CityMama™

Have you seen Food Inc? If so, how did it affect you?

I haven't really been cooking since Thanksgiving for a couple of reasons. The first is that I've been swamped with work (which is a really good thing for our Little Agency That Could), but the second is because after I saw Food Inc., I've been rethinking everything about what we eat, what companies I want to support, and what I want my kids to know about food.

I want to say that I'm completely done with shopping for food in grocery stores. I want to say that 100% of our produce will come from small, organic farms with sustainable farming practices. I want to say that I'll only buy meat and poultry that is organic, pastured, and from farms who treat their workers with dignity and respect. I want to say that we'll immediately start barrel gardening on our back patio.

I want to say all these things and believe it can be a reality. That my insane schedule and our budget and our values can make this true. I just don't know how possible it will be, but I will try.  This is my intention now and for the new year and forever.

The viewing of this movie (and my subsequent devouring of Joel Salatin's Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal) are just the most recent forms of media that are informing my decision. This revelation has been a long time in the making. First there was Upton Sinclair, John Robbins, Alice Waters, and Cesar Chavez. There was Angelo Pellegrini, Michael Pollan, Eric Schlosser, and Barbara Kingsolver. There was Sicko and Capitalism: A Love Story and King Corn.

There was the Slow Food movement and Greens and living in Portland and remembering my own family food values--how I was raised--beginning with all the gardens we had when I was a kid. Wherever we lived, my mom planted a garden. From Hawaii to California to Oregon, our houses had gardens. I remembered eating arugula from our garden in Hawaii when I was just a kid, when no one knew was arugula was. I thought about the running joke in our family about how someone always found a worm in their salad. How my mom always made her spaghetti sauce from scratch. I never tasted sauce from a jar until I was an adult.

It's no trouble for me to shop at my local farmer's market. It's 3 blocks from my house, every Saturday morning.  There is a sustainable beef seller there as well as a fishmonger, and egg, cheese, and olive oil vendors. I just need to do it more. We need to accept that, yes, it's more expensive, but it's a sacrifice we're ready and willing to make.

I am even going one step further. For a week now, I've been researching pastured chicken CSA shares because I will never eat another commercially grown chicken again. I'm even more excited about the sheep's milk, yogurt, cheese, and lamb CSA that J. and I gifted each other for our 15 year anniversary.  We should be getting those first batches of cheese and yogurt in early spring.

If you haven't seen the Food Inc., I highly recommend it, but prepare yourself to be outraged and incensed--even if you thought you already knew how scary the food industrial complex was. If you're afraid to watch it because of what you might learn, all the more reason to see it. None of us can afford to remain in the dark. You will never be able to hear the words Tyson, Cargilll, Swift, Monsanto, and Smithfield without having your blood boil. You will never look a bagged supermarket chicken or spinach or your holiday ham in the same way. After you watch it, let me know.

Of course, all of this thinking about food and where it comes from and how it gets to our dinner tables has me thinking about other things too. Like how my blog might be a platform for more good. How we can all work together to make sure that everyone can afford good, clean, food. I won't stop sharing my recipes or meal-planning with you, but suddenly, that's not enough.

It's a lot to consider at the end of the year when my brain is so full of work and planning for the holidays in addition to keeping the day-to-day details that go along with raising a family in check, but I wanted to share what I've been thinking.  And, of course, I'd be delighted if you shared what you've been thinking, too. Especially if and when you see the movie.

Friday Link Love (and stories)—12/14/07

Saw an advanced screening of the Kite Runner last night with 100 or so of my closest friends. The movie was good but not amazing. (Tho' the actor who played Amir's father was absolutely riveting. I loved every moment he was on screen.)

It was interesting to see a vision of what Kabul was like in 1978 (bustling, vibrant, a country on the verge of modernity though some aspects were strikingly contemporary) compared with what it is like circa 2000 (destroyed, a treeless wasteland full of crumbling buildings)...

The kite-flying was fantastic. It's hard to get a sense of the kite fights when you read the book if you don't have first hand knowledge of it (kind of like trying to picture a Quidditch game). To see the kites flying, diving, dancing in the sky, was thrilling.

I was up late which is probably why no one in my family woke up this morning until 7:53 AM. Including me. Considering I had to be at school at 8:25AM to drive for a field trip, that's kinda bad news. Since all four of us sleep in the same bed (as of about 2AM every night), it's amazing that no one, not even the three-year-old, got up. I put on the coffee, made two breakfasts, packed one lunch box, told one 5-year-old to get dressed (3 times),  brushed two bouncy pony-tails, threw on last night's boots and jeans, touched up last night's eyeliner, slapped on some deodorant, brushed my teeth, filled my go-cup with coffee, and we actually made it to school at exactly 8:25. Why? Because I'm a mom, and moms rule.

Now for this week's lovin':

Calling all SF Bay Area Kite Runner Fans

If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area and want a chance to see the Kite Runner movie before it comes out, keep on reading.

The Kite Runner movie peeps are running a fun promotion asking people to form "kite flying clubs." Get 100 members and win a chance at a hometown screening before the movie comes out.

The club I started is at 68 members.  We need just 32 more to get to 100 (but more would be great!)  If you are interested in participating in the giveaway, please sign up!  It's easy and only takes about a minute of your time. The deadline of November 15 is fast approaching.

Just click this link and scroll down until you find our group—the Palo Alto Kite Runner(s). (As of today, we are located on page 8 of the list of all groups.) Click the arrow to join the group and away you go!

There are some great runner up prizes as well, commemorative buttons, book marks, etc., but the more members we have the better the prizes are.

Feel free to forward this on to anyone that may be interested!

In brief: J.'s birthday weekend

Beginning Friday and ending Sunday night...

Bourne Ultimatum(awesome)
Bike ride
BBQ'd leg o' lamb
Irish Car Bombs
Notorious B.I.G.
Birthday boy on a beer run.
Whiskey. An entire bottle. Gone.
Wii boxing
2 bottles of Prosecco. Gone.
Chocolate caaaaaaaaaaaake.
Pasta alla Carbonara at 1:00 AM
Hang. Over.
Advils x 6 + chile verde burrito = no more hangover
Naps
Sunday Finnish soup dinner with friends
Sleep, beautiful sleep....

In the midst of all the madness, Bunny exclaimed, "This is the best party EVER!"  And J's 38th? Celebrated.

You Tubeage: Cooking up CG food in Ratatouille

Really, I didn't love this movie like I thought I would, but there's no denying the food was beautiful.  Here's how they did it.

[via MeanMama]

 

In which I combine two hot blog topics in one post

So I fondled the iPhone on the way to take my kids to see Ratatouille. The mall in Honolulu has an Apple store, a movie theater, and an Orange Julius all in one place. Doesn't get any awesomer than that.

First up: The iPhone (which I have written about before). It truly was love at first touch, but not enough to buy the first version of it. Plus, when I want to get it, I want to walk in the store at my leisure and purchase it, not have to wait in line or line up the next day to get my shot at their alotted 20 units. What is it, a Wii? Nuh uh. Homie don't play dat.

When I heard the announcement that the iPhone wasn't going to run on the "good Cingular network" (Edge schmedge) I said, "Eff that." I plan on using my iPhone as my laptop on-the-go, and if so, it must be fast. As much as love my beloved MacBook, hauling it around will be a distant memory once the sleek iPhone hits my mitts. So hurry up and get the shizz worked out, Apple.

Now Ratatouille. I was excited to see this movie because it's a movie about food.  And it's made by Pixar (my fave of the animation studios) so everything looked beautiful. Simply stunning. But I just couldn't get past a rat cooking. Rats are disgusting, and their tails give me the skeeves. So rodents touching food?  For me, it was a lot to (ahem) swallow. Despite its G-rating, I felt that it was really a movie geared toward adults. Both Wallie and Bunny stayed interested the whole way through, but frankly, I was amazed by that, especially since we saw a 7PM showing. My advice: if you have to take the kids to see a movie in the theater this summer, skip Ratatouille and take them to see Surf's Up instead. It's not as pretty to look at, but it has penguins, surfing, and Shia LeBoeuf. With a side of mochi crunch popcorn on a hot summer day, it's a real-cute kid-pleaser.

Borat: Go see it now.

Three words: Naked. Hotel. Wrestling.

Go!

Check out my interview with director Georgia Lee

Recently I had the pleasure of interviewing Georgia Lee about her new film "Red Doors."

OSCAR SIMULBLOG

Updated throughout the night.

I love Jon Stewart.

Hey Joaquin.

Oh, Charlize, honey. Oh, oh, oh. No.

Everyone's chewing gum. Singaporeans must be so jealous.

Helena, The Globes were months ago. You don't wear short dresses to the Oscars.

So many empty seats. Were seat-fillers on strike this year?

Michelle Williams. The hair, the dress, the lipstick. Workin'. All of it.

Bunny sees Morgan Freeman on TV and says, "Is he a queen?" (She might know something we don't.)

Nicole Kidman in a dress whiter than her skin. Didn't think it was possible.

Jennifer Aniston. Did you see the diamond necklace? Blingin'!

Jennifer Garner. Nursing boobs. Work it girl.

Please let Heath win.

NooooooooooooOOOOOOoooOOOoooooo! Philip Seymour Hofzzzzzzzzzzzzz boring.

His name is "Dion Beebe?"

Oh no she di'in't. Reese said (to Hot-quin) " Thank you for going on this journey" like she's on The Bachelor. That had to be the most contrived acceptance speech ev. er.

It's Tootsie! Loved that movie. In my Top 20.

Yay Ang Lee!

WHAT. THE. FUCK.

BAD SEATING KARMA

Last night J. talked me into going to see Firewall, not so much to see Harrison Ford in action, but to snicker at the technical mistakes. So there I am, sitting next to Mr. Network Ops watching the movie unfold, and everytime Han Solo mutters something about encrypted yaddayadda, root whatchamahoozit, or server blahdiblah, he presses his knee into mine as if to say, "Oh, really?!"

Then, when Harrison Ford's character MacGyvers together a contraption made from an iPod and the scanner from a fax machine to copy some information off a computer screen, I knew I'd have to listen to him go on about how there was no power to the scanner and did I see a battery pack hidden somewhere all the way home. And, I was right.

But that's not what I what I wanted to tell you.

What I wanted to tell you is that J. and I have terrible audience seating karma. Something about the two of us together means that inevitably we're going sit next to the Farter or the Loud Talker.

For years, we had season tickets to our local theater company. I looked forward to our Friday night theater dates. Such good actors, such interesting plays, such mental stimulation. I swear that it wasn't having kids that made us cancel our subscription, it was the fact that we got tired of sitting next to:

• the people that would sneak Jack-in-the-Box into the theater and eat it during the play
• the once-upon-a-time-I-was-an-actress who would recite every line along with actors
• the Shifters and/or Tweakers who can't sit still
• the Mouth Breathers
• and Text Message Guy ("Fuck! Webvan's down!")

Last night in the movie theater, there was a guy behind us that kept falling asleep and snoring. Every two minutes on the dot, sawing logs. The people next to us kept turning around and hitting his knees to wake him up.

And, when we walked into the theater and saw the stroller, we knew that our bad seating karma was upon us once more. A snorer and a baby.  That's a first for us, but it wasn't surprising at all.