10.20.2008

Food for thought

New York Times Magazine published an article by Michael Pollan, "Farmer in Chief" a couple weeks ago, written as a letter to the incoming U.S. president.

Michael Ruhlman does an excellent job of distilling the article down so that we have real ideas about how we the public can promote change (revolution, by my way of thinking). I also highly recommend that you read the comments - many of them are informed and interesting.

I have enormous food for thought here. For instance, Ruhlman lists teaching our children to cook as something we can do. I teach my daughter to cook. So much so that, with an enormous amount of trepidation, I'm teaching her (slowly, carefully, patiently...for a change) to use my niiiice knives. She knows her herbs, names of all my cooking tools, etc. etc. etc. Additionally, we have taught her to eat respectfully, for the most part - she eats a snack sitting at the table (not standing in the kitchen) and we always eat dinner at the table with the TV off (with the exception of our TV Dinner Fridays, where we lay a blanket on the floor, eat picnic food, and watch a movie).

However, I can't help but feel that there's so much middle-class privilege that goes along with all this. Why am I not teaching latch-key children who are making their own dinners without any adult supervision whatsoever? I could work with Kiddo's school (and the multitude of other schools in my neighborhood) to get gardens planted (oh, but who has the time?) My point being that I'm doing the bare minimum, if that. And that is not how revolutions happen.

Eat, drink, and consider how else I can contribute...

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