The trip that changed the lives of all BLAST members…

It all began on a sunny morning in mid July. My fellow Blastians and I were on the infamous BLAST Dig In trip, which, in past years has gone to such locals as Washington State and Canada. This year however, our road trip encompassed an admittedly smaller area…New England. Four days of riding in our mighty white van across western Mass and then on to the time warped city of Burlington, Vermont, where hippies congregated to admire each other’s guitars and organic clothing.

On this particular morning, the third day of the trip, my fellow interns and I had dragged ourselves stiffly out of our sleeping bags. Our campsite, located next to the picturesque tourist magnate Lake Champlain had been a pleasant stop during the Dig In and we were sad to be leaving. However, what lay behind us would pale in comparison to what lay ahead of us.

“Man, I am so psyched for the Farmer’s Diner!” I managed to groan enthusiastically as I avoided like the plague my smelly sneakers, which had been ceremoniously baptized in chicken poop a day before.

The Farmer’s Diner in Barre Vermont was the next location on our Dig In trip. We were planning to drive about an hour to get there, whereupon we would consume mass quantities of tasty local food. Driving through the mountains, I looked out the windows and into the swamps of fog that hung low at this time in the morning. Yet, I found that my mind did not wander through thoughts of beautiful Vermont countryside, but instead, toyed with fantasies of large slabs of meat, browned bacon, and fluffy eggs. It’s often hard for me, a staunch carnivore, to satiate my desired for meat while working at The Food Project. I love you all dearly guys, but the main course of a meal should not be made of lettuce, in my opinion.

Anyway, I was very pleased as we rolled down the main street of Barre, a small, yet urban feeling town east of Burlington. Upon entering the dinner, it looked completely normal, with a large Woolworth style counter and green leather upholstered booths. Our waitress Jane had the walk and talk of a real local, born and bred in Vermont surrounded by cows, mechanics, and socialists. She took our orders (mostly we got the “Farmer’s Breakfast: two eggs, two pancakes and your choice of breakfast meat”) and never let our coffee cups go empty. My father once told me that any diner worth its mettle never let your coffee cup go empty, so I already figured we were off to a good start.

About fifteen minutes into my nickel thick bacon, I saw a man walk in, seeming very much at home. He was tall with a clean-shaven look and an infectious energy in his voice. “Tod Murphy, inventor of the Farmer’s Diner”, I though to myself.

‘So you guys are The Food Project,” he proclaimed, sitting at the edge of our booth. After introductions, which he discreetly penned in his large red notebook, he began answering our wide range of questions about himself, his diner, and his plans for the future.

He mainly seemed to want to assure us that, “yes, farming really was hard,” which none of us ever doubted. A naturally sarcastic humorist, he told us a story about an investment banker who came to Vermont to be a farmer, tried to raise a few pigs, and after having to chase and round them up several times, found that he had lost thirty-five pounds along with the pigs. When we asked Tod how he came up with the idea for The Farmer’s Diner, he said, “I would like to claim that it was some sort of epiphany and divine intervention on my part, but, that’s not really how it goes”.

It seemed to us that it was just a good idea that hit the right person at the right time. He said that he had been looking for a new way to get more local food to normal people, not just the extremely wealthy or extremely informed. Thus, the Diner was formed.

Using completely local meats, fruits, vegetables, and breads, just about the only thing on the table at the Diner that isn’t from within 70 miles of that table is the condiments and the coffee. But, with such a rigorous protocol, I figured there must be challenges.

“The biggest problems are money and belief,” said Tod. “Money, well that is obvious. I get around that by being an obnoxious jerk though. I just keep calling people saying ‘you promised me money, so where is it?’ And then, belief, well, that you just have to hope for”.

Yet, Tod Murphy is not about to let those problems stand in his way. He feels that his Diner serves three specific groups of people, who range from old time farmers to new age hippies.

“There are the ‘true believers’ who tend not to shave or bathe, then there are the normal people, the farmers, construction workers, the convict, judge and arresting officer all in the same room, and then there are the ‘do what they can-ers’ who feel compelled to help if the prices are the same. We get all those types in here, and that’s the point”. I absolutely agree.

With such success, I knew Tod must have plans to expand, and indeed, the Farmer’s Diner is soon coming to the Boston area. Tod and an investor are trying to orchestrate a mass expansion that would create Farmer’s Diners in several other places in Vermont, and in up to fifteen different locations around Boston. The concern perhaps is that Tod won’t be able to maintain the local feeling and upstanding morals that the current Farmer’s Diner exemplifies. Yet, Tod assured us that all the Diners in Massachusetts would use only MA produce and all the processing would be done in state also. Knowing how energetic, driven, and committed to local food Tod Murphy is, I felt pretty sure that he would uphold the standards that he has already set with the first Farmer’s Diner.

The point of local food access is to make healthy, local food that is good for the environment available to everyone for just about the same price as over processed conventional cardboard that masquerades as food. CSAs can be pricy for average Joes, and farmers markets can be difficult to coordinate for the farmer. Tod Murphy decided to address the problem of local food accessibility through a fresh new system. One of the Farmer’s Diner’s favorite quotes is “Eating is an agricultural act” said by farmer and essayist Wendell Barry. As the BLAST interns drove away from our completely satisfying breakfast, I thought to myself, “Some people try to change our current deficient system by attacking the first steps of the food system, the farming, and the markets. Tod Murphy’s coming at this one from a very different direction, but if its true that the way to a human’s heart is through their stomach, than with any luck, he just might change a few hearts”.