Terra Brockman describes her new quarterly newsletter, “Food & Farm Notes,” as a “sort of virtual dinner party–a mingling of people and thoughts, food and conversation.” In the first issue, an expanded version of the one-page weekly newsletter she’s been handing out at her family’s stand at the Evanston farmers’ market, she promises to write about everything “from garlic to Galen, beans to Bogart, genius to madness (ripeness to rottenness), and from Jean-Paul Sartre to rhubarb tart.”
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A central Illinois native with a graduate degree in English literature from Illinois State University, Brockman has worked as an editor, living in Japan and New York City, for more than 15 years. In 1997 she moved to Evanston and in her spare time began helping out on the family farm in Congerville, 150 miles southwest of Chicago. The farm is run by her brother Henry and his wife, Hiroko Kinoshita, but three generations of Brockmans help plant, weed, pick, and pack the 500 varieties of organic vegetables they grow for the Evanston market and for individuals who are part of their community-supported agriculture project.
In the first issue–the second should be out this week–she traces the etymological roots of arugula, puts asparagus in the context of the Roman Empire, and invokes authors who’ve been inspired by vegetables–Walt Whitman by dandelions, Pablo Neruda by onions, Proust by asparagus. She also includes nutritional facts and several recipes for each vegetable discussed.
