Why would we celebrate the dandelion?
This crooked little weed—
This fruit of fertile, feral seed—
This yellow and this green that speak out Spring! Spring! Spring!
For what this little flower with its splash across the lawn—
Aggravating those who seek an order to the grass and long to poison it and us by proxy—
What moxie shows this humble little plant—
It can’t be beaten back, just slowed—
It springs back each and every time it’s mowed, its seeds sown again and again, by wind!
How can one defend against such a hearty foe?
Embrace, and buss, enjoy, we must!
This lion’s tooth, so humble, and so strong—
Why celebrate this weed, this flower, this first sign of spring, this bitter green?
Why celebrate when we have lost the battle it has fought?
Why would we not?
authentic texas specialties, amazing live music, incredible selection of local, microbrewed draft beers and locally sourced and organic foods...
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Locavore
A couple of months back, Nicole and I were present at the second annual Savour Ottawa summit meeting, held (this year) in the opulent surroundings of the National Art Centre. Savour Ottawa is the hub of the wheel that is moving our National Capital Region towards having a functioning local foods network. It is a joint program of Ottawa Tourism and a non-profit group called Just Foods, and is supported and loosely connected to many other local, provincial and Canadian efforts that all aim to put a little sanity back into the way we purchase, source, and ultimately consume food. In our area, it is our biggest and best means of participating in the local foods movement. This organization attempts to do this by putting chefs in the room with farmers (...and the media...and many other concerned folks, such as grocery store owners, distributors, micro-processors and farmers’ markets...) and it seems to be working; attendance at each event has increased as has interest and membership, with a surprising number of restaurants and farmers seeming anxious to climb aboard and help move this stuck wheel out of the mud. Much of the event was a series of progress reports and information bits, delivered in an organized and thoughtful fashion. Savour Ottawa has been quite active and engaged since its inception, just three short years ago, and I’ve enjoyed attending, participating, and even sitting on the advisory committee of this effective, smart and forward thinking group. We have gained a great deal by way of this group, but by far, the best thing has been the opportunity to meet, hear, talk to, and get to know a wonderful community of like minded folks. Folks like Terry McEvoy.
‘Locavore’ is a new word; the folks at the Oxford American Dictionary added it to their lexicon and named it the word of the year for 2007. It was coined in San Francisco by someone named Jessica Prentice for the 2005 World Environment Day to describe folks who choose locally produced foods over the high mileage options we find in most stores, and in a short time, it has come to describe a movement some folks are calling the new ‘organic’. That would have been funny to our grandparents who would have called it ‘normal’. I spend a lot of my time thinking about this kind of stuff, so much so that it actually surprises me when I discover that other folks don’t necessarily do the same. That’s why it is always a pleasure to find other people who are as passionate about it as I am.
I never set out to be a local foods guy; for me, it started with a love of food combined with a sincere interest in and love of nature and the environment. It began in my teens and, I’m usually sorry to say, the earliest manifestations were a precocious political bent, usually expressed with a passionate lecture or a blind criticism of anyone whose knee didn’t jerk to the left. Needless to say, this approach didn’t win me many fans and I eventually learned to tone down the preachy-ness in favour of a more personalized expression in the form of a series of experiments with vegetarian, vegan, and finally organic eating. My career path being what it was (with few exceptions, I’ve only ever cooked for a living), and because of my other hunger for things to read and learn, it was natural for me to follow each of these personal experiments into both extreme research in the form of articles and books as well as into a variety of professional settings. This path has led me to where I am now, cooking philosophical local and organic food in a small town—reaching out and teaching folks (I hope) about some of the things I’ve learned along the way. When we opened the branch, I made a promise to myself that I would start shopping at my door, and really, honestly try to forge a local network that would supply our restaurant, of course, and support my family, but also to contribute to the community as a whole; that we would be a part of something bigger than just a business, and that we would make an honest effort to be a part of a positive world change.
Doing that meant meeting local farmers and producers, a task that is the least work-ish part of my work. It meant going to farmers’ markets, cold-calling numbers from the internet or the phone book, and occasionally, it meant pulling a dangerous u-turn to stop and buy a tub of honey at a self serve shack like Terry McEvoy’s, which was right on the side of one of the main roads out of town.
I am a local food geek, for sure, but I am not a local food armageddonist, which is to say, I no longer think that the world will end if I eat a slice of processed cheese (it might...but I doubt it); nor am I completely convinced that there is absolutely no place for giant mechanized and centralized farming operations in the matrix of the future of how we feed this planet (hey, I love Star Trek, I’d love to think that there is a scientific solution to every problem!) But, as far as the benefits of local eating go, what I have come to believe is that big economies (such as giant centralized and mechanized farms) and big corporations (such as agro-chemical, food processing plants, or giant feedlot and slaughter operations) are too easily made victim to the violent side effects of one of nature’s fundamental laws, the law of inertia, or momentum. And until humans can subvert this basic law of nature, (God help us when we do...) I can’t help but feel that we are needlessly endangering ourselves, our fellow humans, our children and our planet, and usually for all of the wrong reasons, like money, power or ‘security’; but most often, as I stated before, simply because of momentum. Big systems like our agricultural and industrial food processing ones can turn a bad idea into a devastating one in a short time (think DDT or gene modification); ideas which seem like good science in the lab can suddenly become toxic and widespread when applied to our enormous food system as a whole. Also, when things go wrong, (think Mad Cow Disease, or E. coli) they tend to go very wrong, very quickly because the system is so big that by its nature, by its momentum, it is difficult, or even impossible to slow or stop. In other words, with each new iteration of a poorly tested or poorly understood catch-all agricultural ‘solution’, or with each new manifestation (...watch the papers, what is it that is being recalled this week: Peanut Butter? Spinach? Deli Meats?) of a systemic problem, we open Pandora’s Box; and by the time we realize what we’ve done, it is too big, too bad and too late.
You see, I do believe in the science of agriculture, it’s just that my favorite farm laboratories are not climate or temperature controlled (at least not by the hand of man) or located in a Monsanto complex, they are scattered around the countryside of every rural route in the world—and they are operated by scientists who understand things about plants that can’t be taught in a clean white lab-coat or with a test tube. The scientists that I trust have dirty hands and well-worn rubber boots; they can fix a tractor with a bent stick and a length of twine—they can tell you which hill gets the best sun for basil and which shallow spot is too wet for garlic. And the science they understand isn’t from a book with pages; it is from an almanac filled with dirt, sun, time and water. These scientists Will Feed Their Family, and then, if there is something left, they will feed some other folks, too. They know that crop diversity will be the best tool to ensure a year of meals because the bugs can’t get everything, and they know that saving seeds is cheaper than buying them and the best way to be sure of what they’re going to get. They know that spraying poison on food is counterintuitive at its best and downright criminal at its worst. And they know that if something doesn’t work, for heaven’s sake, you stop doing it, you don’t keep trying it over and over again, hoping for a different result. They are small enough, smart enough and quick enough that they do not get crushed by the momentum of a bad idea.
These folks are the scientists that I trust. They acknowledge the math and philosophy of the agricultural schools but they also don’t let it interfere with the process of putting food in the pantry or the root cellar. It is a science not simply based on knowledge, but on knowledge tempered with wisdom; science of the mind, but also of the heart. These are the same scientists who carried the world on their backs from the caves right up to the industrial revolution, and when the oil runs out (and it will...), these are the scientists we will all be seeking out, hat in hand, begging them to teach us how to feed ourselves again.
I’m not going to wait.
I didn’t want to write today, I (and lots of other folks) got some bad news yesterday morning, Terry McEvoy, our honey guy, died suddenly, much too suddenly and much, much too young. Our, and many other heavy hearts, are with his family today. Terry was a honey collector and processor, a family man, a birdhouse builder and a pioneer and an activist in many community based, positive world changing groups and projects. And, without question, he was one of those scientists, those men of knowledge, of wisdom, and of heart to whom I referred.
I was remembering that Savour Ottawa summit at the NAC today, because of him. As a fellow member of the advisory committee he was asked, I believe, just to introduce or to give a quick summary of some item at the microphone at some point during the latter half of the event. There was no keynote speaker that day and accurately sensing the spirit of the moment he took it upon himself to say a few things...he noted that this was not what he had been asked to do, but that he felt that when an opportunity presented itself, such as this one had, there must be a reason, and that it was important for someone to say what needed to be said. Then he pulled out a set of notes. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said with a bit of mischief, ‘It won’t take too long.’ It didn’t. He spoke clearly and eloquently for the next several minutes about several topics, but central to his theme was the idea that our collective need to put the idea of ‘culture’ back into ‘agriculture.’ He talked fondly of his forebears and about how crazy they would have found the idea that in our backwards food non-culture of today a farmer could have hundreds of acres and still not be able to feed his or her family. And he spoke about how great it was that we were all there in that room talking about doing something about it, but that all the talk in the world wasn’t going to fix what needed fixing and that we were all going to have roll up our sleeves and get to work if we wanted to see real change.
I’m not exaggerating when I say that his talk that day affected me deeply. On the one hand, my respect for him increased tenfold for his act of courage and will in even taking (and I do mean taking) the chance to speak. In some ways, he helped to wake up that passionate youngster in me who I had suppressed all those years ago for fear of offending; I felt like I was being given permission, even responsibility to take the chance to say what needed to be said when the chance arose, and I’ll admit, I have enjoyed and taken a few opportunities to do exactly that in the months since...much like what you’ve read in the paragraphs here today. And on the other hand, the importance of the specifics of his message have resonated with me; both as a reminder of the importance of what we who are active in the local food culture are doing and also for his call to arms, his recipe for a clear direction forward. His phrase about putting the ‘culture’ back into ‘agriculture’ is now a permanent part of my idiom, as it now is, I’m sure, for every person who heard him speak on that (or any other) day. Terry was a true and good leader. I did not know him well, certainly not nearly as well as I wanted to, and though I had looked forward to getting to know him over years to come, I find that even in 2 short days, I am already getting to know him better as I learn more and more about his incredible legacy.
This community has suffered a blow. Terry McEvoy, a good, good man, was ripped from us too swiftly and much too soon. But if he were here, something tells me that he’d be taking the microphone and telling us that we’ve got to roll up our sleeves, look ahead and get to work.
I didn’t want to write today, but I knew I had to.
--Chef Bruce
‘Locavore’ is a new word; the folks at the Oxford American Dictionary added it to their lexicon and named it the word of the year for 2007. It was coined in San Francisco by someone named Jessica Prentice for the 2005 World Environment Day to describe folks who choose locally produced foods over the high mileage options we find in most stores, and in a short time, it has come to describe a movement some folks are calling the new ‘organic’. That would have been funny to our grandparents who would have called it ‘normal’. I spend a lot of my time thinking about this kind of stuff, so much so that it actually surprises me when I discover that other folks don’t necessarily do the same. That’s why it is always a pleasure to find other people who are as passionate about it as I am.
I never set out to be a local foods guy; for me, it started with a love of food combined with a sincere interest in and love of nature and the environment. It began in my teens and, I’m usually sorry to say, the earliest manifestations were a precocious political bent, usually expressed with a passionate lecture or a blind criticism of anyone whose knee didn’t jerk to the left. Needless to say, this approach didn’t win me many fans and I eventually learned to tone down the preachy-ness in favour of a more personalized expression in the form of a series of experiments with vegetarian, vegan, and finally organic eating. My career path being what it was (with few exceptions, I’ve only ever cooked for a living), and because of my other hunger for things to read and learn, it was natural for me to follow each of these personal experiments into both extreme research in the form of articles and books as well as into a variety of professional settings. This path has led me to where I am now, cooking philosophical local and organic food in a small town—reaching out and teaching folks (I hope) about some of the things I’ve learned along the way. When we opened the branch, I made a promise to myself that I would start shopping at my door, and really, honestly try to forge a local network that would supply our restaurant, of course, and support my family, but also to contribute to the community as a whole; that we would be a part of something bigger than just a business, and that we would make an honest effort to be a part of a positive world change.
Doing that meant meeting local farmers and producers, a task that is the least work-ish part of my work. It meant going to farmers’ markets, cold-calling numbers from the internet or the phone book, and occasionally, it meant pulling a dangerous u-turn to stop and buy a tub of honey at a self serve shack like Terry McEvoy’s, which was right on the side of one of the main roads out of town.
I am a local food geek, for sure, but I am not a local food armageddonist, which is to say, I no longer think that the world will end if I eat a slice of processed cheese (it might...but I doubt it); nor am I completely convinced that there is absolutely no place for giant mechanized and centralized farming operations in the matrix of the future of how we feed this planet (hey, I love Star Trek, I’d love to think that there is a scientific solution to every problem!) But, as far as the benefits of local eating go, what I have come to believe is that big economies (such as giant centralized and mechanized farms) and big corporations (such as agro-chemical, food processing plants, or giant feedlot and slaughter operations) are too easily made victim to the violent side effects of one of nature’s fundamental laws, the law of inertia, or momentum. And until humans can subvert this basic law of nature, (God help us when we do...) I can’t help but feel that we are needlessly endangering ourselves, our fellow humans, our children and our planet, and usually for all of the wrong reasons, like money, power or ‘security’; but most often, as I stated before, simply because of momentum. Big systems like our agricultural and industrial food processing ones can turn a bad idea into a devastating one in a short time (think DDT or gene modification); ideas which seem like good science in the lab can suddenly become toxic and widespread when applied to our enormous food system as a whole. Also, when things go wrong, (think Mad Cow Disease, or E. coli) they tend to go very wrong, very quickly because the system is so big that by its nature, by its momentum, it is difficult, or even impossible to slow or stop. In other words, with each new iteration of a poorly tested or poorly understood catch-all agricultural ‘solution’, or with each new manifestation (...watch the papers, what is it that is being recalled this week: Peanut Butter? Spinach? Deli Meats?) of a systemic problem, we open Pandora’s Box; and by the time we realize what we’ve done, it is too big, too bad and too late.
You see, I do believe in the science of agriculture, it’s just that my favorite farm laboratories are not climate or temperature controlled (at least not by the hand of man) or located in a Monsanto complex, they are scattered around the countryside of every rural route in the world—and they are operated by scientists who understand things about plants that can’t be taught in a clean white lab-coat or with a test tube. The scientists that I trust have dirty hands and well-worn rubber boots; they can fix a tractor with a bent stick and a length of twine—they can tell you which hill gets the best sun for basil and which shallow spot is too wet for garlic. And the science they understand isn’t from a book with pages; it is from an almanac filled with dirt, sun, time and water. These scientists Will Feed Their Family, and then, if there is something left, they will feed some other folks, too. They know that crop diversity will be the best tool to ensure a year of meals because the bugs can’t get everything, and they know that saving seeds is cheaper than buying them and the best way to be sure of what they’re going to get. They know that spraying poison on food is counterintuitive at its best and downright criminal at its worst. And they know that if something doesn’t work, for heaven’s sake, you stop doing it, you don’t keep trying it over and over again, hoping for a different result. They are small enough, smart enough and quick enough that they do not get crushed by the momentum of a bad idea.
These folks are the scientists that I trust. They acknowledge the math and philosophy of the agricultural schools but they also don’t let it interfere with the process of putting food in the pantry or the root cellar. It is a science not simply based on knowledge, but on knowledge tempered with wisdom; science of the mind, but also of the heart. These are the same scientists who carried the world on their backs from the caves right up to the industrial revolution, and when the oil runs out (and it will...), these are the scientists we will all be seeking out, hat in hand, begging them to teach us how to feed ourselves again.
I’m not going to wait.
I didn’t want to write today, I (and lots of other folks) got some bad news yesterday morning, Terry McEvoy, our honey guy, died suddenly, much too suddenly and much, much too young. Our, and many other heavy hearts, are with his family today. Terry was a honey collector and processor, a family man, a birdhouse builder and a pioneer and an activist in many community based, positive world changing groups and projects. And, without question, he was one of those scientists, those men of knowledge, of wisdom, and of heart to whom I referred.
I was remembering that Savour Ottawa summit at the NAC today, because of him. As a fellow member of the advisory committee he was asked, I believe, just to introduce or to give a quick summary of some item at the microphone at some point during the latter half of the event. There was no keynote speaker that day and accurately sensing the spirit of the moment he took it upon himself to say a few things...he noted that this was not what he had been asked to do, but that he felt that when an opportunity presented itself, such as this one had, there must be a reason, and that it was important for someone to say what needed to be said. Then he pulled out a set of notes. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said with a bit of mischief, ‘It won’t take too long.’ It didn’t. He spoke clearly and eloquently for the next several minutes about several topics, but central to his theme was the idea that our collective need to put the idea of ‘culture’ back into ‘agriculture.’ He talked fondly of his forebears and about how crazy they would have found the idea that in our backwards food non-culture of today a farmer could have hundreds of acres and still not be able to feed his or her family. And he spoke about how great it was that we were all there in that room talking about doing something about it, but that all the talk in the world wasn’t going to fix what needed fixing and that we were all going to have roll up our sleeves and get to work if we wanted to see real change.
I’m not exaggerating when I say that his talk that day affected me deeply. On the one hand, my respect for him increased tenfold for his act of courage and will in even taking (and I do mean taking) the chance to speak. In some ways, he helped to wake up that passionate youngster in me who I had suppressed all those years ago for fear of offending; I felt like I was being given permission, even responsibility to take the chance to say what needed to be said when the chance arose, and I’ll admit, I have enjoyed and taken a few opportunities to do exactly that in the months since...much like what you’ve read in the paragraphs here today. And on the other hand, the importance of the specifics of his message have resonated with me; both as a reminder of the importance of what we who are active in the local food culture are doing and also for his call to arms, his recipe for a clear direction forward. His phrase about putting the ‘culture’ back into ‘agriculture’ is now a permanent part of my idiom, as it now is, I’m sure, for every person who heard him speak on that (or any other) day. Terry was a true and good leader. I did not know him well, certainly not nearly as well as I wanted to, and though I had looked forward to getting to know him over years to come, I find that even in 2 short days, I am already getting to know him better as I learn more and more about his incredible legacy.
This community has suffered a blow. Terry McEvoy, a good, good man, was ripped from us too swiftly and much too soon. But if he were here, something tells me that he’d be taking the microphone and telling us that we’ve got to roll up our sleeves, look ahead and get to work.
I didn’t want to write today, but I knew I had to.
--Chef Bruce
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)