apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Dana, you are magical and always able to tap right into truths we all know...and no surprise these universal ideas are often about food...the ultimate nexus of life...linking nature, spirit, people, communities, us to ourselves, history and heritage, health, ecology...and everything else. Looking forward to when we can break bread together.

When the local bakery or restaurant starts putting nutritional information ( e.g carbohydrate values ) for us who must know ( I have Type 1 diabetes and must count carbs ) ... then I will feel more comfortable purchasing the product. Until then ... hello Pepperidge Farm.

http://www.diabetes.org/nutrition-and-recipes/nutrition/diabetes-meal-plan.jsp

http://www.diabetes.org/nutrition-and-recipes/nutrition/exchangelist.jsp

When you have a relationship with the baker, you can ask what's in it.. No problem, they will tell you. They also just might make something "special" just for you.

I have never traded my shoes for chickens, but I do long for connection. I love shopping at the same booths in the same farmer's market, and having the mushroom guy bring me something new to try, or the fruit/nut guy telling me not to get the peaches just yet.. next week they will be better..

That's the benefit of relationship.. Yes we have to consider other folks needs as well as our own, but let's not forget.. they are considering ours too.... It's not one sided, it's a symbiotic and loving connection where the lines are blurred. Funny thing when you stop counting "who owes me" you end up getting so much more.

As a matter of fact tomorrow I'll be trading a haircut for a personally designed one-of-a-kind dress.
My hairdresser suggested it and I think it's a great idea.

While I admire the intimacy that can come from having local producers, community is also where you find it. If you are the kind of person who is friendly enough to come to a new store and bring flowers, you are probably also the kind of person who can say hello to anyone and open a dialogue. If you are a regular at your local big box store, be open and say hi to the stocking clerks and ask about the products. I have done this, and many of them are happy to tell me when the next shipment of something is coming in or to tell me what they think is really good or to share a recipe (butchers and fishmongers are great at this too). Lots of these people work in the neighborhood or city as well, with their kids going to the same school as yours. Whether you shop big box or farmer's market, what really matters is opening up yourself to all members of your community and getting involved.

I think there is a social evolution that hasn't caught up to the industrial revolution. We need to bond with people out of a sense of courtesy, respect, and good manners rather than out of any sense of inter-dependence. You can bond with anyone regardless of their role in your life if you choose to, but we choose not for a plethora of reasons. One of the primary ones is that we don't respect the people who provide services for us anymore because we see their status as irrelevant or less than ours. This is why discourtesy and bad service are everywhere. If you get treated like you don't matter long enough, you start to treat others in kind.

...back home in North America, we had a very close relationship with our baker.... he gave our daughter treats, and we chatted a lot with him and his wife (they had a deli/takeaway, not jut bakery). He even gave our daughter a little porcelain cow to keep treasures in (inside joke between them).

...back home, we were very close to our milkman (organic, in glass bottles) and our greengrocer too (we've even sent emails since moving overseas). We also got to know our butcher. Our family doctor asked for regular photo updates; we feel very close to her. We miss them all.

...here in Europe, amazingly enough, except for the weekly market in the town square, it is very hard to shop the way we did at home -- we go to supermarkets more than we ever did at home. And at the market, I would say only the goat cheese husband and wife team and the seasonal specialties fellow are starting to recognize us as regulars (the poulets de Bresse fellow too, but he doesn't come that regularly). People move in and out so much here, that it is hard to develop relationships.

In Europe, it seems that relationships take more time, people are more formals. It's hard...

I agree with your interpretation, but think your friend's comment re: graphic designers/bakers is a little short sighted. Graphic designers can participate in and foster a sense of community in just the same way that a local baker can. I think your friend was responding to the fact that the local baker sounds more romantic. Sure, we don't "need" designers, but it reflects the society we live in. You don't have to sacrifice community to live in a modernized society (although, admittedly, we have to a large extent).

How about the difference between a graphic designer that works for local/community businesses vs. the VP ad exec at Wonderbread? I think people idealize and romanticize local food establishments (which sometimes don't really foster much community at all) and villianize "office work."

Also, I am not at all a graphic designer, so this doesn't sound too personally motivated.

also, cool painting.

I'm all for anonymity. Socializing, for me, takes a tremendous amount of energy and sometimes all I want to do is go in, grab dinner, pay and leave without having had to muster the energy and presense of mind to do the typical idle chit-chat of a social interaction. I've lived in a small town where everyone knew everyone else. I hated it. It's nosey and irritating and god help you if they think you did something wrong.

I'll take my huge, annonymous city with my chosen community of friends any day, thanks.

Definitely as someone said, a social evolution needs to catch up to all the other evolutionary steps forward that man has made. Farmer's markets are indeed popular and I am one of those people who loves to strike up conversations with anyone at any time and find out a little bit about them, or give them some business even if it's buying a cd from a very good busker whom I have gotten to know and who recognises me. I love it when people remember me since I am someone who instinctively remembers others and little tidbits of information about them that tell me something about what they might want for instance. I dont work in sales since that is too corporate, however working with students in a university for a year, working as a tour guide..those all provided me with those sorts of personal interactions, recognitions and connections that everyone here has expressed a longing for...bar the last comment. On the other hand, being able to collect your takeaway without the cashier knowing your order or knowing for instance that you always order for one..should you be single, doesn't help and this is where big city anonymity is attractive to some.

Interesting thoughts.

I consider myself to be an artisan to a certain degree (chef). And I appreciate the efforts of all artisans no matter what their trade and encourage independent artisans to keep doing what they are doing.

But I see some irony here when it comes to community and interaction.

Most likely the only time you will see the baker is when you buy their bread. The rest of the time they will be working and sleeping.

The graphic designer (generally) is the one who can go to
work, flex their creativity, be modestly to highly compensated for their efforts and then (generally) have the free time to interact with the rest of society in a socially advanced way. They can choose to spend their money at independent butcher shops and farmers markets and even organize a farmers market in a parking lot in their own neighborhood.

On the subject of bartering, the graphic designer can also intertwine themselves with a food network by creating the visual identity of a particular brand. I know one designer in particular who does this for a major coffee company and just so happens to be a champion barista!

I think, judging by my garbled comment, that your question cannot be answered by a simple response!

I've been on both sides of the fence at one time or another. We lived in two different small New England towns, and yes, while I agree that it's aggravating as hell when everyone sees your dirty laundry, it's also comforting in a family sort-of way.

I was one of those bakers you speak of. I had a retail bakery in NH and a small wholesale bakery in VT. I traded baked goods for fine furniture. We both kept a running tab. I traded chocolate chip cookies for chiropractic care and chicken pot pies for auto parts. One year we raised and slaughtered 900 organic meat birds and we traded some of them for medical care, fabric, honey and produce.

Everyone knew each other. We shopped at the same Farmers' Market, dined at the same French restaurant and got sandwiches at the same deli.

One day, there was a fire at the bakery. Some losers set a fire in one of the apartments over the bakery. We had just gone home at 1:00am after packaging hundreds of loaves of bread and almost 200 pies. The volunteer fire department called and said they had to break down the door to get in. What could we do? When we got there later, we noticed they moved all the bakery racks over to one side so there was no water damage. They dosed the rest of the building until it was soggy, but not over our bakery. No! All the pies, bread and cookies were fine. They didn't smash in the windows or ruin anything else. Come to find out, they couldn't do anything about the smoke damage. So, in an effort to say "Thank You for Caring", we had a big "Free Fire Sale", and everyone in the neighborhood came by for smoked pie and cookies.

A few years later, I broke my ankle and with no medical insurance we had no way to pay the hospital. The town rallied round and paid the huge bill. You just can't get that kind of community spirit in a big city with neighbors you don't know.

I am so with Tamiat the Red. I think it's easy to romanticize "small town values" to quote Sarah Palin. But having lived in cities and small towns I feel the only difference is that in small towns people feel righteous in knowing others' business and in telling others what to do. I prefer to live in a city where more often than not our values include honoring other people's lifestyle choices and keeping our noses out of their business.

That's not to say I'm not open to befriending the grocer or a neighbor. But I'd rather be in a position where that's a choice.

Also, in reply to Nirvana... A few years ago a friend who was a young single mother of two got breastcancer. Her citified community rallied around her and managed to take her kids when needed and provide three meals a day among other things. While there are certainly lots of city problems like homelessness, I really don't think smaller communities have a corner on the market in terms of compassion.

I am a small town farm girl myself and this piece is going to be shared with everyone I know.