Potluck and the Fates

The table was covered with potatoes. Steamy au gratin, funeral and mashed. Wrinkly baked and chive-covered twice-baked. Chunky salad, salty chips, cornflake-strewn scalloped and golden hashed. There were even tots. They were mostly good dishes, but one can only eat so many mouthfuls of potato at one sitting. Even the big eaters were giving up halfway through the food line, turning from the table holding both edges of their unwieldy paper plates to prevent a one-sided collapse. This potluck I attended recently wasn't so lucky.

Hosting a potluck dinner tempts the fates. You are counting on the random flow of the universe to provide karma enough for equal distributions of carrot sticks, frog-eye salad, brownies, and ham. Doesn't the universe have better things to worry about? It is just as likely to speak "chips and salsa" to 27 of the 30 attendees as to provide a random distribution of culinary chatter.

The great potlucks I've attended have relied less on luck, and more on sign up sheets. A sign-up sheet supersedes fate. It also keeps the pot-bearer anonymous. I like assignments. Tell me to bring a Jell-o salad, and I'll do it willingly. When I have to choose a dish, it reveals too much about who I am.

You can't bring anything too fancy. People will think you have too much time on your hands, and that you need more to do. Or too expensive for the same reason. No French cheeses or seafood. You can't bring anything exotic or, lacking explanation, no one will know how to eat it. It has to be a good color, because even if it smells and tastes great, the hue can put people off pre-scoop. It has to be able to sit on a table for an hour without significant damage and still look appetizing.

If you are going to make one of the Three Pillars of the potluck dinner (potato, sweet salad, and cake), you'd better make it good. Potlucks are the Miss America of inexpensive food pageantry. Your pan will be competing against offerings from experienced cooks, mothers of six who can feed the whole family a full-course meal on two dollars or former military chefs who prepared 60 pounds of potatoes au gratin a day for 22 years.

It isn't a competition, you say? It isn't if you run short on food, and every pan is emptied in the end. But I've never seen that happen. Every pot-bearer is keeping on eye on his or her dish to see who scoops from it and how much is taken. If the first few people in line don't scoop, the dish may be doomed. Everyone wonders why no one has scooped it, and so no one dares to take the plunge. A few even nudge their faithful spouses to go back and dutifully take the maiden dip out of their own pan, just to keep up appearances.

I've attended my fair share of potlucks. There are a few constants. Bright orange punch is inevitably spilled onto paper tablecloths. The first ten people in line are always boys between the ages of 8 and 13. There is always the person who finds a "friend" at the front she needs to reacquaint herself with, and just seems to melt right in as the food line moves along.

There is also always the feeling of being in 30 warm kitchens with 30 fussy mothers serving the best of what they make for dinner. It is a comforting, filling, delicious place to fill your plate.

Grow and Know the Foods You Eat

I always get a little nervous attending meetings like the open house I went to on Monday. I know those food purists mean well, but I really don't need another food philosophy designed to make me feel guilty. Yes, that cantaloupe I had for dinner probably came from a chemical-laden clear-cut field in Brazil harvested by underage workers getting little pay that was shipped under-ripe across thousands of miles of highway in a truck spewing carbon to a mega-corporation grocery store that doesn't provide worker health benefits. But I can't do much about it. I gotta eat.

So I was really quite surprised to leave this particular open house a little excited ... and hungry. Peppery chives, juicy tomatoes, dark purple berries straight from a bush scant miles from my house, scarlet beets grown in Cache Valley soil and savory farm chickens that died happy were all offered to me by the actual farmers who raised them. These were CSA farms.

Community-Supported Agriculture is a brilliant idea. A CSA farm is a way for food-eating people like me to buy local, seasonal food directly from a farmer near their community. This is how it works: A farmer offers a certain number of "shares" for sale to the public at the beginning of the growing season. Typically the share consists of vegetables for a family of four based on what is currently in season, but other farm products may be included. In return you receive a box of seasonal produce (usually at a central pickup location) each week throughout the farming season.

This is different than the food co-ops (like Bountiful Baskets and Field to Families) that have recently become deliriously popular in Cache Valley. Food co-ops are grocery store foods offered at discount prices straight off the back of the semi-truck, which is cool. But CSAs are more cool.

When you buy a share in a CSA farm, you are creating a relationship with the farmer who is producing your food. You invest in his or her success, you see how your food is produced (often following organic principles), and you participate in the ups and downs of farm life (based on weather, temperature, rainfall and other things happening outside your window). Cucumbers might grow great, and you get lots of cucumbers in your weekly basket; winter squash might not do so great, but you will know why when you talk to the farmer. In short, you get to connect in a very real way with your food.

This arrangement creates rewards for both the farmer and you. The farmer spends time marketing the food early in the year, before their 16-hour days in the field begin. They receive payment early in the season, which helps with the farm's cash flow. They have an opportunity to get to know the people who eat the food they grow.

And what about benefits for the people who buy shares in the farm? Imagine a fragrant baked eggplant parmigiano on your table. Now imagine that two short days earlier that eggplant was hanging on a vine a few miles from your house, at the peak of purple ripeness, chock-full of flavor and vitamins. That eggplant has your name on it.

The initial payment is significant, but if you calculate it by the week and factor in the good you are doing for your community, for your health and for the planet, you are getting a deal. Even if you don't factor those last three in, it isn't a bad price. But you should, as those who watched the queasy documentary "Food, Inc." on PBS recently already know.

The farmers I met at the open house encouraged people to visit the farm where they've invested, to see how their food is produced and to talk to the farmer. (I plan on visiting my plants too, you know, just to give them some moral support.) Some farms even offer member social events to help develop relationships and to learn more about how food is grown.

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CSA farms located in/near Cache Valley:

Sun River Farms

★ Location: Elwood, Utah (near Tremonton)

★ Product: Variety of fresh vegetables and herbs grown on organic principles

★ Price: Full share, $550; half share, $300

★ Production: 17-week season

★ Delivery: 4 to 6:30 p.m. Wednesdays at 120 Water St. (downtown Logan)

★ The farmer says: "Garlic freaks will love our variety."

★ Contact: 757-7507 or sunriverfarm@yahoo.com

The Bryan Palmer Farm

★ Location: Wellsville, Utah

★ Product: Variety of fresh vegetables, herbs, honey and flowers grown on organic principles

★ Price: Full share, $320-$380 depending on package

★ Production: 28-week season

★ Delivery: At the farm or at the Cache Valley Gardeners' Market

★ The farmer says: "We make beautiful bouquets available each week."

★ Contact: 245-4579 or csautah1@gmail.com

Heritage Valley Organics

★ Location: Tremonton, Utah

★ Product: Chicken, duck, turkey and goose, managed under organic principles

★ Price: $360

★ Production: 20 weeks

★ Delivery: To be decided

★ The farmer says: "The birds are not caged, and small grains to feed them are raised at the farm."

★ Contact: 770-2365 or mbanca@nebonet.com

The USU Student Organic Farm

★ Location: 800 E. 1750 North, Logan

★ Product: Variety of fresh vegetables, occasional berries

★ Price: Full share, $528; half share, $308

★ Production: 22-week season

★ Delivery: Pick up at the farm

★ The farmer says: "CSA fees go to paying student wages at the farm."

★ Contact: E-mail jennifer.reeve@usu.edu for a sign-up sheet

Corbridge Country

★ Location: Malad, Idaho

★ Product: Berries and beef (all-natural grain and all-natural grass fed)

★ Price: Varies by weight; deposit requested

★ Production: At request, depending on cattle weight

★ Delivery: Price includes cutting, packaging and delivery

★ The farmer says: "A day at the ranch (hayride, horseback riding, BBQ) is included with meat purchase."

★ Contact: 208-766-2644 or corbridgecountry@gmail.com

Other farmers that didn't present at the open house, but still seem cool:

★ Tagge's Famous Fruit: 801-755-8031

★ Tveit Gardens: Nibley, Utah, 770-8714

Go to CSAUtah.org for more information on these farms.

Fast Food Fare

A recent bite of fast-food hamburger gave me pause. I was pondering utilitarianism, the idea that the right thing to do is what brings the greatest good to the greatest number of people. It is a fairly straightforward way to make decisions in life. Free speech? Good. Telemarketing? Bad. Libraries? Good. Looting? Bad. Monster truck rallies? Well ...

Monster truck rallies make people happy, but the pleasure experienced attending a monster truck rally does not equal the pleasure of say ... going to Utah Festival Opera. "Greater moral pursuits are those which engage our higher human faculties," wrote John Stuart Mill, political philosopher and advocate of utilitarianism.

"Higher human faculties," I thought, as I gorged the burger and washed it down with carbonated corn syrup. Why do I choose to eat this stuff, the culinary equivalent of a monster truck rally, when there is greater culinary "good" out there? I enjoy roasted garlic artisan bread, ripe tart cherries and prosciutto-stuffed baguettes, but sometimes I eat hamburgers. Not the made-at-home-on-the-grill kind, but the kind that come wrapped in wax paper accompanied by skinny limp fries. The kind that carry little nutritional value, too much salt and make you fat.

I'm not alone. If you count the number of prosciutto-stuffed baguettes available for purchase in Cache Valley compared to the number of fast-food hamburgers, the hamburgers win. We line up in our cars with fistfuls of bills to buy hamburgers, not prosciutto-stuffed baguettes. People choose them, so a utilitarian would say hamburgers must serve the greater good. I would argue that prosciutto-stuffed baguettes are the higher culinary experience, but the masses choose processed meat on deflated white bread.

Food that is "good" could be defined in many ways. It could be broccoli because it is nutritionally good for our bodies. It could be steak because it tastes good (but in another country, that same category might include goat intestines). It might be what lifts our souls in a culinary sense, like key-lime pie, or it might be tofu - food that allows humans to continue living (and consuming) the earth on a large scale. It could be rice and beans, food that is fair to eat ... for us and for the people in Namibia, Uruguay and China. From a utilitarian standpoint, whatever "good" we value most will be the one we choose.

You already know the detriments of fast food. Fast food holds partial blame for the obesity epidemic in the United States. It fills our bellies with fat and chemicals, but doesn't provide vitamins and nutrients necessary to stay healthy. Fast food doesn't do great good for a great number of people, and yet we still choose that burger.

A utilitarian would argue that we all benefit from cheap consumer goods, said Christy Glass, assistant professor of sociology at Utah State University. As Americans we value plentiful, cheap stuff. You could say fast food is the most democratic industry in the country because everyone can afford it. In every class, people defend what is accessible, she said.

Americans also value convenience over quality. People work more jobs and longer hours. More households are becoming dual income, and yet wages are declining. People have less time to cook, and families feel cash-strapped. The cheapest food is the worst food, but it is easy to get your hands on, Glass said.

So the reason we eat fast food is probably the same reason we watch "The Simpsons" rather than read "Hamlet" on Friday night. Although we know Shakespeare is a higher experience, "The Simpsons" is funny. We don't have to tax our brain with vocabulary, understand historical context or challenge our moral system. Maybe we understand that Shakespeare could lift our souls and intellects, but we value saving time over investing our time in the higher experience.

But it isn't satisfying. I watch "The Simpsons" and forget the plot as soon as the credits roll. I eat three fast-food hamburgers and still feel like I need more. I crave the higher experience, even though my current values allow me to choose the lower.

"It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied," wrote Mill. "Better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool or the pig are of a different opinion, it is because they only know their side of the question."

I don't think there is anything wrong with eating a fast-food burger, watching "The Simpsons" or attending a monster truck rally on occasion, as long as we understand the hunger we feel after these experiences is really a dissatisfaction, a signal to reach higher and invest ourselves in something greater, not to reach for the Pepto-Bismol.