03/08/2025
When I attended Columbia Teachers College to become a dietitian, Joan held a chair position, as well as taught Nutritional Ecology, one of my favorite classes. She was fiery and sassy and didnt mince words or accept flattery, she shot it right down. And she was an incredible inspiration to me personally, with her grand garden rolled out behind the house she and her husband built in Piermont, NY. I even got to visit her home and her garden as part of the curriculum. She taught me how living off what you grow can be challenging, frustrating, but also deeply satisfying and nurturing. She taught me that growing your own food connects you better to what nourishes your body, and that gardening can inspire others to be more actively involved in feeding themselves healthy foods.
Joan was a giant in the original farm to table movement. She is who inspired Michael Pollan to write Omnivore’s Dilemma. She wrote a wonderful book about growing your own food that I highly recommend, called This Organic Life.
I am so grateful to have received her wisdom, and can without a doubt say she contributed to the dietitian I am today.
An indefatigable gardener, she was concerned, a colleague said, with “all the things that have to happen for us to get our food.”
