Taking time from writing my autobiography is not a clean break. While I’m digging in a garden plot or walking on the trail, my mind is consumed by how to pull everything together and bring the work to a close. Up to the time we moved back to Iowa in 1993, a chronological narrative seemed appropriate. Beginning here, in this place that was a vacant lot when we arrived, life got complex to an extent a time-based narrative doesn’t really capture those 32 years. There was no single narrative.
Thanks to another low-wind, warmish, and dry day I had time to myself to consider the bigger picture of what I am writing. That and get the next big plot turned over. Well, by the time I finished this, I had turned it over with a spade:
Plot No. 3 spaded.
I read Lawless: How the Supreme Court Runs on Conservative Grievance, Fringe Theories, and Bad Vibes by Leah Litman this week. She points out how the U.S. Supreme Court takes more and more power unto itself without substantial resistance from the other two branches of government. While today the president is ignoring some of their decisions, whether there has been a Democrat or Republican as president, the Supreme Court is calling the shots in society through jurisprudence, according to Litman. (Major questions doctrine = good grief!) The attention hound of a president distracts from this very real center of power among the six Republican-appointed justices. If you are following the U.S. Government in 2025, consider picking up a copy and reading it. It informs what is going on in the news in real time. Few books I know are like that.
Today is the fire fighters’ breakfast at the fire station. The menu is simple, but not vegan or particularly vegetarian. I’ll go for my annual dose of pancakes and orange juice. I expect to encounter many I know so it’s not so much about the food. It’s about joining together as a community. We need that now more than ever.
Editor’s Note: I’m still on short posts while I focus on the garden. I have three main plots to go to call it planted. Wish me luck!
After several days of rain, Friday was a clear day for gardening. The cruciferous vegetable plot is fully planted, the next large plot is cleared, and I cut weeds so I can access the compost bins more easily. I lit the first burn pile of the season. The plot with the burn pile needs mowing so I can store the tomato cages there until ready to use them. I put my Practical Farmers of Iowa placard on the compost bin to officially open the garden. It felt like a productive day.
Cruciferous vegetable plot.
The right rear tire of the yard tractor wouldn’t hold air. I called the John Deere shop and they sent me to a local tire service that has been in business since 1932. I checked in the wheel, and now await their phone call. I’m good with waiting until Tuesday to pick up the wheel. Everyone, especially a mechanic, needs a holiday weekend.
I complain about the internet from time to time, yet it was easy to locate a YouTube video that showed how to remove the wheel from the tractor. It saved time and frustration. It assured me I was performing the work correctly. We didn’t have that in the pre-internet days. As a bonus, I had the correct tool to remove the clip holding the wheel on the axle.
It’s the time in the garlic cycle where heads from the 2024 crop need to be used. Thursday after supper I took half of what remained and made garlic purèe with olive oil. I froze eight jars, which is plenty for the rest of the year. There is an abundance to use fresh until scapes come in.
Friday was a good day in the garden. Here’s hoping for more like that.
Some years the garden has been in by now. Not this year. Weather is the main culprit causing delay. When it does clear up, there will be some long days of digging, tilling, planting, and mulching. I’m ready, more or less. The greenhouse is full, and supplies are on hand. Once I get going, my experience will help it go quickly. With four weeks of spring remaining, there is plenty of time.
One of my daily reads is Heather Cox Richardson’s “Letters from an American.” I usually read it within a few minutes of it hitting my inbox. She wrote:
I have not been able to stop thinking today of the significance of the timing of the Republicans’ push for this bill, and what it says about how dramatically the U.S. has changed in the past 60 years. (Letters from an American by Heather Cox Richardson, May 21, 2025).
Those 60 years are the main part of my life. I’m old enough to remember the 1950s, and the changes made in the country by Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon Johnson. During the postwar industrial boom we lived a life close to the means of production yet never considered ourselves to be poor. That all the public parts of my life seem now to be changing is unsettling. I haven’t been sleeping through the night for a long time. The last two days, House Republicans have been debating and passing the budget, giving me something in which to engage in the wee hours. I streamed it before I got out of bed.
The reconciliation is not over by any means. It has to clear the U.S. Senate and then the two chambers must reach agreed language before a final vote and sending it to the president. If today is any indication, Republicans are willing to jack up the debt and deficit to a level that will invoke their Paygo Rule. That means forced cuts in Medicare of up to $500 billion, among other things. For those of us on Medicare it could get rough. The cuts in Medicaid and nutrition programs are directly part of the bill.
My position on this budget reconciliation is if we can’t afford tax cuts, they should not be part of it. Republicans have a history, going back to Ronald Reagan, of increasing our national debt and the budget deficit. By any measure, they are out of control with the budget that passed the House this morning.
I woke up to Cousin Al on the radio when I lived at Fort Benning, Georgia. Each day, across the line in Alabama, he played Christy Lane’s hit song, “One Day at a Time.” Good advice in 1976. Good advice today.
It was raining Monday morning so I drove to Monticello to pick up two 50-pound bags of garden fertilizer. It’s the same locally composted chicken manure I’ve been using since working on the farms, called Healthy Grow 2-4-3. I tried other types of fertilizer and the granulated format makes application easy. I don’t do the science of testing soil pH and selecting an appropriate fertilizer. Basically, I am doing monkey work by mimicking what successful vegetable growers have done at farms where I worked. The yield and quality of produce improved after I began using this fertilizer.
When I arrived at the warehouse, no one was around. I called ahead to determine if they had what I wanted. The trip is 35.3 miles one-way and I didn’t want to make it for nothing. When no person picked up the phone, I went anyway, taking a chance someone would be there. The main building was wide open, so I looked around. I walked through the office and warehouse and found no one. Despite about 20 vehicles in the lot, only two employees were there across the yard where a truck was being loaded. A driver was in his cab picking up a truckload of fertilizer. He asked me what I wanted and I told him. He said they would take care of it.
The office person loaded the truck, made necessary bills of lading, and dispatched the driver. He said it was their busiest day of the year and that he would get my fertilizer. Eventually another office person arrived and did my paperwork while the first loaded the two bags in the back seat of my car. I enjoy this annual pilgrimage to Monticello. What could be better on a rainy day?
It rained all day Monday and the forecast Tuesday was more of the same. The electric mower arrived Monday, so I’ll get that ready for use when the rain lets up. It was a concession to the fact I am aging, and can’t drive the John Deere on the steep side of the road without increased risk of a flip over. With the proper tool, it should be a safer mowing experience.
When it rains I am concerned about the downspouts from the roof getting clogged and flooding the window well on the east side of the house. With all the maple tree seeds flying around, it has gotten clogged previously. When I return from trail walking, I am sure to inspect the roof from the driveway to assess the amount of fallen seeds. Looks like everything went through the downspout so far. As I age, I try to avoid climbing up a ladder to clean the gutters. So far, I am down to once or twice per year. Would like to get that down to zero yet good help is hard to find.
Our community well was out of commission on Monday, which means I got out the large Rubbermaid drinking water container and placed it next to the kitchen sink for handwashing. I also got a gallon jug of store-bought drinking water to use in cooking and for coffee. We tried to use as little water as possible so we didn’t drain the lines. If the community does drain them, there is a public health procedure to follow to make sure unwanted bacteria doesn’t get into the lines and therefore into our vulnerable, unwitting bodies.
As I write on Tuesday morning, my main worries are getting out on the trail between rain showers for a walk. There are plenty of indoor chores to do, including a larger than usual amount of dishes for cleaning because of the water shortage. We actually need the rain, even if I’d rather get the rest of our garden in first.
Not sure what I will do the rest of Tuesday. There is plenty of work, so it will boil down to the most pressing chores. Rainy day or not, answering the question “what’s most important in our lives” is a constant activity. One we should relish while we can answer it.
My electric lawn mower was delayed in shipment. Instead of arriving today, it will be tomorrow. I attempted mowing the garden plot using a trimmer, but it doesn’t get the job done. I will clear off the weed barriers to reuse and be ready when the mower does arrive. I need to think a bit before planting this large plot, anyway.
Toward the west will be cucumbers and summer squash. That much is decided. There are green beans for direct seeding, so there will be a row of those. I need to put celery somewhere. I have chard plants started but not in the ground. The hot peppers and tomatoes aren’t big enough to transplant. I guess I will walk the ground, then walk in the greenhouse and the solution will become obvious.
Below the plastic weed barrier is a life seldom seen. Bugs, ultra-soft earth, evidence of rodents and worms everywhere. Starts of plants went nowhere because of a lack of light. The soil made me sneeze as I unintentionally breathed it in. The weather has been perfect for gardening. Except for a quick trip to town to get a lottery ticket, I was at it all day. I was immersed in it. It was spring, as good as it gets.
I couldn’t sleep on Wednesday night so I read José Andrés’ new book Change the Recipe: Because You Can’t Build a Better World Without Breaking Some Eggs. It was a quick read and I was up all night doing it. Of interest was he discussed his interactions with President Biden over the Hamas-Israel War. He described World Central Kitchen in Ukraine and, of course, many of the now famous past operations during which they fed people. I like Andrés for his approach of standing on the ground and talking to people when he’s doing something, as opposed to waiting for committees to decide. It wasn’t a deep book, but I knew little about his origin story before reading it. I’m tired but better for the book.
There have been setbacks in the garden. The riding lawn mower developed electrical problems and will be at the shop for as many as three weeks. It sees heavy use clearing weed growth in the garden so I’ll have to do it by hand until the new electric mower I ordered arrives on Sunday. I need a push-style mower anyway because the ditch in front of the house is very steep and I’m getting too old to survive if the riding mower flips over while I’m mowing.
We are experiencing high humidity that began late Wednesday. Today it was 87 degrees Fahrenheit and very humid. Late afternoon it became windy. I know when to stay out of the garden, so I don’t pass out. Hopefully tomorrow I can get back to work. I can also finish planting the first plots.
One day at a time.
Editor’s Note: Another short post while I focus on the garden. Thanks for sticking with me.
Maple trees have been releasing seeds for about a week. They are everywhere. As mentioned, I think the abundance is because the Autumn Blaze maple is dying and in one last effort at procreation is releasing them. We will hate to lose that beautiful tree.
Another short post today about competing demands for my time.
To get a garden planted I need to focus on that. I have a large garden and only a fraction is planted. I have been turning down other commitments to organize things. Specifically, Women’s March, Indivisible, National Education Association, Veterans for Peace, the county Democratic Party, and others have asked for a part of my time. I have to say no more than yes until the garden is planted.
Partly, as I age, I am slowing down. By the end of a six-hour garden shift, I am achy and worn out. I persevere yet have to manage my time, energy and pain to stay on track to get the right things planted at the right time. Thank goodness there is ibuprofen.
After a walk on the trail, I’ll be back at it. There is always something that needs doing.
Being a bit out of it yesterday after Satuday’s late (for me) festivities, I managed my daily walk on the trail and tended newly planted collards and kale seedlings. Last year was a garden bust for our favorite leafy greens. We are still living off frozen from 2023.
There won’t be much action here for a while. There is a lot to do during gardening season.
Editor’s Note: This is a work in progress for a chapter in my autobiography titled Toward a Kitchen Garden.
Mother was a good cook based on the meals she served us while growing up. She took home economics in high school yet learned most of her skills related to cooking at home. She would make dishes for Father that reminded him of his southern roots, like creamed beef on toast. I remember her meatloaf served with mashed potatoes and a vegetable, her beef soup served on rice, and carrots and peas. The meatpacking plant where Father worked had a full-service butcher where employees got a discount. There were experiences with organ meat (kidneys and liver) which was inexpensive. This suggests a mostly meat as the main dish diet.
Mother was the first woman I knew who prepared tacos in her kitchen. In retrospect, a contributing reason she took up this dish was the introduction of pre-packaged tortillas and other “Mexican” ingredients into our local grocery store before the advent of Mexican food sections like one can find at a supermarket today. It was another chance to use many ingredients normally found in her pantry to make something different and special.
When we ate outside food, Chicken Delight was walking distance from our home. I remember ordering take out or delivery pizza from them more than chicken. When we ate out as a family, it was at a restaurant like the Bell Eat Shop where I mostly ordered a hamburger and fries. We had a long tradition of dining at Riefe’s Restaurant. Smelling their kitchen from our rented home across the alley is one of my earliest memories. Eventually, each of these restaurants closed, with Riefe’s closing permanently on Dec. 23, 2015.
Those things said, I do not have strong memories of what or how Mother cooked, or about what food I ate before leaving for university. Mother kept me out of the kitchen while she was cooking and brought serving dishes to the dining room table where the family gathered for a meal. I did not develop an interest in Mother’s recipes.
I began cooking in my junior year at university. I lived in a trailer home with my high school friend Dennis and tried various dishes to save money and avoid eating out. I tried baking bread and didn’t understand how yeast worked. I used the resulting loaf as a door stop for a while. What food I made during the rest of my undergraduate years is lost in history.
At some point I learned to make tuna and noodle casserole. I served it to Mother before leaving for military service, and then when I had some friends over to my apartment in the military. I liked the taste of it, yet it was not a sophisticated dish. It was what I knew how to make.
Perhaps my most influential culinary experience was in South Georgia. I worked on a logistics project in Ochlocknee in 1997-98. I decided to stay in the nearby county seat at a motel with cable television—a needed escape after working 14 to 16-hour days. I had access to cable television’s TV Food Network.
I developed an insatiable curiosity about food and its preparation. Emeril Lagasse, Mario Batali, Susan Feniger, Mary Sue Milliken, Julia Child and others prepared food on screen, and I was captivated, watching episode after episode on Georgia weekends. Food is a common denominator for humanity, and I couldn’t get enough. My involvement in the local food movement today has its origins in the contrast between that uninviting place in South Georgia and my food escape. There is a broader point to be made than one person’s transient addiction to a television network while away from home. It is that American food pursuits, and the economy around them, continue to be based partly upon curiosity.
It seems clear that American curiosity about food and food preparation drives what we find in markets. It is a commonplace that corn syrup can be found in every aisle of a traditional mega mart, but it is the endless combinations of diverse ingredients that attract our attention then get us to buy. By developing and marketing new things—for example, quinoa mixed with chocolate or chicken, troll or pole and line caught tuna, gluten and GMO free products, and a host of others—purveyors of the consumer economy seek to engage us through the current sales cycle. I suspect we will stop buying at some point, returning to staple foods, or moving on to what the food marketers deem next.
I began using a process I now call “improvisational cooking.” What does that mean? There are two broad categories of cooking. Most regular dishes and meals allow for variation in taste, ingredients, seasoning, and cooking methods. Others, like baking, do not. It’s what I’m doing today, and I believe how many Americans organize their cuisine. It means creating a food ecology from which I pull in elements from our garden, local farms, and area markets to prepare meals based on what’s readily available.
Occasionally I purchase items on-line or via snail mail when I want something that’s not locally available. For example, I recently bought bags of dried Mexican-grown Guajillo chilies and Mexican oregano on-line. At the end of my cooking day, it is a never-ending process that produces, as Tamar Adler called it, “an everlasting meal.” Exploring the symbiosis between traditional and improvisational cuisine is a popular topic when talking to friends and neighbors about cooking.
Improvisational cuisine draws from the broader society. For example, when I make tacos today, typically for breakfast, they are more improvisational than Mother’s were, but use some of the same techniques. I buy raw flour tortillas to cook as I need them and occasionally make my own with corn Masa. The tortilla is a delivery system for a pan-fried amalgam of fresh vegetables, herbs and spices, a sauce, and protein topped with salsa or hot sauce, fresh tomatoes in season, and a form of soft cheese. It is a recognizable dish even though the ingredients vary from day to day and from season to season.
I do use recipes. My go-to recipes are memorized or written in a red spiral-bound notebook I bought on vacation in Stratford, Ontario. In the back I put a few loose-leaf handwritten recipes from Mother and my maternal grandmother. My go-to cookbooks are Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Joy of Cooking by Marion Rombauer Becker, and a couple of others. I am downsizing my collection of hundreds of cookbooks yet kept three shelves on display in my writing area. The influence of Mother and Grandmother is more one of technique rather than a particular dish.
An example of a cooking book I read cover to cover is Tamar Adler’s An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace. More than anything, she presents a narrative about cooking that goes beyond a single meal or dish to how we connect them together. I also read Anya von Bremzen’s Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking: A Memoir of Food and Longing. Again, for its narrative more than cooking tips.
I studied church and organizational cookbooks extensively. I adopted very few recipes from them. I keep cookbooks that have some sentimental value, ones in which recipes by friends appear, and a set of a dozen or so from my old neighborhood in Northwest Davenport. The purpose of acquiring these cookbooks has been to understand the development of kitchen cookery beginning in the 1950s and ’60s. People used a lot of gelatin and lard back in the day, that’s for sure.
There is a lot of good stuff in cookbooks, although a lot of repetition as well. Over the years I’ve been enthusiastic about certain chefs — Child and Rombauer Becker, Rick Bayless, Mario Batali, Giada De Laurentiis, and Tamar Adler. I’m hoping to find new inspiration in Anthony Bourdain, José Andrés, Sally Schneider and Nigella Lawson. In any case, the result I envision is a new repertory of about 25 main course recipes that have predictable nutritional value and can be made with mostly local ingredients. I also hope to learn new ways to prepare vegetables. Whatever I learned from studying cookery reduces itself into repeatable main dishes made using understandable preparation techniques. A family only needs so many recipes.
I am now lacto-ovo-vegetarian which requires and fosters a constant dialogue about nutrition, cooking, ingredients, flavors and diet. Being vegetarian strips away most traditional dishes, like the ones I ate while growing up. Occasionally we mimic meat dishes in our household with the growing number of manufactured meat substitutes. If we make a pie chart of our diet, those meat substitutes would occupy a tiny slice. I have also been diagnosed as diabetic, which means closer monitoring of blood sugar as well as related dietary changes.
The cuisine we developed in Big Grove Township focused on techniques to use readily available ingredients to make repeatable dishes. We used to regularly eat pasta, pizza, macaroni and cheese, bread, chili, soup, casseroles, toppings with rice, and manufactured non-meat burger patties. Fresh and frozen vegetables are basic. Fruit is seasonal and desserts infrequently made or purchased. With my spouse becoming vegan, elimination of dairy products became my newest learning opportunity as a cook. I continue to develop that list of 25 main course recipes.
When the garden comes in vegetables dominate the plate. Tomatoes are a favorite and we have fresh with most meals while they last. When lettuce comes in, we make big salads for dinner. For the time being, I don’t bake bread very often, eschew meat and meat products, and use only a few manufactured products for their ease and serviceability within the context of our cuisine.
Most nights it’s easy to get a meal ready for dinner. Our repertory includes easy and complex dishes which satisfy if done right. I prepare dinner for both of us four or five nights a week and we are on our own for breakfast, lunch and snacks. It works.
If we are serious about sustainability and local food systems, we must get beyond curiosity, and distraction from the challenges of a turbulent world. We must get to the production of things that matter in our lives on the prairie. At some point during the last ten years my talk about a “local food system” became talk about a “kitchen garden.” The goal of having a kitchen garden is to produce food aligned with our culinary habits that helps meet a basic human need. We have to eat. It may as well be enjoyable. We’ve all eaten our share of food that doesn’t please our palate. A kitchen garden should address that.
A kitchen garden is a reaction to the culture of consumerism. An important distinction is reaction, not rejection. I will continue to buy black peppercorns, nutmeg, vanilla bean extract, refined sugar, and all-purpose flour milled elsewhere. How else will we get such necessary ingredients?
While I am a local foods enthusiast, and my diet centers around being that, I am not doctrinaire. Other people must consume the results of my kitchen work. Despite several issues with his behavior and written output — including bigotry, racism and patriarchy — I like the Joel Salatin idea of a food shed. That is, secure everything one can that is produced within a four-hour drive of home. I am also not doctrinaire about “food miles.” I’ve written often on the topic and if we work at it, we can secure most of our food produced within less than an hour’s drive from home.
For the time being, I’m mostly ovo-lacto-vegetarian, which means consumption of dairy products and the good and bad that goes with them. I’m not of one mind on this. For example, I’ll buy a gallon of skim milk from the local dairy 6.2 miles from my house, yet I’ll also stock up at the wholesale club for half the price. I take local eggs from the farm when offered, yet I also buy them at the club. Maybe it’s best to become vegan and eschew dairy altogether. I’m not there yet.
In a free society, people should be able to do what they want with only minimal restrictions to protect the commons. In our consumer society, that is a joke. For a local food system to be sustainable beyond the initial curiosity of trying it out, something fundamental must change. It is a need— perceived or real— to change from the act of consuming to the act of production. That involves a lot of hard work, and I’m not sure it could be done in the current society.
In my kitchen garden cooking remains a work in progress.
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