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Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing,

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Speaker 1: My chance to talk with artists, policymakers and performers, to

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Speaker 1: hear their stories, what inspires their creations, what decisions change

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Speaker 1: their careers, what relationships influenced their work. In a society

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Speaker 1: where the convenience of food outweighs quality and farm the

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Speaker 1: table is marketed as a luxury, it's rare to find

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Speaker 1: someone whose full time occupation is farmer, and even more rare,

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Speaker 1: as is the case with Scott Chaskey, to find one

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Speaker 1: who's also a poet. But the bearded, sixty six year

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Speaker 1: old farming virtuoso is nothing if not one of a kind.

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Speaker 1: And Ohio native with a degree in creative writing, Chaskey began,

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Speaker 1: in his words, consciously growing food while living in England

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Speaker 1: with his wife in the nineteen eighties for moving back

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Speaker 1: to the States to take over as the head of

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Speaker 1: Quail Hill Farm in Amagansett, New York. One of the

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Speaker 1: first community supported farms in the country. Quail Hill began

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Speaker 1: in nine as a small piece of land for a

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Speaker 1: few local families, but the concept, which hinges on sharing

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Speaker 1: risk with the other farmers, has gone global and Scott

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Speaker 1: Chaskey is known in the agricultural world as the quote

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Speaker 1: spiritual father of community farming unquote. So we've been around

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Speaker 1: twenty seven years, um, and we are part of I

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Speaker 1: work for a land trust, the Peconic Landrust, which is

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Speaker 1: a conservation organization that has preserved twelve thousand acres of

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Speaker 1: land on the on the east end of Long Island.

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Speaker 1: So Mechanic Land Trust is a conservancy that protects land

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Speaker 1: out here. Who had the idea of let's take some

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Speaker 1: of this land and farm it organically? Did someone come

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Speaker 1: to you? You went to them? How did that happen? Yeah?

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Speaker 1: So so um, two years before we actually came to

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Speaker 1: emmaganstt and and and hooked up with a Pconic Land Trust,

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Speaker 1: there were ten families that were heard this about this

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Speaker 1: idea of c s A. And you know from the

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Speaker 1: beginning of it in Western mass your parents not, Oh

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Speaker 1: they were, that's right, they were part of the of

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Speaker 1: the first ten families. And that's actually how I got

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Speaker 1: involved because when we I lived in England for many years.

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Speaker 1: When we came back, Bill said you want to come

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Speaker 1: to this meeting about this community farm that were part

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Speaker 1: of I obviously wasn't part of it at that time.

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Speaker 1: And uh, here I am. You came back nine, that's right. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: What was dining like in your childhood and your relationship

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Speaker 1: to food when you were a child? Where are you from? Uh? So,

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Speaker 1: I grew up in um western New York, near Buffalo,

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Speaker 1: a place called Tonawanda. Uh And um what he had

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Speaker 1: an interesting job. He ran a bookstore at university, so

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Speaker 1: he was. But he was so good at it that

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Speaker 1: he kept getting hired to go on to another university.

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Speaker 1: And so I like that living around a university and

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Speaker 1: being part of that um. And so he ran the

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Speaker 1: bookstore at the University of Buffalo and then at the

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Speaker 1: University of Washington and then finally at Cornell. And so

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Speaker 1: Ithaca became home in the end, and I counted as

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Speaker 1: my hometown, even though I didn't get there until I

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Speaker 1: was I think seventeen, so the end of your high

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Speaker 1: school years. Yeah, yeah, I graduated from Ithaca High School

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Speaker 1: and it was immediately home, even even though I don't

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Speaker 1: I mean, I've never been back to Tonawanda actually, right,

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Speaker 1: And we're not to college to college fifty miles away

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Speaker 1: in Binghamton, Harper College at the time it was called

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Speaker 1: sunny Binghamton was harper and what was what was the

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Speaker 1: relationship with food? Because I think about my family and

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Speaker 1: how it's unusually once when I think back now, Yeah, well,

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Speaker 1: my mother is a great baker, so Irish mother Mary

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Speaker 1: and German father Harry and um he grew up in

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Speaker 1: a Germanic household, and so meat and potatoes were you know,

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Speaker 1: was the law up? Well, yeah, until did you rebel?

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Speaker 1: I rebelled a surprise surprise in the sixties. How many

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Speaker 1: siblings to to an older sister and a younger sister. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I was in the middle of the boy in the middle. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: But getting back to food, it was really my mother's

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Speaker 1: Irish recipes and uh highlighted also on Sunday evenings every

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Speaker 1: Sunday by my father's German potato pancakes. Was it was

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Speaker 1: it sitting down at a table, yeah, very conscious meal.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, very conscious, well paced meal and everybody bolting

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Speaker 1: their food like my house. No, we we sat and

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Speaker 1: we ate, et cetera, and lax there's always dessert, you know.

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Speaker 1: It was it was every evening was you know, customary basically, However,

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Speaker 1: I do remember as life got a little busier that

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Speaker 1: there was also the beginning of the TV dinner era,

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Speaker 1: so um, you know, yeah, I experienced that too. So

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Speaker 1: when you were growing up and and and and living

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Speaker 1: this way, when did you change your consciousness about what

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Speaker 1: you wanted to eat and didn't want to eat? Well? College,

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Speaker 1: I mean, so I went to Harper College in in

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Speaker 1: nineteen and in the the pretty fiery year right after

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Speaker 1: the UH Democratic Convention that year, I remember, you know,

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Speaker 1: being shocked watching that and here I am in in

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Speaker 1: uh initiation week in or you know, in introduction to

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Speaker 1: college and being away from home and the SDS, the

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Speaker 1: local STS chapter at at my university took over the

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Speaker 1: administration of Students for Democratic Societies who was took over?

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Speaker 1: And I was, you know, had no idea of what

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Speaker 1: this was, what was happening. So I mentioned that because

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Speaker 1: my entire consciousness and probably the consciousness of the country

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Speaker 1: changed as well, a lot of questioning of everything that

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Speaker 1: was ever, absolutely everything. How did that plan to your

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Speaker 1: eating habits? Yeah? And uh, do you know of the

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Speaker 1: do you know of the Moosewood Cookbooks? That's a it's

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Speaker 1: a restaurant in Ithaca that's arted and right right at

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Speaker 1: that time and and it was, you know, the first

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Speaker 1: sort of vegetarian outburst really at that time, and so

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Speaker 1: it was cooperative, etcetera. And so that had tremendous influence.

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Speaker 1: And and also I remember when I left it may

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Speaker 1: have been the year I left college. Um, Francis more

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Speaker 1: Lapay had written Diet for a Small Planet, which sold

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Speaker 1: millions of copies and still still does as a matter

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Speaker 1: of fact. And that's what I took when I went

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Speaker 1: out into the world to you know, learn about my

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Speaker 1: own style of cooking and eating, etcetera. Where did you

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Speaker 1: go to begin that process? Um? Everywhere? Traveling? It was

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Speaker 1: a traveling I traveled, yeah, uh, you know, with a

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Speaker 1: little Volkswagen bug. And then you know it's predictive everywhere everywhere. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: When did you first go overseas? What did you overseas before? Uh?

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Speaker 1: Probably during during college, sometime sometime in the middle of college,

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Speaker 1: which was putting uh, Switzerland, France. Um. And what struck

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Speaker 1: you when you wrote? What was happening then for me?

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Speaker 1: And the traveling was was opening to a new world

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Speaker 1: basically because all I knew was the United States. So

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Speaker 1: I just think it's about it in terms of it

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Speaker 1: for someone who later on goes on to spend a

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Speaker 1: huge part of their adult life growing food. Your life

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Speaker 1: is about food and agriculture, so so your relationship to

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Speaker 1: those things which is very in ordinary. Then I really

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Speaker 1: entered into consciously growing food in England when I moved

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Speaker 1: to England. So this didn't come Did you move there

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Speaker 1: to get a graduate degree in in literature? And I

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Speaker 1: lived in Oxford for a couple of years, but I

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Speaker 1: actually was studying through an American university, Antioch College, which

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Speaker 1: had a center for British studies in London, and the

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Speaker 1: fellow who headed the program was studying for a d

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Speaker 1: phil at Oxford. And so I said, I like the

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Speaker 1: idea of spending time in Oxford, and I went back

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Speaker 1: and forth to London, got a job as a gardener.

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Speaker 1: That was the beginning job as a gardener, And that

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Speaker 1: was the beginning. Did you seek that job? But that

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Speaker 1: was the only job, you know, I think was a

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Speaker 1: local paper and you know I had I I was

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Speaker 1: living in a bedsit it's called you know, one one

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Speaker 1: one room little not an apartment, just the room in

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Speaker 1: Oxford across seven pounds a week and I didn't have

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Speaker 1: any money. So I got a job as a gardener

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Speaker 1: for a pound an hour. And what happened when you

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Speaker 1: did that job? It really led to um, you know,

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Speaker 1: my love of the earth. And I worked with gardeners

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Speaker 1: up in a really beautiful place called Boers Hill outside

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Speaker 1: of Oxford, is five miles uphill. Actually, there's a famous

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Speaker 1: little woodland on the way up called Benzi Poplars, and

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Speaker 1: there's a great poem by grown Manly Hopkins about Binzi.

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Speaker 1: And I rode my bike by that every day, and

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Speaker 1: I worked in these gardens and I'd come down and

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Speaker 1: spend the rest of the day in the body Land Library,

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Speaker 1: which was heaven on Earth and you and you did

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Speaker 1: the gardening job for how long? A couple of years

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Speaker 1: when I lived in Oxford, and then when I came

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Speaker 1: back to the States, I sort of picked it up

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Speaker 1: and and learned some more ardening from friends, et cetera.

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Speaker 1: And yeah, and he decided to move back that went

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Speaker 1: back to England, and because we missed it by that time,

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Speaker 1: I met my wife in England. Two of us were Americans,

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Speaker 1: but we were really cross paths over the cross passed

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Speaker 1: in a poetry class because a friend of mine was

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Speaker 1: teaching a class and asked me to come in and

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Speaker 1: read next to your No, she was. The story that

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Speaker 1: we tell often is that she was wearing ll bean

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Speaker 1: boots and I had lived in Maine, and so I

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Speaker 1: remarked about her ll bean boots and here we are.

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Speaker 1: That was a key. That was a key. Actually the

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Speaker 1: real key was that a week later because I was

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Speaker 1: scheduled to go back to the States. And a week

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Speaker 1: later we saw a poster for a Wordsworth festival in

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Speaker 1: London and it was being opened by Shamashini before he

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Speaker 1: won the Nobel Prize. And the second night, Basil Bunting,

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Speaker 1: who was my teacher at Binghamton, by some odd chance,

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Speaker 1: great North reading poet. We're reading Wordsworth. And so I

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Speaker 1: stayed and she and I that was our first date,

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Speaker 1: was to go to the words. Do you find I

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Speaker 1: don't think this is necessarily so, but do you find

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Speaker 1: that your passion for and your immersion in literature and

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Speaker 1: poetry and your work in agriculture go hand in hand? Oh? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: they do go hand in hand. Yeah. I can't quite

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Speaker 1: explain it, um, but but they go hand. Yeah. You

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Speaker 1: get it to your dough. So you go to England

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Speaker 1: for ten years, right, and you are involved in agriculture

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Speaker 1: the whole time, are you studying literature teaching a little

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Speaker 1: bit of a little bit of both actually, or all

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Speaker 1: of that. But we lived on a Cornish hillside. So

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Speaker 1: after Oxford, um, my wife read a book called The

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Speaker 1: Cry of a Bird written by this woman who started

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Speaker 1: a bird sanctuary in a little village called Mousel, and

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Speaker 1: we went down as caretakers after they had died of

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Speaker 1: of their studio and their cottage and uh and their

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Speaker 1: publishers owned owned the places at that time, and they

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Speaker 1: after we were there for three months, they said, well,

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Speaker 1: it seems you know you're the ones who should be here.

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Speaker 1: Do you want to buy the places? So we had

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Speaker 1: never thought of settling in Mousel, or or England for

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Speaker 1: that matter, and nor did we have any money. But

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Speaker 1: we figured it out and we bought the studio in

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Speaker 1: cottage and stayed there for eight years. So your kids

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Speaker 1: born over there? Yeah, My oldest Levin Levin was born

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Speaker 1: and had a Cornish accent, so it was really really

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Speaker 1: fascinating to have the American parents with him and over there.

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Speaker 1: That's when we came back when he got to school age,

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Speaker 1: but he did he was enrolled in a preschool and

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Speaker 1: then he went to you know, kindergarten for a while,

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Speaker 1: and you came back for the back when he was

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Speaker 1: about five. Because it wasn't really working schooling. It didn't

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Speaker 1: seem quite right. So we thought, well, let's try it out.

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Speaker 1: When you know, it's our first kid, let's you know,

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Speaker 1: and you're really focused on that sort of thing. And

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Speaker 1: so and also by that time we'd lived eight year

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Speaker 1: is in this little fishing village and life was good,

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Speaker 1: but my wife was missing home, and so was her home.

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Speaker 1: Her home was originally New Mexico and then Berkeley in

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Speaker 1: the sixties. And you guys are touching all the lefty

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Speaker 1: touch stuff Berkeley. Yeah, well, maybe we'll get to that

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Speaker 1: later on because because we actually my wife grew up

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Speaker 1: on this beautiful property along the Rio Grand. Her father

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Speaker 1: had kept the land. He sold the house, but he

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Speaker 1: kept this ten acres of farm farmland on the real

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Speaker 1: Grand and when he passed away left it to my

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Speaker 1: wife and her brother and and we just put a

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Speaker 1: conservation easement on this farmland in in that um lots

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Speaker 1: of you know, hot things, peppers, etcetera. Right, and uh,

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Speaker 1: it's a beautiful, beautiful place and uh, you know fifty

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Speaker 1: five years later, she's coming back to this land that

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Speaker 1: she grew up on. And uh, and you put an

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Speaker 1: easeman on. It was really interesting for me to on

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Speaker 1: this side. Worked for a land trust creating conservation easements

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Speaker 1: with other people for many years, and now I was

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Speaker 1: on the side of being a landowner creating an Eastman

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Speaker 1: was it's a really beautiful thing when you come back.

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Speaker 1: What year was that? Had you decided was there a

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Speaker 1: preconception where you would go where you weren't sure? We

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Speaker 1: know we would touch base here because we had moved

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Speaker 1: Connie here and and yeah, Connie's my my wife's mom,

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Speaker 1: my mother and my mother. And why here she moved

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Speaker 1: here because she was divorced at that time. And and

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Speaker 1: her best friend was Elaine da Kooning And Elaine da

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Speaker 1: Kooning had come to teach at the University of New

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Speaker 1: Mexico when Connie was there many years before. As a

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Speaker 1: matter of fact, Um, there's a story of her dancing

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Speaker 1: with Megan, my wife in her arms when Megan was

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Speaker 1: one year old. So that's that's the year. And Connie

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Speaker 1: stayed friends with with Elane and she came out to

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Speaker 1: visit Elane. Uh. They took a walk found a house

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Speaker 1: in the Northwest Woods, very close to here, and Connie

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Speaker 1: bought that house and moved and we moved her. We

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Speaker 1: were at this period where where we could help her out,

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Speaker 1: and we moved and settled here for a little while

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Speaker 1: to help her. Where part Uh, it's sag Saddle Lane

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Speaker 1: now in so we were at Connie's house and it's northwest, yeah, northwest,

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Speaker 1: it's you know, a stones throw from where we are

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Speaker 1: right now. Again Elane lived right around the corner. What

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Speaker 1: I love is when we're talking, I don't know Mausel

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Speaker 1: and I don't know this little corners hillside, but you

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Speaker 1: and I talking, our listeners are probably going, what you know,

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Speaker 1: Hants Creek, northwest wife Brook. It's it's he's Tampton focus tempton.

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Speaker 1: When did Peconic Glantrust start? And it was really because

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Speaker 1: John Halsey, who grew up in in Southampton, had gone

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Speaker 1: to school in California when he came back and he

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Speaker 1: saw houses popping up in all the potato fields and

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Speaker 1: he said this, this isn't right. Should do something about this,

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Speaker 1: and he got together with some friends he learned abo Atlantras.

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Speaker 1: Because land trusts had had been existent in this country

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Speaker 1: since the nineteenth century, but they didn't take off in

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Speaker 1: a way until the seventies. John found out about land

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Speaker 1: trust and what land trust could do something that municipalities

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Speaker 1: could not do right in protecting land, conserving land, and

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Speaker 1: so three he started it and started kind of slowly.

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Speaker 1: But when I came up a lot of money to

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Speaker 1: run a land trust, a lot of money to buy

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Speaker 1: land or protect land, and the Hampton's obviously right. So um,

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Speaker 1: I had never heard of a landrust before I got

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Speaker 1: involved with the community Farm. That was my first interest

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Speaker 1: was that. But then I learned about what John was doing,

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Speaker 1: and John was open to this idea of of accepting

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Speaker 1: the community farm even though he had never heard of

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Speaker 1: a c s A either. But that marriage took place

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Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty nine, the marriage between the community Farm

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Speaker 1: where we talked about earlier, where my my my in

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Speaker 1: laws were part of those first ten families, but I

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Speaker 1: wasn't connected to the land trust at the time, So

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Speaker 1: it was the first ten families, that first ten families

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Speaker 1: was doing what forming the c s A. Forming the

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Speaker 1: c s A because they had heard of this idea

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Speaker 1: and it was you know, this little colonel what landed

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Speaker 1: were they? Were they farming? Then I was in Bridge Hampton.

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Speaker 1: Uh did you did you ever run into Hugh Williams,

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Speaker 1: guy named you Williams. He had to so he had

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Speaker 1: an apple orchard. He didn't own the land, but he

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Speaker 1: was a biodynamic farmer. In the first c s A is,

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Speaker 1: the idea of c s A started on biodynamic farms

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Speaker 1: in different parts of this country. And Uh, when I

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Speaker 1: went to the first meetings of c s A is

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Speaker 1: in a little Waldorf school which is based on ruff

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Speaker 1: Steiner's teachings. Uh, in Kimberton, Pennsylvania, there were twenty people people.

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Speaker 1: The next year there were fifty people, and then a

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Speaker 1: hundred and fifty people, and c sas began taking off

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Speaker 1: all over the place. Now it's estimated that there are

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Speaker 1: six thousand or more in the country. Um, so it's

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Speaker 1: just taken off like blossoms. Basically coming up, Chasky discusses

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Speaker 1: what community farming looks like in China. To hear from

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Speaker 1: the founder of another socially conscious empire, this one a

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Speaker 1: bit more caffeinated, explore our archives to hear my conversation

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Speaker 1: with Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz in the back of my mind.

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Speaker 1: I kept dreaming about what I needed to do for

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Speaker 1: my dad, and my dad died in and I wanted

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Speaker 1: to try and build the kind of company he never

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Speaker 1: got a chance to work for. So the entire business

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Speaker 1: model was trying to balance profit with conscience, benevolence and

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Speaker 1: social impact. Take a listen at Here's the Thing dot org.

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Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin, and you were listening to Here's

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Speaker 1: the Thing. Scott Chaskey weaves together his passion for planting

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Speaker 1: and prose. He's penned multiple books on the community farming movement,

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Speaker 1: most recently Seed Time. Through decades of thoughtful farming in

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Speaker 1: his fields, fueled by an earnest desire to do good,

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Speaker 1: he's created a road map for the kind of food

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Speaker 1: creation that America desperately needs. I mean, what what's happened

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Speaker 1: is that I don't think we could have predicted this

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Speaker 1: in the beginning, is that it would take off the

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Speaker 1: way that it has, So that are I feel that

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Speaker 1: our real influence goes way beyond those fields, for instance,

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Speaker 1: So listen to this. I never would have guessed, So

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Speaker 1: that you know we're doing this kind of work and

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Speaker 1: spreading the word in this country but I just went

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Speaker 1: to a global CISA conference in China in November with

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Speaker 1: people from twenty eight different countries, and I never would

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Speaker 1: have guessed that that level of engagement and would would

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Speaker 1: would happen, you know, from from starting a community farm

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Speaker 1: and amaganst so I was on a on a panel

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Speaker 1: discussing biodiversity in China with a Japanese farmer, a French farmer,

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Speaker 1: and a Chinese academician. It was absolutely fascinating. And and

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Speaker 1: so the reach of what we've done, what I'm saying

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Speaker 1: is is goes far beyond our fields. And but my

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Speaker 1: attention daily is on those fields. How many separate parces

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Speaker 1: of land other than the classic quail hill down there,

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Speaker 1: other by the windmill, one other? How many other areas

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Speaker 1: are you responsible for? How many fields? Well, so the

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Speaker 1: total acreage that Deborah left was two We leased some

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Speaker 1: to Part of our mission as a land trust and

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Speaker 1: as a community farm is to lease land. Basically when

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Speaker 1: you ask, you know, who's farming, who are we employing.

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Speaker 1: The way we've done it all these years is that

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Speaker 1: we have an apprenticeship and so we're actually training young

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Speaker 1: farmers to you know, go out and manage their own

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Speaker 1: farms basically, and so uh, Katie and Amanda for member

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Speaker 1: Waves were my apprentices and now they're in their seventh

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Speaker 1: or eighth year of running their own farm right over

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Speaker 1: the railroad tracks. And and that's land that that's land

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Speaker 1: that we had managed for another landowner as well. So

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Speaker 1: what's your staff at the height of the summer, you have?

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Speaker 1: How many people win your stuff? Ten? At ten at

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Speaker 1: the most, it's and and we we could Is it

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Speaker 1: tough to find those ten in the summer or is

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Speaker 1: it easy? No? Because we're well known now we get

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Speaker 1: a fair amount of applicants for the apprenticeships and we

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Speaker 1: actually get to choose which is they come all over

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Speaker 1: and house we house them. That was the most difficult.

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Speaker 1: What's your housing plan here? We've got three houses which

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Speaker 1: we sort of accumulated over the years one way or another.

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Speaker 1: Basically Deborah left us one where yeah, but but the

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Speaker 1: uh um, the other two. I mean we moved a house.

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Speaker 1: It was a sixties ranch house that actually would you

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Speaker 1: put it? We had a ninety two acre piece that

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Speaker 1: had a separate lot on it so that we wouldn't

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Speaker 1: and we put it right on the edge of the

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Speaker 1: separate lot. What are you doing on that it's habitat,

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Speaker 1: it's it's land preserve or habitat. So when these what's

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Speaker 1: the number of people off season with you two? It's

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Speaker 1: a little lonely. But we have a winter share, so

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Speaker 1: we actually have people coming all winter to pick up vegetables.

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Speaker 1: It's not just the summer. We have a traditional roots

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Speaker 1: seller and we store crops in the roots seller and

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Speaker 1: people come all winter and so they get we grow

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Speaker 1: green's in the greenhouse and etcetera. So if you can't

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Speaker 1: compare and contrast, if you would, I'm not assuming that

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Speaker 1: one is favorable and one is not. But techniques and philosophy,

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Speaker 1: even that you witnessed and that you lived over in England,

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Speaker 1: compared to the way it is here, what do they

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Speaker 1: do better than we do? And what do we do

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Speaker 1: better than they? If anything, they do better by having

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Speaker 1: a sense of history that is not ignored. So I

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Speaker 1: mean that's a very general statement, but you know this thing.

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Speaker 1: Recently I've been doing reading and returning to the thought

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Speaker 1: that in this country where people without history, you know,

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Speaker 1: and and of course there's lots of history, but we

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Speaker 1: live as there's no time for history, have no time

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Speaker 1: for history. So I mean that's what I was fascinated

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Speaker 1: by in England. I mean I would have been anywhere

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Speaker 1: else in Europe as well, just happened to settle in England.

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Speaker 1: But that's what I felt there, and I felt perfectly

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Speaker 1: at home with that concept and I missed the Yeah,

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Speaker 1: in the end, it is a more thoughtful approach. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I guess people are in a hurry all over the

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Speaker 1: world now. But um, this trip to China was open.

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Speaker 1: It was absolutely eye opening, like what does a community

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Speaker 1: farm look like in China? And how do you help

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Speaker 1: the Chinese leap frog to where you think they should be? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and why are they at all interested? And what does

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Speaker 1: it actually mean? And it was. It was absolutely fascinating

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Speaker 1: and quite actually they're putting at the local governments are

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Speaker 1: putting lots of energy into that in a way that

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Speaker 1: isn't happening in the country at all. I mean that

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Speaker 1: what we're talking about, the kind of work we're doing

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Speaker 1: is all grassroots and it's not, you know, funded by

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Speaker 1: government at all. Um in in China they're worried about

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Speaker 1: feeding people. You know. Well, I mean I think that

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Speaker 1: you bring it. You come to a point that I

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Speaker 1: was going to get to, which is among the criickest

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Speaker 1: paths to political instability, is a collapse of the food supply.

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Speaker 1: And the problem in the United States is that we

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Speaker 1: produce more than enough food for three square meals for

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Speaker 1: everyone in the country, and and the and the gap

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Speaker 1: there is distribution, and that's true worldwide. I'll never forget

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Speaker 1: when I was going to sell my house and um

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Speaker 1: my friend said to me, well, you know, don't say said,

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Speaker 1: don't sell that house. They said, you know that problem.

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Speaker 1: You've got ten acres there, you know you gotta And

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Speaker 1: they said, because you know, in the next fifteen twenty years,

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Speaker 1: we're all going to be growing our own food in

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Speaker 1: this kind of global warming prelude, you know. And I

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Speaker 1: wonder if you think that that's true. Are people going

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Speaker 1: to start growing water politics? Well, I'm sure that more

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Speaker 1: people are going to have to be engaged in growing food,

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Speaker 1: uh in a sustainable fashion than we have now, because

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Speaker 1: we're down to one percent of our population engaged in agriculture,

429
00:24:15,720 --> 00:24:19,600
Speaker 1: whereas before the Second World War of the population lived

430
00:24:19,600 --> 00:24:23,960
Speaker 1: on farms. This extraordinary and that is not sustainable, Nor

431
00:24:24,240 --> 00:24:28,560
Speaker 1: is the kind of um corporate approach to you know,

432
00:24:28,600 --> 00:24:31,960
Speaker 1: the industrialization of agriculture that you're talking about that really

433
00:24:32,000 --> 00:24:34,520
Speaker 1: isn't sustainable, and so we have to come up with

434
00:24:34,560 --> 00:24:36,800
Speaker 1: some other ways. And that's kind of what we're doing

435
00:24:37,160 --> 00:24:39,840
Speaker 1: in our small way, and it's going to involve more people.

436
00:24:40,000 --> 00:24:42,600
Speaker 1: That's that's that's the way it is. Are there major

437
00:24:42,640 --> 00:24:44,959
Speaker 1: companies who you admire the way that they produce their

438
00:24:45,000 --> 00:24:48,119
Speaker 1: products and grow food or youth or as all of

439
00:24:48,200 --> 00:24:52,399
Speaker 1: the mass production of food, you know, without saying anything litigious,

440
00:24:53,119 --> 00:24:55,120
Speaker 1: you know, is there are they all basically the same

441
00:24:55,160 --> 00:24:57,639
Speaker 1: and cutting the same corners or their companies you actually

442
00:24:57,680 --> 00:24:59,680
Speaker 1: mire what they do. I don't know. It's a slippery

443
00:24:59,720 --> 00:25:02,440
Speaker 1: slow hope, Yeah, there was some nothing, nothing's jumping into

444
00:25:02,440 --> 00:25:05,040
Speaker 1: mind immediately. But it is a slippery slope because of

445
00:25:05,080 --> 00:25:06,919
Speaker 1: the I don't know, if you've seen the charts of

446
00:25:07,000 --> 00:25:11,359
Speaker 1: who actually owns you know, the natural food companies, you know,

447
00:25:11,520 --> 00:25:15,240
Speaker 1: and and they're almost all owned the ones who are

448
00:25:15,320 --> 00:25:21,480
Speaker 1: playing so so, so you know, that's a very slippery slope.

449
00:25:21,480 --> 00:25:23,719
Speaker 1: And we are trying to change that. And I mean,

450
00:25:23,760 --> 00:25:25,680
Speaker 1: I don't I know of no other way to change

451
00:25:25,680 --> 00:25:27,880
Speaker 1: it other than by actively working on it the way

452
00:25:27,920 --> 00:25:30,800
Speaker 1: that we are. My fondness is more for people who

453
00:25:30,840 --> 00:25:32,800
Speaker 1: are working on it on the on the grassroots, all

454
00:25:32,840 --> 00:25:36,400
Speaker 1: all the not for profits who are supporting uh, young

455
00:25:36,480 --> 00:25:39,960
Speaker 1: farmers getting into into this style of agriculture or whatever.

456
00:25:40,040 --> 00:25:42,720
Speaker 1: So I can't think of a single company right now

457
00:25:42,800 --> 00:25:45,360
Speaker 1: that I want to give all my praise to. It's

458
00:25:45,400 --> 00:25:48,399
Speaker 1: really the all the people who are working behind the

459
00:25:48,400 --> 00:25:51,439
Speaker 1: scenes in the grassroots way. Basically, what do you think

460
00:25:51,480 --> 00:25:54,440
Speaker 1: about the whole foods revolution? Yeah, we're showing up in

461
00:25:54,480 --> 00:25:56,639
Speaker 1: neighborhoods like you. I never imagined they would be in

462
00:25:56,640 --> 00:26:00,320
Speaker 1: the New York and so, yeah, well it's serving it's

463
00:26:00,320 --> 00:26:05,960
Speaker 1: serving some purpose. Let's say that. Yeah, so you're out

464
00:26:05,960 --> 00:26:10,120
Speaker 1: here at a restaurant, an ordinary restaurant, even a top restaurant,

465
00:26:10,119 --> 00:26:13,359
Speaker 1: with a very expensive menu, and the produce on the

466
00:26:13,480 --> 00:26:15,520
Speaker 1: on the on the table, the tomatoes and the guens

467
00:26:15,560 --> 00:26:18,520
Speaker 1: stuff is usually coming from Up Island. Correct, It varies

468
00:26:18,560 --> 00:26:21,880
Speaker 1: a lot, but there's I'd rather talk about the local

469
00:26:22,200 --> 00:26:24,959
Speaker 1: chefs who have been incredibly supportive of what we do

470
00:26:25,000 --> 00:26:28,280
Speaker 1: and who bought Oh yeah, many mores aren't the big

471
00:26:28,440 --> 00:26:32,080
Speaker 1: so for people to understand as precious as this area is, Yeah,

472
00:26:32,160 --> 00:26:34,680
Speaker 1: the big, big farming operations for this area are Up Island.

473
00:26:34,720 --> 00:26:39,320
Speaker 1: In the Riches and Riverhead correct well up as up Island. Yeah,

474
00:26:39,359 --> 00:26:41,520
Speaker 1: well no, they're on the North Fork from there, on

475
00:26:41,560 --> 00:26:44,679
Speaker 1: the North Fork and they're selling primarily to you know,

476
00:26:44,800 --> 00:26:47,920
Speaker 1: high end restaurants, etcetera. But there are a number of

477
00:26:47,960 --> 00:26:50,639
Speaker 1: local chefs who have been like, you know, we we

478
00:26:50,640 --> 00:26:54,760
Speaker 1: we started a garden behind Nick and Tony's restaurant years

479
00:26:54,760 --> 00:26:59,000
Speaker 1: ago and they've always been incredibly supportive. And so there's Nick,

480
00:26:59,280 --> 00:27:03,600
Speaker 1: you know, Jeff Sure and and and then uh Joe

481
00:27:03,680 --> 00:27:08,399
Speaker 1: real Mudo from Nickntoni's. There's Colin and Stas Uh, there's

482
00:27:08,480 --> 00:27:11,840
Speaker 1: Jason at Allman's. You know, these these chefs are being

483
00:27:12,000 --> 00:27:15,199
Speaker 1: so incredibly supportive and they we have a great relationship

484
00:27:15,240 --> 00:27:17,480
Speaker 1: with and they're not the only ones. So so during

485
00:27:17,480 --> 00:27:19,920
Speaker 1: the years you've been out here for um, you know,

486
00:27:20,000 --> 00:27:23,120
Speaker 1: over twenty five years now doing what you're doing now,

487
00:27:23,560 --> 00:27:25,560
Speaker 1: there's been this I don't want to say revolution, but

488
00:27:25,600 --> 00:27:27,720
Speaker 1: you can almost say that in terms of wineries and

489
00:27:27,800 --> 00:27:31,200
Speaker 1: wine growing and the conversion of North Fork properties for

490
00:27:31,240 --> 00:27:34,399
Speaker 1: people who don't know this area that's across the the

491
00:27:34,440 --> 00:27:39,000
Speaker 1: bay from US North Fork properties into wineries. What do

492
00:27:39,000 --> 00:27:41,320
Speaker 1: you make of that operation? You said, that's something that

493
00:27:41,320 --> 00:27:44,040
Speaker 1: you were surprised by Uh. Yeah, I mean I think

494
00:27:44,080 --> 00:27:47,480
Speaker 1: everyone was surprised. But I mean in nine I think

495
00:27:47,600 --> 00:27:51,760
Speaker 1: was the first one, and the Channing uh no, the

496
00:27:51,840 --> 00:27:56,240
Speaker 1: first one. Um, I've forgotten the name right now. But

497
00:27:56,320 --> 00:27:58,120
Speaker 1: on the North Fork there's only you know, there's only

498
00:27:58,160 --> 00:28:00,720
Speaker 1: three wineries in the South Fork. There's fifty or so

499
00:28:00,800 --> 00:28:03,320
Speaker 1: on the North for I think everyone's surprised that in

500
00:28:03,960 --> 00:28:07,199
Speaker 1: since seventy that many have popped up. We have a

501
00:28:07,280 --> 00:28:11,080
Speaker 1: very close relationship with with Channing, yeah, and with Wolfer,

502
00:28:11,320 --> 00:28:14,400
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, I'm very supportive of of of

503
00:28:14,680 --> 00:28:17,680
Speaker 1: how they're caring for the land, intending for the land. Yeah,

504
00:28:17,720 --> 00:28:19,520
Speaker 1: it's amazing to me at the time I've been down here,

505
00:28:19,520 --> 00:28:22,760
Speaker 1: how they unbelievable harvesting of the of the clippings and

506
00:28:22,760 --> 00:28:24,359
Speaker 1: the soil and have been get that ready. And some

507
00:28:24,680 --> 00:28:27,120
Speaker 1: people say because it was always a very reductive attitude

508
00:28:27,119 --> 00:28:29,399
Speaker 1: towards that wine. I'm not a wine drigger myself, but

509
00:28:29,440 --> 00:28:31,320
Speaker 1: people would say to me, oh, please, if you came

510
00:28:31,359 --> 00:28:32,919
Speaker 1: to a house and said I want to bring some

511
00:28:33,000 --> 00:28:36,720
Speaker 1: indigenous wine, people were doing why are you bothering doing that? Yeah?

512
00:28:36,840 --> 00:28:38,160
Speaker 1: And now all of a sudden, some of those moms.

513
00:28:38,240 --> 00:28:41,840
Speaker 1: They're producing other producing some great wines. Now yeah, yeah,

514
00:28:41,880 --> 00:28:45,240
Speaker 1: but it is interesting how they just which is it's

515
00:28:45,240 --> 00:28:47,760
Speaker 1: a wonderful climate for growing things. You know, we're in

516
00:28:47,880 --> 00:28:50,240
Speaker 1: zone seven. We're one of the only places in the

517
00:28:50,280 --> 00:28:54,720
Speaker 1: Northeast that has the growing climate that his zone seven climates.

518
00:28:54,720 --> 00:28:57,040
Speaker 1: So that's the amount of growing days that you have.

519
00:28:57,160 --> 00:28:59,680
Speaker 1: And also we have a fair amount of sun cut

520
00:28:59,720 --> 00:29:03,080
Speaker 1: y'all is the sunniest town in New York State. Not

521
00:29:03,200 --> 00:29:05,200
Speaker 1: many people are aware of that, so we get the

522
00:29:05,280 --> 00:29:08,760
Speaker 1: right amount of rain. We have these beautiful soils left

523
00:29:08,800 --> 00:29:12,480
Speaker 1: by the glaciers, and we have a very forgiving climate

524
00:29:12,520 --> 00:29:15,560
Speaker 1: for growing things. Yeah, what was an interesting, um, if

525
00:29:15,600 --> 00:29:19,240
Speaker 1: you can say, what was an interesting issues or challenges

526
00:29:19,280 --> 00:29:22,720
Speaker 1: you have with raising your own children in terms of food? Well,

527
00:29:23,080 --> 00:29:26,320
Speaker 1: and naturally they you know, they're really great kids by

528
00:29:26,320 --> 00:29:29,520
Speaker 1: the way, three and three and um. Growing up, you know,

529
00:29:29,800 --> 00:29:33,400
Speaker 1: they enjoyed going to other people's homes where food was

530
00:29:33,440 --> 00:29:37,800
Speaker 1: served that they didn't get in our home. But for example, uh,

531
00:29:37,840 --> 00:29:41,000
Speaker 1: well meet for one, so my wife and I are

532
00:29:41,040 --> 00:29:44,680
Speaker 1: both vegetarians, but interestingly enough, our our two sons. So

533
00:29:44,720 --> 00:29:47,200
Speaker 1: I have two sons and a daughter, and the two

534
00:29:47,200 --> 00:29:50,520
Speaker 1: sons really need meet and they you know, they they

535
00:29:50,680 --> 00:29:52,760
Speaker 1: we found that out as they were growing up, and

536
00:29:52,840 --> 00:29:55,600
Speaker 1: so I tried. I mean, I'm the cook and the

537
00:29:55,640 --> 00:29:58,160
Speaker 1: family and I did my best, but um, I don't

538
00:29:58,160 --> 00:29:59,960
Speaker 1: I don't think it was really what they were gett

539
00:30:00,040 --> 00:30:03,440
Speaker 1: in another households. So that was something they missed. And

540
00:30:03,480 --> 00:30:05,720
Speaker 1: of course we didn't serve a lot of suits at all,

541
00:30:05,840 --> 00:30:08,760
Speaker 1: and we're fairly strict about that. And then we learned

542
00:30:08,840 --> 00:30:11,560
Speaker 1: later when they grew up about the stash that they

543
00:30:11,560 --> 00:30:14,120
Speaker 1: had in their room, you know, after after Halloween or

544
00:30:14,120 --> 00:30:16,720
Speaker 1: something like that. But you know, now that they're in

545
00:30:16,720 --> 00:30:19,840
Speaker 1: their twenties, my oldest son is thirty two. Um, and

546
00:30:19,880 --> 00:30:23,520
Speaker 1: they come back they're so appreciative of growing up in

547
00:30:23,520 --> 00:30:27,240
Speaker 1: a household with with fresh latency to that. Yeah, so

548
00:30:27,440 --> 00:30:30,239
Speaker 1: you know, growing up there were you know, there were

549
00:30:30,360 --> 00:30:34,560
Speaker 1: arguments one or two. But well, it's funny because on

550
00:30:34,560 --> 00:30:37,320
Speaker 1: our website people will see a picture of you. We're

551
00:30:37,320 --> 00:30:40,040
Speaker 1: gonna post a picture of you and everybody knows you

552
00:30:40,120 --> 00:30:45,560
Speaker 1: from your striking facial hair, your gigantic and beautiful beard

553
00:30:45,640 --> 00:30:48,880
Speaker 1: and you're thick mane of hair. And thank you for

554
00:30:48,960 --> 00:30:51,240
Speaker 1: nominating me for best beard. By the way, my son

555
00:30:51,360 --> 00:30:54,959
Speaker 1: sent me apparently you made a comment, so you do

556
00:30:55,000 --> 00:30:58,760
Speaker 1: have You and the Smirnoff Vodka band are talked the

557
00:30:58,840 --> 00:31:03,800
Speaker 1: best beard. But um, now, now for you doing this job,

558
00:31:04,320 --> 00:31:07,880
Speaker 1: you're fit as a fiddle, You're a very lean, spry

559
00:31:07,920 --> 00:31:11,880
Speaker 1: in spite of your golden beard. You're you're physically very

560
00:31:11,960 --> 00:31:14,400
Speaker 1: on your toes. But I'm imagining you're not gonna do

561
00:31:14,400 --> 00:31:18,080
Speaker 1: this forever. And the question becomes, how does Scott Chaskey

562
00:31:18,240 --> 00:31:21,640
Speaker 1: replace Scott Chasky? Is there a succession program? I mean,

563
00:31:21,760 --> 00:31:25,080
Speaker 1: right now, you know there's a number of people who

564
00:31:25,120 --> 00:31:27,360
Speaker 1: can who can take over doing what I'm doing, So

565
00:31:27,480 --> 00:31:29,400
Speaker 1: I'm not really worried about that. How much long are

566
00:31:30,400 --> 00:31:32,680
Speaker 1: probably at the most a couple of years and sixty

567
00:31:32,760 --> 00:31:34,840
Speaker 1: six now actually? And would you stay in the area

568
00:31:34,880 --> 00:31:37,760
Speaker 1: after that? We'd want to travel a bit, I think,

569
00:31:37,760 --> 00:31:39,720
Speaker 1: and we just stay home this land and this will

570
00:31:39,760 --> 00:31:42,320
Speaker 1: probably be home. And the kids tell us you cannot

571
00:31:42,560 --> 00:31:45,840
Speaker 1: sell these Yeah, that's what they That's what they tell us,

572
00:31:45,840 --> 00:31:48,200
Speaker 1: So they want to come back to So what about

573
00:31:48,240 --> 00:31:50,920
Speaker 1: your writing and teaching in the off season? The other

574
00:31:51,040 --> 00:31:54,040
Speaker 1: part of you comes back and the win and the

575
00:31:54,400 --> 00:31:58,880
Speaker 1: s in the wintertime? Yeah, I mean that's um, I mean,

576
00:31:58,920 --> 00:32:01,600
Speaker 1: I do you know, I'm writing in my notebook throughout

577
00:32:01,640 --> 00:32:04,240
Speaker 1: the year, but you know, to actually finish a book,

578
00:32:04,400 --> 00:32:06,479
Speaker 1: I mean that does take the winter time for me.

579
00:32:06,560 --> 00:32:09,479
Speaker 1: But um, that's what I'll be doing more of and

580
00:32:09,520 --> 00:32:12,680
Speaker 1: I'm trying to I'm trying to do more of that now.

581
00:32:12,720 --> 00:32:14,880
Speaker 1: So I've been working in the mornings before going to

582
00:32:14,920 --> 00:32:17,080
Speaker 1: the farm writing for actually the last couple of years.

583
00:32:17,120 --> 00:32:19,600
Speaker 1: Otherwise I wouldn't have been able to finish those last

584
00:32:19,640 --> 00:32:22,120
Speaker 1: two books that I that I wrote. So there's gonna

585
00:32:22,160 --> 00:32:24,080
Speaker 1: be a lot more of that. I'm working on a

586
00:32:24,120 --> 00:32:27,640
Speaker 1: book now about Bill Kingbo, my my father in law,

587
00:32:27,720 --> 00:32:30,560
Speaker 1: who who is a sculptor and a really great man.

588
00:32:30,680 --> 00:32:34,760
Speaker 1: And so that's that's my work for this winter. Well,

589
00:32:34,800 --> 00:32:38,920
Speaker 1: I must say that I can't imagine this community without you. Think,

590
00:32:39,040 --> 00:32:41,200
Speaker 1: you know, you're such an important part of this community

591
00:32:41,200 --> 00:32:43,320
Speaker 1: because you was just it's funny how because you're so

592
00:32:43,360 --> 00:32:46,440
Speaker 1: striking looking the beard and everything, but for obviously but

593
00:32:46,720 --> 00:32:50,640
Speaker 1: you're so strikingly but whenever people see you, you symbolize

594
00:32:50,960 --> 00:32:54,640
Speaker 1: the fire is burning of the agricultural mantle of this community.

595
00:32:55,360 --> 00:32:57,920
Speaker 1: I can't get over how important that is that we

596
00:32:57,960 --> 00:33:01,040
Speaker 1: don't just save land that's all would have land that

597
00:33:01,200 --> 00:33:05,440
Speaker 1: what you're doing hopefully carries on. Um while I have you,

598
00:33:05,480 --> 00:33:07,400
Speaker 1: I want to take advantage of what one thing, which

599
00:33:07,440 --> 00:33:09,200
Speaker 1: is now that I have little children and I finally

600
00:33:09,200 --> 00:33:11,720
Speaker 1: get around to doing my organic plot on my property

601
00:33:11,800 --> 00:33:14,520
Speaker 1: next summer, what should we be growing? This nice and

602
00:33:14,520 --> 00:33:16,239
Speaker 1: easy for my little kids to get involved. And what's

603
00:33:16,240 --> 00:33:19,479
Speaker 1: an easy thing to grow? Well? Starter, you know people,

604
00:33:19,760 --> 00:33:23,760
Speaker 1: I mean almost everybody likes tomato, so cherry cherry. You

605
00:33:23,800 --> 00:33:26,000
Speaker 1: have to grow cherry tomatoes, right, and there's this one

606
00:33:26,000 --> 00:33:30,320
Speaker 1: called sun Gold that everyone absolutely adors. But also you

607
00:33:30,360 --> 00:33:33,240
Speaker 1: know some squash. You know that's the summer squash grows

608
00:33:33,280 --> 00:33:36,800
Speaker 1: fast and you know, um, it keeps coming, so that's

609
00:33:36,840 --> 00:33:38,360
Speaker 1: a good thing to grow. We have a little patch

610
00:33:38,400 --> 00:33:39,840
Speaker 1: on the side of our house and I said to

611
00:33:39,840 --> 00:33:41,800
Speaker 1: my daughter, what do you want to grow? And said, pumpkins?

612
00:33:42,560 --> 00:33:46,680
Speaker 1: Why not? Why not? I don't know If I'm okay,

613
00:33:46,720 --> 00:33:50,480
Speaker 1: we'll share some seeds with you. But also demand that

614
00:33:50,560 --> 00:33:53,240
Speaker 1: you have to grow garlic. That's only favorite crops and

615
00:33:53,280 --> 00:33:59,600
Speaker 1: it's very easy to grow. Talking about his dual love

616
00:33:59,720 --> 00:34:03,560
Speaker 1: of writing and farming, Scott Chasky says it has something

617
00:34:03,640 --> 00:34:06,400
Speaker 1: to do with quote being in touch with the soil,

618
00:34:06,720 --> 00:34:10,440
Speaker 1: and then actually having some time for solitude and reflection.

619
00:34:11,160 --> 00:34:15,640
Speaker 1: No better time than now to heed his advice. This

620
00:34:15,760 --> 00:34:18,319
Speaker 1: is Alec Baldwin and you were listening to. Here's the

621
00:34:18,400 --> 00:34:18,600
Speaker 1: thing