Will work for food - Local farmers in Washtenaw County grow their passion, cultivate their lives

A lucent sunset provides a stunning backdrop for the Tantré Farm barn in Chelsea.
Photo Credit: Tantré Farm

ANN ARBOR, Mich.—Two years ago, Jeff Tenza, life-long resident, would describe a typical day in his life in this manner: each morning he’d punch an alarm clock, pile into a car with his co-workers and commute upwards of 30 minutes to Brighton. Then he’d spend the next ten hours staring into a computer screen, analyzing fast-moving trends and researching start-up corporations for potential investment. At the end of the day, he barely had enough time to cook dinner. He felt drained.

Today, Tenza’s mantra could be: will work for food.

His life is moving in a different direction, at a slower pace. And he’s found a job that fills his days with camaraderie, laughter and fun.

“We do weed and sings. We learn songs, singing in rounds, taking turns,” he said. “It’s very beautiful and it feels amazing to get your hands in the dirt. Clean, healthy dirt. No chemicals.”

“It just feels really good to be out there. It’s what [human beings are] evolved to do.”

Tenza, 24, may be the face of a new generation of young farmers in Michigan. A lot has changed for Tenza in the past two years.

Michigan is changing too. Reeling from the fall-out of the automotive industry and an imploding state government, it’s hard for anyone who has lived in the Great Lakes State for more than a decade to see our state’s economy beyond the shadow cast by the Big Three. But there is light on the horizon.

An Evening with No Reservations in Ann Arbor - Bourdain's biting commentary aims to please

Ann Arbor, Mich. – The eager faces of a near-capacity crowd beamed beneath the Michigan Theater's pre-war marquee Saturday night, filling the concourse and spilling out onto the sidewalk of Liberty Street.  Amid the bustle of Michigan Football post-game traffic and the annual University parents’ weekend, the spectacle took center stage in the city’s downtown.   

The iconic letters of the bill clued-in any passerby on the commotion: “An Evening with Anthony Bourdain.”

Michigan Radio presented Bourdain as part of the Ann Arbor Conversations series.

“I’m a WUOM [Michigan Radio] nut,” said Jackie of Dexter (who declined to give her last name). 

“We all watch Bourdain,” she said.

Jackie arrived with her friend Judy (who declined to give her last name as well).  The two share a love of cooking.

Judy, also of Dexter, like so many others awaiting the internationally acclaimed chef and host of the Travel Channel’s smash-hit “No Reservations,” wasn’t sure what to expect from the talk.

Outdoor enthusiasts honor cabin and home – Les Voyageurs wax love for nature’s splendor, rally in timeless lodge

The Habe Mills Pine Lodge in early autumn. Photo Credit: Greg Monroe

Ann Arbor, Mich. – Beneath the brow of a quiet hill, on the banks of the Huron River is the Habe Mills Pine Lodge. The modest structure rests tucked away from the edge of Longshore Drive, where pavement meets the mouth of a wooded dirt road on the city’s north side.

Since 1925, the lodge has remained home to Les Voyageurs of the University of Michigan, a coed fraternal society dedicated to the pursuit of all things out-of-doors.

Shrouded in bracken, the lodge leaves one with the impression of stumbling upon an old barnhouse lost in a forgotten field. It appears unfrequented, veiled in a quiet calm.

The deep red planks that comprise the cabin’s exterior are framed by a precarious assortment of trees and shrubbery. A beige blanket of fallen pine needles slopes down the vaulted roof of the porch.

But upon closer inspection, an onlooker will easily find traces of the LVs (short for Les Voyageurs).

Donald Harrison - Lights, Camera, Community

Ann Arbor, Mich. – It may come as a surprise to learn that Donald Harrison, executive director of the Ann Arbor Film Festival, didn’t studied film as an undergrad.

Then again, it may be hard to believe that Harrison wouldn’t be in the position he’s in today if it weren’t for bowling.

Growing up in Detroit, Donald's father raised him to be professional bowler. 

“It’s one of the things that connect us,” he says.  “It’s still a big part of our relationship.”

After graduating college, Harrison moved to San Francisco.  When his father, a bowling journalist, invited Donald to accompany him to the USBC National Bowling Convention, the idea came to him instantly.

Detroit's combination plate - Southwest taquerilla comes to life

Detroit - “La Taquerilla” greets passers by on a Saturday night, its small awning a beacon of florescent light on an otherwise dim avenue, pouring out from the handful of patrons that surround the open-air eatery after dark.

For years the taco stand has remained across the street from a laundromat, and tucked into the edge of the parking lot for a grocery store in the city’s Mexicantown district.

And for residents of this Southwest Detroit neighborhood, “La Taquerilla” is a place that remains vibrant in the throws of a city struggling to maintain its livelihood in the midst of a recession.

Customers form in crowds, ushering in chatter (mostly in Spanish) and fits of frenzied laughter that merge with the din of cooking: spatulas clanging and the sizzle of grease—which is constant here, filling the air like static.

"La Taquerilla" on a typical evening in Southwest Detroit. Photo courtesy of David Schalliol.

Into my own -- What I realized on the peak of a mountain

Ann Arbor, Mich. – Just over a week ago, in the midst of an adventure in the New England wilderness, I stood atop the tallest summit in Maine and was seized with the urgent notion that I must return to school.

The Robert Frost poem, “Into My Own,” from the heralded 1913 collection, “A Boy’s Will” , describes a child’s playful musing of stealing away into the woods. For the poet, this proved to be a fantasy he fulfilled — much of Frost’s adult life was spent in bucolic Vermont.

I returned in time to enroll. And with a bit of hard work and good luck, this course just might help me fulfill my own fantasy.

Prologue: Into My Own

Just over a week ago today, standing atop the tallest summit in Maine, I was seized with the urgent notion that I must return to school. The trip was a much-needed capstone to a rather uneventful summer—getting lost in the backcountry of America’s Northeast—and the realization atop Mount Katahdin surprised me, not in the sense that it felt peculiar, but only in the way it felt to have gone neglected for so long.

I’m glad that I returned in time to enroll. In the my short week here on campus I have begun to recall that the things I appreciate in school and the university setting have much in common with all that I enjoy in the act of writing and reporting: meeting new people, the exposure to new ideas—or finding new ways to approach old ideas, the excitement of curiosity, the satisfaction gained from striving to creating something meaningful and, of course, the pleasure of a great story. One of my favorite journalists, Ira Glass, celebrated host and producer of This American Life, sums up the process of writing best: “the pleasure of discovery. The pleasure of making sense of the world.”

My interest in feature writing does not fall very far from the tree of my inspiration and those whose writing I admire. I am very much in disagreement with those “crusty old-timers” who treat “features” as “nonessential stuff,” as Tim Harrower writes in Inside Reporting. Or maybe that is exactly why I am interested in feature writing. I view features (from what I understand of them) as very much alive and vibrant, and not sterilized with ‘nothing but the facts.’ And it seems more consistent with the way I like to write and who I am to declare that the people and stories captured in a feature often feel more real than factual, inverted-pyramid structured stories.

In this course, I hope to learn how to craft my writing into something that is publishable. I could really benefit from instruction in interviewing technique, and guidance with regard to what may or may not be a good story idea. Most of my favorite journalists and publications use the first-person voice liberally, so much so that it drives the narrative. I anticipate that one of my biggest challenges will be to write lively and compelling features without relying on my own place in the story. But I’m up for the challenge, and with help, I look forward to creating some choice articles that will bring me closer to my goal of being published.

My name is Greg Monroe. I like short stories, slow-cookin’, mountains and lakes. I make a mean campfire. I play the ukulele. And secretly, I wish I were a semi-professional hockey player for the team of some craggy coastal town in New England. I’ve been an avid writer. I’ve been an amateur writer. It would be a joy to be a professional writer.