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Monday: By the end of the day I had harvested a sizable basket of potatoes, beets, carrots, zucchini, beans, and tomatoes. On my back porch I keep a commercial size prep sink pulled from the restaurant equipped with a high-powered pre-wash wand that I use as a garden sink. The potato was huge and beautifully thin-skinned, an obvious meal for one. That's when it occurred to me. I had purposely planted conservatively, with the exception of cucumbers, mixed salad greens, and cherry tomatoes which I supply for the restaurant. I began to realize that if I was going to do justice to my garden I would need to eat a lot of vegetables, and maybe only vegetables. I love a challenge.
In 1972 I read my first copy of Mother Earth News. Being a dreamer and an idealist, I purchased with my then husband a 40 acre parcel and joined the "Back to the Earth" movement. More on that later. Today's experiment will be salted with some age-appropriate realism, but the values of eating local, small-is-beautiful, and a love of the earth is still there. Self-sufficiency has been tempered to recognizing the need for sustainability, with the burden on all of us as a culture and not just on my old 40 acres or my current .3 acre. Gary Snyder said, begin to change the world by beginning at home. My mother said 'Look in your own back yard.' I'm interested in how this all comes about, and suspect that global change, reduced like a balsamic reduction sauce, is individual. Besides, I'm curious, frugal, and determined. Let's eat that garden.

Tuesday: Day 1.
Breakfast: Strawberries.
Lunch: Carrots, lots.
Dinner: The potato. I rubbed it up with canola oil and sea salt, having decided that condiments were exempt. Same treatment to three good sized beets, one golden and two red, and baked them all in the oven.
This is a great way to cook beets. When they are done, you can take a slice from the stem end and pull the peel right off. If they are very fresh, they peel like a skin. Otherwise you may need a little paring knife. At this point, you can eat them hot or chill for a roasted beet salad. Mix them up with a bit of red onion and some peppers if you have them, toss with a little orange vinaigrette and top with some crumbled feta.
The potato was golden hot, slightly crispy-chewy skinned, and tasted like a fresh autumn morning. Not particularly earthy, a description often used on a potato, but a more fresh and clear taste. The oil and salt was flavor enough. One must take care not to over-complicate fresh flavors. I sliced it with a chef knife and ate it standing at the stove.
8 pm: Looking at my produce basket and feeling pretty good about how much I ate. Next to it is the peanut butter and the end of my loaf of multigrain bread. Seriously considering growing peanuts next year.