*In 2026, members of the Society for the Anthropology of Food and Nutrition are writing for Anthropology News on the theme of temporality in food anthropology. This contribution from Janita Van Dyk kicks off our four-part series. * Geert walked over to the whiteboard. After marking an X and Y axis, he explained each set of lines, curves, and bumps drawn on his impromptu graph to the class of food studies and culinary master’s students in attendance. His graph abstracted four variables measured over four seasons and the amount of time and work expended. This was a year in his life. After completing a graduate food studies degree in Italy as a Dutch international student, Geert had rented a plot of land with a group of friends outside of a major city to start a small, commercial farm, or “market garden.” Geert and his friends had come back to their alma mater to share their farming insights to current students in a lecture series about the realities and challenges of market gardening.…