We hear a lot about New Orleans being 300 years old. Right around our 100^th birthday there was a giant worldwide shakeup. It came to be known as The Industrial Revolution. As it went along, more and more of us started living in cities that got bigger and bigger. Our connection to the land got more and more distant. Today, there’s a movement to try and rebalance. To connect our urban lives with our rural roots.

Here in New Orleans Nico Krebill’s company, Schmelly’s Dirt Farm, takes food and organic waste which it uses to make and sell compost.

Grant Estrade’s company, Laughing Buddha Nursery, sells organic house plants. On his organic farm, Grant grows vegetables and raises pigs, and chickens, all of which he’ll deliver to you in a subscription box.

It would take an Armageddon-like catastrophe to turn us all back into farmers, but there is definitely some middle ground between urban and rural that gives us the best of both worlds.

Peter Ricchiuti explores the nexus of oor local urban and rural worlds on this edition of out to Lunch.

Photos at Commander’s Palace by Jill Lafleur.