Health knowledge made personal
 This route has tolls. Direction #117 has me kayaking across the Pacific Ocean again, this time to the Northern Territory of Australia. There are apparently many traffic circles in Australia as the directions keep having me go around them. Direction #156 allows me to take a ferry, thank goodness, 150 miles (240 kilometers) across the Bass Strait to Tasmania, and then Kate lives way on the south of that island.  A trip to my local post office took two miles on a bike, and then the box of books left my hands and traveled by air to Tasmania all on its own. The U.S. Post Office gets all kinds of bad press, but you know what? Since my books made this trip without trouble, I somehow have renewed faith in it all. (And I like that it is selling these Go Green stamps, even if the suggestion of drying your clothes outdoors made me laugh, as 60 million Americans, including me, live in neighborhoods governed by homeowner's associations that don't allow this.)  A copy of my book is on its way to a friend in India, and the street address is literally "Market road towards Kombara," so we'll see how that goes. Another one flew to Stockholm this weekend, in the hands of my friend Ed Bruske from Washington, DC (pictured with me last year at his front-yard garden one mile from the White House), who was invited there by the government of Sweden to attend a school lunch conference (he is doing the best investigative reporting on the topic in the United States, and is featured in Amy Kalafa's new book, Lunch Wars ). Closer to home, my book is in five libraries in New York right now (one in New York City and four on Long Island), brought there by my dad and step-mom, Bob and Rose Kulfan (pictured below standing in front of a 9/11 memorial at one of the libraries, in my hometown of Mineola, NY). Imagining them doing this, driving from library to library and asking the reference librarian if he or she will carry it, makes my heart absolutely swell. (For book availability near you, please note the book is available in the channels used by wholesalers, independent book stores, and libraries, so please feel free to encourage your local stores and libraries to order it. Thanks!)  My readership stats have always included folks from around the world, and, in fact, my highest number of readers has consistently come not from the United States but, get this, Norway. (Hi, Norway!) The rest of the list, in order, goes like this: United States, Germany, Ukraine, France, Russia, China, India, Australia, and Canada.  I don't have to look any further to know why than to look at the photo that Kate sent of who bought the book. A mom. With two daughters. Like me. What will become of that little book and its global travels? What will become of that mom and her daughters*? What will become if every mom (and dad) of daughters (and sons) across our FoodShed Planet connected? What will become? Gosh, this is fun. It's like having Flat Stanley again . Where else should we send it?* Photo used with mother's permission |
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