This Month in Gourmet Magazine

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At some point, TreeHugger may become superfluous, as the ideas we promote become completely mainstream. An example of this might be Gourmet Magazine, where the July edition starts with Elizabeth Royte (of Garbage Land fame) writing about a stay at Maverick Farms. It offers a vacation on a working farm, operated by Tom Philpott, who also writes about food for Grist. "All small farmers have to work outside the farm" Philpott says. 93% of American farm households "have negative farm operating profits and draw most of their income from off-farm sources."

Elizabeth and family spend a week, work hard, sleep well, eat better. Agri-tourism is growing "with the white collar urbanite's false nostalgia for manual labour;" It sounds wonderful. ::Maverick Farms

Also in the issue was "Against the Grain" by Steven Johnson: "Civilization wa sbuilt on an annual wheat crop. But a few visionary thinkers say it's time to break the habit." (interview with author online here) and a lovely paean to, guess what, local food. "Leave the chill of the supermarket behind and gather your meal at a farm stand, where the produce tastes of the sun and of fertile fields that stretch as far as the eye can see." or at least to the approaching subdivisions. ::Gourmet Magazine