Why are people so grumpy?

What is wrong with appreciating food? With is wrong with gratitude and appreciation for what we have? The thing that sustains out lives?

Yesterday, I stopped in a store on the way home to pick up a few things for dinner and a display of bright red tomatoes caught my eye. I picked one up a looked at it and realized each had the same dimension, same shape, same hue. They were too robust and firm for that bright color and I quickly realized when I lifted one to feel and smell it - it had no odor at all- that I was looking at a pile of cloned hothouse tomatoes. While they have all of the visual appeal and conform to specs for shipping they would be flavorless and probably have a mealy rotten texture.

I probably wouldn't have thought of that a year ago before the farmers market arrived in my neighborhood.

I always liked food and cooking and I used to take that kind manufactured conformity for granted. Now I get a big pile of veggies each week and there are all sorts of variation. Each item demands a certain amount of attention and appreciation. I still take a certain amount of pride and satisfaction when I have a bunch of produce systematically broken down but now I work a lot with smaller knives, going along with the contours that nature wrought rather than aiming for a perfect pile symmetrical pieces of food to cook. With each passing week the food changes – sometimes it is better than others. Sometimes something is spoiled seemingly before it should be or sour or just plain icky. That is more than made up for by the preponderance of food that is miraculously delicious. Each thing demands its own treatment and attention, seasoning as you go along, nothing is boring and nothing comes out exactly the same way twice.

I recently started to make a point of buying something each week I’ve never tried before and then figuring out what to do with it. I pay more attention to how I store my food and a surprising amount doesn’t need refrigeration – and is in fact better if you keep it at room temperature.

I’ve been cooking most of my life and yet this all feels like a new adventure to me because I’m so lucky to live in a place where so much grows and so much of it year round. Now a farmers market is one of those things that is just as indispensable to me as having a decent kitchen- it is an extension of my kitchen and I can’t imagine living in a place without one.

Going to good restaurants is a treat and an inspiration now. I read these things online not just as recreation and entertainment (although there is that) but in furtherance of this process that has brought so much pleasure and has really centered me and changed the way that I view food (and culture and so many things) so profoundly.

Maybe if you don’t get the sensuous experience of turning over a vegetable in your hand, moving it under a blade, interacting with it and feeling out how to process that into something you eat, something that highlights the complexity of that beautiful thing and does it justice- you are probably eating too much fast food and haven’t seen a real vegetable in too long. Put down the hothouse tomato and its brethren, pick up some veggies or fruit that hasn’t been modified to fit in box- with all of the attendant bruises, nubs and ugly bits, take it home and make something tasty out of that. I bet it changes you.

this guy is highly entertaining - in a William Hung disastrous kind of way. The standard fare winger bullshit he strings together (without ever making much of a point- I guess that is not the point though –see Sarah Palin and continuing media coverage of that disaster) is even funnier when recited in his earnest, droning, accountant manner. I guess since fiery persona isn’t working out so well anymore that wingers we’re trying to appear serious? The net effect, that this guy became their great white hope, is too funny for words. Check out minute 4-5 of the following:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-november-4-2009/indecision-2009---local-election-results

just as I'm sick of Salon: the conventional political wisdom, the outrage fest that stands in for feminist analysis, the glorifying of cults of personality around regular columnists- you bring out the one thing that can keep me (my ad viewing eyeballs, and cranky comments around.) Ok- you got me!

Are you pretending to be in another millenia today?

Have you heard of the sexual revolution? Male sex objects- there are too many examples to count.

Maybe you have to pretend that women are not allowed to be sexual creatures so that you can be outraged?

Yes, women are objectified for their beauty. It is pretty well established that objectifying men to the same degree is not a step foward.

Also seem to recall the scorn heaped on Megan Fox was mostly from women...

Are you "ladybloggers" struggling with this merely because of the financial implications?

On one hand you want to chastise women's sexual fantasies, on the other that seems stiffling and patronizing but worst of all threatens to turn off your audience and drive them into Edward Cullen's cold dead hands?