Issue #195: If You Want to Be Happy Forever, Plant a Garden

Tips and resources for eating and growing seasonally.

📺 “Four Seasons” on Netflix: A “watch while you fold laundry” kind of show with an all-star cast that includes Steve Carell and Tina Fey. In it, three sets of couples, who have been friends for decades, gather for vacations across seasons—a lake house, ski trip, eco resort. It’s all very low-stakes, with some relational drama, but its pleasant nature is part of the appeal.

📚 Terrestrial History by Joe Mungo Reed: The gorgeous cover drew me in when I attended a book event at Powell’s last week, and I bought it as soon as I read the cover copy. In it, a visitor from a future Mars settlement collaborates with a farmer in Scotland to save the world. As their efforts fail, the story expands to save the planet from climate disaster.

🎥 ‘The Uninvited,’ available to rent: Did anyone else immediately develop an obsession with Nadia Conners after watching her AD tour with Walton Goggins? (And a desire to buy a hunting lodge Upstate? And a tattoo that says, There you are?? I digress…) In Conners’ directorial debut, an older woman with dementia enters a home, wrongfully believing it to be hers, moments before a husband and wife are set to throw a party in the Hollywood hills. As the evening unfolds, the wife spends most of her time inside with the mystery woman, feeling increasingly responsible for her, as the husband entertains and courts the attendees. A very L.A. movie, that asks, “What do we owe each other?”

P.S. Come join me for a free Pilates class, and matcha-lemonades from Tea Bar, this Sunday in Portland! Available to all paid subscribers—the link to join is in the ‘ICYMI’ section below!

A few months ago, I spent a weekend away with a friend who, after years of eating vegetarian, had shifted to an entirely vegan diet. When I asked her what she enjoyed about it, she turned to me and shared, “Honestly, it’s been a spiritual shift—I’ve never felt so aligned in what I believe in, and how I eat.” Although I’m an omnivore, her words tugged at something in me that grew the longer I spent thinking about them.

Toast, helping himself to some bok choy

As a former food writer and frequent cook, I’ve long believed that our connection to food is deeply spiritual. What we eat is tied to our childhoods and memories, as well as our value systems, health, and enjoyment. The meals we eat each day are, so long as we pay attention, a reminder to sit and rest, and connect on some level to our place in nature, even as so many of us live in cities. And yet, through my divorce, graduate school, and several destabilizing moves within two years, I began to lose that deeper connection to food, prioritizing functionality over connectivity.

During the year I spent in my studio apartment, with windows so effectively sealed I couldn’t even hear the sound of rain, the scream-sung lyrics from a Haley Heynderickx song lodged themselves into my brain, “I need to start a garden. I need to start a garden!” The desire, to reconnect with food and seasons, felt almost primal and two years later, I finally did just that, and planted an early spring crop into the garden boxes in my backyard—kale, bok choy, lettuces, radishes, pea starts (!).

Every morning, I walk out my kitchen door to check on my plants, guiding the peas up their trellis, pulling leafminer eggs off the chard, and checking the soil for moisture before gathering greens for breakfast. In doing so, I’ve slowly felt this connection—between myself and the food I eat—begin to mend itself, and even extend to other parts of my life and consumption more generally, with a deeper awareness of seasons and broader appreciation for nature. Gardening for me has initiated, as my friend shared, nothing short of a spiritual shift. In the words of the queen herself, Martha Stewart, “If you want to be happy for a year, get married. If you want to be happy for a decade, get a dog. If you want to be happy for the rest of your life, make a garden.” Read on for:

• A video conversation in my garden with the woman who helped me start mine (!), and how to begin yours

• My favorite cookbooks for eating seasonally, and utilizing your farmers’ market, whether you have a garden or not

• Five gardeners on their favorite things to grow and eat—peppers, asparagus, potatoes!

• Plenty of links and resources for beginning, or expanding, your own garden (it’s never too late!)

Anyways, let’s get into it! I’m obsessed with this issue—it brought me so much joy to put together. Be sure to hit ‘Expand’ in your inbox, to see the entire thing. Enjoy! x