well hello

Dear Lil' Brudder,

My only loyal follower! I knew from the minute you arrived that we were going to get along. Eventually...

As to your comments on White House Green Thumb, I thought they were pretty interesting.
There have been a TON of direct comparisons between the White House kitchen garden and the Victory Gardens of our grandparent's era. Very perceptive of you. You seem to be a little wary of the "water bill" and other costs of growing your own food. Certainly the "Haves" are going to be in better shape to maintain a garden for show, the way the White House Garden is meant to be. They could build a beautiful green house, truck in lots of dirt, irrigate, buy specialized seeds, hire gardening help...and fix lots of things that supposedly make growing your own food really difficult. And if their potato crop doesn't come in, it's not like they're not going to need to worry about feeding themselves that winter.

Though the "Haves" could do all this fancy schmansy stuff, will that actually make their tomatos taste better? Could be, but I doubt it. All you really need to do in order to produce your own delicious cabbage is plant a seed, do a little weeding, maybe take a watering can to it every now and then, harvest and prepare it. Harder than driving to the store to pick one out? Probably. Difficult? No. It's something anyone with patience and a sunny spot in the dirt can do. And so the "Have Nots" are just as capable of producing food for themselves as the "Haves."

When I went for a run today I noticed that every single house (and I am not exaggerating) up here has a decent sized garden somewhere in the yard. This is a relatively poor area and plenty of people rely on those gardens for a lot of their nutrition. And my point is? That the kitchen garden is, or could be, a real source of food for an average sized American family. Beautiful, delicious, sustainable produce can be class blind, beautifully democratic. I sincerely wish for this to happen.

So often when I take stock of American society, I see a culture consumed with self-gratification. We are obsessed with ease and speed. We Tivo our way through commercials, hire cleaning services, send the kids to day care while we work overtime to be able to buy everything we can imagine a need for at the BigBox store down the street. We overindulge and oversimplify complex issues.

And I believe that food, and local food, and homegrown, homecooked food could be our cultural salvation. No, dear brother, I don't expect that every American home will have a cow in the yard, or even down the street. As I mentioned, the Jeffersonian ideal of a self-sustaining American oikos is incompatable with the brilliant science, masterful economics, intriguing philosophy, uplifting theology, thoughtful literature, pleasing pastimes that Americans have produced in our proud national history. If John Adams had stayed a farmer, and not had the leisure to pursue law and politics, maybe America wouldn't even be the country it is today.

But taking the time to pause, and eat well with friends and family, instead of eating a drive through burger alone in the car, could help Americans communicate with each other better and reduce health concerns. Purchasing from producers close to our homes can help us revitalize our rural agricultural communities, trickling down wealth and lifting all boats. Growing some of our own produce could help us not to eliminate the processed goodies we get from the grocery store, but realize the difference between real food and indulgent calories and make informed choices. And I know that I could personally reduce my consumption to what I could grow myself or purchase locally, minimize my food waste, and still maintain a healthy weight.

My diet wouldn't be as varied as it is now. I wouldn't get to eat chocolate or Mc Donalds. But i would survive. $7 goes a lot further in veggie seed than it does in frozen pizza.

So, yeah. Did I make any sense, or did I just talk a lot? I don't even know...