An open challenge to rethink suburbia put forth by Dwell and inhabitat.com a few months ago got me thinking about the possibilities of suburban farming. Urban farming helped renew the inner city. Suburban farming can revise sprawl.

I came to this conclusion after driving around the Birmingham, Alabama suburbs. I live and practice architecture in the city. It is a typical American industrial city with vast suburbs and a sparsely populated downtown. An urban renewal effort underway here for years propelled by a number of private initiatives, most notably a successful urban farm, has begun to make noticeable differences in downtown.

As I was driving through some of the older suburbs developed after the 1960’s, I noticed the same kind of sparseness and abandonment that has plagued Birmingham’s downtown. Out-of-favor, abandoned shopping malls and big box retail developments have reached a critical mass and have become noticeable. As I drove further outside into the periphery, fresh developments full of trendier brand name retail establishments had just been built.

What really got my attention were the many empty grocery stores. Three regional grocery chains had been forced to close their doors. Families were still living in the neighborhood. But, their grocery store, their market, a traditional center of community, was empty.

The hollowing out of older suburbs and the growing suburban periphery continues in most cities. These growing areas of vacancy between the newer, trendier suburbs and urban areas offer opportunities to mend cities. I believe suburban farming, like urban farming before it, can begin to bring back a more civic, sustainable economy. After urban renewal we need a suburban revision, where responsible production of food and energy moderates the consumptive nature of suburbia.

It seems to me that suburban farming can be implemented on a much larger scale than urban farming. Abandoned retail’s huge expanses of parking lots, large big box spaces, and lower real estate prices point to an opportunity to reclaim the productive pastoral atmosphere of the land before sprawl. The original promise of suburbia, refuge from the industrial city in the productive countryside, is still achievable.

My proposal, which you can see partially from the suburban farm image here, reverses the function of a big box grocery store, from retailer of food – food detached from processes from which it came to be – to producer and preparer of food. The parking lot becomes a park-farm. The inside of the big box becomes a greenhouse and restaurant. Asphalt farming techniques allow for layering of soil and compost in containers on top of asphalt. The big box store’s roof is partially replaced with a greenhouse roof. Other details, such as the reversal of parking lot light poles into solar trees that hold photovoltaics can be implemented.

One can imagine pushing a shopping cart through this suburban farm and picking your produce right from the vine, with the option to bring your harvest to the restaurant chef for preparation. While waiting for your dinner you look out over the farm with a holistic understanding. Food cultivation, processing, preparation, and consumption integrate into a local, transparent process.

A certain type of economy has defined the suburban landscape as we know it now. The typical models of retail and housing have proven themselves to be unsustainable. Other economic or business models can have an opposite effect. I see suburban farming as a potential sustainable business model, where a premium might be paid for the most intimate, organic food experience. For me, a sustainable economy starts with innovative business models that challenge the typical production, distribution, and retail practices.

You can see full coverage of this entry and other winning entries of the Reburbia competition in the upcoming December/Janurary edition of Dwell.

Would you defend it by pointing out the abundance of choices offered in today’s average supermarket, estimated to be over 45,000 items? Would you cite that per capita spending on food has dropped significantly over the last 50 years, freeing up incomes to improve quality of life? Would you talk about how American innovation is not only feeding our citizens, but is also feeding the world? Or would you quietly ask what a food system is?

While perhaps it’s not “broken,” America’s industrial food system, which dominates food sales, has developed side effects that are accelerating in severity, especially diet-related health (e.g., obesity, diabetes, asthma, allergies) and environmental (e.g., chemical toxins, soil degradation, carbon emissions) issues that can no longer be ignored.
The food industry’s insatiable drive toward cheaper, more convenient products has also disrupted the simple pleasures of cooking, eating and/or sharing meals with family and friends, turning food into an accessory, a lofty drop from once being an intimate part of our daily lives.

The good news is there is an increasingly vocal ground swell of advocates and experts working to reverse the downsides of industrial food, with the high-profile personalities becoming lightning rods for the powerful, entrenched corporate interests being challenged, which commonly label them as “elitist” or “anti-ag.” Such claims, both untrue and unfair, are designed to minimize any impact these knowledgeable voices have on public opinion and consumer spending. Look no further than industrial food’s aggressive reactions to the Food, Inc. documentary to see it in action.

One thing is clear, we can no longer allow industry to control the dialog, but fighting fire with fire, especially the use of fear to influence consumer behavior, doesn’t sit well, and would probably be less effective than other approaches. To that end I’ve attempted to define the concept of “Pro Food” based on a set of core principles that get at the heart of why I and others are dedicated to driving these principles into mainstream culture through communications and alternative food systems.

PRO FOOD IS…
• Inclusive – Everybody is part of Pro Food, since everyone can gain from its success.

• Pro Farm – Fresh, healthy, and sustainable food starts with the farmers who grow it. Without their dedication, stewardship of the land and tireless labor it is difficult to envision Pro Food getting out of the gate.

• Pro Consumer – Today’s conventional food system has invested billions of dollars in constructing a food infrastructure designed to do one thing: sell as much food as possible, as quickly and cheaply as possible. This strategy has been good for bottom lines, bad for waistlines and even worse for personal healthcare costs. Pro Food envisions bringing farm and plate together in innovative retail experiences that go beyond convenience to embrace flavor, taste, seasonal rhythms, community and health.

• Pro Cooking – Where would we be without cooking? Unfortunately for the last few generations, cooking has been left by the wayside in exchange for cheap, convenient substitutes as people became increasingly squeezed for time and energy. In many ways, Pro Food is based in the home kitchen, the best place to ensure we eat sustainably every day.

• Pro Eating – The only thing possibly more important than cooking is eating. And while Pro Food places an emphasis on awakening America’s home kitchens, it also recognizes that many institutions (schools, hospitals, corporate cafeterias) and restaurants are doing their part in bringing the same healthy, flavorful and sustainable food on to every plate they serve.

• Community-Oriented – Pro Food recognizes the simple pleasure of bringing people together around food. Information is shared, bonds are strengthened and friendships are made. It also appreciates the economic benefits it can bring to regional food economies. Sustainable food can be imported (in the absence of local options), but increasing demand being met through local channels, there will be incentive for farms and processors to participate, as well as for existing providers to transition to sustainable production. Keeping money circulating longer within regional economies is key to Pro Food efforts.

• Entrepreneurial – Building a meaningful Pro Food presence in a food system dominated by massive conventional players with deeply entrenched interests (and reach) will take a lot of hard work, innovation and old fashioned luck. Fortunately we can leverage America’s entrepreneurial spirit in systematically building the ever-broader foundation needed to move Pro Food forward.

What Pro Food ultimately becomes is up to those who recognize and embrace its ideal of healthy, sustainable food systems and make it their own. For it is up to all of us, from farmers to eaters, and everyone else who cares about the food they eat, to carry Pro Food forward and make its vision, its values a reality.

In some very interesting ways, Pro Food draws parallels with the early years of the Internet, when it was still isolated from the mainstream in government and university labs. People, especially entrepreneurs, were starting to eye the Internet as something that could revolutionize communications and collaboration, that could democratize things long centralized. At first, they had no idea what was going to stick, but began applying time, energy and money in search of winning formulas.

This is where I see Pro Food today, which makes it financially exciting for those with solutions to the problems we face. I look forward to joining them and others on this exciting journey.

School’s out for the summer, but there’s a food fight going on in the cafeteria. In Washington, Congress is turning up the heat on the policies that determine what 30 million children will eat once the lunch bell rings.

Want hormones out of kid’s milk? Pesticides off the tomatoes? Local lettuce in the salad bar? Candy bars and snack cakes to be considered junk food? If you answered yes to any of those questions, then I urge you to step into the lunch room and learn what this food fight is all about.

What our kids see on their lunch trays is a snapshot of our national food system: fresh, baked, breaded, or fried. What we feed them affects how they learn, how they grow, and what kind of future citizens we’re nurturing. A formidable new combatant has just joined the kid-food fray: our country’s Mom-in-Chief. Last Tuesday, First Lady Michelle Obama stepped up her support of local, fresh foods, invoking community gardens and the Child Nutrition Act, while enjoying a harvest picnic with the Bancroft fifth-graders. (Read or watch (VIDEO) Michelle Obama’s speech.)

The current Child Nutrition Act expires September 30, 2009, meaning it’s up for reauthorization, and in that process we have a chance to really improve on how food for our smallest citizens is funded, sourced, defined, and prioritized. Remember in 1981, how under Reaganomics ketchup was classified as a vegetable and 2 million children were dropped from the National School Lunch Program? The Act has far-reaching impact, beyond school lunch, to the WIC, Child and Adult Care Food, and Summer Food Service programs, and others.

During the last reauthorization cycle five years ago, there was a scarcity of grassroots pressure and media around this policy. Thankfully, times have changed. There is a bountiful buffet of campaigns you can participate in: you can take five seconds and sign your name to a petition to demonstrate support, or you can dedicate your life to the cause like the indefatigable Ann Cooper (aka the Renegade Lunch Lady). Or you can grab a tray and get in line on one of the following efforts.

Today, the Healthy School Food Brigade, comprised mostly of moms, marched the halls of Congress to, you guessed it, voice their support of healthy food choices in schools, from hot lunches to less junk-filled vending machines. Basically they want to get junk food out of schools. Sounds simple, but au contraire. Think water is better than high-fructose-corn-syrup-laced fruit juice? Take this quiz to see what the standards for “healthy” currently are.

This group is specifically advocating for HR 1324 and S.934: “Child Nutrition Promotion and School Lunch Protection Act of 2009,” which amends the Child Nutrition Act to require the Secretary of Agriculture to establish science-based nutrition standards for foods served in schools other than foods served under the school lunch or breakfast programs. Today’s day of lobbying is the culmination of the new film Food Inc.’s social-action campaign, organized by Participant Media for the Child Nutrition Reauthorization. They joined forces with the Center for Science in the Public Interest in advocating for the proposed bill.

Food, Inc.’s campaign doesn’t stop at the end of the brigade today. Turn on your computer’s sound and take a noisy wander through the Hungry for Change cafeteria, which links to various organizations’ child-nutrition-focused campaigns. Among them:

Food & Water Watch is working to get rBGH out of school milk and stopping the practice of irradiation to kill bacteria

Pesticide Action Network pushing for decreasing pesticide use on the food, particularly endosulfan

Center for Science in the Public Interest standing up for nutrition standards
National Farm to School Network restoring the connection between children, food, land, and place One Tray at a time

Representing the Farm to School programs, One Tray’s premise is that school food can not only improve the health of kids, but it can also offer new marketing opportunities for farmers and support the local economy. A joint project of the Community Food Security Coalition, National Farm to School Network, and School Food FOCUS, One Tray will officially launch when it’s time to take Congress “Back to School” in the fall.

The 2004 Child Nutrition Act included one provision on Farm to School (section 122): a seed grant program with $10 million in discretionary funding. It has failed to receive an appropriation. One Tray requests that Congress enact $50 million in mandatory funding for section 122. This would fund 100 to 500 projects per year, up to $100,000 each, to cover start-up costs for Farm to School programs.

Also in support of Farm to School, Slow Food USA launched a Time for Lunch campaign yesterday, to organize a national day of action on September 7 with grassroots Eat-Ins around the country, reminiscent of their monumentally successful event in San Francisco last year. Their message is simple: Real food in schools. Check out their top-notch organizing tools to plan or join an Eat-In.

These are all relatively new campaigns. The Child Nutrition Forum is the lunch monitor of this policy push. Formed in the late 1970s by former Senator George McGovern (D-S.D.), the CNF is co-led by the School Nutrition Association (which has a set of amazing, frequently updated resources) and the Food Research and Action Center, and includes more than several hundred diverse organizations, such as the American Dietetic Association, Congressional Hunger Center, National PTA, and the National Education Association. They have a petition to sign, too.

Petitions, eat-in’s, brigades…so many choices of ways to work on improving our future. What are you going to do?

Cross-posted from Ethicurean.com.

Around the state of Montana, people are taking action to make a sustainable, local food system a reality. From the legislative level to the grassroots level, volunteers and institutions are demanding Montana-produced food. Montana’s food system, like many others, is largely resource and energy dependent. However, the vision for a community-based food system, one where affordable and consistent access to local, nutritious food is available is coming into clearer focus.

Montana Food for Montanans Initiative is just one coalition working to keep more dollars within the state with a mission of creating a resilient and self-reliant food system. Grow Montana is another broad-based coalition that works to support policies that promote community-based food production. Directed by a steering committee with members throughout the state, Grow Montana has revealed, through university research and reports, the inefficiencies of the conventional food system and identified the potential economic benefits of a state-based food system.

In the summer of 2006, Grow Montana partnered with Montana Campus Compact to launch the FoodCorps, a team of five, full-time AmeriCorps VISTAs (pictured) to coordinate Farm to Cafeteria programs across the state. As the Farm to College Coordinator at the University of Montana, I help to procure local food for University Dining Services. By linking local farmers to local markets, we can strengthen the connection regarding where our food comes from and those who produce it while supporting our local economy. Because Montana’s public institutions spend roughly $33 million on food purchases a year, increasing Montana-produced food in public institutions brings significant benefits to the local economy and agricultural community.

But what is the current state of Montana’s food system? Today, 10 percent of Montana-produced food is consumed by Montanans, a figure that had fallen from 70 percent in the 1950s. Thus, most of the $3 billion that Montanans spend on food each year goes to out-of-state companies. A recurrent observation is that Montana is one truck driver strike away from food insecurity. Montana has an incredible amount of food crops, yet most are shipped out of state, processed, and shipped back in. This lack of in-state food processing and value-added agricultural infrastructure is one of the barriers inhibiting the ability of farmers and ranchers to serve in-state markets. Various issues contribute to an institution’s inability to purchase raw product: time constraints, volume of product, lack of space, or labor costs. Thus, it’s easier for schools and universities to purchase produce that has been processed — for example, broccoli florets rather than a head of broccoli, coined carrots rather than whole, chopped lettuce rather than heads. When this infrastructure is lacking, institutions in particular have more difficultly purchasing local food.

Grow Montana seeks to change this energy-dependent food system and revitalize Montana’s economy by working on various levels. The organization has been a significant force in passing key legislative policies that make a local food system possible. In 2007, the Montana Procurement Act was passed which allows public institutions more flexibility to buy Montana-produced food. Previously the law required that public institutions, such as universities and K-12 schools, buy the cheapest food possible. Though not all Montana-produced food is more expensive, the Montana Procurement Act allows public institutions to consider how and where food was produced when making decisions.

On the ground, the five FoodCorps volunteers help put these legislative policies into practice. Purchasing locally-grown food strengthens the agricultural economy and serving healthy and delicious food increases both human and environmental health. As liaisons between farmers, ranchers, community organizations, and food service workers we build relationships and link the various components of our food system. We track statistics regarding the amount of local food purchased and develop educational programs for students and staff. These local purchasing guidelines keep more dollars within Montana and the economic impact is significant.

As a result of six successful Farm to Cafeteria programs throughout the state, Farm to Cafeteria Connections was created in an effort to expand these efforts and form a network of foodservice professionals, farmers, ranchers, and leaders in Montana’s local food movement. By working together and sharing resources, new Farm to Cafeteria programs are starting up in hospitals, schools, and other institutions.

During the opening session of Terra Madre, the world meeting of food communities held in Turin, Italy this past October, Vandana Shiva expressed that in the midst of an environmental, financial and world food crisis, something must change. She explained that these changes, on the community level, will create the waves of the sustainable food movement. It is this kind of community based change that is helping Montana become more food secure – one institution at a time.

Many of us never meant to become farmers. We had ambitions to enter the world as accountants or lawyers or teachers or some other clean, respectable professional. We never really thought about the origins of our food; we always knew that the supermarket shelves would fill themselves, that food came in boxes or cans ready to serve and that farmers were simply one dimensional photographs in the mix of a hot new marketing campaign.

Farming was at best some idyllic retirement scheme, never a seriously considered career possibility.

But then something happened. In the previously steady route of our lives, a shift occurred. The soil moved under us somehow, got stuck in the creases of our pants, in the ridges of our shoes, in the lines of our palms. Suddenly white picket fences, situation comedies and mutual fund returns didn’t seem so interesting anymore. The big ball game and the driving range became distractions from the reality of a new love affair. We got hooked on the possibilities of growing our own food and also providing that food to others.

The epiphany was likely different for many of us. Maybe a friend took us to a farmers’ market. Maybe someone had a plate of local hamburgers or collards at a picnic. Maybe the news of some global food disaster made us question the monocultures piled high on our plates. Maybe a real life farmer entered our life.

For a few of us, those with farming in our past – a childhood spent in the fields of the big farms or the family plots, throwing rocks into the hedgerows for little or no pay or watching over milking machines in the stench of industrial sized barns – there was no love, no kind of encouragement, no appreciation for our part in the dynamics of food production. We were simply limbs and calluses then, small gears in a giant cranking clock. We left the farm to pursue something else only to be pulled back hard when it became apparent that we could abandon everything that farming once meant to us. We could make it ours.

Still others came to farming from DIY and anti-authoritarian backgrounds, building urban community gardens or putting up food in anarchist collectives. Gardening always had a community aspect to it, but we wanted something more. We knew that we could do the work, that we had the right vision and skills. We just needed the access and the resources to get started.

Regardless of how we arrived at this point, here we are; we will call ourselves farmers from now on.

Our new loves – with their sharp hooves and unfamiliar odors, bright green leaves and bee-covered flowers – give all the confidence to continue and pursue every goal we can imagine. Our new hates – hail, crop failures and rain on market days – fully test our tolerance and keep those same goals in the territory of attainability. Throughout all the highs and lows we can look at ourselves over and over again, knowing that, if we stick to our ideals, we can do noble and appropriate work no matter what happens.

Local and sustainable farmers are our peers and our heroes, the most supportive, loving and steadfast community we could ever hope for.

We young and new farmers have the opportunity to change the features of the agricultural systems we have come to inherit. Through the way we speak, act and work we can change the old infrastructure, market by market and county by county. We have the time and ability to influence extension agents, educational systems and other institutions to make them function the way we need them to function in order to attain a sane and purposeful community based food system.

We are the new blood in the old body.

This post is part of Gordon Jenkins’s Young Farmers Unite series, where he writes and invites others to write on the challenges young farmers face, and how we can support new farmers at their profession.

What I mean by this is that our country’s food system, particularly over the last two decades, has transformed itself into a scheme that aids the promotion, growth and wide distribution of cheap, nutrient-depleted, disease-promoting foods that, due to exogenous factors out of our control, have become a large portion of energy consumption for groups of lower socioeconomic status (SES). And through these diets (as research has shown) these groups have become more prone to health problems, particularly obesity – a formidable condition that increases risk for life-threatening chronic diseases like diabetes, heart disease and certain forms of cancer.

These unfair characteristics of the food supply, out of the control of most Americans, and where the burden of disease falls disproportionately on people with limited resources, needs to change, and recently, a handful of researchers have been studying this problem in order to pinpoint specific factors that may help us in our fight to change our government’s food policies. Scientists have pointed to two factors relating to the food supply that may promote obesity in groups of lower socioeconomic status: (1) access to foods and (2) the cheapening of foods – particularly “calorie-dense” items.

Adam Drewnowski, Director of the Center for Public Health and Nutrition at the University of Washington examined how obesity could be linked to neighborhood-level measures of economic prosperity and found that obesity rates reached 30% in very deprived zip codes but touched only 5% in the most affluent neighborhoods. This led to the assumption that neighborhood prosperity could be a good predictor of access to healthy foods. Researchers at NYU took their analysis further and looked directly at the availability of healthy foods by neighborhood and noted how areas of lower SES were found to have fewer supermarkets (which are associated with less obesity) per person, a greater number of fast food outlets, decreased availability to healthy foods like fresh fruits and vegetables, and necessitated farther distances to travel to obtain good food.

Drewnowski also looked at the role of cost in “energy-dense” food items, or items that pack the most calories per gram but tend to be nutrient-deplete such as baked goods, packaged foods, potato chips, sodas and fatty snacks – all items which studies have linked to “passive overconsumption” and greater health risks. His team found that healthy eating costs more – a lot more. Based on a 2000-calorie diet, consumption of mostly junk food would cost a mere $3.52 a day versus $36.32 per day on a nutrient-rich diet. The study also found that the price of nutrient-depleted foods actually went down over time where as nutrient-rich foods outpaced inflation.

What does all this academic evidence mean in our quest to unveil the bias and hypocrisy of our current food system? Certainly, it provides us with the ammunition to confidently say that policy must be changed in the name of equality as healthy, disease-preventing foods have simply become out of reach and too costly for those Americans least fortunate. Since when has food served as the bearer of life chances, life expectancy and opportunity?

We need to change this and give back the right to all Americans to have equal chances at their dinner tables. Drastic changes to U.S. food policy are needed now. The subsidizing of “value-add” commodities like corn and soy need to be re-assessed in light of how these foodstuffs have influenced accessibility and cheap calories. It needs to be said that the promoting of these commodities, by both government (indirectly) and business (directly) has lead to an inequality that is so pernicious, stealth and inconspicuous that it’s gargantuan ramifications are poised to devalue the very ideals of what America stands for without so much as a peep.

And in conjunction with this re-evaluation of current policy, we need to come up with new and more powerful measures to build a foundation for our food system that ensures equality by making healthy food relatively cheaper, more accessible and better promoted. Tax incentives should be explored for bringing more supermarkets to under-served neighborhoods and for greenmarkets and community-supported agriculture to enter more low-income communities. Businesses should be incentivized to sell fresh, nutrient-rich product and a tax should be imposed on advertising calorie-dense products to children. Vending machines could be manipulated to bring this issue forward as well as a re-tooling of the government Food Stamp Program. Heightening awareness in schools around the MyPyramid dietary guidelines and making sure these can be upheld even amongst the lowest SES groups is imperative.

The bottom line is that our food system is failing on even its most basic of promises – sustaining human life – and it’s deficiencies are so colossal that it is even threatening the democratic ideals are country was founded on. The exploration of both access and cost in the link between low SES and obesity may be able to lead us in the right direction toward policy change, but in order to get on this path, we need to see the forest through the trees and come clean with ourselves that our food policy is not just about organic and sustainably-raised fare, but about making what nourishes us and our future within reach of each and every American, regardless of his or her socioeconomic means.

Over this last year, I’ve noticed a subtle shift in the Indianapolis food scene. New markets and restaurants touting local and seasonal foods, local business, community and economy reminded me that there are cities and towns beyond those on the coasts engaging in the conversation about the food system. I also noticed that these new endeavors are inspiring new generations of Hoosiers to be more conscious of the food they eat.

Now, I’m pretty sure that when people think of Indy they don’t readily associate it with a specific food culture as they would with Kansas City’s Bar-b-que. What it has always been though is a very traditional, Midwestern meat and potatoes city with the highest per capita of chain restaurants. It’s a common matter of discussion (boasting even) among Hoosiers that chains test their concepts on the folks in Indy who have a high level of respect for a good burger and an efficient drive-through.

I have deep roots in Indy. Though I currently live in San Francisco and have for the last 15 years, I lived in Broad Ripple for 18 years. I hung out at the Broad Ripple McDonald’s on weekends, Noble Romans after basketball games. I worked at Bazbeaux Pizza when it was still in the little ramshackle blue house. I’ve eaten in loads of Indy’s independent restaurants from Amici’s to Korey’s, from MCL to Shapiros. And, I’ve had burgers, pies and egg rolls at all the chains. My Dad also used to take me to soul food restaurants and the tiniest little diners with the sweetest ice tea you’ve ever tasted.

These days, now that my parents are older and my three siblings there to stay, I visit Indianapolis often. My participation in the food revolution has developed over the years thanks to fine restaurants and farmers markets in San Francisco, world traveling, WOOFing, and my own kitchen experiments. My awareness and education has also forced me to consistently seek out the fresh and natural in Indy.

Last spring I noticed signs for the Broad Ripple Farmers’ Market near my parent’s house and in the Forest Hills neighborhood.  Although I usually visit in the spring so I can catch some thunderstorms, I had never seen the signs before nor had I been to the market which is in the back parking lot of my old high school. Turns out, the market isn’t new; my awareness is. It’s been around for 12 years and has slowly grown to over 40 vendors.

When I am back, I am also so grateful that I can buy local cottage cheese and eggs at the Good Earth Natural Food Company, which has been around since 1971.  And the success of the Broad Ripple Farmers’ Market, both for the community and the farmers, inspired a new Winter Market in Fall Creek Place, a neighborhood two miles north of downtown in the midst of an urban redevelopment project that’s slowly transforming an area that was once called “Dodge City” by the locals (because you were always dodging bullets on your way to the northern suburbs).

I met my pals Betsy and Carl and their daughter Adeline at the winter market just after the new year. We intended to have fresh roasted market coffee and a stroll.  They showed me around the small but incredibly lively place. I was told there were considerably less vendors there than on a usual Saturday since it was a holiday weekend. But I noticed a lot of value added products like tomato sauces, herb spreads and natural cleaning products. I bought some potatoes, a winter squash, fresh free-range eggs and grass fed beef for burgers that night.

Betsy and Carl, who just moved back there after living for a long time in San Francisco, kept begging me to move home. “See! Indy has some great food stuff happening!”

Another example was Goose Market, just a year old, and also in the heart of Fall Creek Place. It’s a new neighborhood meat market owned and operated by Chris Eley, an Indy native who moved back home from Chicago to be near his family. An active member of Slow Food Chicago and a chef who’s worked around the world, Eley heard about the retail space from his sister who lives a few blocks away and thought it was the perfect place to build a business that supports local heritage breeds. He sells grassfed beef delivered from the farmer and slaughtered hours before and is close to realizing his dream of making house-made charcuterie. I had one of the best sandwiches I’ve ever had in Indy there and the place was packed on a Tuesday at lunchtime.

“Goose is a very urban market focused on the young professional who lives in the neighborhood and wants to support the local economy,” Chris told me. And, support it he does. They have an entire basement devoted to value added products from local farms and producers like Apple Family Farm, Local Folks Foods, Seldom Seen Farm, New Day Meadery and a host of local breweries. I was so happy to buy a whole hormone-free chicken that I decided to make roasted chicken that night which resulted in an impromtu taste comparison to the roasted chicken my Mom ate the night before at MCL. She never realized chicken could taste so good.

In Broad Ripple, I was surprised to see the total transformation of an abandoned gas station into a market shop selling and promoting local produce, raw milk, cow shares, and preparing meals to go. Opened in April 2008, Locally Grown Gardens is the brainchild of Chef Ron Harris, a student of Larry Forgione and the former Executive Chef of MCL who brought locally farmed strawberries to their menu. “The great thing is that he lists what’s available each month on his chalkboard. I know what I can buy there,” said my pal MaryLee Pappas who shops there regularly and lets the produce inspire her menus.

Chef Ron thinks that the Indy food scene is evolving back to its local farm roots thanks in part to the popularity of food shows like “Top Chef” and Gordon Ramsey’s “Kitchen Nightmares.” “Alice Waters, Jeremiah Tower and Wolfgang Puck [are] just starting to gain influence here,” said Chef Ron. “Curiosity about food is increasing and that impacts the knowledge base. My students at Tech High School’s culinary department were talking so eloquently about tomatoes. It was beautiful. The exposure to food these kids have had in just the last five years has impacted their knowledge base and has increased their curiosity. Think of Martin Luther King. We may not see the changes we’re making today, but generations that come will see it. The awareness of my customers and the students is touching a chord. I’m 40, so it’s the 20-year-olds, the youth movement that is key.” This summer Chef Ron plans to create a garden in the abandoned lot next door and sell homemade ice cream.

And yet, there is even more happening in Indianapolis. Everyone is raving about R Bistro and their seasonal menu, last November Alice Waters spoke about the Edible Schoolyard at the Indianapolis Museum of Art to a sold out crowd, and the recently established Indiana Artisan Development Project is moving swiftly to support local farmers and value added products that promote a distinctly Indiana product.

Plus 27 high school students and three teachers from University School in Carmel, a northern Indy suburb, sat at Park Chow restaurant in San Francisco with myself, Gordon Jenkins and Vera Fabian and got a lesson in what it means for a restaurant to source locally and use compostable paper products. Their teacher asked us to explain what compostable meant.  And, the kids seemed eager to understand. My old high school friend, and their teacher, Wes Priest, told me that most of the students said the dinner with us was a highlight of their trip, and that now there is a movement to get a garden started at their school.

Indianapolis is a city rooted in the Midwest farming culture. The people are earnest, honest and they sincerely want to make a difference in their communities.  For a city that I’ve always viewed as a little behind the times in terms of food culture, good food access, and awareness of the “food movement” in general, I have been pleasantly surprised to discover new businesses and an excited and curious community. If folks in Indianapolis can get on the bandwagon, we’re all that much closer to igniting the whole nation and pushing the food justice agenda towards policy makers in D.C.

This is the first post in a series called City Slicker Eats, featuring cities all over the United States that are re-building the food system from the ground up.  Are you a food fighter-writer with a city to feature, or do you just think your city is doing great things to build a more sustainable food system that you think we should cover?  Contact us, and tell us about the growing food movement near you.

I bought it. It reminded me, like God was whispering in my ear, that my love of  pulling together ingredients was a gift, and a legacy. Gifts should never be taken lightly. It made me smile instantly.

It also reminded me that the ability to get up in the morning and decide what I want to cook, and making it happened, is a privilege. My grandparents raised their children during the Great Depression. I don’t have much knowledge of how they put food on the table, or what they pieced together for their four children every day. But I can guess that having lived through it shaped their sense of plenty—and it showed up in the pot, and on the table years later. Both great cooks, they’d sit in the morning and ask, “what do you feel like eating today?” It is a different question I now understand than the, gnawing, entitled whines of two kids who have defiled my empty nest, “what are you going to cook,” or “what are we supposed to eat.” Their question was more a response to living without. Their answer was a declaration that they could now have whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted it. It was their slice of affluence.

It is one of the legacies I brought with me into my marriage. And it has been a joy that has pulled me through the best of times and the worst of times. To go to the farmer’s market and get what’s looking good to you that day, or to do a good old fashioned meat loaf  has always brought me comfort and pride. Both because I could, and because I could do these things really well. And because I know in my essence, that slowing down to be present in cutting vegetables, or kneading a dough that will become a beautiful hot batch of rolls is more than utility, it is a gift to those you love. I had forgotten that, especially as the kids got older and got these opinions about what they will and won’t eat –  even after I cooked it.

I travel a lot now on assignment, so I don’t even get to cook as much. On the road, I grab nasty airport food, or in the evenings I get to experiment with some of the best restaurants in the world. The ones that make the most marked impression on me bring good home-style cooking with the freshest ingredients to the table. Whether at a friend’s house enjoying home cooking, or at a great restaurant, there is something that you just don’t get with a bucket of chicken. There is that moment when the chatter stops and there is silence, maybe even the collective moan of appreciation. It comes when somebody who prepared it, lovingly selecting ingredients, and got low and slow to bring it to you.

Most families have scheduled themselves so tightly. Some to chase the bigger house, bigger job, or the right social activities. Some to work two or three jobs to just make ends meet. For many, a good home-cooked meal comes in a microwave safe package, or a box or bag. After seeing that little plaque I was reminded that cooking is not just about love, but it is also about changing the pace. I can jump off the treadmill and say, I think I want to make a pound cake, or to start a pot of gumbo that will take all day to simmer slow. I can get off the grid to go shop mindfully for everything I need. I can put the rest of the “stuff” on pause and get in the kitchen with a stockpot, a mixer—whatever it takes. When I cook, I control the pace. The deadlines are mine. I breathe, I sing. And when I cook, I pray, or meditate. I center, much in the way runners do.

Over the past year, I have learned to my horror that I am a food elitist. I approach food and cooking the way I do because I can. I have a car to go get what I want. I don’t have to stay in the neighborhood and buy rank fruit, or bad bread from a party store. I can afford to eat local and organic. Most days I work at home, so I can spend hours in the kitchen if I choose to. I am aware that poor people, both urban and rural are doing all they can to get by. They don’t have my choices or my resources.

Some are people who grow my food, and get it to places where I can buy it, and who ring it up. There is a woman who works in my favorite grocery store. She like me, is a woman of color. She asked me if I was a cook for someone else. I explained that it was just for my family of four, and a few friends coming over for dinner. By the look on her face, I could tell that I boggled her mind. As she asked me for my money, she said, “one day I’m going to be able to feed my kids like that.” She said it in the way that I say, “One day I am going to be an Oprah book club selection,” or “one day the kids are going to move into their own places.” It reminded me that I am one blessed cook.

Just about every Saturday I enjoy a post farmers’ market brunch with two couples, three dogs and a two-year old boy. We gather at Sean and Rachel’s Bernal Heights home after each of us has finished shopping at the Alemany Farmers’ Market— a fixture in San Francisco since 1943 — share in our extra fruits, veg and herbs then create a meal with our odds and ends. These Saturdays bring a special tenor to what would otherwise be a single gal’s weekly errand.

To save on parking hassles and gas, I usually catch a ride to the market with Judit and Ben and their two-year old son Finn. This week little Finn responded to my “Hello Finn” with an excited “We’re going to the market” and a smile. He’s just started speaking in sentences and it was such a pleasure to hear him bring up where we were headed without any prompting from his parents.

Once we all arrive, we split up and have our own market adventures with occasional waves from various stalls and quick phone calls with announcements like “don’t get any spinach, I got a ton.” I am bound to run into other friends and we stop to talk about what they bought, what they’re making and which vendors have the best produce. Sometimes it’s hard to focus on the marketing when there are so many friendly faces. The experience brings an incredible sense of community and powerfully re-connects many people after a long work week.

It doesn’t take us too long to complete our individual shopping and we always seem to find each other just as we’ve all finished. Sean and Rachel, who live a few blocks up Bernal hill from the market, put their bags into Ben and Judit’s car and walk back home. We’ll meet them there and get help unloading Finn and the food.

With the winter market in full operation last Saturday, there were heaps of citrus, kiwi, winter greens, root vegetables and a surprise oyster vendor from Tomales Bay. “I’m so excited by oysters. I learned to shuck them last week.” Ben said after we asked the man selling Kumoto oysters how fresh they were. (His answer, “Fresh today!”)

In reference to a bright yellow pomelo, Judit said “its too big for just the three of us.” She couldn’t wait to cut it open for our brunch.  Rachel replied, “I got a huge thing of mustard greens to split!” And, indeed it was far too much for two people and we all took a bit of it; me for the weekly Sunday soup I make to sup on when I need a quick healthy meal.

Once we get to Sean and Rachel’s pad, we unpack our bags and talk about what we bought and have to share. We talk food and preparation methods. We indulge in the joy of the wait, the anticipation of fresh bread, vegetables and fruits and often a glass of wine or Champagne.  We set the table piecemeal and watch our feast unfold. While we chop spring onions, shuck oysters and make coffee, Finn explores the house, the dogs hover for scraps and we catch up.

This week we went overboard on our feast. We celebrated gathering for the first time in 2009 with a beautiful table of 24 Kumoto oysters, strawberry radishes, sliced carrots, pomelo, Petaluma garlic cheddar goat cheese, fresh croissants, bagels and Oregon herb bread, spring onions, Fuji apples, a smoked ahi tuna spread, coffee and a sweet Lambrusco. With some cilantro, carrots and fresh bread for us each to split up and take home later.

Each time we gather is different and I’m always delighted by the conversations we have once we’re seated — how they grow and evolve as we eat slowly. I feel alive and awake and it’s easy to imagine I’m on a European holiday waxing poetic about the world. This week I learned about the Center for Land Use Interpretation, a LA-based research organization that as Sean described “provides solid information about how humans have changed the landscape.” He and Rachel went on a landfill tour with them, which I found facinating. We talk current events and politics, and delve deeply into the flavors we experience.

The oysters were like butter; the apples sweet and juicy.  Finn watched us closely as we conducted an impromptu side-by-side tasting of carrots from two different farms. It was organic versus “no spray.” The no spray crisp, dense, earthy and delicate and the organic winning with a sweeter flavor that was considerably less bitter. At $1.50 more per bunch, we agreed that they were an expensive indulgence and the flavor was worth the extra cost.  We enjoy sharing “little bites of heaven” – our own flavor combinations created from the components on the table. The tuna spread acted as the perfect base for experimentation. I created a simple bite of tuna on a croissant with spring onions to share with the gang; Judit gushed over “this bread, with the spread plus pomelo” and gave us each a bite-sized taste. Ben chimed in with “I’m gonna try yours and raise you an onion!”

We sang “Itsy Bitsy Spider” over and over with Finn and I couldn’t help but remark on the type of memories these Saturdays create for him. He’s a sponge observing healthy eating and the play of good friends being fully present with each other.

I know I’m very fortunate in this world. I live in San Francisco where we have clear blue skies and warm days in January. I have access to an abundant market that I can afford, and choose to spend more time cooking than not. I love my Saturday ritual. It’s simple, vital and contributes generously to my life and I am always grateful for it. And, it’s about more than the food I buy. It’s about the conversations and time I share with my friends. It’s about how we get to explore each other’s tastes and preferences. It’s about community and being present in the moment. It’s about coming to the table together on a regular basis.

In this time of watching our wallets, our good intentions about eating sustainable food could easily descend into bad habits, cutting corners and disenchantment about the food system.  Instead, I’d like to offer a few ways I’ve been eating good, clean and fair on a reasonable budget:

1. Cut Out the Middle Man – Whether you sign up for a winter share of vegetables (look for one at Local Harvest), so that your money goes directly to the farmer in exchange for a weekly share of local, fresh food, or you shop at farmer’s markets (a tip is to go at the end of the day, when vendors are willing to bargain a bit more for the food they don’t want to bring home) cutting out the distributor or grocery chain will lower the price of your food, and still allow you to get the best produce.  As an example, my Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) share costs around $25 per week, and in the summer I’ve been receiving between 12-20 lbs of vegetables.  Also, buy less pre-packaged food (wine, olive oil and chocolate are my favorite exceptions) as it costs much more than unprocessed food.

2. Perfect your Kitchen Skills – Invest in one solid cookbook, like Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything, or How to Cook Everything Vegetarian (you might even be able to get a used copy), and work on your home cooking.  On average, meals cooked at home cost less than half that of meals eaten in a middle-of-the-road restaurant.  Don’t have time?  A trick I like to use is to cook extra grains to add to future meals, and I always make lots of leftovers for lunch and dinner the next day.  Bringing lunch to work is always a good idea.  Home cooking is healthier, and you can be sure to know where you food is coming from.

3. Eat-In! – Have a regular Eat-in, or potluck, where attendees can bring their favorite dishes and everyone can eat well.  Eat-ins are a great opportunity to share ideas, whether about the change we need to see in our food system, or any good cause.  Empower your friends by helping them source the best priced good, clean and fair food and share the stories behind your dish.  (Yesterday I made pancakes, and my husband said they were the best he’d ever eaten.  Local eggs and butter, stone ground wheat from upstate New York, and Vermont maple syrup made it possible.)

4. Go for a Forage – This time last year, I spent a day foraging with the Wild Man Steve Brill in Central Park and came home with a booty of apples, spices, burdock root and edible greens.  Guide books are great, but don’t go nibbling on any mushrooms before you figure out which ones might kill you!  Having gone with a guide, I now feel confident that I could return to the park and locate and recognize a few edible species.  In places like Los Angeles fruit hanging over the fence is fair game for picking.  There is so much around us that is edible, we’ve just forgotten about it.

5. Plan Your Spring Garden – Collect the seeds from this year’s garden, or request seed catalogs and save money on seedlings by starting them yourself.  If you are like me and both suffer from a lack of a green thumb and live in an apartment in the city and lack soil, try this: What is the status of your roof?  Can you place planters up their without anyone noticing or with the permission of the building?  Get a book, like The Gardener’s A-Z Guide to Growing Organic Food by Tanya L.K. Denckla. Also, in my kitchen window I’m growing basil and occasionally sprouts, which are great in winter when there aren’t as many fresh local lettuces. Allotments are also a popular way to grow food in urban areas.

6. Eat Less – ‘Tis the season for loosening your belt, but is ritual overeating necessary?  Making a Thanksgiving feast to welcome friends and family to the table can be a celebratory moment, but savor it, and eat slowly.  The more you pace yourself the less you will ingest, as there is a twenty minute lag between when you are full and when your brain knows you are full.  And best of all, this leaves more leftovers for lunch!

7. Volunteer in a Kitchen or on a Farm – This is a great way to get some freebies, especially on the farm where you might get a meal and some of what you pick.  It’s the harvest season, and you’d be pretty hard pressed not to find a farm that could use a helping hand.  (Check out World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms)

8. Save Money Elsewhere Before Scrimping on Food – Okay, okay, so this is not so much of a tip about food savings.  But more of a plug for what good, clean and fair food can do to change our lives.  We don’t put enough value in food, and in turn our bodies and the Earth are in peril.  Supporting bad stewardship practices and corporate crops means there will only be more unhealthy food to go around. Americans now spend 11% of their income on food, the lowest percentage ever.  Yet if, instead of that 5th or 6th magazine subscription, or the television-phone, or extra pair of jeans, we could eat delicious, earth-conscious food and spend around 15 – 20% of our income instead, we should be willing to change our mindset.  This is switching from the “me” to the “we” mentality is unavoidable if we are to stay inhabitants of this planet into the future.

Finally, enjoy eating.  Taking pleasure in food is not a crime, even in dark times.  Reflect on the work that went into your dinner and you will appreciate every penny spent.  Now hop on your bike and head to the farmer’s market before it closes!

Photo: *patrick