This weekend, Matt Bohannon's releasing a new album called Go Back to Your Roots. Matt's both friend and family to Food as a Verb. More on that in a moment.

Roots? Yeah, roots. Supporting community. Growing food. The table and generosity.

We aren't reporting anything formal here today, other than hearsay, and the hearsay can feel difficult and painful all the way down.

Folks losing their jobs. Like government workers trusted in the community, often rural places. Like the Natural Resources Conservation Service - part of the USDA with a mission to serve "America's farmers, ranchers, and forest managers by providing them with financial and technical assistance, or advice, for their land."

One woman helping legal immigrant families find food, housing, employment had to lay off dozens of employees.

Funds for food. Assistance for food. Programs for food. All threatened or cut.

Reporting on this feels like the child's vulnerable finger in the dam wall. We're turning to help from some other places. These are good resources.

• Progressive Farmer
• Civil Eats
• The Progress Network's newsletter, which continually asks: what could go right?

The Network's Emma Varvaloucas offers this:

A line from Buddhist scripture is helpful: “A grain of salt cast into a small cup of water renders it undrinkable, but such is not the case if it be cast into a river.” In other words, our information environment is about to feel a lot like a lot of salt poured into a very small water glass. 

You can dilute the taste by widening your lens. The United States is not the whole world; consume some news from outside of it. Politics is not the whole of the US; follow items on technology, science, arts and culture, and so on. And federal policy is not the whole of politics; put some of your focus on local or regional goings-on. 

Hence, our mission and vision for Food as a Verb.

As a response, please consider supporting the Chattanooga Area Food Bank - financial, time, word of mouth, prayer. There's never been a better time to join forces with our region's food bank.

That huge warehouse of food? Sarah's photo captured just a fraction of it all.

Then, consider this:

"If we stop getting donations," said Kathy Martin, community engagement manager told us, "we would be bare bones in a month."

• Congratulations to LUNCH in Sewanee for its two-year anniversary.

Chef Mallory Grimm has created a treasure there. We fell in love with her restaurant on our first visit two winters ago, in the early days of Food as a Verb. It was "one of the most meaningful meals of 2023" for us.

(If you missed it, you can read our profile on Mallory - here. She also writes a really beautiful newsletter called Late, Late Summer.)

LUNCH is a stalwart support of local food, sourcing the bulk of its ingredients from regional farmers. (LUNCH gets its wine license soon, also.) They serve an occasional dinner, too, which sells out in no-time.

Cheers to Chef Grimm and Trapp Tubbs, her partner, and their team, for the tremendously wholesome and delicious work.

• Finally, another big cheers to Matt Bohannon, who's like family - well, he actually is family - to Food as a Verb.

Last year, we hosted our one-year party at Cherry Street Tavern, the inestimably influential downtown bar, restaurant and music hall owned by Marty Bohannon, Matt's brother. It's a Chattanooga bedrock. (Bedrock-n-roll.) We had a blast.

Cherry Street's been booking live music for years. Many of the bands you see at larger venues first traveled through the city because of Cherry Street.

Plus, the restaurant there often sources from the Wednesday Main Street Farmers' Market, making a cool place even cooler.

This weekend, both brothers celebrate an album release party.

Matt celebrates his new album Go Back to Your Roots - happy birthday, bud - on Friday, with Marty's on Saturday.

Go back to your roots.

That's good advice in difficult times. Where are our roots? How do we find them when we feel lost?

Roots seem to always connect us with others, the land, our own heart. Things are much bigger than we may realize.

“A grain of salt cast into a small cup of water renders it undrinkable, but such is not the case if it be cast into a river.”

Take good care, everyone. See you Sunday.

Story ideas, questions, feedback? Interested in partnering with us? Email: david@foodasaverb.com

This story is 100% human generated; no AI chatbot was used in the creation of this content.