Unless you’re on a media blackout, I suspect you know that today would have been Julia Child’s 100th birthday. She lived a long life–she died nine years ago at 91 years of age–and I have to admit to shedding a few tears for her even though I never knew her personally–because she is one of my greatest influences.

She found her path, and nothing deterred her once she began moving forward. She just kept forging her way, guided by passion and love, and in doing so, changed the way Americans view food, cooking and eating forever.

Without Julia, I doubt there would be locavores.

The Slow Food movement would undoubtedly have started in Italy, but would it have come to America if we hadn’t been schooled by Julia? Maybe not.

And I doubt that there would be as many women in professional kitchens today if we hadn’t all grown up seeing Julia cook her heart out on television before God and everybody.

God bless her–we need more like her. (And truly, I think we have many, many more like her, following in her footsteps each and every day. People learning to grow, cook, eat and preserve good food seem to be popping up everywhere like porcini mushrooms after a rainstorm.)

To celebrate, PBS put together a video–”Julia Remixed.”

Here it is, so we can all celebrate together.

And remember: “Life itself is the proper binge.”

As we all know around here, I love beans. (They are the magical fruit, right?)

When I met Zak, he told me he didn’t like beans. I was like, “What?” But then, I quickly understood–he had never had them except out of a can, and if there is something that might well make someone dislike beans, it’s those mushy, flavorless critters that come out of cans masquerading as beans. It doesn’t matter what kind of bean they say they are, or what color they are, most of them taste the same–blah. Kinda mealy, kinda mushy, very yucky.

So, I proceeded to cook him a pot of proper pinto beans, made the old hillbilly way with a ham hock (I can feel the vegetarians wincing, but well, beans taste mighty good that way and I wanted to make sure to hook him before I went all vegetarian on him) a bay leaf, an onion and a garlic clove and lots of water which turns into a delicious bean broth that was always my favorite part of beans when I was a kid. Mother thought I was weird, but I liked to drink a cup of it right out of the pot, I liked it so well. (I did the same with the liquid kale is simmered in, too–she told my doctor about it and he said, “Let her do it! That’s where most of the vitamins have escaped to!)

Well, needless to say, Zak was converted, and we’ve had lots of beans in our pantry ever since.

Recently, I’ve been keeping Athens very own Shagbark Seed & Mill Company’s black turtle beans in my pantry and have been using them for all sorts of purposes–as a plain old pot of beans, drained and used to top nachos, in salsas, in tacos and in enchiladas. And they are mighty good, no, not just good, but delicious, with a nice chew to the skins with creamy, sweet interiors. And they make fine broth.

And I’ve heard tell that Michelle and Brandon are offering pinto beans this fall after they get harvested–glory hallelujah, and praise be! I’m waiting impatiently to taste those, because when I was growing up, pinto beans and cornbread were a big favorite, especially in the late fall or winter. I never tired of them, even when we ate them a whole lot when Dad was laid off for a year and we went from “somewhat impoverished” to “downright poor.” Even eating them several times a week didn’t dampen my enthusiasm for them. Pintos are just that good, and I cannot wait to taste ones fresh from the field, because I know they’ll be better than the ones from the store which could have been hanging around for who knows how long.

BUT, you know, a reader named Laughingrat commented when I wrote about Shagbark’s black beans and clued me into a company that grows and sells heirloom varieties of dried beans out in California, called Rancho Gordo.

And you know how I am. I looked at their website, and saw all the beautiful beans in all their glorious colors: yellow, red, purple, black, piebald black and white or brown and white, streaked, spotted and speckled, pink, and celedon green–and of course, I was smitten. I’m a sucker for colors, and even though I knew darned good and well that when you cook dried beans most of those luscious pigments melt away and you end up with beans in some shade of creamy beige or brown, I couldn’t help it–I had to know if these beans were indeed any more special than the ones that came from the grocery store.

Steve Sando, the owner of Rancho Gordo and the Guru of Legumes, writes eloquent descriptions of the flavors and textures of the different legumes he offers in his online catalog and at his retail outlet in Napa, as well as in San Francisco, and his words haunted me. Because, I just had to know if his beans were just as good as the beans grown here in Athens.

So, I ordered a couple of pound packages for myself and a full dozen packages as a Father’s Day gift for Zak’s dad, Karl. (Karl is a bean aficionado, just like me.)

And, I finally got around to testing out three of the varieties from Rancho Gordo: “Pebbles,” which is a fascinating bean in that from the same plant come beans of all different shades of brown, pinkish beige, black and yellow, “Yellow Indian Woman,” which is widely grown among the Native American tribes in the northern plains (though it was originally brought to Montana by a Swedish family) and “Eye of the Goat,” which looks like a very fat, rounded, glossy pinto bean.

And here’s what I found out–Sando’s beans from Rancho Gordo have the same qualities of freshness that I found in Shagbark’s beans. They cook slightly faster than grocery store dried beans, probably because they’ve not been sitting in a warehouse for years on end. They also have more flavor–a LOT more flavor–and each type has a different character. And, finally–their textures are more varied than most grocery store beans–each type of bean has a distinctive texture–just as the black beans from Shagbark had tougher skins, but very creamy interiors, which led to them being paradoxically both slightly chewy and yet melting in the mouth.

I cooked all three types the same–in a pot with a bay leaf, a small amount of smoked pork (a small hunk of ham hock), a small whole onion and a whole clove of garlic. Then, I used each one in several ways to see how versatile they were in the context of different recipes.

The first one I cooked was “Pebbles.” You know I had to see what they were like, because they really do look like a bunch of river-polished stones. If you drilled holes in these beans and strung them up, they’d look like a necklace of agate beads–they really are that pretty, as you can see from the photo. (Maybe I should attempt to string some of them into a bracelet, if not a necklace.)

I used the cooked, drained beans to top nachos made with Shagbark’s amazing corn tortilla chips and some really lovely aged cheddar, and Kat and Zak and I loved them. Kat proclaimed them the “bestest bean nachos ever,” and Zak said that the beans had a slightly sweet flavor that was interesting.

Also, I noticed that while the differences between the colors of the cooked beans was not as startling as with the raw beans, they still showed subtle variations that made them look pretty neat on the plate.

I also ended up using these in a taco filling and as the filling to some vegetarian enchiladas that included grilled corn cut from the cobs and summer squash, and even in those contexts, the beans retained their sweet flavor and textural character.

The next beans I cooked were the “Yellow Indian Woman” beans, but I neglected to take photographs of them, either before or after they were cooked. They start out as ovoid brownish yellow beans and cook up to a pale pinkish brown. Their skins are somewhat tough so they retain their shape very well, even when cooked in a pressure cooker. Their flavor is distinctly earthy and sweet, and when I made them into refried beans, they had a silky, creamy texture that Kat and I adored.

Zak liked them, too, but he prefers the beans I cooked today to use in a refried bean dip to go with my salsa for a potluck at Kat’s preschool.

These beauties are known as “Ojo de Cabra,” or, “Eye of the Goat,” and at first glance they don’t look all that special. I mean, yeah, they’re pretty, but really they look like really pinto beans that went on an eating binge and are about to burst their skins, they’ve gained so much weight from all their gobbling.

But they don’t taste like pintos. They have a very fresh, sweet flavor with a hint of mushroomy depth. Steve Sando says likes to cook them simply and then serve them with some grated raw onion and a squeeze of lime juice and a bit of salt. You can see my version pictured in the blue bowl near the top of this post–I diced the onions finely instead of grating them, added minced cilantro along with the salt and a sprinkle of Aleppo pepper flakes just before the lime juice squeeze.

And you know what–that makes a fine bowl of beans. And it showcases the very meaty texture of the Goat Beans as I’ve come to call them. That’s what I ate for lunch today.

But for the potluck tonight, I mashed the beans and fried them with fresh onion and garlic in a bit of bacon fat melted with olive oil, and Zak said he absolutely loved the fuller, deeper texture of these beans to the creaminess of the “Yellow Indian Woman” beans. He said that the texture was firmer and a bit drier, but it made the beans taste somehow nutty in addition to just plain good.

So now we have a new favorite refried bean bean.

That is, until Shagbark’s pintos come in.

Then, we’ll see whose beans come out on top.

Until then, let it be known that I highly approve of the heirloom beans Sando is offering through Rancho Gordo–and while I’m at it–his two books, The Rancho Gordo Heirloom Bean Grower’s Guide: Steve Sando’s 50 Favorite Varieties and Heirloom Beans: Great Recipes for Dips and Spreads, Soups and Stews, Salads and Salsas, and Much More from Rancho Gordo are downright awesome, too.

Both are filled, cover to cover, with bean lore, cultivation information, recipes, and description of the individual characteristics and flavors of a whole array of heirloom beans, and are equally filled to the brim with Sando’s very infectious leguminous enthusiasm. Both books are well worth checking out, though the second book is more a cookbook that is geared toward foodies, while the first has essential bean cultivation information, as well as descriptions of the beans, their histories and a few recipes featuring them that aren’t included in the first second book.

So there we are–check out Rancho Gordo and see what you think of their heirloom beans–because they really are just that good.

Now, I’m going to stop writing and wait impatiently for Shagbark’s pinto beans to be ready to harvest…..

I love food magazines.

Well, let me clarify: I love the idea of food magazines, though the reality of them usually don’t stand up to my own preconceived–and some would say idiosyncratic–notions of what a periodical about food and cooking should be. Back when I was the editor for “The Paper Palate” which is a now defuct blog in a series of networked food blogs (The Well Fed Network) that covered food in the paper media which included newspapers and magazines, I -had- to read a lot of food magazines. A LOT of them–many of which I would not normally pick up and glance through, much less read.

I mean, really–can any of you regular readers see me willingly pick up “Cooking With Paula Deen” unless circumstances forced me into it? (Circumstances being that I had to “review” the magazine and I was being paid to do so. Not paid enough–no one could pay me enough to look through that magazine more than one or two times in my life. Ugh.) Or how about “Every Day With Rachael Ray?” Rachael Ray–the woman who has put her name on a special “Garbage Bowl,” that you need to buy to use to put scraps in while you’re cooking. (Look–just use a frickin’ regular bowl, people. Or a counter-top compost bin. Or toss it in your sink if you have a disposal. Anything that you have around, for jeebus’ sake–but don’t go and buy a bowl because Rachael “designed” it to hold garbage! Ai ya!)

Well, it should be obvious to most readers that I’m not going to like either of the aforementioned magazines, and not just on principle, but because there’s nothing for me in either of them, but look, I don’t even like the venerable and beloved Cook’s Illustrated. When I was first really learning my cooking chops, I bought the magazine, but a few things started to bug me after a couple of years. One was the superior and somewhat condescending tone of the writers and the editor when they talked about their “best” recipes. The second thing that started getting under my skin was the fact that they started repeating recipes–they’d do a “best” recipe for brownies one year and then a couple of years later, do another “best” recipe for brownies. How many “best” recipes for pot roast do we need in the world? Or chocolate chip cookies. And, how can two different recipes both be the “best” recipes for any given dish?

What finally tossed me over the edge into an eternal loathing of Cook’s Illustrated was the way that the writers and editors treated Asian recipes–which is to say they wrote in a condescending, and culturally insensitive manner about cuisines that they really didn’t know diddly-squat about and I did. And that, my friends torqued my gizzard so badly that I wrote a big long rant about it and has kept me from reading the magazine (or watching their television shows) ever since.

So, I’ve fessed up–I don’t like very damned many cooking magazines. I love “Fine Cooking,” because they actually teach technique in addition to recipes and when they feature recipes from other cultures, they don’t play stupid games like suggesting substituting dill pickles from Safeway for Sichuan pickled vegetable. Instead, Fine Cooking’s authors and editors treat each recipe and cuisine with the respect they deserve, recognizing that food is one of the ways people from every culture define and share their innermost, cultural selves.

And Gastronomica is a pretty awesome read, though it can get way cerebral at times, more so than even I, an intellectual elitist, can bear. But its still fun, enlightening and thought-provoking, with lovely illustrations.

(There are other food magazines that I like, but I’m not going to go into them all right now–if you want to know the others I like, ask in the comments section.)

So, you get the picture, right? I’m a hard-nosed, cranky, jaded and apologetically picky reader when it comes to food magazines, and now that I don’t have to write about them all the time, I can read them or not as I please.

Which brings us to the subject of our post today–the new quarterly food journal from Momofuku’s obsessive, outre and outspoken chef, David Chang, “Lucky Peach.”

Have I eaten in one of Chang’s restaurants?

No.

Have I read about him?

Yes.

Have I read his cookbook?

Yes.

Do I like what I read?

Oh, yes.

Chang is one of those people whose obsessions run along parallel to my own, and so I feel a kinship with him. He seeks deep flavors, rich flavors that speak not only to the belly, but to the heart and mind of his diners. He’s constantly searching for ways to communicate these flavors to the wider world and bring cultural understanding by culinary means.

And, he just bloody well likes a damned good bowl of noodles.

So, he has restaurants, right? But he wants to reach folks who don’t eat at his restaurants. So, what does he do?

He starts a magazine, which he names after his first restaurant. (Momofuku means, “lucky peach.”) Actually, originally, the project was going to be a television show, but then that turned into an iPad app (which I don’t think is available yet, but when it is, I’ll be looking into it), and the idea of a quarterly journal came about. And then, some great writers came on board, including Peter Meehan, Harold McGee, Anthony Bourdain and Ruth Reichl, and some great-looking “outsider” style art and photography were tossed into the mix along with stylish but readable graphic design and out came a food magazine that by damned–even the bitchy old culinary nerd here likes.

Yeah, I liked it.

It’s not pretentious, the writing is fresh, new and not too hip to function. Perfectly good, but socially improper Anglo-Saxon words are sprinkled throughout which doesn’t bother me at all, because I’ve worked in quite a few kitchens in my time and I know exactly how chefs and line cooks talk. (“Colorful” does not even begin to describe the language of the restaurant kitchen.) There’s lots of drinking, laughing and bragging in these pages, but also deep wisdom on what exactly a dish of noodles should be and mean.

Oh, yeah, noodles. The first issue is all about ramen. Yeah, ramen. Not just the instant ones (though they are present and accounted for therein), but bowl upon bowl of the hand made ones cranked out and slurped up in little dives and airy restaurants and smoky joints all over Japan and now the world. It was the topic of ramen that made me pick up this first issue, and it was the article by Ruth Reichl on the topic of the instant noodles that made me keep the magazine in hand and pay for it.

Look–take it from me–it’s a great read from cover to cover. It will make you think, laugh out loud and most importantly, hungry.

There is no higher praise for a food magazine than that.

But wait! There’s more.

Recipes! What’s a food magazine or journal without recipes? (Gastronomica. Though, to be fair, they have recipes now and again, too.)

Anyway, there will be no “best” recipe for brownies to be seen in Lucky Peach. Nor any super-quickie 25 minute meals. Nope. Instead you get cool (and admittedly somewhat esoteric) stuff like a recipe for proper home made alkaline ramen noodles. (Don’t know what those are? Read Harold McGee’s article about them on page 82.) Pork belly and pork shoulder cooked so they can be sliced and served with ramen. The until now unpublished recipe for Momofuku’s ramen broth, v. 2.0.

And, some really weird recipes using instant ramen noodles that I’m not too sure about, but not every recipe in every magazine has to be a winner. Besides, these instant ramen recipes are pretty fun to read if not eat.

Go out, now and pick up a copy, sit down and feed your head, heart and belly on the words and pictures therein. Even if you’re not as picky a reader as I am, I bet you’ll still like Lucky Peach.

What happens in Orlando if you go against the city ordinance against feeding more than twenty-five homeless people at a time in a public park?

You go to jail. Go directly to jail, do not pass “Go,” do not collect two hundred dollars.

What do I think about this state of affairs?

I think that this law, and others like it are not only unjust, but immoral and downright un-American.

I’m also damned glad I don’t live in Florida, where it’s not only illegal to feed the poor, but whose governor just signed the most ridiculous law in the world, which bans wearing of baggy pants that show your underwear in public schools. You know, if I lived in Florida and was in the government, I might be more worried about the 10.8 percent unemployment rate and might be looking at legislation on a local and state level to do something about that instead of punishing altruism toward the impoverished and kids wearing baggy pants. But you see why I’m not a public official–I’m a compassionate, logical person who understands that it’s more important for people to have food in their bellies and jobs than pants that are pulled up to their armpits.

Yeah, get ready folks, I’m on a tear here. If you can’t abide a liberal looking at injustice and crying foul, then I highly suggest you just skip today’s post, because I am gonna call out the truth on people who pass laws like this. And it just might get you a little steamed.

So consider yourselves given fair warning.

So, what’s gotten me all riled up then?

Well, it seems that several cities around our once fair nation, confronted by the results of our flailing economy, which includes an influx of jobless and homeless people, have decided to wage war not only on these relatively helpless individuals, but also on those who would extend charity to them.

According to a report from CBS news in 2007, cities such as Dallas, Texas, Fort Myers, Fla., Gainesville, Fla., Wilmington, N.C., and Atlanta, George all have passed laws restricting or outright prohibiting the feeding of the homeless. Another law in Fairfax County, Va., prohibits the distribution of homemade meals and meals made in church kitchens to the homeless unless first approved by the county. This insidious law is said to be “protecting the homeless” from unsafe food, but really, it is restricting a citizen’s right to care for other citizens.

Las Vegas went even further by banning the giving of food to even ONE indigent person in any city park!

As you can see from the date of the above cited report, this war against the homeless in the US is not new. It’s been going on for years now, so why am I just now getting hot under the collar?

Because I just happened to read this news story published yesterday about three members of Food Not Bombs arrested in Orlando yesterday for violating the unjust law banning the feeding of over 25 homeless people at a time in the city park without a permit. Permits are only given to any group for two feeding days a year. TWO feeding days a year.

So, I guess for the rest of the 363 days, those homeless folks can just go eat cake or some such nonsense?

This law is unjust. This law goes against our rights to peacefully assemble, of free speech and freedom of religion.

This law is not only unjust it is downright immoral, and not just from a Christian perspective. It is immoral from a Buddhist, Muslim, Jewish, B’hai, Hindu and Neo Pagan perspective. It is immoral from a humanist perspective. It is immoral from a just plain old human rights perspective.

Oh, hell, I’m just going to spit it out–it’s evil, plain and simple.

Punishing people for being homeless is evil, pure and simple. Sure, some people might choose to be homeless or poor, (I generally do not believe this, but there are some studies that show that some mentally ill homeless people do not accept help even when offered) but in this economy, the vast majority of people who are hungry and homeless today are because of circumstances beyond their control. Penalizing them for trying to get by the best that they can is inhumane.

Penalizing citizens who would lend a helping hand to their fellow citizens is just as shamefully cruel, unjust and goes against what I believe to be the spirit of America.

What do I think should be done about laws like this?

In addition to challenging these laws in court the way that various groups such as the ACLU is doing, I think that a tactic that was used during the Civil Rights Movement should be employed.

Have you ever heard of the Freedom Riders? They were a group of black and white men and women, primarily college students, though there were ministers and older people involved as well, who challenged segregation in public interstate bus terminals which had been outlawed in the 1960 US Supreme Court decision Boynton vs. Virginia. Even though state laws that allowed segregation of these facilities had been outlawed by this ruling, in 1961, many southern states still enforced segregation in interstate bus facilities, going against federal mandate.

On May 4, 1961, the first Freedom Ride left Washington DC and was to arrive in New Orleans by May 17th. That first group of riders never did make it to their intended destination, because in Anniston, Alabama, on May 14th, Mother’s Day, the bus was attacked by a mob. Tires were slashed, and later, the bus was firebombed. When the Freedom Riders fled the burning bus, they were physically attacked and beaten, some with pipes and cudgels. The police did nothing to stop the mob, and in fact, did not arrive–just as they had conspired with the mob–until the mob had dispersed.

More violence came in Alabama, so the original Freedom Riders stopped their action and returned home. In response, new Freedom Riders, many of them from Nashville, Tennesse and led by a young woman named Diane Nash, started another freedom ride on May 17th. More violence occurred–obviously, I am condensing the events for brevity–and in Mississippi, the Freedom Riders were arrested and jailed at the Mississippi State Penitentiary, known as “Parchman Farm.”

The response among Civil Rights activists around the country was electric.

They began coming from all across the country, riding down to Mississippi in order to be arrested for violating an unjust and illegal law. They intended to, and did, fill all the local jails in Jackson, Mississippi, and Parchman Farm, and they did, thus bringing great visibility to their cause, and eliciting public support for the Civil Rights Movement.

What I propose to the moral citizens, and especially the Christians of Orlando Florida is this–violate this unjust law, and be arrested. Fill up the jails and gum up the judicial system until the city sees how worthless their law is. Cause unrest until the law is rescinded.

Engage in civil disobedience, just like the folks from Food Not Bombs have; it worked in the past and it can work in this case.

Kudos to Food Not Bombs for their resolve to continue to violate this law, and I hope and pray that others in Orlando demonstrate the same courage and charity you show.

I don’t think I have to worry about such a ridiculous and immoral law being passed here in Athens, but if it did, I know that I would be ready, willing and able to be arrested to stop injustice from being allowed in my home city. And I know for a fact that I would not be the only one to be lining up to fill the jail and courthouse in protest of such a law. Lots of folks here in Athens would do the same, and I believe that there are lots of people in Orlando Florida who know in their hearts that this is a terrible law, and one that is beneath them as human beings, and I trust that these moral citizens will arise and fight injustice in any ways, large or small, that they can.

Maybe I’m much too trusting of humanity’s good nature in this case, but I hope not. I hope that others are just as outraged by these laws as I am, and I hope more than just a handful of activists step up to the plate to get these laws changed.

There’s a new bit of locavore lingo on the scene: “food sovereignty.”

What it refers to is the ability of individuals to safely sell and buy locally produced foods such as raw milk, or farm-slaughtered meats without having to fear prosecution for violating federal or state laws regulating such foods.

Two communities in New England have passed by voter referendum statues declaring the rights of consumers and producers to buy and sell local food products without having to adhere to any state or federal regulation regarding these items.

The first community, the town of Sedgewick, Maine, passed the “Local Food and Community Self-Governance Ordinance” which effectively allows local consumers and farmers or other local food producers to enter into private agreements and transactions which effectively override federal and state health codes, bans, food safety laws and regulations governing food production. The ordinance also notes that the individual is required to do his or her own research into the safety of consuming raw products such as dairy, meat, vegetables and eggs.

In other words, caveat emptor–the buyer must shoulder the burden of understanding the possible health consequences of eating the food they are buying from their hopefully trustworthy farmer/neighbors.

The towns of Penobscott and Blue Hill, Maine later followed suit by passing similar legislation.

Barre Town, Vermont passed a similar measure by voter referendum (673 votes for and 200 against) which “reject federal decrees, statutes, regulations, or corporate practices that threaten our basic human right to save seed, grow, process, consume, and exchange food and farm products within the State of Vermont.”

The Vermont measure was in part a response to the threat from Monsanto to local seed-saving farmers whose crops had mingled with the corporation’s GMO seed, as well as a push back against a short-lived ban on the teaching of raw-milk cheesemaking. (Vermont’s Governor Shumlen signed The Dairy Class act into law, which allowed the raw cheesemaking classes to continue.)

The wording of both the Vermont and Maine laws are wide-reaching and on a shallow reading of them unable to withstand a legal challenge on a state or federal level.

However, if one looks more deeply at the Maine Constitution, there is a strong provision for “Home Rule” which allows local municipalities self-governance on community issues, which many say should include food sovereignty.

On the other hand, two bills which would support the local ordinances passed in Maine, one involving the sale of dairy products from small farmers directly to consumers, both were defeated in the House of Representatives recently.

This is a contentious issue, and one that I, myself, find difficult.

On the one hand, I understand that historically, our federal and state laws involving food safety regulation were originally put into place in good faith to protect the consumer from unscrupulous food producers who adulterated their products, (such as watering down milk or adding chalk to it) or engaged in unsafe slaughtering practices (such as were outlined in Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. These laws were at one time, good and just, and truly had the well-being of the consumer in mind. And currently, those laws still nominally protect consumers from unsafe food production, though truthfully, looking at all the corporate food recalls and foodborne illness outbreaks across our country, one must note that they are doing a pretty poor job of protecting consumers.

However, those same laws have since morphed into protections for corporate and industrial food producers, by insisting that smaller family farms and food producers adhere to the same sanitation rules that govern the huge agribusinesses that dominate the landscape. In doing so, these laws are effectively pushing smaller producers out of business, because the regulations no longer recognize that smaller operations can be cleaner and more safe for workers and consumers by using different methods more applicable to small productions. Forcing small producers to use the same equipment as large producers creates an onerous financial burden for the small farmers, which essentially forces them out of business, allowing the larger corporations to sell their products with no local competition.

Which sounds rather like government-supported racketeering to me.

So, what do I think of all of this?

I think that the essential idea of local food sovereignty is a good one, but I also believe that communities must tread carefully in their pursuit of it. I think that it is perhaps too sweeping to throw out all food safety regulations, on the other hand, I believe that the fight against corporate control of our food supply is not only just, but necessary.

My very first reaction to the ordinances as they were presented on blogs was a knee-jerk, “Well, that’s a dumb idea,” but since carefully reading other sources of information, I have revised my position. It should be a fundamental human right to personally determine where and how we obtain our food, and there is no need for governments essentially force humans to stop farming on a small scale in preference to farming on a corporate scale.

For our federal government to do so goes against the very spirit of our Constitution and Bill of Rights, and I, personally will fight against such actions every step of the way, until I have expelled the last breath from my body. I was born of a line of small farmers and butchers who made their livings producing food for their families and others, and I am proud of that heritage, and I stand with those whose livings are made the way my forefathers and foremothers were.