It Hailed Today

And rained for most of the rest of it.  And might snow tomorrow......

But I, and several other lucky Chattanoogans, will still have something great to eat.  Thanks! to the year-long farmer's market, run by brave farmers who really care about us.  O, we are so so lucky.

Comin' on Thanksgiving

The leaves have turned, they days are getting shorter, the shade is chilly but the sun still hot.  The air is a crisp crunchy blue, no longer sodden with humidity. It's a season-change and we all know it, no matter how disconnected we are from the outdoors.   Farmers react to it and respond.  "First frost" means something out there in the fields and the peppers had better be in by the first freeze or they'll turn to mush.  Even from our sheltered inside-lives we can look out the kitchen window and know that something's in the air.  And shopping at the farmer's market is different too.  Pumpkins, winter squash, greens, and sweet potatoes?  Is something starting to look familiar?   Is it beginning to feel a bit like Thanksgiving?

Of course, like most of our holidays, the true origin of Thanksgiving is all but lost.  I won't even delve into this, because I think we all know what we've lost in the translation of the years.  But maybe it did all start with an act of kindness, sharing, of generosity.  For the sake of romance, let's just run with that.  And Thanksgiving is something really special.  It's a day of true American culture, one of the only.  All countries who have gained independence from another have an Independence Day, and most of our other holidays are strange consumer-oriented versions of religious or pagan celebrations.   But Thanksgiving, although similarly celebrated in cultures and communities over the world in the form of autumn/harvest-festivals, is all ours.  And that is important for a society.  America is a big place, with lots of different people from lots of different backgrounds.  It's such a large country that it almost doesn't make sense; a child that lives in countries all over the world, raised by many parents and is now a hulking giant, unsure of what its beliefs are and what background to carry.

I realized the other day (again and again, for some reason I think about this a lot) how young our country is.  We really want that deep-rooted culture, that sense of belonging and place.  That's what Community is all about.  When you read articles about "true southern food", about the barbecue joints and the fried chicken, it's not really about the pork or the chicken, it's about us.  It gives us that comforting sense of belonging and familiarity.  If it was an article truly about the pork or the chicken, it would be a story of terror and sadness- glimpses of the small hog farmer leaving the land because they can no longer afford to keep it, factory-farmed meat, dangerous slaughterhouses, trucks shipping animals across the country and back.     But seriously, who wants to hear that? Let's talk about the sauce, and how it's different from their sauce, how our pork is smoked right, how ours is pulled right, how ours is ours.  It's our culture and it's something to be proud of.

O and it is.   Thanksgiving, our American holiday, is something to be proud of.  It is the one day of the year where the whole point is family, friends, food, and seasonality.  We eat traditional autumn foods- heavy and comforting, preparing ourselves for the dark cold road of Winter to come.  We join together in the kitchen and give thanks for the folks around us, and the bounty of food that the earth has given us.    And some of us keep an eye (or two) on the football score....whatever makes you happy.

The nice thing about our culture is that we have not really strayed so far from the beaten path.  For the first couple hundred years of our young and fast-growing country, we really did have those things we are still proud of.  The hogs were raised by neighbors, and the chicken fried by grandmothers.   The templates are still there- the sweet potato casserole, the roasted turkey, the cranberry sauce (a little northern, but they're still seasonal).  We don't have to purchase these things from the grocery store because they aren't exotic- they belong to us, and to the land around us.   All we have to do is step in and reclaim it, buy food from our neighbors,  support our community, and make our culture thrive.  Then we'll really have something to give Thanks about.

Stop by the Main Street Farmer's Market next Wednesday the 16th, or the special Thanksgiving date Tuesday the 22nd and pick up your Thanksgiving meal.   Look for seasonal recipe ideas on all the farmer's booths, and don't forget to try something new! (like turnips).

I'm Sorry, I Just Can't Help Myself

I don't usually "blog" this much but THIS is something worth reading.  Mouth watering, exciting, riveting, cutting-edge, something worth writing a list for.  Something worth being very, very proud to be a part of.

I am getting ready for a super special dinner this weekend and I usually never write a "shopping list" for the market, but I just did today.  If I got just one or two things from each vendor I would have all the colors in the rainbow in my house and on my plates, as well as every taste, texture, smell and summer explosion.  And that is very very special.  I almost thought about going to the grocery today (something I haven't done in over a month) but who needs a grocery when they have (organically/sustainably grown and raised): figs, herbs, cucumbers, peppers sweet and hot galore, sun golds, edamame, pink-eyed and purple hull peas, green beans, yard long purple beans, melons, grits, onions, broccoli  cabbage, potatoes, cheese, coffee, zucchini, eggplant, garlic, squashes of many kinds, blackberries, lamb, eggs, beef,  okra, chard, pork (bacon),  corn, tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes!!!!!!!!!!..... and I'm not even done.  (there's more!)

Yay!

What's Coming to Market: Alexzanna Farms: Cantaloupes, Raspberries, Eggs, Potatoes, Herbs, Flowers and Fresh Figs   Circle S Farm: Tomatoes, Edamame Soybeans, Bell Peppers, Cherry Tomatoes, Okra, Eggplant and Pie Apples   Crabtree Farms: Sweet Carmen Peppers, Okra, Jalapenos, Garlic, Cherry Tomatoes, Squash and Cucumbers    Creekridge Farm: Pasture Raised Eggs, Okra, Herbs and Squash      Fall Creek Farms: Grass Fed Beef & Lamb, Heirloom and Beefsteak Tomatoes, Cherry Tomatoes, Sweet & Hot Peppers, Red & Green Okra, Summer Squash, Eggplant, Mixed Specialty Beans, Melons, Basil, Cabbage, Swiss Chard and Fingerling & New Potatoes       Hoe Hop Valley Farm: Pasture Raised Chicken, Eggs, Chicken Livers and Blueberries  Link 41: Handmade Fresh Sausages and Bacon        Niedlov's Breadworks: Artisan Breads and Pastries   Pocket Farm: Pink Eye Peas, Green Beans, Italian Heirloom Zucchini & Yellow Squash, Heirloom & Sungold Tomatoes, Sweet & Hot Peppers, Fresh Basil and Cut Flowers   River Ridge Farm: Beef (steaks, roasts, ground beef), Chicken (breast, thighs, legs, wings, and wholes), Pork (thin cut pork chops, bacon, Boston butt, breakfast sausages, fresh brauts and fresh Italian links) and Market Special this week: ground beef $5/lb and ground pork $4.50/lb Riverview Farms: Organic Grits, Cornmeal, Polenta, Sweet Corn, Melons, Squash, Potatoes, Tomatoes and Barley   Sequatchie Cove Creamery: Artisan Farmstead Raw Milk Cheese   Sequatchie Cove Farm: Beef, Lamb, Pork, Eggs and Blueberries Signal Mountain Farm: Tomatoes, Blueberries, Sunflowers, Greens, Fennel, Broccoli, Cauliflower, Squash, Cucumbers, Sungolds, Onions and Cabbage  Tant Hill Farm: Pastured Eggs, Blackberries,  Cherry Tomatoes (wild cherrry, tomatoberry and sungold), Heirloom Tomatoes, Diva Cucumbers, Green Beans, Hot Peppers, Green Bell Peppers, and Purple Chinese Long Beans   TiRoc Farms: Tomatoes, Hot Peppers, Squash and Purple Hull Peas   Velo Coffee Roasters: Organic & Specialty Hand Roasted Coffees   Williams Island Farm: Tomatoes (heirlooms and sungolds), Peppers (sweets and hots), Eggplant, Cucumbers, Summer Squash and Winter Squash (butternut & acorn)

That's My Story, And I'm Stickin' To It

These days, it seems we have to take a semi-radical stand about most things.  Even as someone who only subscribes to the National Geographic, I know that our direction as Earth's human race needs to change, and now.  Of course larger groups of people are going to make a larger visible change, but that doesn't stop you and me from trying in our own teeny tiny ways.  There are loads things I try to support (or not) via my buying and lifestyle habits.  I try to only buy fair trade sugar/coffee/chocolate.  I don't use the clothes dryer unless I have to.  I try to generate less trash, buy organic dairy products, beans and grains, never go to big-box stores, think conscientiously about supporting only local businesses, craftspeople and farmers.  I never buy produce from the produce department, usually.  I try not to buy any processed foods, ever (except chips).  If I can cook it myself, I might as well.  And if I can't...well...guess I shouldn't eat it.

But those are all "tries".  I've bought non-fair trade sugar before.  Same goes for non-organic dairy products, and conventional produce.  I'll eat it if it's offered to me, and sometimes I'll even order it in a restaurant. I've bought apples from the produce department of Whole Foods, even when they're not in season (!).  There is nothing that I do that is one hundred percent consistent,  except this one thing:

I never, ever, ever eat meat that is from somewhere I don't know, unless it is absolutely and completely too rude to refuse.  For much longer and more involved versions regarding "vegetarianism" and other local food choices, each with a different take (and hopefully a little humility mixed in) visit my older posts here or here or...hmm...maybe here.  

The reason is, I think CAFO meat is bad, bad, bad (and more bad).  It's bad because of: the grainfedforcefedanimals, petroleum dependency, antibiotics, hormones, GMOs, mono cropping,  the bees, the ozone,  the runoff, the waste, the slaughterhouses, the workers, the land, all the living creatures, and, of course, most of all ME.  Because, whether we admit it or not, it all comes down to mememememe!  (or you).  There are way too many factors to ignore, and it's so so easy to just say "no, I won't support that, ever.  No authentic fajita, or pulled pork sandwich, or duck confit will change my mind."

So what good does it do?  Maybe a very small amount.  But think, I could be eating meat from "those places" every day, and I'm not.  I eat meat once every couple weeks, and it's from animals I met, who are helping the land not hurting it.  They are happy and healthy, grassfed and sun warmed, and are killed one at a time by men and women who are not risking their lives every time they punch in for work. I believe in supporting good instead of just "boycotting" the bad.   And you know what- I don't even care how small my difference is, I'm still not gonna change it.

I have some blanket rules for my life- Low impact as comfortable, Local when possible, Organic when reasonable, and Why buy clothes retail?  All things, I'm sure, can be improved on, and some things I should be more diligent about.  But I will always have that One Thing I'm not going to back down on, ever.   There is no "try" in this rule, and I like it that way.  It gives me some stability and also perspective into how hard I actually may or may not be trying with the other rules.

We all need at least one Story to Stick To, one thing that we don't do because we have to, but because we want to.   And every day, we should refine our other stories more.  Like, maybe I'll try to eat less chips.


So, if'n you wanna, tell me your story, the one that you stick to always and all the time.  I really want to hear it; maybe it's something I haven't even thought of yet and maybe sharing it will help grow the story into some small kind of change.  Ask Ben Franklin, small change one day makes big change, even if it's just a penny's worth.

Most of you know my email address, or just leave it in the comment box.

Let Me Tell You (again) Why I EAT LOCAL

I often get frustrated by local restaurants claiming they "buy local" and that they proudly supported local farms when that's actually a bit of an exaggeration.  Or by hearing people complain that the Whole Foods isn't stocking organic red bell peppers (in March?! Of course not!  It's March.  Why eat peppers, we have tons of kale?)  Or hearing people complain about Whole Foods in general.  We live in Tennessee.  Buy your food from your farmers.  I don't care what's in the produce section of the grocery store.  I eat what's in season and only what's in season.    I prefer to support the positive things happening in my community more than I like trying to find something wrong with a chain grocery store.  And there are a lot of positive things in our community.

And then I REALLY started thinking about it.  Buying locally and seasonally is HARD work.  It is as hard as farming, but on the other side.  It means buying from not only the several companies for dried goods, produce, and meat, but also juggling that between numbers and linen service and wait and kitchen staff.  It means having to change the menu very regularly to accommodate the seasonality of foods, of dealing with busy and sometimes quirky farmers.  It means several more invoices and checks.  It means having to use the WHOLE animal or plant instead of just the loins, breasts, or roots.  It means dirt and sweat.  It takes a buyer who is very emotionally invested in “making numbers work” to afford the more expensive cost of local food, even if those numbers are in your own home.  And most importantly, it requires a consumer base who is comfortable with eating a "house salad" in March that isn't served with the ever-present insipid tomato wedge.

...YOU (are the consumer base)

Again, of course, we aren't consumers, as Carlo Petrini pointed out.  We are co-producers and WE are creating this market that allows food retailers to make claims that, although may be the truth, are a very stretched truth.

One of my first kitchen experiences was when I was sixteen and spent a long weekend in the kitchen at Blackberry Farms.  “Ann,” the commisarian said, “one of the most important things to remember in this business is that if you start with shit, you’re going to end up with shit.”  Pardon his language, but it’s true.  And I can truly taste  it with my entire being, and not just the tastebuds.  That is the fruit of being a farmer's daughter-   years and years of eating fresh, seasonal, and carefully grown and produced food.  This is only a taste that is “acquired”, and it is acquired through very conscious financial and lifestyle decisions.  

And before you stop in your tracks and tag me as a “food snob,” would like to explain myself……

When I spend, and earn, my money I consider many things.  I think about WHO I support when I buy something.  I think about what impact it is having on all the environments around me- both my own personal one, and also the whole entire world’s.    I am particularly focused on food because that is what I am most passionate about.  But it can’t possibly stop at food.

When I go out to eat in a restaurant, for example, I am conscious of where my money is going.  Primarily I want it to go back into the community.  I want it to go to the local people who’s wages I help pay that cook and serve the food, clean the tables, dishes and linens.  I want it to go to the local business owner.  But if the buck stops there and starts being dispersed across the world to large corporations and “farms” that are out of my control and that I know nothing about, then I don’t want the buck to start.  I don’t want to support large industrial “farming” because I have heard enough about its horrors.  We all have.  We’ve all seen Food Inc., read Fast Food Nation, or have been exposed to something that illustrates the poor treatment of workers, animals, land, and the whole environment.  Just the fact that the food has been shipped hither and thither, and thus, in it’s small way, is contributing to the recent-enough oil spill in the Gulf, should be enough to turn around and plant some kale in our gardens.  “Cheap” food is only cheap for a very short window of time- mainly the moment you hand the money over.  The rest of the time it does some very expensive damage on community, culture, eco-systems, and all things small and wonderful.

When I eat I consider all the things listed here above and below, but of course, I also think of myself.  We all do.  We, as humans, and more specifically, Americans, can’t help but think of ourselves quite often.  We think about how pretty we look, how smart we seem, how funny we are, how successful.  And in order to do all those things at their up-most, we think about how healthy we are.  We run, we bike, we swim, we eat kale and garlic.  We make sure we are feeding ourselves correctly at all times.  Is there enough protein, EFAs, enough vitamin C, D, A or B?  A very nice added bonus to eating locally is that not only does it support the local economy, cut down on fuel usage, not support agro-monsters, etc, etc, etc, but it also makes us, our bodies, and our EGO feel good….

We need to be less greedy and more patient.  Our society has raised us to think that we can have everything we “want” at anytime.  And “want” has turned into just that- a word enclosed in parenthesis.   We don’t even WANT that grain-fed filet mignon from that unknown farmer.  We don’t want that vanilla infused sauce made with apricot nectar and chilies.  We just think we do, but we have gone so far from even understanding the meaning of WANT, much less the meaning of NEED.   WANT comes from expectation and desire, both very exciting features that come with being human.  Want comes from waiting.   A cucumber will never really taste good if you can walk in to the store any day and buy it.  It will taste good only when it is fresh off the local vine, still warm from the July sun.    

So what do we do?  How do we become conscious consumers that have the potential to change our local restaurant fare and prevent future oil spills? 

I was watching this DVD that Netflix recommended to me a few weeks ago about China. There was a little section on a village somewhere in Northern China, or maybe somewhere near or in Tibet.  Anyway, it was a very desolate place where small villages lived and grew their small little crops and went to little markets and all that quaint  and hard-knock stuff.  Then all of a sudden there was a screeching and squeaking and a huge flock of cranes moved in outside the village.  They ate some of the farmer’s grains, pooped all over the place, and made a huge ruckus.    And the farmers felt BLESSED.  The cranes were a symbol of good luck and the farmers welcomed them and allowed the cranes to incorporate themselves into the village.  This was shocking because in America, the land of plenty, the farmers would have SHOT the cranes, the consumers would have complained that they didn’t have as much grain as they wanted, that the birds were stinking up the place, and the whole community would have been in turmoil. 

Well, that’s nice to hear but what was important to me was that those people were still living, and happily at that.  What do we need so badly that we have to consume without thinking?  We have gotten ourselves into such a mess that it is almost too hard to live simply and wholesomely because we have obliterated the market.  Because the market won't exist until we, the co-producers, step up and ask for it.  We have to demand and participate in supporting seasonal, local food from our food retailers.  We have to be conscious of how much oil we use with every step and every bite.  The doesn’t mean that we have to stop stepping or biting, but that we should step more lightly and chew more thoughtfully- and maybe buy a diesel car so we can support the local bio-diesel producer.  And we can still subscribe to Netflix.

It is hard to buy local, but it shouldn’t be.  It is easy once we tell ourselves there are no other options, and even easier when the market grows to accommodate our demand.  The only change we will see will be made by us; by our own personal consumption and  the awareness that I, or you is not the most important.  Our healthy bodies are important, but they're only truly healthy if we are helping other healthy bodies thrive.  Always ask,  "Who grew that superfood?"

I think that food is the center point to everything- but that’s just because I think that.  I respect everyone’s beliefs, passions, interests, and goals that help towards making this world the place it should be.  Every step counts- and there are many many steps.  I take the wrong paths all the time, but try to stay steady on at least one.  If we make the choice to change one thing about our lifestyles, specifically one thing that we do EVERYDAY (like eat), it is surprising at how quickly the awareness of everything else follows.  We have collectively done a whole lot of damage.  The very important thing is to realize that and to collectively start to do a whole lot of good.  It may not make the flock of cranes come by, but if they do we should know enough to appreciate them.    We need to slooow down and really think about where we want to spend our time, what we want to choose to call our food,  what we should plant in our gardens, and where we buy our clothes.  Because every bit counts- from the first spring spinach leaf to the last beet green.  And fortunately for us Chattanoogans, there's a year round farmer's market for that.  (The Main Street Farmer's Market!)

Seven Billion Co-Producers

I recently read an article in the latest National Geographic about the impending seven billion world population.  It was a good article, and I fell immediately into a deep sleep on the sofa after finishing it.    When I was awakened I blurted out- I can never have children!  Now that I have regained my senses I am thinking much more clearly about that whole matter.  Although much of the article talked about the rapid rate of population growth, the gist of the article was focused on the consumption of the people more than the number.  It's not the people themselves that are harming the planet, it's really more about what the people are DOING with themselves after they are born.  And of course we all know who we are REALLY talking about- ourselves.  India and China may be the most populated, but we are by far far far and away the hugest consumers.   Of course, the densely populated slums of India are causing their own problems but that is what I let other people work with.    What I am really interested in, more than anything else, is what my neighbors are eating.

We were talking the other day about STUFF.  It's nice to be on the lower level of middle class because that means I don't even have very much money to spend on stuff.  But even if I did I sometimes wonder what it would be spent on.... more bacon maybe?  Or I bet I would order fair trade produced fabric or chocolate over the internet.  I might get a new wok, or maybe some really nice handmade shoes.   I realized the other day that there are people I occasionally bump elbows with who spend $18 dollars on jeans from Wal-Mart because that is what poor people do, and don't have enough in their budget to buy local, sustainably grown food because that is what rich people do.  I would NEVER spend $18 on jeans, even if I wore jeans.  I certainly wouldn't buy them, or anything else, from Wal-Mart.  I would go to the Goodwill, spend $5 on a beautiful wool skirt and take that $13 and get on over to the market and buy me some grits.  And kale, carrots, and a couple bright red beets.

I am very lucky to have been brought up this way.  I once told a friend that we didn't have a TV when we were growing up because we were too poor, and he laughed at me.   It is partially true, but not all the way.  I'm sure we didn't have a TV because there were better things to do, but I have the feeling that if my parents had an extra $500 to spend, it would not be spent on a TV.  That was not in any way the priority.  Somewhere along the way we were given a TV which was not turned down, thereby exposing me to a few years of Sesame Street and whatever else my brother and I could scrape out of PBS before the TV blew up.   I am told that I found the Painting By Number hour fascinating.  There actually ARE people out there who are too poor to buy a TV.  And they own one.  This was illustrated so well in Peter Menzel's book, Material World.  It is a book of photographs of families around the world with all of their possessions hauled out of their homes.  The image that sticks with me most clearly is a family on a tiny boat in China, in it are their fishing ducks, traps, a cooking pot, sleeping mats, and a TV run on a tiny generator.  I may not have everything in the photo correct but you get the idea.  I just remember thinking, seriously, a TV?  

Nomadic Family- somewhere in China, photograph by Huang Qingjun

A TV is just a token example, not really what I mean.  I currently own a TV, not for channels, which I don't get, not even PBS, but for Netflix.   The point, which I'm sure everyone understands, is that what your children are eating is much more important than what they are watching on TV.   This is really a much bigger topic than I am really interested in getting into right now, or really ever.  That is what my smarter friends are for.   I am just reminding yall of this- what the article said- It's too late to keep the new middle class of 2030 from being born. But it's not too late to change the way we all consume.


Speaking on consuming, after I heard Carlo Petrini speak at the CDC almost a year ago I learned a whole new way of thinking about consumption.  Since I don't see the need to re-word what I already wrote, I'll just stick it here:

"But rarely do you hear an international modern leader speak so humbly and yet so radically.  All Slow Food stands for is sustainable community.  It doesn’t even stand for McDonald’s bashing- although that might be where the name came from.  Slow Food, or should I say Carlo Petrini, doesn’t want to go around tearing down fast food restaurants.  We, the Slow Fooders, don’t have time for that.  Slow Food stands for moderate consumption of local food grown healthily, traditionally, and moderately by real small-time men and women who are proud to be human.   We are proud to carry human traits like umami, anger, love, greed, guilt, compassion, and generosity.

Petrini also said he doesn’t like the word consumption- it is and sounds like a disease.  We are not consumers, we are co-producers.  As eaters of food we are co-producing with the farmers.  We can make the choice (which sadly we have to do just that, make a choice) to become a fellow producer with the farmers who grow our food.  So when we buy a bunch of collard greens (Carlo’s new favorite southern delicacy), we are choosing to stand beside the farmer in the field where these greens are from.  If we buy collards from California in mid-summer we might very well be sweating in the sun with our Latin American brethren.  As a consumer we can return to our cush homes and cook those collards in top quality consumer rated pots but the people we worked the fields with that day might not have the same dinner (and we, as aware compassionate human Americans should know what that means by now).  On the other hand, if we choose to buy collards in April from the sustainable farm down the road we can work the fields with those brethren and bring our collard dish to the local pot-luck later that night and share it amongst friends.    

The saddest thing about that last paragraph is that we aren’t actually co-producers in the present.  Surely our decisions will affect the future but right now in the present we don’t really have to co-produce.  We can eat those organic collards grown in California by our Latin American brethren and not actually feel a dern thing.  We don’t actually have to live their lives just yet.  But somebody will.   And that most likely will be my grandchildren.  

And what I like about Carlo Petrini is that he is not like me.  He does not say radical things like I do.  And yet he has somehow he gathers eight thousand “peasants” together every two years to talk; much more radical than anything I will ever do.  Terra Madre is a meeting of moderation- a gigantic pot luck- where peasants, food producers, fermenters, young business owners, leaders of community, farmers, natural dyers of cloth, weavers, basket makers, shoe repairmen, cooks, musicians, writers, painters, sculptors, cheesmakers can all get together and just COMMUNICATE.  That means to start a world-wide COMMUNITY of this simple moderation that defines humanity completely.  The title Slow Food is such a shallow name for such an important movement.   It is not about food, it’s about humanity.  We are co-producers of our life.  Everything we do is shoulder to shoulder with our neighbor. "

So, have those babies.  But feed them with love and respect for the entire planet.   Fortunately that doesn't mean to go without the necessities, but it does mean that we might need to toss the TV out the back door and open the front to some grits and collard greens.   Remember that we co-produce not only our food but also our clothes, light bulbs, and the gasoline we put in our cars.  We are working side-by-side with children in sweat shops when we purchase $18 jeans at Wal-Mart.  We are stripping the seas every time we order a tuna steak, etc, etc, etc.  You know what it means.  As I said above, WE might not actually be co-producing right now, but if we don't slow down and think about everything that passes through our hands and mouth, our grandchildren just might have to.  In a real way.  There is nothing radical about changing just a little.  See yall at the market!

Eating Seaonally (You Gotta Eat Your Greens!)

When I was in Dominica for four months this winter, I had a lot of time on my hands. I also had a lot of crayons and that led to a lot of greeting card making, which led to writing a children's book. The title was There's a Chicken in my Kitchen!. It was about growing up on a farm- through a young ten-year-old girl's (my) eyes. It was divided into four chapters- spring, summer, fall, and winter, with a section in the back with corresponding recipes. There were two vegetable stories per chapter- along with one animal story and one story about the seasons (swimming in the river, dirt and bugs, etc). Spring-time I had a story titled- You Gotta Eat Your Greens! and it was all about... yep, how we gotta eat our greens. And trust me, you might think you're sick of them now- wait til mid-summer and an edible leaf is nowhere in sight.

The other week at the market I met a very nice elderly couple who had just heard about the market and were there "checking it out". They had walked around, viewed the kohlrabi, kale, collards, lettuce, radishes, beet greens, and cabbages and said to me as they left, "We sure are glad we know about this! We'll have to come back when the vegetables start coming in".

Now, before you say anything, don't even try to pretend you don't know what they're talking about. They are talking about the good stuff- the okra, summer squash, cucumbers, and best of all, tomatoes. Now that the weather is sweltering and sticky, we are ready for the food to fit the season. But this is part of learning what the season IS. Although it may feel like August, it's still (barely, but still) June, and we are yet a little way from the rich, ripe overflow of tomatoes and cucumbers. The squashes are peeking through the present greens, and are very welcome. Green beans are coming in, potatoes are being dug, onions are being pulled before the solstice. But still the kale, collards, cabbages, and radishes are hanging to the last threads of cool morning air, and we should make the best of it. The great thing about new foods coming in is that the old ones are completely changed. Brand new recipe ideas pop up as potatoes mingle with the radishes- roasted and tossed with dill, mustard, and olive oil. Summer squash is thinly sliced and added to a cabbage slaw. Steamed green beans and caramelized onions can completely change your ideas about kale. Sauteed zucchini will be mixed with chopped basil and thinly sliced chard that has been wilted in balsamic...

These are my favorite times of food-seasons, when the old overlaps with the new. The flavors of everything suddenly change and open up new ways of not only cooking the foods, but also experiencing the tastes. I love it when spring meets summer and when summer meets fall. It's like a new season comes at the PERFECT moment, just when you think you are tired of the old one, an opportunity comes where you can fall in love all over again. It creates these wonderful little mid-seasons, almost like individual seasons themselves. This would never, ever happen if we could pick and choose what we wanted, whenever we wanted it. Sometimes it is a bit challenging to keep cooking that darned old kale week after week, when all you want is a tomato. But if you stick with it, the rewards are beyond amazing. You grow to really know what the food tastes like, and learn to cook in ways that ten stacks of cookbooks could never teach you. It takes a real commitment to cook entirely seasonally and to not give up on the kale before it gives up on itself. But, as Carlo Petrini said, it is the waiting that makes food taste so good- the longing, the suspense. It is also the dedication of hanging on to the end. True love is never gained without full commitment and joy.

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                 Even if your refrigerator looks like this:

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Here's to the brand new market season!

Waiting for Wednesday (and the proverbial Asparagus)

So, it's Tuesday night and I'm down to the last few spinach leaves, and scrounging for any radishes that might have rolled under the produce drawer.   Every week I load up on produce, thinking that I never could possibly eat half of what I can't stop myself from buying, and end up getting so excited about it that I use most of it in the first meal.  Spring is the best because I feel like I have been starving myself for the past four months- scraping by on potatoes and frozen and canned goods from the summer before.  (of course this winter I spent eating avocados and mangoes in a tropical paradise, but that market story is another tale altogether).  So when the time comes I try to eat as much greenery as a grass-fed cow.  Lacking the extra stomachs, I end up eating about half the greenery.  But I make sure those morning grits or fried egg are topped with kale, or collards, or something that tastes like it's been alive in the past few days.

The Main Street Farmer's Market is officially opening (I think) this Wednesday, but it has been going on all winter.  I have been living from lamb chop to lamb chop, duck eggs to overwintered collards, and finally to glory be!- all the produce my heart desires.  Arugula, spinach, asparagus (to supplement my own growing in my yard- don't tell Suzanna, or she won't sell me any), kale, sausages, radishes, beets, carrots, lettuce, herbs, grits and cornmeal,  shittake, and even bamboo shoots have been blessing my every meal for the past few weeks.  I feel like I have come out of a desert and fallen into an oasis.  I no longer look longingly at the various produce on the grocery shelf, knowing that even if I buy it it won't have the same wonderful taste as in-season, locally grown stuff will.    I HAVE the in-season locally grown stuff all the time now, right at the edge of my knife and the tip of my tongue.  And I could not be more content, not even if I were a pig in a waller....

 Lamb Chops with Grits and Greens

for two- four people

I like this meal because it is what any busy home-cook wants.  It is quick, easy, and impressively delicious.

• 1 cup Riverview Farm grits
• 1 large handful chopped or torn kale, collards, chard, or any other green thing you like- from any or all farms that have them
• 1 bunch chopped scallions, or other herb of your choice
• 4 cups water, or chicken broth made with River Ridge Farms chicken
• Salt and Pepper to taste

• 1 packet Williams Island Farm lamb chops (there are usually four to a pack- they are so tiny that I like to give one person two apiece)
• Salt and Pepper 
• 1/2 cup red wine or dark beer
• 4-6 cloves garlic, peeled but whole- optional

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F

Start the grits first- they should take about twenty minutes.  Bring the water to a boil, then whisk grits in gradually.  Lower heat to a simmer.  Add salt and cook, stirring now and then, til thickly bubbling.  Add the greens and stir til wilted.  Stir in half the herbs and pepper to taste, and serve topped with remaining half herbs.

Start lamb chops when grits are about 10 minutes from finished.   Heat a cast iron skillet til very hot.  Sprinkle chops generously with salt and pepper.  Sear lamb chops briefly on either side and set aside on a plate.  Pour wine or beer into skillet to "deglaze", or take off any bits sticking to the pan and to get the yummy lamb juices up and mingling with the wine or beer.   Add the chops back to the skillet, throw in the garlic, and cook in oven for about seven minutes.  If they are firm-ish when poked with a brave finger, the chops are done.  The katahdin lamb that Williams Island Farm raises is almost impossible to mess up- it seems to be tender and moist even if well-done.  But I would recommend medium-rare (which is when the meat is still has a little give when poked, but not too soft).  


Serve with warm grits and a fresh lettuce, arugula, spinach, or combination of all, salad.

The Locavore's Dilemma

So, somethin's been on my mind for quite awhile and I can't hold off any longer.

I get "accused" of being so serious about local food that it is slightly intimidating.   I always make up excuses like: well, that's just my thing, everybody's got to have somethin', or I'm not serious at all, I just sound serious....

I'm not serious.  Except that I am.  My mother tells me Just tell them you can't help it, Ann, you're a farmer's daughter.  You don't know how else to eat.

That is partially true.  But I haven't always been a farmer's daughter.  In fact, out of the twenty-four years that I've been alive I have lived on a farm for less than half of them.  I have always been the guy who is now the farmer's daughter but that farmer hasn't always been a farmer.  I grew up (til I was 10) in cities and I clearly remember eating button mushrooms from the grocery store out of those little green boxes that aren't quite Styrofoam, but aren't plastic either.   I even remember, as a spurge, eating ground beef that had been packaged in that same toxic looking container.   I didn't know what a chicken (probably either dead or alive) looked like and I thought all cows were brown like the ones I'd seen in roadside pastures in north Georgia.  I definitely did not grow up in any huge cities or in the middle of concrete and high rise apartment buildings.  As long as I can remember my parents have had a garden, and I certainly knew the meaning of Raspberry Season.   But we were not farmers.  We didn't eat entirely in season all the time then, nor were we near as conscientious about the origin of our meat.  If we ate beans and rice a lot, it was more because it cost less than because it wasn't meat.   My brother Kelsey and I each cooked one meal a week, and I remember Kelsey's better than mine, because it turned into a kind of family joke.  Kelsey always made tacos.  I cooked the meat, heated up those hard corn shells in the toaster oven, washed and tore apart the lettuce, put the sour cream in a little bowl, dumped the jarred salsa into another.  Kelsey shredded the cheese.  He did a really good job.

But that lettuce was from the Red Food or Red Lion or whatever that was called across the street on Brainard Rd.  The meat probably was too.   The cheese was orange.

"Taco Night" does not, by the way, reflect my parents cooking.  They are both really good cooks, (in their separate ways) and we ate a lot better than that most nights.  I learned to love indian, Japanese, Chinese, and big-pot-of-everything stew from my father.  My mother made us breakfasts of pancakes, oatmeal, and toasted homemade bread.  My lunches were always packed with peanut butter (the kind that you have to stir up before you can use it), raisin, honey sandwiches, and carrots cut into sticks and put in washable containers.  (How I wished to be sent with a little bag of chips, a white-bread, American cheese, baloney sandwich, and damn baby carrots in a plastic baggie I could throw away.  Alas....  I was nigh fourteen before I even knew what most of that stuff tasted like- and I wasn't as impressed as I hoped to be)  We always ate dinner together and I can still say that black beans and brown rice is my favorite meal. 

Of course, by the time I was really cooking I was a farmer's daughter.    That is what made cooking fun and that is why I still love it.  I could play and play and play with food (sometimes resulting in disasters and ruining forever my mother's taste for mint...) until I had figured out exactly what went with what and why it tasted so good (or terrible).   So now, I guess, seasonal eating is ingrained in me.  It's part of the way I cook; it's why I love to eat.

I believe that our pallet can change.  As hard as my parents tried to keep us healthy and growing children, I would never go back to the way I ate when I was little.  I could never eat those dry, tasteless California carrot sticks again.  Why should I? I now know what a REAL carrot tastes like.   And it's not like I've been enlightened or anything. All the old, tired, out of season "grocery store stuff" just doesn't taste good anymore.  My pallet has just grown used to what I've been passing by it- the seasonal, local stuff.  I can tell by tasting it whether produce is local or not, or whether the eggs are truly free-range.

So I just said that, and I was getting ready to apologize for sounding like such a "snob".  I recently read Barbra Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.  I really loved it.  She writes to the "common folk" about WHY she ate entirely locally for a year and why she will now continue to do so (to an extent).   I put off reading it for so long because I wrongly thought there wasn't anything new in it that I didn't already know.  Yeah, I already knew about the seasons of things, why to support local farms, ect.  But the book is way too entertaining to NOT read, and I learned a lot about other stuff....

Anyway, in her book I found her apologizing for wanting to make her own cheese.  She excused herself as being crazy, a fanatic, going too far.  And I thought "why?".  She grows her own garden, she cans her own tomatoes, she stock-piles grated zucchini in her freezer.  Why is she apologizing for making cheese?

And then I realized I do that all the time.   I am constantly going around telling people- it's ok, you don't have to be like me, I'm totally crazy.    Sorry, just because I don't eat bananas, you don't have to not, I'm not really that serious, I just sound like it, I'm a fanatic, I'm JUST CRAZY.

And then, last night I was cooking for a little potluck.  I had come home from the Main Street Farmer's Market the evening before laden down with good stuff- shiitakes, lamb sausage, kale, collards, lettuces, grits, eggs, cheese.... I was trying to figure out what to cook because one of the eaters was a vegetarian and didn't eat dairy.  I wanted to do cheese grits with kale and shittake, but just settled for herbed grits sin queso, con shiitake and kale.   But I thought, hey wait a minute.  That was super easy.  And it cost me about five dollars.  And twenty minutes.  And I didn't use one un-local thing except garlic.   And then I thought, hey wait a minute.  How come somebody can go around being pretty much a vegan and get respected and "catered" to, but if I want to eat food that's only grown by local farms I'm crazy (?!). 

I can't just say, when someone offers me, in March,  grilled cantalope wrapped in prosciutto, "O, I can't eat that, I'm a locavore."  I have to either be polite and say, no thank you, or lie and say I'm a vegetarian.  Both work just fine, but sometimes it's nice to tell the whole truth.

Mike and I were out at a new Mexican restaurant last night (I won't make any excuses. Yes, I go to "Mexican restaurants" sometimes and no, I don't know the farmer who grows that watery shredded lettuce.  Anyway, this one had been recently "reviewed" by a certain Chattanooga publication as good, and it just opened up really close to my house).  The point is, I was trying to figure out if there was anything on the menu that was vegetarian, or could be made to be, other than what was in the teeny option list, so I asked the waiter.  Unfortunately when he asked if we were vegetarians Mike took the liberty to explain that no, we aren't vegetarians, we just only eat meat that is from animals we know.  If they were interested in buying locally grown meat then we knew a few farmers we could put them in touch with and THEN we would eat the meat served in the restaurant.   "So," the waiter said, "you aren't vegetarian?"  Mike said no and I said YES- just tell me what you can make with just beans!   The waiter then went on the say that their fajitas were really good (I knew that, I'd read it in the review) and that we could chose beef, chicken, or pork, and ran back to the kitchen to give us more time.  The confusion was not due to a language barrier, unless it was our english-vs-the english where you have to say you're a vegetarian in order to not eat meat.

Needless to say we settled on the bean and cheese and potato or something or other combo and learned our lesson, yet again:  you can't go out to eat if you expect to eat as well as you do at home. 

There is nothing harder about being a "locavore" than there is a vegetarian or vegan.  For the most part, I am no different from those ways of eating.  I make my choices based on the food I like to eat, what tastes good, and health, ethical, and environmental reasons.   It takes no real effort and I couldn't tell you about the cost.  I am sure my cost of eating is much lower than some people's because my dining-out experiences are very very restricted by my food choices.  I also spend more money on food than I do on any other "luxury".  As I told someone the other day- I don't have cable tv, I just braise beef short ribs for fun.  I love to cook because I love to eat and I love to eat because I love the food I use.  I don't really think that's too crazy.....

Trust me, I have much more to say on this topic.  But I will keep it to that for now.  I won't apologize for how I eat. I will say that I understand that the way I eat is a conscious decision and it helps a whole, whole lot to be a farmer's daughter (and a farmer's sister).  It just tastes so good.

My Slow ReIntro To America

I’m back in the land of chapped lips, dry hands, and multiple clothing layers.  And so far it feels pretty wonderful.  Of course I miss the warm sun and grapefruit breakfasts but my welcome to the US was warmer than any wood fire or gas furnace can get. 

It just so happens that the day we decided to fly in to Atlanta, GA also coincided with the Georgia Organics conference in Athens.  We didn’t make it down there, choosing instead to stay with my parents dear and spectacularly amazing friends Bob and Susan in Atlanta (I inherited them as my own friends and I could ask for nothing better- they have chickens in the city, which says it all (if you read chicken-owner-language)).   But Georgia Organics brought Carlo Petrini, founder of Slow Food and Terra Madre, to the US of A.   Since he had already hit up the GA Organics he decided to make the Georgia rounds and I went and heard him speak in Atlanta at the CDC. 

Slow Food has a mixed reputation in the US.   I think some people confuse it with the ‘elitist view’ on food- the type of people who like to collect truffles and mound caviar on their chic crackers.  I won’t get into the Slow Food mission- it is fairly familiar and can be read here…. I am pretty sure “organic” food is gaining an elitist following all over the world so of course there are many warped perceptions on what the entire Slow Food movement means.  What I want to write about is not “those people” (we are all “those people” in our own ways) but about what I took away from Petrini’s talk at the CDC. 

When we arrived to Atlanta we were shipped via a vibrating Volvo to Bob and Susan’s house/chicken farm.  We ate pizza that we helped make and sat around and talked about a little of everything- health care, Dominica, food, chickens (of course), life, soccer, chat roulette….  This is the only real way to share a meal.  Along with the food there must also be a lot of talking.  The next day we wandered around the city, went to used book stores, drank our first good beer in four months, and watched dog owners watch their dogs in a nearby park. 

The next morning we checked out the famous Morningside Market and bought kale, radishes, beets, cilantro, parsley, cinnamon raisin bread, sweet potatoes, and bok choy.  Later, my entire immediate family came down from TN and we all ate together (along with several friends).  We had cranberry beans with roasted beets and cilantro, a kale-beets green-bok choy- radish slaw, brown rice, Sequatchie Cove pork chops with Susan‘s yard rosemary, and a dessert of Ashley’s sweet potato galettes.  

This was a good warm-up for the Petrini talk and also a wonderful welcome back to the southern US.  If we had eaten at McBurgero and stayed in the Days Inn in Atlanta I would be sorely missing the warm soft times of Dominica.  But there is nothing better than good food and wonderful stimulating company.

So on Monday we ate local city egg quiche with Sequatchie Cove sausage and some raisin cinnamon bread toast for breakfast and headed off to the CDC after a short walk around the neighborhood that involved spying on people’s yards.   I’ll spare you the entrance fee of security gates and museum and cut to the Carlo chase.    He gave a short talk on why we should eat local sustainable food and next there was a panel with him, a chef, the Director of the Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, and a woman who was the Acting Director of the Policy Research, Analysis and Development Office (both CDC)

The preliminary talk with Carlo was simple.  Which is actually the most wonderful part about it.  When you hear a world leader speak you expect some kind outrageous loud statement.  Carlo Perini does not speak English so he had a beautiful Italian woman translator who spoke perfect school-book English.  Petrini speaks with his hands and his own language so he shunned a microphone as he paced the stage and told us the four steps to eating well and locally.

The first was, of course, know your farmers- get back to nature and eat food grown by men and women who surround you.The second was to learn seasons- you cannot eat sustainably if you do not know what grows around you and when it grows.  You are ridiculous if you want to eat a cucumber in September, October, November, or April.  The third was to waste less food.  America is not the only country that throws away food.  And the fourth was to learn how to cook with leftovers.  He encouraged us to go home and look in our fridge.  I take that to mean all four points- do we have local, sustainable foods in our fridge that are in season?  And do we have a clean fridge, free of molding jellies and jams, hardening, dried out cheeses and rotting stews?   In translation of course it seems as though the first two points should be one and the second two should be as well one.  Eating local farmer’s food involves learning the seasons and not wasting food involves learning to cook with leftovers.  Carlo Petrini made his leftover point by describing some dish his grandmother used to make involving bread or pasta and tomatoes or some wonderful Italian things….

So of course this sounds simple and even disappointing.  Here in America we are ready for a revolution constantly.  We are a country founded by people who fled the old beliefs and violently founded their own- not necessarily through physical violence but there was a definite haste in the decision.  We are a country of fastness- we have no time to stand in lines, listen to hand gestures, or wait for strawberry season.  When we hear a leader speak we want riots to break out, amens to circulate, our blood to flow hot.  Carlo, this world leader of thousands of peasants, farmers, cheese makers, cooks, mothers, fathers, musicians, students, store owners, shoe makers…stood up and said all we have to do to save our society is eat local and cook with leftovers.  I wanted something I could write down and make a poster with.  I wanted flames, cheers, and bright colors, not what I was already doing.  I didn’t want a world leader to justify the left-over frittata I make on Tuesday night, I wanted someone to shout something I can’t say in my own kitchen.  But the talk went on and Petrini avoided every question asked him with a more apt answer that did not answer the question directly- eg How did you start this movement and where did you begin to educate the population on eating local?  Answer: Education begins with yourself.  If you as a human are not thoroughly self educated and do not know what you want then you cannot educate your community.  You have no community if you are not educated and if you do not eat well then your community does not exist sustainably. 

Mike (the more political half of myself) always says that there are no "political" movements that speak for “moderation.”  There are no protest groups in America going out with posters and signs that say “Let’s be moderate!” They don’t say let’s eat simply, live simply, live well, have fun, create community, appreciate our doctors, pay them what they’re worth (ask doctors to appreciate us), eat out food, pay farmers for their work.  Movements and protesters always have to have an ultra right or left point, even if it isn’t political.  It just has to be very right.  In our society we have to strongly believe in something- conserving or not using electricity or gas, eating locally, growing our food, homeopathic medicine, fighting the health care system, justifying the health care system, not eating meat, eating CAFO meat, eating grass-fed meat, driving an SUV, bio diesel, riding bikes, seed saving, tree saving.   All protests and points, right or wrong, have to be strong.  They have to have a semi violent point, even though the point in it’s origin may be super peaceful.  Maybe presenting a single point as the only right way is just plain violent.  (yeah I know, it might be too much- my editor isn't here so I said it)

I didn’t mean to get on that rant.   All I meant to say is that after the talk I turned to Mike and I said over tea- this guy speaks for MODERATION!  That is what the Slow Food movement is- moderation and simple living- the true way.  It is really nice to hear the founder of a world wide organization speak and sound so humble, down to earth, and real.  Sometimes I feel like maybe the people who have warped Slow Food into the super trendy expensive food world aren’t really Slow Food at all.  It seems to me that all Carlo Petrini wants mine/your/our family to eat from the earth on which we stand, to develop our communities, become strong men and women who can adapt and grow with the present, past, and future in responsible sustainable ways, who are intelligent enough  to learn from the past, present, and future, and who want nothing more than to be human who are also proud of being human.  Although obviously being a human is a loaded concept.  We aren’t a species who is happy feeding, procreating, and dying.  We are a species who has some insane thought pattern that involves morals, intelligent community, and structures including emotions and thought.  We have speech, greed, sensuality, and umami.  


But rarely do you hear an international modern leader speak so humbly and yet so radically.  All Slow Food stands for is sustainable community.  It doesn’t even stand for McDonald’s bashing- although that might be where the name came from.  Slow Food, or should I say Carlo Petrini, doesn’t want to go around tearing down fast food restaurants.  We, the Slow Fooders, don’t have time for that.  Slow Food stands for moderate consumption of local food grown healthily, traditionally, and moderately by real small-time men and women who are proud to be human.   We are proud to carry human traits like umami, anger, love, greed, guilt, compassion, and generosity.

Petrini also said he doesn’t like the word consumption- it is and sounds like a disease.  We are not consumers, we are co-producers.  As eaters of food we are co-producing with the farmers.  We can make the choice (which sadly we have to do just that, make a choice) to become a fellow producer with the farmers who grow our food.  So when we buy a bunch of collard greens (Carlo’s new favorite southern delicacy), we are choosing to stand beside the farmer in the field where these greens are from.  If we buy collards from California in mid-summer we might very well be sweating in the sun with our Latin American brethren.  As a consumer we can return to our cush homes and cook those collards in top quality consumer rated pots but the people we worked the fields with that day might not have the same dinner (and we, as aware compassionate human Americans should know what that means by now).  On the other hand, if we choose to buy collards in April from the sustainable farm down the road we can work the fields with those brethren and bring our collard dish to the local pot-luck later that night and share it amongst friends.   

The saddest thing about that last paragraph is that we aren’t actually co-producers in the present.  Surely our decisions will affect the future but right now in the present we don’t really have to co-produce.  We can eat those organic collards grown in California by our Latin American brethren and not actually feel a dern thing.  We don’t actually have to live their lives just yet.  But somebody will.   And that most likely will be my grandchildren. 

And what I like about Carlo Petrini is that he is not like me.  He does not say radical things like I do.  And yet he has somehow he gathers eight thousand “peasants” together every two years to talk.  Terra Madre is a meeting of moderation- a gigantic pot luck- where peasants, food producers, fermenters, young business owners, leaders of community, farmers, natural dyers of cloth, weavers, basket makers, shoe repairmen, cooks, musicians, writers, painters, sculptors, cheesmakers can all get together and just COMMUNICATE.  That means to start a world-wide COMMUNITY of this simple moderation that defines humanity completely.  The title Slow Food is such a shallow name for such an important movement.   It is not about food, it’s about humanity.  We are co-producers of our life.  Everything we do is shoulder to shoulder with our neighbor. 

And that brings me to the end of this crazy ranting letter.  After the Carlo talk we were once again at Bob and Susan’s.  We watched the chickens and ate fried rice with, yes, California organic Swiss chard.   The rice was from some random Asian country and the soy sauce was from unknown organic soy source.  But the eggs were from Susan’s chickens in the back yard and they were Georgia-organic-collards-fed.  And that’s not even the point.  The point was the meal, the sharing, the community. We can’t do everything all at once.  We can be aware, kind, generous, sharing, intelligent, and wholesome though.    We have to be advocates of moderation.  We have to eat less meat, but respectfully.  We have to use less gas, but gently.  We have to turn off the lights when we leave the room, but naturally.    We have to eat from our farmers, but as a community.  This is not a violent revolution because it is not a revolution.  It is simply life and therefore there is nothing to SAY.

Why I Eat Locally and In Season- or- Why I’m not Just Totally Bananas

When I leave Dominica and get back to Chattanooga I am going to give up bananas .  I have never been a huge banana fan but you know how they are- they’re cheap, they’re easy to eat, they taste good (to some), and they’ve got SO much potassium.  Of course, the more I learn about food and the more I am around people who grow it, I have learned to be suspicious of the first part of the banana campaign- the cheap part.  Cheap food is to be suspected, and looked into.  Every time we eat something that seems “cheap” we should ask ourselves, ‘why exactly is this so cheap?  Is it super easy to grow, nearing the end of it’s season and massively abundant, or is something amiss?”  If you really sit down to think about bananas in Tennessee they seem totally ridiculous.  Don’t even think about all of the moral strings tied to bananas, we’ve all heard about the horrors of the big banana distributors.  Even the Buendias and their village in One Hundred Years Of Solitude know about what banana farming and distributing means.  Think just now of where bananas belong in Tennessee.  For one thing, the whole ‘taste good’ myth is just that- a myth.  Compared to the bananas that grow in tropical countries they are large bright yellow hulking slime machines.  They don’t have the delicate fruity tastes, the varying colors from yellow to red, and the different creaminess that the bananas here do.  It’s like trying to eat a tomato in winter from a big grocery store and expecting to meet the warm juicy sweet acidic flavorful burst of a summer heirloom.    So why do we even try? 

I’ll tell you why I tried and it’s the honest truth.  First off, they were cheap snacks.  If I couldn’t eat anything else for breakfast I would force down a banana (seriously, I have never liked bananas but truly believed they were ‘good for me’.  I thought maybe they were some kind of bright yellow hulking slime machine multi vitamin).   Secondly, I had never had REAL bananas so I had nothing to compare them to.  I didn’t know I was getting fed rock hard red tomatoes.  And the third, and very sad truth, is that although I have been aware of the horrors of banana production pretty much my entire conscious life, I just didn’t really think about it.  It is certainly not that I didn’t care..  I bought fair trade when it was available (not often in Chattanooga, I know a grocery store manager who won’t let her produce manager buy fair-trade bananas because they look “icky” and people won’t buy them ), and always have bought organic.  But as we know, what does ‘organic’ even mean anymore?  If you can’t see they farmer or meet the person who knows the farmer, don’t trust a word.  Of course that sounds terrible and cynical but it is true.   

So why care now?  Of course they grow bananas down here, that is why I know what they actually taste like.  Dominica is not like the South and Central American countries who are ruled by cheap bananas but they are effected.  The way it started was this: Dominica is a very rich and diverse land, they are basically self sufficient, especially in the fruit and veggie world.  When England colonized Dominica they said to themselves, well we love bananas and bananas love Dominica so let’s get the farmers to grow our bananas.  And so many farmers left whatever wonderful sustainable crops they had grown for generations to go full-time into producing England’s bananas.  Which was hunky dory with everyone because England had a steady supply of bananas and Dominica had a steady export.  But then Dominica gained their independence and the WTO (World Trade Org) stepped in and said, hey wait a minute England, you can’t just buy from Dominica, you have to buy from everyone else, meaning the poor Central and South American banana farmers, but actually their massive distributors.  Of course, those bananas are cheaper anyway because of the vast ocean of a market and so Dominica got cold dropped.  As Isoline, our co-worker/housekeeper/boss of the house said about banana farming “A lot of work, no money!” (which was followed by her laughter- a kind of reflex that she seems to have after ever sentence, but in this context it just sounded eerie as though it were echoing around the walls of empty banana storage huts).  Fortunately Dominica ain’t countin too hard on nobody.  They don’t have much of a tourism market and the banana market is nothing that they can’t work out of.  It hasn’t taken over the entire country because the landscape just can’t hold up to it.  Of course, the farmers here have some hard hard times ahead but hopefully someone will suggest to them that they just forget about the western buying powers and continue to putter around this gorgeous relatively untainted island in all it’s splendor.  I don’t see that happening but it is ok to dream I guess.  Really, why I care now has not a whole lot to do with the “lot of work, no money” joke, although that is very important to me and should never be the definition of a farmer.  Why I care is because I now see no reason to eat such a morally charged fruit.  I am pretty sure I am not going to develop a raging potassium deficiency if I give up bananas.  I would assume that the lush lands of Tennessee carries all the nutrients I need if I just know where to look.

I am truly humbled.  I have fallen off the high horse of going around saying things like “how can a person be a vegan for moral reasons concerning the animals and then turn around and drink mass produced soy milk from god knows where and eat conventional or organic lettuce mix potentially grown by neo-slaves?, how can someone KNOW how factory farmed meat is raised and continue to eat at fast food restaurants or order a steak at a fancy hotel?,  how can people eat processed cheese, baloney, margarine, white bread,  da-de-da-de-da and not care it is killing them and their grandchildren a little more every day?, how can people expect their food to be cheap cheap cheap and feel totally fine about paying the hospital and medical bills that come as a result from eating the cheap cheap cheap?”.  I fell right off that horse into a pile of rotting bananas that were cheaper for the farmer to waste than try to harvest and sell and when I stood up I realized- whoa, I am one of those people. 

The reason is not because I don’t care, as I said, or that I don’t try.  It’s just that after one thing there is another to learn.  I hope I never stop learning til the day I die (and who knows what will happen then).   I will never be ‘right’, I can only strive everyday to learn about my impact on the world around me.  As the butterfly effect says, every tiny movement we make impacts something somewhere.  Every article of clothing we buy, the roofs over our heads, and the bananas we grab as an on-the-run snack mean SOMETHING and someone is affected by it.  In Tennessee there is a whole lot to learn.  Not because it is “backerds Tennessee” but because it is quite the opposite- it is the “civilized” world.  We are constantly being bombarded by huge decisions everyday.   To me of course knowing our farmers is one of the most important.  If we don’t know where the fuel with which we feed ourselves is from- if we don’t REALLY think about it- then we really can’t move forward. 

Just one last thing about bananas.   Because bananas are so cheap it is like free advertising for grocery stores.  People love cheap things, be it food, kitchen ware, clothes, shoes, or toilet paper.  Value packed doesn’t actually mean it has any moral value.  Anyway, the most advertised “sale” items in grocery stores are bananas.  Come right in, step this way, bananas for only 39 cents a pound (you might get a free turkey with that if you hurry)!.  So we have been trained to walk in a store, look at the banana prices that greet us at the front door and judge the entire store by this one display.  The cheaper the bananas the better ‘deals and steals’ you will be getting in the store.  A “steal” is a perfect description, just think of who and what we are stealing from- it‘s not the grocery store, I can tell you that.    But this  free advertising is on who’s dollar, livelihood, and actual living life?   

So, now, in conclusion, I am preparing to march back to Tennessee with a gentler, more thoughtful way of looking at things.  Unfortunately we humans “don’t believe it til we see it” and I am very heavily guilty of that.  But seeing doesn’t have to be the whole reason for believing and believing doesn’t have to all come from what we’re told.  It is important to please pass the bananas with open eyes, but they better at least be fair trade, and we better have a dern good reason.

P.S.  If you are really interested in bananas and what they mean I would suggest looking into the book "Bananas!: How The United Fruit Company Shaped the World" by Peter Chapman. Here is an interview with him from NPR, there is also a link that will take you straight to Amazon, where you can buy or at least check out his book.  I would.  I haven't read it yet but I aim to now....