Cafe Conversations

Digital Illustration with snippets of text from 1930s and 40s Farmer’s Almanacs


This piece is focused on the small town cafe, where farmers and families once sat and shared stories and advice over a cup of coffee. Many of these main street cafes are now shuttered due in large part to the fading number of people (farmers) who once frequented them.

“Farmers are not just guys in overalls, part of the charming scenery of yesteryear; they are the technicians who know how to get teensy little seeds to turn into stuff that comprises everything, I mean everything, we eat. Is anybody paying attention? For every farm that’s turned over to lawns and housing developments, a farmer is sent to work at the Nissan
plant or the Kmart checkout line. What’s lost with that career move is specific knowledge of how to gain food from a particular soil type, in a particular climate–wisdom that took generations to grow.”

-Barbara Kingsolver, Small Wonder