Imagine the light rising in the east as you wake. Enjoying breakfast, just before dawn, listening to the birds sing from the limbs of grandmother magnolia tree, who long ago sunk her roots in the backyard. Winter is shedding her layers and with each day the light lingers longer as we step into spring. Your plate is a mosaic of colors, scorched earth bread, golden yellow egg yolks, translucent green herbs and deep rich purple kale, all set off against a crimson ceramic plate. Mint tea glows softly and wafts a slight honey aroma throughout the kitchen. The sun moves higher into the sky and your internal tummy compass craves fresh orange juice. This is no ordinary breakfast, this is a breakfast supported by a dynamic community food system. The provenance of each ingredient is known to you and was easy to discover, a transparent food web that prioritizes access to fresh produce, nutritional value, food security and local community resilience above all.
This resilient network is made up of neighbors, friends, communities and regions that know how to grow, harvest, transport, distribute, and store seasonal food. One by one you can trace what fuels your body back to the roots. Bread is baked just down the block at Liberty bakery, a small independent baker who bakes small batches of whole grain bread several times a day. Their grain is grown at the nearby10 acre plot of Alemany Farm, and milled on site. Their team of bike messengers delivers burlap sacks brimming with wheat berries, each morning to the surrounding neighborhood bakeries. Eggs arrive in your weekly CSA from River Dog Farm, located approximately 80miles from your front door. The reusable boxes are dropped off every Thursday by a solar powered regional train and stored in a communal pantry. Phoebe the farm owner includes recipes and nutritional information about the eggs, always highlighting the humane treatment and organic feed chickens consume when they are not on pasture. You snipped fresh parsley and thyme out of the south facing window of your apartment, a rock-star mini greenhouse all year long; and plucked kale off the long winter stocks in your small backyard garden. Mint grows in abundance, quite frankly a weed, in the community garden. There is a large bushel hanging from the ceiling for crushing into aromatic tea. Honey is your special treat, a gift from the neighborhood farmers market. Allen has a buzzing apiary over the hill in Sustainia, a stones throw from your favorite ice cream joint, all thoughtfully designed within walking distance. Last but not least your neighbors have the most astonishing micro-climate, that has nurtured a Valencia orange tree for the past 15 years. The four adjoining backyards trade their own goods over the fence for a share in the juicy citrus bounty. Voila, a breakfast that supports the earth, your body and the community.
This resilient network is made up of neighbors, friends, communities and regions that know how to grow, harvest, transport, distribute, and store seasonal food. One by one you can trace what fuels your body back to the roots. Bread is baked just down the block at Liberty bakery, a small independent baker who bakes small batches of whole grain bread several times a day. Their grain is grown at the nearby10 acre plot of Alemany Farm, and milled on site. Their team of bike messengers delivers burlap sacks brimming with wheat berries, each morning to the surrounding neighborhood bakeries. Eggs arrive in your weekly CSA from River Dog Farm, located approximately 80miles from your front door. The reusable boxes are dropped off every Thursday by a solar powered regional train and stored in a communal pantry. Phoebe the farm owner includes recipes and nutritional information about the eggs, always highlighting the humane treatment and organic feed chickens consume when they are not on pasture. You snipped fresh parsley and thyme out of the south facing window of your apartment, a rock-star mini greenhouse all year long; and plucked kale off the long winter stocks in your small backyard garden. Mint grows in abundance, quite frankly a weed, in the community garden. There is a large bushel hanging from the ceiling for crushing into aromatic tea. Honey is your special treat, a gift from the neighborhood farmers market. Allen has a buzzing apiary over the hill in Sustainia, a stones throw from your favorite ice cream joint, all thoughtfully designed within walking distance. Last but not least your neighbors have the most astonishing micro-climate, that has nurtured a Valencia orange tree for the past 15 years. The four adjoining backyards trade their own goods over the fence for a share in the juicy citrus bounty. Voila, a breakfast that supports the earth, your body and the community.
Sharing all the world
You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one
- John Lennon
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