One of the great things about living here in Kent is the weekly Haymaker Farmer's Market held each Saturday downtown. There you can sample the local produce - garlic, onions, corn, beans, lettuce, tomatoes, carrots, celery, chard, peppers, peaches, apples, and a whole lot more. You can get fresh breads, coffee, cookies, snacks and even herbal body products, one of which I have found has worked miraculously on my aggravating rosacea. It's a lovely homemade soap called "Make My Face Clear" and it works wonders for my skin, far better than the expensive prescription that the doctor gave me to clear it up. I also love the Farmer's Market because it's expanding rapidly and more and more people show up, so it's becoming quite the social meeting place to see old friends while you shop the summer's harvest bounty. The idea of supporting local agriculture is also encouraging in this day of the disappearance of the family farm to rapid suburban sprawl. That such huge crowds are coming each week to the Farmer's Market speaks well of the fact that people seem to want to support local farms and agriculture and they also want to know where their food came from. The book "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life" by Barbara Kingsolver, seems to have spurred a movement toward localization of one's food supply. Eating fresh local produce means your food tastes better and is fresher and better for you. So far, we've had one "summer's bounty feast" at my mom's, made up of fresh locally grown corn on the cob, green beans, a tomato salad and blueberry pie for dessert, all locally grown items. And it was heavenly! Food tastes better when it's fresh, not shipped thousands of miles cross-country. One must, in these days of high gas prices, consider the carbon footprint of food shipped from Florida or California as opposed to food from a local farmer. Most farms that come to the Farmer's Market are organic, meaning that not only is is fresh, but free of nasty pesticides and other chemicals, further reducing the carbon footprint of using petro-chemically based pesticides. So you're getting a double blessing by shopping locally. It thrills me to no end to see the expansion of the Farmer's Market each year as the local food movement continues its exponential growth. So many cities now feature Farmer's Markets as a result of this movement. And given recent food scares in spinach, lettuce, tomatoes and cilantro for sickening people around the country, eating locally grown produce also makes more sense for protecting your health, further adding to the increased popularity of the local food movement. I think that this movement will continue to catch fire and will lead to more and more people wanting to take up farming or maintaining their own local food gardens if they have enough land to do so. And that can only be a good thing!YOU JUST NEVER KNOW WHO'LL YOU RUN IN TO!
So I was coming home from working out this afternoon and I usually stop at a local Subway and get a sandwich, chips and a drink as an "after-workout" meal. Typically, I stop at one of the two that are on the way home, but today, for some reason, I bypassed both of them in favor of one about a mile or so east of here in a local small shopping plaza that I sometimes go to when I am down that way. Upon entering, a guy saw me and said, "Hi, Sally!" Uh, oh, another one of those embarrassing moments when I struggle to figure out who is speaking to me! I wracked my brain to try to place this individual - who is he and why do I know him and what from? The face was achingly familiar but my brain went blank for a name, until he mentioned visiting a "Peter" up in Shaker Heights. Suddenly, the lights went on! OH MY GOD, I hadn't seen this old friend, Deane (that's him, right, in the photo above), in probably well over 20 years, and here he was in a local Subway having lunch! So we sat and chatted over our sandwiches and we both realized that we could have sat for hours and talked, but he'd bicycled all the way in to Kent from Chagrin Falls, so he wanted to start getting back there since it was a journey of some 30 miles. He now lives in Baltimore and works in advertising and graphic design, having left his home in Seattle where he lived for a while and moved closer to where he grew up in Washington, DC. He mentioned that he was divorced and was visiting his ex-stepdaughter in Chagrin Falls, which is why he was in the area. We reminisced a bit about old times, caught up on what one another have been doing since we last saw each other, probably sometime in 1982 or so. We've both aged considerably since then, both of us grey and sporting slight middle age paunches. He was balding when I met him and he still is, so that was nothing new, but his face sports a few wrinkles that weren't there when I last saw him (as do I!). What's funny was that when he first spoke to me at Subway, the first thing I recognized was his voice - again, familiar, but why did I remember it? I hate those times when I am trying desperately to place someone in context of where I know them from and why and for the life of me, I cannot recall their name! Fortunately, he began to fill in details when we first began chatting and suddenly I could easily remember to whom I was speaking, much to my relief! It was just so great to see him again and to catch up a bit with each other, and I hope that this opens the door to staying in touch from now on. He gave me his card and so I know how how to contact him. After all, I've not been so good at staying in touch with old friends over the years and as a result, I've lost touch with far too many of them. So maybe now's the time to re-establish contact with at least one old friend who I saw today and had a great lunch with. That truly made my day today.
3 comments:
Interested to read about your Farmer's Market. They have been spreading gradually over here for some years. We tried, a year or so back, to start one in this village, but discovered there were so many requirements with regard to health and hygene regulations, insurance and similar things, that we had to abandon the idea in the end as simply too complicated for the resources which we had available. A pity.
I'm sure, though, with considerations like the ever-rising fuel and transport costs, and the fact that this village is three miles from town, with a poor bus service, regulations may have to be relaxed soon.
Interested in your medieval re-enactment post. I used to be involved in English Civil War re-enactment, but now write about it, and medieval military history, instead.
It's a shame that you had to abandon your farmer's market due to rules and regulations. I see them as the bulwark against suburban sprawl here. The more people support the family farmer, the less likely they are to sell their land to speculators and developers who will use it to build what we here call "McMansions", many of which have been the victims of foreclosure during our housing and mortgage crisis. Too many people bought too much home than they could afford, lured by the idea of "country living" in an upscale development and cheap credit in order to do so, resulting in our massive mortgage meltdown that is dragging down our national economy at the moment.
Housing, or at any rate "affordable housing" is a major issue here in Wales. It was said, at any rate until recently, that "second homers" were driving up the prices are forcing young local people to move away.
Since the housing market's virtual collapse over here, that seems to have changed, but only to the extent that houses are no longer selling to anyone.
The other problem is that there is actually very little employment available anyway -except part-time work. Nearly all the staff in the local library, for example, apart from two "professionals", are part-timers. They tend to come and go fairly rapidly, affecting the standard of service.
The temptation, as an ex-librarian, sometimes to "interfere" is almost irrresistable :)
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