Better to pay the grocer than the doctor.

Food is not just fuel. Food is about family, food is about community, food is about identity. And we nourish all those things when we eat well.

For though we may be the Earth's gardeners, we are also its weeds. And we won't get anywhere until we come to terms with this crucial ambiguity about our role - that we are at once the problem and the only possible solution to the problem.

We are at once the problem and the only possible solution to the problem.

...think of agriculture as something the grasses did to people to conquer the trees.

To put it bluntly, we now need to reverse course. We need more highly skilled small farmers in more places all across America - not as a matter of nostalgia for the agrarian past but as a matter of national security. For nations that lose the ability to substantially feed themselves will find themselves as gravely compromised in their international dealings as nations that depend on foreign sources of oil presently do. But while there are alternatives to oil, there are no alternatives to food.

I'm not talking about having to consult Julia Child before you can take a pot off the rack. I think that's something we can all do more and do better.