Planting a Change Garden

During the First and Second World Wars, Americans were forced to deal with food rationing and limited accessibility to items that had, for the entirety of their lifetimes, been used on a daily basis. "Working your own little patch of ground is part of the home front fighter's front-line assignment," wrote horticulturist Dr. Frank Thorne in 1943, "Chief weapon should be tomatoes."

Today, we're at war in Iraq but more devastating is the war we face at home -- the one against a crumbling economy. Then there's the war against global warming. Might it be time again to resurrect the Victory Garden?

Alice Waters and the group behind Revive the Victory Garden certainly think so. The farm to table trend in food doesn't have to be limited to high-end restaurants, or the economically sound who can afford all organic produce all the time. Plant a vegetable garden, and your home can be the next Blue Hill at Stone Barns.

As someone who is so very into organic and local produce, this is now my new project. I have a half acre of empty property (that had once been a highly productive apple orchard) and as of May 3rd, an indeterminate amount of time to tend to my tomatoes, lettuces, herbs, and zucchinis.

So anyone out there know how to work a plow?

Recession? Apparently not in South Beach

Every day the New York Times tells me we're in the midst of a financial crisis. In case I forget, the radio news, the television news, the homeless guy on the corner, the schools I applied to for my PhD and my bank account all find ways to remind me that money is scarce, a depression has hit us and it's going to take a while to get back up.

But if you ask the Ritz Carlton South Beach, or anyone in South Beach right now, they'll tell you something different. Money is flowing there -- thick and quickly, right out of the pockets of well-dressed men in Prada sunglasses and Ferragamo loafers. The high end bars of the Shore Club and the Delano, where martinis are $16 a pop, haven't yet felt the pull of tightening belts. Sitting outside of Nobu at the Shore Club, sipping sake, I watched Rolex Submariner clad wrists drop Benjamin Franklins and Amex Black cards on the wooden bar in front of me. There wasn't an ounce of concern in their eyes. As they wrapped their tanned arms around the under-dressed, well-bejeweled women at their side, it was clear -- there was more of that where that came from.

Poolside at the Ritz, a group of 5 people rented one of the luxury lounge beds for two days at $400 a day. The lounge beds included a fruit plate and some champagne. But that wasn't enough for them. They proceeded to order champagne and margaritas like they were tap water. I suspected they were there with the Miami Film Festival. Only Hollywood wannabes would think that kind of spending was a good idea... recession or no recession. And apparently, the film industry is the only one making money right now. No one wants to watch CNN anymore and hear about how their entire savings, which is invested in Citigroup Stock, has vanished, so they're spending what income they have in the theaters on depressing movies about broken marriages and the Holocaust. Go figure.

It was a bit surprising. You would think with companies cutting back the high roller hotels and restaurants would be suffering a bit. But not in the slightest. The people that have the kind of money that buys you cars like most people buy chewing gum, always have money. And those people were all in South Beach with me.

Clearly all the other under-30 women who were there knew about these and neglected to send me the memo that said: If you want to land one of these titanium amex toting gents, or just go out in Miami, whip out the 5-inch cork-heel sandals, mico minis and double padded pushup bras, straighten your hair and apply enough eyeliner so you look like a raccoon. I haven't seen so many average looking women so over made-up, so under dressed and so unbalanced on their feet since the last Miss America Pageant. I guess they had all taken a page out of Patti Stanger's book. There I was at the Shore Club bar, minimalist makeup, dressed in a high-waisted knee-length black Cynthia Steffe skirt with a black lace top I had bought in 2000 (no joke) and flat sandals, surrounded by boobs, bad Pucci knockoff minidresses and skyscraper espadrilles feeling like a mushroom. Apparently, New York chic doesn't get you sake refills in Miami Beach.

Economists Release Revolutionary Economic Indicator: the TEI

Economists at Perdue University have recently released a new system for measuring the stability of the economy, the Turkey Economic Indicator. Named for the Thanksgiving season's dinner-time staple, the TEI examines minor shifts in consumers buying habits around the holiday season.

"The media and the Fed have been so concerned with consumers and the fate of durable goods, like cars or homes, that they have forgotten to look at the everyday cutbacks people make to save money," explains Professor Mashamar Yamerts, who initiated the research behind the development of the TEI. "Changes around the holiday season are perhaps the most telling about the stability of our economy as a whole."

Thanksgiving is a time of family and feasts and is not typically a day when people concern themselves with moderation. "If people are cutting back at Thanksgiving, you can bet they are cutting back on all consumption."

Furthermore, the recent trend in organic, free-range and cruelty-free food products has resulted in an increase in the average family's annual expenditure on grocery items. But the TEI, which measures changes in the sale of grocery items and in particular the changes in the sale ratio of conventional to organic/free-range turkeys, shows that many consumers are shying away from the all-natural food trend.

Buyers for grocery chains like Whole Foods and A&P anticipated another increase in demand for organic birds for the 2008 season. "Last November and December, we oversold the number of organic turkeys our suppliers could provide for us," recounts a Whole Foods store manager, who requested to go unnamed. "It was a disaster. Who would imagine an organic turkey shortage? To get ready for this year, we preordered 100 more organic birds for our store. But we saw nothing near last year's demand for this type of turkey. It looks like we're going to be offering a lot of discounted Moroccan-turkey salad in our prepared food bar for the next few weeks."

The TEI saw the percentage of organic turkeys purchase drop 5% in 2008, well below 2005 levels. It appears people have gone back to their Butterballs or their store brands in the face of economic uncertainty. "Consumers can save upwards of $10-20 dollars, depending on the size of the birds, by giving up the organic or free-range label." And when consumers are hosting a house full of in-laws and third cousins, every dollar saved on a turkey is another dollar for post-party dry-cleaning bills.

Yamerts and his colleagues noted a few other changes in consumer grocery spending this Thanksgiving. The sale of marshmellows and yams also declined while white and Yukon-gold potatoes saw an increase of 2.3% in sales. It appears as though consumers who once considered baked yams with mini-marshmellows a holiday staple have decided to switch out one root vegetable for another, replacing the sweet yam dish with simple, old-fashioned mashed potatoes. Again, Yamerts chalks up the change in traditions to price points. The average price of a pound of yams is $1.82, while potatoes typically come in under $0.70 a pound. Additionally, the higher number of ingredients needed to make the baked yams brings the average price of this side dish to about $2.00 a person. Mashed potatoes usually only require standard pantry/fridge items and thus tend to cost about $1.00 per person.

Yamerts considers his study to be revolutionary, but he acknowledges that the TEI can not make real economic forecasts until early 2009 when researchers have the grocery receipts from the Christmas, Hanukah, Kwanza and New Years food and liquor buying rush. Once these numbers are collected and evaluated, Yamerts, et al., will turn their sites to the Easter and Passover holidays when they begin compiling data for the M-CBEI (Matzo/Chocolate-Bunny Economic Indicator).