Social change in a mason jar.

• Author: Prentice, Jessica
• Position: Author on her conception and management of Stone Hearth Community Supported Kitchens - Essay

Ten years ago, I landed at a writing residency program in the breathtaking beauty that is West Marin County in Northern California. I had four weeks to devote to drafting the bulk of my book, Full Moon Feast: Food and the Hunger for Connection, which would be published the following year.

The book was the culmination of years of thinking about our broken food system. In it, I sought both to tell my own story of recovery and healing, and to paint an image of how we as a culture could reweave the threads of sustenance and sustainability.

The Mesa Refuge, which hosted my residency, selects writers who focus on ecological and social issues, and I shared my time there with two other writers. One of my fellow residents was considering writing a book intended to inspire progressives to start their own businesses.

I perked up: Why should progressives start businesses, I wondered. He asserted that the vast majority of social and environmental ills were directly related to the power, profiteering, and recklessness of large, multinational corporations. Locally owned, small-scale, values-driven, socially and ecologically responsible businesses were the best antidote, and would generate authentic health and wealth in a community. If we're going to see any changes in our society, he contended, we had to all get off the corporate teat.

I'll never forget that image: the corporate teat. I took a quick assessment of my own financial situation. My last major jobs had been for well-intentioned nonprofits, and I had worked a range of catering gigs. I was considering what my future work would be as I finished the book. My bills and mortgage were paid for by my partner who worked--you guessed it--for a large multinational corporation. I realized that I was on the corporate teat as much as anyone. Even nonprofits, my fellow resident argued, depended all too often on the spoils of the inhumane companies that dominate our economy.

Coincidentally, for years I had been toying with a business idea, and I decided to run it by him: I wanted to start a Community Supported Kitchen. Just as small organic farms offer weekly boxes of produce directly to consumers who sign up for shares through the Community Supported Agriculture model, community supported kitchens could offer an alternative to factory food processing.

Preparing nourishing foods that are time- and labor-intensive could be scaled up to serve the needs of busy families and those struggling with illness. Prepared...