No farms, no food
Being a (vegetable) gardener is humbling. And thinking about local foods (and thinking about folks trying to be locavores), even more. It's fascinating to consider how we (at least Americans) are finally embracing the idea of trying to grow more vegetables and buy locally. There's an initiative to encourage the next incumbent of the White House to grow an organic vegetable garden; there are blogs encouraging us to grow Victory Gardens again; what an encouraging trend. But, if you actually think about whether you could grow all of your own food -- that's an eye-opener. Once you get past the things that would be impossible to grow here (coffee, rice, and bananas are staples in our house), and then think about spices like cinnamon and cloves, and then think about how much wheat you'd have to grow, and thresh, and grind, simply to make a few loaves of bread (and I make all of our bread), that's humbling, too. And if you'd like to eat lettuce in the summer (at ...