Food in Boston

With your permission, I will get a little introspective for a minute. In case you’ve wondered what the hell happened to the once-regular posts here on FiB, well, a few things have changed for me since I first posted here, almost three years ago:

1. I was elected to a two-year term on the Harvest Co-op Board of Directors in November ‘07. This has been an honor, a tremendous education in the retail side of our food system, and a more than a few hours of work, which are thus no longer available to spend writing for this blog. Also, since the Board has a policy of only speaking with one voice on Harvest-related matters, blogging about Harvest or retail generally is tricky.
2. In February of ‘08, I was hired as the IT Manager at The Food Project. Longtime readers know that TFP had been one of my favorite subjects due to the many roles the organization plays in the Boston-area local food scene. It’s a fantastic job, and it’s a job — I find myself wanting to wrestle with non-TFP stuff in my off hours.
3. Permaculture. I took a Permaculture Design Course last fall, and have since been engaged in design and early stages of implementation for some friends in their new yard.

That should explain a bit about where my FiB energy has gone. It’s taken me a while to come to terms with that, but I think it’s inescapable by now. Going forwards, then, what to reasonably expect from FiB?

• Independence Days: I really like this notion from Sharon Astyk about the value of publicly testifying to what you’re doing in the name of local food. To start: this week, in addition to my day job (which conveniently has to do with our food system), I watered & weeded my community garden plot, harvested some lettuce and mustard greens, started a little experiment using knotweed stems & leaves as mulch, and prepared for & participated in a co-op board meeting.
• Reposts & links to events have been a staple here, and I’m happy to continue those. If you’ve got something you’d like to see here on FiB, please pass it my way. I’ll also aim to keep a short list of my favorite Boston-area food system bloggers active in the blogroll over on the right.
• Who knows, maybe occasionally some more substantial stuff…

Finally, those of you who actually visit the website rather than read in a feed reader may notice that I changed the theme to something a little cleaner & easier to read. It’s the old-school default WordPress theme, which I hope is so old that it might be back in fashion again.