Given that it is both the month and the season for Oktoberfesting (also, #spookyseason), I wanted to ask you all what comes to mind when you think of Oktoberfest? Brats with mustard, pretzels with mustard, beer? A lot of beer? A busy pedestrian street populated with food stalls, face painters, and breweries. Waiters and waitresses with braided hair and blue plaid outfits. We all love this season. The quintessential autumn.

🌭🥨🍺

Let me paint a different picture for you. The sky is bluer than ocean water and the trees are all on fire, which means the hillsides are as well. Instead of standing on a street corner, you’re standing in a grassy field punctuated with rune-like stones next to an open air kitchen. A fire pit buried into the ground has been burning for 36 hours where a whole pig, bison steaks, fresh mushrooms, and honeynut squash are roasting. The pig was raised 50 miles from where you’re eating your slow-cooked pork and apples. Same with the bison. The squash and apples are growing 15 miles away. The mushrooms were foraged on the hillsides that form your backdrop. Local brew, cider, and cream are served readily but no one is drunk. This is a different kind of meal, a different group of people, and a fairly ordinary day in spite of its tremendous natural beauty.

☀️🌳🍂

These are people who like to walk. People who don’t mind sweating in sunshine. People who eat when they’re hungry as opposed to at breakfast, lunch, and dinnertime. People who care where their food comes from, what that means for their bodies, and what that means for our world. (But yes, there is still someone dressed like a sexy cat because, after all, it is the 21st century and it is Halloween). I’m looking at the t-shirts. Pen Druid. Sumac. Potomac Vegetable Farms. And my own, Long Stone Farm. All purveyors of #localmeat and #localproduce.