This is awesome: A new Oak Watch hero!

I spend a lot of time in my truck visiting customers.  I generally click back and forth between sports talk radio (even though I can’t remember the last time I watched an entire non-Olympic sporting event on TV) and public radio.  It’s a sort of intellectual whiplash, going from endless, cliché-ridden discussions on whether players of a barbaric sport should be fined or suspended for openly discussing and rewarding barbarism and other pressing topics of the day, to in-depth discussions of issues of minor importance like health care, terrorism, current and pending economic meltdowns, etc.

Yesterday I was smart/lucky/annoyed enough to switch away from the 1,892,732^nd discussion and analysis of the most overrated backup quarterback in the history of football in time to hear the single most important story in the history of public radio:  A 15 minute story on my local Central Coast CA public radio station about a very cool woman in nearby Atascadero who every autumn gathers, processes and bakes acorns.  When asked why she goes to the trouble to do this every year, Cathie Asdel said (and I'm paraphrasing in the manner of someone taking notes while driving 65 miles an hour on a curving highway) "If everything we eat is pre-packaged, how important are we?"  Cathie gathers, processing, bakes and eats acorns to regain a sense of connection with the Earth.  She said, "We need to love and use the things in our environment in order to appreciate them."

I hope to meet Cathie very soon.

The story was on KCBX radio.  Yesterday they had a link to some (typewritten - I love it!) instructions from Cathie on making acorn meal and a few recipes.  I no longer see it on the KCBX web site, but luckily I clicked the link last night.

Here it is.  Enjoy.

Perhaps it would behoove me to spend a little less time listening to inane sports chatter and a little more time listening to public radio.  Then again, listening to inane chatter has its advantages.  Years ago a hugely popular Minneapolis morning drive radio show was making fun of a guy who, according to some article or other, carried a horse chestnut in his pocket for good luck.  The hosts assumed that a horse chestnut was the equine equivalent of a cow pie, and therefore thought this story was ha-ha hilarious.  In those pre-email/twitter/facebook days (God, those were the days!) I sent a fax blasting their stupidity.  They read my fax on the air and soundly blasted me for being such a spoil sport tree dweeb.  But since they read my letter on the air I also won free tickets to see Jeff Foxworthy.  Not bad!

I wonder what they'd say about a guy who often carries acorns in his pocket - not so much for luck but as a reminder of what's important.