It is an almost universally acknowledged fact that a man in possession of an item of food  is in want of its origin. One can barely bring up the topic of last night’s dinner without someone bemoaning the fact that people don’t know where their food comes from. What they mean to highlight when they say this is the industrialization of our food system. By and large, not only do we no longer know the farmer who grew our food, we can’t even be exactly certain as to its continent of origin. And that’s true. A quick look around the produce aisle proves that most apples and garlic are from China, the asparagus is from Chile, and the raspberries are from God-knows-where. We could all get to know our food better, whether that means stopping by a farmer’s market or finally figuring out what’s killing the squash.

The bone I do wish to pick, however, is with the shallowness of the statement. “People don’t know where their food comes from,” is, at its core, a statement of geography. Nothing else. Concepts of terroir aside, we must recognize that food is more than geography.  There is more than a where, there is also a how. People don’t know how their food comes to them. They have no idea the kind of effort, skill, and knowledge that goes into growing food.

Having not grown many plants since my third grade photosynthesis experiment, I used to be in that camp too. Whenever topics such as gardening or farming came up, I found myself alternating between one of two clichés. The first was that any kind of farmy manual labor was just that- labor. It evoked images of peasants scratching at the dusty earth with sticks, dreaming of a few gnarled potatoes. In this notion, farming is hard work, plain and simple. No ifs, ands, or buts. Farmers are to be pitied as they have obviously been cheated out of a better life somehow. And are too poor or too stupid to do anything about it. No thank you. I was perfectly content to let some unknown person tear my apples and cucumbers out of the earth.

Other times, however, I would find myself falling toward the other cliché. I thought that farming was something akin to magic. It conjured images of Peter Pan-ish farmers dancing across their fields as they sprinkled seeds that looked like glitter.  Four months later they waltz back through the field and harvest baskets brimming with eggplants, tomatoes, and basil. Farmers are to be envied because they have somehow hoodwinked the gods into leading a charmed life. Inevitably, when under the thrall of this idea, I would go out and buy a pot of herbs or Gerbera daisies or something, committed to taking part in this lush part of life. Just as inevitably, my plants would shrivel or rot. I would grow tired of the failure and resign myself to a lush-less life. I was content to let some unknown person whisper my pumpkins and sunflowers out of the earth.

Mercifully, neither of these clichés is true. They are both just as hackneyed as the quiet mouse or the robin’s blue egg. In the last few years, as my life has come to revolve more and more around growing things, I have begun to realize what a farmer’s life is actually like. It’s true that’s its full of hard work. For us at City Roots, there’s lots of shoveling and sifting dirt for sprout growing, cultivating the fields (which is a nice way of saying ripping the weeds out), planting and replanting and re-replanting seedlings, and bending over sinks full of sunflower sprouts trying to cull the seeds hulls out. It’s also true that there is a little bit of magic in what we do. But it’s of a more common variety than waltzing fairies. The magic is this: When given the proper conditions, seeds will germinate and grow into plants. Given enough time, eggplant peels and apple cores become fertilizer. Chickens can turn dead fish into eggs.

Not one of us feels like we’ve been swindled and trapped in a life of drudgery; but neither do we prance around our fields sprinkling glitter seeds. There’s a middle ground that I’ve found hard to explain to people who are unacquainted with farm work (or were only acquainted with it as children). While I’m not a parent, I often compare it to having children. Kids are hard work. They run you ragged all day and still ask for another glass of water before bed. Any honest parent will tell you that. But, any honest parent will also tell you that they derive great satisfaction from their children. I imagine their must be moments of transcendence between parent and child.  It’s the same way with farming. It’s hard, dirty, sweaty work. I often get dirt pushed so far under my nails that it hurts.  But the thing that surprises me still is the personal satisfaction I get. While it is hard, dirty, sweaty work, the magic is in how pleasurable this life is.

The sky soothes into quiet and Light commences a waltz with Shadow around the sála.  The bamboo chimes begin to move, at first a slow seductive twirl like a dancer’s hips but quickening till the chimes spin way out like a whirling dervish’s skirts.  In the beginning, the rain is all humility and meekness. It’s coming is heralded by small, not gaudy, changes – the patterns running down the window, the spattered mud leaping a few inches up the wall, the banana leaves casually bouncing like a woman’s foot when she crosses her legs.  And the sound!…echoing differently off each wall, as if trying to find the right pitch.  It’s accompanied by the wonderful cool breeze that blows through the windows, making the curtains drum their fingers in rhythm.  Everyone in the room seems to perceive its advent at exactly the same moment, and they hover around the window to watch the nativity progress.

The birth of the rain smells like dust.  I count each tiny bead of water as it falls to the ground with a hollow plop.  But then the plops increase to higher sounds, like marbles dropped in a sink.  The air now smells clean, all the dust being purified from it.  I can’t do anything but lie back on my bed and listen to the sound of the whole jungle surrounding me, drowning in soft pattering drips.  The angel chorus of birds still sing…bursting out in occasional solos, their sopranos balanced by the deep bass of thunder.  All of this to the beat of a million drops, each one hitting its own note and boggling my mind that I am hearing every one of them.

Soon, its still small voice beckons to me between the drops. I rise from my bed and follow it. I hug the wall and slither past my mother.  Then it’s all splashing in puddles and squeezing mud between my toes and getting gloriously, gloriously wet.  The rain trickles down into my eyes and plasters my hair to my head.  The moisture hangs heavy on my eyelashes and transforms the ordinary world into  trickling visions.  The weight of it forces my eyes closed and the vision slides down my cheeks like tears. I look behind me at my footprints in the mud.  I watch as the rain fills them and the shapes are distorted into puddles.  I again think of each individual drop it takes to fill the puddle. As each new drop lands, the puddle itself reaches up, as if begging for more.

I gaze across the valley and watch the approaching wall of grayness, knowing I have only a few moments before I am discovered and my mother calls me inside.  So I race the oncoming bulwark to my favorite tree.  Slipping and sliding all the way, I scramble up the slippery bark, onto my favorite branch, barely beating the barrage of wetness.  It hits me in the face like sopping sheets.  I reach out to stop them, only to discover they slip through my fingers like ghosts and smack me anyway.  The rain swaddles me in its self, making me breathe in its rhythm.  I cannot see past the shroud it has hung on the outermost branches, burying reality.  It is easy to wonder if all the rest was merely a dream.

Just as I get accustomed to this revelation, my house begins to materialize…cloudy at first, as if turned impressionist, but becoming clearer and sharper.  A sense of relieved disappointment fills my chest as the rain welled up in my footprints.  I must go back. The way back is longer and more laborious.  I am forced to pick my feet up high with each step out of the mud, like an ancient Hebrew slave making bricks.  The clothesline guards the border to reality and I watch the rain drops tiptoe to the middle of the line and hesitate until the next one pushes too hard and it slips off into the unknown.  At the back door my mother is already wielding the hose, trying to look condescending, but not quite able to banish the smile from her eyes.  Deep down I recognize her own longing.  I see her mouth form the words “filthy” and “clean up” but can’t hear it above the rain on the tin roof.  With a shake of her head, she commences the ceremonial cleansing which I must endure if I wish to enter the house -first my face, then my arms and legs, and finally my bare feet.  I surrender to her ministrations until the mud swirls down the drain.  Then I shloosh free.  My feet smack against the cool cement floor and I find I must walk carefully or risk slipping.

Once inside, I prefer not to shower, liking the natural feel on my skin.  I return to the cloud of people at the window and join the eager curiosity of witnessing the front yard fill up like a bathtub and guessing which step that afternoon’s rain will climb to….

That is the rain in the Philippines.  Everything else is just drizzle.

*While this is my writing, the original inspiration came from another missionary kid many years ago.  He published it on a MK message board.  If anyone knows who it was, I would love to give him credit.

Michael Rulman, a journalist chef, recently listed the reasons he cooks on his blog. He then asked the question that launched a thousand comments- why do you cook? The responses, though many, seemed to play variations on two themes- health and enjoyment. People cook because it is easier to have control over both ingredient selection and proper preparation. They also cook because they’d rather unwind in front of the stove than the TV; it’s enjoyable.

I think this is an important question to for everyone to answer, even if your answer is the same as everyone else’s. In the middle of your third stack of dishes, with five more stacks to go, it helps to remember why you do this thing called cooking.

I cook because . . .

Cooking allows to express my creativity. Early on, elementary school art classes wounded and stifled any overt creativity I had. Before you go wailing about the terrible teachers I must have had, let me just say that there are many reasons I dreaded art class, not the least of which is my deep rooted perfectionism. Unlike other things at school, when I didn’t “get” art right away, I gave up. For the same reasons some poor students flourish in art class, I withered. I’ve also never been a good draw-er, which seemed to be the meta-skill in art class. You couldn’t just put a paintbrush to paper, you had to draw something and then paint it.

Later in life, my creativity squirmed out into other areas, like writing. But I think it has come into its fullness in my cooking. Instead of ultramarine and vermilion colored pigments, I have blueberries and smoked paprika to paint with. Instead of an easel and brush, I use a saute pan and whisk. I collect cookbooks the same way an artist might collect other artists’ art- not necessarily to copy them, (I rarely follow recipes) but for the brainstorms they cause.

Cooking is relaxing. I don’t don’t mean a candles-and-bubble-bath relaxing, although there are some meals that come close. I mean relaxing in the way that a long bike ride or run can be relaxing. I once had a cross country coach who, when I was sick, told me to run an “easy three miles” instead of coming to normal practice. It sounds laughable to me now, but back then it made sense. Cooking is work; anyone who says otherwise has spent too much time watching Rachael Ray and not enough time chopping onions. There are many times I come to the dinner table out of breath, like a runner crossing the finish line.

When I was in college, I loved to cook because it was relaxing to pull my head out of the books and use more of my body than my fingertips. Similarly, even after a long day at work, I look forward to cooking because it uses more than just my smile and “thanks for coming.” I’ve often wondered if the reason things like running or yoga or cooking are relaxing is because they demand we use our whole bodies and give our weary minds a break.

Cooking is how I care for the people I love. This might have its roots in the deep Midwestern culture I grew up in. When a Big Event happened to someone, whether crisis or blessing, the appropriate response was to bring them casseroles – to cook for them. General care and concern were layered into the pyrex dishes along with the cream of mushroom soup. For me, this impulse has mushroomed into more than just a Big Event response. I feed the people I love. Sometimes this is an intentional activity, like inviting people I’d like to get to know better over for dinner. But more often, it just happens. I can’t help it. Some people give back rubs, some people buy gifts, and some people just spend time to show they care. Me? I cook.

Cooking is part of being human. This might seem an odd point to make, but I think it’s worth mentioning in a list like this. Cooking is one of the things that separates us from the rest of nature. We are the animal that cooks. Homo cookien.

Cooking transforms things. Cooking is all about transforming one thing into another. Cream into butter. Muscle into steak. But, like the best alchemists knew, the transformation of the material is really just a metaphor for the transformation of the alchemist himself. It’s not just flour and water becoming bread, or leaves and oil becoming pesto. Ultimately, the point is not the bread or the pesto, but the kind of person who is made. You could put this transformational power into simplistic terms and turn each dish into a fable. “Cutting this onion taught me the value of precision.” or “Beating these egg whites by hand taught me patience.” You could do that. I think you’d be missing the point if you did that though. A hunk of lead learning to be precise or patient is not nearly as stunning as lead becoming gold. The alchemy of cooking comes as close to sanctification as anything I know.

I am a different person now than I was four years ago when I started cooking in earnest. I don’t mean it was a direct cause and effect relationship – I started cooking and therefore became a different person. But rather, as those egg whites went from runny to stiff peaks, a little bit of me solidified too. As the dough was being kneaded, I, too, was developing a better structure. As so often happens with daily tasks that are barely remembered the next morning, cooking changed me.

That is why I keep cooking.

Whirl. Chink. Whirl. Hand cramps.
I must stay here, keep turning-
Thin clear turns thick white.

Stalking Wonder*.
Doesn’t that sound like a noble pursuit?  It has the tinge of both the hunter and the poet about it. Of all the things that we stalk- a happy marriage, good books, comfortable shoes, the perfect tomato, a good cup of coffee, a rewarding career- I think wonder is among the most neglected.  Perhaps because it is wonderfully non-essential to life. A person could go along perfectly well, happy even, without it. There is no physical need to pause in a chunk of warm sunlight before passing on. But there is little doubt that life becomes more pleasurable with such moments.

I don’t mean to imply that wonder is synonymous with pleasure, although the concepts do overlap. Pleasure, while certainly a force to be reckoned with, tends to be one sided.  For those of you with highly developed theologies of pleasure who are already arguing with me, hear me out. Pleasure, as conventionally understood, focuses on my sensations.  Like when enjoying the hot water pounding on my back in the shower, I have no thought for the people and systems that bring that hot water to me everyday. While not necessarily harmful, pleasure is at most benignly selfish.

Wonder, on the other hand, implies a meeting of spirits. It fosters an awareness of lives beyond just me. Sometimes an awareness of human lives, of course. Like finding an old book with many dog-eared pages, witness to the fact the someone else has gone before me. But more often what wonders me is an awareness of the fact that there is a whole system that, while welcoming my active participation, does not necessarily rely on it. Like finding the vigorous patch of clover in a corner of my yard with the unseen slug trail across it. My morning was enriched by noticing the path the slug took, but no harm would have come to the slug or clover if I had overlooked it. Wonder reminds me not only that this system exists, but that I am in a relationship with it. By which I mean our lives are dependent on the other’s health. And, like Wendell Berry has said, of our two lives, mine is meant to be the shorter and therefore more conservative. This wonder reminds me that the world is not my oyster, but that the oyster is my world.

Granted, such thoughts seem a little intense to come from pausing in a chunk of sunlight or noticing a slug trail on clover. But intentionally pausing for such thoughts, even stalking them, I find helps me peer through the weave of my selfishness, which is a wonder-ful thing in itself.  In an attempt to become more adept at stalking, I intend to post a picture that inspires wonder in me each week. Please feel free to add your own stories of stalking (and perhaps capturing) wonder.

*Christmas seems an appropriate time of year to have discovered such a phrase. And discover it I did; it’s not my own creation. I come to it third hand.  I stumbled across it in the blog Tea and Cookies, who, it seems, purloined it from Jennifer Jeffrey, a writer and editor in San Francisco.

It’s become a bit of a joke at my house to ask for the full pedigree of any food we eat. Whatever I cook, Gary, my husband, will ask if it’s “organic, local, and grass-fed.” Although it began as genuine delight over the wealth of produce and good quality meats at my farmer’s market, it quickly devolved into something more cynical. Exasperated at once again finding no junk food in the house, Gary asked me when I was going to buy some organic local grass-fed Twinkies. Even as I laughed, his sarcasm made me pause and consider just what all the labels meant anyway?

What is it about “local food” that makes me respond like one of Pavlov’s salivating dogs? Is geographical proximity alone the determining factor? Frito-Lay seems to think so. In May, the company launched a new advertising campaign in which they market their potato chips as “local.” After all, the potatoes they use have to be grown somewhere, right? And that somewhere has to be local to someone, right? So, potato chips could be a guilt-free local snack…as long as you’re lucky enough to live near a Lay’s potato farm.

Bi-Lo is trying to cash in on the local concept too. As I was walking out of Bi-Lo the other day, I noticed a banner advertising “Walter’s Local Produce.” The banner seems to shout the question: Who in the world is Walter anyway? A quick search of their website reveals that Walter is Bi-Lo’s deified produce manager. Walter, it turns out, is the one responsible for the fates of all the little fruits and vegetables that roll around your cart. Although he is revered for his pickiness over produce, there is little else said about him. The most personal thing on the page is a photograph of a disembodied hand. I left the site wondering if “Walter” really existed, or if he was just a corporate cardboard cut-out. No doubt, the brand “Walter’s Produce” is meant to evoke the feeling you are buying your apples and broccoli from a roadside stand owned by a man named Walter. Is that what makes food local then? Knowing that some kindly produce manager in the sky is triple checking your bananas for bruised spots?

Clearly, neither of these companies really gets it. “Local” has become shorthand for something much more complex than geography. I’ve come to the tentative conclusion that “local” has something to do with the community of people surrounding our food. I think Erin Barnett, the editor of Local Harvest, is on to something when she says that local food is “food we know in our bellies we can trust.” In the world of modern foods with ingredient labels that sound like a grocery list from Mars, trust seems to be on back order. Not only have we lost a sense of where our food comes from, but also who it comes from. Local food, on the other hand, has a history that can be known. You can come see your peas and cucumbers hanging on the vine, run your fingers through the dirt they grow in, and even harvest them yourself. Even more than that, it’s possible to get to know the people growing your food. Your brain, your heart, and your belly can trust true local food.

I’d like this newsletter to help grow that trust this season. In future letters, I’d like to tell you the story of the vegetables in your share each week, including growing conditions, nutritional information, storage tips, and recipes. More importantly, I’d like to use this newsletter for us to get to know each other better. Please feel free to leave comments – your thoughts on what I’ve written, questions about the vegetables in your share, tips on how to use up all that zucchini, ect. So, you can snap those peas and chop those tomatoes, knowing that you can trust where (and who) they came from . . . and that there are others snapping and chopping right along with you.

Eat Well,
Jana

So, in the absence of zesty ingredients, I resorted to gimmicky preparations of bland ones. A relevant quote. A startling statistic. A thought-provoking question. While these facades sufficed, they lacked the flavor of a fresh-from-the-farm beginning. They tasted like I’d dumped them out of a packet, added water, and stirred till thickened. I craved something else.

Beginnings need to be organic. You should be able to taste the thoughts that fertilized it, the ideas that shone on it. You ought to feel as if you know the grower. So, to begin, I’d like to share some of my reasons and goals for this blog. Think of it as the farmer giving you a tour of the implements and barns he uses to care for his farm.

The structure that defines the landscape around here is my need for a place to relate my newest recipes and domestic adventures. Even more than cooking, I love to share what I’ve cooked with others- hence why I rarely cook for myself. Because it’s not practical to invite all of you over for dinner regularly (although I’ll strive to invite all that I can), I want a place to be able to show off my cooking prowess and receive consolation on my stovetop disasters. I aim to include recipes, pictures, tutorials, and thoughts on the finished product. Whether its cooking, cleaning, decorating, gardening or something else, I need a kind of virtual bulletin board to pin up the things I’ve created.

The grazing land that I hope sustains this blog is my desire to be a part of the daily lives of the people I love. I want a simple authentic way to keep in touch with my family and friends. Facebook is nice for cookout invitations and major-life-event-pictures. But I want to give –and receive– more than banal status updates. I want you to know more than the events that I’ve been up to. I want you to come to understand what I’ve thought about what I’ve been up to.

Sitting in the dusty shadows underneath some hay, is my goal to use this blog to practice my rusty creative non-fiction skills. I used to be good at wielding such a heavy implement, but time has weakened my wrists and attention span. I would like to again fatten up those muscles as I till the ground for more than just a beginning.