This week I wrote about two amazing women -- Rachel L. Carson and Frances Moore Lappé -- whose writing and advocacy have changed the way we approach food and the world around us. Lappé wrote Diet for a Small Planet more than four decades ago, and the book helped sparked a movement that forced Americans to take a second look at what they were eating and from where it was coming. She is a sweetheart; we spoke on the phone Tuesday. (read my piece on Lappé and the biggest food movement victories of the last 40 years)

I wish I could have spoken to Rachel Carson. She died in 1964. Two years earlier, she wrote the first book calling into question the practice of spraying harmful chemical pesticides -- including the wartime nerve agent DDT -- on our farmland and forests. We still drench our food with chemicals, but thanks to Carson and others who came behind her, we can now choose cleaner food and the issue is no longer a dirty secret. The headline of today's piece on Carson and Silent Spring is quite appropriate: if you've eaten an organic apple this week, thank Rachel Carson. (read my piece on Carson and the current struggle against chemical pesticides)

Thank God for the women who pioneered the movements making a better world for all of us. Thank God for Rachel Carson and Frances Moore Lappé.

Look deeply into this precious lamb's eyes. They're telling you, "Please don't eat me." 

I kid. 

Seriously, though, even for hard-core omnivores, the idea of "spring lamb" (for Easter, Passover or otherwise) doesn't seem to make much sense here in the States because they're out of season right now. In fact, most local farms are lambing as we speak so that the little guys will grow big and strong throughout the summer leading up to a late summer, early fall harvest. I got to visit a local lambing operation last Spring and missed a live birth by about 10 minutes. It really is a sight to behold. Check out my story about out-of-season lamb at TakePart.com. If you're interested, here's a link to my 2013 Edible Boston story about farmer's market meat that includes reporting from Signal Rock Farm in Charlton -- one of the state's preeminent lamb and sheep operations. Enjoy!