I’m not sure how I feel about Jamie Kennedy these days. He will forever be the arbiter of local food, lending his presence and his bed head hair to Greenbelt gatherings in the name of sustainability. No one can deny him this title. However, at the Gardiner Museum’s recent lecture, From the Ground Up: Nurturing the Art of Sustainable Living, nothing sounded new. Was I growing tired of his refrain?

The Gardiner Museum has never struck me as local food’s chief advocate. Ceramics, clay, delicate and pretty things just don’t mesh with the gritty, earthbound perspective of farmers, though the erudite moderator Lori Stahlbrand, founder and president of Local Food Plus, was quick to quash my initial hesitation with the simple remark that clay is part of the soil in which food grows. Oh. Ok.

It didn’t matter; I was sitting in the Isabel Bader Theatre on a Tuesday evening to listen to Jamie Kennedy, Michael Stadtländer and Sinclair Philip. The vanilla, chocolate and strawberry of the sustainable community (better than that junkie Neapolitan ice cream my dad used to buy) put forward markedly different perspectives.

Kennedy’s earnest and Kerouac-like sketches of his formative years in Europe and the ensuing desire to return home; Stadtländer, with a Papa Bear charm and frankly, an irresistible accent, one that an enchanting raconteur needs when vocabulary lacks; and finally, Philip’s strictly factual and grim portrayal of the future of the environment, with the help of rapid-fire Power Point slides no less sterile, albeit enlightening, than my first-year philosophy class.

Candid snapshots aside, what was I learning?

There was the ubiquitous question of elitism during the Q&A period, which no one seemed to address directly. Kennedy made a general reference to local and seasonal food actually costing less than processed food. Thanks, but the Gucci-clad women who would be attending the $300 a head sold-out dinner afterwards didn’t look like they needed a lesson on money management. (Pfff, it’s not like I wanted to go anyhow…)

What we are missing, Stadtländer pointed out, is spirituality, a connection to the earth. I can’t help thinking though, that we need a plan with the bare facts. Philip’s hurried speech ran the gamut: statistics, bleak environmental forecasts, a two-part attack on restaurants and realistic propositions to change the current standards.

The stand-out idea is, of course, changing the curriculum, teaching children in schools the importance of sustainable agriculture. No one wants to talk about Youth vs. Old Age, but let’s face it: who’s going to farm when all the farmers die?