Soybeans, champagne coupes, puffer jackets, the ocean in a bag

The kitchen window in the house where I grew up looks out over a field of six acres of soybeans. Although it's my parents land, they don't farm it themselves. Our neighbor John Hertlein took over ten or fifteen years ago, when our other neighbor retired. I remember one Thanksgiving, shortly after my sister became a vegetarian, my mom gathered some of th…