My nightmare after a visit to the farmers’ market is not about being squashed by a gigantic mutant zucchini. It is that the super-sized green monsters will flood the market, and I won’t be able to find the sweet, tiny ones I prefer. Of course, in the event of an actual flood, I could use the giant zucchini as a canoe.
I have been a regular shopper at farmers’ markets for decades, in four states. Not until I came to Minnesota have I encountered zucchini of such ample length and girth. What’s next? Giant okra pods? Yes, I fear it may be so. We have approached the tipping point for ideal okra-pod size, and the prospects are grim, if giant zucchini become the standard on the vegetable growth chart.
At the market’s lone booth that offered okra for sale, I saw pods ranging in size from the preferred finger length to six inches co-mingling in each carton. Since farmers’ markets are celebrated as an arena where buyers and venders can interact, I decided to speak up and nip the vegetable gigantism trend in the bud.
“I wonder if I might suggest you consider harvesting okra when it is finger length, instead of the bigger pods, which can be woody,” I said in my best imitation of Minnesota nice.
“Different people have different tastes,” she shot back. “Some people like the bigger ones.”
(Excuse me? Maybe if you’re a rodent!) Somewhere inside my brain those words screamed for expression. I resisted. But my shocked double take and look of disbelief were involuntary. She assured me she had researched okra size on the internet. While I don’t doubt her, if she tried eating okra – as I have done all my life – she would not need to rely on the internet.
We compromised. She removed the giant, woody okra pods from the carton and replaced them with smaller ones. I said no more about the quality of her harvest.
The “buy local” campaign came to mind last Wednesday at the CSB and SJU All Campus Community Forum at Gorecki Conference Center at CSB, when we kicked off a Year of Sustainability. It looks to be an intense year, as we learn from each other how we can live in a more earth-friendly way.
The issues and personalities are complex – a blooming profusion of scientific facts, opinions, beliefs, myths, values, personal habits, social mores, cultural norms, idealists, crusaders, naysayers, skeptics, gadflies and the occasional law of unintended consequences. Let us not forget that the automobile once was considered the answer to pollution on the streets of New York City, where horses trod. This year could put to the test the Benedictine art of listening.
Should be fun, as long as we guard against the attack of the giant zucchini.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Monday, August 9, 2010
Summery Surprises and Observations
The annual increase in summer travel raises the possibilities for chance encounters.
While vacationing in July on the north shore of Lake Superior, I struck up a conversation with a husband and wife. When they found out I work at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University, the woman threw her head back and laughed. “Our son graduated from Saint John’s in 2009.”
Then, without any prompting from me, she raved about what a great experience her son, Stashie Mack, had and about his wonderful professors. She mentioned two by name – Sanford Moskowitz, assistant professor of management, and Ozzie Mayers, professor of English. Sanford was a great mentor to Stashie, his mom said, and continues to offer guidance and support. In Ozzie’s first-year symposium, Stashie labored mightily and griped to his parents about his demanding, hard-to-please professor. A few years later, commenting on how much his writing had improved, and he told his parents he was lucky to have had such a fine professor.
Random compliments are the best, especially unsolicited ones.
Another summer surprise arrived late on a Friday afternoon. I was the last to leave my office, getting ready to shut down the computer, when my former student John F. O’Sullivan, class of ’08, sauntered in looking snappy in a lavender dress shirt.
Now residing in Wales, John was in the U.S. for an extended visit and on campus for a wedding scheduled the following day at the abbey church. John was a student in a media writing class I taught. I am happy to report he is still writing, in a blog about living abroad, http://johnfosullivan.com/. His blog is building an online presence, with 25,000 average page views per month. That’s no surprise. He is a fearless writer with a genuine voice and an interesting point of view. John is a people magnet, and he is well connected with Johnnies and Bennies on Facebook. I have joined his fan base.
U.S. media went overboard (no surprise there) on the story about the arrests of Russian spies. OK, I get that the story has a certain intrigue, but many of the pundits regressed to their younger years during the Cold War, when James Bond and Mad Magazine somehow fused espionage with glamour, absurdity and high-tech gadgetry in the public imagination. As a result, these pundits had lots to talk about but little to say.
Enter Nick Hayes, professor of history and University Chair in Critical Thinking. Nick writes a regular column for MinnPost, and, in his July 12 post, he offers informed commentary on the spy scandal that veers off the path traveled by pack journalists. http://www.minnpost.com/nickhayes/2010/07/12/19604/spy_scandal_we_havent_heard_the_last_laugh_yet?utm_source=MinnPost+e-mail+newsletters&utm_campaign=1d7f7da5f8-07_12_2010_The_Latest_from_MinnPost_com7_12_2010&utm_medium=email
Spotted around CSB campus: Marian Diaz delivered the keynote address to the Association for Student Affairs at Catholic Colleges and Universities during the association’s annual conference, held July 28-31, at CSB and SJU. Marian served as director of Companions on a Journey at CSB and the Vocation Project at SJU before leaving with her family to live in Rome, where her husband, CSB/SJU and SOT associate professor of theology Migual Diaz, now serves as U.S. ambassador to the Vatican.
Marian spoke about vocation-related work in higher education and its implications for the mission of Catholic higher education. She also spoke with a reporter from the St. Cloud Times about life in Rome. http://www.sctimes.com/article/20100731/NEWS01/107310015/-1/archives/Vactican-ambassador-s-wife-describes-new-life-in-Rome- .
It’s tomato season in my kitchen garden, and that means only one thing (aside from my all-you-can-eat tomatoes all-the-time August menu) – the return of the students.
While vacationing in July on the north shore of Lake Superior, I struck up a conversation with a husband and wife. When they found out I work at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University, the woman threw her head back and laughed. “Our son graduated from Saint John’s in 2009.”
Then, without any prompting from me, she raved about what a great experience her son, Stashie Mack, had and about his wonderful professors. She mentioned two by name – Sanford Moskowitz, assistant professor of management, and Ozzie Mayers, professor of English. Sanford was a great mentor to Stashie, his mom said, and continues to offer guidance and support. In Ozzie’s first-year symposium, Stashie labored mightily and griped to his parents about his demanding, hard-to-please professor. A few years later, commenting on how much his writing had improved, and he told his parents he was lucky to have had such a fine professor.
Random compliments are the best, especially unsolicited ones.
Another summer surprise arrived late on a Friday afternoon. I was the last to leave my office, getting ready to shut down the computer, when my former student John F. O’Sullivan, class of ’08, sauntered in looking snappy in a lavender dress shirt.
Now residing in Wales, John was in the U.S. for an extended visit and on campus for a wedding scheduled the following day at the abbey church. John was a student in a media writing class I taught. I am happy to report he is still writing, in a blog about living abroad, http://johnfosullivan.com/. His blog is building an online presence, with 25,000 average page views per month. That’s no surprise. He is a fearless writer with a genuine voice and an interesting point of view. John is a people magnet, and he is well connected with Johnnies and Bennies on Facebook. I have joined his fan base.
U.S. media went overboard (no surprise there) on the story about the arrests of Russian spies. OK, I get that the story has a certain intrigue, but many of the pundits regressed to their younger years during the Cold War, when James Bond and Mad Magazine somehow fused espionage with glamour, absurdity and high-tech gadgetry in the public imagination. As a result, these pundits had lots to talk about but little to say.
Enter Nick Hayes, professor of history and University Chair in Critical Thinking. Nick writes a regular column for MinnPost, and, in his July 12 post, he offers informed commentary on the spy scandal that veers off the path traveled by pack journalists. http://www.minnpost.com/nickhayes/2010/07/12/19604/spy_scandal_we_havent_heard_the_last_laugh_yet?utm_source=MinnPost+e-mail+newsletters&utm_campaign=1d7f7da5f8-07_12_2010_The_Latest_from_MinnPost_com7_12_2010&utm_medium=email
Spotted around CSB campus: Marian Diaz delivered the keynote address to the Association for Student Affairs at Catholic Colleges and Universities during the association’s annual conference, held July 28-31, at CSB and SJU. Marian served as director of Companions on a Journey at CSB and the Vocation Project at SJU before leaving with her family to live in Rome, where her husband, CSB/SJU and SOT associate professor of theology Migual Diaz, now serves as U.S. ambassador to the Vatican.
Marian spoke about vocation-related work in higher education and its implications for the mission of Catholic higher education. She also spoke with a reporter from the St. Cloud Times about life in Rome. http://www.sctimes.com/article/20100731/NEWS01/107310015/-1/archives/Vactican-ambassador-s-wife-describes-new-life-in-Rome- .
It’s tomato season in my kitchen garden, and that means only one thing (aside from my all-you-can-eat tomatoes all-the-time August menu) – the return of the students.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)