If You Meet a Detroit Solutionary, It Behooves You to Keep Up

Learn How to Become a Professional Neighbor in Detroit

Saturday, October 22, 2022 at 3:11 PM
Grosse Pointe Public Library - Ewald Branch
Grosse Pointe Park, Michigan

As I explore Detroit, I find character makes the best clue. I look for character at locations and at events. I’m still unpacking the Eastside Solutionaries Celebration because I met strong characters at the Feedom Freedom Community House. 

Jefferson Chalmers as a location has a strong attraction for people who care about food. Nancy Weigandt and Tom Milano at Detroit Abloom wrote a vegan cookbook. Then, the couple invited guests to the garden to enjoy a vegan dining club on Thursday nights. 

And I love dropping by the Hare Krishna temple at 5 PM on Sundays. After the lesson by the clerical staff, everyone is invited to dine upon a delicious dinner, vegan and spicy. The gurus explain the Hindu religious texts with such clarity and finesse. I came to learn the myths and to learn their expository style.

I have yet to visit Coriander Kitchen and Farm, located on a canal near the Detroit River. A good time to visit might be the harvest dinner, with chicory playing the starring role. Tickets cost just short of 105 dollars, and the dinner cannot be billed as entirely vegan. And it's sold out. Again, two personalities have carved a perfect life for themselves on the water. Alison Heeres and Gwen Meyer restaurant could be a boat club and it could be a supper club and it could be a community supported agriculture garden. That’s why I have to visit Coriander soon to sort it all out.

Back to the Eastside Solutionaries Celebration, now a memory. Jasmine Evans cooked small plates and sold juices at the celebration, and I’m glad I picked up her card. I should have picked up a small plate and a beverage! The chef describes herself as a “culinary culturalist, educator, cook, farmer and storyteller. And as I continue to learn more about Evans, I feel I don’t know half of it. 

Evans shares life with Gabriel Knox, a poet and a professional neighbor. Yes, Knox makes it a job to help the neighborhood grow into a community. The two have undertaken the restoration of a North End home at 999 King Street. Artists will be invited to create during art residencies at the home. Nearby, I notice the King Street Garden and the Joy Project. The Joy Project has the mission of becoming a living garden of African Atlantic Agriculture and Foodways. What’s remarkable, the team has leveraged crowdfunding platform Ioby.org to raise almost 40,000 dollars for the house and the African Atlantic garden.

Ioby stands for In Our Backyards. Such a refreshing alternative to Nimby, Not in Our Back Yards!

I need to learn more about the concept of professional neighboring! Sadly, when I walked through the North End about a month ago, I walked two blocks south of the neighborhood of Knox and Evans. I’ll have to keep an eye on Evans, and follow Indigo Culinary Company to the pop-up kitchens around town. They happen in the coolest places. On the calendar, a pop up at Two Birds on Kercheval in Indian Village might be the occasion of my first official visit to Indian Village in fifteen years.

Now I have to figure out what it means to restore the African Atlantic Agricultural foodway. I bet it means good eating and good for you eating!

Keep Growing Detroit organizes an annual tour of Detroit’s Urban Farms