Browns Versus Greens

The first rule of compost management is maintaining your ratio of browns versus greens, which is ultimately about balancing carbon and nitrogen. Browns are typically described as old dead things, like dead brown leaves, pine needles, twigs, straw, sawdust, newspaper, cardboard. These are rich in carbon. For more nitrogen, look to recently alive or life-adjacent things, like green grass clippings, kitchen produce, manure, or coffee grounds, which are adjacent to my life on a daily basis.

Some composters say a 1:1 ratio of browns versus greens is fine, other insist 2:1 or 4:1 in favor of browns is better. You can get even more granular by approximating the carbon-nitrogen ratio for everything you compost, involving a spreadsheet and eating up some billable hours. The purpose of these elements in compost is to support the life cycle of compost-eating bacteria and fungi, which use carbon for energy and structure, and nitrogen for proteins and other growth factors. Feel free to dive into the chemistry (noting those particular chemists recommend a 30:1 ratio, which seems extravagant to this particular novice composter). You’re advised to layer your browns and greens in order to facilitate a nice spread of elements, as well as turn the compost occasionally to introduce bacteria-supporting oxygen.

I’d never confess this on Reddit, but I don’t concern myself with the browns and greens. The vast majority of my compost is made up of greens from the kitchen. My only concession to composting catechism is to throw in a layer of dirt and leaves every month or so, then drill five holes—arranged like the five dots of a 5 in dice—in the square compost bin, mostly because it’s satisfying to use the hand-cranked corkscrew augur aerator tool. This makes the composting less efficient than it could be since it doesn’t generate as much internal heat, but my relaxed schedule allows the compost to cook for a year before use in the garden. That seems more than enough to break almost everything down and feed the microbes (more on that later). Time, the ultimate composter, will eventually equalize all ratios.

The big splashy New York feature from last week titled “Can Journalism Survive?” is a derivation of the magazine’s “Power” tentpole series, so it’s unsurprisingly a collection of quotes from CEOs, owners, high-ranking editors, and celebrity types. Powerful people, in this context anyway. It doesn’t spend much time with journalism, focusing more energy on the gears and cogs of the media business, which is more top of mind to those on top of that business. Many readers, myself included, rolled eyeballs at how many of these people seem disconnected from the distress of everyone below them in the industry, except as an intellectual problem, or as something to complain about how the kids don’t work as hard as they used to.

But this series is called “Power,” not “Principles,” and anyone who cares can listen to media workers complain on any screen they like. The piece does what it set out to do, which is to give these people ample space to pontificate on how they and their ilk (not journalism) will survive. Most of them will be just fine. I was annoyed at how many quotes were permitted to be anonymous (though presumably still said by someone in the identified group), especially when some of those quotes were quite anodyne. Of course, some of the anonymous quotes were quite enervating, and it does make for juicier copy when somebody in that group will say something a little transgressive. I guess. Who am I to complain, with my principles.

I am nevertheless unreservedly impressed with the story as an editorial object. Corralling all these bigwigs for interviews, talking to them, trying to get something out of them that doesn’t come sandblasted to a media-trained smooth marble, or lathered with too much magisterial self-regard—it’s not easy. Then combing through all those transcripts, constructing categorical sections, parsing out what could and could not be used, confirming quotes for the touchier interviewees … and all the while being mindful of what people agreed was on or off the record. That’s a lot of extremely dull grunt work, regardless of how slick the finished product may appear.

I spent two years doing interviews like this for Zagat Stories, interviewing people in restaurants and hospitality from the start of the pandemic. Many of the really famous and powerful people I’ve interviewed make for less than compelling interviews, either because they’ve said it all before or because they have minimal interest in trying to say anything at all. Or also because they’re just boring. Some famous people are extremely boring! So it’s an achievement to get something usable out of such people, even those more prone to yapping.

Speaking of Zagat Stories, of all the many things I’ve written and edited that have passed away from the digital plane, I’m probably most sad about that site. It was always a niche audience—longform interviews are an acquired taste to say the least, and these were even more nichey since it was borderline trade stuff rather than consumer focused. But it felt important at the time to capture a record of what people in restaurants were going through during the seismic crisis the pandemic inflected on that industry. And often those conversations were very personal and personally affecting.

Zagat Stories got sucked behind the Chase registration wall not long after the bank acquired us (and I left), then the site was removed entirely from existence. They’re still trying to figure out something to do with Zagat I believe, though nothing like Stories, which is understandable and yet still a shame. I would have preferred that it survive.