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Shhh! Be quiet, or they'll find us.
I'm typing this from under the kitchen sink in my triple-bolted Brooklyn apartment where I'm cowering in fear of Chef Alice Waters. If the New York Post's Carla Spartos and the New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd are to be believed, the founding Slow Foodista and her hench-polemicist Michael Pollan are hell-bent upon mugging every last McNugget-lovin' American of their free will, hard-earned cash and bags of pre-shredded iceberg lettuce.
It's my fault. I didn't speak up the first time they came and forced me, at Shun-point, to trek to Dan Barber's Blue Hill Farm and choke down sun-warmed, newly picked cherry tomatoes that tasted of summer and promise and the few times my grandfather was kind to me.
I remained silent when they dragged me hemp-bound to the Union Square Greenmarket to spend several dollars less than I would at my local C-Town grocery store to meet the folks who got their hands dirty growing ridiculously delicious heirloom peppers, beans and squash with more Earth-friendly farming practices. And I cried hot, sloppy tears when they pointed and laughed at my insufficiently grained bagel. See, according to Spartos' recent N.Y. Post editorial "Gourmonsters," Officer Waters and her ilk are out to shame us all.
"They're the food police and their patron saints -- Alice Waters and Michael Pollan, chief among them -- are on a crusade to tell you not just what you should eat, but how you should eat it.Silly me.
Like an exclusive clique of anorexic cheerleaders, they think they're better than you."
I thought they were touting the notion that it's a good idea to seek out food that's better for you and does a little less damage to the planet. But, if the hagiolatry of Waters and Pollan isn't your cup of organic oolong, howzabout lending an ear to Chef Michel Nischan's take on these more Earth-attentive buying practices?
In a Gourmet-sponsored lecture at the recent New York Wine Expo, the host of "The Victory Garden" told the assembled crowd that "everybody can be a hero one product at a time. What do your children love to eat most? Strawberries? Chicken? Choose one of these to buy locally and organically. It's not an all or nothing proposition; that's not sustainable."
So what's so funny 'bout peace, love and organic polenta? Yes, Waters is an extreme -- and granted, annoying -- example of virtuousness distilled to 100-proof, but it's hardly as if she and her acolytes are expecting the general populace to rip out their Amanas to install wood-burning hearths like the one in her kitchen. Nor do I imagine that the local branch of the Pollan Youth are going to stomp into our kitchens, slap the Cocoa Pebbles out of our hands and force-feed us organic amaranth puffs. There's a middle ground. Pop an local strawberry on top of those Pebbles to shut 'em up if you feel you must, but you might just find you like it.
Kat Kinsman is the Senior Editor of AOL Food
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4-24-2009 @4:59PM Season To Taste Blog said... LOL--- that trio is just out to ruin lives, with their darned eco-friendly, farmer-supportive, healthy ideas! ;) I'm lucky enough to live in Connecticut where I met both Nischan and Waters (when her daughter was in college here), and I couldn't be more impressed with them. McNugget lovers, well, they are already taking their lives in their hands without the threat of the organic-police!
http://www.twolia.com/blogs/season-to-taste
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4-24-2009 @6:16PM Laughingrat said... Yeah, Waters has displayed some serious blind spots recently, and some classism, but I really doubt that's what this Spartos person is really worried about anyway. Too bad she couldn't find something legitimate to be angry about, like, say, the lack of fresh, healthy, non-processed foods available in the inner city.
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4-24-2009 @7:40PM Vanessa said... You totally scared me there for a moment. I was just about ready to unsubscribe from the Slashfood feed!
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4-25-2009 @6:36PM Kat Kinsman said... Oh dear! Sorry to cause alarm. I'm assuming you mean that it seemed as if Slashfood had joined the Waters-bashing, no? Certainly not the case -- but I hope that means we were doing our job if it seemed as if it was plausible at first.
If it makes you feel any better, I've spent part of the day lovingly transplanting my from-seed heirloom tomato and pepper seedlings to bigger pots, complete with compost I made from veggie scraps and the waste from my pet rabbits. And nope -- I'm not joking at all.
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