stands. We notice more. We participate more. We connect more.

For instance, we have made friends with an elderly woman. Her husband died about a year ago and she just started walking again recently. We see her every day and she gives a big, fat wave from half a block away when she sees us coming. We stop and straddle our bikes as she tells us all about her life and asks us about ours. We don't see her on Fridays because this woman, who has a daughter in her 60s (so you can imagine her age), drives to Midtown, Atlanta to deliver Meals on Wheels to house-bound seniors who are younger than she is.

* The Timelessness of Summer. We have lost all sense of time. We get places when we get there, and we get home when we get home. We don't think twice about riding to the stable on the way home to pet the horses' soft noses, or hanging a right down the hidden street to check out that sweet little neighborhood. And for the first time in as long as I can remember, because of this timelessness, it actually feels like summer.

Now, one of the main reasons we have been able to do this is because we took two months off from our karate classes, for the first time in seven years. At dinner the other night, we all collectively agreed that the problem is going to be when we start classes again, mid-July. And we decided, in a decision that has been mounting for awhile, that we are going to keep this timeless feeling going. We decided to go back to karate just one day a week, on Saturday, and we are not going to rush, rush, rush any more. My younger daughter has decided to walk away from the pursuit of a black belt (which my older daughter has already achieved). This decision has been coming for a long time--her true love is dance, and she'd like to do more of that. What's more, the dance class is right after school so it doesn't interfere with dinner or require driving anywhere.

And as we sat there, looking at our life and how it is developing, and knowing the "costs" in time that are required when you make one choice or another, we felt more in control of our time than ever before.

* The Sweat of Humanity. We sweat. A lot. Ya' know, no one really talks about this, but making eco-decisions quite often results in sweat, sweat, and more sweat. And on Atlanta's humid 90-degree days, the sweat is truly endless.

The other day, my younger daughter asked me what I was doing and I told her I was reading some research I had gathered about sweat. She replied, "Nice life, Mom."

But seriously, I was curious, especially since it seems like we are sweating far more than we were before (even taking into account the increased heat). Turns out that the more fit you become, the faster you sweat, which cools your body faster and makes your body more efficient. Interestingly, the composition of the sweat changes to more water being released as you become more fit, and more oil and salt being retained in your blood. This is apparently a good thing.

But, let me tell you, our society doesn't exactly embrace hot, sweaty people. The normal functions of being a human being who is exerting energy are shunned and covered up with artificial fragrances. I'm guessing more people don't walk or bike throughout the day ( or use the push reel lawn mower!) for this reason alone--the sweat. But, you know what? I'm human. I'm exerting myself. I sweat. It's normal and it's natural and it's okay. (And, thank goodness, I can do most of my business meetings via phone.)

And so, there is much we have determined about our life and the way we are choosing to refine it. We like long, lazy dinners. We like not rushing. We like taking our time to get from place to place. We like saving gas and getting exercise. We like all the people we are meeting, and having the time to visit with them. And we like each other.

The price of gas may just keep going up, and frankly, there's a limit to how much bike riding we can do. But we noticed that a public bus goes right down a main street near us, and we have never ridden it before. We didn't even know where it went. My older daughter researched it and discovered that it goes past the mall (much to her thrill) and then to a train station about four miles away. And that train goes through Atlanta and to the airport. And those planes go all over the world.

So, technically, I can leave my house by foot and end up anywhere in the world. Without a car. Just a couple months ago, I didn't think I could get to the grocery store without one.

My, how things have changed.

"Just Tap It!" (or The Thrilling, Swirling, Infinitely Alive Space between Atoms)

So the first time we rode the MARTA (Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority) public bus that runs down the main street right by our neighborhood (once we walk a third of a mile straight uphill, by the way), we used cash to pay the $1.75 fare. I asked for a transfer and was told, "You can't get a transfer when you pay with cash."

Okay, odd.

"How do I get a transfer?" I asked.

"You have to use a Breeze card," the driver replied.

"Where do I get a Breeze card?" I asked.

"You have to go to the train station."

"But I'm riding the bus. I'm not going to the train station."

A shrug of the shoulders, as if to say, if this were New York, "Whaddya' gonna' do?"

So, several day later, we go to the train station and we buy the Breeze cards (you need separate ones for each person, even for the cards with a limited number of trips on them). Ten trips for $17.50 plus five dollars for the plastic card, which you can then reload. Not exactly a deal, huh? (There are other options as well, including a $13 unlimited-trip 7-day card). But each trip allows two free transfers, so you can go from the bus to the train to a bus, and you can literally blow open the map of Atlanta and suddenly get to many, many places.

So the bus comes and we get on and it's one of our bus driver friends (we've made friends with several of them, and they honk when they see us bike riding each day) and we proudly show our Breeze cards. The bus driver smiles broadly. I look for the place for us to swipe the cards, but there is none.

"What do we do?" I ask.

"Just tap it!" the bus driver exclaims, motioning toward the metal box in front of her.

"Tap it?"

"Tap it!"

Sure enough, I take the card and "just tap it," and bingo, it registers. My daughter does the same and we trot on back to our seats, the results of all the errands we ran overflowing in a bag I'm carrying.

And then we see it, the shopping cart a seasoned MARTA rider drags on to the bus with her.

And I want it. I sit there looking at it, coveting it, imagining how much easier that shopping cart would make my new semi-pedestrian/public transportation-rich life. And, ultimately, I realize what I'm actually doing is figuring it out. Figuring out how to ride this system. How to get where I need to go (or change where I'm going to accommodate where the bus and train actually go). And how to transport items when I'm traveling on foot in the heat of summer in Atlanta, GA. And I realize my view of the world, of my world, is once again changing.

In just a week or two, here is what we have experienced:

* A bus stop so surrounded by weeds that something scurried when we walked over to it.

* Bus stops overflowing with garbage and unprotected from the rain and the sun

* A bus stop that dropped us at a very busy corner across the street from a shopping center--with no crosswalks at all

* Sidewalks that simply end and dump us into busy parking lots with no pedestrian accommodations

* Consistently empty buses running through my town all day long while endless lanes of cars spew pollution everywhere we look

Forget all the articles and theory--these urban planning and transportation problems become clear as day when faced with them.

We've also experienced:

* The incredibly joyful feeling of sitting on a comfortable bus and gazing out the window, our minds wandering, our conversation stimulated by things we never noticed before

* Connections to some amazingly nice bus drivers that make us feel more completely part of the network of our community

* The pleasure of making new memories and, for me, reliving the memories of all the buses I've ridden in all the cities in which I've lived and visited, mostly that bus I used to ride up 3rd Avenue in New York City every morning to go to work. I had forgotten how much I loved starting my day each morning on that bus.

Interestingly, in the quiet moments of my day, I find myself piecing together the puzzle of MARTA routes in my head. I call my mother and say things like, "If I leave my house on my bike, catch the bus and load my bike onto it (there is a place to load then on the front of the bus), take the bus to the train station, catch this other bus, ride it up to the corner of this and that, and then ride my bike two miles down that street, I can get all the way to your house!"

Silence. (Sorry, Mom! I know I exhaust you sometimes.)

I read something the other day in Ode magazine's excellent issue about silence that keeps resounding in my mind (ever so paradoxically). Turns out that according to quantum physics, the spaces between atoms are filled with vital energy. And I think I'm realizing that the spaces between destinations are filled with vital energy, too. And that these spaces, between here and there, are opportunities to feel alive, if we embrace them. To connect. To experience. To know that we are making a difference. To celebrate the vital energy in our communities, and, in doing so, to enhance it even more.

And so, this MARTA thing, I realize, is yet another step on the journey for me. And when I "just tap it" with my Breeze card from now on, it is as if I am tapping into the thrilling, swirling, infinitely alive space between atoms.

Change Is Gradual Until the Day You Step Back and Realize It Is Dramatic

Thirteen bucks. That's it. That's what it cost me to fill up my car's gas tank this week. If you happened to drive by, I was the idiot standing there at the BP gas station, doing a little jig of joy.

Last week was the first week that the kids were back at school. My younger daughter and I ride bikes to and from school each day, the early-morning birds providing our soundtrack there and a stop halfway home where we blow whistles through blades of grass between our thumbs and forefingers punctuating the long, lazy afternoons.

My other daughter takes the bus, standing under the still-high-in-the-sky moon in the morning and meeting me on the blue bench late in the afternoon, where I'm usually engrossed in the wonderful book, Blessed Unrest, circling a plethora of challenging vocabulary words to share with her (inchoately, opprobrium, despoliation, exctirpate) and underlining provocative lines such as "being blessed with technological insight does not confer self-insight" and "if a culture does not become like us, it may not be a failure but a gift to what is now an uncertain future."

Most of the week finds me working in my home office, either on my corporate projects or some other writing assignment, where most of my meetings happen by phone. Almost everyone who calls knows where I am if they don't reach me immediately and it makes me laugh to listen to my voicemails: "You're probably in the garden . . ." Okay, yes, I probably am.

Wednesdays find me car-bound, an odd joy after a few days away, like when you come home from vacation and for just one split second are not quite sure you remember how to drive. The farmers market and CSA pick-up book-end the journey that also usually includes the library, a stop for hamster food or school supplies, the bank, the post office, and a swing here or there to get a photo for Sustainable Dunwoody.

I had a pile of odd errands to run last Friday (pick figs, get sheet music for an audition, collect Gulf fritillary caterpillars from the host plant, the passion flower) and almost drove but decided to do them all on bike, my panniers ultimately overflowing like a kindergarten teacher's show-and-tell box. It required me to prepare just a little bit more, bringing water and a snack and allowing more time, but as my karate instructor always says, "If you fail to prepare, you prepare to fail."

Speaking of karate, skipping karate all summer has made a major difference in the freedom and joy of our afternoons as well as gas savings. We're heading back after Labor Day, but just on Saturdays. That simple change alters the cadence of our days enormously.

And so, what I'm learning is that little changes add up, of course. That we can instill joy in the most unexpected places. That change is gradual until the day when you step back and realize it is dramatic. And that time is a funny thing that can be your dictator if you enslave yourself to it or can set you free if you just let it be.

If you are considering making some changes in your life that start with how much gas you use each week, take a look at these links for some info and inspiration. Lots of folks are doing it, and having a grand old time at it as well. Sacrifice is a bit of a paradox. You often end up getting far more than you give up.

The Boundless Joys of Breaking Down in the Middle of a Carwash

So after riding my bike to and from school and then to and from the farmers market (which was my farthest ride yet), Corinna's eggs nestled carefully in one pannier and another farmer's heirloom tomatoes on a bed of arugula in the other, I drove to pick up my younger daughter at school to take her to get her hair cut. On the way home, I decided to overshoot my neighborhood by just a half mile or so to get the car washed, a car that still had dirt on it from our trip to the Blue Ridge Mountains back in May on it since we are not allowed to wash our cars at home because of the drought (car wash locations recirculate the water). My daughter loves to do this and I wanted to wait until she was with me and we had time. And yesterday we had time.

As soon as I got to the gas station where the car wash is and saw it empty of cars, not a drop of gas in any of the pumps as our odd Atlanta gas shortage barrels on, I was glad to be patronizing it in this small way. Little did I know that this was probably the best day to be there, because the two guys who worked there and had nothing at all to do probably needed me as much I ended up needing them!

We pulled into the car wash and I turned off my ignition. The water and heat rolled over the car, restoring it to a sparkle it had forgotten it ever had. And then when I went to turn the car back on, nothing. Dead. Just that horrible clicking noise that tells you you're not going anywhere anytime soon. And there we were, in the middle of the carwash.

The humor in it hit me at once, as well as gratitude that I was somewhere safe, on a pretty day, not far from home. I climbed out, lifted my daughter over the metal bars and we enlisted the help of the two guys in pushing the car out of the carwash. I called AAA (which is a roadside assistance program here in the United States) and we waited for the tow truck to arrive, my daughter wrestling with what to do for her "Wow"-themed photography project at school. I called my mechanic and had him laughing and promising to take care of the car first thing in the morning, including changing my oil and air filter since I'm not getting the miles per gallon that I should be getting with this gas-guzzling monstrosity.

And then Reese arrived. If you ever want to make a child's day, forget Disney World. Have them ride up front in a tow truck with a very nice man who turns out to be a "Holy Hip Hop" recording artist, specializing in spiritual rap! I kid you not.

He dropped us off at the top of our neighborhood and removed my daughter's bike from the back of my car. She disappeared down the hill, the sound of her singing filling the air like the air-borne fluffy weed flowers she threw all over the yard the other night announcing, "Look! It's snowing!"

I walked down the hill, backpack and lunch bag and purse and bike lock all slung over my shoulders, having a rare lazy conversation with my husband on my hardly-ever-used cell phone.

My neighbor picked up my other daughter, a bouquet of herbs and zinnias awaiting her at my house as a thank you, as my younger daughter made a collage of photos she took of the tow truck after she exclaimed "Wow!" and realized she had solved her school project problem.

And I popped a big, fat fig in my mouth which I had gotten caught picking from a tree at what I thought was an abandoned house on my bike ride home from the farmers market (a man came out and glared at me--I told him I had picked some of his figs and asked if he wanted me to return them. He stepped forward, reached into the tree, picked more and handed them to me!)

"You've had a tough day," my friend said as I handed her the jelly jar full of garden cuttings.

"Tough? No, this wasn't a tough day!" I remarked. "This was one of the best days yet."

Honestly, I don't remember the last time I met so many helpful, kind strangers in one day. Thank you to all of you for reminding me, once again, about the boundless generosity of the human spirit, and our ability to work together, and to have fun, in the most unexpected ways.

And look how clean my car is!

A Dirty Shame

I noticed it Saturday morning when the biggest gas station in my soon-to-be-city had literally no gas. I checked out a few other stations, and lo and behold, no gas, apparently from oil refinery problems in the Gulf of Mexico following Hurricane Ike.

By Sunday night, most of Atlanta was gas-less. Having still three-quarters of a tank from more than a week before (thanks to bike riding, walking and the bus), I wasn't too worried. I was sure that gas deliveries were coming Monday morning and all would be back to "normal" here in the city with one of the longest average daily commutes in the United States.

Some gas was delivered, and Atlanta earned the designation of having the highest gas prices in the contiguous United States (that means everywhere in the country except Hawaii and Alaska). Turns out that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been requiring for a few years now that metro Atlanta gas have super-low sulfur as well as low evaporative emissions (apparently because of our terrible smog problems and poor air quality--lovely, huh?) This requirement has actually made a positive difference.

So by last night, with the gas shortage making national news (amidst the other headlines about the stock market, politics, war . . .), what solution do you think presented itself?

"Dirty gas." Yep, that's right. Governor Sonny Perdue has received a waiver from the EPA on the requirement for low-sulfur gas for metro Altanta. And, it appears as if this gas shortage will continue for about another two weeks. Two weeks! We've barely been able to make it a couple days!

No call for telecommuting, riding MARTA, biking, walking, carpooling, conserving. Not one article since Saturday in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution about these options. Just panicked reports about how many hours drivers waited in line, and where to find gas. Now, I'm not saying that's not important--getting around this city is hard without a car and many (if not most) people depend on their cars for work and life. But if there were ever an opportunity to say, point blank, "How we are living is clearly not working," this would have been it. Yet nothing.

It's a dirty shame.

UPDATE (Later the same morning)

Ah, finally. I just saw today's AJC article about the gas and it includes this:

Perdue spokesman Bert Brantley urged metro Atlanta drivers to conserve gas by teleworking, combining trips, carpooling and taking public transportation. Reducing demand seems to be the only quick fix, experts say.

Now, let's talk more about commute alternatives being more than a "quick fix"!

Hermetically Sealed

My car broke down several more times after this photo, and so it finally came to that moment when I admitted that I was throwing repair money every month toward a sinking ship. Hence the phone call to the marketing director of Prius at Toyota's national headquarters in California. That's how I found out about the bladder problem (the bladder in the fuel tank collapses when it is cold out and does not allow for the tank to be completely filled when you gas up--this is apparently fixed in the 2010 model that is coming out in the spring, and, in reality, doesn't present much trouble to most people--it just means you can fill up nine gallons instead of twelve, but every gallon gives you almost 50 miles of travel) and the fact there is no traditional prindle.

"Prindle?"

PRNDL. Park, reverse, neutral, drive, and L, what's L? I have no idea. The Prius has a joystick instead.

And what a joy. I test-drove one and then rented one before getting my own.

And here's where it happened, with the rented one. I took the bus to the rental place ("Why did you take the bus?" the manager said, "We have a service that would have picked you up." "Because the bus passes directly in front of my neighborhood and directly in front of your location!" I answered, surprising him somehow). After a brief tutorial, I set out in this quintessential eco-car (okay, okay, I know there is question about its manufacturing process, but you can't touch this car stateside for miles per gallon).

After I picked up my older daughter later that day, my younger daughter already in the car, I told them I was going to demonstrate what I think is the coolest feature of the car--how it feels like it dies when you stop at a red light, therefore never idling! We were just about at the light when both my daughters exclaimed, "Wow!" upon discovering something completely different about the car.

"What is it?" I asked.

"The windows!" they replied. "They open!"

And sure enough, both their windows were halfway down, their snouts out them like cocker spaniels, and that's when I realized. My daughters have been hermetically sealed in the middle of a mini-van for the last nine years. They have felt no breezes. Smelled no smells. Had no control.

And, of course, that's when I got to thinking about myself, about how easy it can be to become "hermetically sealed." In my routine. In my work. In my outlook. And how exhilerating, but also uncomfortable and downright frightening it can be sometimes to roll down my windows and stick out my snout. Like in my work with my new city. I want to run and hide half the time. I'm a writer, for goodness sake. What on earth am I doing?

So I showed up somewhere in the Prius and a friend said to me, "You seem different already."

No longer a minivan-driving mom in suburbia, now with four windows down and the cold yet sweet forsythia-tinged air of change blowing through my life, I wondered where my smaller-trunked journey would take me next.

TRAVEL

The Pull, Pull, Pull of the Heavy Full Moon

Long before the crack of dawn this morning, I dropped my daughter off somewhere and stood there, alone in the parking lot under the pull, pull, pull of the heavy full moon.

And I felt it happening again, this yearning, pulling inside that I thought was gone from my life for good somehow all these past years with kids and schools and places to be. Now, slowly, it has crept back, a longing for places I want to visit one day, other places where this full moon hangs heavy in the sky, pulling moisture up through crops I don't yet know and lighting the way for people I have yet to meet.

Yes, all other garden bugs aside, I have been officially bitten by the Travel Bug again.

And it has bit with a vengeance. I find myself doing something I hadn't done since I was 16 or so--making a collage of photos from magazines of places I'd like to go (I seem to be leaning toward walking trips of places like Slovenia). But this time, I'd like to go there "on assignment," not as a tourist. I'd like to live and learn and write about whom I meet and what I experience.

Oh, I don't see this happening tomorrow. I have years left before the kids are off on their own, and we have many bridges to cross (although the four of us have often talked about taking a year or a summer and heading off on a quirky excursion--I've had several "concepts" but none have gained traction just yet. I thought the karate-across-the-USA idea was pretty good--I called it Getting Our Kicks on Route 66--but I got a lot of groans on that one).

Yet the important part is that I now see it, this vagabond future that takes me a bit where the wind blows me and brings me home with stories and change that can only enliven a marriage based on mutual admiration for each other's independence. I see it, and suddenly I have a direction. I find myself folding laundry and questioning whether the item in my hands is "world worthy."

Is it packable?

Can I dress it up and down?

Can I see myself strolling down a cobble-stoned side-street in Prague wearing it?

I also find myself rejecting much that makes up the conversation of suburban life (not necessarily a new development, but a renewed one).

New ceramic tiles for the bathroom? Gag me.

A second home on the lake? Stick pins in my eyeballs now, please. I can barely take care of this house (and, yes, the lawn needs mowing yet again).

The latest sale at the latest store at the latest mall? P-lease. No more clutter. No more stuff. There is no place in my small carry-on or the closet of my life for things like that.

I am alone, lost in my thoughts of my excursions, gazing out the window of today to the horizon of tomorrow. I am eating peasant food and meeting simple people and walking dusty roads, from Australia to Andalucia, New Zealand to Newfoundland. And perhaps, one day, Slovenia.

I read once that the sensation of pleasure is comprised of anticipation, experience and memory, and that brain scans show that anticipation stimulates the pleasure center of the brain the most out of the three.

And so, therefore, it doesn't even really matter if I end up doing these things or not. Imagining them as possibilities is joy enough.

I see my daughters meeting me at strange ports, walking arm-in-arm with me down ancient city streets, eating grains from a bowl with villagers around a fire deep into the night. I see my candle-lit hut as I write love letters to my husband and plan our rendezvous on distance shores. I see a wedding party parading through a town square and myself joining in, swept up by the festivity. I see elderly hands mixing a traditional dough passed down generation to generation and placing my hands on the dough to feel the warm pulse of humanity as well. I see myself tired and spent and happy.

And so, as the FoodShed Planet Summer Reading Pick of the Week, I invite you to join me on the revery and curl up on a picnic blanket or a pool chair or a hammock with an issue of National Geographic Traveler, a magazine that I just started reading a few months ago that showcases places around the world with the same evocative photography as its sister publication, National Geographic.

Just be sure to wear your walking shoes. Because there's no telling where reading something like this might lead.

V

noreply@blogger.com (Pattie Baker) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 17:45:00 +0000

VEGETARIAN

When Their Eyes Turn White, They're Ready

Ran into one of my local farmers yesterday when an extra CSA box became available (the CSA to which I belong doesn't start until May) and the thought of fresh kale, turnips, braising greens, eggs, and more had me over there in minutes. As the other box recipients and I leaned over the farmer's truck in the parking lot in the shadow of a mall, as if we were doing a drug deal, she asked us what we thought about her possible plans to farm tilapia in water holding tanks in her new hoop house. She shared the statistics--how fast fingerling tilapia (as if they are potatoes) grow, how many she can grow, how they would only be available "on the fin," which means on ice with head and tail and innards. How she would give a filleting class. How wouldn't that be great, and yes, the other two people nodded and prodded her on. But I wasn't quite with her. I think she identified my discomfort as merely not wanting to fillet the fish.

"It's easy," she said. "And then you just cook 'em. When their eyes are white, they're ready."

It nagged at me all day. Hundreds of tilapia in a tank in a hoop house, their whole short lives, their entire reason for being to simply end up on ice, to be cooked until their eyes turn white.

I talked about it at dinner, all those wonderful greens sauteed and the turnips baked with salt and pepper and some newly sprouted herbs from my garden, along with chicken legs from Gum Creek Farm.

And then it hit me. This is not the way fish live, or are supposed to live. They are not a crop. But why, then, do I eat tilapia from the supermarket--is it simply because farmed tilapia is on the "okay to eat" list from Oceans Alive and I've excused myself from any further thinking about it?

Wouldn't this farmer's tilapia be better than that, since I know the farmer and I know she would do whatever she can to be as environmentally sound as possible?

Or is there a bigger truth I have to face--that by eating local and knowing the source of my food, I now face some ethical decisions that I can no longer escape?

Is tilapia now off my list of things I feel comfortable eating? What about wild salmon? Are fish that have had a chance to express their "fishness" ethically okay to eat?

What about the chicken? The chicken ran around, scratched and ate the food of its choice, and died a humane death. Is there such a thing? Am I drifting toward vegetarianism?

What do you think about farmed fish? Help me with this.

UPDATE: March 12, 2007--What Nina Says

Okay, so I had to see what Nina Planck says on this topic. Nina Planck is the greenmarket guru who wrote the book, Real Food, which I read and loved and which basically aligns with my philosophy that if you eat real, whole food, grown the way nature intended, you're making the best decisions for your body. Now, I didn't find anything Nina said about the ethics involving eating animals, but here's what she says nutrition-wise (in reaction to what the ubiquitous Michael Pollan wrote in the New York Times Magazine recently):

There's one kind of 'meat' it's almost impossible to live without: fish. Pollan explains neatly how omega-6 and omega-3 fats work and where they come from. Essentially, you get omega-3 fats from fish and omega-6 fats from plants. The body needs both. But they must be in balance. A major cause of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease in the US today is the excess of omega-6 fats from industrial grains and seeds suchs as corn, soy bean, safflower, and sunflower oils. So in addition to adding omega-3 fats to your diet, it's a good idea to limit omega-6 fats. I realize this is the very nutritionism Pollan decries, but it's difficult to discuss food without discussing its nutrients.

As it happens, I don't live by nutritionist thinking on a daily basis. I don't count calories, fat grams, or anything else in my diet. The easiest way to limit omega-6 fats is to avoid all the yellow industrial oils, such as corn and soy. Most are refined anyway. If you eat olive oil, you will get all the omega-6 fats you need.

Doesn't Pollan say you can get omega-3 fats from plants, too? Yes - in theory. But not the most important omega-3 fats, the so-called long-chain, polyunsatured fats DHA and EPA. Your brain must have these fats. (This is known as an 'absolute' not 'conditional' need.) They're found only in fish (and in small quantities in grass-fed meat, milk, and egg yolks). Hence one of the dangers of a vegetarian diet: omega-3 deficiency. In theory, your body can make DHA and EPA from other omega-3 fats found in walnuts and flax seed oil, but in metabolic terms, that conversion is what the biologists call 'costly and uncertain.' It is much, much wiser to eat fish. If mercury is a concern, remember these rules of thumb:

The smaller the fish, the better. Mercury, like other toxins, concentrates as it climbs the food chain. Sardines are better than shark or swordfish.
Herbivorous fish, for the same reason, have less mercury than carnivores because they don't eat other small fish containing mercury. That means tilapia, catfish, freshwater trout.
Quality fish oil capsules, or cod liver oil, are good ways to get omega-3 fats.

If you're pregnant, nursing, or at risk of heart disease, it's vitally important to eat fish. In my view, the risk of omega-3 deficiency is greater than that of mercury poisoning. (Do make sure any vaccines your kids get don't contain mercury (thimerosal) and consider having all your mercury-containing fillings removed.)
I eat wild Alaskan salmon, canned and frozen, which I love. I also take cod liver oil, which I don't. But it's a fabulous source of EPA and DHA, plus vitamins A and D. I do recommend it for pregnant and nursing women.

To find out more about Nina, go to www.ninaplanck.com

Seven Months, Seven Discoveries

If you ate lunch at your child's school last week as part of National School Lunch Week (mystery meat, breaded everything, scant vegetables), then this week's special happenings may be very welcome to you. A bunch of U.S. cities are celebrating Vegetarian Restaurant Week (apparently the whole month of October is Vegetarian Awareness Month. Who knew?!) Participating cities include Atlanta, GA; Brooklyn, NY, Harlem, NY, Raleigh, NC; Hollywood, Fl; Dallas, TX; Los Angeles, CA; and St. Croix (US Virgin Islands). Other countries have similar celebrations at other times of the year.

According to the Vegetarian Restaurant Week website:

Whether you're a seasoned vegetarian, just starting out, or an adventurous omnivore, you're invited to explore the diversity of plant-based cuisine.

Whether you're interested in comfort food favorites, ethnic-inspired dishes or health-supportive fare, you're bound to discover new ways of eating that are sure to
please the senses!

And, guess what? Today ends the 7th month (and counting!) of my year-long "Nothing with a Face" experiment. Here's what I've discovered so far:

1. There are basically four types of vegetarians (forget lacto, lacto-ovo and vegan for a minute).

* Pasta Cheesies. (Lots of pasta. Lots of cheese)
* Tofurkies. (Lots of processed pseudo-meat and frozen dinners)
* Beans, Greens and Grainies. (Lots of simple, unprocessed ingredients)
* Worldies (lots of ethnic dishes from world cultures)

Although I do eat pasta about once a week, and cheese does have a starring role in something almost every day (cheese and apple, quiche, whole grain pizza, stuffed peppers, . . .) I've been aiming for the beans, greens, and grain direction all year (amaranth, quinoa, millet, buckwheat, oatmeal, you get the gist). I run in the opposite direction of tofurkey and everything else in that section of the supermarket. But I could definitely use a couple cooking classes in world cuisine (Indian, in particular).

2. There are three basic nutritional challenges on which I've been a bit obsessed:

* Iron
* Calcium
* B12

The iron is a challenge, but I eat everything I can find, including fortified cereal (which I never really ate before). Calcium isn't that big a deal because I'm a big yogurt eater, I eat so many greens and I drink a glass of fortified orange juice each day.

The B12 almost did me in (there is no B12 in a vegetarian diet without a few tricks). Fortified cereal has it, but my big saving grace has been nutritional yeast. Something like two tablespoons of the stuff provides 133% of your daily recommended allowance of B12. I sprinkle it on salads, in oatmeal and in yogurt and I pretty much hated it when I started. I discovered if I also added two tablespoons of freshly-ground flax seeds, I actually like it. So, now I don't even give it a second thought. It's just part of my daily routine.

3. Tofu. Ah, tofu. I have a long way to go on this ingredient--its potential far exceeds its current performance in my life. I do eat a container of the stuff a week, and I am learning some ways to prepare it that are delicious. One thing I do is slice and broil extra firm tofu at the beginning of the week, in some kind of marinade, and then just throw it in to my meal when I throw meat into the kid's meals (my husband is almost 100% vegetarian, by the way, and my kids are what I guess we'd call flexitarians). We're also eating a lot of firm tofu-based vegetable pancakes, with various toppings, which the kids adore. Speaking of the kids, I feel like what I've learned this year so far has helped me make sure the vegetarian meals they do have are more balanced and complete than they used to be. For instance, a pasta dish now includes beans. Smoothies now include nutritional yeast and flax.

4. Energy. I've never felt better. I thought for sure I would have an energy problem this year and that the iron thing would catch up with me (I had trouble during my pregnancies even though I was diligent about eating well). So far, so good, it seems. I did have blood tests done at the start of this experiment (including specific tests for B12, iron and vitamin D) and will end the year with follow-up tests. I keep telling the kids I'm "studying for my blood test," which they think is funny but which I tell them is completely true. That blood test will measure the decisions I'm making, day in and day out, and every choice does ultimately matter.

5. Mistakes. I've made a few (makes you want to sing, huh?) Altoids, for instance. Who knew they contain gelatin and that gelatin is an animal product? Teriyaki sauce. Contains fish. But, boy was it good with the tofu until I discovered that early on. Rennet in cheese. Comes from the linings of, I don't, know, sheep stomachs or something. There are ways around this. Most organic cheese, for instance, is made with vegetarian rennet. I have to check the labels.

6. Challenges? Eating out can be a challenge. Definitely. How many veggie burgers can I eat? And "hold the chicken" when ordering salads can often leave me with something that just doesn't have enough oomph. Eating at someone's house is pretty much a nightmare. For me, it hasn't been that big a problem because I don't eat out that often, and when I do, I usually have a say in where we go. Boredom can be a challenge, but usually that's a reflection of my lack of planning or attention rather than the availability of exciting options.

7. Surprises? How seamlessly I've been able to fit this into my life. How good I feel. How easy it has been. How strong people's opinions on this topic are. Some vegans are astonished I consume "liquid meat" (milk). Some carnivores rave about their latest kill. Most people don't want to discuss it at all, which reminds me of the old Linus quote, "There are three things I've learned never to discuss with people: religion, politics, and the Great Pumpkin." Add vegetarianism to that, Linus, my friend.

Do I miss meat? The short, honest answer is no. I have been tempted to nibble on chicken sausage while slicing it, but that is more out of habit than desire. I feel sort of like I did the year I gave up chocolate (a dumb idea, by the way) and suddenly I began discovering lemon and blackberry and ginger and all these flavors that got overpowered whenever big, bold Chocolate joined the party. Now that meat is no longer my centerpiece (and, in all honesty, we had already drifted away from that relationship awhile ago in my family), many other supporting characters get starring roles.

Next steps? There is still so much to learn. There are things I'm probably doing wrong. I know the issues with milk and eggs, and I do think ultimately vegan is the way to go. However, I have some real concerns, especially about the estrogenic relationship between soy and breast cancer. My initial research suggests that that may be confined to isolated soy protein, not whole soy, but I am not yet comfortable enough with this information to give up my other protein sources just yet. And also, since I don't want to be a tofurkey vegetarian, a vegan diet requires a great deal more involvement (time, energy, knowledge) than I currently possess. But things change, so I'm open.

I'm also open to going back to meat, especially sustainably-raised, humanely-slaughtered meat from farmers I know. I'm guessing I probably won't, but I completely understand and respect this option.

In the meantime, I'm enjoying the journey. And I'm thrilled to discover some new vegetarian dining choices this week.

Got questions? Check out these veggie fact sheets. Got answers? Let me know!

Transparency in Labeling

This stir fry of local, seasonal root crops and greens has nothing in it that would surprise you. No human hair from barber shops in China. No feathers. No ground-up boiled hooves or cockroaches, or extracts from the anal musk glands of beavers.

Processed foods you buy in the supermarket, even organic ones? Can't promise you they don't have these items. According to a truly shocking, and dare I say, potentially life-changing article I read last night in the current issue of VegNews, these are all accepted on the Code of Federal Regulations as "natural flavors," along with an oil extracted from sheep's wool (lanolin), an enzyme removed from the tongues of calves (lipase), and many more ingredients. I kid you not.

For me, knowledge is power, yes, but it's also unforgettable. Once I read something like this, that's it, it's locked in my head forever, completely changing the way I see the world in which I live, and the way I interact with that world. Now, add to this mix that I am in my ninth month of my "Nothing with a Face" year as a vegetarian, and then you can understand that now I face a whole new set of food choice decisions. For instance, now that I know that the Vitamin D3 added to milk is derived from lanolin (sheep wool) or fish means that milk with Vitamin D3 is no longer vegetarian (forget vegan). (Vitamin D2 is from yeast, so that one is okay.)

But let's not stop at the implications for vegetarians of these animal-derived additives. (Ambergris is a flavoring agent from the intestines of sperm whales, for instance.) How does it make you feel, anyone, no matter how you eat, to know that these things are added to your food without you knowing it? Without you having any way to know it from reading most labels? (According to the article in VegNews, Europeans have it even harder than those in the United States because the ingredients are listed with numbers instead of names, however vague, on labels, so this isn't a U.S.-screwed-up-food-system-only problem.)

Long-time readers of FoodShed Planet know where I stand on labeling--I want transparent labeling that enables me to make fully informed decisions about the food I buy, eat and feed my family. Yes, the trans fat labeling regulation helped. Yes, the allergen labeling requirement helped. But we're not done yet, folks. We deserve to know when there are growth hormones (and when there are not). When there are antibiotics. When there are GMOs. And, yes, when there are animal-derived additives (enzymes from pig's stomachs, rendered beef fat, coagulating agents derived from cows, and so on) without needing an advanced degree in chemistry.

Apparently, the FDA has approved about 2800 food additives and 3000 chemicals as GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe). The examples I've given are some of these. And so I ask you, these are generally recognized as safe for whom? For vegetarians? For those interested in animal welfare? For those with religious restrictions? For anyone who doesn't want beetles in their food, or any other additives whose derivation you just don't know or can't figure out easily by reading a label?

As I see it, there are several choices regarding taking control of the food we eat:

1. Vote with your dollar. Just say no to processed foods that contain additives you don't want in your diet, or whose labels are not clear. Buy whole foods and buy foods grown and prepared by folks you know, close to home.

2. Get involved. Read about food labeling issues. Write letters to your government representatives. Do research. Talk to friend and neighbors. Find out everything you can so that you can make informed decisions--and help change the system.

As for me, I'm up a creek without a paddle. Now, I'm back on the "milk detective" trail, so to speak, to try to find an organic milk that does not contain vitamin D3. Or do I even need the milk? The rice and almond "milks" that are available are not organic, so no, thank you. And although I do drink organic soymilk, I continue to be concerned about the estrogenic effect of too much soy so I'm not sure I want to go 100% that way yet.

I've had it with big business. I've had it with our commercial food supply, and that includes Big Organic, too. I've had it with what has happened to us as a society--and the fact that we have somehow, unknowingly, let it happen. I've had it with feeling like I'm tiptoeing around a mine field every time I eat, and that I can barely talk about what's happening to most people because I'll "ruin their appetites."

I just want food. Real food. Whole food. Simple food. Is that too much to ask?

One Change Begets Another

So I finally cracked it, the answer to the question that has stumped me these past ten months as I've been "trying on vegetarianism" for size.

No, "what do you eat?" was not the hard one. Nothing with a face has been my answer all year.

"How do you feel?" Not a hard one. Great. Better than ever.

Is it difficult to do? For me, no. For folks who eat out a lot or travel for business, perhaps a bit more challenging.

The stumper question? The one that comes up every month or so from my husband.

"Tell me again why you're doing this?"

That's the hard one. He knows all the reasons. The greenhouse gases from meat-producing agriculture. The animal rights issues. The health angle. And perhaps simply my fascination with quests of any sort. But all those answers don't seem to hit at the heart of what I feel inside. But I have finally, finally found the answer that works for me.

Because this, I can do.

Because this little action, putting down meat, is within my control, and it matters. It makes a difference. It counts. And maybe more than anything else, that's all we want from our lives. Or all I want from mine, at least.

And so Because this, I can do has become my mantra. And although I thought vegetarianism would sit in its own little silo in my life, that's not how change works, is it? One change begets another. One ripple makes more. As a meteorologist named Edward Lorenz observed, an event as small and seemingly insignificant as the beating of a butterfly's wings may cause changes in weather patterns that result in an enormous storm halfway across the world. Interestingly, Lorenze first made reference to this possibility in relation to a seagull's wings in a paper he wrote in 1963. The year I was born.

So, why do I use my own bags at the supermarket? Because this, I can do.

And why do I use a reusable water bottle? Because this, I can do.

And my rainbarrel and bike rides and Victory Garden and worms? Same little, barely noticable beating of the butterfly wings.

As my grandmother used to say, a quote I love, love, love, about her little patch of the world that she tried to continually improve, "It may not be much, but it's my responsibility."

Because this, I can do.

By the way, I've decided on what to do as part of Melinda's Growing Challenge. I'm planting a Vegetarian Garden. That means that in addition to my usual mix of fruits and veggies, I'm adding more plants to enhance the nutrient mix of a vegetarian diet. I already have some calcium-packed winners such as kale and lamb's quarters, and that protein powerhouse amaranth, but I'm adding quinoa and buckwheat and a variety of beans. Maybe blueberries. And I've also started growing sprouts.

This week on FoodShed Planet, check back for:

* A national quick-serve chain that I actually LIKE!

* A report from the Live Groundhog Hotline as Georgia's Official Weather Prognosticator, General Beau Lee, makes his annual prediction on Ground Hog Day.

* The long-awaited, much anticipated first-person account of TEAM CHICKEN!

"You're joining Team Chicken?" my husband asked, shaking his head as I danced around the kitchen to the tune of The Chicken Dance coming from the sound-chipped birthday card I gave him. "Why? Why are you doing this?"

All together now, folks . . .

Because this, I can do.

UPDATE: Monday, January 28, 2008

I received a very long and thoughtful email this morning and wanted to respond to it here. A woman who has been a vegetarian for the last twenty years is about to start eating meat again. She feels as if, perhaps, it is environmentally-sound to eat locally, humanely-raised meat. She asks me where I stand on this. Here goes:

1. I think everyone has to come to their own conclusions. The farmers that I know personally raise their animals with care and conviction, and I do believe in voting for local, sustainable food by supporting them (my children eat meat).

2. However, even local, sustainable dairy farmers usually separate the babies from the moms at two days old and sell the male babies for meat before they have lived a good life. I know that is just a fact of farming, but that bothers me, and is the #1 reason why I'm starting to lean toward giving up milk.

3. If I had my own cow and could "skim a bit off the top," I think I'd be okay with milk. As for eating meat, it all comes down to this:

4. Knowledge known cannot be unknown. Compassion felt cannot be unfelt. And therein lies the problem (for me).

5. And, frankly, if enough non-meat options are available in nature, why not?

See this article from yesterday's New York Times by Mark Bittman (who is not a vegetarian, by the way).

Star of Courage

"I think I may be a little anemic," I said to my husband the other night. "I almost fainted during my karate class."

"What happened?" he asked.

"Well, maybe I'm not getting enough iron. I haven't been eating my bowl of cereal each day, you know, the one with the 50% of your daily minimum requirement of iron?" In Month 12 now of the year of Nothing with a Face (my year as a vegetarian), I had to admit that it was entirely possible that I might not have a perfect blood test next month, no matter how diligently I have been "studying" for it for this whole past year, and no matter that this is the first time I have felt the slightest bit anemic.

"No, what happened in class?" he clarified.

"Well, I was doing that punch combo--jab, cross, hook, upper cut--with a partner and then the chief instructor came behind me and started pelting my head in order to force me to keep the fist up that wasn't currently punching. He kept hitting me on the sides of my head and chanting, "It was a darrrrrrrk and storrrrrrrrmy night. It was a darrrrrrrk and storrrrrrrmy night. My entire body oscillated like a washing machine."

I took a breath.

"And then when it was my partner's turn, he kept twirling around me as I held the pads for him to pummel. He went so fast, in such a tight circle, that I felt like I was in the teacups at Disney."

My husband looked at me incredulously.

I continued for the thrilling conclusion of Pattie Gets Beat Up at Karate Class, "And then shortly thereafter, the room started spinning and I dropped to my knees and sat the rest of the class out."

My husband, the sage, finally asked, "And you think you felt faint because of low iron?"

Okay, okay, maybe not. Maybe my brain was simply tossed around too much that night. But I have been a little low on the dried apricots and I did have anemia during my second pregnancy, so who knows?

Maybe I'm a little nervous about the blood donation. But you see the star in this photo? At our karate dojo, when a new student starts, he or she gets this Star of Courage at the first class. When I started training in karate a year and a half ago, I asked for my Star of Courage.

"That's usually just for kids, Pattie," I was told.

"If I walk out there on that mat, I am not walking off without my Star of Courage!" I replied, and I stood and accepted it proudly when the instructor called my name to come up and get it.

We should all have a Star of Courage. It actually makes a difference.

Oh, and for those of you who ask, "Why on earth are you even doing this?" my first answer is, "I have no idea." But my real answer is because both my daughters train in karate also (they are far, far ahead of me) and this seemed like a good way to build a bridge to them during a time when many kids and parents lose connections. And it has certainly fulfilled that objective, many times over.

Final answer? Because it makes me feel incredibly uncomfortable--I don't feel at home on that mat at all. The classes are at night, and I'm a morning person. I hate group classes. I hate working out indoors. And I'm not so dreadfully competitive. Yet, especially as I "settle in my ways" as I get older, I see a benefit in putting myself in a situation that shakes me up.

Although maybe not so much!

Just a Little Bit More Free

Yesterday, like most Wednesdays here, was a major local food day. First, it was CSA Day, and that meant the human chain of hands unloading Charlotte's boxes from the back of her white truck and a group of children playing with corn worms (perhaps to prepare themselves for the many that they would find in their deliciously sweet CSA-box corn. Those worms aren't stupid--it's the best corn in town!)

Then, we whisked to the farmers's market where we saw Corinna and Melissa and Jen and Makeba and a few new vendors and farmers as well--that woman selling the baba ghanoug and the pumpkin garlic hummus (delicious!), and Anne of Annie Okra's Barn from whom we got rattle snake beans and arugula, the hot, peppery taste of which I hadn't had in a month or two and which made me feel alive in a way few things can.

As dried beans soaked in a pot in my kitchen, onions from my garden sauteed, basil (which I now have growing in abundance) made its quick, magical journey to pesto, and two loaves of homemade bread rose, I ran out to Kroger for a couple things to "fill the holes." I zipped around the store, with brief stops at the several scattered organic sections, and thought for just a second about the latest food contamination issue in the United States (and no, the tomato thing has not yet been solved)--Kroger's beef recall this week (41 cases of E.Coli, 19 people hospitalized, one with kidney failure).

And I realized how incredibly free I have become since I became a vegetarian over a year ago, and since my family joined me (at least at home) several months ago:

* I completely skip the meat sections of stores.

* I barely glance at the news stories relating to this meat and that meat and what's good and bad, and I never have to ask that "is this sustainable?" question about which fish to eat.

* I am amazed that the typical American eats 200 pounds of meat a year--the size of a full-grown man--and am relieved to not be part of that.

* And, let's face it, I'm saving money--or at least keeping my food costs stable at a time when they are escalating.

And although my home does not yet have chickens frolicking in the garden, it is most definitely the Home of the Happy Chickens and Cows.

For anyone considering going veg or at least lightening up on the meat thing, I have this to report. It's really not that hard, especially if you are already eating lots of fresh fruits and veggies. And when you're out and about, finding vegetarian menu options is much, much easier than trying to find organic or local food (which continues to be the biggest challenge in eating close to home away from home).

And so, tomorrow, on Independence Day here in the United States, I will eat my veggie burger and my husked-and-cleaned Charlotte corn and enjoy feeling just a little bit more free.

VICTORY GARDEN

V Is for Victory Gardens

This whole spinach, e coli thing that just happened across the country, resulting in death and sickness, raises many issues, including the vulnerability of our food supply to possible acts of terrorism (although it doesn't seem as if terrorism was involved in this one).

I am reminded of five years ago. 9/12 or 9/13. When I walked around my supermarket, dazed, buying staples to keep in my cupboard in case there were a terrorist attack on the nation's food supply. And I remember thinking, "Victory gardens. We need victory gardens." Two million Americans created victory gardens in their back yards or communities during World War II so that commercially-produced food could be sent to the troops. Today, we as Americans could do our part to reduce our reliance on oil simply by keeping vegetable gardens--less produce transport, less petroleum-based fertilizer, less heavy farm equipment. Why have we never been asked to do this?

I just finished Al Gore's book, An Inconvenient Truth, the companion piece to his recent documentary. Whatever you think about Gore, put it aside and take a look at this book. It is chock full of scientifically-supported facts, figures, and photos relating to global warming. Gore's explanation of agriculture's role in this situation is far too brief, I believe, but he does include in his "things you can do" section a bullet about growing your own food. In World War II, Victory Gardens were a great source of pride. Ask anyone who was a child then about his or her Victory Garden and get ready for a long conversation.

I started my kitchen garden three Januarys ago. Here in Atlanta, it is a four-season garden, with appropriate time given to rejuvenate individual beds with cover crops. Can you imagine how different our country would be today if a majority of Americans took this simple act just a few years ago and started Victory Gardens?

Start today. Plant cool-season herbs and stop buying them at the supermarket. Put in a row or two of lettuce and pick fresh leaves for your salad every few days, and how about planting something fun like brussel sprouts? You haven't seen anything until you've seen brussel sprouts grow (and guess what? The kids will eat them if they grow them). Oh, and don't forget to plant some spinach.

Need inspiration? Search Google for Victory Gardens and take a look at the amazing posters (including the one above) that were created during World War II to encourage American citizens to create their own gardens.

Introducing the Foodshed Planet Victory Garden Drive

It's time to share with you my Big Idea. It got all stirred up again inside me last week when I wrote about how the Dogwood Festival wouldn't be at Piedmont Park in Atlanta this year because of the drought, and the only other time it hasn't been there in its 72-year-history was during World War II.

The mention of World War II took me right back to what got me going six years ago on gardening in the first place (me, someone who doesn't like to hover who thought gardening would be nothing but work, work, work!) The day after 9/11/01, I walked aimlessly around my local Publix wondering if our food supply would be hit by terrorists. I thought for sure it wouldn't be long before our government asked us to plant Victory Gardens in order to increase food security, just as two million Americans planted Victory Gardens during WWII so that manufactured food could be sent to the troops overseas.

Our issues are different today. Yes, food security against terrorism is critical but we also have reduced food security due to the continual incidence of tainted food from factory farms and feedlots. We're fighting the war on obesity. GMOs. Reliance on petroleum-based transportation and products such as fertilizers. Health-impairment from pesticides and other toxicities. A shocking drop-off, in just one generation, of what's called "earth skills," or the ability to sustain our own lives in nature. Even the lack of preparedness of children in science and math, skills that are central to jobs in emerging technologies and our changing global marketplace. Why are our politicians not talking about these things? Why doesn't anyone realize that the health of the food we eat is central to our lives? Why don't we demand more? Why don't we take back the power of our own destinies, one seed at a time?

And so, again, I am only one person. But I have waited six years. And my government is not encouraging anyone to plant Victory Gardens, even though we all wanted to do something six years ago. We all wanted to feel as if our small efforts could make a difference. We all wanted to work together rather than descend into this downward spiral of negativity and divisiveness that makes up the discourse of today's political environment in my country. And it has nagged at me for so long that I no longer have a choice in this matter. I must now take action.

I ask you to join me in planting a Victory Garden (if you are already a gardener, be a "Companion Planter" and encourage a new gardener through advice, seedlings and other get-started help). Start with your soil now, in January (or when it is workable in your climate--our Southern Hemisphere friends are able to dig right in!). Then start with herbs when it is time to plant (because they are easy and the taste of success, both literally and figuratively, is a powerful motivator!). And let's declare victory over our food supply, once and for all.

The FoodShed Planet Victory Garden Drive

Goal (for without a goal there is no compass on the journey): TWO MILLION NEW GARDENS PLANTED IN 2008. Backyard gardens, community gardens, school gardens, windowsill gardens--they all count. Anywhere on our FoodShed Planet.

Challenge: DESIGN a new Victory Garden poster! Are you a school teacher? Have your class take a stab at it! How about your work buddies? Your neighbors? Have a Victory Garden poster party! Send your designs (size limit: 8.5" by 11") to FoodShed Planet, P.O. Box 88043, Atlanta, GA, 30356, USA. No deadline. Select artwork featured on FoodShed Planet! (The photo featured above is a government-issued design from way back when.)

Sponsor Opportunity: Are you an organic seed or sustainable garden supply company? Would you be willing to offer a 20% or more discount to new gardeners in order to grow your customer base and do good? Promote your business as a sponsor of the FoodShed Planet Victory Garden Drive! Please post a comment or email me at freshbakedcopy@mindspring.com if you are interested!

Add your name in the Comments section below after you plant your garden (first name, screen name, whatever you want) and we will join hands and hoes across our FoodShed Planet. And, together, we will declare victory. If you have a garden blog or start one, add a link to it as well so we can all learn from each other. Check out Kitchen Gardeners International for more backyard gardens around the world (including right near you!) than you can imagine. Start today with a couple of windowsill pots of herbs and you will have taken the first step forward!

Please pass this on to anyone you know who might be interested (including media contacts). And then to those who you think won't. Because on 9/10/01, I wasn't interested. And here I am now.

W

noreply@blogger.com (Pattie Baker) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 09:11:00 +0000

WATERMELON

The Lesson of the White Watermelon

No, this isn't my 15-pound moon-and-stars watermelon, the only one that I have found growing in the garden so far. This is from Charlotte's CSA box, because Charlotte waits long enough before she picks her watermelons. Charlotte doesn't crouch there, thumping the melon, checking the pig's tail (the tendril closest to the stem) to make sure it's brown and then, seeing that it's not quite brown, think, well, maybe it's ready anyway and what fun it would be to tell the kids in the sprinkler that we have a watermelon! No, Charlotte waits, because Charlotte has patience.

Me? I'm still working on patience. Each year I get a little better, and, in fact, last year I harvested about eight watermelons that were, indeed, red inside. But this year there has only been the one. I knew I was in trouble when I started to cut it, the children all gathered around. There should be a splitting sound when the knife first pierces the rind. There was none. Then, I closed my eyes and opened the two halves, asking the children to tell me if it was red. There was silence.

We all stood there, mouths agape with disappointment, until finally my older daughter took a fork and dug out a piece of the mostly-white, barely-tinged-with-pink fruit.

"Mmmmmm!" she exclaimed, God bless her. And the other children took forks as well and collectively they all dug until the fruit was gone, pits scattered on the table, juice dripping down their arms.

"It's delicious!" they said, over and over. Yet all I could think was how much more delicious it would have been had I simply waited a few more days. But then, slowly, as I stepped away and watched them run back to the sprinkler, I thought: they had just made a memory. "Remember that horribly hot day in the dead of summer when we ate that white watermelon and played in the sprinkler?" I could hear them saying some day far, far away. And I realized. They may not have even remembered a perfect watermelon. But this? This was special.

For One Brief Moment, We Never Want the Heat the End

Yes, I’ve made a Rice Thing and a Pasta Thing this week, but my contribution to One Local Summer is this—a nice, cold glass of fresh watermelon juice (just watermelon and ice in a blender) with a sprig of mint from the garden.

Period.

Because that’s the thing we’ll remember in the dead of winter when we think about these endlessly scorching days. And that’s what One Local Summer celebrates, doesn’t it? Those memorable meals that capture the essence of the season in all its glory—the way that if we sit really still, a slight breeze created perhaps by nothing but butterfly wings may blow and it will be all we need to feel alive again in this heat; the way rush-hour storms paralyze the highways and clog sidestreets with hot and sweaty office workers on their way home to children too wilted to play; the way we float on our backs at the pool, the water too warm for laps or even Marco Polo, a game that just weeks ago that we thought would never end. And then, we walk in the door to a wineglass of watermelon juice with a sprig of mint, drops of condensation covering the bowl of the glass, a small puddle around its base on the table, the sweet smell of mint permeating the air as we stir the frothy pink liquid with the sprig. And for one brief moment, as summer’s harvest reaches our lips, we never want the heat to end.

Give Me Patience and Give it to Me Now

This photo is from exactly one year ago today. It was a perfect watermelon, picked at the peak of ripeness. It was a special watermelon because it was the only one of eight that was perfectly ripe. That's because I picked every other one too soon.

Watermelons are tricky things. They grow long, rambling vines with little yellow flowers, and then, after what seems like ages, tiny fruits form that engorge slowly at first, and then suddenly very rapidly. I'm out there checking them all the time, seeing if their bellies are yellow, if they sound hollow when I thump them, and if the pig's tail (the little tendril closest to where the stem and the fruit attach) has turned brown. Inevitably, there comes a day when kids are playing in the yard and the sun is beating down and I somehow convince myself that the watermelon is rotting because I missed its best day. And I pick it. And it's white, or barely pink inside. And I ask, beg, plead for patience for the next time.

And so, now, this year, I am being faced with a "next time." I have only harvested one watermelon this year so far, and I picked it too soon. But yesterday, I discovered a new one, hidden beneath the vines, fattening up nicely with its big, yellow moon spot and speckles of yellow stars across its green shell. And I know I'll come up with a reason to want to pick it each and every day. "In honor of the total lunar eclipse this morning," I'll say. Or "we just washed the car and wouldn't that be nice" or "I have nothing else to put in the lunchboxes." But no. This time, I will be patient. I will be patient with my ambitions and my family and my watermelon. I will be patient because good things come to those who wait. I will be patient because it is clearly a lesson I need to learn.

You know the saying: Reach for the moon. Even if you miss, you will land among the stars. Well, today, my saying is slightly different. Don't reach for the moon and stars watermelon. Wait, Pattie. Wait. Because a ripe watermelon is a treasure. And patience is, too.

WALKING (even though that's a bike photo)

One-Mile March

It's March 1, and that means the idea that has been percolating in my mind all winter is officially going in to play. If Ghandi could march to the sea for salt, and Martin Luther King could march on Washington for civil rights, then there must be an action I could take that would encourage environmental improvements, I figured. An action that would nurture sustainability close to home, and serve as a symbol around the world. An action that would let me go to bed each night knowing I did my little part, and that perhaps, by my example, inspired someone else to do just a little more today as well.

And that action is a march as well. Actually, it's 31 days of March. And instead of a march to the sea or a march on Washington, it's a one-mile march, or rather, One-Mile March. For the month of March, I intend to not drive my car for any trips that are within my one-mile walkshed. Period. That means no running out to Kroger mid-morning. No car trips to the elementary school. No quick errand to the drug store or the healthfood store. May not sound like a big deal to you, especially if you live in a particularly strong walkshed, but to me this is going to be hard.

I checked my "walk score," which is a numeric rating of how walkable my neighborhood is. My address scored a 40 out of 100 (not even taking into account the hills). According to the website, walkscore.com, a score of 25 - 50 = Not Walkable: Only a few destinations are within easy walking range. For most errands, driving or public transportation is a must. A score of 78 is considered very walkable. FoodShed Planet readers from the United States, Canada and the U.K.--check out your neighborhood at the link above and get your walkscore, too!

Interestingly, Bill Gates' walk score is 9. The Space Needle in Washington is 66, as is The White House in Washington, D.C., although President Bush's Crawford Ranch is 0. The Brady Bunch house? Remember that one, with the cool staircase? A walk score of 77. And you get Greg's funky attic room, to boot.

According to the walk score website, walking is important because it leads to:

* Better health

* Reduction in greenhgouse gases

* More transportation options

* Increased social capital (which means you connect with more people locally)

* Stronger local businesses

But I'm not limiting myself to walking. Biking is my "fast option" for the month, and I already test-drove errand-running last weekend when I rode my bike to Kroger to pick up some things. First challenge--no bike rack. I simply rolled the bike through the store with me, filling up my canvas bags in my panniers and rolling through the 15-or-less checkout line (I definitely bought less than I would have had I driven). My favorite moment? When I rolled past a girl who was about ten years old (and sitting IN her mother's cart instead of walking), whom I heard whisper to her mother, "That is cool." Perhaps my simple little action planted a seed in her that will change the course of her life. (Or so I always like to think.)

My favorite part of walking? When my daughter and I walk to school, I have infinite patience for whatever it is she wants to tell me. I am not rushing to fold laundry or return a business phone call. In those forward-moving moments where conversation is welcome, I love a story that goes on and on and on. I find infinite joy in senseless songs that we sing over and over. I have the desire to skip and race. And my daughter has my undivided attention. All of this truly doesn't happen, especially not all at the same time, during any other part of the day.

And, so, off I go. My One-Mile March will require some changes in my habits. I'll have to leave home earlier whenever I go anywhere local. I'll have to dress for exercise and the weather. I'll have to prepare a bit more, and I have to be prepared for challenges I'm not yet anticipating.

I'm wishing that the first day of my One-Mile March didn't correspond with my blood donation day, however, but yes, the donation location is within 1-mile, so walk I will. Take it slow, Pattie. Just take it slow.

Join me?

WEATHER

The Flower After the Storm

There is a movie named Fly Away Home that gets better and better every time I watch it. It's a soft, gentle movie that pierces my heart about a girl from New Zealand who loses her mom in a car accident and goes to live with her dad in Canada, where she ends up serving as a surrogate mother to a flock of goslings.

It is magnificently art-directed. Elegantly acted. And indulgently filmed. It takes full advantage of the natural beauty of nature, relationships and the miraculous ability for beings to heal. One scene, in particular, shows the almost-unbelievable navigation of a hang glider and the flock of migrating geese traveling through downtown Baltimore. When I click on my little FoodShed Planet map in the right sidebar, I think of that movie whenever I see there is a reader from New Zealand or Canada or Baltimore, even though I know the incredible diversity of those areas could never possibly be reduced to that one movie.

Perhaps you thought of me yesterday, if you heard the news that instead of a flock of geese, a tornado ripped through downtown Atlanta, leaving a path of damage 6 miles long and 200 yards wide. CNN Center. The Georgia Dome. Centennial Olympic Park. The Historic Oakland Cemetery. They all got hit, including a charming little residential section of the city called Cabbagetown, where many homes were completely destroyed. Blew away in the storm. Windows and staircases and roofs. History and memories and lives.

It was the first tornado to touch down in downtown Atlanta since recordkeeping began in the late 1800s. And if you thought about me, I just wanted to say thank you, for caring just a little bit about a person that you didn't know before this magnificent tool called the internet has connected us around the world. And I wanted to let you know that my friends and family are fine.

And therein lies the beauty. The flower after the storm, like this magnolia tree I found blooming on a labyrinth I walked yesterday. People, like you and me, are connected in ways they never were before. We have instant information that enables us to take instant action. We see faces that put meaning on stories. We care, in ways that surprise us.

Yes, there were millions of dollars of damage done downtown this weekend. Yes, several people lost their lives (although there is extraodinary thanks here that more lives were not lost). And yes, the challenge of rebuilding lives and history is difficult.

Yet, we do.

Wringing My Hands with a Worry I Never Had Before

No, this isn't fudge. It is soap made by a new vendor at the farmers market, Jen from Indigo Bath and Body, whom I met yesterday.

Turns out that two nights ago, while I sat at the kitchen table with my family by the light of a camping lantern (as if I camp!) after the windy storm knocked out our electricity, yet another tornado touched down in the Atlanta area (well, about 40 minutes away this time) and damaged more than 1,000 homes. My mother, who lives up that way, was at a meeting where everyone got corralled to safety in a church basement. Jen, the soapmaker, lost 30 trees and her entire garden, from which she harvests the herbs that go into the soaps she has been making since she was 13, since her grandmother first thought she was old enough to handle the lye by herself.

Jen called Melissa, Saver of Those in Trouble, to tell her what had happened. Within twenty minutes, Melissa had descended upon Jen to take her and her son back to her home for the night. Jen packed a suitcase . . . with nothing but soap. And there she was at the market, gazing at her beautiful soap and telling me how it contained the last of her lavender and rosemary and other herbs because now they were all gone.

I heard someone ask her young son about the storm and he answered simply, "It's okay. I'm fine," and then sold the man little clay balls he was making in the truck and which he pronounced were purple armadillos (I bought three--quite a deal for a dime apiece!).

I bought a bar of Jen's kitchen soap, made with coffee grounds and topped attractively by raw coffee beans as if they were chocolate chips. And I will use it in my kitchen as I stand there at that sink, watching my children in the garden and feeling gratitude for today, for the tornadoes haven't chosen to take my garden yet.

But this constant tornado weather pattern, where once tornadoes were rare, is a scary and concerning thing. Tsunamis. Cyclones. Hurricanes. Tornadoes. What is happening to our world weather?

And so I'll wash my hands of garlic and onion and the other seasonal crops that pass from garden to skillet. And I'll wring them with a worry that I never had before, a fear of storms I never felt. And I'll pray that we can, somehow, stop the madness.

WINE

"I Know. It's Hot. Sit Down."

It's hot here. Hot and humid. As a flock of kids and I walked to a camp about a mile away each morning this week, the air hung heavy with the cloyingly sweet fragrances of camillias and honeysuckle, magnolias and lilies. Instead of keeping a steady pace, as ex-New Yorkers like me are determined to do, I found myself giving in to the slow, steady heartbeat of the Southern heat. Slowing down so much, in fact, that at one point I thought we were actually walking backwards. Slipping for a moment of cool under a low-hanging tree branch that we dubbed The Secret Garden, where we found a bird's nest. Straying off the sidewalk into a ditch to pick wild blackberries. Pondering why the field of milkweed, the only host plant of the migrating monarch butterfly, had been mowed down. Singing lazy harmonies to moody, bluesy showtunes that you'd never expect today's children to have even ever heard, let alone know. Waving hello to that man with the little dog and that lady with the transistor radio. Pumping arms so that truck drivers blow their horns. And finally holding hands, a long string of us, and digging the final burst of energy from deep inside so we can run across the non-crosswalked street during a temporary lull of minivans with moms on cell phones.

It is so hot that when I went outside barefoot to bring the garbage can back in from the street, I burned by feet and thought, "It is so hot you could fry an egg on the street." Which, in fact, I then proceeded to do.

And so this is the kind of day during which I discovered Persimmon Creek Vineyard's Seyval Blanc wine. Persimmon Creek is a 101-acre estate nestled among Lakes Burton and Rabun in the Northeast Georgia mountains, on the banks of Persimmon Creek, where vines grow in the natural contour of the landscape.

I opened the wine expecting something light, in my wine ignorance, because it was white and I usually drink red, and thinking that would be refreshing on the kind of day where the hot, stale heat of the garage was actually a relief after being outdoors. The first sip, however, was so completely different than what I expected. It was thick and buttery, fragrant with hints of melon and somehow seemed to say to me, "I know. It's hot. Sit down."

And sure enough, when I sat and waited, sipping slowly, the slightest of breezes touched the tips of the leaves on my fig tree and danced a slow ballet through the bean teepee, landing delicately on the tail of a mockingbird perched on the weathered wood fence behind the blackberry brambles. And the heady evergreen scent of juniper bushes wafted through the air as the unexpectedly fruity taste of a wine made just 87 miles from me helped me kiss the sun goodbye. Until tomorrow, when once again, the sun will blaze and sweat will pour and the heat will once again demand that we slow down.

Click here to find out more about Persimmon Creek Vineyard, including details about a Jazz in July event that features a dinner of Georgia-sourced ingredients. To find out more about summer in Atlanta, go to Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York City and stand behind a bus. Yep. That's what it feels like. But somehow nicer, if you give in to it.

Greenwashing, or Good?

I had seen this wine before and had passed it by, even though there was a large sign by it proclaiming it the first winery in the U.S. to be carbon neutral, and even though the winery claims:

* to be locally grown and operated
* to use grapes from a family farm
* to be protecting the environment
* to use earth-friendly packaging
* to use solar power

You see why I didn't buy this wine? Yep, you got it, Sherlock. The grapes are not organically grown.

This time, as I felt the Sustainable Red bottle attempting to greenwash me as I passed by, I said (perhaps out loud), "What's up with that?"

And long-time readers of FoodShed Planet know what I did next. I bought a bottle of the wine and I took it home and I did my research (which involved the internet, not a wine glass!) and I called the company.

But here's where things took an interesting turn. As I researched Sustainable Red, I discovered that it is made by a winery called Parducci's, and that Parducci's was purchased by the Mendocino Wine Company, which was formed in 2004 by a partnership between the families of Tom and Tim Thornill and Paul Dolan. And Paul Dolan is the man who wrote the book that changed the course of my life.

I remember it clear as day, that Christmas several years ago when I curled up on a couch for two days and read True to Our Roots from cover to cover. It was the first time I had heard about triple-bottom-line sustainability, and Paul's personal journey transforming a winery and eventually forging a new direction for wineries in general fascinated me. I asked my husband to sit with me on the couch and I know I bubbled over, more like champagne than wine, when I told him what I had discovered and how I felt a calling toward refocusing my writing career in the direction of sustainability. I put together a new business plan at that point, and have been chugging along on it ever since.

And so I tend to trust Paul. And if Paul is involved with this Sustainable Red, then there is good to the story. I just didn't have all the answers yet.

Well, you know what happens next. I emailed Paul's press person. Hoping for a phone interview, I was surprised when my phone rang a couple days later and it was Paul.

I thanked him first, because when people change your life I think they deserve to know it. I then asked him why the grapes in Sustainable Red are not organic. For me, the use of the word sustainable is beyond organic--it permeates every aspect of a company's operations and expresses itself in the unquestionable organic pedigree of a company's product. And, at the end of the day, I don't put Sustainable Red's solar and wind power or recycled packaging in my body. I put its grapes.

To me, Paul had a good answer. He told me that the small family farms that provide the grapes for Sustainable Red are transitioning to organic but they can't be called organic grapes until the process is complete. Okay, fair enough. I then suggested that, as a consumer, I would like to know that, because then if I choose to buy Sustainable Red, my dollar is voting in support of that transition, rather than voting for greenwashing where no organic transition is even intended. I told him about how I have seen clothing companies starting to promote "transitional cotton" at a lower price point than organic cotton, which gives consumers an opportunity to be a positive, knowing part of the change. Paul indicated that he liked that idea, but since the Tax and Trade Bureau oversees the wine industry, there may be more restrictions in the use of something like "transitioning to organic."

In all fairness to Paul, the Mendocino Wine Company's website does include this verbiage:

Our vineyards are certified for their sustainable practices. We restore fish and wildlife habitat and improve water quality in vineyards certified as “Fish Friendly Farming.” Our synthetic chemical free farming practices are certified by “California Certified Organic Farmers.” And our Biodynamic vineyards, managed as living organisms, are certified by “Demeter.”

In pursuit of earth-friendly quality, we have moved along a specific farming continuum from what is commonly referred to as “Conventional” farming to Sustainable, Organic and Biodynamic farming practices.

Thanks, Paul, for your generosity of time yesterday. Please consider the effect of your advertising and other marketing communications efforts on consumers--and strive for greater transparency (particularly at the point-of-purchase), especially as consumers become increasingly eco-savvy and demanding of answers about products before they vote with their dollars. Besides, folks like me might just pass you by, and the bottom line? You're losing sales.

Paul has a good story. In fact, he has an even better story with his other wines, with an extraordinarily strong commitment to biodynamics (and notice the horns in the logo). I'm also intrigued by the use of the term "fish-friendly farming," which involves reducing erosion and chemical use in order to bring health back to watersheds.

Paul is absolutely, unyieldingly committed to carbon neutrality as his number one priority. I am absolutely, unyieldingly committed to organic agriculture. I'm hoping to raise a glass to Paul soon with a product within my price point that meets both criteria. Or is clearly defined as a consumer voting opportunity to move the process along.

WORMS

A Grand Celebration (Or What Really Happened When the Worms Arrived)

As I swung around the corner of the farmhouse/art gallery, I saw this painting, yet again, on the side of the barn. I smiled, as usual, because that's exactly how I feel every time I go to this particular parking lot to meet the farmers. And now, in the dead of winter, when our farmers market is closed and I didn't expect to be here, I smile especially wide.

I had gotten an email from Corinna, from Garmon Family Farm, saying the "girls were laying." If you have gotten used to farm-fresh eggs and then suddenly don't have them anymore, you hurt. You buy the organic ones from Whole Foods but they are nowhere near the same. The shells aren't thick enough. The yolks aren't orange enough. And you know, just know, that those birds probably never saw the light of day nor felt the scratch of soil beneath their feet. And you know your muffins and your cookies and your soft-boiled breakfasts simply won't be as good as you know they could be.

And so, there was Corinna and Chad, the milkman, who had an extra gallon of raw milk for me, which practically made me squeal. I haven't had milk to drink in about a month, ever since I discovered that the organic milk I buy in the store has Vitamin D3 added to it, which is from fish. And I am 10 months into my nothing-with-a-face year as a vegetarian. And so the container of rich, creamy, pure, unheated milk from grass-fed Jersey cows felt like gold in my cold hands.

I told Corinna the worms were coming in about three weeks.

"Coming?!" she exclaimed. "Where are they coming from?"

"I ordered them."

"Why didn't you just go to a bait shop and get red wrigglers for like three bucks?" she asked, incredulously, in that no-nonsense way I love about her.

I stood there silently, looking like the suburban sucker that I suppose I am, thinking about those 500 Eisenia Fetidas (yes, red wrigglers) for $32 I had ordered from Seeds of Change to split with Richard.

Both Chad and Corinna smirked. I stood. The wind blew. And then I said, "I had to order them so that I could plan the Grand Celebration for their arrival!"

Yes! A logical answer! There would be vegan cupcakes topped with organic gummy worms and the worm bin would be hoist up on shoulders and all the children of the land would sing and dance alongside the procession!

They both laughed, God bless them. And I took my milk, and duck and chicken eggs ("there's a blue one in there from Cutie!" Corinna called as I was leaving) and went on my way.

Fast forward.

My kids and I went swimming at an indoor pool right before dinner last night. As we stepped out of the car, snow flurries had just started to fall. Snow flurries. Now, here in Atlanta, we get snow flurries once a year. Once a year. And last year, they didn't come at all. So if you're a child, you have seen snow hardly ever in your life, and each time you see it, it is a major event. Therefore, as we were walking into the building, children (and grown-ups alike) were smiling broadly and bending their heads back to catch flakes on their tongues. The excitement was palpable.

As we left the building about two hours later, there was actual accumulation on the roads and cars and lawn, another very rare event here. You would have thought it was the night before Christmas the way folks were buzzing with joy. I really don't remember the last time I saw people so happy!

And so, as I came home to my winter wonderland of a neighborhood, and my children were making snowballs and snow angels, I got busy taking photos that I thought might look nice on this blog.

But then I saw it. A little square box, delivered by the post office, in front of my garage door, covered with snow.

I walked up to it cautiously. "It couldn't be," I thought. It was supposed to take three weeks. The worm bin isn't prepared. It's a freezing cold night. I haven't baked the cupcakes yet. And, um, my husband doesn't quite know about them yet.

Yet there they were. In a burlap bag that simply said "500" on it. A note tucked in the box said, "Information about the release of your red wriggler worms." The release! As if they are being sprung from jail.

I called Kelly first, because, my goodness, mom-to-mom, I'd knew she'd appreciate the misfortune of this timing on a rare, snowy Atlanta night. And then, of course, the next call was to Richard, since I couldn't dump the whole bag into my bin because he gets half of them. Please keep in mind that the streets were now freezing over, and the snow was falling in the biggest flakes I think I've ever seen (and I'm from New York). Between the hills, the lack of snow equipment and the drivers who aren't used to snowy conditions, Atlanta pretty much shuts down when it snows even a slight bit.

"Richard? Can you come over?" I asked. "The worms have arrived."

"The worms have arrived? I'll be right there," he said, no hesitation, as if a baby had just been born.

He came immediately, his wife back home shredding newspaper and my older daughter shredding as well at my kitchen table. We put too-cold soil in the bins and added the newspaper wetted with warm water, and then Richard dug in to the bag to see if the worms were even still alive.

"If these babies make it through this, we're breeding them," he said. "Because these will be the toughest worms around."

I kept the worms inside last night. Somewhere warm. I don't yet know how they are doing today because they are upstairs, tucked in, and other family members are still sleeping. But I'm already scanning that Vegan with a Vengeance cookbook that I love so much for a good cupcake recipe.

Oh, and hon? We now have worms. :)

Tale of Two Worm Bins

It was the best of worms. It was the worst of worms . . .

I raked the castings and shredded newspaper to one side of the completely inconspicuous worm bin that has been on the edge of my living room since that snowy night in January when the worms arrived. I added apple cores and banana peels as the sweet, nice worms lounged about nonchalantly in their homemade "worm condo," taking turns with the TV remote, sharing sections of the Sunday newspaper, chatting with their friends on the phone. I think only about twelve of my worms survived that freezing mail-order trip to my home and are the most pampered worms you'd ever want to see. My bin has been odor-and-fruit-fly free, and extremely low maintenance. I swear I think the little guys wave to me when I open the lid.

Cut to a mile away, to Richard of the Worms. He had taken half the worms that arrived that cold night, and his enthusiasm for vermicomposting led him to get two more batches of worms, another bin like the ones we had made together, and one of those fancy three-level worm factory thingamajigs. He has thousands of the red wrigglers now.

It has been hell over there. The worms have been trying to escape continuously, carrying protest banners and shouting obscenities. Richard has been out of his mind trying to figure out what they want. Air? Moisture? Food? He has been at their service day in, day out, for months now. Whereas I feed mine maybe once or twice a week, Richard's kitchen scrap needs are so extreme he has been collecting garbage from friends and family members, food-processing it and freezing it so that he has a continuous supply. He says he hears a constant rustling in the bins as the worms eat.

Richard has been leaving the cover off two of the bins and shining a light into them in order to keep the worms down. Once he moved the worm bins out to his garage from his basement, the fruit flies appeared. Now that the weather has warmed up and the bins are under an eave in the back yard, the worms have calmed down a bit, but I gotta' tell you, it doesn't look like fun over there.

When we started this experiment, Richard had intentions of starting a real worm farm, a business perhaps. I had been anxious to create a logo, a name, some marketing materials for him. I asked him about that now, and he said:

"I don't think so. You can read all you want and do all the research, but until you can figure out what they want, it's a real challenge."

Until you can figure out what they want.

Now, that's the bottom-line truth. These worms are a daily reminder that nature cannot be beaten into submission, that we are not the rulers of the world, and that sometimes we simply must admit that we don't have all the answers in order to live in unity on this earth.

Yet Richard keeps trying. We walked around his front and back yard and in the last six months alone, Richard has added six fig trees, three rasberry bushes, two raised beds for vegetables, a front-yard herb garden, a rainbarrel and of course, his push reel lawn mower.

Later in the day, I got a call from Richard. He was on his cell phone, and even thought the call kept breaking up a little, the excitement in his voice was palpable.

"I made a decision," he said.

Oh no, I thought. He was going to give up on the worms.

"What is it?" I asked, sitting down, wondering if I should encourage him to keep going, that things had gotten better outside with the bins, that he almost had them figured out.

He lowered his voice a bit, as if someone on the highway might overhear him and think him crazy, and he told me words that almost made me cry with joy.

"I'm getting chickens."

So here is what happened.

noreply@blogger.com (Pattie Baker) — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 18:08:00 +0000

It was the day after 9/11/2001. I was standing in a Publix supermarket in Dunwoody, Georgia, shell-shocked like everyone, trying to figure out what to buy as emergency food "just in case" and it hit me that if something happened to our food supply, we were pretty much up a creek. If something happened to our water supply? Well, forget the creek.

I'm not a doom and gloom kind of person, so I shook off the choking despair that threatened to grip our entire society. Instead, I did what people have done for centuries when faced with the unknown. With disaster. With that feeling that there isn't a darn thing they can control in a changing, unpredictable world. I planted seeds.

I was never a gardener before. And no, this book is not about gardening. Well, I guess it is, a bit. But it's more about how a whole new world of possibility opened up when I took that simple, time-honored action. I got rich in things that don't have price tags. I got connected to people all over the world I never would have met before. And I found answers to questions I didn't even know I had, about a way of life I didn't even realize I was living.

I'm just a mom in suburbia. Or, I was. Since I planted those seeds, I became the author of a blog titled FoodShed Planet, about nurturing sustainability close to home and around the world (and other food for thought). I wrote for various publications about sustainability, eventually becoming somewhat of a subject matter expert, I suppose. I was named the chairperson of the sustainability commission in my city, one of the newest cities in the United States of America, and am charged with helping it become a certified green community. I was even appointed to my city's 20-year Comprehensive Plan steering committee, an incredibly concrete way to have my hand in helping to form a more sustainable future. I've toured farms and factories. I've interviewed CEOs and social justice leaders. I've made friends with farmers, artisans, and eco-entrepreneurs. I'm helping start community and school gardens. And I've grown more than 50 different types of crops, on what used to be about 200 square feet of suburban lawn.

In short, I've changed.

And you can, too. I compiled this collection of my favorite FoodShed Planet posts (and added lots of brand new stuff, too) on a wide range of topics about sustainability, and life, to get you thinking about your power each and every day to make a noticeable difference--mostly by voting with your dollar, but also by taking an extra moment to make choices that, over time, will become habits that have the potential to change your life. Like they did mine.

There's nothing sequential about this book. Even though it's arranged from A to Z, or rather, Amaranth to Worms, you can jump in to these quick-read chapters any way you want when you're waiting for your kids at karate practice or hanging in carpool line or, my favorite, in the hammock on a Sunday morning.

And just because I'm a mom doesn't mean you need to be a mom to enjoy this book. In fact, if you're a corporate road warrior, a 25-year-old living on the cheap in a fifth-floor walk-up in a big city, a backpacking college student or a teen going green, I know you because I was you. I write with you in mind as well.

If you're a sixties throw-back who ate organic way before it was easy to find and warned about the effects of industrial agriculture, I stand on your shoulders. And if you are a grandparent who remembers Victory Gardens, I look to you for a transfer of knowledge so I can be among those to carry it forward.

So, book a little time with me each day for the rest of the summer and we'll end up with a book at the end. Its name may change, although I'm thinking a great designer could have some fun with From Amaranth to Worms. But its mission remains the same. To share some food for thought to help you live more sustainably. And perhaps, just perhaps, to change the world a little bit for the better.