I don’t have a lot to add to the hoo-haa kicked up by this NYT piece on affluent, urban people who (gasp) hire help to maintain an organic vegetable garden. Yes, rich people can and will outsource the dirty work whenever they can. But moral one-upmanship is a losing game and I don’t think anyone can truly argue that you gain the high ground by digging your own carrots. As someone else pointed out, how, exactly, is this different from hiring someone to trim the grass and water the rhodedendrons? Or, even more on point, joining a CSA and having your veggies tidily delivered once a week? Or going to the farmers’ market?

But it’s odd how quick some commenters have been to take the author to task for “poking fun” at these so-called lazy locavores. Because I’ve read it a couple times and can’t find the mockery. Simply quoting a source and citing occupation (business consultant) or address (the Hamptons) does not a scathing take-down of the bourgeoisie make. (That the NYT seems to have an inordinate supply of Hamptons-dwelling, investment-managing sources on hand to provide material is another issue, and one hardly limited to this story.) 

But, c’mon. Even Barbara Kingsolver–who isn’t immune from leveraging discreet doses of better-than-you moralizing in the service of spreading the locavore gospel–gives it a thumbs up. And I’m with her. It’s an ugly paradox of capitalism, but the best way to move these issues out of the echo chamber of foodie virtue may be to get them in the kitchens of people with money.