PETITE AND KATRINA

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D. (2/1/2014)

          I like to lie down, especially with dogs, snout to snout, muzzle to muzzle, cheek by jowl.  When our late lab, Roxie, became immobile in her old age, I often lay down with her in front of the fireplace, my hand in her ruff.

 

          About ten months after she died, our mourning had assuaged enough to get another dog, perhaps two.  Mourning never really goes away.  “Closure” is a nonsense word generally perpetrated by people who want to avoid the pain of grief. 

 

          We were given an opportunity to adopt two labs, a black three year old named Petite, and a yellow seven year old named Katrina.  Petite had been physically and verbally abused and still cowers, but less and less as time goes by.  Katrina had been returned to the kennel with the claim that she couldn’t adjust to her new home because she missed her mother.  "Unadoptable" was the word.  Some people even use that dismal psychotherapeutic term “separation-anxiety”, a term which like “closure” allows people to objectify the painfully subjective and thereby immunize themselves from their humanity.

 

Katrina showed signs of grief when we brought her home, especially at night when the dogs were bedding down for the night.  Dogs have emotions like human beings and grieve like the rest of us.  She became agitated and walked aimlessly around the room.  After six decades as a minister and psychotherapist with people in grief, I knew that agitation and distraction were some of the signs of grief.  Loss is loss, and there is no way around it with platitudes, such as, “You should be grateful since had her for such a long time.”  I remember my mother saying to someone after my father died, “God did not need him in heaven more than we needed him on earth.”

 

          As a young seventeen year old recruit in the army, I was one homesick puppy sitting on my foot locker missing home.  An old career regular army Sergeant/ Major, ramrod straight and tough as old shoe leather, came by and tapped my shoulder with his swagger stick and said, “What’s the matter, soldier?”  I said that I was homesick and wondered why the rest of my platoon wasn’t.  He replied, “They don’t have no homes to miss.  You outta to thank God that you’ve got one.”

 

          For a few nights I lay down beside Katrina, placing my hand in her ruff.  Her agitation gradually subsided.  Gretchen cradled her head in her lap.  We sometimes still see her staring off into the distance in one of those thousand yard stares, but less and less.

 

          Katrina is beautiful with black eyeliners, a coat of curly waves of caramel, back-sided with yellow and a nose resembling a big piece of milk chocolate.  Petite is gorgeous, sleek and black and elegant with a nose like a big, fat black olive, and I wonder why anyone would strike her and curse her.  Impotent people strike and curse smaller and weaker creatures because they’re compromised human beings, not fully evolved.  Their impotence is so disabling that their only experience of power is to strike at those who can’t strike back.  The abused are often afraid and terrified of their abusers, but, the fact is that abusers are actually the cowardly weak ones.

 

          Gretchen reassures Petite, enfolding her in her arms, and as I watch, I see the tensions in Petite’s body lessen and relax, enough so that she feels at ease with me.  A drunken male abused her.  It’s disheartening to see a creature cower, but rewarding to see them flower.  Each day as Petite leaves Gretchen’s arms, she comes still closer to me, diffident and hesitant, but still inching closer, sniffing the tips of my fingers.  Katrina and Petite follow Gretchen around like ducklings.

 

As we all know, life is often a series of losses with relocations, deaths, and disputes so it’s always important to attend to our gains.  We’ve gained with Katrina and Petite.  They bring joy and life and love into our lives even though we still step in something now and then.

 

P.S.  Be sure to water the yard during this dry spell, especially the trees.

Copyright © Dana Prom Smith 2014

Dana Prom Smith and Freddi Steele edit Gardening Etcetera for the Arizona Daily Sun.  Smith emails at stpauls@npgcable.com and blogs at http://highcountrygardener.blogspot.com.

         

 

 

 

           

 

THE EYES HAVE IT

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D. (1/9/2014)

 

          The first thing I noticed were the eyes, piercing blue-green, no nonsense eyes, eyes that mean business.  And what better place for those eyes than to head up The Arboretum at Flagstaff.  The Arb has several missions, each with its own advocates, and someone has to allocate its resources to accomplish those various missions. 

 

          Lynne Nemeth’s eyes reveal a complex and single-minded human being.  She hails from Bucks County, Pennsylvania, one of the most charming places in the United States.  She comes from people who were steel workers, farmers, and gardeners with the toughness of blast furnaces and rolling mills and the earthiness of people who till the land, reap its harvests, and turn the harvests into food.

 

          With a master’s degree in music from the University of Maryland, she is amongst other things the cantorial soloist at the local synagogue Heichal Baoranim (Temple in the Pines) which means that she leads the signing and chanting in services of worship.  The skills required of a cantor and those of an executive director are pretty much the same, pulling together different voices and skills into a harmonious union to fulfill a purpose.  As any musician can tell you, conducting voices means dealing not only with the voice but also the person behind the voice.  So the conductor, as with the executive director, deals with organization as well as people.

 

           The big difference between the two is money.  The cantor doesn’t have to raise money, the executive director does.  In short, Nemeth needs the strength of a steel worker and the touch of a gardener.  As we sat down to lunch at Café Daily Fare, she handed me a folder containing various promotional materials and an envelope for contributions and pledges.  She said, “You might like to give something to The Arboretum.”  I thought, “The Arb’s in good hands.”

 

          Nemeth has been associated with “Non Profits” for a long time, really working for “Non-Profits” has been her career, so she understands the need for money.  “Non Profits” need money.  Working for “Non Profits” also means something else.  She has been putting her shoulder to worthwhile wheels, wheels that carry a moral weight.  Her life has counted.

 

          As I listened to her, I concluded that she’s still making her life count as the executive director of The Arboretum whose purpose is “the understanding, appreciation, and conservation of plants and plant communities native to the Colorado Plateau.”  Since Flagstaff sits near the edge of the Plateau, The Arboretum can tell us a lot about where we live.

 

It does two things, research and education and some crossovers between the two.  The research is varied, beginning with collaboration with various governmental agencies and private foundations familiar to Flagstaff. 

 

          As the caretaker of 31 rare and an endangered species and a seed bank for native plants, The Arb is involved in the restoration of the Schultz Fire devastation.

 

It’s participating in the Southwest Experimental Garden Array with NAU by hosting two separate gardens.  By establishing ten different experimental gardens at various altitudes, the project plans to study the effect on the genetics of plants due to various elevations and thereby mimic the possible effects of changes in climate.

 

          Of course, The Arboretum hosts several well known educational programs for both children and adults, such as hikes and camps for children, and bird walks, raptor shows, and wildflower walks for all ages.     

However, it is not all serious stuff.  There are celebrations and festivals for herbs, mushroom*ms, and penstemons along with concerts and wine tastings.  What better way to taste wine and listen to music than in the midst of a beautiful garden?

 

          However, The Arboretum is up to something else.  In partnership with National Weather Station in Bellemont, it’s developing “Flagstaff Habitat Profiles” which will be maps of growing conditions in the Flagstaff area.  These maps will include types of soil, precipitation averages, wind speed and direction, and temperatures.  Now, gardeners will know what’s best, and with The Arb’s knowledge of flora that works in Flagstaff, the maps will make more likely that elusive goal of successful gardening in Flagstaff.

 

          I paid up.  

Copyright © Dana Prom Smith

Dana Prom Smith and Freddi Steele edit Gardening Etcetera for the Arizona Daily News.  Smith emails at stpauls@npgcable.com and blogs at http://highcountrygardener.blogspot.com.

A KINDER, SHAGGIER GARDEN

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D. (12/22/2013)

 

          When we moved to Flagstaff from Southern California 11 years ago, we inquired about landscaping after we’d settled into the house.  With various moves throughout the years, I had developed six gardens from the ground up.  I thought that at 75 I would like someone else do it, especially since I was still recovering from a triple by-pass.  Getting the bids was a mistake.  They were exorbitant, and nearly everyone came with drawing boards, diagrams, T Squares, graph paper, curve templates, and rulers. 

 

Landscaping is an art, and artists don’t start with the tools of mechanical drawing.  They start with imagination and then use the tools.

As Walker Evans said, “Photography isn’t a matter of taking pictures.  It’s a matter of having an eye.”  The camera takes on the personality and character of the photographer.  As with the camera, landscaping begins in the eye.  We recreate ourselves in how and what we see and how and what we fashion.  

 

So I set about developing my seventh garden from the ground up, a decision which helped my recovery.  It has taken eleven years, and it’s still not finished, nor will it ever be.  I once asked an artist friend of mine, the late primitivist painter, Louis Monza, when he knew he had finished a painting.  He replied, “I paint my dreams.  Sometimes, in the middle of the night I’ll jump out of bed to sketch a dream I had so that I wouldn’t forget it and then begin painting it in the morning.  I never finish.  I stop and go on to the next dream.”  Life and painting for him was the space between the beginning and the end, a space for becoming rather than being.   Paraphrasing Heraclitus (540-480 B.C.), “No one can step into the same garden twice.  The garden’s not the same, and the gardener’s not the same.” 

 

Landscaping is a reflection of our environment as well as the creation of our eye.  Often we attempt to force favored plants from our past onto an environment where they won’t thrive.  I tried with a couple of plants but soon realized the futility of it all.  Since our environment is so spectacularly beautiful, I decided to cooperate with the inevitable rather than combat it.  We’re best off taking our cues from flora around us.  As the 17^th century theologian, Jeremy Taylor, said, “If you are in Rome, live in the Roman style: if you are elsewhere live as they live elsewhere.”  

 

In terms of design the late landscape architect, James Van Sweden said, gardens should “move in the breeze and sparkle like stained glass” and “catch the flow of time and wind, of shadows and seasons.”  We landscape for the winter as much as we do for the spring, summer, and autumn. The architecture of a leafless Gambel oak in winter, a ponderosa pine with its boughs laden with snow, a red Oregon grape holly in a field of snow, and a leafless oak etching a steel blue sky, are as much a part of a garden’s landscape as are the burgeoning delights of spring, the lush exuberance of summer, and the deep fluttering colors of autumn.    

 

Better a lawn of native grasses bending to the wind than a flattened lawn with a military buzz cut.  Water-thirsty lawns and their dreadful substitutes, gravel yards, bear no resemblance to the dense green of our forests, the sweep of our meadows, and the crystalline blue of our skies.  Consider for a moment what a gravel front yard reveals of the householder!  The forest, the meadows, and the mountains are shaggy with surprising twists and turns.  Straight lines straiten the imagination while twisting and turning paths draw us beyond what we see and know.  Neat geometrical lines leave no place for our minds to wander beyond our frustrations and limitations allowing us to relax and renew.  It’s the meandering path that leads us beyond. 

 

Happily, at our door we have The Arboretum at Flagstaff (928-774-1442), where gardeners have living resources to help in landscaping their gardens for authenticity in the high country and with fidelity to their eye.       

Copyright © Dana Prom Smith 2014

Dana Prom Smith and Freddi Steele edit Gardening Etcetera for the Arizona Daily Sun.  Smith emails at stpauls@npgcable.com and blogs at http://highcountrygardener.blogspot.com.

GARDENING AS A MEMORY

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D. (10/20/2013)

          Our memories are pretty much what we make of them.  Our histories are recorded in our unconscious process, some so deeply embedded that we can’t recall them.  The stuff of our memories is what we've chosen to remember out of our histories, and those choices are shaped by the meaning we've chosen for ourselves.  Some people select the motif of victimization to guide the creation of their memories.  Others are survivors or prevailers.  Some choose indigations, others fragility or triumphs, and so on.
         
          Saint Augustine (354-430) in his Confessions (10.11.18) makes a similar point, we "gather together ideas which the memory contains in a dispersed and disordered way and by concentraing our attention we arrange them in order" so that they can "easily come forward and are no longer hidden and scattered."  It's called bringing things to mind, but we only bring things to mind that fit the way we have shaped our personalities, be it pilgrim, victor, conniosseur, adventurer, and so forth. 

          Alex Martinez brings things to mind lying in the grass next to a bed of his mother's gladioli.  He remembers the gardens of his childhood, not merely his parent's garden, but also the gardens of his neighbors.  Happily,  his neighborhood was a polyglot of Midwesterners, Italians, Lebanese, and Mexicans so he was blessed with a variety of gardens and kitchens.  The men worked with their hands to earn their money, and since there was not a lot of excess money, they grew much of their own food.

          When Alex gardens, he always has in mind on the gardens of his childhood which means that Alex gardens with joy, if eccentrically.  He grew up in Tucson.  He has a fig tree in one of the rooms in his house.  It just about covers one wall, but he eats fresh figs, right off the tree.

          Now, Alex is no nut case.  He's a retired school superintendant with a doctorate from the University of Arizona and a retired captain from the U.S. Navy.  He remembers his childhood and adolescence gastronomically which is some ways is better that photographically.  When he eats a fig, he remembers the Lebanese family that lived across the street.

          For the most part, the men in his neighhood were World War II veterans and had been trained and educated on the famous G.I. Bill of Rights.  So they were men with stories to tell.  A childhood with story tellers is hard to beat.

          In addition to a fig tree, Alex also has Meyer lemons growing inside his house.  Indeed, one day while hanging out with him, sipping wine and munching on crackers and cheese, a Meyer lemon sat at the head of the breakfast table as though it were a member of the family.  There are other citrus trees placed strategically throughout the house, next to windows with lots of daylight.  His genius is that he sees his house a living greenhouse as well as a domicile.  If, perchanve, one were to visit him and his wife, Lisa, an artist, sooner or later, more likely sooner, Alex would drag the visitor off to his orchard.  In short, Alex is proud of his garden.

         Now, his domiciled garden is only half of it.  Along one side of his house is a small apple orchard with different varities.  With an eye to the future he is allowing them to grow to a certain height before he tops them so that their shape will be akin to that of an umbrella, protecting the nascent blossoms and fruit below.  This way he figures that the apple trees will be less susceptible to the vagaries of Flagstaff"s springtime frosts and freezes.  He figures things out.


          When I first saw his property undeveloped, I despaired for him because he is my friend.  His house sits on a small hillock with a backyard that falls off precipitously, plunging down and then rising again to form a wooded ravine. Rather than letting it go, he has begun building terraces, up and down, for flowers and vegetables.  However, I didn't understand his genius and the depth of his joyful memories.  With his memories, Alex celebrates life in his garden, inside and out.

Copyright (c) Dana Prom Smith 2013

 

Dana Prom Smith and Freddi Steele edit Gardening Etcetera for the Arizona Daily Sun.

 

 

         







      



 

 

 

 

 

WINDOWSILL GARDENING

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D.

 

          Windowsill gardening is one of the bright spots for winter gardeners as well as for year-around foodies.  Without expensive greenhouses, we’re pretty much left with our windowsills during the non-growing seasons in Flagstaff.  This means growing herbs.  Of course, herbs are what make the culinary world go around.

 

          As I puzzled over the best herbs to grow on our sunny windowsills, I decided to consult an expert.  Nancy McCulla of Simply Delicious/Café Daily Fare came to mind.  If anyone were knowledgeable about culinary herbs, it would be a chef.  Perched high above “66”, behind Babbitt’s automobile agency, and up a rutted dirt lane, McCulla holds forth as a premier caterer and daytime restaurateur in a former foundry.   

 

          As I munched on delightful apricot and blueberry tart over a cup of tea, we went through nearly all the herbs that can be grown on a sunny windowsill.  The number is, to be use the dismal vernacular, awesome.   At first, I thought of basil because it’s easy to grow and is universally useful although I’ve never tried it in my oatmeal.  Then cilantro came to mind, but some people, such as Julia Child, object claiming that it smells like soap.  She advised throwing it on the floor.  The best way to cure cilantrophobia is to smash the leaves, releasing an enzyme which dispels the unwanted odor of the aldehydes.  Along with garden cress and fernleaf dill, cilantro needs to be reseeded once harvested. 

           
 

Then four old favorites came to mind, Greek oregano, thyme, parsley, and tarragon.  As we chatted, others tumbled out: chives, marjoram, chervil, English mint, creeping savory, sorrel, lemon grass, parsley, and, of course, fernleaf dill.  Even sage (dwarf garden) and rosemary (Blue Boy) have been downsized for the windowsill and are best propagated by cuttings.

 

          Since most herbs are expatriates from the lands around Mediterranean and Asia, growing on sunny windowsills has its advantages because these herbs require sunlight, warmth, and well-drained soil.  Unglazed clay pots with leak-proof saucers are the best containers for growing herbs because the unglazed clay allows for air circulation and evaporation so that the soil will not be waterlogged, a number one adversary in windowsill container gardening.  Potting soil mixed with a little perlite or sand is usually the best choice for growing herbs because it contains compost and nutrients and won’t become compacted, the enemy of all root systems.

 

          Even though a windowsill may receive lots of light, most of the plants will need at minimum six to eight hours of direct sunlight.  Sometimes additional light is needed.  A fluorescent light set about six to ten inches the plants should be enough for a sunny windowsill.    

 

A little mulch of gravel will help keep the gnats and fruit flies at bay.  If other pests attack a plant, a convenient response is to dunk the whole plant in a bath of insecticidal soap.  As far as fertilizing is concerning, the best and most convenient is fish emulsion, diluted to half-strength every two weeks, except for marjoram and sage.  Organic fertilizer is safest if the herbs are eaten.

 

Some tips: pinch flower buds to keep the plants growing, don’t allow the plants to touch the window glass so that the foliage won’t freeze, and plant herbs with the same cultural environment in a single container, and pinch back branching herbs to keep them bushy.

 

Now, to the point.  Fall and winter are the seasons for stews and soups, slow-cooking, comfort dishes that require herbs and spices to bring them to life.  Also, they’re needed to add vigor to our sauces, such as pomodoro and fish, and various marinades.  Much to my surprise, McCulla said that the herbs and spices should be added toward the end of the slow-cooking because then they’re “like sunshine, waking us up at sunrise.”  In using spices and herbs, her advice was to “be careful, but bold,” which means, I think, “when you’ve got it right, go for it.”  She calls it “ramping up the herbs.”

 

Of course, for those of us in the southwest there is always fresh cilantro to add, as does McCulla, some sass to our fish tacos.      

Copyright © Dana Prom Smith (2013)

Dana Prom Smith and Freddi Steele edit Gardening Etcetera for the Arizona Daily Sun.  Smith emails at stpauls@npgcable.com and blogs at http://highcountrygardener.blogspot.com.

             

 

         

 

                   

GARDENING WITH ELIZABETH DOBRINSKI

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D. (11/5/2013)

 

          Elizabeth Dobrinski heard about the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor on Sunday, December 7, 1941, after ice skating on a frozen pond off Schultz Pass Road.  She’d turned 18 the day before.  This coming December 6, she will turn 90, and she as is as close to being fit as a fiddle as most people half her age. 

 

I told her that I felt old when one of my twin sons retired as a Los Angeles County firefighter and paramedic.  She put her head in her hands, laughing, and said, “How about a grandchild?  That’s when you really feel old.”  Her grandson, Clinton, is a retired firefighter and paramedic from Sedona. 

 

Elizabeth comes from pioneer stock with two homesteads in her family’s history.  Her maternal grandparents, the Andersons, homesteaded out Fort Valley Road in 1883, where her grandfather, William, nicknamed “Spud,” grew potatoes.  He and his wife, Lorinda, lived at first with three children in a one room cabin without a stove.  Lorinda cooked over a campfire outside.  A city girl from Los Angeles, she wasn’t fond of Flagstaff.   

 

Her father, William Wallace, and his wife, Ethel, homesteaded out at Mormon Lake in 1909.  He was a farmer, cattle rancher, firefighter, and forest ranger in addition to being one of Teddy Roosevelt’s “Rough Riders” during the Spanish American War (1898).  The homestead is still in the family.  One of her sons, John and his wife, Sharon, live on the land in a large, hand-wrought log house.

 

Along with her late husband, Maurice, who was superintendant of mails at the Flagstaff Post Office, she raised four other children.  One son, Daniel, is a cook at the Marble Canyon Lodge near Lee’s Ferry.  Another son, David, died of brain cancer at the age of 44.  Her daughter, Lorinda, and her husband, Tom, both now retired, live in Phoenix where he was an engineer with ADOT and she was an accountant.

 

          She says, “By the time I could walk and follow someone around, I was playing in the dirt.”  It was her favorite pastime in addition to building streets, passes, and tunnels in the mud with the boys down the street.  Loving to play in the dirt and mud as a child is perhaps the best training for gardeners because a gardener had better love the feeling of dirt.  She also rode horse bare-back before she rode saddle.  She says she was a tomboy.

 

          When her parents moved to Flagstaff, they lived near the city park during a time when there were Pow Wows and cattle would often trample their garden.  Most of the streets weren’t paved. 

 

          One thing that separates pioneers from people today is the source of fresh vegetables.  The pioneers grew them while people today buy them.  There were grocery stores, but they were mostly stocked with canned goods and food that could be either dried or milled.  As a scion of pioneers, Elizabeth kept on gardening, eventually building a 12 by 20 foot solar heated greenhouse where they grew their vegetables.

Sad to say, her tomatoes were “puny” this year.

 

          One of her proudest achievements is growing all the flowers, including gladioli, pink and white stock, for her daughter’s wedding at the Federated Church.

               

          Elizabeth wasn’t home-bound.  Indeed, she says that her grandmother, Lorinda, was “a women’s libber before her time.”  It rubbed off on Elizabeth.  In addition to raising her children, being a wife, keeping a home, and gardening, she had a career, beginning at what would become the Arizona Daily Sun then at the Northland Press for nine years where she says that “book publishing was fun.”  During her time at Northland Press, she became a member of Soroptomist International of Flagstaff where she is a life member.

 

          Since Flagstaff was a small town, she knew everyone in town, including the Colton’s and the Danson’s of the Museum of Northern Arizona.  After leaving Northland Press, she became Edward (Ned) Danson’s secretary for 17 years, retiring in 1988.  She says all of her jobs were “fun” which may be the reason she’s turning ninety and on the lookout for something to strike her fancy.      

Copyright © Dana Prom Smith 2013

Dana Prom Smith and Freddi Steele edit Gardening Etcetera for the Arizona Daily Sun.  Smith emails at stpauls@npgcable.com and blogs at http://highcountrygardener.blogspot.com.

                

 

           

THE EXCELLENCE OF THE FRESH

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D. (9/22/2013)

 

          Now that the growing season has kissed Flagstaff goodbye, it’s time to pay attention to Karna Otten who wants everyone to have access to farm-fresh fruits and vegetables during the non-growing seasons.  It’s a simple proposition.  Three days a week (Thursday, Friday, & Saturday) she sells fresh fruits and vegetables along with some meats and preserves.  She actually does it all year because many of the horticulturally challenged, read black thumb, savor a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables throughout the year.  Also, for those of us, the divinely favored, who grow our own vegetables during the summer, it’s nice to buy our fresh fruits and vegetables all year long right after they’ve been picked.  We’ve grown accustomed to the excellence of the fresh.

 

          Otten’s genius is a fusion connecting local farmers with consumers.  As everyone knows, nearly all of the produce purchased in supermarkets is second or third hand.  The consumer doesn’t know where it comes from or how it’s grown, much less who grows it. Witness the recalls of bagged salads.  Otten’s local farmers are nearby and available.

 

          With Otten’s program the consumer can talk directly to the farmer, much like my father and mother driving out into the San Fernando Valley in the 1930’s to buy their vegetables and fruits.  At that time, San Fernando Valley was a valley of farms, plots, orchards, and groves.  One time a farmer sliced a watermelon with a knife he had just used to slice a grasshopper.  My mother indignantly insisted on another watermelon.  We’ve lost that connection with the earthiness of life.  In an industrialized commercial society, Otten wants to bring back that connection.

 

          Through Otten’s organization, Community Supported Agriculture, consumers sign up to buy fresh produce from the farmers.  This way the farmers can plant the number of crops needed.  Also, the consumer will know who grows the fruits and vegetables and how they’re grown.  When we put something in our mouths, we’re better off knowing what it is.

 

          Even though industrialized agriculture now uses such words as “organic” and “sustainable” in their advertising, the words along with other politically correct words have lost their meaning.  Once a word becomes correct, it has become a substitute for thought and meaning.  The issue is not who can advertize using those meaningless words, but the origins of the produce.  If we know the farm and the farmer, we’re a lot closer to authenticity in our food.

 

          For the first time in years, the number of farms is increasing rather than decreasing which is a good sign for the health of the nation.   A part of the reason is that consumers are demanding fresher and safer produce from local farmers which means more farmers.  The tide is beginning to turn from mega-industrialized farms to local farms and locally grown produce.   

 

          One way to test the quality of food in a restaurant is to find out from whom and where the produce comes.  If the restaurateur doesn’t know, then we don’t know what we’re putting in our mouths.  In addition to that, we can assume that if the restaurateur doesn’t know the whence and whom, the food will not taste as good as food made with fresh produce.  A taste test will do, and the best place to start is with the snap beans and tomatoes.  All the customer has to do is ask.  If the restaurateur is baffled or non-plussed by the question, we have our answer.  Caveat Emptor.  Buyer Beware. 

 

          Otten isn’t only concerned about the authenticity of the consumer’s produce but also about those who can’t afford it.  She gives those buying from our local farmers the opportunity to give a little more so that those on food stamps can also buy fresh produce.  Jesus said, “As you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.”  An act of mercy is the ultimate act of authenticity.

 

          Karna Otten can be reached at (928) 213-8948 and flagcsa@gmail.com for the excellence of the fresh.  Her web site is www.flagcsa.com.  The address is 116 West Cottage Avenue, Flagstaff. 

 

Copyright © Dana Prom Smith 2013

Dana Prom Smith and Freddi Steele edit Gardening Etcetera for the Arizona Daily Sun in which this article appeared on 10/12/2013.  Smith’s email address is stpauls@npgcable.com, and he blogs at http://highcountrygardener.blogspot.com.