An Unexpected Accolade

My friends and family know better than to go to a farmers' market or food event with me, because I'll end up seeing people I know and chatting about "the latest this or did you hear that" until they want to pull their hair out and run screaming from the scene. Just the other day a friend and I were wandering through the Eat Oregon Now event, a pre-Christmas show of local producers and makers showcasing their food and food-related wares.

I got in a conversation with Lyf Gildersleeve about his essay on seafood trade wars and we got talking about the farm bill that was about to be voted on—my friend had wisely wandered off by this point—when he pulled out a little booklet from Earl Blumenauer. Titled "The Fight for Food: Why You Deserve a Better Farm Bill," it distills the complexities of this massive piece of legislation down into bite-sized pieces easily digestible for we normal folk.

It begins: "The Farm Bill is a law that helps determine: what we eat; how and where it's grown; and how we take care of the land it's grown in" with the purpose "to provide adequate food for the country, ensure fair prices for farmers and consumers, and protect the land." It then segues into a description of how it got from this original simple premise to "become distorted and distracted…giving too much to the wrong people to grow the wrong food in the wrong places." (You can get your own copy for a donation of $3.)

My point? In the back of the booklet is a collection of publications where you can learn more, listing books by acclaimed authors Dan Barber, Michael Pollan, Anna Lappé and Mark Bittman, along with websites like Civil Eats, Slow Food, the Food & Environment Reporting Network and the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition blog.

The last item on the list? Good Stuff NW, the very blog you are reading right now. To say I was blown away to have it included on this list of some of the most important food folks in the country is the understatement of the decade. Holy moly!

What can I say but thanks, Earl, I'm honored. And here's to carrying on the fight for good food!