How the Cook and the Gardener Saved the World

These Comments are thoughts on The Allegory of the Three Travelers Human beings normally go through a transition fairly early in life.  It is the point where we leave behind the care givers who saw us through our childhood.  It is the point where we face a future that will unfold based on our own choices. Perhaps you remember the uncertainty that you had at that time.  Imagine now how that moment might be different if your care giver was different.  Imagine how that moment was for each of our three travelers. The first traveler understands life to be a competition.  In a competition we expect that there will be winners and losers. If you are one of the lucky ones, your care givers taught you the rules of the game and the skills it takes to play it.  How would things be different if your care giver told you that you would never amount to anything?  How would things be different if you were in foster care because your parents where in jail? ...

There are three travelers on a great journey across an endless prairie.  In one direction lies a barren and impoverished place.  In another direction lies a place of abundance. The first traveler is traveling in great luxury. This traveler is thinking, "I have worked hard for all the things I have and I will defend them. I feel sorry for those less fortunate than myself. There, but for the Grace of God, go I." The second traveler is struggling to get by with next to nothing. This traveler is thinking, "I am working as hard as I can but still do not have enough for my children. It is not fair that the first traveler should have so much and I demand that they share with me." The third traveler agrees that things are not fair. This traveler is thinking, "The system is rigged against me. I do not intend to spend my life working hard for next to nothing. I will just take what I need from the other travelers." The conflict among these travele...

The object of discussion is life on this planet. The subject is "the way humans produce the things they need and desire". The issues are:   1) declining habitats   2) increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere   3) the inability to supply every human being with what they need to live/thrive   4) humans doing violence to other humans Life on this planet is a "system". It is a pattern of interactions among individual actors each pursuing their genetic and memetic instructions. Every choice has consequences through out the system and at all scales.  Issues 1 through 4 result from the way humans produce the things they need and desire. We humans tend to think of the interactions among ourselves, and in particular those interactions that involve the exchange of money, as the most important.  Keep in mind that human interactions are not possible without the participation of all the other living things around us.  The interactions among...

The story of the Cook and Gardener Partnership is about a community coming together to find a place for all of its residents to contribute to the well being of the community.  We do that first and foremost by producing our own food.  The following ideas form the basis for the services that Pat offers to the homeowner clients of CGP. It begins with the thought that when we produce locally what we consume locally we create cells of sustainability. The shorter our supply lines the more resilient we become. More importantly, sustainable cells produce a healthier and more beautiful way of life. When we decide to grow our own food, we begin to reintegrate ourselves into nature's processes. Our western culture has been separating humans from nature for thousands of years. We tend to put each aspect of our lives into cubicles. We go downtown to the office. We expect agriculture to be off over the horizon. We “preserve” nature in special areas away from our work an...

A system of production that produces everything that it needs to operate has no cost.  A system that uses everything it produces has no waste. Integrated Closed Loop Production Systems   The Cook and the Gardener Partnership (CGP) is based on the concept of integrating processes and closing production loops.   We can imagine the development of the chicken operation as a path through that process in which one part of the operation is related to all other parts of the operations. In their economics class Pat and Chris learned the concept of vertical integration as a way to control the supply chain for their food truck sales.  Vertically integrating the chicken portion requires that CGP can: 1 - produce fertile eggs to be incubated, 2 - raise the chicks for four months until the young roosters can be processed, 3 - raise the young hens an additional two months until they start laying eggs, 4 - collect the eggs, 5 - process the hens e...

Pat and Chris are interested in greenhouse technologies in order to offer their clients a year round supply of food.  Here are some of the findings from their research. People eating on a budget, or living in a food desert*, are typically missing protein and fresh vegetables from their diet.  This is particularly true during the winter in temperate zones and particularly for those without access to space to grow their own vegetables (or who don't use the space they have).  In order to avoid going hungry when money is scarce people concentrate on starches that keep well and are relatively inexpensive such as pasta, rice, beans and potatoes.  For those in a food desert, prepared foods at convenience stores using "snap"** benefits may be the only reasonable choice for food.  Both approaches are missing the nutrition provided by proteins and fresh vegetables. If we can build a space that will not freeze over the winter, we can grow fresh greens year round for...

Pat and Chris at first met weekly for lunch between classes.  Pat was contemplating how to grow the produce that Chris would need to advertise fresh and locally grown as a way to attract business.  Chris was contemplating how to pay for the fresh produce.  At that fateful meeting the conversation went like this: Chris said, "I have been thinking about what Professor Pena says about indigenous knowledge.  He calls it "saberes" as in knowings.  It is knowing how to interact with the living things in a place." "Yes," Pat responded, "That is what David Braden talks about at LSI.  All the living things in a place create the pattern of interactions that provide for all the living things.  Learning to create the pattern you want means understanding the needs of the living things around us." "If we were to consciously create a pattern of interactions," Chris pondered, "a pattern of interactions that produced fresh produce that I coul...