Community MVPs

I’ll admit: I don’t set the perfect example when it comes to trying new foods. Last week I nearly lost my ever-living cool when a friend ordered the Pho Chin, Gan (beef brisket pho containing a horrifying ingredient called soft tendon) and insisted that I try a spoonful of the hot, gelatinous goo for myself. My response? Pure repugnance and adamant refusal.
 

Sometimes you just have a visceral reaction to a food item. Your gut tells you, Do not touch that thing - not with a 10 foot pole, not even with your fingers, and definitely not with your teeth, tongue, or stomach lining.
 

I see this kind of reaction every now and then in our Community MVPs class, both in response to the usual suspects like mushrooms and olives, and to more unique items like a salted duck egg or a can of fresh sardines. But I’m consistently impressed by the way our teenage participants overcome that feeling and just take a bite anyway.
 

Like when Ronnie resisted adding mushrooms to a dumpling recipe and then decided to just try one raw… and liked it.

You have twenty seconds to brainstorm three ideas for how to use your super brown bananas that are starting to attract fruit flies: GO!

   (20 seconds later)

 Here’s my list (I really timed it, and honestly, whether you believe me or not, I did ask myself that question pretty spontaneously. Originally I was going to use a different fruit, but then my brain did a last-minute switch-up, which probably evened up the playing field between us a little).

1.  banana bread
2.  banana ice cream
3.  compost
4. vermicompost!
5.  teeth whitening
6.  shine your shoes

I get to witness the growth of a kale plant from seed to plate approximately 60 times each growing season in the Brainfood Youth Garden. And when you consider the hundreds of plants that I watch grow through a full life cycle each year, it would make sense to assume that germination/flowering/fruiting/death/compost is just the day-to-day work schedule. And it is. 
 

But dang! Even as an expected part of my everyday work life, I can’t help but marvel at the tiny leaves still clinging to their split seed as they grow towards the sun. Or the three-foot beast of a kale stem that I throw into my compost bin at the end of summer. It kind of looks like its covered in dragon skin, the scales of which are actually scars where the plant healed itself after each leaf I harvested.
 

This weekend felt like Autumn. There was a clean crispness in the air, and all of those majestic DC oaks and elms were lit up with orangey yellows and reds. My neighbors at the community garden spent hours piling up cardboard, organic matter, and garden scraps on their now empty beds so the materials can break down over winter and nourish the soil for fertile growing in the spring. It may sound cliche, but everything about the fall reminds me that life is one neverending cycle; that what’s happening now will come to an end but will have a direct impact on how things shake out the next time around. The actions we take to care for the earth, for each other, and for our community today will set the stage for growth and flourishing in the future. There’s something really hopeful and resilient about it.