In A Winter Garden

In light of the fact that I have not published anything of my own since last Wednesday’s recipe I thought I would take a minute to explain why through explaining where I am right now. I am sitting in the living room of the Kenyon food Co-op in the midst of a cold winter evening, feeling in between everything. As I walked back to the co-op earlier tonight I stared at the surreal beauty of a college campus covered in snow and couldn’t help but contrast it with the heat of the Sonoran desert and the fog of Berkeley. Despite being locked in the frigid embrace of an Ohio winter I tried to appreciate how much I have traveled, seen, and changed recently. Yet I also had to acknowledge that this constant movement has  not been without its costs. More so than ever before I feel uncertainty at the forefront of my mind. Border Studies is over, and I now occupy a weird in-between space between my “off campus” and “on campus” lives. While I have spent a lot of time and energy trying to fight this weird middle ground I am living in these days, I recently realized that it is best to embrace it. Ones twenties are an inherently turbulent time but that is also what makes them so exciting and important. While I cannot define myself as confidently as I could before, I am also finding powerful new pieces to answer that question with. For now these pieces will be somewhat disconnected and confusing but I know that they will eventually take shape in meaningful ways. But what about the blog and what does this all have to do with winter?

In this blog, as in the rest of my life these days, I find myself in between things. The image of me on a snowy path between two destinations is actually a pretty good metaphor for how I feel mentally right now. Winter is it’s own sort of in-between space, one that is not always, comfortable or easy, but that is a tremendously important step between the changes of fall and the promise of spring. I am in an uncertain winter of my own right now. In terms of festivefood, the exciting and energized honeymoon of posting new things every day as my mind overflows with new ideas is behind me. I am now figuring out what I am passionate about in the wake of such a moving semester off campus. So a lot of things are up in the air, which is worrying sometimes. I honestly do now know what this blog will look now that border studies is over. I also have no idea how it will change between now and when I return to Kenyon in January. Yet there is some exciting potential in all of this too though. Unsure times in between things give you the time and space to change and evolve, which is exactly what I want to do. I am planning to switch festivefood to blogger soon, which will allow for questions, comments, discussion, and of course recipes from my readers. I think this will make the blog more of a meaningful online community around food. I am also excited to share that I am planning to put an ongoing food writing project online soon. The gist of it is that I wrote a short food book this fall as a final project. It is called “The Gummy Worm in the Garden” and it reflects on the issue of sustainable food, exploring how this movement has developed and what its challenges are potentials are. I have emailed it to a few people, but given the large file size and the every changing nature of the project, I have decided that putting it online is the best way to share it and get feedback. I have put a lot of time and effort into this project and would love for you to read it once its online and you have some free time.

I am also working on a post about life at the Kenyon food co-op and I promise to publish that soon.

In the mean time I want to share a quote about the nature of in between spaces in life that I just found in Michael Pollan’s book on gardening: Second Nature. It captures a lot about where I am right now in my life, and I hope you will find it meaningful too.

“Winter in the garden is the season of speculation, a time when the snow on the ground is an empty canvas that invites the idle planting and replanting of countless hypothetical gardens between now and spring thaw…In a few months, summer will pass judgement on the merit, or folly, of our January schemes, but right now anything seems possible. The winter garden is an abstract, earthless place where only representations bloom—the season’s lists and sketches and catalogs and seeds (which are of course nature’s own representations). Insubstantial as these seem, they are in fact as vital to the summer garden as water and humus and sunlight. For it’s the gardener’s traffic in such signifiers that, not unlike the traffic of bumblebees in summer, rejuvenates the garden, importing the fresh genes and novel combinations that each year make it new.”

So be well. Dream in your winter garden, whatever that means to you in your life. Dream even in the dark and doubtful recesses of winter. Imagine the beautiful complexity of life unfolding not in spite of the uncertainty but because of it. For the very unpredictability that frustrates and saddens us is also that which lets new and hopeful things bloom.

Good night.

Victory Garden

Jolted out of my dream by the type of music that usually accompanies a sex scene in a Hollywood blockbuster I awoke confused. Looking around the blackness of my room I realized the sun had not come up, and yet somehow I was awake and there was this sensual base line emanating from my bedside table. It dawned on me that the music was from my cell phone alarm, a Verizon default tune named “Slowly.” Shutting it off quickly so as not to wake up Isela and Jesús sleeping in the other room I wondered why I had set such a goofy alarm the night before. Putting on shorts and a moisture wicking Frisbee jersey I dismissed last nights Reilly as unnecessarily silly and went to make myself breakfast before heading to the farm. Some beans, eggs, and tortillas later (the second best way to start the day behind chorizo and coffee in my opinion) I was ready to go. A car from the food bank picked me up from my house and drove Averyll and me a half hour to the Morana farm on the outskirts of Tucson.

Kneeling in the dirt, planting Broccoli along the long snakelike path of a black drip irrigation line I was glad we had started so early. The worst of the Arizona sun was still some hours away and for now we could work without the heat, moving in pairs down the rows lovingly placing baby Brocoli plants into the soil.

I have been really grateful for the opportunity to work so closely with plants at the food bank this fall because every day it allows me to relax, unwind, and process some of the thoughts I have been working through that week. It also has offered me the chance to talk with some very wise and inspiring people who are immersed in the work of sustainable agriculture and food justice. After learning day after day about the buffet of problems facing the food-eating community, the food bank is always a tranquil and often uplifting break.

I was talking with Zotero, my planting partner for the day about his home garden and he was telling me how not too long ago American families grew many of their vegetables at home. During World War Two, he explained, the government even encouraged this practice, claiming that “victory gardens” helped families feed themselves so our nations food could be shipped to help the war effort. This got me thinking.

Let’s bring back the victory garden. We aren’t at war with Nazi Germany any more, but I think that if I work this winter break to plant more edible things in my backyard, I will be happier, and our food system will be a little better off. This is a victory in my opinion. If families across the country are concerned with sustainability and healthy food, this is one fruitful and simple way they can make a difference. If we decide to grow some of our own food, then we all will become less dependent on fossil fuel, pesticide, and water intensive food from far away. Instead we will have some delicious, healthy, local food that we have the satisfaction of knowing we provided for our families. This also is a powerful way of voting with your wallet. If you spend less money on industrially farmed food, then you send a message that you do not support those farming practices.

Yards don’t have to be limited to landscaped flowers and carpets of grass. While these look very organized and pretty, I would argue that fruits and vegetables look pretty too, and offer you something awesome to share with friends and family. I’m not advocating that we all become farmers. I understand that this is unrealistic. I’m also not saying you have to spend every waking minute worrying about how to grow all of your food yourself. I’m just saying that small projects in the garden to grow your own food can a fun, relaxing, and meaningful activity for the whole family. I have seen several really inspiring examples recently of how productive (if you want to use that word) home gardens can be in terms of amount of food produced. I  want to be clear, however, that I don’t think you need to stop buying any food from the store. Things like bread, yogurt, beer, wine and so much more can be left to grocery stores. You don’t need to do everything by hand. But think how nice a salad might taste if the carrots or the lettuce, or both came from the dirt behind your house, with the work of your two hands.

To close, I want to share something I’ve realized recently about advocating for change. When you are upset by an injustice, it is really easy to get very emotional and start making grand statements about morality and what other people should and must do to fix things. This is the role I find myself in frequently. I have learned, however, that it is much less confrontational and much more effective if your sentences start with “I have” instead of “you should.” If you can share with someone something you have done because of your convictions about the environment, it really speaks volumes. This approach really shows that you truly care about the issue, and that you have thought of a concrete way to make a difference. It also encourages other people to follow suit, because it invokes a spirit of community. Keeping up with the Jones’s doesn’t have to always be about who has the prettier lawn or the more ornamental mailbox. If you start composting, harvesting rainwater, or growing some of your own food, your neighbors may eventually notice and want to do the same thing. This has the potential to create inspiring epidemics of sustainable living in neighborhoods around the country. We won’t really know until people try it though. While there may come a day when the government gives tax incentives to families that compost or grow their own food, why wait?

So if you want to see me this winter break, you might want to talk to me sooner rather than later, because I’ve got a victory garden to plant.

Wild Oregano, Pleasure Gardens, and Genius Loci

In the comfortingly warm air of a late afternoon in summer, I am putting the finishing touches on dinner. My friends and family are milling in the adobe courtyard, savoring the shade, and prickly pear margaritas served in traditional thick Mexican glasses. To complete the sauce I have simmering on the stove I step outside into the herb garden in the center of the courtyard and pick a handful of oregano, cilantro, and bright yellow chiles, shaped and colored like christmas lights. Mincing my bounty on the cutting board I am grateful for the simple joy of homegrown ingredients. I some sliced onions to a pan of hot oil and recoil with pain as a spray of olive oil jumps onto my wrist. Swearing under my breath in Spanish (chingada aceite!) I step outside again. I am prepared for burns in the kitchen, having learned in my more foolish years the perils of cooking bacon shirtless. I locate the gorgeous blue aloe plant in the corner and break open a fleshy leaf and rub the juice on my burn. Relieved, I return to the stove and turn off the heat. “Dinner’s ready!” I yell to the guests outside. Friendly faces fill the kitchen and pile their plates high with tortillas, refried beans, and a variety of stewed meats and vegetables. Plates full and eyes visibly excited, we all sit down on benches and chairs scattered throughout the courtyard and marvel at the beautiful simplicty of a good meal with good friends. The sun is beginning to set. Its last rays infuse the adobe walls with a golden glow as stories are shared, and the sound of laughter and the clinking of glasses fades merily into the oncoming night.

“Reilly do you want to smell the wild oregano?”

Stephanie’s voice snaps me out of my day dream and I realize that I’ve been spacing out for a good minute as Gary Nabhan, passionate writer and philosphical heavy-weight of local food, has been explaining the design of his house and surrounding farmland to us. I accept the sprig of oregano and bring it to my nose.

“Oh wow.”

The wild oregano smells more pungent, spicy almost, than any oregano ever had. I can only imagine how good a soup or sauce would if a handful of these leaves were invited into the hot tub. I thank Stephanie, and then the oregano itself, and pass it on to Michelle. Gary’s house is awesome. It’s design, he tells us is modeled after the houses typical of Andalusia Spain, which are themselves modeled after the houses in Damascus Jordan. The house is both elegant and practical. The adobe walls are easily constructed from local materials and keep the interior cool during the summer months. The metal roof is designed to guide rainwater where it can be used to water the property’s various gardens. The gorgeous central courtyard populated with useful herbs, vegetables, and medicinal plants, so one need only step outside of the kitchen to add a flavor to a meal or remedy a shirtless bacon cooking accident. The house’s design makes so much sense for the Southwest, Gary explains, because Southwestern houses faces many of the same conditions people in Jordan faced thousands of years ago. Damascus residents built their knowledge of architecture, gardening, and cooking into their houses, knowledge which the Spanish couldn’t help but copy. The Spanish later brought this knowledge to the Americas, where it worked well with the landscape and climate. Exploring Gary’s house, I get it.

The garden is gorgeous. The plants are both useful and delicious, and often both. Moreover, I feel profoundly at home here. In Jordan and Spain, Gary tells us, these gardens were known as pleasure gardens. They offered a sanctuary from the heat of the day, a place for quiet reflection, and a communal space for gatherings. I can envision so many perfect moments in a courtyard like this one: reading a book out of the afternoon sun, sharing a cool drink with my brother, or talking with a good friend late into a warm, starry evening. Places like this reflect such a profound understanding of the simple ways to make people happy. There is so much thought, history, and culture embedded every aspect of the design, and the pleasure I feel just being here reflects that fact.

Gary explains that this type of knowledge, knowledge that makes life work seamlessly with the environment one lives in, is called Genius Loci, or genius of place. Tapping into Genius Loci, makes living locally, living sustainably, and living well become the same thing. Instead of fighting the environment one lives in with energy and money intensive ways to maintain an ideal temperature, water ones plants, and put food on the table, this style of living embraces the environment with time-tested and simple adaptations to the local landscape.

Were we standing in France or Spain, Gary explains, the fertile hills around us would be covered with olives and grapes. In the US, however, mega-farms don’t implement crops that work with the area they are planted in, and instead built huge greenhouses and irrigation systems and import synthetic fertilizer to keep their fragile monocultures from failing. This agriculture system works very well for Monsanto and Coca Cola, but very poorly for the land, the end consumer (obesity and heart disease anyone?), and the farmers. What is sad for me to think about is how our government subsidizes cheap and empty calories in the form of corn, soy, and wheat, instead of tapping into and encouraging genius loci. Much of food policy in this country is incredibly economically and environmentally inefficient and often downright illogical. For example, lettuce grown in Arizona is shipped to Los Angeles to a middleman supplier before it is trucked back into Arizona to be eaten. This type of illogic behavior will only be possible as long as oil and water are prevalent and cheap. With oil reserves dwindling, and Arizona now pumping water 336 miles (the largest and most expensive aqueduct project ever constructed in the US) all the way from Colorado, these days are numbered. But that’s just my humble opinion. I’m not an economist, a USDA expert, a politican, or a petroleum industry guru. What do I know about the food system?

What I do know is that standing in Gary’s lush courtyard, nibbling on a leaf of basil from the garden, I felt inspired and at peace. I can only hope that one day more people will see the beauty and seamlessness of living this way.

Planting Basil

Without the luxury of sitting down to dinner with you and telling you some stories, let’s just say that I have some good memories associated with basil. I also love cooking and eating it. Whether put into a Thai stiry fry, atop a fresh pizza, or placed simply on a piece of baguette with mozzarella and a slice of tomato, basil always brings a lot to the table. Well done buddy. Today as part of my first day working in the Tucson food bank, I was asked to help transplant some basil. The seemingly simple act of taking a fragile basil plant out of its tiny black container, putting it in a larger plastic cup, and then lovingly surrounding it with potting soil was mesmerizing, to say the least. Patricia, the garden director put it very well. She said: “when I’m transplanting is one of the few times that I can just turn my mind off and be.” The repetitive but meaningful act of giving a dozen plants a new shot at life definitely made me feel utterly at peace with the world. I think it was because I was establishing a direct and unadulterated connection with the life of something else. The act of giving a plant a new home, new nutrients, and new water made me feel a pure and primal joy that was really refreshing. I would highly recommend going out and planting something if you have the chance. Gardens are not just for growing pretty flowers. To understand how a plant lives is to hear the heartbeat of earth for a moment. To help a plant thrive with your own hands is to help push life in a circle instead of in a selfish line ending with the word “me.”