Back to Back to the Land

Once again an anti-war army marches on its stomach.

Remember that last long war? We kept trying and failing to get our occupation forces out of a civil war in a small country, so what did we do? Among other things (besides enjoying the much-publicized sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll), we ate better than the establishment and Middle America. OK, we didn't eat that much better, just healthier. We tended to boil up brown rice and kasha and pile on undifferentiated steamed veggies. That's what we called them, veggies, as if they were all the same.

But some of us grew them on our own farms, communes and backyards. Many of us avoided grocery stores and bought our produce from co-ops. A few of us even started communal restaurants. Our West Coast Alice's restaurant, Chez Panisse, was started by left-wingers who found a revolution they could win, the food revolution. No revolution is ever fully won, though.

Now the food revolution is reinvigorated, and it's no coincidence that the nation is in another shit storm of conquest, profit and death. Oil men rule the country, and we have not been able to stop their murder of Iraqis or their poisoning of ourselves, whether by contaminated air, water or food. Maybe we haven't tried hard enough to stop them. We certainly marched harder 40 years ago.

I admit it, I've retreated. I've gotten oral, but off the grid, or off the McGriddle. No fast food. No farmed seafood from China. No water wrapped in plastic. I buy my food from farmers markets, bringing it home on my bike. I've torn up my lawn, and the tomatoes are already ripening. Pretty soon there will be peppers, cucumbers, zucchini and other veggies.

Yes, veggies, but this time around I really know how to cook them. If only I knew how to cook a Bush.