Food, Farming, Dinner Parties

Good posted an article today about 30 Project, an organization trying to bring attention and change to our food system. I find these food campaigns, though definitely necessary and educational for some, boring and redundant for me. I’ve grown up knowing exactly where the majority of my food comes from (often, my family’s farm). My mom cooked. I know how to cook, even if I often avoid it out of laziness. I’m not three generations away from the farm, as is most of society.

Also, I often find these local/slow/organic food discussions and the people who have them pretentious and inaccessible to the people who really need to hear about healthful cooking but don’t have the time or money to research the issue or scout out their farms and farmers’ markets. (But maybe that’s because I am blessed enough to have grown up with all of this, and have a “Well, DUH” and “What is organic, anyway?” reaction to much of the conversation. I digress.)

But this one caught my attention. It’s encouraging people to throw 30-person dinners, so that friends and neighbors can get together to eat (obviously), but also to talk about the food and where it came from (hopefully somewhere local). Doesn’t that sound fun? Hopefully Chad and I can host a dinner, preferably in our backyard, preferably (but unlikely) with my farming family in attendance. It’d also be a wonderful opportunity to eat some pie.

There’s also a TED Talk given by Ellen, who is “totally obsessed with food.” I haven’t watched the whole thing yet, but I bet it’s fascinating. It is, after all, a TED Talk.