More Deliberate Every Day

We're Not Trendy, But We're Trendy

If you've been reading this blog very long, you already know we're big backyard, suburban gardeners.  We do it so that we have "skin in the game" of our food sources, because it helps us develop and build self-sufficiency, and sensitizes us to the plight of our farmer friends upon which we depend for the food on our table.  But in addition to all these reasons, it seems more recently the recession is causing an upswing in home gardeners.  From Reuters:

According to a nationwide Harris Interactive survey conducted in January on behalf of the NGA, 43 million U.S. households plan to grow their own fruits, vegetables, berries, and herbs in 2009, a 19 percent gain from 36 million in 2008.

About a third of the respondents who said they planned to pick up the hoe this year cited the recession as one of their motivating factors. The main reasons were for better tasting food and to save money on food bills.

You can read the whole article here.  We'll chalk it up to being trend-setters.

Weekend Reflections

Thousands of people at the opening day of the Memphis Farmers Market? A robust turn-out at Shelby Park's Earth Day Festival despite the torrential rain? Believe what you read right here folks. . .  

Despite the rain and cooler than seasonal temperatures in the Midsouth, this past weekend turned out to be a packed calendar, with a definitive hint toward the local. Having been worn down by travel all last week, Mrs. Deliberately and the Deliberately Brothers let me cash in my rest ticket Friday night and sleep in the following morning, so we did not attend the opening day of the Memphis Farmers Market downtown. Which means the population would have beaucoup plus four, were it not for the vagaries of work schedules. . . Nonetheless the market was reportedly booming, with many vendors selling completely out of the hottest items (for instance eggs, strawberries, beef, to name a few) quickly and with extreme prejudice. Word on the street (or at McEwen's on Monroe last night, for those keeping track) was that this weekend's opening event paralleled the best Saturday since the market began in 2006, so expect to see us very early in the morning this year while we beat the latecomers to the best stuff. You can read all about the fun at the Commercial Appeal.  

We were worried on Sunday morning that the Shelby Farms Park Earth Day celebration would be quashed due to the torrential rain that was making our backyard into Lake Deliberately and causing water to gush off our roof so heavily as to overtake the gutters.  But no worries, as the rain gave way to sunshine exactly long enough for the whole Deliberately Clan to get in a brief stop at church (don't want to anger the powers that be by not giving thanks for that sunshine) then to make it over the the park and enjoy the festivities.  Organizers had quickly ushered many of the booths under the big tent in the morning in expectation of further rain, but while we visited it was breezy and eventually quite sunny.  Some of our favorite folks were there sharing their message, including Edible Memphis, Project Green Fork, Citizens to Preserve Overton Park and Eco Systems, to name a few.  The kids danced amongst soap bubbles and had a lot of fun gluing junk to other junk (a demonstration of the possibilities of recycling) while good bluegrass music filled the air as a backdrop to it all.

Now, I do have some constructive criticism for the organizers of the Down to Earth Celebration. . . while there have in prior years been "give-aways" sponsored by some of the exhibitors, this year it seemed to be WAY over the top.  So while my kids enjoyed filling what they referred to as "goody-bags" with swag, I noticed quite a few things going in that did not meet the Earth Day seal of approval according to Deliberately standards.  So, in that spirit, a few of the best and a few of the worst Earth Day give-aways at Shelby Park on Sunday. 

Best hand-outs:

1. Seeds that grow food (spinach in our case) from the Memphis Farmers Market 
2. A biodegradable flyer from Project Green Fork announcing Sunday night's (4/26) benefit dinner at Tsunami  
3. A pine seedling from Whole Foods (for a small donation)
4. Flower seeds from MLGW  (we're subscribers and big fans of the Green Power Switch)   

Worst hand-outs (leaving out company names, since I don't have anything personally against them):

1. A backpack filled with "recycled" poker cards and dice straight from Tunica
2. A plastic frisbee and plastic compact mirror combo
3. Earth-shaped stress balls, most likely manufactured of closed-cell polyurethane foam rubber

But enough on that topic.  To complete the weekend, Mrs. Deliberately and I left the kids with a sitter and headed downtown last night to a dinner at McEwen's On Monroe benefitting the Memphis Farmers Market.  The menu was filled with a variety of locally sourced options, but in my personal opinion the best course was the Mississippi striped bass served with mushrooms from Mississippi Natural Products (represented by Flora at Bluebird Farms) over a ginger scallion risotto.  The fish came out just off the grill, just a bit crisp still, and the mushroom, sauce and risotto combination was like eating something every dietician warns me away from.  That said, the menu overall was a perfect advertisement for what great local food and great culinary skills can create in unison.  Other providers represented on the menu were Bonnie Blue Farms, The Grit Girl, Neola Farms, Sparkling River Pepper Co. and Delta Pecan Orchard.  Sunday night was the last of the 2008 series of benefit dinners, but if I were you I'd keep my ear to the ground on the 2009 schedule!

By the way, we are participating in two different CSA's (community-supported agriculture) which we will be picking up weekly this year at the Farmers Market at the Memphis Botanic Garden.  There may be room left for you to participate as well.  If you're interested, reach out to Downing Hollow Farm and/or Whitton Flowers & Produce and say howdy.  The midweek market opens this Wednesday, April 23rd.

Eat well, but make sure it's local!

Feeding the Garden

If you're anything like me, you're having trouble sleeping at night this time of year as you plan for your backyard garden.  This morning I came across a great article at the New York Times by Gerri Hirshey titled When It Came to Dirt, Dad Knew Best which is both an homage to the author's father and his love of gardening and a meditation on the fine art of cultivating soil that will produce great vegetables.  From the article:

Springtime brought another soil-care ritual that fell on the bony and unwilling shoulders of my brother. Crop rotation is a time-honored, scientifically sanctioned way to care for one’s soil, swapping out greedy, nutrient-depleting things like tomatoes for beans and peas that collect and fix nitrogen in the soil. Since Dad’s plot was small, and he veered injudiciously toward monoculture in the years when his tomato craving ran high, he moved the dirt around instead.

My brother hoisted the shovel as our father barked a strategy for digging up and exchanging heaps of earth that rivaled the most complex chess defense. “Move this pile there, shovel the stuff in the wheelbarrow into that trench, then dig down a foot over here...” It was the stuff of teen nightmares.

This is an obsession we're cultivating at the More Deliberately household, because the health of the soil is directly related to the quality of our food and the health of our bodies.

One More Week

Oh, and one more note.  We are about a week away from building raised beds even bigger than the last two years, and our plant starts are much farther along.  Can you say "Potlucks are in our future?" (click the photo for a larger look)

Between our garden here, the two CSA's we're participating in this year (Downing Hollow Farm and Whitton Flower & Produce) and almost weekly visits to the Memphis Farmers Market and the Memphis Botanic Gardens Farmers Market we will be eating, freezing, and canning this year until the cows come home.  Oh, and we'll be buying the cows (and pigs and chickens) from suppliers like M4D Ranch, Neola Farms, and West Wind Farms.  So excited Spring is finally, er, Springing!

Spring Magazines & This 'n That

Continuing with the theme from the last blog post, "don't let the perfect get in the way of the good," there's an article in the April issue of  Saveur Magazine by Indrani Sen titled "Green Giant" (not available as online content) that discusses the food distribution giant Sysco, the challenges of industrial food systems, and the (I suppose) surprising effort that company is making in relation to local food sources.  Despite being much demonized by local foodies everywhere, Sysco is not only aware of the problems inherent in its business model, but is making great strides toward changing that model altogether.  From the article, discussing the company's 60-year old CEO:

Under his leadership, Sysco has invested in local food distribution systems, reduced chemical use on supplier's land through integrated pest management, and revamped truck routing and packing strategies to achieve higher gas efficiency and take trucks off the road.  In conversations, [CEO Richard J.] Schnieder's style is professorial; he drops references to the importance of reducing meat consumption to meet the planet's food needs and the proportionately higher costs of food in poor countries as compared with rich ones.

"You sound like Michael Pollan," I told him, referring to the journalist and author who has become a guru for the sustainability movement.

"I think Michael is 90 percent right," Schnieders replied.

Later in the article, Schnieder gains some street-cred by talking about the real math of how Americans get food on their tables:

But what about the food miles? I asked Schnieders.  He responded with a story about eight cases of locally grown salad greens he encountered on a visit to upstate New York.  "That organic farmer had put those eight cases in his pickup truck and driven 40 miles down, 40 miles back," Schnieders said.  "The carbon footprint on a per-case basis or a per-pound basis is huge.  So, we did the analysis.  We would deliver organic greens from California 1,700 cases at a time; if you measure the cost per case and the environmental footprint, it's actually less for those cases coming from California."

Which does not turn me into a Sysco fan, but does illustrate that black-and-white solutions are rarely the right path to follow.  In real terms, if Sysco successfully changes course in how they do business and improves their environmental and health footprint by just ten or twenty percent, it will be a much bigger impact than I'm likely to make by myself on the global food system.  And that's not me being humble, but dealing with the hard reality of the situation.

Elsewhere in the magazine there's also an article by Thomas McNamee that compares and contrasts the evolution of Alice Waters and that of Thomas Keller, who despite making their claims to fame only about an hour away from each other achieved very different results.

Also on the magazine front this week I received the Spring issue of Edible Memphis Magazine which is more beautiful and content-rich than ever.  Included in this newest issue are profiles of the local company Dinstuhl Chocolate, articles by good friends Stacey Greenberg, Jennifer Chandler and Angela Knipple, appetizing photography as always, and a veritable who's-who of where to eat and source food in the Midsouth.  If you aren't already a subscriber, you'd best got on that to-do list and make sure you are supporting, and receiving support, from this great SOLE Food resource.  You won't regret it when you start seeing it show up regularly in the mailbox.  (Also available on local newstands, I think, this week.)

I would be remiss if I posted to this blog without a mention that friend and local chef Kelly English of Memphis' own Restaurant Iris was named to Food & Wine Magazine's Best New Chefs 2009 this week.  As my friends the Knipples noted on their blog , it's good that Kelly received this recognition, but it's going to be that much harder to get a reservation from this point on. . . 

Finally, we are just around the corner from Farmer's Market season in Memphis.  Kate Lareau is volunteering with the Memphis Farmers Market and asked that we share the following note:

What better way to celebrate Earth Day this year than by kicking off the spring/summer growing season at the Memphis Farmer's Market? The market opens on Saturday, April 18th this year and will again host local farmers selling local foods. Starting your Saturday at the market is an easy way to love the earth, support your city, and stay healthy. And if you already love the market, spread the word. You'd be surprised at how many of your friends don't know about this great Memphis resource

Don't worry, Kate.  We'll be there with bells on.  And even though we're picking up both of our CSA shares at the Wednesday Memphis Botanic Garden Farmers Market we remain loyal to the downtown market as well.  'Cause we just can't get enough of that fresh and local thing.

Interconnected

The closer we get to the sources of our food, the more we become aware of the 'cause and effect' nature of the world in which we live.  Although the following interview is clearly biased toward a Buddhist worldview, it nonetheless reinforces how we are interconnected to everything that happens around us, interdependent with people and processes all over the planet (not to mention past and future), and how our choices impact more than just our own paths.  There's nothing More Deliberate than a mindfulness of how we individually fit into the universe.

On the Pitfall of Allowing the Perfect to Stand in the Way of the Good

I have recently been reminded that so-called causes are generally driven forward by passionate people who hold in their hearts a vision of the future that is perceived to be better than the reality of the present.  This works well as a method of causing change, but also can create challenges in maintaining cohesive group dynamics as the cause is articulated.  

As a clear example of this phenomenon, the recent announcement by the White House, notably the First Lady, that a kitchen garden would be planted on the premises has engendered a flood of commentary, both good and bad.  In a recent Michael Pollan quote, he noted that the SOLE (sustainable, organic, local, ethical) Food Movement is not yet ready for prime-time, has not developed a clear agenda for national legislation, and while announcements like the one from the White House are good for the cause, they also serve to challenge the loosely knit network of people and organizations that make up that cause.  I think he's right.  SOLE Food, as an effort, is idealistic and represents many varied points of view.  There is no cohesive statement that we all adhere to, although the recent efforts of Slow Food around a Food Declaration as well as the Edible Landscape Petition that led up to the White House announcements are certainly steps toward that goal.

So what is this "food movement?"  It is a loosely connected network of people who believe that the food average Americans put on their table is not good for them:  chocked-full of fossil fuels, additives, and empty calories and at worst poisons that lead to health problems and premature death.  This theoretical movement is made up of folks on the religious right who are true to their faith and believe we need to get back to simpler methods of living, countercultural lefties who want to revolutionize our centralized food systems in favor of farmer's markets and community supported agricultures, and elitist foodies who couldn't care less about the politics but really, really must have that first-cut white asparagus that's creeping out of the ground even as I write these words.  In a word, this so-called movement is a growing consciousness, across a disparate group of very strange bedfellows, that there's something better for our plates.

Having spent a couple of years now carefully following, supporting, and attempting to articulate my position on this effort I fear we are approaching a turning point that will force us to answer a crucial question and choose sides:  is good enough or must it be perfect?  I am reminded of Alice Waters' recent interview on 60 Minutes with its predictable challenge of elitism within the Slow Food organization:  of course there are elites, as in every organization.  The better question is can we get the elites and the actual farmers and the religious zealots and the vegetarian hippies and the political activists to agree on a clearly articulated goal that would result in real, permanent change and would move the dial?  

We have to be very careful not to let 'the perfect' get in the way of 'the good', and in that spirit I applaud the First Lady for taking her quite public step in the direction of the good.  Is what she is doing at the White House perfect?  Clearly no.  I would have loved to hear her say something more around the connection between local food systems and community or recommend every American read a little Wendell Berry.  But maybe, just maybe, as she visits those tender vegetables, as her daughters experience the miracle of food cultivated by their own hands, maybe it will engender a germination inside her heart about how important this possibility is in fixing many more of our problems.  Beyond health, beyond self-sufficiency.  Because as Berry points out, how we eat is a roadmap to how we live,and how we live paves the way to our future.  Wouldn't it be nice if everyone had a better sense of our future right now?

I say let's get behind the good.  Let's not allow each of our own visions of the perfect future stand in the way of progress.  Because when everyone starts moving in any direction it's a lot easier to increase the speed of change than when there's no momentum at all.

Week Old Editorial Notebook at NY Times

Here's one I tore out from last Sunday's Times that I've been carrying in my satchel all week and wanted to share.  It's from a short editorial from Verlyn Klinkenborg titled Sow Those Seeds!

Growing a vegetable garden isn't going to balance the budget or replace lost benefits or even begin to make up for the shock of a lost job.  But part of the crisis we face is a sense of alienation and powerlessness.  You don't meet many alienated gardeners, unless it's been a terrible woodchuck year.

It's also tempting to assume that a garden can't really make much difference in your annual food budget.  But you would never convince my parent's of that, who raised four kids on the fresh and home-canned produce of a big backyard garden.  And I can think of few better distractions from the news of the day than the offerings of seed catalogs and the Edenic visions they aspire.

On that note, Mrs. Deliberately re-potted some of the seedlings yesterday, so here's an updated pic:

As I mentioned to someone the other night, this will be a great start to a season-long bounty.

Email Received From Food Democracy Now:

Your Voice has Been Heard! Please forward to all who care about these issues

Congratulations and Thank You! -A Major Victory for Family Farmers

We wanted to thank you and let you know what you’re support has achieved so far!

1. On February 24th, Food Democracy Now! met with Secretary Vilsack in his office at the U.S. Department of Agriculture and delivered the first 87,000 signatures to him with your thoughtful comments so he would know how many people care about these issues

Secretary Vilsack was very receptive to the voice that the sustainable agriculture community has put forward at Food Democracy Now! and we were encouraged with his concerns regarding the problems facing family farmers today.

2. We hope that you’ve all heard the good news that Kathleen Merrigan was selected, one of our Sustainable Dozen, to become our next Deputy Secretary of Agriculture. Merrigan is a great choice and a significant signal that the administration has heard your voice.

This is an important victory for our collective grassroots efforts and an indication that President Obama and Secretary Vilsack are serious about creating real change.

Congratulations to Kathleen Merrigan and to those of you who signed the petition. You helped make this possible!

This is the power of the grassroots and a significant accomplishment. We are going to have to continue to be engaged and involved in order to build a sustainable food system for the 21st century.

3. Continue to Send in the Sustainable Dozen!

Now that Secretary Vilsack has a great deputy, it’s more important than ever that the under secretary positions are filled with great candidates.

Please forward this to all your friends to sign the petition to support the Sustainable Dozen, so we can change how the USDA is run.  It’s time to make it the People’s Department again

We need to make sure that President Obama, Secretary Vilsack and Deputy Merrigan and have the support they need when it comes time to create serious change

Thanks for signing our original letter and petition to then President-Elect Obama!

Now is the time to organize to create the Sustainable Change that you want.   If you’ve already signed, please pass this along to your friends. The administration will need your support to create the change that we all want. Without it, we will not be able to accomplish all that we know is possible

If you’d like to see our grassroots efforts continue, please considering donating as little as $10 or $25. We need all your support to be able to create the change we want at the USDA.

Thank you for registering your vote. The conversation has just begun…

Send in the Sustainable Dozen!

   1. Gus Schumacher: Former Under Secretary of Agriculture for Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services at the U.S. Department of Agriculture; Former Massachusetts Commissioner of Agriculture. Boston, Massachusetts.

   2. Chuck Hassebrook: Executive Director, Center for Rural Affairs, Lyons, Nebraska.

   3. Sarah Vogel: attorney; former two-term Commissioner of Agriculture for the State of North Dakota, Bismarck, North Dakota.

   4. Fred Kirschenmann: organic farmer; Distinguished Fellow, Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, Ames, IA; President, Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture, Pocantico Hills, New York.

   5. Mark Ritchie: current Minnesota Secretary of State; former policy analyst in Minnesota’s Department of Agriculture under Governor Rudy Perpich; co-founder of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

   6. Neil Hamilton: attorney; Dwight D. Opperman Chair of Law and Professor of Law and Director, Agricultural Law Center, Drake University, Des Moines, Iowa.

   7. Doug O’Brien: current Assistant Director at Ohio Department of Agriculture; worked for the U.S. House and the Senate Ag Committee; former staff attorney and co-director for the National Agriculture Law Center in Arkansas, Reynoldsburg, Ohio.

   8. James Riddle: organic farmer; founding chair of the International Organic Inspectors Association (IOIA); has served on the Minnesota Department of Agriculture’s Organic Advisory Task Force since 1991; appointed to the USDA’s National Organic Standards Board, serving on the Executive Committee for 5 years and was chair in 2005, Board of Directors. Winona, Minnesota.

   9. Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan: Director, Agriculture, Food and Environment M.S./Ph.D. Program, Assistant Professor and Director of the Center on Agriculture; Food and the Environment, Tufts University; former Federal Agency Administrator U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Marketing Service; creator of the Organic Foods Production Act of 1990, mandating national organic standards and a program of federal accreditation. Boston Massachusetts.

  10. Denise O’Brien: organic farmer, founder of Women, Food, and Agriculture Network (WFAN); represented the interests of women in agriculture at the World Conference on Women in Beijing, China in 1995; organized a rural women’s workshop for the 1996 World Food Summit in Rome, Italy; received nearly a half million votes in her 2006 bid to become Iowa’s Secretary of Agriculture. Atlantic, Iowa.

  11. Ralph Paige: Executive Director, Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund; served as presidential appointment to the 21st Century Production Agriculture Commission; participates on the Agriculture Policy Advisory Committee for Trade; the Cooperative Development Foundation; and the National Agricultural Research, Extension, Education & Economics Advisory Board. East Point, Georgia.

  12. Karen Ross: President of the California Winegrape Growers Association and Executive Director of the Winegrape Growers of America; awarded the Wine Integrity Award by the Lodi Winegrape Commission for her contributions to the wine industry. Sacramento, California.
 

from Wendell Berry

"Do Not Be Ashamed" by Wendell Berry

You will be walking some night
in the comfortable dark of your yard
and suddenly a great light will shine
round about you, and behind you
will be a wall you never saw before.
It will be clear to you suddenly
that you were about to escape,
and that you are guilty: you misread
the complex instructions, you are not
a member, you lost your card
or never had one. And you will know
that they have been there all along,
their eyes on your letters and books,
their hands in your pockets,
their ears wired to your bed.
Though you have done nothing shameful,
they will want you to be ashamed.
They will want you to kneel and weep
and say you should have been like them.
And once you say you are ashamed,
reading the page they hold out to you,
then such light as you have made
in your history will leave you.
They will no longer need to pursue you.
You will pursue them, begging forgiveness.
They will not forgive you.
There is no power against them.
It is only candor that is aloof from them,
only an inward clarity, unashamed,
that they cannot reach. Be ready.
When their light has picked you out
and their questions are asked, say to them:
"I am not ashamed." A sure horizon
will come around you. The heron will begin
his evening flight from the hilltop.