12 August 2010

Lemon basil, Rhodos frisee endive, Lincoln leeks, Lettuce, Varsity onion, Peppers, Nicola potatoes, Squash, Tomatoes, Cherry tomatoes

I have long been puzzled by an oddity of human development. Small children generally lack the capacity to figure out and communicate their basic needs. They know when something is bothering them. Apparently, however, deciding exactly what is causing the unhappiness or how to deal with the problem is someone else’s task. The child’s job is simply to make a big fuss until an adult can guess what he wants and give it to him, though sometimes by then he has gone far enough into a fit that satisfying the need no longer satisfies.

You might think that learning as fast as possible not only to assess your basic desires, but also to make them clear to those who could satisfy them might convey an advantage. The hungry kid who quickly realizes he needs food and asks for it clearly ought to survive best. Making an unpleasant racket that could equally signify hunger, sleepiness, gas, boredom, pain, itchiness, frustration, fear or a powerful dislike of peas seems like a bad strategy. And yet it is the human way, and you have to exert considerable effort to break kids of the habit.

I’d like to think that growing up consists to a large extent of getting over undifferentiated helplessness. Having two kids, however, has made clear to me just how thin a veneer of adulthood we have. Sure, we don’t generally bawl every time we feel a pang of hunger or the need to urinate—and most of us can reasonably reliably tell the difference between those two sensations. But we get irritable when we need food or sleep or cannot figure out how to assemble a stupid pair of training wheels. And if we can by and large rein in the yen to have a tantrum over simple things well within our power to solve, we seem far less capable of doing so in the face of larger problems.

The top 0.1% of Americans earn as much as the bottom 120 million and we have a fit about illegal immigrants. Given the chance to improve a health care system that routinely fails us, we take to the streets in Minuteman costumes to insist the President is actually Kenyan. Corporate America, in its eternal quest for productivity and profits, places ever greater strains on our private lives and we rally to outlaw gay marriage. Bankers pillage the economy and we grouse about excessive regulation destroying private enterprise. After 234 years of lording it over everyone else, white guys sulk about the terrible racist oppression they face every day. We commit torture, wage preemptive war, alter the climate, sell our political system to the highest bidder, let our bridges fall apart, ignore the needs of the neediest, let the government infringe on our basic rights, and we are up in arms about sexual predators, teenage drinking, the temporary discomfort of airline passengers and mosques in Manhattan.

I admit that reducing income inequality or funding urgent infrastructure projects presents more of a challenge than getting a snack or lying down for a nap. But that hardly justifies our petulance, our aimless outbursts, our juvenile desire to make someone else pay for our pain. We are in a bad mood with good reason. But having a fit instead of figuring out and facing up to what’s wrong does not appear to be solving anything. There are no caring grownups standing by to patiently assess our actual wants and provide what we need—and at this point no reason to believe that even if there were we would pay them any heed. We are beyond reason, longing, it turns out, to do nothing more than curse, grab a beer and take the inflatable slide to celebrity.

Before going any further, I recommend we all sit down, shut up and have a tasty, nutritious snack. There’s nothing like a ripe tomato to soothe frayed nerves. Well, maybe a good salad or some crunchy roast potatoes or grilled squash and leeks with a roast pepper and cherry tomato salsa or a stiff bourbon and lemon basil syrup cocktail. That’s right, a cocktail. Not part of your average fractious kid’s reviving snack, but then we aren’t kids anymore. And if adulthood turns out to be more enervating than we expected, at least it gives us the right to have a drink.

Once we are feeling calm again we will be ready to tackle important questions, such as which tomato variety tastes best. We planted 30 kinds this year. This Saturday around noon we will find ripe examples of as many as possible—I am hoping at least a few of the small fuzzy Wapsipinicon Peaches are ready by then—and have a tomato tasting. All you have to do is come to the farm and decide which tomato you like the most. And while you are here you can also pick a few sunflowers, try a husk cherry, dig potatoes, check on the progress of the winter squash, pull onions, look for frogs in the ponds, go for a walk in the woods, meet the farm crew, swap recipes with other members, and of course have a snack—and a nap too if you want.

Coming to the farm also gives you the chance to return your empty box in person and receive our gratitude for that directly. Of course, you can also just take the box back to your site so we can pick it up on the next delivery day. Either way is fine with us. As long as the boxes keep coming back we are happy.