Timeworn wisdom prescribes food whole and unprocessed, slow and locally grown, low on sugar and light on butter. But Nora loves us, and if she boils boxed macaroni and cheese in bottled water then adds yellow beans from a can and bakes a cake, nothing involved has anything to do with our river or our soil. We all choose the terms of the desperate bargains we make with the powers that may be, which baseless beliefs and decaying wisdoms we cling to, and which we discard as superstition or sorcery or the ravings of misguided zealots. Which is to say: it may not make sense all the way, but it
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