Down on the Farm

Has it been that long? It's been more than 6 months since I’ve written here. I’ve been exploring all things food in a more rural setting since then. My brief experience doing demos in supermarkets gave me tremendous inspiration to spend another season growing food and developing local food systems. This year I had a great time helping a family farm in the Umpqua Valley get a local chicken egg business started. I also got to watch the humble beginnings of a new farmer’s market, built some new gardens and grew some yummy veggies, and started compost heaps. Good stuff!

While I came to enjoy the demo work in a supermarket less and less over the few short weeks I was doing it, it was so worth it because I got to meet so many of you! I enjoyed talking to you all about what you eat and why, and I especially loved talking about cooking and gardening with so many. It’s just that, as I said in an earlier post, we so badly need better choices about where we’re going to get our food and how we’re going to turn it into something great to eat. While doing those demos, it became harder and harder for me to watch what we all have to go through in order to feed ourselves, and the lack of real choices we have. I knew we could do so much better for ourselves. But how?

While away on the farm I have been so excited to learn of some really innovative things happening in Portland’s local food scene. It seems like a lot of us are starting to take an interest in becoming empowered about our personal food supply. And so many people everywhere are gardening now! Yes! I think the Hundredth Monkey Principle is really at work here with regards to how many of us are waking up to the realities of what is going on with our food supply.

So, in talking to you, participating in the mass-market food system briefly, reconnecting with the farm and growing food, watching local food start to really take a foothold everywhere, and as always doing a lot of cooking, I finally have some vision of how to best use all of these elements together to make some positive change in how we deal with food and eating well everyday.

I’m excited. The movement to reconnect us all with the food we eat is gaining momentum. I’ll be back soon, both on the blog and back in Portland, and I’ll keep you posted as this develops. Nice to see you all again!

Peace and Peas,
Calliope