Song of the South

Nothing needs to be hot right now. It's July.

Not showers or bath water, not food nor drink, certainly not clothing. It's time to embrace the heat. My method involves taking a walk along and knee-high dip in the river this morning and giving into my first heat nap this afternoon, both out of sheer necessity.

Sure those 96 degrees outside felt like 104 by 4:45, but it was a clear-skied, breezy 104. Honestly, it could be so much worse.

"Not sarcasm: I love this weather. #bringontheheat #you'll find me outside," a friend writes on Facebook. She was mocked and challenged, but I'm with her 100%.

So naturally, I did what any civilized Richmond woman living without air conditioning would do - and has done - since at least the 19th century: donned a thin cotton dress and grabbed a parasol to best deal with the heat outside.

My purpose was simply to stroll over to Rappahannock for oyster happy hour.

The dozen Old Saltes were chilled, the orgeat lemonade was possibly the most refreshing thing I ever put in my mouth and I could not have been happier to enjoy both in air conditioning that was doing its best to keep up, but mostly unsuccessfully.

Leaving the restaurant for the Valentine Museum, I passed one of Rappahannock's waiters standing on Fourth Street and joked about him being outside in the swelter.

"Like it wasn't sweltering inside, too?" he cracked, jerking his thumb at the dining room. True that.

Behind the Marriott's loading dock, a man in a black suit sat smoking a cigarette, pointing at my flowered umbrella as I walked by, saying, "That's a good idea." I wish I could say it was original.

At least I was walking East, so the worst of the sun was behind me.

The Valentine's auditorium was already filling up when I arrived hot and glistening, only to be reminded that of course the museum of the city of Richmond would be gracious enough to provide fans to its guests on such a sticky summer day.

After walking eight blocks, I was only sorry the fan didn't come with a bare-chested man to use it on me so I could just sit back and enjoy it. Addressing my own fanning needs instead, I spotted a Milky Way miniature at the feet of the woman next to me.

What, ho? There's chocolate?

On my way to score some of my own, I ran into a photographer friend and invited her to sit with me. Her backside barely landed when she spotted my candy stash and quietly asked, "Hmm, there's chocolate?''

You see, some messages get garbled as they're shared (like that childhood game "telephone") and other messages could be passed between dozens of women and the original message would stay true. Not to sound sexist, but we don't mess around when it comes to our chocolate.

But it wasn't chocolate we were there for, it was a screening of "Polyfaces," a documentary about Joel Salatin's game-changing Polyface farm, with a Q & A with Joel afterwards.

Between reading and having heard Joel talk before, I knew a fair amount about the unique farming methods and impressive results, but the Australian-made film showed how real people had become part of the movement by interning at Polyface to get grounded in farming basics or starting their own farms using his methods.

Hearing Michael Pollan of "The Omnivore's Dilemma" talk about asking Joel to ship him a chicken because he'd heard how fabulous they were and having Joel refuse, telling him to come to Virginia if he wanted to taste one of his birds, was a perfect example of how Joel marches to the beat of a different drummer.

His son picked up the tune, beginning by raising chickens as a boy and selling eggs to neighbors and progressed to then killing the old hens, cooking the meat and selling bags of chicken meat to neighbors for, what else, chicken pot pie.

The film wasn't shy about the rigors and realities of farm life - slaughter and processing animals, lots of cow pooping, farm dogs nursing - because one of the big differences in Joel's methods over mainstream U.S. farming is that his is more labor-intensive.

Somebody's got to move those cows, chickens and turkeys from field to field if you're replacing the use of chemical fertilizers with rich cow poop and yard bird scratching.

For those of us who recall the '70s, it was gratifying to see so many young couples excited to get back to the land and become part of a revolution in how we grow and consume our food. Watching a babe-in-arms eat through a fresh tomato like it was candy spoke to how we shape our children's palates and not in a good way.

I hadn't realized how fortunate we are to have access to Polyface eggs and meats since he only services an area three hours from the farm, but after watching the film, I'd have to say that his main role now is in teaching younger people his methods and inspiring new generations of conscientious farmers.

Who, coincidentally, look and sound a lot like the people being called hippies 40 years ago. Happy, groovy, nature-loving hippies. Not a thing wrong with that.

During the Q & A, things got feisty when someone asked about being told the farm now uses some GMOs and Joel wasted no time in disabusing us of that notion.

He raved about the contributions of the interns (even introducing three, two current and one former) and noted that they average one "all Polyface wedding a year," as in bride and groom were both employees or interns.

I've heard of people interning on farms and finding their soul mate that way, but I'm hardly the rise-at-dawn-and-do-chores type, so that was never really an option for me. So I may not be up to the rigors of farm life, but I can handle summer in the city like a boss.

"I'm fine with this weather," a guy tells me as I sashay by. "Think about February!"

Those of us who would prefer not to can be found outside. It's July. Sweltering, yes, but happy, too.  #nosarcasm

Lose Yourself to Life

Time to get back in the game. The question is, given my life, why did I take myself out?

There was a time when Richmond wasn't cool enough to have a Farmer Speaker Series, but that day is long gone and when I saw that Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms was coming to Ellwood Thompson to share his thoughts on "You Can't Study What Isn't," I immediately bought a ticket and advised a friend, knowing it would be a (sorry) hot ticket.

That ship sailed within a week and I heard they had a waiting list for anyone who might drop out, not that that was likely.

Arriving at ET in time to score an enormous dark chocolate-iced gingerbread cookie (my Proustian reverie) while my date went for wine (sorry, grape overload after the past two days in wine country), we snagged seats in the second row behind an earnest-looking young man with a book on farming under his seat.

Joel's topic addressed the anti-meat culture that's become more and more of a thing, his point being that so much of the research is based on the kind of farming we shouldn't be doing anyway (and not the kind he's been doing at Polyface since 1982) that's it's irrelevant.

Maybe it's because he has an English degree and does so much writing, but he was a wonderful speaker, prowling the floor at the front of the room and and frequently asking in a rising voice, "What if...?"

But he also had a wicked smart sense of humor, sharing that he names all their bulls after philanderers - Don Juan, Teddy (as in Kennedy) - and pointing out the brains of the operation, his wife of many decades, as, "Behind every great man, there's an amazed woman. There's mine."

He was full of obscure information as in 500 years ago, this land that's now the U.S. produced more nutrition than it does today, solely because the Europeans arrived with their "progressive" methods and disease. Or, how about this one? 70% of all the drugs used in America are used on agricultural livestock.

"Who's been drugging your dinner?' he joked.

He'd already told us that he was not here to try to convert us to vegans or even vegetarians (ha, fat chance), but instead to point how too much farming was being done in ways that hurt the earth, depleted resources, provided a larger carbon footprint than necessary and produced poorer-tasting food.

All I can say to attest to that is that the first time I ate a "happy" pig - one raised on the kind of farm Joel runs and espouses - it was a revelation and as different a taste as any piece of pig I'd ever put in my mouth.

With me, he was preaching to the choir because I've tasted how right he is about proper farming.

After sharing scads of information and referencing a half dozen books that would probably make excellent food reading, he closed by saying, "May all your carrots be long and straight, all your radishes fat and not pithy," and went on from there.

Basically, Joel food-blessed us in closing.

Moving on to our own food needs, we trekked down the street to ZZaam, the new Korean grill, a place with all the ambiance of a betting parlor, with multiple screens, bad music playing and endless blackboards of food and drink info (is there any cuisine that hasn't adopted tacos as their own?) as patrons are herded along a counter to order and await sustenance.

A constant state of confusion reigned as people waited to order, waited for food, considered  options and milled about.

Crab pancakes, golden brown with egg, onions, carrots and even boasting a discernible crab taste were the best of the lot, which included mandoo - steamed pork dumplings with barely a hint of pig - and fat chicken lettuce wraps.

Home by 9:00, it was pretty obvious that I needed more. More everything that I'm not getting enough of. More reasons to be glad that this is my life. More reasons to enjoy right now instead of stressing to the point that a giant zit erupts on my face.

I put on some lip gloss and walked over to Balliceaux, my first time there since we rang in 2016. Overdue, long overdue.

The 13-piece Brunswick was getting set up. The guy on the bar stool next to me welcomed me, saying he was taking a load off because he'd walked over from Carver near Sugar Shack, touching off a discussion of my walk over and how he used to live in Jackson Ward.

One of the trombonists came over to order a drink, instrument in hand, and apologized when it ran into me, leading to a discussion of his Monette mouthpiece, apparently a Winton Marsalis favorite.

Oh, and by the way, it was made of gold and named for a yoga term.

A trumpet player I know looked especially dapper in a striped shirt, bow tie and jacket, having just come from VCU Jazz Orchestra's performance.

Everyone's favorite percussionist/trombonist told me he'd been playing in Europe and with Sufjan Stevens and asked what was new with me. An elementary school teacher friend told me her Spring Break plans, which were essentially non-plans for Spring weather. The brewery queen complimented my jacket and invited me to her pig event.

Brunswick knocked the collective socks off the room with an assortment of original material for ten horns, bass, drums and percussionist, along with covers of artists as diverse as Pedro the Lion and Daft Punk. Near the bandstand, a DJ danced alone, eyes closed, to practically every song.

Note to self: You're not getting any younger. Do more, dance more. Be open to everything at least once. Change things that need improving. Maybe it's time to lose the blog and put my abundance of energy elsewhere.

Maybe it's time to grow radishes fat and not pithy, and, yes, that's a euphemism.