Pre-market thoughts.

Madison.

See an enlightening blog entry from Verlyn Klinkenborg at the New York Times. This is, in essence, how I feel about raising one's own food, especially livestock, except that he's more eloquent, a more self-assured writer.

Even without the ability to raise all of one's own food, knowing its provenance, knowing the people and the effort that went into making it, makes it taste better. That said, a wonderful dinner at L'Etoile last night nearly fits that bill. Not only does the restaurant list their producers quite prominently on the menu, but I recognize almost all of them. I even know several on a first-name basis.

Even the photographs on the wall are familiar, in particular a shot of John Aue from Butter Mountain. Not only does he have that very unique, antique scale, and the hand-made wooden bins of specialty potatoes (the Grill-Roast-Stew variety mix, 3 lbs. for $6, is a dead-obvious sign), but you can tell it's him, with his head out of the frame, by the way he leans forward on his elbows, grasping the fingers of one hand in the other. It's such a familiar sight that I can see the whole picture, in color, extending beyond the frame.

Now, appropriately enough, it's time to go the market. I'll probably buy some of John's potatoes for tonight's dinner, and talk to some of the farmers who had a part in making last night's dinner as spectacular as it was.