Seasonal Eating — A Farmer's Perspective
July 27/26
When I was young and first cooking for myself, I didn't think about seasons at all. I thought about what was easy, what was cheap, and what I already knew how to make. The farm ran on seasons — it couldn't not — but somehow that never made it to my own kitchen. Funny how you can spend your whole working life bound to what the calendar allows outside, and still walk into the house and cook like none of that applies once you're indoors.
It took me a long time to close that gap. Longer than I'd like to admit.
These days at Sagewood, the meals are mostly taken care of. That's a different rhythm than I'm used to, and I won't pretend I didn't miss having my hands in it at first. But I've found there's still room to add something of my own — a little seasonal fruit on the side, something fresh picked up because it's actually good right now, added in alongside what's already on the plate. Small additions. Before I pick anything up, I take a minute to think about what's supposed to be good right now, wherever I happen to be. Not a strict rule. Just a question I ask myself.
It doesn't take much to find the answer. Some stores post it right at the produce section — a little sign, a handwritten list. Other times it's just noticing what looks like it actually belongs there versus what looks like it traveled a long way to make an appearance. I've been surprised how often the answer changes what I bring home. Not because I'm chasing some ideal, but because the in-season stuff usually just tastes more like itself. A citrus in winter earns its place. A strawberry in winter is mostly just shaped like one.
There's something almost corrective about it at this stage of life. I spent twenty-seven years making sure the crops respected the season — the rice flooded and drained on its own long arc, the orchard fruit gone before you could get used to it being around. All that discipline pointed outward, at the fields. None of it, back then, pointed at my own plate. Now, with meals mostly handled and just this one small piece left to me, it feels worth doing right.
I don't know that there's a health lesson in any of this, and I'm suspicious of anyone who tells me there is one. What I keep coming back to is how much information used to be built into the calendar itself, and how long I went without applying that same thinking to what I ate. You didn't need a chart telling you when tomatoes were in season — you needed a chart telling you when it wasn't tomato time yet, because that was the more useful piece of information.
Takes maybe thirty seconds before I decide what to bring home. Small addition to the plate. Still mine to make.
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