I am thinking most specifically about Julie Powell, the woman whose story has now been made famous by the new movie “Julie and Julia.” Essentially, she started out as a food blogger, attempting to get rid of boredom in her everyday life with attempting to cook one meal a day for an entire year from Julia Child’s cookbook on classic French cooking.

This turned into a memoir, which then turned into a film. I just started the memoir and I must say it is quite captivating. There is something appealing about the idea that while putting your content out there, unaware of the audience, someone, somewhere, thinks you are fabulous.

It is certainly humbling.

Today’s New York Times has another article about a woman who has become famous with her own cosmetic line through YouTube, where she sat and painstakingly created thousands of videos showing young women how to put on makeup.

Cooking good food and looking pretty are two very nice things to be famous for, but it got me thinking if we can’t charter the same type of success by doing something good.

What if SustainAfrica could be like that? What if I can take this idea that I have, and turn it into a sensation? Could people care as much about the wellbeing of others as they do about making foi gras and mascara?

I think it is possible. (Of course I do, otherwise I wouldn’t be blogging about it.)

The new job I have isn’t great. I don’t do anything. And it’s a do-er’s nightmare. But maybe, just maybe, SustainAfrica has the potential to take me from doing nothing, to doing something.

His essay is about the corporate entity known as The Food Network, but also about the latest trend of talking and studying food and eating, without actually having the energy or gumption to cook anything.

I have fallen victim to this phenomenon many a time. I am a reality TV junky – and when people put both reality TV and food together, I am a guaranteed spectator. This hasn’t, however, put a damper on my desire to cook. I grew up as well with Julia Child, and a mother who held a notepad while she watched cooking shows on “educational TV.”

My mom has also recently finished two of Pollan’s works, and we were discussing them over dinner at The Cheesecake Factory the other evening, over enormous portions of “Santa Fe Salad” and “Garlic Noodles and Shrimp.” Everything about that restaurant screamed This is American Cooking. The portions were huge, the ingredients were obscure, and no one seemed to care how to recreate them.

I don’t always have a desire to cook when I leave work. Normally, I have the opposite idea of crashing and watching reality TV. But there is something about cooking and preparing a meal that makes me feel good. It makes me feel utilitarian and useful when I can take obscure farmers market ingredients such as rainbow chard and turn them into something my husband and I can enjoy.

Mr. Pollan, you have once again hit the nail on the head, and you are welcome to my studio apartment for some home cooked food anytime.

I have finally secured some employment, and look forward to starting Monday. i think at this place, I will be able to learn a lot more about food, the environment, and many of the other issues that I have been struggling in.

In the last month and a half of online absence, I have learned a lot of things. I will share some of these with you now.

1) I got pneumonia and had to go to the hospital. This doesn’t teach me much about food, but it does teach me about the ways in which healthcare in this country is in relation to countries like Mozambique. Healthcare here is designed specifically to find new sickness. I was told multiple times that I have something more severe than what I had, and waited almost 20 hours to see a specialist.

I hear you – how is that bad compared to the healthcare in some countries in Africa? It’s not. We hvae xray machines and technology that helps people figure out complicated problems. The problem lies in the mentality. In many foreign countries, natural remedies and ideas about psychological effects of illness are more explored and paid attention to – including the food that we eat.

I received nothing but fear and dread in the hospital, an idea that was simply magnified by the presence of nurses taking blood and trying (unsuccessfully) to give me medicines that I did  not need or want.

2) I looked for a job. In today’s economy, such a story is hardly remarkable. We are all suffering at the hands of the global crisis, and why should I be any different? In most cases, the stories are similar – we lose jobs, we have trouble finding new ones, and we encounter nice people and not-so-nice people along the way. Mine is no different. I have encountered many of the not-so-nice kind. Interviews that last 10 hours only to conclude with a “We need a month to decide” end result.

People are taking advantage of this crisis. People see the desperation of their fellow man, and they run with it. Straight to the bank. People are making money off of this type of behavior and not feeling the least bit bad about it. What are us younger people supposed to do?

3) FOOD, GLORIOUS FOOD!

I have moved into the neighborhood with the best farmers market in the U.S. I almost typed the word “World,” but I have far too much exploring to do to really make that claim.

The Market itself is a collection of local and organic farmers from as far away as West Virginia and Pennsylvania. They all come together every Sunday. So far, the good stories have just kept coming. One woman gave us a recipe for steak. A man gave me a free hot pepper that he insisted would grill well with my eggplant, even though I explained to him that I did not have a grill.

All of these things have worn themselves slowly into our routine here in this new city.

I miss New York and its’ culinary expertise every single moment of every day. But this market is better. That is a hands-down decision.

It also has reminded me that we all kind of like to be near fresh food. It brings us home and it gives us a renewed feeling of determination. That is, if we can grow food this great, we can do anything.

On my first trip to Mozambique, I met my mother-in-law for the first time. She wrapped me up into a huge hug, and cried, and said the one thing all American girls want to hear: “You look so much smaller in person than in the photos!” Throughout this trip I was faced with various awkward comments about my weight. People would greet friends and relatives, with comments about a growing belly, or a nice looking butt. Each time they would turn to me as I played the American role of looking completely shocked. I was told that I eat like a chicken, and was asked about a thousand times if I was unhappy with the cooking, since I had not helped myself to thirds.

The openness about weight gain in the country was astounding. Cultural views of what is attractive certainly play a role, but the closed mouths of American culture play another. We NEVER tell people they are fat. If we do, we will surely be confronted with a slap on the face, or tears.

This morning on the bus I had a very awkward experience that got me thinking about the tons of social norms that have become…well…normal. I sit in the same spot every day on the crosstown bus, and I enjoy that spot. It is almost never taken when I get on, and usually stays uncrowded. Today at the spot after mine, two very large women got on with their children, and sat on either side of me.

Being in New York, we are used to being crammed into uncomfortable situations, but this was particularly jarring. These women were, for lack of a better term, enormous. Their arms were coming into my reading space. I was ironically reading my latest read The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved: Inside America’s Underground Food Movements by Sandor Ellix Katz. Had someone taken a picture of this scene, I guarantee it would have made New York Times’ pictures of the week.

These women were both accompanied by young children, and looked very young themselves. I would put neither lady at above the age of 35, and yet the weight they were carrying had aged them significantly. Both looked worn out by the prospect of getting up and down the bus steps, and by accompanying their children on the trip to school. I live in a minority neighborhood of Manhattan that is commonly referred to by those in the know as a “Food Desert.” there is literally nowhere to get fresh food. The one fresh food item I have seen since moving there a year and a half ago was the organic Naked juice they began selling in the grocery store in response to the luxury co-op building that has gone up nearby.

Is it right to look down on these women as poor decision makers? Have they really been enjoying carrying this extra weight, put on not only by the food desert situation, but also by stress in their everyday lives? In my opinion, no. Everyone is not exempt from personal responsibility, but society does need to play a role. If there is no place to buy food that is good for you, you cannot be expected to purchase it.

Some idiots, like me, prefer to damage our shoulders, arms, and (somewhat) wallets, by heading all the way to the nearest Whole Foods, approx. 60 blocks away. I wind up spending money that I don’t always have to avoid the desert. But I can’t blame anyone who doesn’t do that. I have no kids, a job that ends at 5, and the knowledge that these foods may actually be worth all this trouble.

And my income – at its’ meager nonprofit standing – still rises high above the average income of the neighborhood. This situation is a goldmine for large food companies. Density of people usually leads to a need for cheap food with convenience. People in New York become used to having food at any hour of the day – regardless of its nutritional value or hazard.

As the author, Mr. Katz has reminded me today, much is being done to combat this problem. But not enough.

In my precarious position on the bus this morning, I felt sad. Mostly because this scenario was not unusual, but it was painfully unnecessary. No one needs to suffer from insane weight gain. No one needs to be as skinny as Kate Moss. There has to be a middle ground.

I guess I am never really leaving New York. New York will always be with me and I guarantee that I will come back. But I am leaving behind some of my favorite regular meals. They haven’t always been the most healthy choices ever, but they are staples that I always come back to that remind me of a time in my life here.

That is the funny thing about food. Sometimes it is just as effective as smell as bringing a memory back. I will miss the following:

Spice Thai food. It is a little greasy, but also the best at the same time.

Drinking an Iced Chai while reading a book in Central Park.

Osso Bucco Fried Calimari.

Friend House Spicy Twin Salmon Roll and Steamed Chicken or Vegetable Dumplings.

The list could probably continue, including many drunk meals I ate in college, or just the feeling of eating something universal like a tuna sandwich – in the right place, with the right weather, and the right company. Yesterday in Central Park we were reading all the plaques on the benches. People paid lots of money to get something written on there for a loved one or friend. Some also included food.

One explained that during the summer, this family loved to eat lunch “when we lived near here 25 years ago.”

That’s the thing about food in New York. You never forget it.

This past Friday night, B and I did something a little different: We actually sought out a vegetarian restaurant. Throughout our food trials and decisions, we had yet to actually consciously eat somewhere catering to this type of thinking. In NYC, there are plenty of restaurants that lean this way, as NYC tends to have plenty of everything.

I had first heard of Candle Cafe from an aquaintance that I had met through the yoga world. She brought me there for a power meeting and a smoothie – how typical yogi! The smoothie was delicious, some combination of strawberries and bananas that cost me almost all of the cash in my wallet – $6. It was good, but nothing I remembered for weeks later.

The place popped into my head though, as we wandered up Third Avenue. It was one of those perfect Fridays where it was warm and not raining and Monday seemed years away. We arrived and had to wait, but got a delicious bottle of wine for only $28! Expensive for us, but an extreme bargain for the typical wine drinker.

We sat and watched as the hippies, Buddhists and all in all concerned folk enjoyed their meals – and they did not look at all disappointed in the lack of meat on their plates.

Our waitress was warm and friendly, and served us a great quesadilla (twice, since we liked the first so much we ordered a second), fresh guacamole, a white bean and portabello wrap, and a grilled seitan burger.

Each and every detail about the meal was delicious. The best part was that during the appetizer, we began disecting the food – analyzing how we would be able to make it ourselves.

We took home 4 vegan cookies (oatmeal chocolate chip, double chocolate macademia, and chocolate chip pecan), and felt quite happy afterwards. The entire meal cost $99, excluding tip. It was our most extravagent meal of the month. But after eating it I felt as if i had received a bargain. It had been a long time since I felt the need to blog about a meal I ate – since none were very exciting.

Candle Cafe is of course designated to those conscious New Yorkers that already care about these things. It does not reach out to lower income brackets, and its location on the Upper East side does not scream cheap! But its something that still deserves to be appreciated. This yoga aquaintance brought me to Candle Cafe, and I no longer speak with her. I did, however, remember the place. And this type of relationship and understanding can bring more and more people into the fold of appreciating where food comes from.

Does everyone have to be vegan? No. Would it help if we all ate one or two vegan meals a week? Yes.

Should Candle Cafe move thirty blocks north to East Harlem, and attempt to bring this type of food to people that have not experienced it before? Maybe. But who knows how it will do? We have to start small. With education and attentive behavior to the culture that already exists in a place. Third Avenue in the seventies already likes organic food. Maybe a Mexican inspired cafe that serves similar plates could do better above 96th Street.

The whole idea is to try. Give things a chance, and perhaps you will have more meals like this one – one that keeps you salivating many days later.

courtesy of KFC - a new "Health" meal

The most amazing part of the food business in the United States is the ability for that business to reinvent itself. With a global recession, job losses at record highs, and a threatening climate crisis, America seems to always be able to master the art of distraction.

Or is it more, detraction?

Kentucky Fried Chicken, more commonly known as KFC, has officially jumped on the detraction bandwagon. In order to boost sales at a time where spending is at an all-time low, they have recently introduced their “Grilled Chicken” option. That’s right folks. Grilled Chicken at Kentucky Fried Chicken.

I have personally never eaten at KFC, so I won’t pass judgement on the fast food industry here – or KFC in particular. That is a discussion for another day. I WILL, however, pass judgement on this type of profit driven advertising.

The Grilled Chicken that KFC is advertising is less fatty for sure, but is completely saturated with sodium. In addition, nothing has really been done about where KFC gets its chicken. The chain restaurant has had many problems with this, as many have finally begun to question where the food comes from and why its so bad for us in the long run. KFC uses Factory Farmed chickens (i.e. those grown in mass quantities with antibiotics, usually fed grain instead of grass, and deprived of little mobility).

Does this shock and awe many people?  Not when the food is cheap and we are in a recession. This is a fundamental fact. People need to eat, and the lower the price, the less the income on an already flailing budget. The issue comes from corporate responsibility.

At a time when people are most vulnerable – when the poor have less and less of a chance of success at procuring good and lasting employment – the food industry is stepping in with an equally unhealthy alternative. This chicken ad is really nothing more than a distraction from the practices that continue to contribue to large agribusiness and all of its associated problems.

Part of what I think SustainAfrica could be for me – and really any food movement – is a chance for continued focus. This means focusing on the people and what they want to eat, what they should eat, and ultimately, what they can eat. This causes momentum and excitement for any type of community across the globe – everyone eats, and ultimately, everyone wants to feel good about what they are eating.

So, KFC, really the only thing I can say to you is: nice try.

The Menu

Is Addiction to food really a true condition? I know, I know. Many will say that overeating is a true disease, and that I should be respectful of that. I am not talking about the inability to control food intake. I am talking about the inability for a person to change their own personal food habits and beliefs, based solely on a type of “addiction” – a type of need that the person has for a type of food.

I just finished Raj Patel’s book, and am left with more questions than answers about food solutions, including the solution question.

My husband and I have been doing a lot of changes in our life and in our eating. The economy has certainly played a role in this – but then again, so has our education. The more that one knows about the food they are eating, the more they are forced to confront their own actions in relation to it. The more you hear about how animals are killed and why, the more you question meat-eating. In a way, ignorance is bliss. It certainly makes dinner easier.

Today we are dancing the line between calling ourselves vegetarians, and not. We are still doing some things that fuel the corporate machine. The most prevalent one stands above these words in a picture of the Starbucks cups that have become ubiquitous in today’s society. We still drink at Starbucks. In our new home which we should be moving into within a few months, I hope to utilize the coffee maker I was generously given for my wedding – but in an NYC apartment, that thing is TOO big. I have chosen Starbucks, the insanely expensive alternative. Why??

This is where the addiction comes in. Am I addicted? Do I need rehab and counseling and art therapy?

In his book, Patel explains that change only comes from people in movements – land movements in Brazil, anti-World Trade Organization movements in Korea, etc. We are all better off when people jump on our bandwagon. His perspective is a well-researched and good one – showing people exactly how it is that grassroots initiatives can have large impacts. He doesn’t, however, express the challenges we face in joining these movements when we are not faced with dire straits.

To join the movements (Organic? Local? Green? Vegan? Yogi?), one has to make a conscious decision to beat their addictions. They need to take the time to think about healthy and viable alternatives that they will stick to in their everday lives.

We have done a few things differently lately that I would like to share:

1) Vegetables Section of the supermarket. We frequent (and bear the expense for) the organic section of the grocery, choosing to spend more money. Also, this section is where we spend the most time – gathering a bunch of things that we may not know how to make, but could definitely learn. Our most recent experiment was the illusive artichoke.

2) Phasing out the big “M.” Meat is a hard thing to deny yourself if you want it, but truthfully – the more I know, the less I want. Chicken has been harder to give up, but when we find ourselves not making rules about the food, the vegetables become a more delicious alternative.

3) Soy. This is a hard one to reconcile, given all we know about problematic soy production (monoculture creation, destruction of soil for other crops, etc). Soy is an important source of protein, and is almost unavoidable in the modern diet. In order to do the best we can with this, we have tried to eliminate all products that use soy as an emulsifier (soy lecithin is the greatest example – it is found in heavily processed foods). Additionally, we have tried to find organic soy, to ensure that the soy itself is not genetically modified.

We haven’t jumped on any one bandwagon yet  – veganism, only eating fish, or any other variation – so I guess we aren’t part of a movement in the Patel way of thinking. I guess the only movement I can think of is the movement of consciousness.

Alice Waters of Chez Panisse in California

For those people interested in local food and culture, Alice Waters has become a household name. Read more about her here. Essentially, Ms. Waters has created the idea that one need not wait on food from halfway across the world to eat well. The menu changes constantly to reflect the fact that sometimes, certain foods are available, and other times they are not.

This principle of fixed menus may seem stifling to some American eaters. In fact, most people experience a “Wow, no choice?” response when studying the menu at length. However, her lesson is an important one. Without choice, sometimes people feel boxed in. They feel like the food choices they are making are being determined for them, instead of the other way around. Ms. Waters is attempting, in my opinion, to teach a greater lesson. Food should be chosen for you – by NATURE. Eating what is in season and what is sustainably produced and harvested is a way of letting nature do the picking. Someone else does the garnish and the cooking, but essentially, Mother Earth is running the restaurant.

We think of food choice as something we exercise a lot. How  much of our eating these days is even done by choice, and not out of convenience, brand loyalty, or some other fixed notion?

Her restaurant is one of the most successful businesses in the country – and is a must for anyone in the area. I myself have not yet made it there, so here you will not find a restaurant review. I have become an Alice Waters convert mostly because she has introduced the idea of eating local without the pretention. Her restaurant meals come with a heavy price tag ($60 is the bargain night price/person), but her outreach has proved successful. Her “Edible Schoolyard” concept has become well-known in the food world – an attempt at food education through actually building and cultivating a garden in inner city neighborhoods.

Her locavore attitude (as some have named her) comes with an interesting twist. She eats local but she also educates locally, and this is all part of what I hope to do in Mozambique. The importance is not just of the food traveling less miles, but of the people. People should not need to travel far to get the education they need, nor the food they need – and involving them is sure to get their support in your cause.

I am not a chef, nor have I had the aspirations to run my own restaurant. But I love learning from them. Especially those that have managed to become both advocates and culinary allstars, bridging the world between pretentious “foodies” and real people.

As she simply says,

“Handling living food is so inspiring and energizing it makes you want to cook. You will never get tired of washing lettuce if it is beautiful to look at.”

I myself have even fallen victim to the usual crazy American habits. Buying Purell. Leaving the bathroom by using my towel to open and close the door behind me. These things may actually prove helpful in preventing the spread of germs and disease, but the bottom line is that in today’s global world, no one is in a bubble.

I remember vividly watching “The Boy in the Bubble,” that interestingly kinda terrible John Travolta movie about parents that feel like the only thing best for their son is to grow up in a bubble. The swine flu has brought up similar amounts of fear in modern day, especially because much of the spread in the U.S. has been through high school and elementary school students.

However, the most stark reality that this “pandemic” has cast on us of late is the fact that many are using at as a way to say that problems south of the border in Mexico, where this flu supposedly began, are reasons and fuel to perhaps even close the border. It is certainly reason for some people to have begun their racist and illogical connetions between the swine flu and Mexican immigrants.

The swine flu, however, has been linked to an American hog farm being operated in a village in Mexico. These factory farms – more on that in a later post – have been accused of creating near-perfect conditions for disease spreading, and ultimately, virus mutation.

The virus passes quickly from hog to hog, and sooner rather than later, makes the leap from hog to person. These farms are usually located in places like Mexico, where the labor costs and land costs are low, and NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) ensures that the U.S. is unrestricted in its conquests and profits.

Once again, we are confronted with the same dilemma that has plagued the food industry for much of the 20th century. America’s problems cast onto developing countries. Mexicans have borne the brunt of this flu – not just because of where it started, but because of the sheer inability that the country has to stockpile drugs the way in which the U.S. does. Is this fair? Is our quest for cheap pork of equal or greater value than the ability for Mexican people to get treatment?

Perhaps this is a bit far-fetched, to expect companies to rethink their bottom-line attitudes in favor for more human ones. Perhaps doing that would lead us into a far larger recession. Regardless, I believe it is time American begins to pay more for its’ pig.