Ambi Stone of Elmwood Stock Farm sent a link to a recent interview with Michael Pollan, author of The Botany of Desire and The Omnivore’s Dilemma. Thank you, Ambi.

Here’s a quote from the interview, published on October 12, 2007:

“The interesting thing that I learned was that if you’re really concerned about your health, the best decisions for your health turn out to be the best decisions for the farmer and the best decisions for the environment — and that there is no contradiction there.”

And here’s the link to the article in the Organic Consumers Association website.

Michael Pollan’s new book, In Defense of Food: The Myth of Nutrition and the Pleasures of Eating, will be available on January 1, 2008.

Friend, fellow cook and farmers’ market co-explorer Judy Rosen sent a sweet article about Heron Pond Farm, in South Hampton, New Hampshire. Heron Pond sells at the Seacoast Growers Association’s Tuesday afternoon market in Hampton, minutes from Salisbury Beach, Massachusetts, where Judy summers, and where we go for a short time each summer.

Farms selling to schools, aided by a university program, handled through a distributor — it sounds like lots of wins, particularly for the students, who get better tasting food, and the farmers, who get an expanded market.

I got a little carried away, writing my October Nougat story on sorghum. The main thing to me is that sorghum has a future, not just a past. For example, vegans can eat sorghum. I wonder if babies can, too, even though they cannot eat honey. My father tells me, “When I was little, I just about lived on sorghum. That’s all I really liked.” He’s 95 3/4 now, so perhaps the claims about minerals and antioxidants are true.

A knob of butter, a pour of sorghum, mash together, put on a biscuit or cornbread or spoonbread, or eat it with your spoon. It is that amazingly good.

I’ll be visiting sorghum mills and cooking operations in the next few days. I discovered a huge Kentucky list of tiny sorghum producers, and it looks like pure gold to me. Syrup-y, slurp-y gold.

Thank you, Kentucky Department of Agriculture. What a list!

Some fine people work to keep useful livestock breeds alive, and all of us benefit. The American Livestock Breeds Conservancy will hold its 30th Anniversary Conference in North Carolina November 2-4. (Just noting — I’m a bit slow. I first started learning about the significance of heritage livestock breeds from Ann Bell Stone of Elmwood Stock Farm, about four year ago. That’s plenty recent, given that the members of the ALBC have been associating for 30 years.)

Here is a conference session that caught my eye:

Breeding Myotonic Goats for Meat Conformation. This goat goes by many names: Tennessee Fainting, Wooden Leg, Stiff. But what makes this goat breed so good for meat and so well-suited to the mid-south? Learn what to look for in goat breeding stock.

Slow Food Bluegrass leader and Bourbon Street Café Executive Chef Mark Williams sent the information about this conference. Thank you, Mark, and thank you for all the fine things you do to encourage all of us in the direction of food that is good, clean, and fair.

At the ALCB conference, Mark will be leading a session on cooking with heritage breeds. Mark has invested a lot of time and energy in cultivating and promoting heritage breeds. Here’s how the program describes Mark’s skills and experiences:

Mark Williams is the founder and leader of the Slow Food Bluegrass convivium in Kentucky. The group works closely with local farmers and producers of heritage breeds to promote their products to consumers. He is a chef by profession, beginning his formal culinary training with an American Culinary Federation apprenticeship at the Atlanta Athletic Club. His colorful career has included working as chef at the Fish Market in Atlanta, GA, chef in residence at the Sonoma-Cutrer Winery, sous chef at the School for American Chefs at Beringer Vineyards, Napa Valley, and as chef for George Lucas at the Skywalker Ranch. His experiences in cooking with wine have unfolded into a passion for cooking with spirits and liquors, and serve him well in his current position as Executive Chef of the Bourbon Street Cafe in Louisville, Kentucky.