Beatboxing Flute Sesame Street

The Most Surprising and Wonderful Thing Has Happened

(Click on the video above for musical accompaniment to this post)

So I'm riding my bike home after riding with both my daughters to their schools and picking up a newspaper for my dad yesterday morning, as opposed to sitting in this typical morning traffic, and I chatted with a MARTA bus driver (he gets two new passengers every time the gas price goes up ten cents), and a new MARTA rider (he has been riding for a week now and is saving eight dollars a day). I had lovely conversations with no less than six senior citizens out walking. I waved hello to the guy watering the plants (with grey water, I hope!) at a nearby coffee shop. I shouted hello to the guard at the community center. I discussed wood rot with a neighbor of mine who was up on a ladder fixing some. And I made it past several dogs who are now so used to me they no longer bark when I ride by.

And then, coming down that last hill, I broke out in the song that seemed to fit best:

Sunny Day
Sweepin' the clouds away
On my way to where the air is sweet

Can you tell me how to get,
How to get to Sesame Street

Come and play
Everything's A-OK
Friendly neighbors there
That's where we meet

Can you tell me how to get
How to get to Sesame Street

It's a magic carpet ride
Every door will open wide
To Happy people like you--
Happy people like
What a beautiful

Sunny Day
Sweepin' the clouds away
On my way to where the air is sweet

Yes, my friends. After all these months of bike riding around my town, after now feeling like I know every single crack, every single shop owner and jogger and walker and dog, the most surprising and wonderful thing has happened. I, apparently, have moved to Sesame Street. And I didn't even have to sell my house.

The Exciting Return of Flat Stanley!

I opened an envelope from my niece in New Jersey the other day and, lo and behold, who came bounding out to say hello? Flat Stanley! He was a little shorter and a little wider than the one that my daughter brought home back in the fall, the one that longtime readers of FoodShed Planet will remember went to visit Kate and Maggie in Australia and somehow ended up touring the 2008 Olympic city of Beijing with the most lovely Chinese children.

For those who don't know, Flat Stanley is a book about a kid named Stanley Lambchop (gotta' love that name) who becomes flat accidentally and mails himself. It is a bit of a rite of passage to read this book in one of the lower grades in elementary school in the United States and then to make your own Flat Stanley and mail him to someone. It is a great honor to receive a Flat Stanley in the mail, to know that of all the options that that child had, he or she chose you.

And so I felt extraordinarily humbled by this honorable selection, and after seeing what Kate and Maggie did with my daughter's Flat Stanley, I also felt a bit inadequate. I don't have a boat to take Flat Stanley sailing, the way Kate did, or the exciting wattleseed bush and ice cream to show Flat Stanley enjoying, like Maggie did. Atlanta has nothing near as picturesque and newsworthy as Tiananmen Square in Beijing, and the Olympic hoopla has long since vanished from our 1996 Olympic city.

There, in the letter from my niece, however, was a mention that her class was particularly interested in showing what Flat Stanley did to be of help. Ahhhhh. Now I was on more solid ground. If Stanley wanted to help, help he would.

And so I will be sending pictures to my niece this week of Stanley using a rain barrel and reducing his (albeit tiny) carbon footprint by bike riding and mowing the lawn. Of Stanley enjoying the recycled go-cart we picked from a garbage and helping my mom in her wheelchair and playing in a contemporary bottle tree (made with recycled water bottles and a "repurposed" Christmas tree). In short, of Stanley moving in with us and living our life, day in and day out, in all its simplicity. And perhaps, just as my children have never seen a live kangaroo (although my daughter's Flat Stanley has!), perhaps my niece has never seen a rain barrel. Or a push reel lawn mower. Or chives when they flower. And perhaps she'll find that cool.

At least that's my hope.

"Everything Is Hard; The Question Is, Is It Worthwhile?"

This is Liz and Tim. Liz was a special education teacher. Tim spent 13 years as a division president for a Fortune 500 company. He then started his own business in data marketing, which, within five years, had 450 employees in six countries. Enjoying their financial success, Tim and Liz moved from Boston to the seventh hole in an exclusive golf club community in suburban Atlanta.

And then it happened. They went horseback riding one year on Liz's birthday and realized that this life they had built was not the one they wanted.

"I couldn't even explain to my mother what I did," Tim told me.

They decided, right then and there, to trade their lives. First, the thought was to get a small place in the country where they could have a few animals, but they had this little dream of "healing the land" and felt the only way to do that was to mimic nature, and that to mimic nature required more than just a few animals.

You can take the man out of the fast-paced business world but you can't take the fast pace out of the man. And so, the next thing you knew, Tim and Liz bought 72 acres in Elberton, GA, and have scaled up their original vision to establish a sustainable farm named Nature's Harmony Farm where they produce grass-fed Murray Grey beef, free-foraging Berkshire and Ossabaw pork, pastured poultry (eggs, broilers), and heritage turkeys.

"I went from never having raised a chicken to producing 2,000 of them a year," Tim laughed.

I have been following their journey these past six months or so. Seemingly overnight, they have cleared land, built a house, acquired cows and pigs and turkeys and chickens, built egg mobiles, planted crops, bought a refrigerated truck, developed a logo, a website, a life.

I asked Tim how on earth they were able to do all this, and he answered:

I could run another big business if I wanted, but what I want to do is sell $10 chickens. And here's why. Number one, I want to spend all my time with Liz. Number 2, We both like nature and animals.

The risk to this is no different from any other business we've ever done. You still have to plan the exit strategy, and you can choose to make money--or to make an impact. The economic reality is that by scaling up, we can make a living, but this way we can also heal the land and provide a sustainable food supply to consumers.

Yes, what we are doing is hard work. But we have discovered, in life, that everything is hard. The question is--is it worthwhile?

When I started to ask Tim specific questions about how his animals are raised, he made it easy for me by saying, "Pattie, you don't need to ask me any questions about that at all. Just picture how nature does it. That's how we do it."

There is no barn. There are no permanent pens--they are all big and roomy and movable. There aren't even permanent fences. Tim and Liz move portable fences all day long in order to mimic the role of predators in nature. Their ultimate dream is to have all their animals be born, live their lives, and die right there on the farm.

Did I mention that they also make fudge? I'm ordering some today. Because frankly, I want a piece of this sweet life right here in my suburban home. Even though I'm not on the seventh hole of a golf course.

Tim says he's the "ready, fire, aim" part of the relationship, and that Liz is the nurturer who provides the balance. Together, it works. Check out Tim and Liz's blog for wonderful video of their cows and other goings-on on the farm. You'll fall in love with this couple, and perhaps with their life.

Want to chuck it all and start your own farm?

"You can, you know," Tim said to me, as simple as that.

The $64 Question

I'm limiting my gas to $35 a week. I canceled the lawn guy. I gave up paper napkins and plastic cups and water bottles. Yes, to help the environment, but let's face it, with the way the economy is going, to save money, too, or at least not raise total expenditures. Because, in all honesty, if you're in touch with your food, there's no denying that food prices are going up, up, up. In fact, this year is the first year in something like the last ten that sales of organic food are showing declines instead of increases, not because folks don't continue to value organics over pesticide-grown or GMO foods but because they are trying to find ways to cut back on their bills. Hell, when I rode my bike to Kroger the other day and bought only enough that I could carry in my not-large panniers, it cost me almost a hundred bucks.

And so, when Charlotte's email came last week offering flats of her delicious organic strawberries, I sat there and debated. The strawberries are here now, and then they will be gone. If I buy a flat, I get my hands on a good supply, since I can hardly ever find organic strawberries at the supermarket (and strawberries are one of those things of which I really only want the organic version).

But $36 a flat? And how big is a flat anyway?

My friend Judy emailed me to see if I could pick up a flat for her, too, if I decided to get one. Okay, now, if I ordered two flats, the price dropped to $32 a flat. I would freeze them. Judy wanted to make jam. So we ordered.

The delivery was set for last Thursday, to Parsley's Catering, the same drop for our weekly CSA from Charlotte (which starts at the vague "end of May"). Charlotte usually arrives arround 10:30 AM, so I started calling Parsley's at about 11:30, and then each hour after that until I had to to leave for school and life beyond my home. No Charlotte. No Charlotte. No Charlotte. I called Judy and asked her the $64 question, "Are these strawberries really worth it?"

I was ready to cancel. But how do you cancel with a farmer who has picked her crop fresh for you, and is currently in transit to deliver it to you? You don't. But how do you turn your day upside down in order to acquire these delicacies? You just do. And that is definitely the challenge with buying local from a farmer you know in a city filled with traffic and a life filled with commitments. Judy has started a brand new CSA drop with Charlotte, which involves 64 families and has already resulted in a payment of mega-thousands of dollars to Charlotte. Managing expectations and encouraging folks to be flexible is going to be Judy's biggest challenge, I think. And mine, even after 6 years of this kind of challenging meet-up-with-the-farmer thing.

It was 6 PM before the strawberries and I connected. The strawberries were loose in the flat and frankly, although strikingly beautiful with a fragrance that permeated the car, the total number of strawberries was definitely less than I expected.

I made a quick phone call to Judy to let her know "the eagle had landed," and then Judy, who doesn't live around the block, came over in the rain, in the dark, for her flat.

She stood there and looked at it.

"That's it?" she exclaimed, which made me feel, at least, like I wasn't greedy and unrealistic.

I called Marc at Parsley's the next day, since he had ordered a flat, too.

"Was it what you expected?" I asked him, and he said yes, that a flat is 12 pints for about $3-$3.50 a pint, and he thought Charlotte's delivery was right on target. What's more, he said the pros at Parsley's did a quick taste test comparing Charlotte's strawberries, strawberries from another local organic farm, and non-organic strawberries from the supermarket and he said Charlotte's strawberries blew the other ones away.

Taste. I forgot about taste. We barreled through half the strawberries in no time at all, and the rest are in the freezer, precious strawberries that will be doled out like jewels.

I packed some for lunch and told the kids, "Cherish these." They know they cost almost a week's worth of gas. They know I spent an entire day trying to track them down, and then drove out of my way to pick them up. They know I stood there at the sink late at night washing them and laying them flat on a cookie tray to freeze them. They know that Charlotte grew them with care and intention. They know they matter.

Was it worth it? Well, if these are the last organic strawberries I eat this year, at least I know I had the best.

Charcoal Briquettes and Cleaning Vinegar (or What Happened When We Ran Into Neil Simon)

This is Brad. The sun is shining on him finally, literally and figuratively.

About 18 years ago, when we worked together at Turner Broadcasting, I noticed that Brad was dismantling his bulky personal computer and loading it on to a shopping cart and bringing it home each night. It is about then that Brad and I became friends, when I realized that this man had a dream, and I'm a sucker for a person with a dream. Turns out Brad was writing screenplays--in fact, after the next two years, he had written nine of them.

About then, with the ink on the ninth screenplay barely dry, he and I went to a work-related conference on the Upper East Side of New York City. I was knee-deep in my first novel by then (with three more to come, plus a work of nonfiction, all still unpublished). We sat in this claustrophobic room while brand managers from various companies presented their big exciting new products and their supposedly-innovative sales promotion plans to support the products' rollouts. Brad and I were in hell. Neither of us wanted to be there, and the day got more and more painful until finally there was the presentation that almost did us both in.

A brand manager proudly proclaimed that he was in charge of charcoal briquettes and cleaning vinegar. We both slumped deeper into our uncomfortable metal chairs, a look of "just slay me now" impossible to conceal across our faces.

We broke for lunch, thank goodness, right after that, and Brad and I couldn't get out onto Madison Avenue faster. Within moments, we found our way into a charming bookstore. And then, as luck would have it, it happened. Right there, on the left in the back, we ran into the famous playwright, Neil Simon. We said stupid things, yet felt alive again and that dreams were indeed achievable in a world of charcoal briquettes and cleaning vinegar.

No less than 20 times these past many years, at particularly tough times on the journey, Brad has emailed me, "What was it again that guy was hawking?" and each time I emailed back the simple words, "Charcoal briquettes and cleaning vinegar." That's all it took to refuel his dream, to remind him of that chance encounter with Neil Simon and how it felt to think that anything was possible.

A few years ago, Brad wrote a memoir about his years of trying to sell his screenplays, which I read in draft form and have waited patiently to see published, which it was just a couple weeks ago. Brad is ruthless and clever and resourceful and unyieldingly hopeful (and funny), through numerous corporate downsizings, the breakup of his marriage, and more personal trauma and tragedies than even make it into the book. He secures agents, leaves no stone unturned in Hollywood, and actually gets closer to his dream than anyone ever would have imagined. Most importantly, he believes in himself throughout it all, and his faith shines through.

I have pursued many things over these years, and when they haven't worked out, I have asked myself, in all honesty, have I tried as hard as Brad? Most times I haven't, as trying as hard as Brad means harder than most people ever try at anything.

And so, if you have a dream, really, any dream at all, I encourage you to read this book (Open Field Running, by Brad Catherman) and ask yourself how hard you are really trying. Perhaps Brad has not received the Oscar he covets so much just yet (but I did give him charcoal briquettes and cleaning vinegar!), but after reading his book, it's hard not to believe that that is still a distinct possibility in the future.

We met at the same restaurant where we have been meeting for 15 years the other day, and for the first time, Brad didn't have a plan, a set of schemes for promoting the new book, a list of 100 Ways to Get The Book into the Hands of Hollywood Big Wigs.

"I'm trying something new," he told me. "I'm going to just see what happens now."

The food was sort of unmemorable, the service disappointing, the desserts relegated to a cheapo plastic menu rather than presented on a tray the way they had been for all these years, although we still got one piece of cheesecake (New York-style) and two forks.

"Maybe we should go somewhere new," I suggested for our next lunch, which, in all likelihood, if history is any indicator, won't happen for another year.

Perhaps when my book is published. Something new. Something FoodShed Planet-related. And perhaps I'll finally deserve my own charcoal briquettes and cleaning vinegar.

But I'm going to have to work much, much harder. Because dreams are worth it. Aren't they?

Discover Your Own Unique Terroir

This is Melissa. She is an organic farmer, and ask her to tell you that in sign language and she will, because Melissa is the Farmer Most Likely to Make Everyone Feel Included. I bought a purple basil plant from her this past Wednesday at the opening of the Farmer's Market (which really wasn't all that different from the unofficial farmers market meet-ups all winter, except now the farmers set up their booths). It is long and leggy and sort of needy, and Melissa patted it and smiled proudly as I nestled it under my arm like a lost kitten.

Cutie the Duck, who belongs to Corinna's kids, made her first official appearance of the season, and rumor has it there's a gosling preparing for its public debut soon as well. Wakeba is back from her winter selling shea butter in Miami Beach and the Gulla Festival on the coast in South Carolina. Chad the Milk Man now morphs into Rock Star Chad again as folks mill about waiting for his momentous arrival at 10:30 on a white steed (or, rather, in a white truck). Farmer Jeff with the herbs wasn't there, nor was Tommy Searcy with grass-fed meats, or a few of the other semi-regulars. But the season is young yet and hope springs eternal for a banner year at this small-but-growing market.

As I came home and dug a small hole to plant the basil, smiling at the thought of how rich my life has become, I realized something. Something important. Something that I'd love for those of you who are thinking about starting gardens to know.

It wasn't long ago that I first dug my fingers into soil warmed from sudden days of abundant sunshine, assessing its ability to house carrots and potatoes, beets and onions. Sweet humus, my life composted, now fills the space where once hard, red clay had been, here somewhere between Longitudes 81 to 85 degrees West and Latitudes 30 to 35 degrees North.

This place called Georgia, from which I do not hail yet now call home, holds seeds that feed my family beneath the soil. It is where I have tasted a tomato picked with the heat of the day still on its back, and where I have held the living, beating heart of this land in my hands, and in doing so, have put down roots.

I wonder about this sense of place, a sense of belonging to a distinct geographic region, a sense of taste that sometimes defies description—and for which we long when we are not here. A sense of what the wine folks call terroir.

I had the distinct pleasure of writing an article for Georgia Organics recently that was just published in Restaurant Forum, the official magazine of the Georgia Restaurant Association (which, interestingly, now has a growing constituency called The Green Foodservice Alliance). I titled it A Taste Called Georgia, and I talk about the role terroir plays in farm-fresh local food, now enjoying increasingly starring roles on restaurant menus (yes, those are my photos in the article of Jason Mann of Farm 255/Full Moon Cooperative and cheese from Sweet Grass Dairy).

I talk about how terroir means not just the discernible taste of specific geographic characteristics such as the length of the day, the slope of the land, and the mineral content of the soil, but also the length of conversations, the meandering slope of memory, and the content of relationships.

It can mean not just nuance that you taste, but that you feel, deep in your being. Hence, the presence of Melissa's laugh, and Corinna's knowledge, and Chad's graciousness in the food that graces my table.

As for me and my garden, I kneel on the wheat straw path beside my garden beds, and snip the last of the lettuce leaves, releasing the white, watery elixir of life they hold inside. I work my way around the garden, filling the bowl, walking and kneeling on paths that are slowly and continually decomposing into “black gold.”

I will eventually toss this enriched compost beneath the straw onto the beds and once more feed the plants that will feed my family, and my soul. I will taste the richness of this soil, this terroir, and the memory of this moment in the sun, and the intention with which I care for my little place of earth. And I will know that I am home.

And this powerful ability to finally define where it is that I call home is a surprise to me, a gift of "eating close to home" that I never expected.

And so, to you, reluctant gardeners who are thinking that perhaps it is time to put hands and hoes in that dirt beyond your door, I offer you encouragement. Find your way home. Plant your garden today. And discover your own unique terroir.

Don't know where to start? Start here.

Garbage Day Treasures

My dad used to ride around on his bike the night before Garbage Day, in my little town of Mineola on Long Island in New York, and search for broken lawn chairs. He would then go back with his car to pick up any treasures he discovered. He had rolls of webbing, in multicolors, that he would use to repair these chairs, and the collection of them in our garage grew and grew and grew.

We had many barbecues in our backyard and my father took great pleasure in pulling out all these chairs and setting them up in a big circle before guests would arrive. My bedroom was just above the yard and I would fall asleep on nights like this to the tinkling of ice in glasses and the hushed conversations of grownups punctuated by sudden peals of laughter.

And so, now, on Garbage Day, here, 900 miles away, I scan the curbs in my morning travels, occasionally stopping for a big clay pot or a willow basket, recycled valuables that now blend seamlessly into my garden.

One day while walking to school, my younger daughter and I fell upon a rare and glorious find. These windows. These beautiful windows. We both just stood there.

"This is a good one, Mom," my daughter said

But we were walking. How on earth could I get even one of these windows home? (And there were many.)

While on my way back home, just past the windows, my friend Mark pulled up and said the magic words, "Do you want a ride?" He does this sort of often, and usually I just take a lift up the monster hill and then leap out, a minute and a half of friendship shared. But this day, I said, "Oh, Mark! It's our lucky day! We get to have an adventure!" Mark is used to me, thank goodness, and smiled at this.

Next thing you knew, we loaded up five of these windows in the back of his car. He drove me home and I was on a cloud with my bounty. When my daughter got off the bus that day, the first thing she said was, "Did you get the windows?"

And so, now, what to do with them . . . We were at an art festival the following weekend and saw windows like ours painted with flowers. My daughter likes this idea, and there will surely be a day soon that involves windows and paint. I also called Richard and suggested we do a little "cold frame" project, with a hinged window as the top--we'd do one for him and one for me. "It will be fun!" I said. And we'll be so proud of ourselves come winter when we have a little greenhouse of lettuces.

But more than anything, I just like looking at the windows and imagining their possibilities. And imagining mine.

Dollars for Dandelions

I read recently of a guy who said that in the 1970s in the United States, lawns were fascinating places where kids could play for hours, just discovering all the diversity that was there. As you know, I live in a neighborhood with pesticide-laden monoculture lawns and I am on a little bit of a journey to reverse that at my own home. Our backyard has been pesticide-free for three years now, and, let me tell you, that guy would have a field day out there.

In addition to the two types of clover I plant in my garden, the wild Dutch clover is blooming as well and my younger daughter sits there and picks the flowers and plays some sort of game that I can't hear, peering at her from the kitchen window as I clean up after dinner.

Every other thing growing on that lawn looks like it would do just fine with a splash of balsamic vinegar. The weediest part of the yard, however, is where the water flows from my neighbor's yards when it rains, and since their yards are still chemically-treated, the salad bowl has to stay inside. Ah yes, we are all connected.

My younger daughter made the innocent childish "mistake" of rolling on a nearby lawn the other day and whatever chemical was on it made her entire body break out in a rash within about an hour.

"You can't roll on lawns that have pesticides," I told my daughter.

"What lawns have pesticides?" she asked.

Gosh, this was a sad conversation to me.

"Most of them, honey," I answered, thinking about her playing some game with that clover, thinking about that man who remembered being a boy, playing on lawns.

"At least I can play on ours," she answered, and I nodded and kissed her goodnight. Soon she will be able to play freely on the front lawn as well, since I've canceled the chemical guy (but unfortunately, he showed up recently when I wasn't here and gave one last killer treatment--the day before my final Open Garden, by the way. Oh, how I loved sharing all my eco-ideas with folks as we sidestepped the sea of toxicity!)

I saw my friend Mitzie the next morning and told her about this and she told me her son's face blew up just the other day after playing on some grass. I asked her when was the last time she saw children doing gymnmastics on their front lawns, something my friends and I did for hours, days, months, years. (I can still do a mean handspring!) We both stood there speechless.

When was the last time you saw children play on a front lawn? And not toddlers with moms standing nearby visiting. Older elementary and middle school kids, who are out there of their own volition, with bats and balls or arms upstretched in preparation for a handstand forward roll or front walkover (wasn't the friend who could do the back walkover the most envied kid on the block?)

I started a "Dollars for Dandelions" program here at the Baker house a few weeks ago, when it was clear that my back lawn would be a sea of yellow before long. I offered a nickle a dandelion, and then got wiped out of $20 bucks before I could finish making breakfast. And so eventually it morphed to the current pay scale--a penny for three dandelions. The kids don't make a ton of money, and 10% goes in the charity jar, but they have fun out there on the lawn.

Fun on the lawn. What a concept.

Dollars for Dandelions--A few bucks a week.
Fun on the Lawn--Priceless.