But tomorrow there will be a reason to look up, to dawdle, to tote more than books. For the third Tuesday in a row, a garden of sorts will spring up between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. in that normally empty space bounded by books (the library), more books (my office) and God (the University Chapel). This is our very own farmers' market, an idea so terrific that I forgive the organization that's behind it, Greening Princeton, for taking on a name that even the erstwhile flower girl Eliza Doolittle might object sounds like the title of a Ph.D. dissertation in comparative literature from the 1980s. The market was open for business on five glorious Tuesdays last September and October, will be around for six weeks this spring and has already announced a seven-week schedule (plus a special Thanksgiving Market) for the fall. It is of course a place to buy winesap apples, cranberry honey, free-range eggs, chicken sausages, spinach ravioli and strawberry rhubarb pie (to mention some of items I've purchased in the past two weeks). But it is much more than that. It is also a place to think about what it means to eat well and to eat right (the cheerful participation of chef Rob Harbison is one sign that the University is committed to going beyond merely thinking about these things). It is a place to show support for local businesses ("locavore" was the 2007 "Word of the Year" according to the editors of the "New Oxford American Dictionary") and thereby strengthen town-gown relations. And it is a place to meet, speak with and smile at one's professors, students and colleagues - and the many community auditors who sit at the back of your lectures and remind you that there's a lot more to life than four short college years.
The brainchild of Kathryn Andersen '08 and Ruthie Schwab '09, the farmers' market is already an institution, and I am proud to be associated with a university whose students channel their energy into such productive and successful enterprises. Andersen and Schwab have done more than anyone else on campus to make us care about and just plain enjoy the food we eat - or could be eating. Andersen has contributed several opinion pieces to the The Daily Princetonian over the years, including one on the very day she rang the spring market's opening (cow)bell in the company of New Jersey Secretary of Agriculture Charles Kuperus ("A quiet, delicious revolution," April 15, 2008). Clearly it is no accident that in my seminar on Indo-European last semester, she wrote a quiet, delicious paper on words for "bread" and "beer."
There have been many excellent student initiatives at Princeton and will certainly be others in the years ahead. If you are looking to leave your mark, may I suggest that you focus on beer? In mid-April 2006, the University sponsored a "Pub Night" in the Chancellor Green Cafe: an evident success, it brought together a lively capacity crowd of over-21 students, faculty and staff. Very shortly thereafter, however, the Borough objected to the use of the word "pub" in the name (ridiculous) and the State of New Jersey revoked the permits it had already issued to the University for further events (ridiculous again). If you can restart pub nights, I'll be the first to buy you a beer.
So there are sometimes troubled nights in Princeton. But from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Tuesdays, it's a beautiful day in this neighborhood. See you tomorrow on Firestone Plaza.
Joshua Katz is a professor in the Department of Classics and a Forbes faculty adviser. He can be reached at jtkatz@princeton.edu.
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