We have come back to Ouzilly for the summer. You editor will still be at work. He will travel to Spain, Canada, and America in the next few weeks. But he will return to rural France each time – to spend a few days of holiday.
We arrived on Tuesday night...dragging a horse van behind us. It was 10:30 at night.
“Hi, I’m Jean,” said a pleasant woman with a Midwest accent, bright red cheeks and yellow hair.
“I’m going to cook for you this summer.”
You don’t need much to be happy. But a good cook is indispensable.
Elizabeth had placed an ad on the Internet – on Craig’s List. With so many people coming and going, we need household help in the summer. Jean, from Oregon, by way of Iowa, responded. She was already in the kitchen when we arrived and had prepared a dinner for us.
“Everything is from the garden or the farm,” she announced. “The salad, the green beans, the peas, the onions, the eggs...well, not the noodles.
“It’s so nice to have a garden to work with. And Damien (the gardener) is so nice. But I think he overdoes it...”
On the floor were huge buckets overflowing with green beans, peas, onions and other vegetables we couldn’t recognize.
“I’m going to can it...or freeze it. But there’s no more room in the freezer. He overdoes it, but it’s so nice to have fresh food directly from your own garden.”
And here’s a report from USA Today: “Americans are planting gardens to cope with high food prices.”
Yes, dear reader, it doesn’t take much to be happy...or to beat rising food prices. Just begin with a good gardener ...and hire a good cook.
Bill Bonner
The Daily Reckoning Australia
P.S. to get The Daily Reckoning direct to your inbox sign up to our free e-mail newsletter or if you prefer to use RSS, subscribe to the Daily Reckoning RSS feed.
Related Articles:
- What a Summer
- Experiencing Hard Work
- Henry Leaves for College
- Unexpected Visitor at the Chateau in Ouzilly
- Summer of Awakening
About the Author
Best-selling investment author Bill Bonner is the founder and president of Agora Publishing, one of the world's most successful consumer newsletter companies. Owner of both Fleet Street Publications and MoneyWeek magazine in the UK, he is also author of the free daily e-mail The Daily Reckoning.
Comment by Fred on 11 July 2008:
I travelled by train from Berlin through East Germany to the West back in 91, not long after the fall of the Berlin wall. The most notable thing in East G. was everyone had substantial vegie patches in the backyard and clapped out trabbies. In crossing to the West, immediately evident was; no more back yard vegie patches, but instead Shell petrol stations and 7-11 type shops everywhere, and Merc's instead of trabbies. I imagine nowadays East looks alot more like West. Now Americans are going the way of those former evil communists! Funny how the tables turn over time.
I too have a vegie patch and love it, but I'm not yet much good as a farmer. We'd all be long dead if I had to grow our own food.
Comment by christina on 12 July 2008:
You can even grow food in pots if you don't have much space. Just get a book about planting food in pots, or ask you local nursery how to do it. Nursery people love to talk, they will be only too happy to help you. (Ps- has anybody else noticed that nursery people and butchers love to talk a lot? How sweet)
Comment by Bill Critch on 13 July 2008:
Bonner. In your income bracket, you can afford a cook!
Comment by Tom Noonan on 14 July 2008:
Think "Death of a Salesman".
But equally seriously over the last two decades or so a lot of the dormitory suburbs have been pushed onto really terrible soils, while a sort of "right to farm" regulation has informed Councils.
So it is not that easy. Supposing elite agribusiness grabs control of extended debt ridden farmers who have strived to become large, (high fuel costs will help), think "Soylent Green".
Except under the most benign conditions conditions there is more to growing vegetables than throwing in a few seeds and presto: Permaculture Paradise. Problems include really infertile badly structured soils, with bad water characteristics; and a host of pests, animal, insect, fungal and bacterial; which limits the crops which will grow, and causes really disappointing yields.
Thank heavens for Woolworths and Coles.