Chapter excerpt from A REAL LIFE: Rediscovering the Roots of Our Happiness

CHAPTER 10

Honor Thy Vegetable Garden

          When we landed in Canada we had but our clothes in one small suitcase and a hundred or so dollars my parents had saved by working the winter and spring in Vienna. We lived near Vancouver in a three-room attic with a view of the mountains and a mandarin orange crate hung out the window for a fridge. But we immediately found a treasure in my stepfather’s great uncle, Feribacsi. He had a place nearby that, even in retrospect,...