This time of year – early August – brings my family together. From both ends of the country and parts in between, we travel to a tiny town in Northern Indiana, nestled beside a picturesque lake. We gather in a house built at the turn of the last century, which has remained over those many years, more or less, as it started – a modest lakeside cottage. Relics of lives long since passed are harbored here – a Victrola phonograph, fishing poles and tackle, pink Depression glass plates and Wizard of Oz books. It’s a setting saturated with childhood memories – swimming in the lake on hot summer days, chasing fireflies at dusk, lounging with a book on the porch swing, falling asleep to the lullaby of chirping katydids. Photographs line the walls, revealing smiling faces. Some of the images are brown with age – five sisters, the first visitors to this place. Now five generations later, my own family’s smiles grace the dark, unfinished wood, as do those of cousins, aunts and uncles.

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Recipe – Classic Lemonade

These days you hear a lot about people radically changing the way they approach food. Some have pledged to eat nothing grown outside a short radius of home. Others have sworn off packaged foods. A brave few have even vowed to consume only what they can raise in their own backyards. If you’re like me, you hear about these noble efforts and immediately feel guilty about the store bought chips sitting in the cupboard and the Indian tea, shipped halfway around the world, both items equally cherished and impossible to give up. My intent is always to do something about the “chips” in my life, when I find the strength someday. The remorse fades quickly though, in the face of the larger struggle at hand – to get some food, any food, on the table each and every day. How does a busy family seriously find the time, energy, and sheer willpower to fundamentally change the way we feed ourselves?

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