Hightower Lowdown

Are you up for an Earth dinner for the holidays?

No, not eating earth, but folks gathering around a table for a social occasion to celebrate the bounty of our good, green Earth.

Our dinner tells many stories, embodying our personal histories, family memories, music, art, and other connections... besides our tummies. To help reawaken those cultural links, the folks at Organic Valley Family of Farms have come up with Earth Dinners.

Here's the idea: throw a dinner party at which the food is not merely consumed, but also is the focus of table talk--reminiscing, singing, laughing, game playing, and whatever else you can dream up. It can be a potluck dinner, a buffet, a five-course gourmet meal, a backyard barbeque... whatever suits you. The key is to know something about the food being served--where it comes from, the history of some of the ingredients, songs written about it, and so on.

Get everyone connecting in some personal or cultural way to the dinner as it progresses. Ask guests to tell their very first food memory, or to recall a family member who was a farmer or a jolly cook. Invite people of diverse backgrounds and all ages. Ask a farm family to join you, or a cheesemaker, gardener, or butcher --anyone involved in producing food. Then--eat, talk, enjoy!

Organic Valley's web site offers Earth Dinner tips on everything from menus to party favors, as well as providing reports on successful dinners that others have put together. Check it out at www.earthdinner.org --and have a good time!

It's another piece of that "upchuck rebellion"--ordinary folks rejecting the industrialized, chemicalized, corporatized, and globalized food system.