Health knowledge made personal
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I intend to revisit some of the folks you've gotten to know a bit better through my blogs: * People like Paul Dolan , Farmer D , David Baron , Lindsey Mann , Rashid Nuri , Jason Mann (no relation to Lindsey), Rebecca Barria , Luma Mufleh , Betty Londergan , Farmer Sue , Ryan Hreljac , Ed Bruske , Liz and Tim Young , and Mike Lorey . * People like Kelly of the Persimmons , Kate and Maggie from Australia, John of the Bottle Tree (wait 'til you hear what he's been up to!), and yes, even that FoodShed Planet favorite, Richard of the Worms . * People like my older daughter, who is tethered to home now by nothing more than a thin strand of thread around her toe, it seems, and my younger daughter, who has known nothing but this in her life, this harvesting of relationships, this touching of hands and hearts from field to fork and back again. I intend to continually share with you stories like these books I just finished reading, about what's possible in one city, one nation, and one world:  1. The truly fantastic book, Growing a Garden City , which literally made me gasp to see what one city, Missoula, Montana, has accomplished as an integrated urban agriculture prototype for the nation. It humbled me to see how far behind we are in my city, even though great gains have been made these past two years. 2. The terrifically diverse collection of interviews with sustainable agriculture efforts around the United States in Farm Together Now (which, unbeknownst to me when I selected this book, is the one Michael Pollan chose as the best of 2010) (and also, let me add that this book has the sensually-pleasing look and feel of my Jamie , so I immediately loved it). 3. And the swing-open-the-doors-of-possibility book, Vertical Farm , which frankly, is destined to be an absolute classic. In fact, you've probably seen numerous visuals from this book already and you probably think that these vertical farms already exist in urban centers, but not one of them does yet. But they will. Soon. And although I'm not a big indoor-farmer sterile-environment kind-of person, I believe the technology presented in this book is a critical component of the global food system of the future.On my other blog , I am moving beyond the newest city in the United States (Dunwoody, Georgia, now two years old) to focus on the larger metro Atlanta area as Atlanta's mayor, Kasim Reed, strives to move Atlanta into a top-ten city for sustainability (new posts every Wednesday). I also have some national articles coming out this year (more on that another time), and I'm working all year on a passion project so close to my heart that I'm actually not even going to talk about it (but for those of you locally, it's the reason you'll see less of me this year). I have one more exciting development to report, but probably not until next week.  But now, back to the garden, where I somehow always return. As the rain poured down on me yesterday, New Year's Day, one week after the first Atlanta White Christmas since 1882, I hoed and planted and fed kelp to my over-wintering arugula, lettuces, tatsoi, and kale. With the sweet smell of soil filling the air, I visualized the new additions I'm considering for 2011 to my garden--the muscadine vines, asparagus bed, expanded medicinal herb patch, and pomegranate tree. (Espaliered pears? Maybe next year.) I identified which 4' x 8' bed would be fully committed to growing food for those in need as part of the new community of home gardeners making up the Atlanta Urban Farm . I remembered the red metal children's bed frame in the attic and thought, yes, that would be good to bring down and plant in. My fig tree already has buds, I noticed. The garlic is up. The sorrel is exploding with abundance. And a composting pumpkin made me smile to remember that tortellini from so many years ago. Perhaps I'll make my own this year. Really, anything is possible. |
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I thought the book was brilliant, with simple yet astute observations, like the ones on the page shown below, from my beloved Union Square Green Market, where I first fell in love with all this local food stuff so many years ago, just out of college, before the husband, before the kids.
And now, ten years later, I still feel the same way about this book, but now I wondered: what became of Elisha Cooper? Turns out he's married now, with two daughters. He's still in New York City, and he's published something like a gazillion books and essays , including, as kismet would have it as to how Elisha Cooper fits into FoodShed Planet, this book, Farm (which he generously sent me--thank you, Elisha) about a year on a family farm (on which he grew up--no surprise there since his first book is dedicated to his goat):