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When Michael Pollan’s book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, hit bookshelves in 2006, it immediately ascended to the top of the New York Times Best Seller List. Usually, a designation of this sort would prompt me to read the book as soon as possible, but something was different this time. I can’t exactly put a finger on the reason, but for some reason I wasn’t overly anxious to read the book; I think part of me feared the influence of Pollan’s perspective on food ethics as I continued to ponder my own food strategy and eating principles.

I've always had a dream about community and neighbors. I'm not sure when the dream started, but I would imagine what would happen if I could fix someone's bicycle and they would pay me with a box of veggies or by helping with my taxes or by watching my kids. In the world of capitalism and trade that we live in, I grew up to hope that perhaps there might be a place where we could all see what our local communities and neighbors were producing. The closest thing I could find would be a flea market, farmer's market, or, later on, a coop grocery store. But I knew that something was still missing. It was never quite a complete picture.

I ran into a problem last summer: too many herbs were coming out of my garden, so many that I couldn't keep up with them. The easy way to deal with this overflow would've been to make large batches of pesto and tabbouleh, or other variations on crushed-herb sauces or greens-and-grains salads. I did my best, but I still had a surplus. By the end of the growing season, I had to cut back armfuls of sorrel, thai basil, lemon thyme, curry, and others. All these great flavors (for which I had so many plans last May), and I ended up pitching them into the compost bin. It was silly: what was the point of nurturing these plants out of the dirt if I was only going to transform them back into dirt in a few months?