On Thursday, July 29th, Farm to Table dining takes a distinctly urban direction when Great Performances brings fresh-picked bounty to its Hudson Square back door. The renowned caterer will collaborate with neighbor City Winery to create an outdoor dining experience highlighted by local food and wines.

Earlier this month, I pulled the last of the spinach to make way for a summer crop. While other area growers were just getting their first harvest, my early-sown crop had been clipped twice, and was starting to bolt to seed.

This week my CSA share included lettuce, kale, arugula, bok choy, and spinach. That’s a lot of greens for a single gal to eat. But not a leaf will go to waste. Here are my tips for making the most of all that green goodness.

The July issue of O Magazine features a 10-page spread titled “What Are You Eating.” Ranging from a fruitarian to an all-day grazer of junk food, from a carnivore who prefers to hunt and kill his own meat to an omnivore with an appetite for just about anything, the diets in the article are extreme.

We’re alienated from the process of growing and butchering meat, pork and poultry for our personal consumption, and I don’t think that’s a good thing. We’d probably eat a lot less of it if we had to kill the animal or the bird ourselves.

The government’s newest composition comes from a 13-member panel of nutrition and health experts known as the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC). This elite group drives the direction and content for the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, whose 2010 version is expected to arrive later this year.

As the Summer Solstice approaches, highlights this week include:  the antibiotic-resistant “super bug” controversy goes global; conservation efforts step up in the Mississippi River basin; the new 2010 Dietary Guidelines are …

We’ve had our massive snowmelt; we’ve made it through those early, chilly gray days of spring and the first glorious sunshine-and-blue-sky epiphanies. We’ve even had our hot spell in May that drove everyone out to the garden centers and the river shouting, “It’s here! Summer!” Now, we have our monsoon.

Faatma Mehrmanesh rides the John Deer tractor in style. Her long hair fills a woven cloth hat. Turquoise headphones rest on top so she can rock to the tractor’s slow roll over the soil. She’s preparing the plot for its first planting: the growing season starts late here at the base of the Rocky Mountains.

This week’s links include child nutrition legislation, growing food as medicine, and the controversy over California’s beloved strawberry crop and Amish farming methods.