How to Handle Bunnies, Doubters, and Grumblers: Community Building Lessons From Tracy Ore
Notas del episodio
Takeaways
- Think big and share the load. Tracy Ore wants to essentially take over the block around the St. Cloud State University Community Garden, and she is bringing in students, the tech college, and partners so the project is not just hers.
- If you give people what they need, the doubters lose their argument. Tracy's bunny rule: plant 100 cauliflower, then another 100, and around 300 the bunnies get full. She takes the same attitude with people.
- Ice cream makers and gardeners make great collaborators. Freeze-dried strawberries keep water out of ice cream, and a garden with a giant freeze-dryer, plenty of habaneros, and strawberry basil makes for some serious flavor ideas.
Summary of the episode
In Part 3 of this conversation on Ice Cream Social, host David Boyer asks Tracy Ore, professor of sociology and director of the community garden at St. Cloud State University, about her ultimate growth plan. She would like to essentially take over the block, acquiring the house next to the garden and redoing it sustainably with solar power and technology designed by students. She is also talking with the tech college about students who could develop a business plan and a marketing plan for the space, and she wants more partners involved so the project is not just hers. Tracy says city officials have told her they want to incorporate the garden into plans to redo the street rather than pave over it, and David describes the garden as a bulwark against encroachments.
Then David asks his favorite question: what was your favorite ice cream flavor at six years old? Tracy remembers family reunions in North Carolina, where her father made hand-cranked banana ice cream with rock salt in the yard. As an adult she is not a sweets person and prefers savory flavors, salty and sweet combinations with toffee, pistachio, and strong black licorice, and she enjoyed the strawberry basil that Jupiter Moon made. David shares the flavor he wants to flat out copy: a Ritz cracker toffee ice cream with chocolate swirls and caramel from Holy Cow Ice Cream, which won the tasting at the ice cream conference he attends every year.
The two talk spicy ice cream, agreeing that dairy counteracts heat. David lists Aztec chocolate, mango habanero, and a Mexican street corn ice cream he sold only out of the trailer ("I loved it. Nobody else bought it."), and Tracy offers habaneros from the garden and describes the chili blend she makes from all of the garden's hot peppers. They then plan a winter collaboration around freeze-drying. David explains why water is the enemy in ice cream and how a freeze-dried strawberry gives strawberry flavor without little ice chunks, and Tracy has a giant freeze-dryer and locally grown strawberries ready to go, plus the chance to make astronaut ice cream.
The conversation closes with the early believers who backed the garden from day one and the doubters who predicted people would just take advantage. Tracy's bunny story sums up her philosophy of giving people, and bunnies, what they need. Both agree that grumblers exist, that it takes a community effort to keep them from being the loudest voice in the room, and that optimism is a choice worth making.