Growing Food Is not a Trend

"Man, it is cold out there at the Dogmatic cart! Our spot at the Bleecker Playground is an enigmatic microclimate, a black hole that sucks the temperature down at least a good twenty degrees. Tourists and foolish teenagers stroll past in flip-flops while we cover over the grill, warming our numb hands. If the afternoons were busier then it would not be an issue, but when it's slow there's not much to do besides thinking how miserably cold it is.
My co-workers have taken to wearing multiple pairs of long underwear. I tried this yeasterday and found myself only marginally warmer, plus I felt like a fat slob."

That's from 2007, probably late October or November. I rescued this draft of a post from some dusty computer brain archive in the outer-dimension netherlands of ephemera. Now it sees a sliver of daylight, even if only by my eyes.

Fast-forward two and a half years: it's mid-spring 2009, and we're planting a garden plot in Portland. When I signed up for a spot in the community garden on the other side of the field behind our yard, I figured it would be a good way to experiment a little, and get a few shriveled squash and withered leaves of kale, if nothing else.

But now that I am digging around out there, the relative enormity of the plot dazzles. There is so much space to plant seeds! It makes me giddy and dizzy, and a bit overwhelmed. I've worked about a third of the ground so far, and in what I knew was foolish haste planted chard, kale, and fennel seeds already. The soil is too heavy and needs to be amended with a big truckload of cow poop.

Our plot was fallow last year, and so I am now combing through various ground covers in search of dandelions to eradicate before I give the ground a working-over. It is work indeed. I should get a hoe, but all we have is a shovel and small trowel.

This whole blossoming of gardening in the face of global financial adversity is heartwarming, but the concept that gardening is cheap is a lie. Seeds, yeas, are relatively cheap. But our plot coasts us $100 a year. Our wheelbarrow was $30 at the sued tool shop, but the more I use it, the more I realize how great it would be to have other tools, like a hoe, a rake, and one of those asterik-looking devices you twist to loosen up the dirt. And a bench, and a trellis or two, and the aforementioned cow poop. Gardening nourishes the soul, but it also plants the seeds of consumerism.

This new wave of so-called "victory gardens" needs a new handle. Our gardening is not like the Greatest Generation's stalwart raising of vegetables in order to defeat the Axis; no, our victory shall have to be over the consequences of our own rampant greed. A victory over credit. In order for our victory garden to succeed, I shall have ot keep our own slender credit card sequestered deep in my wallet, and settle for back-breaking labor over nifty tools, even if they are secondhand.

No More Cocks

The Dogmatic cart is no longer open. It's been a while, like since the end of November 2006. Dogmatic may return someday, but I'm a free agent now (i.e. unemployed) and don't keep up with Dogmatic developments.

I am still no longer writing a blog, although you can read my stupid MySpace page, which has become my default writing-promotion page. I post links to my most recent articles on my MySpace blog.

And, in order to put photos on your MySpace blog, they need to be online. So I post photos here in order to put them on my MySpace blog. That accounts for the untitled photos that are not related to anything. The end.

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I needed to post these online for a non-blog reason

Back in Action

I'm taking a break from posting. I still work at the sausage cart and all, but I find that my observations have not been very sausage-related, and I don't want Sausagetarian to morph into an outlet for my frustration at living in New York and working yet another dead-end service job.

Go read some other blog. There are, oh, only about a thousand really good ones out there. I'm busy writing my novel. Check back in a few months when I'm discouraged about novel-writing; maybe I'll be posting again. And thank you for reading!

Competition?

Rachel Ray in the burger business? Interesting. Look out, she may tackle sausage next.

Cool Stuff You and I Missed

I got a group photo from the organizer of the 2006 New Jersey Hot Dog Tour (you know, the one my husband and I missed the bus for and so we went to Ikea instead). Check these folks out, man. They look like they could learn me a thing or two about hot dogs.

In another news of missed events, the Vendy Awards were yesterday. Yup, at the very moment I was slaving away at my own mobile food vendor cart, people in the know were celebrating the excellence of other mobile food vendors. WNYC announced the winners today (in between pledge drive rambling about free Tony Bennet CDs with a gift of $50), but I was still half-asleep in bed at the time. None of the winners were sausage-related, I do recall that.

Career Advice

A vociferous New Yorker came by the cart this afternoon as we were preparing sausage for a family who were visiting the city. He told the family a portion of his life story, then he told my co-worker Juliet a portion of his life story. Juliet reciprocated by telling him her life story.

This fellow was going about the neighborhood, saying his goodbyes—he was moving to Cleveland the next day. He told us when he lived in the West Village in the 80s, the neighborhood was full of crack and tranny hookers. Then he talked to the tourist family some more, about a good many things: the improv class he took a few years ago, the quality of cupcakes at Magnolia, the amiable homeless man he was friendly with and the noisy homeless man he used to rap on the head from his apartment window…

At last the family moved on. Our new friend moved on to us, discussing everything under the sun. He was a nice guy, but very manic; he took a lot of energy. He was a creative director and he was moving to Cleveland to, oh, I dunno—direct Cleveland creatively.

After ordering a beef sausage with ketchup, he asked us what we did. I told him I was a food writer. “What, like restaurant reviews and stuff?” he said (this is what everyone says.”

“No,” I said, “I develop, test, and edit recipes.” I would have elaborated, perhaps, but he didn’t give me a chance.

“No, no, that’s all wrong. Listen to me, I give great advice—just yesterday I got this interior decorator a great job.” He filled us in on his brilliant breakthrough with this woman’s career, and then he told me he’d do the same for me. “It’ll change your life, but I gotta make a deal—give me a bottle of water.”

I considered it for a second. “I’ll sell one to your for a dollar, and I’ll pay for the other half myself with this tip you kindly gave me a minute ago.”

“No,” he said, “you gotta give me a free water.”

“Then it’s off,” I said. “I can’t give water away. It’s against the rules.”

“Whatever suits you,” he said, “but you’ll regret it.” He stayed another ten minutes, talking and talking—Juliet was delighting in this guy—and then he left. It was like a long exhale as he stepped away.

I wonder what he would have said to me. Maybe it would have been helpful, but what does he know about my career? He knew that I’m a writer working at a sausage cart, which is maybe enough. But he does not know anything about me, who I am, what I really want to do, any of my background in cooking or writing. People are so quick to tell you how to fix everything right up. When talky know-it-alls come around, I usually stay mum and let them get their kicks. Probably they think I’m some demure, shy nerd. But maybe one of these days I’ll speak up. I should have told that guy his life would be totally great and different and amazing if he’d shut up every now and then.

After they guy left, Juliet mentioned how he reminded her of Neal Cassady/Dean Moriarty—she’s reading On The Road at the moment—but I disagreed. Sure, he had the same unbridled energy and loudmouth lust for life and attention, but this guy was a successful creative director, not some drunk freezing train tracks in Mexico. In any case, I think Neal would have drove me nuts, too. Dean Moriarty, he’s just a guy in a book—you can shut a book. People, you can’t shut.