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Eat your island

November 27th, 2003 · No Comments

Here’s a letter from yesterday’s Bainbridge Review that I liked, written by Gerard Bentryn, an island farmer:

A profoundly gray November landscape lay before us.

Betsey was downhill patiently pressing garlic cloves into the soil. The, above her, from out of the leaden sky, the shocking whiteness of an eagle’s head and tail as it dove into the brush around the pond in pursuit of duck.

The eagle, the duck, the robins harvesting passed-over grapes in the vineyards, blackbirds feasting on Brian’s sunflowers, all not just living on Bainbridge Island but made of Bainbridge Island.

Thanksgiving is almost upon us. We the farmers of Bainbridge Island invite you to join us in a joyful feast of thanks to the island we live on.

Every year we eat at least one meal entirely from this place so we can be made from this place. We share a commonality that is measurable, immensely pleasurable, and immediately evident.

We farmers call it “evident spirituality”. There is time now to search out food that is grown here so you can join in an island-wide feast in your own home this Thanksgiving….

…Food can be more than fuel, more than mere titillation of your taste buds. Food can protect your landscape.

Food can feed you spiritually, if only you eat where you live.

Join the creatures of the field and forest. Join the farmers who paint the land with rows of crops. Eat your island, become made of your island.

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