09/12/2026
Before I dive into a piece on a very special writer/thinker who died last week, a few quick notes:
🍕 New September menu! - Luscious is back and we are featuring a new pizza with Muhammara sauce (vegetarian and meat options available)
Only 6 weeks (9 pizza opportunities) remain in the season! Don't let them pass you by!
🎶 Last call for Rucksack Revolution Tickets! The show is on Sunday, September 20th and we'd love to see you! (Tickets available on our website)
Now to talk about Wendell Berry and his influence on our lives...
Last week, as Tom was reading one of Wendell Berry's many books before bed, we received word (thank you, NYT notifications) that this influential agrarian writer had died at the age of 92.
As we compared notes, Tom and I realized that we both were introduced to Berry through the same essay, which we read during our college years. "The Pleasures of Eating," which calls us all to be in deeper relationship and connection with our food.
Berry argues that this could be through such means as growing your own food, preparing your own food, learning about the origins of the food you buy, buying food that is produced closest to your home and learning about the economy and technology of industrial food production (in self defense). It's tough to paraphrase Berry because the power of his writing comes through his well articulated, lyrical writing. I'll share a favorite piece of "The Pleasures of Eating" essay below but really encourage you to read the entire essay if you have a few minutes.
Berry inspired me to care deeply about local food and grow deep roots in a community. He also inspired Tom to find joy and meaning in farming. He has been influential on our lives in so many ways and will be missed.
"The pleasure of eating should be an extensive pleasure, not that of the mere gourmet. People who know the garden in which their vegetables have grown and know that the garden is healthy and remember the beauty of the growing plants, perhaps in the dewy first light of morning when gardens are at their best. Such a memory involves itself with the food and is one of the pleasures of eating. The knowledge of the good health of the garden relieves and frees and comforts the eater. The same goes for eating meat. The thought of the good pasture and of the calf contentedly grazing flavors the steak. Some, I know, will think of it as bloodthirsty or worse to eat a fellow creature you have known all its life. On the contrary, I think it means that you eat with understanding and with gratitude. A significant part of the pleasure of eating is in one's accurate consciousness of the lives and the world from which food comes. The pleasure of eating, then, may be the best available standard of our health. And this pleasure, I think, is pretty fully available to the urban consumer who will make the necessary effort.
I mentioned earlier the politics, esthetics, and ethics of food. But to speak of the pleasure of eating is to go beyond those categories. Eating with the fullest pleasure — pleasure, that is, that does not depend on ignorance — is perhaps the profoundest enactment of our connection with the world. In this pleasure we experience and celebrate our dependence and our gratitude, for we are living from mystery, from creatures we did not make and powers we cannot comprehend."
And if you have another few minutes, consider reading this beautiful piece written by Barbara Kingsolver, following Berry's passing.
Berry's physical presence in this world will be missed but there is still much to be learned from his writings which speak deeply to belonging and sense of place. Perhaps one of our favorite Wendell Berry related memories was when were canoeing the Upper Iowa River, past Chimney Rock Campground. It was sometime between 10pm and midnight. Not to be stopped by the social conventions of being quiet near campgrounds after a certain time of night, our friend started rehearsing the entire poem, "Mad Farmer Liberation Front" at the top of his lungs. I can still hear his voice and the words of this poem echoing down and across the river as if it was yesterday.
May Wendell Berry continue to inspire us with his wisdom to eat with pleasure, share in community with others and find our place in the world.
