Down on the Urban Homestead (and in the Kitchen)

In thinking about what my son might be doing and even where he might be living, I've been reading some about farms and intentional communities. One concern that's come up about such living situations, and about "intentional communities" in particular, is whether or not they're really segregated institution-like places, where individuals with disabilities live apart from the greater community.

The July 5th New York Times Magazine looks at farms in the city that are quite beyond the proverbial plot of vegetables. Street Farmer profiles Will Allen and his Growing Power farm in Milwaukee which has"14 greenhouses crammed onto two acres in a working-class neighborhood on Milwaukee’s northwest side, less than half a mile from the city’s largest public-housing project. A second article, Home Sweet (Urban) Homestead, looks at farming that's going on in "a gritty block in Oakland, Calif. — the kind of neighborhood that quickens your step even on a bright Sunday afternoon," in the "urban homestead" of Anya Fernald: "In Oakland, where backyard menageries and D.I.Y. charcuterie are the new garage band, the term 'urban homesteading' doesn’t need an explanation. 'It fits into the Oakland sort of self-defined vibe or aesthetic of doing things from scratch and being kind of hard-core,'" as Fernald is quoted.

Both articles are specifically about the numerous benefits---for health, jobs, self-sufficiency, more---of such urban farms. Reading about Fernald's "homestead" in Oakland, I'm reminded very much of the "urban farm" my grandmother, Ngin-ngin, kept going on the porch of her second-story duplex on Madison Avenue and in the yard below. When my father was growing up, they grew vegetables and kept chickens (all of whom wandered away one day when someone left the gate open; I've never been able to get the image of a line of chickens wandering the streets of Oakland by the Oakland Museum and the Alameda County Courthouse out of my head). Ngin-Ngin made everything, from endless types and amounts of food (I was going to write "Chinese food," but that seems somewhat repetitive in this case) to moonshine to clothes, blankets, you name it. (There's also a fireworks angle, but I won't get into that now; it is the fifth of July.) If she didn't get vegetables from the yard ("urban homestead"), they came from Chinatown's markets and, of course, from Tai Wah, which Yeh Yeh, my grandfather, owned.

Suburban New Jersey---I mean, this is the Garden State---offers a few more places to plant some seeds and let a garden grow. As I've learned from making brownies with Charlie, the process is the thing, and why not show him where food (well, some types of food) come from?

Charlie is definitely curious about food preparation.

In baking, he's interested in dumping the ingredients into a bowl and mixing (and sneaking tastes). The final ingredient draws his interest when it comes out of the oven but he's less inclined to eat the results of our handiwork afterwards. I'm hardly ready to hand Charlie a knife to mince parsley with, but he can certainly learn to measure out ingredients and stir; the last time we made brownies, we worked on breaking eggs. (Previously, Charlie took the eggs from the fridge and placed them atop the other ingredients.)

So I've been doing a lot more cooking this summer.

Nothing too revolutionary or in-the-interest-of-autism-advocacy about that and the reason is simply that---as I'm not teaching summer school for the first time in awhile and I've many fewer administrative duties---I've had more time. Time to chop green onions and ginger and parsley. Time to cook chicken "velvet" style and make lemon sauce and to put together the batter for pancakes and have Charlie help mix.

With Charlie, we like to show rather than tell. Jim taught him to ride a bike with minimal verbal explanations. We held Charlie's feet on the pedals of his tricycle and then his little training-wheel'd bike and showed him how to rotate his legs. Jim started teaching Charlie to use the hand brakes by, simply, putting his hands over Charlie and saying "squeeze brakes." When they were actually riding bikes in the street and came to a stop sign, held Charlie's shoulder while repeating "squeeze brakes," only gradually fading out the shoulder hold.

We still use photographs in Charlie's activity and other schedules, but there's nothing like actually (versus in something like a video) showing him how to do something. And cooking being the multi-sensory experience that it is---involving taste of course and smell and touch---drawing on all those other senses is a good way for Charlie to learn some things, some life's lessons that start in the kitchen and that will, we hope, radiate out beyond the yard and our suburban homestead and into the future.