News came via email today that the Food Project, the Lincoln-based outfit that teaches disadvantaged youth in Lynn, Dorchester, and elsewhere how to grow vegetables and eat better, has been hit by the potato (and tomato) blight sweeping the Northeast. Most of us might know the Food Project from stands at local farmers’ markets. The market sales help support the program and give youth a connection between food and serving the public.

We’ve gotten complacent about our food, even the wonderful fresh produce at farmers’ markets. I hear people  complaining about prices,  taking for granted how difficult it is to farm, locally, sustainably. A disaster like this — only a few hundred of the 5,000 tomatoes expected will be sold this season — shows that growing food — and feeding people — is always a fragile enterprise.

The Food Project plans to grow more broccoli and carrots to compensate somewhat for its most popular crop. Buy those, I say. Good for you, good for them.

This happens in every gardener’s life. By this, I mean those of us who are amateurs, not real farmers. For them, there is no dilemma — nature rules, you never leave, life is dirt, literally.

But for those of us who, with much dedication, over long years, tend a plot in our yard and bring in edible crops, there’s always the dilemma of summer. The vacation, the family obligation, the weekend away. It’s always the wrong time. This year, I’ve got my usual family duty of going to Kansas in late July. And it’s always when the green beans come in strong. Sometimes it’s the second crop. This year, because of cold and rain, it’s the first. If you don’t get those beans off the vines, you don’t get a second crop. I’m trying to keep on top of it, but I leave on Thursday. If anyone out there wants to come pick a very small plot of really lovely French filet beans, email me. They’re never as good as the first crop!

Eating out can seem like a gamble: How can you be sure that the famed name is cooking that night? Will it be worth the hype? Has the restaurant you’ve chosen lost its edge?

Joseph Brenner of Olives

That’s why it’s so reassuring to walk in to Olives and see Joseph Brenner orchestrating the open kitchen. No, Todd wasn’t in the house last Saturday night. It may be his photo in the press, but not so often in the kitchen these days as he jet-sets from Olives to Olives to TV and beyond.  But Brenner, who has been his main chef forever, is a really good cook, as well as being friendly and unassuming. Olives in Charlestown may have lost some of its glitz over the years, but the grilled octopus and squid with lots of garlic, olive oil, and a garbanzo salad is fantastic. And the sweet pea ravioli spectacular.

Almost better is the sense of well-being you get sitting at the bar watching Brenner and his cooks — he knows what he’s doing, and does it very well, night after night– just what you want when you go out to dinner.

Chef Ludovic Lefebvre

Yes, I know what you’re thinking — those annoying ads that clutter your screen. But I’m talking pop-up restaurants — a phenomenon that Restaurant News trumpets as growing in popularity. In a web story Tuesday, Ludovic Lefebvre, formerly chef of the now-defunct l”Orangerie in LA, talks about setting up shop five nights a week in Breadbar. The bakery/cafe rents space for LudoBites in the evenings; the chef has a kitchen and a venue without opening a new (and expensive) restaurant. When he’s tired of this space, he and wife Krissy will move on.

It’s a little like some romances – benefits without long-term commitment. None of the hassles of restaurant owning – raising capital, 5-10-year leases, buying expensive equipment — but the added sizzle of the unexpected. Here today, and tomorrow somewhere else.

So far, the idea hasn’t hit Boston — although the new Bina on the Common might be a stab in that direction. But in the gloom of the economy and the stress on restaurateurs, look for pop-ups in our eating future.

I’ve been puzzling over this for months as I read blogs and articles that go into detail — sometimes excrutiating detail — about how to cook something.  How to cook a hamburger, using six different fats and 10 different cooking methods. How to sear a steak, how to make a barbecue sauce. Most of them reference cooking chemist Harold McGee, and most of them make cooking sound like a long and arduous journey that’s worth it only if the discovery at the end is perfection.

I don’t cook that way; although I experiment, I’m not that exact. I never even practice a dish before I serve it to guests. Hopefully, it works out, usually it does, and there’s always homemade bread to fall back on (German lore insists on good bread) if something flops.

Nora Ephron

But the other day, I read a profile of Nora Ephron, whose famously combined food and literature (”Heartburn”, the screen play for “When Harry Met Sally.”) In it, she serves a meal with a medley of food and opines that she’s not a serious cook, she’s a “feeder.”

That’s it. I’m a feeder. And proud of it.