everyones mad at alice waters ;_;

http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2009/01/the_limitations_of_the_alice_w.html?ft=1&f=93568166

Alice Waters Was a Foodie Hero. Now She's the Food Police.

Alice Waters: The famous Berkeley local-foods advocate, seen here looking friendly at a book signing, had a substantially less friendly run-in with another chef at an inauguration party. Scott Wintrow/Getty Images

by Todd Kliman

The big story in the food world this week was not that Top Chef host Tom Colicchio might have saved cookbook author Joan Nathan's life by performing a Heimlich maneuver on her at a pre-inaugural party at her house in Washington, D.C. on Sunday.

It's what took place in an upstairs room of that same house.

Marian Burros disclosed the closed-door mano-a-mano between feisty ex-White House chef Walter Scheib and righteous locavore Alice Waters for the New York Times' Diner's Journal blog.

How the feud started and how it ended, and why even a good "-ism" is still just an "-ism," after the jump...

The food feud has long roots, as I wrote in this space two weeks ago; it goes back to Scheib's days at the White House, when he resented having to prove himself to Waters as a champion of local and sustainable farming and fishing practices.

After the election, Waters went public in arguing that the Obamas ought to appoint a White House chef who would be a force for her movement. That rankled Scheib, who had mentored the current chef, Cristeta Comerford. (The Obamas have decided to retain Comerford.)

Waters and Scheib eventually reached a detente, Burros writes.

But that's not the news here. What is? The fact that someone finally had the guts to stand up to Waters' inflexible brand of gastronomical correctness.

A generation ago, her Berkeley restaurant, Chez Panisse, birthed a revolution, putting a new emphasis on farms and the importance of mastering simple, elemental things. It changed American food, and it changed American cooking.

But a generation later, it's not hard to see that what Waters espoused was really just an -ism. A good -ism, a necessary -ism -- but an -ism all the same. And -isms have their limitations.

Why, for instance, should top-flight chefs content themselves with using only what's local and seasonal when the emergence of new technologies has made it easier than ever to bring in delicacies from around the globe?

Yet many do. I've even seen some chefs so desperate to be perceived as gastronomically correct that they have lied about their purveyors on their menus.

Thanks to Waters' influence, a generation of ambitious chefs now confuse process and result. Shout-outs to their sources fill their menus, and transparency has become synonymous with integrity and honesty.

But do we really need to know the provenance of an egg? And more to the point: Shopping is not cooking.

At the moment, the best, most exciting food in the world, most critics agree, is to be found in Spain. Yes, the country is blessed with an abundance of good natural resources. But its chefs look around the world for inspiration and are more inclined to want to manipulate and enhance flavors than to present them simply.

And why not? Cooking, after all, is not about doing good; it's about tasting good.

Waters, like a lot of radicals, believes the movement will never end. She simply can't see that the revolution she helped lead has calcified into something doctrinaire and even repressive, not liberating and uplifting.

Todd Kliman is a James Beard Award-winning restaurant critic and the food and wine editor of Washingtonian magazine. The Wild Vine, his book about the Rosetta stone of American wine, is due in 2009.
1:18 PM ET | 01-23-2009 | permalink

"shopping is not cooking" is a good line, and true, but i also think kliman doesnt really get it

Why, for instance, should top-flight chefs content themselves with using only what's local and seasonal when the emergence of new technologies has made it easier than ever to bring in delicacies from around the globe?

I missed the part where you could download Kobe beef now.

Alice can be a bit self-righteous, but on account, this 'ism' is still important. I agree that a perfect dedication to locavorism (or whatever it's called) is lacking in humor not to mention variety, but the 'shopping is not cooking' line, while funny, is patently bullshit. Where you buy your steak, how it was raised, how it was butchered - these are mightily important in how it tastes. The same goes for any fruit or vegetable I can think of (except for the butchering part).

"Driving, after all, is not about doing good; it's about feeling the full-throated roar of a 5-litre engine fling you down the M-25 so fast you wonder if you've still got any clothes on"

I'm confused about the connection between locally-sourced food and not wanting to enhance or manipulate its flavor. Or have I missed the point?

yes, shocking as that is

yeah that's really weird, like they say, spain has amazingly good quality produce and that's definitely part of why their food is so aweseome.

Where you buy your steak, how it was raised, how it was butchered - these are mightily important in how it tastes. The same goes for any fruit or vegetable I can think of (except for the butchering part).

this is true--but his point is that just buying local vegetables and a grass-fed steak doesnt guarantee you a good meal. i dont know what san francisco is like but every third resto in brooklyn is all "organic! local!" or whatever and 70% of those are worse than places that dont brag about it.

i mean i love alice waters to death and i think kliman is missing the important sustainability/environmental bit about not wanting to use thousands of pounds of jet fuel, but--growing veggies in your backyard doesnt make you a world-class chef.

everyone's acting like it's a commercial
acting like life is a big commercial

i guess i superficially understand the nutritional, environmental, socially conscious reasons for eating locally but isn't limiting your food sources by transit radius a fundamentally arbitrary restriction? to extend the example of michael white's steak -- is it more correct to choose a local butcher with dubious processes, or is it better to go for the higher-grade meat from a more reputable source that's twice as far away?

the second one, but you have to ride the cow back to your house so you dont use fuel

real answer: i dunno--depends on whats important to you and how you end up weighing those decisions--i dont think the waters school has a super-specific answer to questions like that, since the locavorism bit has less to do with do i drive five miles or ten miles and more to do with--do i support local farmers who use very little fuel to transport cherries to my farmers market, or do i support big agribusiness who use thousands of pounds of fuel to shuttle cherries to my trader joes. i mean thats simplifying it, but.

i hear you on the end result, tho, max -- there is a restaurant in prov that is all local and there are some good menu items but sometimes the result is a lunch menu listing a $7 organic pb&j on local artisinal bread

The problem with this article is that nobody thinks that locally-sourced food automatically tastes better.

haha yes they do

obviously there is a big economic / class piece to this discussion about how food that is more "correct" (to borrow a phrase) takes more effort to obtain, if not always more money

xp tracer have you never heard anyone rave about how "fresh" something tastes

Rah to Kliman for taking on these mighty intellects

yeah but couldnt the 'fresh' thing have to do w/ food being seasonal? or do you guys think that things that are in season dont taste better

The problem with this article is that nobody thinks that locally-sourced food automatically tastes better.

i think some advocates do tbh but i also don't think that's a problem with this article. it's a weird and artificial limitation and i think the article argues from the perspective that enviornmental concerns, ultimately, should be subordinated to culinary ones not vice versa. that's really all he's saying

lol dear spoild rich people yr not saving the world w/yr restaurants - get a clue

ps i will totally eat all yr food thx

t_g yeah yeah, but it's an expectations game -- some people will go to a locally-sourced restaurant where they are more inclined to think it tastes better because it is local, especially if they are paying extra for that privilege.

that, and culinary discernment / gourmandism is still a HUGE aspirational affectation

My favorite local restaurant is v. big on localvore options and it's where I pick up my CSA deliveries and etc. The reason I go there in the first place, however, is that the food is fucking fantastic because they're great, artistic cooks, and the price is about the same as most comparable restaurants in the area. You can have both, very easily.

i would wager (not with 100% confidence mind you) that if you gave your average aspirational foodie a chateaubriand from omaha steaks and told them it was locally grass-fed they would remark on how "fresh" it tasted

No Ned you must choose!

"gourmand" means "eats a lot" btw

not really btw

when people say o yr such a foodie i go naw im a fucking glutton bro

i think you're looking for the word glutton, but they both start with the letter g, so

xpost hi fives

stlyin on u

i can understand people getting mad at alice waters, maybe they just needed an excuse. i'm on her side. . . but i saw this PBS special once where she started talking about how special this strawberry she held in her hand was. . . ugh

Taste is obviously not the same as ethics, though I can see how some people would enjoy their meal better if they feel less guilty about it. I am not a locavore fanatic. There are several foodstuffs that I regularly import from abroad, mostly 'processed' items like cheese, wine, and cured meats and I have no compunction in doing so. I will not hold it against a chef one whit if s/he imports truffles in season or flies in Maine lobster or whatever but buying and sustaining local meat and produce isn't just about morality, it is about taste. Local produce eaten in season at the optimal moment is simply more delicious. I have come to find that local grass-fed beef is tastier, local free-range chicken is too. I wouldn't ever be doctrinaire about these things, certainly not to the extent Alice is, and I have my little un-pc preferences (organic avocados, for example, I generally find horrid) and I am not so impressed by 'green' claims in a restaurant (no-one cares if their brothel is using 'sustainable' bedclothes, but it's a nice touch) but if you are making food and you haven't taken the locavore arguments into account or they haven't affected your cooking, I'm unlikely to like your food or trust your culinary aesthetics.

growing veggies in your backyard doesnt make you a world-class chef

Que it means eating more for the love of eating than for discernment of taste

where I pick up my CSA deliveries

144 years after Appomattox!!

i thought it meant "eats a lot" that's what u just said

no-one cares if their brothel is using 'sustainable' bedclothes, but it's a nice touch

i only go to brothels with locally grown grass-fed hookers

no-one cares if their brothel is using 'sustainable' bedclothes, but it's a nice touch

Sounds like a good niche market in Nevada somewhere.

144 years after Appomattox!!

The tomatoes will rise again.

epicureanism then / stfu tracer

An ecologically sustainable brothel would be an awesome starting point for a sit-com

suddenly this thread is forested with dicks

in general a lot of what people want to experience when dealing w/food or art or whatever is concept - they wan lots bloggable braggable ideas cause the basically subjective nature of the experience just doesnt give them the credentialed toehold they desire - tasting and smelling and looking at food is not enough

ive complained abt this before but its really annoying when u go out to dinner and people just want to talk abt the food and other food - its like r u worried maybe u dont hav any taste and might as well eat a whopper instead or what - whats the ocd big deal

hormone-free, locally-raised, free-range dicks. which is what the sustainable hookers eat.

xp

quick, someone harvest the dicks and make an omelette

ice craem OTM, i start humming "is that all there is?" when dinner conversation turns into food appreciation club

whats the ocd big deal

I dunno, but I find I talk about food a lot, like some people talk about music or politics or art. With the exception of sleeping, dying and fucking, you can't get much more basic to human experience than eating, especially in groups.

Which is more irritating/aspirational, people who prefer to eat local food regardless of what it tastes like or people who prefer Kobe beef drizzled with Chilean octopus eyeballs and served with Alaskan moose cum?

growing veggies in your backyard does not make you a world class chef

Of course no one has claimed this.

First off, what the fuck is wrong with being 'aspirational'?! Irritating people are people who talk about food not because they had an awesome fucking dining experience but because they think that such talk is cool or something. People who try to be cool generally annoy me unless they're very, very good at it or have a memorable sense of humor.

growing veggies in your backyard does not make you a world class chef

Not only has no claimed this but conversely using produce you find in the dumpster behind Safeway doesn't make you more 'real', either.

i love eating in groups but why do you have to talk abt the eating in groups while yr eating in groups

talking about the food while you're eating dinner beyond "Mmm these potatoes are yummy," is like talking during a movie

http://i43.tinypic.com/20fo8o.jpg

complaining about hypothetical dinner conversations is awesome tho

why are people such dicks about food?

foodies are the most disgusting savages etc imo

its not hypothetical and im sure u know that jerk xp

talking about the food while you're eating dinner beyond "Mmm these potatoes are yummy," is like talking during a movie

I couldn't disagree more. Talking about food while dining is perfectly natural, occasionally instructive, and often charming.

where aspirational means people pretending to values or tastes they don't really have, or think they ought to have because of the cultural cache they think it affords them -- then yeah, i think there's something wrong with it.

p.s. michael i would consider you are a world-class act and i would never impugn your appreciation of food as aspirational

i love eating in groups but why do you have to talk abt the eating in groups while yr eating in groups

Haha never have a meal with French people, jh0

lol michael u think grass fed beef is tastier - yr basically a mark for the con-chefs

i would wager (not with 100% confidence mind you) that if you gave your average aspirational foodie a chateaubriand from omaha steaks and told them it was locally grass-fed they would remark on how "fresh" it tasted

My boss/client gave me a big Omaha Steaks gift package for Christmas '08 -- filets, sirloin, burgers, hot dogs, crab stuffed sole, beef tips for stew, the works -- and it was some of the awfulest shit I've ever eaten.

ive had tons of meals w/french people

i think the "food prepared simply" is the part where they actually grift you, tho

xpost -- "French toast, French fries..."

like somehow complex, multi-step recipes will ruin food

There is nothing wrong with being a food scholar, it's just that, you know, you should get your priorities straight and realize that life is short and people aren't "stupid" or uneducated because they eat Boston Market or Chinese takeout once in a while.

Talking about food while dining is perfectly natural, occasionally instructive, and often charming.

it's totally fine that you think this, nothing wrong with it, i just don't think it's natural, and i don't want to be instructed on the food while i eat--we're just talking personal preferences here, all dick jokes aside.

i like food, most of the time

i like to talk about food, sometimes

i like to talk about other things, sometimes

message board shut-ins complaining about what people talk about when they're out enjoying themselves is kinda ironic and shit imo

to be clear i do def talk abt the food when i eat like o i luv lamb ribs how come u dont see these around that much did u know they use blah blah blah and then i talk abt something else - thats fine i have no problem w/that but theres a certain neurotic thing people do where they wont stop analyzing the food and recommending restaurants and presenting important factoids that brings some downr nervous energy to the table - life as a bloggg

message board shut-ins complaining about what people talk about when they're out enjoying themselves is kinda ironic and shit imo

― s1ocki, Tuesday, January 27, 2009 11:37 AM (15 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this is meta ironic^

ya but is that like a food thing or just an annoying person thing... wouldnt people like that be insufferable in other ways if it werent for foodieism

and the whole point is its not enjoying yrself to be obsessing abt food details - and im not a shut in

thats fine i have no problem w/that but theres a certain neurotic thing people do where they wont stop analyzing the food and recommending restaurants and presenting important factoids that brings some downr nervous energy to the table - life as a bloggg

yeah this. i guess it's more about the tone people take versus what we're talking about etc etc

ya but is that like a food thing or just an annoying person thing... wouldnt people like that be insufferable in other ways if it werent for foodieism

xxxxxxxxactly

i do think foodie culture is infecting peoples brainz - some of them maybe would be annoying anyway

Food is great to talk about until it turns into a hybrid of QI and virtual Masterchef. Even while at dinner.

Locally produced vegetables usually taste better because:

1. Less intensive, more locality/environment-aware producers know what their soil will take and plan accordingly. 2. Seasonal and quicker to your basket than salad bag or those beans from Kenya, therefore tends to be 'fresh'. EXCEPTION: Tomatoes, unless they're organic and grown in a polytunnel long enough where it's like SMELL THE LYCOPENE.

The taste of meat is entirely dependent on breeding, diet, exercise, fat content, hanging and preparation and if you get all that right it can come from absolutely anywhere, or somewhere specific (Parma ham, Kobe beef) where producers feed the animal something intrinsic to the taste.

its fucking w/peoples expectations of what its all abt to enjoy a meal

one recommendation i have for ur problem joe--stop hanging out with boring lames

i try to avoid it generally tbh

sometimes u find yrself at dinner w/these people tho

tbh i think i would rather hang with self-important food nerds that never shut up than their music nerd equivs

xp i never do, but that might b/c i am a magnetic personality who only spends time w/ similarly excellent people

sometimes its yr waiter wanting to explain the childhood of every ingredient in the kitchen

tbh i think i would rather hang with self-important food nerds that never shut up than their music nerd equivs

― s1ocki, Tuesday, January 27, 2009 11:42 AM (20 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

well duh, eating a really good meal in a restaurant vs. listening to kraftwerk in a messy studio apartment

ughhhhhhhhhhh. we went to a place here in dc a year ago where every dish had a story attached to it about how it was made etc etc--the worst. i think my wife liked it though

lamb shanks are expensive

At which point in the thrilling story of the food, you ask for the mobile number of the pig you'll be eating that evening.

music factiods are generally better than food ones cause sometimes they involve hilarious drug anecdotes

We grow our own tomatoes, but we do it because we enjoy it and it's easier, it's exercise, it's therapy, etc. I wouldn't preach it to everyone. I don't think anyone wants veggies on steroids, but hippy dippy types get on my nerves.

so do a lot of food ones these days, havent you read kitchen confidensh xp

when i have dinner parties i make my guests listen to prerecorded podcasts about the food and its preperation and procurement and nutritional value interspersed with music that i think hilights the themes of the meel

no one else is allowed to talk btw

in what way are they podcasts

lol cankles

I have no room to grow anything but window box herbs.

ughhhhhhhhhhh. we went to a place here in dc a year ago where every dish had a story attached to it about how it was made etc etc--the worst.

any restaurant that pulled this shit would not be on the return-to list. luckily i've never really been to a restaurant that pulled this shit.

in what way are they podcasts

they have to d/l before they leave everyone listens on headphones duh

Doesn't being gracious mean having to eat less-than-perfect food once in a while?

lol michael u think grass fed beef is tastier - yr basically a mark for the con-chefs

Our neighbors and us bought 1/8 of a cow from Lazy 69 Ranch. Partly it was to be 'good' but also because a friend of ours has found that she can't stand the taste and can't digest properly corn-fed beef kind fo like how I can't drink red wine as much as I used to. It's not so expensive on account and I shit you not, it is really tasty.

That ingredients song and dance seems to be an earnest, American thing along the lines of putting something sweet and jarring into an otherwise savoury recipe and calling it fine dining.

homegrown tomatoes are probably the only thing that would ever tempt me to garden.

the "abundant natural resources of spain" thing is funny because the southeast of the country is practically barren - they grow everything in vast inflatable greenhouses - even the water has to be manufactured, through a desalination process

i like restaurants where the menu items are just like:

SALTIMBOCCA

PORK SHIN

CHICKEN STEW

SOYLENT GREEN

FOOD 1

FOOD 2

FOOD 3

BEVERAGE A

BEVERAGE B

MUSHY

TOUGH

STRINGY

LIQUID

do you ever feel like some people are fronting with this whole OMG I LOVE GRASS-FED BEEF/LOCALLY SOURCED ENDIVES/HOMEGROWN TOMATOES shit nowadays

Our neighbors and us bought 1/8 of a cow from Lazy 69 Ranch. Partly it was to be 'good' but also because a friend of ours has found that she can't stand the taste and can't digest properly corn-fed beef kind fo like how I can't drink red wine as much as I used to. It's not so expensive on account and I shit you not, it is really tasty.

― Last night it was pullulating with (Michael White), Tuesday, January 27, 2009 11:50 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i hav no doubt that that grass fed beef was good - my issue was w/the idea that grass feed was tastier in general cause thats just ignorant - the process at least at this point is just way more of a crap shoot than corn fed which is pretty regimented - the worst steak ive ever had was grass fed and ive had some other pretty meh ones too - also its the corn feeding what produces the marbling everyone loves so

PROTEIN
STARCH
VEG
BREAD

Mmmmmm-mmm!

homegrown tomatoes are probably the only thing that would ever tempt me to garden.

That reminds me, I need to order my seeds for this year.

fresh tomatoes are truly one of the great things

fresh tomatoes are fantastic but that doesn't mean you shouldn't use high quality canned and make some freaking sauces and blended salsas and etc during the off season -- i know ppl who are like that and i think that's the kind of shit that's raising a couple ppl on this thread's hackles. that's the kind of ignorant faux-foodie shit that i just don't get at all.

I actually do have a moral issue with corn fed beef. I don't usually let my morals stand in the way of my pleasures, but feeding cows corn basically sucks. Anyway, we can differ on beef and endives but locally grown tomatoes are incontrovertibly teh awesome.

also ignorant faux foodie shit--ppl who freak out about frozen vegetables

PROTEIN
STARCH
VEG
BREAD

It's instructive to note that when I first read this, I saw VAG.

frozen vegetables are generally pretty bad tho - depending on the usage

ppl who freak out about frozen vegetables

I kind of agreee though some veg freezes much better than others. In the end, I like the ethical aspects of local produce but the clincher is always taste.

making a sauce with fresh tomatoes would be pretty dumm!! like using the nice olive oil to make soda bread or something. i've always wanted a source for san marzano cans, i should finally just bite the bullet and order some online or something.

frozen corn is one of life's fantastic gifts.

haha see my inbuilt localism?? i would soo much rather buy my canned tomatoes from a place i can walk to

that is possibly explained by laziness however

frozen vegetables aren't bad -- you have to be careful and read shit and use them differently than you would fresh sometimes but they're just fine. i mean ain't no restaurant in the world making a corn flan or pudding with fresh off the cob corn.

lazy food its the new movement

making a sauce with fresh tomatoes would be pretty dumm!!

Shut yer mouth. Made a ton of sauces with tomatoes from the garden that I work in, froze 'em promptly and whenever I use a batch the taste is so immediate and perfect it's just astonishing. I happily use canned and tomato paste as well, did that just the other night, but it's hardly dumb at all to go the route I did.

im not a foodie or a faux-foodie but your average frozen vegetable is a nasty waterlogged space food type object

frozen peas are usually better than the fresh peas we get

San Marzano are excellent and Pomi...

Actually, I've been to places in France and Italy where they can (or jar, actually) the 'excess' tomatoes in the summer and then eat them in the winter. It's not really that hard to parboil, skin and cook tomatoes but when the sauce has had 4 or 5 months to stew, it's likely to be a bit tastier.

making a sauce with fresh tomatoes would be pretty dumm!!

this makes no sense, what do you think actual italians do with fresh romas when they are on season?! my grandmother used to force everyone to "make the tomatoes" every year so she'd have "real" sauce thru-out the winter (much harder to get gourmet/imported or other high quality canned back in the '80s i guess?). haha i get your point tho. heirlooms etc are good in a really light sauce, added at the end so they don't cook.

xpost buy better than your "average frozen vegetable"? or learn proper thaw techniques i guess...

People who don't make sauce from passata should be banned from eating Italian food, fyi.

that sounds hopelessly douchey, "buy better" -- i just mean that you have to look at the package, flash frozen are going to be better for example. surprisingly most of the frozen veggies at trader joe's are pretty good quality btw, so it's not even a matter of $$$$$$$$$$.

my dad bought two fuckin crateloads of tomatoes at the very end of the summer when a farmer was trying to unload them and spent two days making enough sauce to fill a swimming pool, the house smelled so good, and now we have a bunch of ice cube trays filled with sauce to pop out any time we need it and its as good as it wsa the day it was made

People who don't make sauce from passata should be banned from eating Italian food, fyi.

― DJ Khaledonian Thistle (Dom Passantino), Tuesday, January 27, 2009

haha i remember watching an episode of good eats in which alton brown went on some raging rampage about this and how this is totally unnecessary and a sign of a lazy cook -- that was when i swore off alton brown forever and really began my hate campaign against him.

i've done the same when a neighbor had wayyy too many leftover tomatoes - it was either make sauce or let them rot - also once when a bodega had a "all tomatoes 25c" deal but if you didn't work at the garden yourself or have access somehow it would be somewhat odd to go to the store, buy nice tomatoes for $2.99 a pound and promptly make sauce with them

OK, some of you people are crazy and have frozen vegetables confused with canned vegetables, which in a lot of cases (spinach, asparagus, peas, beets) are just fucking nasty, whereas the frozen equivalent -- if you aren't buying VALU-BRAND FROZEN PEAS 5 BAGS/$1.00 -- are pretty good.

eh any italian would be like start w/the perfect tomato...

some vegetables freeze ok some freeze horribly - and it depends what yr using them for so

I have an excellent greengrocer about 5 minutes from my place and a dirt cheap one a block away, so I don't usually do frozen veg, but some of it's edible and there are a couple fo things I eat canned; salsify, hearts of palm, white asparagus, that kind of stuff.

i'm offended at the suggestion that there is more than one way of doing things

Wrong thread, Tracer. You're looking for this one

Petit pois from the freezer or a can work really well in Indian food.

ughhhhhhhhhhh. we went to a place here in dc a year ago where every dish had a story attached to it about how it was made etc etc--the worst. i think my wife liked it though

Was this Komi? I'm not sure to which restaurant you are referring?

Alice Waters was at the farmer's market I go to the Sunday before the inauguration; I seriously wanted to strangle her and tell her to go the fuck back to berkely because we're doing just fine on our own here in DC without her goddamn showing up telling us what to do.

everyones mad at alice waters ;_;

my favorite part of this recent controversy is what a weird fucking thing for her to focus on, what the white house chef is doing and whether or not the fancy rich president is eating fancy rich localized expensive foods to "be a good influence"? why don't you fucking campaign for the government to change farming practices and help regular people be ABLE to do this thing, instead of self-righteously whining about "good influences"?

^^^ i am mad at alice waters but i have been since before it was cool fyi

i mean where does she think the white house chef gets their food from, costco...? seriously don't worry about it, i'm pretty sure they go to farmers' markets and buy organic from time to time lady.

why don't you fucking campaign for the government to change farming practices and help regular people be ABLE to do this thing, instead of self-righteously whining about "good influences"?

doesnt she do this tho

but srsly that woeman is insufferable.

she seems to have given up and just started focusing on this good influence thing and insulting the white house chefs for some reason is what i'm saying.

for some reason i thought alice waters was dead

i mean was herzog's shoe locally sourced and produced, lady? stop being hypocritical!

i am sort of an alice waters stan i cant lie, tho i do think she reminds me of the retard on the movie "the cube" in this instance. but not as smart as he is with math.

yes q it was komi

honestly alice waters has done good things with her work in berkeley and some of the ideas she advocates are good but she's completely unrealistic and ultimately i'm not even sure 100% local is the best solution for any of the ethical, moral, or environmental problems she sites. and this new "i'm going to insult the white house" tactic is, at best, obnoxious as all shit.

sites = cites whoops

shes dumb and should be forced to apologize to the avocado

immediately made me think of that scene in the happening where marky mark apologizes to trees

why hav i not seen that movie - no one told me mm apologized to trees

the best part is it turns out the tree he is apologizing to is a fake plastic tree.

i would never apologize to a tree

I said last week in the Bourdain thread where he went off on Waters that it's funny how after nearly 40 years* of essentially the same philosophy, she is suddenly inspiring a lot of criticism.

*Which Kilman defines as a "generation"... seems a little long for a generation.

Her food is quaint and I agree with the criticisms that her techniques can be a little soft-handed for those who enjoy more the exciting (ie, $500-$1000pp meals made by Ferran Andria is what I think the author is suggesting). And I agree shopping is not cooking but as others have already said on this thread w/r/t "locavorism": freshness, no chemicals, no preservatives, no transportation, etc. has a value to what you put in your body which isn't only about taste, but also health and nutrition.

can't get mad at alice waters while there's still a carl's jr on every corner around here

some of the criticism i've read seems to me to be vaguely of the "oh go and have your fair trade coffee, hippie" variety

i have no prob with frozen vegetables on principle but sometimes in a restaurant i can tell when i've been served them. they just taste indistinct, have an odd texture, and often taste freezerburned (although i blame the restaurant or purveyor for this).

frozen corn and peas are usually fine but are no match for fresh corn and peas in season. hopefully no one here is arguing that seasonality has no bearing on flavor.

i am less on alice waters, more on michael pollan maybe

chez panisse is an awesome restaurant, it must be said

some of the criticism i've read seems to me to be vaguely of the "oh go and have your fair trade coffee, hippie" variety

― the gush of yesterday (omar little), Tuesday, January 27, 2009 1:23 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this is a at least somewhat legit criticism when people are presenting the fruits of their absurd privilege as solutions for serious global problems - tho fair trade coffee isnt maybe the best example

what's going to bring the localism isn't lectures about eating locally-grown food is virtuous, it's going to be people getting all snotty and tribal and patriotic about how their town makes the BEST [x] in all the land. i've never understood why such a fertile and arrogant country as the united states hasn't already produced a smorgasbord of competition in re: best turkey, best cheese, best eggplant, etc

its cause most people are happy to eat applebees

tracer there is an american tradition known as the "state fair" or sometimes the "county fair" perhaps you've heard of this quaint, fertile, arrogant american agricultural festivity

jesus christ

my town makes the BEST applebees in all the land

i blame that dude with the spikey blonde hair and 14 other dbag signifiers who does their commercials

yes, that hot topic of conversation, the county fair

Err but if you put $$ into identifying yr town as growing the "best turkey" doesn't it then follow that someone profits from this by shipping them all over teh country, therefore invalidating any claim to locavore-ism?? Ahhh capitalism.

my town has the BEST douchebag in all the land

ice cr?m:

marblizing in beef is not only caused by corn/grain feed as you suggested up thread, there are ways of achieving marbleizing via grass-feed through (and sorry if I'm channeling Waters here) higher quality grasses and massage techniques (borrowed from Japan). There is a farm in (guess where? The Bay Area!) that produces marbleized grass fed beef:

http://www.marinsunfarms.com/our_beef.html

So what do you hate more about this NY Times piece on indie farmers?

this "carls jr on every corner" argument holds no water with the discussion of alice waters because quite frankly michael bloomberg is doing more to change that shit than she is (which is like \O_O/ of course) -- what are the answers you give ppl who can't afford and/or don't have time to worry about this or don't have the availability? i mean jesus what a can of worms a comment like that opens.

supporting the concept of local food/fair trade while accepting that there are other options isn't the same thing as being a mush-mouth who can't tell the difference between a cherokee purple and an off-season hothouse tomato.

Wisconsin totes does the "best cheese" thing but then of course they ship it from coast to coast!

i kinda like the puritanical homesteadism of local eating, even if you can't eat whatever the fuck you want year-round. i mean i can be a total worldly cosmopolitan pretentious ass but i also don't think everything has to be exotic and far-flung.

it wasn't exactly an "argument" tbh!

Err but if you put $$ into identifying yr town as growing the "best turkey" doesn't it then follow that someone profits from this by shipping them all over teh country, therefore invalidating any claim to locavore-ism?? Ahhh capitalism.

― How can there be male ladybugs? (Laurel), Tuesday, January 27, 2009

also if you live in california you could just go to any grocery store and buy anything and with only the most minimal of discretion in the produce aisle still claim locavorism because everything is made there lol THINK ABOUT THAT ONE

i always thought the wisconsin thing was less "we have the best cheese" and more "hey, cheese, we make it"

you can have any style of monterey jack you like

did anyone read that rad article in the nyer last week about the dude who thinks that 10 yrs from now hell be trading maple syrup up and down the east coast on his sailboat, it was the coolest

^^^^^This. Sorry, Wisconsin. xpost

it wasn't exactly an "argument" tbh!

― the gush of yesterday (omar little), Tuesday, January 27, 2009

yeah it wasn't directed entirely at you but more that it's a common "argument" that comes up when you try to get into these issues.

yeah, the syrup sailor

ayo i'm out, getting hungry now guys

we're cool, chef~ you still my g

schef

i'm also hungry i guess

I live a block away from Chez Pannise and it would be nice to be able to afford to eat there more than once every five years, but I can't. It would also be great to buy all strictly organic foods but my grocery bills run into the $200 range every week with a kid and it is unfeasible. I'm glad that people are out there advocating for this but I can't live it 100% of the time.

also if you live in california you could just go to any grocery store and buy anything and with only the most minimal of discretion in the produce aisle still claim locavorism because everything is made there lol THINK ABOUT THAT ONE

yeah but california has big agribusiness as well as little/mid-size organic farms. and if you live in socal it'd be more local to get something from northern mexico than to have it trucked in from, say, chico.

yes i'm aware of that.

it was a joek

marblizing in beef is not only caused by corn/grain feed as you suggested up thread, there are ways of achieving marbleizing via grass-feed through (and sorry if I'm channeling Waters here) higher quality grasses and massage techniques (borrowed from Japan). There is a farm in (guess where? The Bay Area!) that produces marbleized grass fed beef:

http://www.marinsunfarms.com/our_beef.html

― (*ﾟーﾟ)θ L(。･＿･)　　　°~ヾ(･ε･ *) (Steve Shasta), Tuesday, January 27, 2009 1:31 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalinkits my

its my understanding that japanese cattle while being massaged and fed special grass are also fed grains beer and all sorts of non grass type things - dont know anything abt marin sun farms tho

i know i know i know (to schef)

It would also be great to buy all strictly organic foods but my grocery bills run into the $200 range every week with a kid and it is unfeasible. I'm glad that people are out there advocating for this but I can't live it 100% of the time.

^^^ this

I hear you akm, but stay away from Berkeley Bowl/Piedmont Grocery/Whole Foods and shop at the co-ops and farmer's markets... the co-ops and farmer's markets are cheaper than any of the big box grocers.

i think i'm def spoiled living in l.a., which has some excellent farmers markets year round and lots of vv good food markets with healthier alternatives. there's this new place near me that just opened up and sells vegan condoms btw.

this thread is has made me wonder whether militant locavorism or militant veganism is more obnoxious

We've joined a veggie CSA (Two Small Farms), a meat one (Marin Sun), and my wife even found a fresh range-grown chicken one. If you can handle preparing lots of different types of stuff, it works out pretty well, money-wise.

also, the veggie distributors that deliver monthly/weekly boxes to you are an incredible deal if you like to cook.

haha never suggest the idea of buying produce in mexico to any of these ppl even if you're totally right that local is closer -- they look at you like you grew another head i swear to god, like mexicans all poison their foods or something. there are small/mid-sized farms down there practicing good old fashioned agriculture as it was meant to be!

xpost what on earth is a vegan condom

t would also be great to buy all strictly organic foods but my grocery bills run into the $200 range every week

it's not all or nothing. i get organic produce home delivery every other week and they bring me a nice box of fruits and vegetables for around $30. and then i cook more, and save more money because i'm not going to so many restaurants.

ha, i totally know the vegan condom place omar is talking about.

this thread is has made me wonder whether militant locavorism or militant veganism is more obnoxious

― obi don quixote (elmo argonaut), Tuesday, January 27, 2009 1:41 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

a friend of mine whos a chef was back here from sf over the holidays and she went on this whole rant abt local food blahdy blah and we were all totally rolling our eyes not saying anything then my friend ben goes so u live in san fransisco and we all lold

also, the veggie distributors that deliver monthly/weekly boxes to you are an incredible deal if you like to cook.

― (*ﾟーﾟ)θ L(。･＿･)　　　°~ヾ(･ε･ *) (Steve Shasta), Tuesday, January 27, 2009

ugh all the local ones here are not taking enrollment right now from what i can tell. you've reminded me to take a look again. fwiw fresh direct here has a local tab (not just produce, which is mostly apples all of the time, but cheese and seafood which i take advantage of) and there's a farmers market but i'd like to get a damn box of random shit and have to iron chef that!

i think i'm def spoiled living in l.a., which has some excellent farmers markets year round and lots of vv good food markets with healthier alternatives.

also, the veggie distributors that deliver monthly/weekly boxes to you are an incredible deal if you like to cook.

Yes to both.

i guess door to door organics is an option...?

We did the weekly (and then bi-weekly organic delivery thing but it was a little too restrictive and it made me feel bad when a busy week, socially, led to dumping lots of food.

so u live in san fransisco and we all lold

I feel totally blessed food-wise here in SF but not everywhere has the same breadth of produce available, even if the FDA turned into the strictest locavore food Nazis, it's not like someone in South Dakota is ever going to get local avaocado or artichoke and I am certainly not going to gainsay someone buying exotic (i.e. non-local) food if they want. I want people to be conscious about what they're eating and what part they play in the economy and ecology of where they live at a local and global scale but people who get off judging others and telling them what to do all the time need to go back to playing with their dolls or something. I can't abide them.

i guess door to door organics is an option...?

pretty sure this is really expensive. i looked when i moved east but couldn't find one. tbh i didnt look that hard tho since a box/week of produce would mostly go to waste in apt now i hardly ever cook

i def cannot hang w/the pay us and well give u whatever we got system

this one's just west coast but there's prob an east coast analog:

https://www.spud.com/index.cfm

i def cannot hang w/the pay us and well give u whatever we got system

It's one thing to try to eat seasonally but to do it strictly can be a bit grim.

here u go http://www.urbanorganic.com/node/1 ive heard ridiculous shit abt just boxes and boxes of lettuce from them tho

I feel totally blessed food-wise here in SF but not everywhere has the same breadth of produce available

this is so key as to why Alice Waters has been pissing people off

I'm actually pretty lucky I can get good stuff in Cleveland. I've got a Whole Foods two minutes from my house, I've got the West Side Market year round, plus a really good local farmer's market spring through fall, and a half-hour drive gets me out to nursery country, where I can get great local, seasonal stuff, esp. fruit. And really good corn. And I'm not too far a drive from some really good Amish farms and dairies.

yeah, love the idea of box of goodies delivered but way too picky to let other peple decide my veggies/fruits. la farmers markets have everything i need just about

i def cannot hang w/the pay us and well give u whatever we got system

spud lets you create your own box if you want -- which is what i do, since i can be picky.

i'm from rhode island and i don't eat quahogs or any other bivalves for that matter, what do i do?? ;_;

yeah, jhosh that is what i worry about. there is another one i heard was better but they aren't taking new clients (still). it's like \O_o/ oh well

hey have u gone to the ft greene farmers mkt? i have barely carved out any time to do this thing but going all the way to union square just to grocery shop seems so lame so i was wondering how that one was, what shit was at it, i don't trust internet reviews from yelp strangers, etc.

I love the café at Chez Panisse and I genuinely approve of her frenchifying and localizing foodstuffs but she can be insufferable and it really doesn't help your image when you make loud noises about making sure the farmers' market at the Ferry Building where heirloom tomatoes cost $5.00 a pound, etc., accepts food stamps.

also like the ritual of shopping at a farmers market, getting to know the vendors, knowing which one has slightly better stuuff for some items, but not for others

it really doesn't help your image when you make loud noises about making sure the farmers' market at the Ferry Building where heirloom tomatoes cost $5.00 a pound, etc., accepts food stamps

ha!

eh its ok schef - pretty small tho - u should just go to grand army plaza since its not that much farther

I love the café at Chez Panisse and I genuinely approve of her frenchifying and localizing foodstuffs but she can be insufferable and it really doesn't help your image when you make loud noises about making sure the farmers' market at the Ferry Building where heirloom tomatoes cost $5.00 a pound, etc., accepts food stamps.

― Last night it was pullulating with (Michael White), Tuesday, January 27, 2009

YES EXACTLY -- wtf? this isn't helpful, at all as any kind of change or outreach or anything.

xpost there's one at grand army plaza?? i learn new things all the time which day is that one?

its on saturday - def best besides union square of the ones ive been to

i def cannot hang w/the pay us and well give u whatever we got system

Certainly it helps to have a good service or setup, and not everyone has that option. There, I admit, I'm lucky. There are several in OC but why the option through these folks -- South Coast Farms -- works for me is not merely that it came recommended (the restaurant I mentioned above relies on a lot of their produce) but that they work with a variety of other local farms to pool their resources. This results in a real variety in each basket, since different farms have different specialties and crops and etc.

As a result, paying in advance for 'whatever we got' is practical combined with the yearly growing season and so forth -- but more to the point, it makes me try things I wouldn't normally have tried otherwise, like kohlrabi. Meantime there's also local farmers markets and specialty markets if I want to add in other things, like lotus root.

I'm not even kidding, elmo. She had such a tin ear on that it made me cringe. Telling people under the poverty level that they have to start worrying whether their food is morally and aesthetically acceptable is on par with "Qu'ils mangent de la brioche." ("Let them eat cake.")

YES EXACTLY -- wtf? this isn't helpful, at all as any kind of change or outreach or anything.

Whereas the people who run programs for children at risk in urban areas to grow food that they can actually end up eating are total heroes to me.

its on saturday - def best besides union square of the ones ive been to

― ice cr?m, Tuesday, January 27, 2009 2:04 PM

lol wait i saw the remnants of it last saturday, before i was murdered in a mudslide on the way to the zoo. thanks!! union square is just too much of a bitch to bother with, it is good but crowded and far and i can only imagine its gotten worse over time really.

xpost i agree on teaching in urban areas about growing food etc. but even just teaching basic cooking techniques even -- i mean there's a lot lacking in this department across america basically and that has nothing to do with whether or not someone can or wants to purchase a $5 tomato.

but even just teaching basic cooking techniques even

That prompts a question -- is home economics even a regular middle/high school class these days?

the elephant in the room is that alice waters has her tomatoes and corn flown up in a jet from san diego

Schef, Pam thinks that a restooled home ec, that included basic nutritional and culinary info and basic, well, home and personal economics should be mandatory in high school.

Barbara Kingsolver had a story in one of her food essays about how her husband was talking to city kids about how foods are grown, and he asked, "Can anyone else think of a food that grows in the ground?" and one kid thought for a minute and then said, "Pasta?" or something like that.

Whereas the people who run programs for children at risk in urban areas to grow food that they can actually end up eating are total heroes to me.

― Last night it was pullulating with (Michael White), Tuesday, January 27, 2009 11:06 AM (3 minutes ago)

Dude wtf, she's either a founder, sponsor or sits on the board of most of the Urban Farms in the EB!

Silly child. Pasta comes from pasta bushes.

Schef, Pam thinks that a restooled home ec, that included basic nutritional and culinary info and basic, well, home and personal economics should be mandatory in high school.

yes b-b-but TEST SCORES

not to be all save a alice waters but i think she's had a hand in the growth of the organizations that michael is championing.

Schef, Pam thinks that a restooled home ec, that included basic nutritional and culinary info and basic, well, home and personal economics should be mandatory in high school.

― Last night it was pullulating with (Michael White), Tuesday, January 27, 2009

pam is 100% correct. i think a lot of people just don't understand that methods to make it cheaper and easier to make your own food than rely on convenience items.

xpost she's the founder steve shasta!

Steve, I know and I think that's great, too. On account, I still like Alice it's just that I can see how she irks some people. Nobody likes a saint.

drew bees is my homie

brees~

Whereas the people who run programs for children at risk in urban areas to grow food that they can actually end up eating are total heroes to me.

^^^this Cleveland Botanical Garden has such a program and every year the stuff the kids grow also gets processed into products that they then also market and sell. Last summer we got some amazing salsa and a blueberry vinaigrette from them.

i don't know, sometimes i wonder about the wisdom of these programs.

first of all keep in mind that i'm currently co-planning a week-long intensive course at my school on organic farming that we're going to teach in the summer, and we have a school CSA that i'm part of and my brother-in-law is an organic farmer so i have all sorts of sympathy with these things in general.

but at the same time i wonder whether these programs aren't just hitting two birds with one stone: our urge to do something nice for urban youth and our upper-middle-class urge to always be buying the most expensive food products possible.

i knew some people in berkeley that were using their liberal arts degrees to run a small organic goat cheese farm up in the mountains, and they were taking kids from downtown oakland up into the mountains on weekends to help feed the goats. and i was like, that's really nice, but if i had a thousand dollars a month to spend on kids in oakland i'd rather just hire a math & reading tutor so that they can get a head start, go to college, get great jobs and then be able to shop at whole foods and send their kids to fancy liberal arts colleges so they can start their own urban nonprofits.

mjtb, why not both?

i prefer the goat idea.

i recommend turning your weeklong course on organic farming into a math and reading tutor sesh and watch their faces light up

why not both? because i'm a teacher, i have to make "this or that" decisions every day. believe it or not, i can't afford to buy rulers *and* compasses for geometry, so i bought rulers.

our upper-middle-class urge to always be buying the most expensive food products possible.

You can look at it that way but it is conceivably also about what most humans have been for the last 30 or 40 thousand years; farmers of one kind or another. My own grandmother grew up at a time and place when most people had some little plot at least that they cultivated at least enough to supplement what they purchased. She grew up pickling and canning and preserving - it's how people made it through the winter. You don't necessarily have to teach kids to be whiny food snobs while you're teaching them about how they fit into the great order of life on this planet.

like i said, my brother-in-law is a self-supporting (and struggling) organic farmer and i'm part of a CSA so i know all about that argument.

you have to admit there's something good about getting kids out of the city and face-to-face with nature tho dude, that's something you can't get in a math tutor session

our upper-middle-class urge to always be buying the most expensive food products possible.

You can look at it that way but it is conceivably also about what most humans have been for the last 30 or 40 thousand years; farmers of one kind or another. My own grandmother grew up at a time and place when most people had some little plot at least that they cultivated at least enough to supplement what they purchased. She grew up pickling and canning and preserving - it's how people made it through the winter. You don't necessarily have to teach kids to be whiny food snobs while you're teaching them about how they fit into the great order of life on this planet.

also for the past several years our food has been artificially cheap because of big-agri government subsidies that hurt small farmers, economies of scale, additives and preservatives, pesticides, etc. pollan-esque "real" food costs what it's supposed to cost.

Uh instead of "several years", try like thirty plus.

i mean i'm not gonna tell poor people they shouldn't choose the cheaper option but i also don't feel good about what they're supporting when they choose the cheaper option.

yeah, i was just going to say that, you're 100% right but tell it to ppl who can't afford what food is supposed to cost...the system needs to be reworked in its entirety, basically -- i mean if you take these subsidies and apply them in a manner favorable towards reducing additives and preservatives, helping "mom & pops" versus the big corps, etc etc but no one is ever going to do this without a fucking revolution basically.

A friend of mine is making a documentary about urban farms in the SF Bay area. He told me an anecdote about this urban farm near Hunter's Point. Apparently, the kids all hate the guy who runs the program ... they think he's a smug, boho white dude trying to tell them how to live their lives. A much more successful program is the one at San Quentin, apparently.

yes, believe me, i grapple with that issue every day. i don't really want to get into it though because i will end soapboxing.

also i read this book over christmas break, and i must admit that i *really* wondered whether this would be an effective solution for a city of two million people or just a nice hobby idea for the already well-off. you really can't sneeze at the cost or expense of DIY gardening if you want to even try to approach self-sufficiency or any sort of a meaningful supplement.

and michael as far as i know when your grandparents were alive most people already weren't growing their own food, victory gardens aside.

my first comment is an xpost to s1ocki

Vahid, just practically speaking, I would say: maybe because the people with the goat farm have some capital to spend on doing what they KNOW HOW to do, ie introduce people to goat farming? If they had to put the same capital toward a project that's out of their knowledge base and in unfamiliar territory, they'd have to hire intermediaries and/or just turn the $$ over to someone else, which is like any other charitable giving, ever.

I guess they feel they have something unique to offer, and so they're offering it? Of such efforts is woven the unique tapestry? I have a feeling this is prob hokey but true.

yeah laurel i get what you're saying, but the sad thing about this particular farm is that they're not even really a goat cheese business. they actually just live off of the grant money they get for bringing urban kids to visit.

i mean the idea that we should go for the farming techniques and self-sufficiency of 30,000 years ago is sort of laughable to me. i mean, really? you want to go back to ancient egypt, where everybody only grew their own onions that they ate raw for dinner? and they had a life expectancy of like 28 years?

would be pretty dope to go back to ancient egypt

yeah as pharoah maybe

my mom has decided upon this idea that you should figure out your geneaology and then eat whatever your ancestors ate to be the best diet because you have been "evolved" to eat only that kind of food and i don't even know where to begin with that one.

Hmm...so in my case, potatoes, leeks, haggis, boiled beef, escargot, sauerkraut and gnocchi?

yeah that's a pretty common one. like my wife who is always giving me the "milk was evolved for baby cows and people aren't baby cows!" lecture cause i put half-and-half in my coffee and i'm like well that's not stopping you from drinking micro-nutrient nano green algae shakes which i'm pretty sure was evolved to feed lobsters

ha, schef, i was just going to front about the irony of alice waters offering french cuisine in california, i mean how is that local???

fwiw eating according to your heritage sounds maybe a little more reasonable than the "eat for your blood type" diets?

my ancestors ate meat and potatoes and drank vodka! wheeeeeeeeee!

eat for your blood type makes no sense at all -- i mean at least "eat to your heritage" makes some kind of vague sense i guess, if you're the kid of immigrants from around the same region of the world (or still live in the region you originated from?). but it's just like \O_o/ ok but what if you are mixed race or nationality

yeah laurel i get what you're saying, but the sad thing about this particular farm is that they're not even really a goat cheese business. they actually just live off of the grant money they get for bringing urban kids to visit.

Vahid, I think you've got two separate issues going and I'm only going to respond to the first one, which is that I also get what you're saying about giving kids functional skills to build future success on, but is a visit to a farm in the country not inherently valuable just as something different and expanding?? Do you think those programs to take city kids to summer camp in the country should be replaced by summer tutoring back in whatever possibly crappy place they live?

fwiw eating according to your heritage sounds maybe a little more reasonable than the "eat for your blood type" diets?

― obi don quixote (elmo argonaut), Tuesday, January 27, 2009 3:08 PM (33 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

same thing basically tho

The farm that only exists on grant money sounds like total BS to me, I won't even attempt to argue about that! But y'know, they're probably doing some good, too?

btw i have decided to go back to a primitive self-sustaining agricultural lifestyle and will be selling off my surplus grain, i am accepting bids but you have to pay in live chickens

i hav no problem w/city kids getting out there and meeting goats

would you accept kittens instead of chickens y/n

"eat to your heritage" only makes sense if you come from somewhere with a long life expectancy

kittens don't lay eggs, so i'd say the commodity value of a kitten is 1/3 that of a chicken

if a kitten lays something don't eat it basically

yeah, I DIED, and of course my mom's entire background is meditteranean cultures so of course this all makes sense to her, "oh but look at their life expectancies, they eat fish and grains and vegetables" and it's like ok mom but what about dad! all those potatoes

xpost ok 3 kittens then

TBH I used to know someone whose parents were from the same little Greek island so his heritage was completely unmixed and traceable to one way of life, and HE feels like he lives much better on the "traditional" diet provided by that locality over the centuries. Of course that means he's basically totally vegetarian w/ small amounts of seafood, which I think would be beneficial for ANYONE in purely health terms (maybe not quality of life terms, at least for us steak-chompers), so it's not like the Greeks know some secret there.

fuck yeah potatoes

i do need some kittens, though, to keep the mice out of my grain stores

having considered, i will revise the chicken:kitten ratio to 2:1

Fuck all you, I was served haggis last week and I am not eating that shite.

the kittens should fight the chicken just sayin

whoa price of kitten futures has skyrocketed

laurel, yeah, that's the point i'm making, if you're pointing to these healthy olive oil and seafood and fresh tomatoes coastal diets...i mean, EVERYONE should eat like that basically, that doesn't mean that you specifically are better off like that, but a german would be much healthier if they only ate sausages, and nothing but sausages. so it's kinda O_o the whole idea, like she doesn't seem to quite understand that it's not just her that is better off eating this food.

haggis is dope imo

now i'm just lolling at the idea of some poor germanic-american shoveling brats into their face 94/7 and cursing my mom's book when they die at age 35 of death.

So, the New York Times. The Times is a junk-rated company with an op-ed page read by certain brands of mean liberals. Rich teenagers are the first group. They get free hard-copy delivery at their boarding schools and are required to read the whole thing, every day, by their liberal professor, Allah. At first they only like the Bono column, but then they think, hey, Tom Friedman is a pretty cool dude with his rich people columns about “green” BlackBerrys he saw while jet-setting in Java and Fiji, and that Maureen Dowd sure is a stitch, and how cool is it that Nicholas Kristof gets to fly to Africa all the time.

In college, however, they start to hate Tom Friedman and throw pies at him. They think Kristof still does an able job but eh, so boring after a while.

As for Maureen Dowd, well, this is the key to everything. Those who go through college and *still* think that Maureen Dowd is funny or witty or worth reading at all, they become the die-hard Times opinion page readers for life. You may know some of these people. They hold mid-size dinner parties with white wine and bruschetta. All of their favorite albums are soundtracks. They complain non-stop about the quality of the produce at their grocery store. And so on.

i just read this on wonkette and it made me think of this thread btw

Dying of death is so lame imo

a lot of my favorite albums are soundtracks, plus pure moods

ennio morricone, lots of david lynch sndtrks, tangerine dream did some good stuff too

i listen exclusively to riddim samplers

a lot of my favorite pies have been thrown at Tom Friedman

my favorite cd is u2's greatest hits it is super dope

i only listen to the musical of my ethnic heritage, so there's a lot of bouzouki and some Wicker-Man style pagan chanting and 1/32nd of the time I listen to Sioux drumming

http://image.blingee.com/images15/content/output/000/000/000/369/158184055_1681978.gif

u2's greatest hits IS the ancestral music of my father's ppl, they're irish.

the edge seems like an organic sustainable kinda dude

the edge is mysterious and unknowable fyi

the edge plays the blues when bono tells him to

pretty sure bono keeps the edge grass-fed

i saw the edge at my grocery store and complained about his quality

his face is beginning to get nicely marbled

a pie thrown in a human face, forever

^ not my joek but it's a goodun

that Edible Estates idea is nice if you, like, own a house with a yard. which neither I nor 75% of the people I know do.

Bono's wife is the one making clothes out of hemp.

Eat to heritage is good if I follow French Atlantic Coast, will have to be more picky about Sweden, Poland, Scotland, Ireland.

The Edge has a freezer burn aftertaste, though.

"I'll give alice waters my pineapple when she takes it from my cold, dead hands!"

The whole eating your ancestral diet thing makes no sense to me. Which diet? As if they are stable and fully 'evolved'. Would a person of Italian origin get to eat tomatoes which have only been part of the Italian diet for a few hundred years? Would an Irishman be allowed to eat potatoes even though they only became popular in Europe in the 18th century? Would a Laoatian be allowed chiles even though they're originally from the New World?

yeah it doesnt make sense to me either--lets revoke ally's mom's phd

she doesn't even have a bachelor's, i mean i didn't claim this was coming from sanjay gupta

thats DR sanjay gupta to you

I would pretty much be eating potatoes and sheep innards, so I will have to pass.

Also what we expect from healthy living and good nutrition is different to what used to apply. You only need to live to be 40 or so to successfully breed, so if you die of heart failure at 50 because your diet is high in fat, evolution doesn't care so much and I imagine that most of the inhabitable planet wasn't settled 'cause it was idyllic but 'cause it was available to some tribe which managed to adapt to the local environment. It doesn't really follow that they wouldn't be happier and healthier elsewhere.

i know a former vegetarian who claims the blood type diet cured her chronic stomach ailments through meat

i also know some people whove been doing this shit for a while http://paleodiet.com

tragic thing is a the wife is an amzing cook/food scientist who even invented the brownies in ben n jerrys

Compare classical Roman diets with modern Italian. They're quite dissimilar.

Due to the influence of Greek habits and also the increased import of and consumption of foreign foods

lol

i only eat quail stuffed with cheese roasted in the entrails of a cow

owsley stanley advocates his all meast diet on a message board
http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthread.php?t=287013&page=1&pp=15

o_O

meat

lol remember that article about the black swan dude where he was all into some sort of paleolithic exercise regime where would sprint really long distances one every ten days or so to simulate being chased by a sabretooth tiger

With the consumption of wheat as pasta overtaking that of bread and with the introduction of plants and spices from the Americas, the cuisine of 13th century Italy (the midpoint between today and the fall of the Roman Empire) would be mostly foreign to a modern Italian.

Like many utopian fads, the paleodiets presume a golden age where I don't think there was one.

everyone is so insane

haha yeah what is with hi-tech 'thinker' right winger dudes' fixation on 'early man' -- shit is an omni magazine retread/blend of phrenology and white-mans-burden imo

mmmm brownies

everyone is so insane

With this as a baseline, the rest is relaxation.

well said

Also what we expect from healthy living and good nutrition is different to what used to apply. You only need to live to be 40 or so to successfully breed, so if you die of heart failure at 50 because your diet is high in fat, evolution doesn't care so much and I imagine that most of the inhabitable planet wasn't settled 'cause it was idyllic but 'cause it was available to some tribe which managed to adapt to the local environment. It doesn't really follow that they wouldn't be happier and healthier elsewhere.

― Last night it was pullulating with (Michael White), Tuesday, January 27, 2009 3:18 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

not to get all dimestore evolutionist on you myself but there are probably selection benefits at a population level to having more old-aged members around. once your species depends on cognition and education, having 1 old wise person per x number strong young ppl has a multiplying effect etc etc

basically the human animal is a big accident that runs on whatever garbage is available -- there is no optimal diet, you live, you eat, you die, your 'system' doesn't 'care'.

It is a sign of my culinary and gustatory obsessions that if offered the chance to revive any extinct species, Jurassic Park style, the first one that comes to mind is silphium.

You should eat what makes you feel good. Do the taste test and don't listen to other people!

the main thing w/humans is sexiness

that's a good point, i'll remember that on the subway tonight

not to get all dimestore evolutionist on you myself but there are probably selection benefits at a population level to having more old-aged members around. once your species depends on cognition and education, having 1 old wise person per x number strong young ppl has a multiplying effect etc etc

Fair enough but it doesn't necessarily mean that people today aren't descended from ancestors who didn't have the optimal lifestyle/diet. They survived which is all that's important even if they didn't thrive though their are plenty of instances in history of old people leading their tribe. It is generally accepted, I believe, that with the onset of cultivation and sedentary, if not quite civilized, living the quality of life actually declined though at a population level far more people could be sustained.

the main thing w/humans is sexiness

http://www.geocities.com/lifeinhellperson/lih074.gif

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/29/us/politics/29Cook.html?hp=&pagewanted=print

A spokeswoman for Michelle Obama, Katie McCormick Lelyveld, said Mr. Kass would not be the only cook preparing the family’s meals, but “he knows what they like, and he happens to have a particular interest in healthy food and local food.”

good move to bring a chef from 600 miles away to show interest in local food

http://www.slate.com/id/2209168/

pretty decent writeup in Slate on the potential for genetically modified foods to be better for the environment.

I think the main reason there have been growing pains for the local/organic/sustainable movement is that those qualities happened to go hand in hand in the bay area in the 1970s - there didn't have to be a choice between them. That doesn't apply in other areas of the country, where organic foods may have to travel long distances, or where local methods of growth may not be sustainable.

good move to bring a chef from 600 miles away to show interest in local food

Finding out about local growers, produce and seasons isn't exactly rocket science and a talented, curious chef with the backing of the prestige of the White House should do just fine and, anyway, the Obamas get to eat whatever they want, essentially.

yah but they had to ship the guy all the way from chicago

Finding out about local growers, produce and seasons isn't exactly rocket science

yes, but it seems like an odd quality to trumpet when there are plenty of chefs here who have been building relationships with local growers for years, even among the current white house kitchen staff.

Sure, the chef is someone that the Obamas know and whose cooking they enjoy, but shouldn't they replace that chef with some local chef for the sake of appearances and politics?

I'm talking about the locavore part of his resume - I'm not at all questioning that they'd have a chef they know join the staff.

It is, in the end, their choice and if they want to bring along someone from Chicago, the institutional memory of a staff as large as the White House kitchen's is unlikely to suddenly forget vendors or snub them.

wow you guys are all being some humorless SOBs.

i mean the 600 mile chef comment was pretty obviously sarcasm, get off his jock -- he's right, it's hilarious that to make their decision to, i dunno, hire whoever the hell they want to cook for them be politically ok they have to come up with this hilarious excuse about his locavore chops.

o man locavore chops wrapped in bacon mmmmmm

Sorry, guys. I think I left my sense of humor in my other 100% post consumer recycled shopping bag.

http://i42.tinypic.com/i3thle.jpg

wow you guys are all being some humorless SOBs.

Kinda like Alice Fucking Waters herself!

jh0 if you had dinner with Frenchies and they didn't spend at least half the dinner comparing foodstuffs, or talking about how you make certain things, or where to go to buy the best bread or whatever, well I'm shocked. Maybe they were Canadian.

To be fair, Tracer, there are French people who aren't particularly sophiticated food-wise nor terribly interested in gustatory pleasures. I've known French people whose favorite meal was steak-frites and seemed to live off of horrible Carrefour baguettes, mediocre camembert, weird frozen veg badly prepared and noodles with grated cheese - real cavemen culinarily speaking.

Troo - my own experience is mainly w/people from Aquitaine who I think are all born with some kind of food-talk gene

NOT THE MEDIOCRE CAMEMBERT!!!

:D

sorry it's just that it's hard to get anything besides the mediocre camembert in the us some days :(

and it costs $6.50 for the privilege

see if akron would just start competing with wisconsin we might start something here

jh0 if you had dinner with Frenchies and they didn't spend at least half the dinner comparing foodstuffs, or talking about how you make certain things, or where to go to buy the best bread or whatever, well I'm shocked. Maybe they were Canadian.

― Tracer Hand, Thursday, January 29, 2009 11:08 AM (26 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yah i mean the french dont come off like yelp commenters is the thing - also many of the french in america live here cause theyre not that into france and behaviors associated w/it

but to be clear i do find aspects of their frenchiness annoying even if they are my friends - like how come every frenchy in the world is on some freshman dorm level political discourse

hahaha - things can be very black and white with French people.. "THIS is good, THAT is bad... off with his head!!"

The only thing more depressing to me than shitty, mass produced, pasteurized camembert (which at its best is a truly lovely thing) in France is brie like that. Wtf, français??!! It's like kicking Laetitia Costa out of bed to go dry hump a toothless old 'hygeinically-challenged' crack whore.

I'm all for decapitiating yelpers as a rule, btw.

we're veering offtopic here but they also, when writing about something, make these unabashed appeals to "passion" and "sensuality" as if the abandonment of actual argument-making is valuable in and of itself

xposts

haha french people are hilarious and awesome

The only thing more depressing to me than shitty, mass produced, pasteurized camembert (which at its best is a truly lovely thing) in France is brie like that. Wtf, français??!! It's like kicking Laetitia Costa out of bed to go dry hump a toothless old 'hygeinically-challenged' crack whore.

― Last night it was pullulating with (Michael White), Thursday, January 29, 2009

if you think about it, it is actually the OPPOSITE of this.

To be fair, Tracer, there are French people who aren't particularly sophiticated food-wise nor terribly interested in gustatory pleasures.

THIS CAN'T BE TRUE I SAW RATATOUILLE DAMMIT

as if the abandonment of actual argument-making is valuable in and of itself

For people schooled in Cartesian thinking, I can see why.

My favorite thing about French people this week? The constant use of 'complicity' in matchmaking profiles.

if you think about it, it is actually the OPPOSITE of this.

Wrong!! Nasty, stinky, smells-like-ass cheese is actually, to paraphrase Franklin, proof that God exists and that he loves us (and has a wacky sense of humor).

yes, but you have to admit, it is hygenically-challenged cheese.

I guess so but I'm kind of busy right now imagining licking Époisses off of Laetitia Costa.

and now i'm just thinking of the bacon bra

Great, thanks for totally ruining the moment, though I guess that's better than a bologna girdle.

jerkey gussets

pancetta panties

bresaola bloomers

sheer prosciutto thigh-highs

speck g-string

15-denier ham socks

do we need to be so crudo?

g-string o'lean

bresaola bloomers

― Last night it was pullulating with (Michael White), Thursday, January 29, 2009

ooh i have some in my fridge -- maybe i'll make this tonight

Bacon bits encrusted Kraft cheese slices teddy

Schef, I know you won't forgive me but this seems an opportune time to mention how little I generally think of barding seafood.

you are right -- i sever our relationship thusly and i am throwing a glove on the table, only you can't see this because we're on the internet.

Is it a sprakly glove and are you wearing floods?

You've been doing your Thriller-era Michael Jackson impersonation down at Pieces, haven't you?

you have to make extra somehow, in this economy

It's okay, I won't tell your mom.

i already did!

No use being ashamed of the exactions of necessity, eh? That's the spirit. (But does she tip well?)

no, she just thieves the glassware away. it's terribly embarassing.

I'm surprised Vodka lets her back in!

(Wow, it's 10 AM here and I suddenly have an urge to go there and get a screwdriver. Value!)

it's a thousand degrees in my office and a screwdriver or a gin & tonic sounds like the perfect end to my problems actually.

Well, it IS a religious ritual and you know I am ardently spiritual.

there's booze in this office but it is all HOT owing to it being very, very hot in here.

On one of the four days when it's actually, genuinely hot in SF, my building turns on the A/C to the point where I sometimes have to run my desk heater. Is this essentially the opposite?

"From the hipster perspective, I think people are just catching up to what other people already knew and supported for the last thirty to fifty years. This is not a new phenomenon," Dan Barber said

http://newyork.seriouseats.com/2009/05/dan-barber-on-locavore-movement-wnyc-radio-talk-to-me.html

hitting up blue hill for my girl's bday next week

which one

nyc not stone barns

still really want to go to stone barns tho

yeah for real, that place looks rad. pls report back to this thread once you've been to the nyc one

ive been to the NYC one! probably the best meal ive had in nyc since moving, w/ the possible exception of the pasta tasting menu @ babbo. they do ungodly things with turkey, traditionally the lamest of meats. instead of bread you get the most delicious grape tomatoes youve ever eaten. i had an anise/mint lamb-y thing. got wasted on terrific & not too-pricey wine

daaaammmn i wish i'd known abt that place when i visited nyc last year, instead we went to wd-50 for our expensive meal (which is completely the opposite)

and wtf at being able to make turkey taste amazing?!?!

great dinner at blue hill last night. i felt like every dish i had involved corn in some way but i was OK with that. girlfriend's turkey was probably the best turkey dish ive ever eaten... cooked to perfect softness in some kind of corn/pancetta/tomato puree. egg/corn/mushroom for my starter was the highlight--honestly i may have been 'disappointed' by my lamb which was overpowered slightly by the anise and mint pesto... but thats only if i was looking for something to complain about. waiter recommended a great bottle of wine, and they started us off with some fantastic little cherry tomatoes.

― Mohammed Butt (max), Saturday, September 20, 2008 9:53 AM (7 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

alice waters is speaking about edible schoolyards at the aero theatre in santa monica tonight. i have a ticket, but i'm not sure if i'm gonna go -- why does everything always have to be in fucking santa monica?

everyones mad at santa monica

I said last week in the Bourdain thread where he went off on Waters that it's funny how after nearly 40 years* of essentially the same philosophy, she is suddenly inspiring a lot of criticism.

*Which Kilman defines as a "generation"... seems a little long for a generation.

Her food is quaint and I agree with the criticisms that her techniques can be a little soft-handed for those who enjoy more the exciting (ie, $500-$1000pp meals made by Ferran Andria is what I think the author is suggesting). And I agree shopping is not cooking but as others have already said on this thread w/r/t "locavorism": freshness, no chemicals, no preservatives, no transportation, etc. has a value to what you put in your body which isn't only about taste, but also health and nutrition.

― (*ﾟーﾟ)θ L(。･＿･)　　　°~ヾ(･ε･ *) (Steve Shasta), Tuesday, January 27, 2009 10:20 AM (3 months ago)

shopping kind of IS cooking, i mean it's a huge part of cooking.

i mean you might as well say "putting things on plates isn't cooking." no, not by itself, but it's part of a process.

An interesting point: keeping use of chemicals & fossil fuels to a minimum in yr selection of foodstuffs is also about the health of OTHERS, in addition to the benefits you yourself experience from eating clean, fresh foods.

slocki- anybody can buy ingredients (incl. ultra-gourmet quality)...

but that does not guarantee that the cooked results will be the same level of quality.

anybody can sautée a scallop. knowing what ingredients to buy, and of that, which are the best pieces to select, is part of cooking.

i imagine some "exciting" chefs' reputations are built in part by fans whose palates were shaped to desire lots of salt and fat

bourdain and waters shared a stage five days ago; wonder what happened

i bet they fucked each other up.

http://www.fox61.com/wtic-connecticut-forum-0515,0,5422106.story

more like locovores

thank God we still live in a world with catty rich people to help us see past our petty problems

are you suggesting we eat the rich?

An interesting point: keeping use of chemicals & fossil fuels to a minimum in yr selection of foodstuffs is also about the health of OTHERS, in addition to the benefits you yourself experience from eating clean, fresh foods.

haha, laurel, I completely understand this point and generally agree but "FOR YOUR SAKE, TOO, AM I EATING THIS SCRUMPTIOUS & EXPENSIVE MEAL" sounds like a harder point to sell?

let's not talk about the food we enjoy and instead feel shamed by the professional itinerant songwriter from one of the richest counties in America who argues about heavy metal on the internet

alice waters is speaking about edible schoolyards

Let's go play on the monkey bars and then we can have some slow roasted monkey shanks in as asphalt/chewing gum/booger reduction for lunch.

Either that or the clarion call of the new orthorexics is, "Let them eat pavement!"

I hadn't thought of it that way, elmo! I was thinking of taking the sort of "responsible food" ethos to what some would consider an extreme: getting involved w gardens personally, not buying from farms w non-union or underpaid laborers, and so on.

lol poor madd doggie gabbneb, on what list does Durham county make "richest counties in America"? the gabbneb list of obsessing over & responding to J0hn D's every wayward remark?

Cooking, after all, is not about doing good; it's about tasting good.

Pretty reductionist thinking there. I would say it is about eating well, which idea can encompass tasting good and one heck of a lot more, e.g. not feeling like a beached whale after a meal, or not ingesting small amounts of poison with one's food, neither of which is addressed by "tasting good".

lol poor madd doggie gabbneb, on what list does Durham county make "richest counties in America"?

yes, "madd doggie," yes, "obsessing over," lol. i thought you were from the OC, bro?

unclench

yes, Mr. Que, yes

which OC - the one next door (Chapel Hill), which isn't in the top 100 US counties either (Wake & Mecklenberg are), or the one I'm also not from back in California? anyway you weren't implicated by "rich ppl," just these food writer types who are the most disgusting savages in all the world imo, chill out some homes, if you're ever here in opulent Durham Co. you're welcome to the decent wine I try to keep onhand for when the gentry visit, let me zing an annoying Hamptons type every once in a while w/o breakin my balls abt it why don'tcha

"food writer types"????

=food writers who don't publish cookzines for distro through Food Not Bombs

also, a fantastic new band outta Westchester

harumph.

i dont want to speak for slocki but i understand he prefers the term "bon vivant"

lol sorry s1ocki I am a salt and fat eatin philistine who was only tryin to get away with an errant jab at the celebrity chefs & their droll little chards, my bad <3

this isn't the kind of stuff i usually write about but even if most of it is happening at a rarefied and luxurious level i still think it's worth talking about. like, obv most people can't afford to eat local but if it is worth doing, maybe we should think about solutions that will allow people to eat better for cheaper.

lets take this conversation one step further

i agree with s1ocki but i also think we should eat the rich

what is the best way to sustainably raise and slaughter the rich?

wall street lol

the rich wine-poached pear reduction

xpost damn, if only I'd been able to think that one up without googling "reduction sauce" for tips, I'd've been on time

i'm guessing you should only eat the rich ppl from your immediate area, who have humanely grazed on yr local dollars

sorry j0hn i fucked up your joke with my lame response

it's OK, your initial eat the rich did not get the love it deserved, and besides my joke is probably nowhere near as funny as I thought it was

que totally jacked MY eat the rich

hey who's jacking who here

the rich

hmmm

¯\(°_o)/¯

i'm hiding out in this thread until the black hipster thread goes away

i dunno, both are pretty irritating!

Correct me if I'm wrong, please, but the one thing that bothers me about the whole locavore thing is that it doesn't take into account different climates. Having grown up in the area that is local to Alice Waters, it's pretty easy to eat local and have a very wide array of foods to choose from, but what about people from Pittsburgh? People from Alaska? Sorry, no lettuce for you?

or the one I'm also not from back in California

you've never lived there? someone told me otherwise once.

I am a salt and fat eatin philistine

no that's Shasta, tho your palate may be pretty southern too.

only tryin to get away with an errant jab at the celebrity chefs

this seems pretty silly to me. bourdain might be a celebrity and a former chef, but he's known for his memoir and travel writing (both of which happen to jab at celebrity chefs as much as they celebrate them) not his cooking. i suppose waters qualifies as a celebrity chef (with the "shopping" and "editing" caveats), but these days she's mostly known, as per this thread, for her advocacy. the whole bullshit about how we can't pay attention to her because she runs a "fancy" restaurant (where people wear jeans) is a smokescreen over her essential message that even if you are not a distinguished or technically proficient chef, you can make food that tastes almost as good as the food at her restaurant by buying the right ingredients (many of which - the non-proteins at least - aren't particularly expensive for anyone middle class or better, and could be made more available to those below middle class with the right food policy) at the right time and not doing too much to them. i dunno what "food writers" and "hamptons types" you're talking about and don't think you do either.

you're welcome to the decent wine I try to keep onhand for when the gentry visit

thanks, i don't drink much and don't have too much interest in NC, but i might be able to buy you a beer on Friday XD

xp Fresh seal blubber is in season all year round.

i think they have to have root cellars, which everyone has, right? i know i do

gabb, john's from the inland empire

that movie was really long and excruciating.

Correct me if I'm wrong, please, but the one thing that bothers me about the whole locavore thing is that it doesn't take into account different climates.

sure it does! you just have to get used to eating the local winter vegetables a few more times per week than usual. bill mckibben wrote about being locavore in vermont for a year; it was instructive.

that's my point, if you live in a harsher climate, your options are more limited than someone who lives in an area where more things can be grown.

sure, but it also allows you to be more creative with what you have.

yeah. . .not all of us are privileged enough to live in berkeley

and alice waters is totally a celebrity chef--not saying that in a pejorative way, just saying

you know what else allows you to be more creative with what you have?

poverty

what if the people w/ better nutrition decide to invade vermont

yeah. . .not all of us are privileged enough to live in berkeley

or oakland, those guys are livin' the life!

xp elmo: 1001 Creative Fried Dough Recipes

I live in Oakland ... it's such a "privilege" ...

throwing out half my clothes will allow me to dress more creatively with what i have

lol yeah but it would be like 1001 creative turnip recipes, you'd probably turn grey and die xp

alice waters otm for the most part imo

if life hands you a bunch of winter vegetables, make some barely edible winter vegetable dish for 4 months straight

that's my point, if you live in a harsher climate, your options are more limited than someone who lives in an area where more things can be grown.

and if you live in phoenix, maybe you shouldn't have a green bermuda-grass lawn.

if you live in a harsher climate, your options are more limited than someone who lives in an area where more things can be grown.

i think that her message is relevant to the 99.8% of Americans who don't live in Alaska, even if their growing season is shorter than California's

elmo what is your point exactly...

middle class or better
middle class or better
middle class or better
middle class or better
middle class or better

this is a weird thing to backlash against imo

ya i think ppl secretly think alice waters is just a bitch and it annoys them and that's why they're mad at her

i don't think she's a bitch, i'm on her side, i just don't dig her sanctimonious vibe. based largely on one interview/TV show i saw about her on PBS. kinda stupid but oh well

...

It's not just the growing season, it's what can be grown, and what is grown and in what manner, such that there would be major price inequities nationally.

...

― s1ocki, Tuesday, May 19, 2009 8:02 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

?????

i pride myself on being able to follow internet arguments and i have literally no clue a) what issues are being argued on this thread b) who is arguing for which positions and c) why

i gotta quote mae west to you, jergins?

this is yr thread max--you should be able to follow it

i pride myself on being able to follow internet arguments and i have literally no clue a) what issues are being argued on this thread b) who is arguing for which positions and c) why

― rip dom passantino 3/5/09 never forget (max), Tuesday, May 19, 2009 8:04 PM (52 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

qft

i think some people are 'lol nerds i will eat whatever i want', some people are like 'she is annoying', some people are like, 'you can't grow food in alaska', some people are like, 'yes we can.'

i can grow food in alaska, bitch

waters' "sanctimonious vibe" = her slow, gentle speaking voice and firm beliefs (i.e. misogynist bullshit)

whatever gabby

xp gabbneb: hating on virtuous Berkeley yuppies is more like it.

I don't think it has anything to do with gender.

hating on virtuous Berkeley yuppies is also bullshit, but gender plays a role - her refusal to waver would be more acceptable in a man (like tony bourdain)

i'm just balking at the rationale that restricting your intake of food based on what's grown locally "allows you to be more creative". there are plenty of worthy, positive, awesome reasons to do this -- the thread is full of them -- but that assertion implies that if you don't restrict your diet based on whatever arbitrary rule, then you can't be creative and that you eat boring, uncreative food.

restriction necessitates creativity, yes, but does not produce or permit creativity of itself.

no one's saying that, they're saying you can BE creative in order to fulfill these suggestions. i mean come on.

many xposts
hahahahahah my husband is a misogynist oh noes!

i thought gabbneb was gone--what happened?

he is gone what are you talking about

oh whew thank god

um my wife doesn't like her either

hating on virtuous Berkeley yuppies is also bullshit, but gender plays a role - her refusal to waver would be more acceptable in a man (like tony bourdain)

how about you stop telling people what to think, why they think it, and why they can't think it, okay. . .

i mean, on the other hand keep it up man, you are hilarious and stuff, but you're also pretty sad.

also you're banned

did everyone miss the whole "eating only winter root vegetables allows you to be more creative with them" exchange or did i dream it up

hating on virtuous berkeley yuppies seems like a waste of time if you ask me, it's kinda playing into weird right-wing talking points that are more fiction than reality and besides, i think her main points aren't really impossible or controversial, i think people who are arguing against this are willfully (in some cases) misinterpreting what she's saying. i think there's this notion that because she's this "type" that she's suggesting something only possible for people just like her, when i think it's not the case at all. if anything, suggesting that it's not possible for people who have lower income is a little condescending, maybe?

um my wife doesn't like her either

yeah but I'm a misogynist so NM

i think what was being said with the winter veggies was you can find ways to be really creative with them, it gives you to opportunity to think outside the winter veggie box.

it's not her message I take issue with; it is her fucking annoying personality.

alice waters is like yelp to some people, omar ; )

did everyone miss the whole "eating only winter root vegetables allows you to be more creative with them" exchange or did i dream it up

― roman knockwell (elmo argonaut), Tuesday, May 19, 2009 8:15 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i saw that exchange. get bent was saying, you can be creative and eat locally in the winter. she was not saying, eating locally in teh winter is the only way to be creative with your food.

maybe so, velko

; )

if anything, suggesting that it's not possible for people who have lower income is a little condescending, maybe?

i dunno, suggesting that just anyone can afford to live this sort of lifestyle might be a little more condescending?

see I have just seen zero indication that woman has any sense of humor whatsoever. what am I missing here.

how can you tell when someone's banned?

i think i eat locally i mean usually i end up eating someplace w/ in like a couple of blocks of my apt tbf its not that hard

yall

yes yes

vegetables

i think i eat locally i mean usually i end up eating someplace w/ in like a couple of blocks of my apt tbf its not that hard

hey man that's sound economic development as long as it's a small business!

i hate rutabaga and i resent the idea of getting creative w/ it

i drink locally. sustainable moonshine

what are these magical winter vegetables that are exclusively preferable to getting flash frozen produce or traveled or canned produce and mixing both together? are you all fucking irish?

THIS is why people are pissy about alice waters, she's a figurehead of a whole movement that has become piss stupid so she's being blamed for sanctimony etc etc because of the backlash against supa locavore stans. i would ask why is this always a billion post question but it is the internet.

hating on virtuous berkeley yuppies seems like a waste of time if you ask me, it's kinda playing into weird right-wing talking points that are more fiction than reality and besides, i think her main points aren't really impossible or controversial, i think people who are arguing against this are willfully (in some cases) misinterpreting what she's saying.

She's saying you should only eat avocados if they are grown locally, and I'm saying, people should be encouraged to eat guacamole when and where they want.

i mean alice waters herself is fine, she's a prancy fancy woman who is doing very good things in her local temperately-climated community to help many people, it's the "transferring this entire philosophy as an unbreakable universal rule of law despite all economic, climate, and even actual scientific factors" movement that is like O_o

ya and who is doing that again and forcing it on everyone

i am

omg r u alice

hi alice

ALICE WATERS

HI

my secrets out ill never be safe 2 shop anonymously in whole foods again

love your hat, alice/lamp
http://blogs.menupages.com/sanfrancisco/alice%20waters.jpg

cuet!

i'm down with eating locally in the winter but i'm just not that great with all the homesteady canning & pickling skills and fuck a turnip

no one said you had to fuck turnips to eat locally

i did

fuck a turnip

gis delivers!

Organic relish

imo her philosophy is not one i would ever follow to the letter, but when possible i buy locally grown organic food.

I was moved by the way Morgan Spurlock framed a narrow long-distance shot down the corridor of a Beckley, West Virginia, middle school in his outstanding 2004 film, Super Size Me. The film is about the toll that fast and processed food takes on all of us. Clearly visible in the background of this particular shot were dozens of students, many of whom were overweight.

Perhaps it should come as no surprise that Beckley's cafeteria offers only processed food, which is high in fat, sodium and sugar and of very little nutritional value.

Contrast this with the Central Alternative High School in Appleton, Wisconsin. The school serves troubled youth, but teachers, parents and administrators found a way to turn things around; and when they did, discipline problems dropped sharply. Their secret? Instead of the usual processed meals, the school cafeteria offers fresh, locally grown, low-fat, low-sugar alternatives. The healthier meals are delicious. The students love them. They perform better in class and don't get sick as often.

We are learning that when schools serve healthier meals, they solve serious educational and health-related problems. But what's missing from the national conversation about school lunch reform is the opportunity to use food to teach values that are central to democracy. Better food isn't just about test scores, health and discipline. It is about preparing students for the responsibilities of citizenship.

That's why we need to talk about edible education, not just school lunch reform. Edible education is a radical yet common-sense approach to teaching that integrates classroom instruction, school lunch, cooking and gardening into the studies of math, science, history and reading.

Edible education involves not only teaching children about where food comes from and how it is produced but giving them responsibilities in the school garden and kitchen. Students literally enjoy the fruits of their labor when the food they grow is served in healthy, delicious lunches that they can help prepare.

I learned this firsthand through the Chez Panisse Foundation -- the organization I helped create to inspire a network of food activists around the world with edible education programs in their own communities. Here in Berkeley, I see children in our edible education program learn about responsibility, sharing and stewardship and become more connected to themselves and their peers. In the process, they come to embody the most important values of citizenship.

Listen to what one student named Charlotte has to say: "Next we went from the blue corn to the sweet corn and each picked an ear to grill. I must say it tasted really good, even without butter." Or Mati: "I think cleaning up is as important as eating. Cleaning up is sort of fun. And we can't just leave it for the teachers, because we made the mess." Or Jose: "I remember the first time I came to the kitchen. I was afraid to do anything. But then I realized, this is my kitchen. So then I started to enjoy it."

Charlotte, Mati and Jose are learning about so much more than lunch. They're learning that farmers depend on the land; we depend on farmers; and our nation depends on all of us. That cooperation with one another is necessary to nurture the community. And that, by setting the table for one another, we also take care of ourselves. School should be the place where we build democracy, not just by teaching about the Constitution but by becoming connected to our communities and the land in more meaningful ways.

In 1785, Thomas Jefferson declared that "Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most independent, the most virtuous, and they are tied to their country and wedded to its liberty and interests by the most lasting bonds."

I believe he was right. The school cafeteria, kitchen and garden, like the town square, can and should be the place where we plant and nourish the values that guide our democracy. We need to join a delicious revolution that can reconnect our children to the table and to what it means to be a steward. This is the picture of a caring society, and this is the promise of edible education.

"a delicious revolution"

gives new meaning to "eat the rich"... or wait... er... whatever. i for one welcome our new, tastier overlords.

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/201001/school-yard-garden

weird that the atlantic would commission a pointlessly contrarian article arguing that its bad to teach kids how to grow their own food

Flanigan just come across as a mercenary sniper in that review and the description of Chez Panisse is not only snarky but not really like any of the times I've been there. It's as if she's looking to be displeased.

Frankly, yes, Waters can be a bit sanctimonious but piling on her now is just the sport of the really, really lazy.

"So I drove over to my nearest ghetto: Compton, the most famous hood in America!!! And I live less than 20 minutes away (thank gawd!)"

grrr fuck you atlantic monthly

Plus, if you're going to be snarky about Chez Panisse, fuck culture wars bullshit about the public option etc..., how about the fact that it's a ruthlessly efficient cash cow factory? Yes, even in Berkeley entrepreneurial capitalistic business can flourish.

It’s rare for an immigrant experience to go the whole 360 in a single generation—one imagines the novel of assimilation, The White Man Calls It Romaine.

really unfunny joke she repeats at least once

Students’ grades quickly improved at King, which makes sense given that a recipe is much easier to write than a coherent paragraph on The Crucible.

I stab you in the face for this sentiment

The weakness in the argument is that learning about growing food can be allied to a variety of subjects from science to math to language and such an endeavor is not really comparable to being exploited for unskilled labor in a corporate field.

sorry but food is kinda sorta more important than literary analysis, in the grand socioeconomic scheme of things

x-post

but also what M. White said

her argument is basically "why teach kids about growing food when capitalism can provide them with a supermarket full of different chile peppers"

I'm not so sure of that, Shakey, but, and this is my inner eco-hippy talking, there is a spiritual side to knowing one's place in the great scheme of things, to feeling one's place in the great circle of life, which is, perhaps, more directly accessed via gardening than books.

xpost

Before she found success as a writer, Flanagan was an English teacher and college counselor at the elite, private Harvard-Westlake school in North Hollywood, California. [4]

Her essays underscore the emotional rewards and social value of a traditional housewife's role, and she herself works from home, albeit with the help of a nanny and a housekeeper.[5][6] Consequently she has received criticism for misrepresenting her life choices, and then condemning other women for not choosing the more traditional lifestyle.[7]

hahah i was just gonna

Yeah, slocki, I also like how she not only she pisses on the people who are picking those chile peppers but encourages them to piss on their fellow workers. It's essentially the same old stupid politics of resentment that the populist left and right use to substitute for a reasoned argument when they're too lazy for aught but demogoguery.

I just mean that growing food is like THE fundamental act of a society's survival - to pretend that amateur lit crit is somehow more important is just ludicrous

x-posts

Yeah, I hear you, Shakey. I was looking up the etymology of 'delve' this morning (as is my wont) and was surprised that it originally meant 'to dig' since I think of it now as primarily meaning to study at depth.

I think it was used figuratively for 'to farm' in the old question, "When Adam delved and Eve spun, who was then the gentleman?"

dear lord where does this woman live that's 20 minutes from Compton? Rolling Hills Estates/Palos Verdes?

she acts as though these classes are trying to send em back to the fields rather than teaching some basic skills about growing your own food in your own backyard someday.

ya it's so fucking disingenuous, especially her made-up example that ledes the story

"to pretend that amateur lit crit is somehow more important is just ludicrous"
I dunno, man, sometimes I feel like I need to close read a rutabaga.

i love it when people basically make up shit like this so they can put themselves in the position of standing alone, bravely, in opposition to it.

I dunno, man, sometimes I feel like I need to close read a rutabaga

gaze not into the rutabaga. for if thou gazest into the rutabaga, the rutabaga also gazes into you

ummmmm
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/61880/april-19-2006/caitlin-flanagan

i love it when people basically make up shit like this so they can put themselves in the position of standing alone, bravely, in opposition to it.

You know, omar, I really feel like much of the evil out there, esp. on the right, stems from the childish desire to be Churchill in the wilderness years; unheeded but right and right about something monumentally important. It's a kind of desire to be both a rebel and an insider and it's an emotional response to the helplessness and humiliations of being a child in an adult's world. I see it all the time and all I can think is, 'Grow the fuck up, ffs!'

they were right about communism (which is pretty much the ONLY time the modern right-wing ended up being on the right side of history) and they pine for that moral certainty, that righteousness.

OMG, what an emetic twat she is, Steve. I feel like going to rinse out my eyeballs now.

everyone's mad at caitlin flanagan : )

the difference between right-wingers and insane conspiracy theorists is often a very fine line...

http://cache.gawker.com/assets/resources/2007/06/caitlin.jpg

fairly cogent takedown of flanigan's article over at seriouseats:

http://www.seriouseats.com/2010/01/alice-waters-edible-schoolyard-atlantic-monthly-criticism-caitlin-flanagan.html

I'm not sure the line exists at all. The entire right-wing response to climate change amounts to a conspiracy theory - every climate scientist in the world is in on the plot to deprive you of your right to an F-350 (except the honest ones being paid by ExxonMobil, of course).

And finally (for this email, at least), this absurd politicalization. Say anything you want about Alice and her occasionally overzealous following—of course, they can be self-righteous—but growing a garden is hardly a radical act. And since when is teaching kids about nutrition a political issue? Every school in America has some kind of health class, and there's no more basic health skill than feeding yourself well.

Flanagan stretches the term "indoctrination" far beyond its borders. Indoctrinating our children with the notion that vegetables are good for you! The horror! She's no better than those Fox News pundits who claimed Obama was "indoctrinating" kindergartners about health care—when he told them to wash their hands. It's all the same inflammatory bullshit.

lol tru xpost

kinda goes along with the obama shit too.

ugh, i can't even get through that Atlantic article. the equivalence she draws between kitchen gardens and agribusiness in her opening flourish was enough to convince me to stop.

yeah, had a hard time getting through it too, but did just to see if she was going to get to a real point or get smart or something. painfully superficial.

e.g., education content/subject-matter vs process. like she was basically saying that learning to grow things can't possibly make you smart and it definitely won't make you money. because geez, who would pay someone anything but minimum wage to provide us with quality food that will keep us alive and healthy.

anyway, in a devil's adovocate sense, i think if one's going to argue against the gardens-in-schools/as form of education 'trend' one should tackle the question of whether everyone really needs to know where their food comes from. or where oil comes from. or etc etc.
of course, i think it's important to know, especially from a process point of viewr re: education and understanding ("we live in a society!") - everything is a part of a bigger complex system (environment, production, economy, etc.)

but yeah, blargh this

I think anything that involves kids not sitting at desks for eight hours of the day should be wholeheartedly supported.

The whole thing about the Berkeley King school is that they use the urban farm idea as a jumping off point for a bunch of other scholastic disciplines. They don't say "enough with math; let's just learn to farm!" For example, any math program creates real-life scenarios in which math might be used. ("Two trains are traveling in different directions..." etc.) King uses food as a subject matter for economics, history, math, etc., etc. The program doesn't replace those disciplines at all. Also, the kids eat healthy meals and work in a garden, which I guess is pretty fucked up.

for sure. and anyone for that matter!
xpost

Imagine if, as a Mexican laborer, you came to the US on a dangerous and illegal journey, performed stoop labor to save money, and calculated how much you would need to pay your bills and afford a better life. Now imagine that, years later, on the first day of school your son is told to grab a pencil and perform the very same functions of basic arithmetic you had used when you were scraping by on a poverty-level income.

Imagine if, as a Mexican laborer, you dreamed of being able to construct a coherent paragraph about the Crucible

Imagine if, as a Mexican laborer, you were from Mexico.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-alice-waters2-2010apr02,0,3120516.story

But she takes a dim view of In-N-Out, though it touts fresh ingredients and hand-cut French fries. "It's probably better than any other chain," she said, "but it's not real or authentic. I'd rather eat from a street vendor in Sicily."

"I'd rather eat from a street vendor in Sicily."

i probably would too BUT THATS NOT VERY LOCAL TO ME.

In-N-Out is about as real and authentic as it gets Ally-baby... wtf.

"I'd rather eat from a street vendor in sicily" loooooooooooooooooooooollll

I'd rather get a blowjob from a Na'vi in a Ferrari while drinking liquid diamonds but....

wtf is unreal about in-n-out

now IM mad at alice waters

she'd rather eat from a street vendor in sicily

"octopus, octupus, octupus, i'd KILL for a friggin' hamburger right about now."

http://www.epicurean-traveler.com/articles/Conticello_Gordan/Conticello%20gifs/cutting-octopus1.gif

i spelled octopus wrong. yeah, that kinda quote always gets me. it's just a weird thing to say, kinda. and kinda clueless. why not just say: i'd rather eat something simple and quick that i think is better.

clueless as in it does really smack of let them eat cake, etc, etc.

chickpea fritters! so that's what they are eating on the street in sicily. mmmm....

http://sicilyguide.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/pane_panelle1.jpg

so much realness and authenticity right there.

"I'd rather eat an ear of corn from a guy with a pink hat and a precarious thing filled with buckets and plates on a beach somewhere...else..that isn't here!"

http://aradsch.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/img_4130.jpg

That's only the third most-insane quote from that article:

""We have to get over the idea that food should be cheap," Waters said." - fuuuuuuck you
"Prohibited from flying in any ingredients, save for the pixie Kishu tangerines from Ojai that Waters adores, Moullé fretted." - okay, so it's all locavore, unless it's a fucking fancy tangerine that Waters loves?

i do kinda love alice though. i love clueless crank visionaries. she'll be ranting about the need for forced sterilization of american infants before you know it, the beloved old fogey.

i get the cheap thing. the whole you shouldn't be able to buy an entire chicken for four bucks cuz it means factory farming, too many chickens, disease, environment, etc, etc.

but it never sounds good coming from rich people.

authenticity only counts when it's really elsewhere

if you are miss local foodstuff and you have the opportunity to give people ideas about cheap local alternatives to burger joints in the newspaper then, um, maybe you should!

really i'm just kinda hungry. don't mind me. gotta go home.

i just saw someone with the biggest goddamn soda i've ever seen! it must have been a 100 oz soda!

Damn if I lived on that beach I would always wear that pink hat.

Today marks the 30th anniversary of Berkeley's Cafe at Chez Panisse (1517 Shattuck Ave.). Inside, Alice Waters will offer a special menu, but outside angry people plan to picket to protest Waters' failure to oppose the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission's dumping of (what they claim to be) toxic sludge compost on Bay Area gardens. It's never easy turning 30.

toxic sludge = real+authentic imo

it's local sludge! i fully support the slow sludge movement.

She found a substitute, and now day-old chicks arrive at the Vacaville post office from Pennsylvania every Friday and spend 10 weeks in the pasture.

sounds pretty local to me

also iirc chicken's can't fly, especially day old chicks- how do they cross the country then??

You can send baby chicks in the mail. They die of thirst within 24 hours though so they have to be sent fast. Source: friend who mail orders living baby chickens.

http://hoklife.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/chickens-flying.jpg

enh, that article just kinda made me like her more, tbh

^^^ gets his fast food in sicily

brb goin to sicily for some fast food

jet set street food for the haute bourgeoisie

""We have to get over the idea that food should be cheap," Waters said." - fuuuuuuck you

She's otm there, though. The things that are done in order to make food be cheap are heinous.

malnutrition is pretty heinous as well

True but I don't think the current "solution" to make food cheap is by any stretch a good one

death from heart disease and high blood pressure and diabetes and clogged arteries pretty heinous too.

so many things--heinous!

http://rlv.zcache.com/especially_heinous_for_dark_apparel_tshirt-p235339972191443432t5ck_210.jpg