A World Made By Hand

You may have already seen this  NY Times story on young epicures in Brooklyn; it's the paper's top story today. Some people will say, "Eh, they're a bunch of stupid hipsters." Or, "Eh, they're a bunch of East Coast foodie elitists." I say: Don't be so quick to judge a boutique chocolatier by the length of his beard. I have long thought the handmade approach to be one of the things that might could mitigate the economic and environmental crises we face, but had never seen evidence that people were engaged in it in such a vigorous way. This article made me hopeful in the first place, but what made me feel even more hopeful is realizing that St. Louis has, in many regards, an unbroken culture of artisans like this, from Pietkutowski's Sausage to Zollinger Upholstery. My informal, self-assigned errand for the next few weeks is going to be trying to make a list of such businesses. If I get very far at all, I'll post the information here. Apologies to James Howard Kunstler for borrowing the title of his new book, and credit to Margaret Bauer, whose Tuesday Editor's Room post got me thinking about this stuff in the first place ... --Stefene Russell