Letters to the Editor
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A Question of Priorities
Isn't it nice for Alice that she gets to devote her life to her chosen form of writing and eating? It does sound wonderful. It sounds delicious. But it also sounds highly specialized, costly in some parts of the country, and, frankly, when she questions people's priorities, it shades over into elitism, which generates animosity.
The food's fine. The life-style judgments need to be toned down along with the other life-style snobberies.
You know, it was much easier when people simply high-hatted other people about money in the bank or bloodlines. These days, the lifestyle snobs offer conflicting ways of trying to make us dissatisfied.
While some people have -no- eggs at all and would be glad of any, we have people debating different types of egg production (ethical, grass-raised, or whatever). And then, there are the vegans, who won't eat them at all; and the shifting views of the medical community about cholesterol and eggs, and how many one -should- eat.
EACH of these groups thinks its way is best and how lovely it would be, to say nothing of better for health, the planet, and general esthetics, if everyone did what this group said. To protest this is called defensive and hostile. But advocating it seems to generate a sense of moral and aesthetic superiority. To me, that sounds like a double standard. I don't give you feedback (except when I'm fed up -- on whatever sort of food); spare me your opinions of my lifestyle, unless I ask you.
Health is one thing. The sort of self-gratulatory fastidiousness I see in this sort of lifestyle snobbery, accompanied by sniffs at the accommodations Some People (like me) have to make, is bound to cause annoyance. It's simply too precious for words and the comments about just adjusting priorities are disingenuous. Repeat after me, Alice: it's not that easy.
To say that a working person's doing his or her best to produce nourishing, delicious, and practicable meals just isn't enough and that such a person needs to change his or her ways -- sorry, I call that spinach (locally garden grown, with nice compost and no pesticides, served in season), and I say the hell with it.
I am really tired of feedback delivered from the heights of other people's shibboleths. That's probably a mixed metaphor, but, in or out of season, that's tough.
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Nice, Isn't It?
Isn’t it great when your profession allows you to do what you love? Waters is so enamored with every aspect of food production that no part of the process is dreary, laborious, or bothersome. Nice for her. I, too, love every aspect of cooking (amateurishly) — the shopping, the chopping, the cooking, the eating, and even the cleaning up. Where others come home from work and read the paper or have a scotch, I relax by getting dinner ready. I appreciate her exhortations to eat seasonally, but she will not condemn me to five months of turnips, parsnips, and cabbage. Her advocacy of local produce is admirable, but at 6:00 a.m. I'm doing laundry and walking the dog before work; there is not much time to ascertain the relative merits of this chicken's eggs versus another's.
I am a librarian and it would be elitist of me to plead with people to sit in the library all day soaking up Plato and Toni Morrison, Shakespeare and “A Thousand Splendid Suns.” I know and respect that the nasty habit of earning a living precludes visiting a library (no matter how many others do make time for it). I thank Salon for providing a platform from which Ms Waters can spread her Gospel; I just wish her message was not so provincial. And her book costs $35!
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"Elitist" allegation.
Once again attack the messenger. What is she saying? Our food supply system sucks, our eating habits suck and our health suffers. She suggests that you make an effort. Is she forcing you to do what she does? No, but you can take some suggestions and start thinking. Those same "hippie dippies" you make fun of brought you good coffee, better bread, better wine, great cocktails, great meats and sausages and got you out of your Kraft Macaroni and Cheese childhood to thinking about making macaroni and cheese a la Tyler on Food TV. Yes, when Alice and the hippie dippies in Berkeley started the revolution to better food the owner of Whole Foods was in Texas eating Wonder bread and gravy. So she is extreme, how else will you pay attention. Is it elitist to want other Americans to eat good food? Then fine, don't eat it, go ahead and chow down on highly processed corn syrup and transfats. Go back to eating Tyson chicken bits and never touch a whole chicken, not to mention an organic range free one.
I admit when she talks she comes off stand offish, but her ideas inspired a whole way of eating beyond iceberg lettuce (don't get me wrong a nice iceberg with great blue cheese cannot be beat). And yes it's not practical in some parts of the country.
Finally, her new cookbook is I must say the absolute best. I own about 70 cookbooks and love cookbooks and love to cook. Her older ones really were no use. This one shows how simple it is to cook great and good food without all the fuss. She takes the mystery away. So start easy, use her recipes then go for improving the quality of the ingredients. I bought it for a couple of young people and it really works to teach you just how to feed yourself and truly how easy it is.
Start with some fresh fruits from the farmers market, Then move on to veggies and you will discover the great meats, fish, sausages, jams, cheese etc. at the Farmers market. No, they are not only in Berkeley. Of course in the cold areas they are not around year round. The whole idea is to be connected to the cycle of your food. Next time you rant against globalized capitalism, remember, food is the one place you can take your money out of the system and bring it back home. This hippie dippie has spawned a young industry of artisans, young Americans that are inspired to make great food and change the globalization trend of our markets.
PS. In a recent study us elitist Berkeley hippie dippies have the longest life expectance in America. Gee, maybe there is something to our strange ways. Even though we are annoying as hell to ourelves and others.