Growing pains.

I’m becoming mildly obsessed about the food I feed my body. Having just read Barbara Kingsolvers’ Animal, Vegetable, Miracle I couldn’t help but wake up to the tragedy that has become the American chemical plant that most of us consume and pretend is nutritional cuisine.

If you consider the amount of poisoned, genetically modified, and well travelled garbage we eat, it’s no wonder that in the West cases of ADHA, Alzheimer’s and Obesity are on the rise. Not to mention the fossil fuel consumption in transporting said poison and subsequent burdon on our health systems (personal and national). We are voluntarily polluting ourselves and our environment and for the most part we don’t even know it…..or even worse, we do know it and don’t care.

My Dad worked as a wholesale Fruit and Veg merchant his whole life so I’ve always had a fondness for markets, finding them a real hub of any village, town or city. At the end of each week he received a ‘goody bag’ of produce with the silent caveat “Just in case you were thinking of nicking something-here’s some free stuff so you don’t”! Therefore we were a vegetable rich family, though I confess to sometimes scoffing at mere receipt of free potatoes, carrots and onions….."where are the Uglis, Satsumas and the other really good stuff"? Clearly back then I was already missing the point, ungrateful for the staples and already lured by the imported exotics.

Despite my taking those veggies for granted I do remember they had real flavor, something that has been genetically removed these days in favor of shelf life. I guess with 7 billion people on the planet to feed I can understand the logic, but I for one am sick to death of eating dead tasteless veggies, which is why I started my own garden using seeds from Europe.

(Ooofff that was a tough paragraph. I'm still grappling with myself "should I put the 'U' back in flavour & favour?")

So today when I went to our local farmers market in Makawao I had that same giddy glee as when I used to opens Dad’s weekly goody bag. “What did we get, what’s in season and wtf is that”?! The relief I had in talking to local farmers who knew their product inside and out, the soil, the growing time, what they fed the chickens and the passion and pride they had in selling their produce was deeply satisfying. And cheap…….!

Look at lovely Andrea (aka Superagentatlarge) with her bountiful produce, Sistah, your Poha Berries were bloody delicious, proving a tiny point that you don't have to import exotic produce especially to a place like Hawaii. It all brings a whole new meaning to the term 'local'.

As for my own garden well, it’s a bit of a see-saw ride between gratification and disappointment. Look at this beautiful egg plant but there’s only one and its taken two months (at least) to show up. Plus wtf are those white lave looking things just waiting to bury themselves into the flesh of my dinner the day I harvest it? Still, when it is cut from its green umbilical cord I will no doubt require an audience and an enthusiastic round of applause, not dissimilar to that of parents at a crap school play.

It’s a humble start and I notice in these uncertain times I feel the desire to dig for victory and become mildly self sustaining. It sounds like a crazy notion but the idea of growing the main stay of my own vegetable intake (don’t worry I’m not going native) is absurdly appealing to me. Time will tell, in a few books from now will the inspiration of Barbara Kinsolvers quest to feed her family for a year have disappeared or properly taken root?