Farm City by Novella Carpenter

Author:Novella Carpenter [Carpenter, Novella]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Penguin USA, Inc.
Published: 2011-02-11T16:00:00+00:00

The next morning, as I picked a few apples to eat for breakfast, my first caffeine-withdrawal headache flashed across my temple. I had to go lie down.

Lying on my bed, with the morning sun filtering in and a breeze swirling the curtains into the sickroom, I wondered: How can I get out of this? It felt as if a monster had grabbed me and was going to hold me here for thirty—oh, no, why did I pick July?—thirty-one days. Why hadn’t I weaned myself off coffee? Then another dreadful question: What’s for lunch?

That afternoon Bill and I went to a friend’s barbecue. Though I had eaten a jar of stewed peaches, a green salad, and at least ten ounces of honey, the smell of the grilling meat nearly knocked me down. Two yoga teachers I vaguely knew beckoned me over.

“I have the worst headache,” I explained before they had the chance to read my aura.

“Give me your hand,” Baxter said.

He pinched the area between my thumb and index finger. My headache went away. It was replaced by a growling stomach.

“I’m off coffee,” I said with a sigh.

“You didn’t do it gradually?” Raven asked.

I shook my head. Yoga people have been telling me for years that I should give up coffee, that it’s full of toxins and other bad things. But when they suggest that I should stop drinking coffee, I want to tell them maybe they should saw off their legs.

Baxter gave me back my hand. The headache returned.

I looked around the party. There they were, my friends, standing next to the grill, dishing up salads, drinking beer. I had the sinking realization that social activities all revolve around sharing food. The act of setting up my 100-yard diet had turned me into an alien visiting from planet Weird in the solar system Healthy.

But then again, everyone at the party was on some kind of Bay Area diet kick anyway. The gluten-intolerant munched on ears of corn in the corner. The vegans had their own grill set up with toasting tofu. The raw-food vegans were sipping on freshly macheted green coconuts. The pescatarians were shoving ceviche into their faces. Defining ourselves by what we eat—that’s what we do for fun around here.

I was sure that I could find a freshairian or a locavore to share my pain with but instead decided to leave early. I found Bill, an unapologetic omnivore, moving from grill to grill, stuffing sausages and ribs and veggie burgers into his mouth. I ripped a piece of watermelon out of his hand and insisted that, really, we couldn’t stay another moment.

Later that day, I ordered three tea plants—Camellia sinensis—over the phone.

“I want the gallon size,” I gritted out as the perky woman took my order. I needed a quick harvest.

“We’ll include recipes for how to make tea,” she assured me. The rest of the day passed in a painful haze.

On day two, I made several unfortunate discoveries.

With dreams of latkes dancing in my slow-moving, uncaffeinated brain, I made my way out to the garden with a shovel and a bucket.

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