Posts from — March 2010

Mmm…. sassafras from Eastern Market in Detroit.

I’m going to try to make rootbeer this weekend when my sis comes to visit. Just need a 2-liter bottle and some sugar. Yum yum.

Every weekend I spend in DC, I fall in love a little bit more. It’s a small town full of brilliant, motivated, passionate people who all seem to be connected to one another in a complicated, but pretty tiny social network. It’s a transitional town where people come and go and folks seem open to experience. Plus, it’s below the Mason-Dixon line, which (I’ve been told) means that folks are just naturally more friendly.

Sure, there are those who might be a little too into the ‘game’ — collecting connections like baseball cards (or Magic cards for the fantasy inclined), racking up favors, perfecting tactics, but I’ve been fortunate to mostly a crowd of interesting and genuine people.

To those who bemoan the black and grey suits, the wonkiness, the who-do-you-work-for-who-do-you-knowiness of the district, I say: come to Bates House to hang out and your soul will be revived. Next party’s Saturday April 17th — hope you can make it.

One weekend in February, we threw a little brunch party. Around 25 friends and neighbors came to snack on cinnamon rolls and frittata and drink delicious coffee. The first guest arrived a little before 11, and the last one headed out the door around 6. Seven hours of community and conversation: not bad for a lazy Sunday.

The drink station set-up. Strong coffee, Bailey’s, tea and mango puree. Yum.

Marcie making French toast and Chris on BACON, BACON, BACON.

Happy Chris and the first guests, partaking of food (plus the back wheel of my bicycle making a cameo appearance in the left corner)

Greg, the ex-architect and documentary film maker chatting with neighbor Lara, public health advocate and server at a legendary local bar.

Friends in the happy food corner, where most of Bates eating action happens.

Bates love.

The die-hards, sticking it out till the end. Can you spot the two ethnomusicologists in this picture? The activist who works directly with victims of human trafficking? DC, you are ridiculous.

I love airports and airplanes. I love the feeling of being between places, in transition. And I love the anonymity — it’s the best of places for watching people, and also for meeting folks you might not otherwise meet on the street.

Yesterday, when I squeezed into Seat 14F (a window seat), it just so happened that the man already occupying the middle seat was a farmer. I noticed this, not because of any hint from his dress or demeanor, but because when he kindly got up to let me in,  I noticed his bag — a freebie from some sort of national ag association.

So I asked him about it and he told me that he was a farmer who grew sugar. “Beets?” I asked, and his face lit up. “You must know farming then?” he said. “Well, kinda,” I shrugged, and told him where I worked, and about my brief farming experience.

We talked the rest of the flight — about his clever daughters and about how my parents met and about the time he took his son to the Rose Bowl. I found out that in addition to farming part-time with his son, my new friend was a crop insurance agent and a representative of the Michigan Bean Commission. He traveled around the world to trade shows and meetings marketing Michigan dry beans: azukis, great northern, black beans, to name a few. He had been recently to Cancun and Barcelona and was soon off to Paris.

Apparently, Saginaw is the capitol of dry beans and sugar beets in Michigan. Sugar beets, in case you didn’t know, make sugar — the regular white grainy kind you pour into your coffee or sprinkle on your cereal (do people still do that?). Saginaw Valley, where lots of these beets are grown, lies between the thumb and forefinger of the Michigan glove, about two hours by car from the metro Detroit airport. My friend explained that people grew sugar beets there because the processing plants were nearby in the thumb. This awesome article from MSU tells more about the history of sugar beet production and processing in the state.

Beyond beets, I also learned a little bit about crop insurance. My friend had been in DC to chat with folks at the USDA and on the Hill about the crop insurance business and the proposed cuts to crop insurance in Obama’s 2011 budget. It was fascinating to hear his perspective — “Why should the government penalize me for making a profit?” — and compare it to the perspective I share with the Obama administration and the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition where I work:

From Obama’s 2011 budget proposal: “Crop-insurance companies currently benefit from huge windfall profits due to the structure and terms of the Government’s contract with the companies.” The Wall Street Journal reports that “a USDA study showed that a reasonable rate of return on equity for private crop-insurance companies is 12.8%, but the average now is 16.8%. USDA data show government payments to crop insurers have more than doubled in recent years, jumping from $1.8 billion in 2006 to $3.8 billion in 2009 while the total number of policies held by farmers has declined.”

Add to this the fact that my friend explained that until recently, when a former employee set up shop and became competition, he was the only insurer in his local area. I felt less sympathetic then to his side of the story, but it made me remember once again that in the end, farmers are businessmen and to him, these cuts might mean that he won’t be able to pay for his adventurous daughter to study abroad in Paris or to help his son buy land to start his own farm. And there’s the rub of government — how do you distribute resources equitably? How do you re-distribute when something’s not working — it seems much easier to give than to take something away.