This Place Where Food Grows

I have tolerant friends. Really, I do. They've been patient as I've gone from rabid locavore, to igniting my hair on fire at the plight of farm workers; from talking about industrial food to simply serving them a pastured fried egg and letting them taste the difference. I've seen them exchange the look, eyes rolled up to their foreheads when I've cornered the conversation; gmo's, corn, the loosing game of plastic packaging. But I'm getting better. They would say, I've relaxed. I hope they would say I've relaxed. A little?

Now I've added a new obsession - listing the food I see growing. There's a lot of it. On a walk with a friend we saw still green figs, an orange tree as crowded as a World Series parade. She pointed at honeybees in the back of an industrial park, chickens behind a suburban home. We saw artichokes and rosemary growing through a front fence, an apple tree with a few remaining fruits. There were blackberries, grapes and sage. It was exciting, it was abundance, it was an awakening.

I've long pinched rosemary from the hedge on the corner and walked further for a few fresh leaves of bay. I've generally noticed a fruit tree here, another there and exclaimed over anything with a blossom attached; but food, I haven't been focused on food in the landscape. I'm not talking about gardens, I love those too; I'm talking about the wild edges, forgotten fruit trees, edible landscapes. I'm talking about front yards, back yards, the school yards, the parking lot at the library; I'm talking about the food growing along the paths that connect them. There's an entire menu out there I've overlooked.

And now I'm determined to name this free growing and previously discounted food, acknowledge it and yes, make a point of pointing it out to my friends too. I'm sure they'll want to know so they too can walk down the street and pinch a sprig of spice or gather wild fruit. Or simply appreciate this place where food grows.