Chapter 3. Farm To Table To Tastebuds
FARM TO TABLE TO TASTEBUDS
WHITNEY
It was a quarter past eleven. My nausea had passed and my tummy demanded to be filled again. “Want to grab lunch at the Victory Garden?”
Buck snorted. “Have you ever heard me say no to food?”
“You’re right. Dumb question.”
They say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, and that was true in Buck’s case.
He’d fallen for my best friend, Colette, after eating her delicious cooking.
She now operated her own café in a former church parsonage that Buck and I had remodeled for her.
The place was a big success, not only due to Colette’s creative and delicious fare, but also for the excellent service her staff provided.
She had a near-perfect 4.9 rating on Yelp.
If not for John F giving her a one-star review because “the wait for a table was too long,” she’d have a perfect 5.
We climbed into our vehicles and started toward the restaurant.
The collie mix sat at the back fence, as if she’d been waiting for us.
The cow with the pink collar stood next to her, her lips plucking at the new grass that had only recently emerged from the soil.
The dog ran happily along the fence once again as Buck and I made our way up the dirt road, stopping only when she reached the fence at the front of the property, just behind the restaurant.
She gave us a quick arf-arf that I took as “goodbye.”
Despite the fact that the Victory Garden had opened only a few minutes earlier, there were already a dozen cars in the lot.
Buck and I parked and ascended the steps.
Wooden picnic tables lined the porch. Between them stood aluminum water troughs filled with orange pansies, adding a splash of color.
I turned to look back. The view from the porch was beautiful and serene, rolling farmland and wooded landscape.
Too bad it was yet too cool to enjoy lunch outside.
Buck held the door open for me and I stepped inside.
A woman in a calico dress looked up from behind a wooden bar across the way and walked over to greet us.
Her brown hair was slicked back on one side and held in place by an old-fashioned French comb adorned with colorful feathers.
Some of the feathers were red, while others were cream colored, or golden brown, or solid black.
The longest feather was black and white striped and was centered behind the others, sticking up an inch or two above the woman’s head.
The comb was trimmed with fluffy white down.
The nametag on the woman’s chest read DEBORAH.
“Welcome to the Victory Garden. Table for two?”
I gave her a nod. “Yes, please.”
She rounded up a couple of menus and motioned for us to follow her. “Right this way.”
She seated us at a rustic rectangular farm table with ladderback chairs and took our drink orders.
While she went to retrieve the drinks, I glanced around the place.
The decorator had nailed the wartime aesthetic.
Framed posters of Uncle Sam, Rosie the Riveter, and soldiers in fatigues or uniforms lined the walls, along with a number of Norman Rockwell’s wartime pieces, some of them covers of the Saturday Evening Post. Though the dust bowl era occurred between WWI and WWII, they’d nonetheless included a print of Grant Wood’s American Gothic, which featured a bald, bespectacled farmer in overalls holding a pitchfork, his somber-faced daughter beside him.
Muted floral wallpaper provided a backdrop for the artwork.
While wallpaper was rarely used in homes today, I knew from researching interior design that the 1920s and 1930s were the heyday for decorative wall coverings.
Floral prints, such as the one here, were popular in the earlier years, while the jazz scene and modern art movement inspired art deco designs during the later part of the era.
Interspersed among the artwork were old-fashioned farm implements, much like we’d seen inside the livery stable and which could also be seen decorating the walls of the Cracker Barrel chain restaurants.
A long-handled hand tiller was safely stored in a barrel behind the smoothie bar, the spiky ends resembling a medieval mace.
A small pitchfork had been mounted sideways on the wall so that its three tines formed the E in the phrase Eat Like Your Life Depends on It.
There was another piece of equipment with long handles on each side and multiple tines on the bottom.
I’d never seen one before. My guess was that it was some type of rudimentary soil tiller.
Despite these eye-catching touches, the most interesting aspect of the restaurant was something much more modern that had yet to be invented in the era the rest of the décor represented.
Several big screens were mounted here and there, showing live feeds from the farm behind the restaurant.
Each screen was labeled with a hand-lettered wooden sign.
A screen identified as The Scoop from the Coop showed the colorful chickens and rooster strutting about, pecking at seeds that had been strewn on the ground.
Some of the chickens were fancy, including a black one with feathers on her legs that resembled palazzo pants and waved back and forth as she skittered about.
It dawned on me then that the feathers in Deborah’s comb must have come from the chickens.
Eye on the Sty featured footage from the pig sty, which was large and clean and lined with fresh straw. The adorable pink pigs lazed about, one of them lifting its snout and closing its eyes in bliss as it sunbathed.
The rhythmic up-and-down motion of the black and white chin on the Moo View feed told me the camera was attached to the collar I’d noticed on the cow earlier, and that she was currently chewing her cud.
The feed identified as I’ll Be Watching Ewe provided footage of the sheep enclosure.
These Goats Be Trippin’ showed a group of goats meandering in a wooded area of the property.
It was a clever pun, given that a group of goats was called a trip.
Turkey Shoot showed a large tom turkey in a pen with a hen.
He spread his tailfeathers in an impressive display, as if showing off for the female or perhaps performing for the camera.
The final feed was identified as the Collie Cam.
The off-white and reddish fur around the edges of the screen told me this particular camera was mounted to the collar of the dog who had escorted us along the fence line.
It also told me that the dog was currently running in circles around the small herd of cows, doing her best to keep her bovine friends corralled.
Buck scoffed. “What kind of fresh hell is this?”
My attention turned from the screens to my cousin. I’d been too distracted by the animal footage to have yet perused my menu, but he stared down at his and frowned.
“What’s the problem?” I asked.
“This is one of those hippie vegan restaurants. There isn’t a piece of fried chicken or a pork chop or a burger on the menu.”
I ran my gaze over my menu. It was beautifully illustrated, like something out of a Beatrix Potter book.
Adorable rabbits, lambs, and piglets frolicked in the margins.
Everything on the menu was plant-based, as Buck had noted, but it all sounded delicious.
Vegetable pot pie. Cauliflower steak. Hearty farmhouse stew.
Though currently off-limits for me, their menu also included a variety of craft beers, cocktails, and wines from regional wineries.
They served a variety of fruit smoothies, too.
The server returned with our drinks and set them down, noting the scowl on Buck’s face. She gave him a knowing look paired with a patient smile. “Let me guess. Carnivore?”
“Damn straight.” Buck circled a finger in the air to indicate the screens. “Can you cook up one of those critters for me? Maybe that cow that’s off by herself. She seems snobby. The herd won’t miss her.”
“Not on your life,” the woman said, “or theirs. Those critters? They’re rescue animals.
We only put peace on our plates.” She gestured at the two other women working the place.
Like her, they had brown hair, fair and freckled skin, and appeared to be in their forties.
“My sisters and I started the Victory Garden after losing both of our parents much too early to preventable health problems.” She cupped her hands around her mouth and called out to one of the other women. “Soapbox!”
Her sister looked over at us, scurried behind the smoothie bar, and retrieved an old-fashioned wooden soapbox, the kind that people used back in the day when addressing a crowd on the streets.
She brought the box over and placed it at Deborah’s feet.
She stood aside while Deborah stepped up onto the soapbox to deliver her spiel.
“Our father died at fifty-two from a stroke caused by atherosclerosis. That’s a fancy term for clogged arteries.
His veins were full of fat and cholesterol.
He’d been on medications for years to treat his condition, but pills can only do so much.
Even though his doctors advised him to give up meat, eggs, and dairy, he refused.
Our mother died from a type of cancer associated with meat and dairy consumption.
Most people aren’t aware, but the World Health Organization has classified processed meat as a Group 1 carcinogen.
When meat is cured, smoked, or cooked it releases N-nitroso compounds, heterocyclic amines, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. ”
Deborah’s sister chimed in. “You know those things are bad because they’re hard to pronounce.”
“We humans weren’t intended to eat meat,” Deborah said. “If we were, we’d have pointed canine teeth like wolves and cats.”
Buck said, “So we’d look like vampires?”