Dreams of innocence are just that; they usually depend on a denial of reality that can be its own form of hubris.

Farms produce a lot more than food; they also produce a kind of landscape and a kind of community.

Eating's not a bad way to get to know a place.

Lawns are a form of television

Perhaps more than any other, the food industry is very sensitive to consumer demand.

Tree planting is always a utopian enterprise, it seems to me, a wager on a future the planter doesn't necessarily expect to witness.

Another day it occurred to me that time as we know it doesn't exist in a lawn, since grass never dies or is allowed to flower and set seed. Lawns are nature purged of sex or death. No wonder Americans like them so much.