Our Summer 2018 Issue

There are a lot of fabulous photos to grab your eye in this issue, from the tempting recipes John Carafoli scored from some of the Cape’s top chefs, to the dazzling flowers grown by Blue Lobster Flower Farm, to the montage of mouth-watering food being sent out of the kitchen at Pickle Jar in Falmouth. But, like a parent who tries to get her kids to eat more vegetables by sneaking squash into the chocolate chip cookies, we’ve interspersed these lighthearted features with stories that explore some of the hidden food issues we are grappling with on the Cape: food insecurity and food waste.

According to Cape Kid Meals, one in six children on Cape Cod is food insecure, meaning they do not have consistent access to adequate food for an active, healthy life. Contributors Eileen Morris and Linda Maria Steele each tackle this subject in two different features. Like the title of Morris’ article It Takes a Village suggests, many local organizations—non-profits, schools, county government and businesses—have come together to form links in a safety net to close the hunger gap, whether they are operating a food pantry, teaching healthy lifestyle choices, or packing food bags to feed children over the weekend throughout the school year. In Fostering Food Security Through Active Community Partnerships, Steele zeros in on a single individual, Kim Gainey, a high school science teacher at Waypoint Academy in Sandwich, and her efforts to actively involve her students in addressing food insecurity. Those students are learning how to garden and prepare nutritious meals, and are packing fresh produce for distribution at the Falmouth Service Center. Gabrielle Stommel focuses on food waste and how different constituencies (consumers, producers and retailers) are making efforts to reduce the amount of food that ends up in our landfills. In America we still waste about one-third of all the food we produce, which is shocking considering how many people are food insecure.

It’s nice to see so many photos of Cape Codders in the garden in this issue, from third graders and high school students working in school gardens to more seasoned folks enjoying the fellowship of a community garden. There is a lot of satisfaction to be derived from playing in the dirt and growing your own food. And nothing tastes sweeter than that sun-warmed tomato right from your garden. So we encourage you to take the fullest advantage of our short growing season by planting a few seeds. Even if it’s only a patio planter filled with herbs. You’ll never want to purchase a plastic-encased handful of wilted dill again.