Here's to real Autumn weather and real food!

I remember feeling cheated by fall as a kid. School was in full session, the city pools closed for the season, and paper pumpkins and autumn leaves adorned the open windows and doors of my classroom--doors and windows open because it was 93 degrees outside. It wasn't enough that the discord between the visual cues of decorative hay bales and swimming weather felt deceptive to my 8-year-old little brain, but that clothing stores also seemed to follow that same crazy logic. Gray wool trousers and button-down-shirts deemed as "in season clothing" didn't cut it in ice cream and watermelon weather, no matter what reality manufacturing and sales tried to apply.

In college, I had the same disappointing realization about food. Food, as I knew it at the time, was not what it seemed. To make a very long story short, an affair with A Tomato is what tipped me off. And who here hasn't experienced the disappointment of a supermarket tomato? Even worse, who here has but didn't know at the time to be disappointed? Always available, beautiful in the market with its shiny, taut skin and bright red color--what's not to love? Oh, the flavor. Does bland and grainy count as a flavor? But the store was selling the tomato. The signs said "delicious, vine-ripened tomatoes!" Nothing indicated that the tomato was bred to withstand shipping, rather than bred to taste delicious. Oh, but wait, it was suppose to be delicious. Delicious can be a relative term, but I think you have to draw the line at some point. Point being when the tomato doesn't taste like a tomato. And then there's the tomato's long drive across the country (California tomatoes in Missouri, in August!!). What was I paying for, really, and did any of it make sense?

That reality of not even knowing what we deserve from our food with regards to quality, source and safety is most disturbing to me. Our odds as informed and deserving consumers have improved over the past few years because of the recent surge of interest in the environment, obesity and food safety, but there is still that discrepancy between what authorities say our food is (safe? organic?) and our expectations (how safe is they're definition of safe? what does it mean to be labeled organic?) . This is why Lucinda, and farmers/food suppliers like Lucinda, are so important. They are the people who are there loading hogs at 3am for processing and can explain why happy pigs are so important just before they are harvested. They are the experts on the phone, constantly trying to find us a good deal with organic produce, and who can tell us "Hey, that peach, it's not so organic and here's why." Sometimes, they are the people who give us the answers to questions we never knew to ask. For them, transparency in growing practices is the rule, not the exception.

So, here I am. And who am I, you might ask? No one in particular, really. I was a customer of Clark's Organic Market for over a year before Lucinda "Went Farm." Like you, I'm here because I support Lucinda and her purpose, as well as enjoy the food she once distributed, and now grows. I thought it would be interesting to bring a consumer perspective, and admittedly, have my vicarious yearnings for my own farm (currently not a practical endeavor) addressed through real news and real experiences from the Clark Farm.

Here's to Autumn weather and real food! No fake tomatoes allowed!
Jennifer Basuel