Food For Thought

A night out at Durham's Watts Grocery restaurant usually promises great food, but on one night in October, it delivered something else, as well: a vocabulary lesson.

The evening showcased photographs by Douglas Gayeton, a nationally acclaimed artist and writer who has traveled around the country to document sustainable farming practices. As part of his "Lexicon of Sustainability" project, Gayeton donated prints of his work to 100 community-supported food cooperatives around the U.S. Among those selected was Walking Fish, a community-supported fishery spearheaded by students and faculty members from the Nicholas School of the Environment, which organized the event.

A crowd of 150 perused Gayeton's works—labeled with terms such as "Food Miles," "Backyard Pollinators," and "Urban Apiary"—while sampling a sumptuous buffet of sustainable foods prepared by Watts Grocery chef Amy Tornquist. The prints were auctioned to support Localcatch.org, a national coalition of groups supporting sustainable fishing.

"As these photos show, there's a lot going on in the U.S., and we're a part of that," says event organizer and Walking Fish cofounder Joshua Stoll M.E.M. '10. Walking Fish has more than 400 members and supplies an increasing share of the fish served at Watts Grocery.