If I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again: one of the biggest perks of living in hot, humid, far-from-home Durham, North Carolina is the immense support for local food amongst those who live here and in the surrounding cities and counties. With multiple farmers markets close by, dozens of restaurants that source their ingredients locally, and thousands of people willing to patronize them all, it’s no wonder these counties contain a vibrant network of farms, ranches, and community gardens.

One shining example of this community’s commitment to support local growers is the Piedmont Farm Tour. Hosted each spring over two weekend afternoons by the Carolina Farm Stewardship Assocation, forty local farms throw open the barn doors, as it were, and welcome in carload after carload of people eager to see the source of the food they buy each week at our region’s farmers markets. A couple of friends and I were some of those people.

While seemingly quaint, the farm tour takes massive coordination. Booklets are published weeks in advance so that tour-goers might plan their journey, learning a little bit about what each farm has to offer and determining which ones they want to visit. As usual, I WAY over-estimated the number of farms that I could possibly see in two, four-hour jaunts around the country-side, but I packed an empty cooler, a bottle of water, my camera (obviously) and set out to explore as many farms as we could see.

It’s amazing to me here how not far you have to drive to find yourself in truly picturesque farm country. Narrow ribbons of country roads seemingly tossed to the ground between expanses of trees and their accompanying power lines are often the only signs of humans for several miles. Once in a while, the red and white farm tour signs would point you toward a break in the trees signaling the entrance to a farm.

When making plans about farms to visit, we tried to include a variety of different kinds of farms, and fortunately, there was quite a lot of variety to choose from. A small-scale vineyard, a cheese-making dairy farm, a buffalo ranch, an herbal apothecary, a small-scale nursery, and a biodynamic orchard were just a few of the options available to see.

If the variance between each farm wasn’t enough, the farmers themselves were wildly different. Some were single-person operations, cultivating small areas of land and selling just enough food to cover their costs and provide a modest living. Others were staff members of larger operations, while still others volunteer their time to ensure the needs of farms with a charitable mission can meet their goals while keeping costs low.

Over the course of two afternoons, I was able to visit nine separate farms, each one unique and colorful and filled with purpose. Listening to growers talk about their food, I was struck by the incredible depth of knowledge that each of these people has about their land and their craft. It can be easy to forget sometimes, in a nation that still primarily shops in the gleaming aisles of grocery stores where an employee might know as much about the food on the shelves as they do about quantum mechanics (or perhaps less), that it takes immense knowledge, training, and work to run a small farm of any stripe.

I imagine it can be a challenge, living the day to day life of a farmer committed to local, sustainable food. Even in my tiny garden, I am sometimes amazed at how much work it takes to keep up with my plants in a way that is healthy for the plants, productive for my refrigerator, and permissible by my schedule. A whole farm I’m in awe of these growers.

The farm tour gives this awe. It gives hundreds if not thousands of my neighbors the opportunity to put on their mud shoes (though I did see a few ladies wearing truly silly high heels) and dedicate an afternoon or two to learning about small farms and what they contribute to our community, our planet, and our collective palette.  It gives us a chance to meet farmers face-to-face, to learn about their craft, and to taste the food they have worked to hard to produce.

And if nothing else, the farm tour gives a chance to take a step back, take a breath, and simply enjoy the beauty of how our food is grown.

If you have one in your area, I highly recommend taking a farm tour: I think you’ll like what you see!

It’s been a couple of days since I’ve spent a lengthy night in the kitchen. Instead, I spent my evenings this week consuming beautiful words and whatever I could grab out of the pantry rather than working through new recipes.

Sometimes, life stops for books. The book in question had a return deadline I couldn’t extend (it’s so popular!) and I couldn’t possibly send it back half-finished… so my other plans had to wait.

It was sooo worth it.

So I have no food for your bellies tonight. But! Food for your brain, your soul, your bookshelf, is just as important. So I thought I’d share a few thoughts with you about this most recent read, as well as a couple of others from the Resources page, that have helped inform and inspire my passion for food.

No one is asking me to tell you about these books. I’m just glad I read them. I think you should read them, too. The end.

The Dirty Life by Kristin Kimball
My mom put this on my radar because she heard it was about farms and because the author’s first name is spelled like mine. Moms. Detailing her own transformation from a coffee-toting, high heel-wearing, travel-writing New Yorker into a radical organic farmer over a surprisingly brief period of time, Kimball illustrates the joys and the trials of her new farm life. The book reads like a well-written romantic comedy, starring a smart, savvy woman, her skillful, principled spouse-to-be, and their plan to build a farm to provide their community with any food they might need.

Animal Vegetable Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver
Yes, I know that this is like, THE book that new foodie converts read. But I really do think it’s a fascinating account of one family and their attempt to go local, and I mean REALLY local. For an entire year, they vow to eat only what can be grown on or very near their Virginia farm. I was already well-versed in Kingsolver’s work when I picked this up, but even if you’ve never read her work before, this is a good place to start. Then check out her other work because it’s beautiful.

Seedfolks by Paul Fleishman
This is a very quick read and is technically targeted toward little kids. But it takes lovely little peeks into different walks of life. And it’s full of hope for gardens urban and rural, established and spontaneous. Read it to your kids, your cat, or yourself.

The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan
If local eating had a syllabus, this is another book that would be required reading. Michael Pollan’s depth of research focuses on four different “meals” ranging from the industrial food poster child (a fast food meal consumed in the car) to a meal entirely foraged and hunted by the author himself. The book does a great job of addressing the meaning behind and age old question: “What the heck do I want to eat#8221;

That’s enough for now. I have big dates this weekend with the farmers market, a strawberry patch, my camera, and my stove, so stay tuned for some tasty recipes in the coming days! I promise.