From the Editor: Hands-on Summer

Urban food foraging doesn’t get any better than mulberry gleaning. You can find the trees easily in alleys, stream banks, public parks and campuses. Considered a nuisance by many homeowners because of the stained driveways and bird mess that result from their juicy purple fruits, mulberries often thrive in public corridors where they’ve volunteered and escaped notice until grown too large to whack out.

But let clothes and hands beware! The sweet deliciousness that is a mulberry simply cannot be had without the purpleness of its juice. So a spot on your shirt and stains on your fingers may be the prices you pay for a breakfast found on your morning walk—the midsummer sun captured in these sweet inky fruits—and relished by the handful.

Summer is so full of such dirty little pleasures. Ripe tomatoes that drip down your chin, buttered sweet corn for finger-licking goodness, cherry pie spilled on the tablecloth. The work of getting the food is plenty dirty, too. Dirt from the garden on hands and face, scratched arms from berry brambles, sweat from putting up hay, the hands-on mess of cleaning fish just caught from the lake. The delicious paybacks for this dirty work will come later but are just as memorable, just as so very worth it.

Our high summer issue contains a story on the messy mulberry and tells one other notable for its hands-on attitude—about a school renowned for arts education whose campus is now abuzz with gardens, fish ponds, beehives, solar panels and hoop-houses. It’s an impressive green initiative and has been a roll-up-the-sleeves project for faculty, staff and students. As a demonstration and training site for teachers, it is already spreading the dirt-under-your-fingernails gospel to other schools throughout the state.

And so I invite you not only to dive into this issue filled with fresh local food stories but also to get your hands onto your own summer food in as many ways as possible. Don’t let a little mess keep you back! Pick, plant, eat, clean, prepare, bake, cook. Fresh food at its finest demands your involvement— let it stain, smear, drip and get your hands dirty. The best foods of summer are a full-on, hands-on experience.

Eat well (and clean up later),