Our early family life was filled with many moves and we learned quickly to jump in with both feet, to explore and obviously, to take chances. Through it all, the moves to Indy, Charlotte, Kansas City, (two months in Baltimore), Springfield, Tulsa, Chicago, Denver, and back home to Bloomington, we found grounding in the kitchen. I had a passion for baking. My husband found his zen in grilling. We came together seamlessly in the kitchen, preparing most meals together.
You certainly learn a lot about yourself when you move. You learn about your limitations and vulnerabilities, but you also learn about your creativity and strengths. Oh, and if you want to learn to compromise and building a good relationship with your partner, you could move 13 times in the first 15 years of knowing one another. Or you could just spend time in your kitchen. You can learn these lessons without the fights over whether to leave the potted plants behind. Again.
Many people thought we were courageous to take the risks we did. It was expensive no doubt to move, but we were chasing jobs and new experiences. Others were nervous for us, and perhaps questioned the sanity of it. Why not stay put, build your lives in one place like most of our brothers and sisters did? Besides, there was no more space in their address books for the changes (pre-smartphone you see?). Side note: conversations with my mother often began jokingly, "where do you live now?"
Perhaps it is because my husband and I will celebrate 20 years of marriage next month, or perhaps it is the unusual times in which we find ourselves, but the sweet memories of these adventures, both on the road and in the kitchen, came to me as I weeded our gardens last week. As did a question. Where is the line between courageousness and foolishness?
As we all grapple with when and how we should open the country, there is great pressure to get it right, no shortage of opinions, risk vs reward analysis, and let's face it, an uncomfortable mix of cabin fever, fear, anxiety, and questions.
One would think that any business would be eager to throw their doors wide open, after all, if you own a business as we do, you have bills to pay and people to support. But in reality, it only means the worry is greater. Like you, my brother, husband, and I wonder, how do we stay safe? How do we keep our beloved team and customers safe? Where, in fact, is that line between courage and foolishness?
In a restaurant, a chef can place an expertly prepared sea urchin on a moss-covered stone in front of a patron and be celebrated as fearless. A general can maneuver his troops under the cover of morning fog and be hailed as cunning. An athlete can limp injured across a finish line and be revered for their courage. But couldn't all of these decisions be criticized as foolish and risky if the outcomes had been different?
The other day, we explained to a customer that we were abiding by the guidelines set by the Monroe County Health Department and wouldn't be open to browsing until at least May 16th. They responded by saying, "We needed to get some courage." So, where is that line?
This is our answer. What we know is that there is no clear delineation between courage and foolishness in this moment. Life in and of itself is uncharted territory and the outcomes of our individual and collective actions at any given time are at best guided by deep values and intentions and at worst by self-interest. Of course, we know they will be defined for history later in a sport known as Monday Morning Quarterbacking.
The fearless uprooting of our lives to move around the country is seen in hindsight as an overwhelming success. Not because it was the obvious right choice at the moment, they were often agonizing decisions, but because overall, there were more positive than negative outcomes for our family as a result. The same could be said for my brother's choice to live his entire life in our beloved Bloomington.
What we also know is that what is very much needed in this time is space, compassion, and grace. There are no easy answers. For anyone. No straight out of the box solutions or action plans. For us, there will a hybrid business model that can be flexible in these uncertain times. We have friends and peers that will never reopen. We know others who have completely shifted their business models. None of us will know which were the right decisions. All of them are brave.
What many of your favorite shops and restaurants will need to make it is steady stewardship from their patrons. We overwhelmingly feel that from you. You have our gratitude. I know all of us at the shop are spending time in our kitchens, cultivating relationship, and navigating these turbulent waters. We hope you are too, for these adventures within your kitchen will appear years later to you as comforting memories.
Below you will find books from some of our favorite plant-forward writers and chefs. (click their book covers for links to their sites) With fears of meat shortages and the height of vegetable season upon us, we encourage you to be brave with your explorations in the veg kingdom.
Congratulations to all of the graduates and mothers out there. These may be strange times, but we have no doubt it will build a depth of courage in you that will change this world.
The team at Goods,
Sam, George, Doug, Jill, Jacob, Steve, Tiffany, Libby, Steph, Kira, Baileigh, Julianne, and Sam
Be Inspired
by a wide array of chefs and writers obsessed with the beauty of vegetables and plant-forward eating.
Abra Berens is a chef, former farmer, and writer.
She believes that the meals we eat should change with the seasons and that their ingredients should come from nearby. She strives to make simple, delicious meals that champion the region.
Tender is the story of Nigel Slater's vegetable patch, how it came to be and what I grow in it. The book is published in two volumes, the first dedicated to vegetables and the second, Ripe (also available on our website) to fruit.
Twelve hundred pages in length and taking five years to write, Tender is a memoir, a study of fifty of his favorite vegetables, fruits and nuts, and a collection of over five hundred recipes. Photographed, as all of his books, by Jonathan Lovekin in his own kitchen a meter away from the garden.
As well as the tale of his vegetable patch, there are over six hundred pages of suggestions on what to grow and how to grow it, with over four hundred recipe ideas.
Vegetarian Heartland is the work of Bloomington-based food-blogger, writer, and creative Shelly Westerhausen. She works with indi-rock music during the day and nurtures her passion for cooking vegan and vegetarian fair through her popular blog, Vegetarian Ventures. Her second book, Platters and Boards is also available in the shop.
Sonja & Alex Overhiser are writer and photographer of the award winning food blog A Couple Cooks, and authors of the book Pretty Simple Cooking, named a best vegetarian cookbook by Epicurious and Food & Wine. We were blessed to host them in the shop a couple of years ago and they could not be more generous with their process. The Indy-based couple has a worldwide following for their vegetarian and plant based recipes. They are authors of a series with Washington Post Food called Voraciously: Plant Powered, a recipe newsletter on how to cook more plant-forward meals.
A Couple Cooks won IACP Best Individual Blog award in 2019 by the International Association of Culinary Professionals, a professional association co-founded by Julia Child. Their original recipes are inspired by seasonal produce and their adventures travelling the globe: expect everything from cauliflower tacos to margherita pizza.
Joshua McFadden is affectionately known as a vegetable whisperer. Now based in Portland, Oregan he accumulated culinary cred working in restaurants like Momofuku and managing the trailblazing Four Seasons Farm in Maine. In his first book, Six Seasons, he pulls the wisdom of the farm and best attributes of produce in their seasons into 225 revelatory recipes.
The Story of Seedlip
Over three hundred years ago, it was common for physicians to distill herbal remedies using copper stills, harnessing the power of nature & alchemy to solve medical maladies. In 1651, one such physician, John French, published The Art of Distillation documenting these non-alcoholic recipes. At that same time, a family in Lincolnshire had started farming, hand sowing seeds using baskets called ‘seedlips’.
Centuries later, Ben, founder of Seedlip, stumbled across John French’s recipes & began experimenting with them in his kitchen, using a small copper still & herbs from his garden. That might have been the end of the story, if he hadn’t been given a sickly sweet pink mocktail one Monday evening in a restaurant. The result was the beginning of an idea to combine his farming heritage, love of nature, his copper still & forgotten recipes with the need for proper non-alcoholic options; a name inspired by the seed baskets carried by his family centuries before & a process of Seed to Lip: and so Seedlip was born.
Purchase a bottle of Seedlip Distilled Spirits and receive a complimentary logo-zip pouch, your choice of Seedlip sample, and a Fever-Tree Ginger Ale to make your first zero-proof cocktail (we won't tell if you toss some vodka in though, promise). When purchasing through our site, please note which flavor you want to sample in your free gift.
We believe anyone can cook.
We believe in welcoming everyone to the table.
We believe some tools are timeless.
We believe high quality isn't always expensive.
We believe in making things from scratch when possible.
We believe in gathering & connecting with one another.
