2007
the song went on forever
maura @ 7:13 pm
Michael Pollan had another big long food article in the Times magazine last weekend. We read Omnivore’s Dilemma, are pretty much in on board with the gospel of Alice Waters, and shop at the food coop and farmer’s market, and try to eat local. We’re not vegetarian*, but we do eat much much less meat than we used to and many more vegetables. So, you know, we’re down with the first sentence of the article: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”**
* HELL no! Before I die I would like my last meals to be the braised rabbit with oil cured olives and polenta from al di la, and the shack burger from Shake Shack, thank you very much.
** Except for Gus, who would subsist entirely on a diet of bread, cheese, meat, and sweets if we let him. He seriously has not touched a vegetable in longer than I can remember. But that’s a whole other post, by golly, and a rabbit*** hole I don’t want to fall into.
*** Mmmm…rabbit.
But the thing I’m realizing recently is that one can only truly follow the ways of the PollanWaters (har) if one resides in California or some other such year-round growing place. Here in the Northeast, it is damn hard to find locally grown green leafy veggies this time of year. I loves me some greens: spinach, chard, beet, arugula, watercress, radish, collard, kale, mustard, cabbage…yum. There’s nothing better than a little chard sauteed in olive oil with a little garlic.
So we buy the greens imported from Cali. I guess we could relocate to more ethically satisfy our greens habit, but I’m just not into moving to a tectonically active area. Until we retire, that is, and then it will probably be New Zealand or Iceland anyway.
Plus, man, those PollanWaters must have their own personal greens-washing slaves or something. Here we do not, and it makes me kind of grumpy to have to spend half an hour washing greens. We used to buy the prewashed bagged kind but the last time we did I opened the bag and a large, gorgeous leaf of spinach was pierced by a FEATHER. From a BIRD! So grody, so depressing, such a waste of money. We didn’t stop to check if the rest of the bird was in there somewhere, just chucked it in the garbage.
4 comments on “the song went on forever”
Eew, that feather thing makes me never want to eat anything again.
We pick our own blueberries, corn, strawberries–but only in season, and we eat a more varied diet than that. Plus some of what they grow here isn’t edible–cotton is not too tasty! Some people sell collards and cabbage out of their yards. The wheat obviously has to go elsewhere, and I don’t know what they do with winter wheat (is it for animals?) Peanuts, mmm, but you can’t eat peanuts all day long. Well you could try. We get Edward’s ham because it’s tasty, but it’s nice to be so close I don’t have to order by mail. I suppose we could start hunting deer and turkey…
OTOH, strawberries out of season taste like celery. Ditto store-bought tomatoes. And we grew radishes once, wow, I had no idea they were supposed to taste that good! No wonder Rapunzel’s pregnant mom was so covetous!
People worry too much. Face it, we leave a footprint. Farming is a nasty business–they use pesticides galore, sludge, dangerous machinery, etc. But your little footprint is smaller (literally, Miss Smale Feet!) than any farm’s, just as your driving a car is a speck in the air compared to airlines.
So we could be like Gus or Alexander (he only ate peas for dinner last night), or stop feeling bad and just eat, dammit. Marshmallows don’t grow on trees, not even far away.
p.s. I am probably the least-qualified person to comment on this. I do about 2% of the shopping and cooking, plus this baby has complete control over my appetite. But I can’t pass up an opportunity to comment!
Wow, Betsy, we are jealous — was the lunch good? We bought spinach AND arugula today, PollanWaters be damned!
Mmmm, peanuts, we do eat a lot of peanuts, mostly in butter form. Probably a jar a week (not even just Gus!). I wish we could grow some stuff too, but I am too lazy to deal with trying to windowsill garden. I loooooove radishes, yum.
Re: shopping and cooking, you know, me too! We used to all shop together because I had some idea that since we never take Gus on errands he could go on this ONE errand a week with us, plus since he eats the food too I wanted him to be connected with his means of consumption (har, such a used-to-be-an-anthropologist thing to say!). BUT then he started hating going to the coop and being a real ass while we were there, so now it seems easier to have J go by himself. Which means I never get to see whatever new products the hippies are pushing, which is kind of a drag.
produce from Cali sounds nice–mmm, sunny California. here we try buying green beans or broccoli and they come from Kenya. cilantro, parsley from Israel. it’s messed up. I guess we’re supposed to be eating only potatoes through the long dark winter.
Betsy
ps: Alice Waters made me lunch once.