My afternoon

Years ago, I told a diner next to me, I was a member at Cooper – Hewitt. I dragged my husband to the parties they threw here on the grounds.

He nodded and said “Janet drags me.” We agreed that he liked it. I said I dragged the poor fellow to the Merchant’s House on E. 4th Street, too. There was food, so he was alright. I was remembering what a good time Burt and I had at both events. The garden party at the Cooper-Hewitt was some 30 years ago.

The night was warm and we had a lovely evening. The well-kept lawn was green, as it was this afternoon. There were beautiful decorations in red and blue.

Today, on this afternoon, the crowd was there sampling foods prepared from produce grown at an indigenous farm. In some way, I had dragged Burt here with me as well.

The Museum produced Making Home, a program dedicated to looking at the meaning of home.

The  Tohono O’odham Nation’s Alexander Pancho Farm in Sells, Arizona contributed a display of a desert building; they offered to enlight and educate us on the role of agriculture in their heritage. The desert construction is displayed in a gallery upstairs. The uses of seasonal plants as food were the contents of a party in the garden.

I was there to learn about Native food traditions and history from farmer Noland Johnson, Amy Juan, and Mary Paganelli Votto. 

Michael [Mikey] Enis of the Tohono O’odham Nation sang an invocation.

Displays of flour crushed from the flowers of mesquite trees and syrups extracted from the cactus drew lots of questions. They were expertly answered.

We were served delicious foods made from recipes using the traditional ingredients from the farm.

There was a rich bean soup with oxtail and a salad from grains, dessert sweetened with saguaro cactus.

It was warm and the light rain did not daunt. This was a lovely day. One of the presenters honored me by taking a selfie with me; “I like your personality,” he told me.