Book-fed and Sated

In between our daily tasks I take my time to look to the sky; to memorize the September day-moon in dance with the August-steeped sun.

We harvested a patch of gone-to-seed cilantro today and winnowed the coriander seeds. It was a delightful process that felt childlike and wholesome. The feeling of sinking your fingers into tiny oceans of grain. Watching the wind sweep the chaff away while the seeds chime into the bowl below. Having seeds for next year's cilantro and also the coriander to use as a spice. I love how the earthy aroma lingers on my fingers...

I've been reading a lot this summer as I am known to do. The last two books I devoured were Timequake by Kurt Vonnegut and The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan. Both of these books re-affirmed my love for life (and food) and my conviction that individuals can do what they are meant to do and affect the world in small and wonderful ways.

Reading Timequake is like sitting down to dinner with a good friend (or attending a clambake with a few). Having read so many of his books and being so deeply affected by his humanism, Vonnegut has been a good friend to me as I'm sure he was to many. This particular book was written towards the end of his career and life (he's up in heaven now) and is a semi-autobiographical romp through ten years "re-lived". Heavily doused with Trout-isms and Vonnegut's special brand of humour, at the end of this book I felt happy to be alive.

In The Omnivore's Dilemma you are invited to sit down with Pollan for three meals that he details from corn-field through slaughter-house all the way to the table. I've wanted to read this book ever since I read another of his books, In Defense of Food, back in December. Pollan is a great lover of food and his journalistic research is peppered with personal reflection and musings that make his books both intensely informative and hilarious.

Reading these two books back to back and being so immersed in the cultivation and culture of food has led me to answer the question: If you could have dinner with three people living or dead, who would they be?

Definitely Micheal Pollan and Kurt Vonnegut. For the third, obviously I must choose a woman. Frida Kahlo perhaps?

This Little Piggy Went to Market and This Little Piggy Stayed at Home

Our lovely employers, Gabi and Katie, and their son, Quyen, went to the Trout Lake Farmer's Market in Vancouver this past weekend leaving Jay and I in charge of the farm and our new apprentice, Kevin. We've been having a blast and getting a lot done too. Always have to keep up productivity, even in this heat! (31 degrees Celsius as I write this.)

We're into a new cycle at the farm and it's a welcome change for Jay and I. On the weekends we get to try out our new-found irrigation skills and we get to re-learn everything as we teach Kevin about how things are done around here. Kevin is on vacation from studying Agricultural Science in Vienna, Austria. During the week we are keeping up on the weeding and a flurry of harvesting the day before and the morning of deliveries, Thursday and Friday. Sapo Bravo sells a lot of produce to boutique restaurants in Vancouver but is also well known at the Trout Lake Farmer's Market for our 50 varieties of heirloom tomatoes, basil and peaches. Yum!

Being in charge for half of the week is definitely bolstering our confidence and it's allowing us to see ourselves as sustainable farmers in the future. Every day we talk more and more about how we want to do things and what we would do the same or differently. We chat with the apprentices from the neighbouring farm, Stein Mountain Organics, gleaning from their added year(s) of experience and we ask Kevin lots of science-y questions. And of course, we talk about food constantly.

Becoming closer to the food we eat is imperative for mankind's survival. Whether you take the time to shop for local items, visit your neighbourhood's farmer's market or create a herb garden, plant a fruit tree, pull up that grass and plant broccoli! It's all a step in the direction that we should all be moving. So do it! Do whatever you can now and don't take for granted the privilege we have as North Americans to chose what we eat. Many people don't have that choice and it is because of them that we have to strive together for a more secure and sustainable food system worldwide and in our backyards.