This is one of two gorgeous photographs Erin Kunkel shot at Barndiva
for the April edition of Smithsonian Magazine's much anticipated
Ten Best Small Towns to visit in America
. Healdsburg is #2 on the list, noted for "Food and Living." The writer nominates Wendell Berry as Healdsburg's patron saint, which gets my vote, but it took me a moment to get my head around us being "farm-to-table via nirvana, a sophisticated culture of nourriture that would have astonished 19th-century food philosopher Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin." The image of Savarin trumbling down Center Street brought a chuckle, but I had to look up nourriture. Turns out it's not far off what we've been saying all along:
mange le terrior
! Check out the entire article here:
20 Best Small Towns to Visit in 2014
First Weeks of Spring
Poets wax romantic about Spring, but I love Margaret Atwood’s line best: ” in the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.”
There’s no substitute for digging in it, but even if you aren’t so inclined, just get out there and wander. The smell of Spring will seep into your soul. For weeks now at the farm (and all around town) trees and vines and even the most ordinary curbside plants have been bursting into leaf and flower. It's Nature just doing it's thing, but to the human heart this has got to be as close as we get to Irrepressible Joy.
