In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

Category: Food

Food for a dollar

A fascinating look in the New York Times at what $1 buys you. It’s helpful context for people who argue that The Obesity Epidemic wouldn’t be such a big deal, and Americans wouldn’t be in such poor health, if we just at more fruits and vegetables. Fresh fruits and vegetables — and especially specialty organic products — cost money. And if you only have $1 to spend — or only a few dollars to spend — you aren’t going to put it toward buying 10 organic blueberries, or one organic grapefruit.

Fundamentalists Ruin Everything.

Basil, a restaurant in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, is a kosher joint that seeks to bridge the gap between the neighborhood’s very divided Jewish and black populations. And it sounds pretty great!

Danny Branover, Basil’s principal owner, was struck by that when in 2001 he moved from Jerusalem to Crown Heights, which he chose because he, his wife and their children — he has seven now — belong to the Lubavitch movement. He remembers thinking that its Jewish and black residents were more estranged than the Jews and Arabs in Israel, who, he notes, have profound political differences and much more reason to distrust one another. That confounded him.

“I talk to anybody,” Branover says. His father, a Russian physicist, joined the Lubavitch movement as an adult, while his mother, along with many other relatives, never embraced religion with quite the same fervor. “I like interacting with people. It was very annoying.”

Besides which, part of the distinctive philosophy and theology of the Lubavitch movement is to reach out to, educate and inspire others: only when the world is a more virtuous place, the thinking goes, will the messiah come. So why, Branover always wondered, did so many Lubavitchers in Crown Heights keep so steadfastly to themselves?

Branover started Basil to bring the diverse communities in Crown Heights together. He hired a Catholic Latina manager, who in turn hired a culturally diverse staff. There were some bumps in the road — waitresses singing “happy birthday” without realizing that Hasidic men aren’t allowed to listen to women sing — but generally things were going pretty well. Until:

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Food Responsibility

We all know that fast food isn’t the healthiest, but these calorie, fat and sodium counts from popular fast-food restaurants are still really horrifying. More than 10,000 milligrams of sodium in one order of chicken wings? I don’t think I eat 10,000 milligrams of sodium in a week.

The article itself focuses, predictably, on The Obesity Epidemic, and how these kinds of foods are making us all fat. More importantly, these kinds of foods are making us really, really unhealthy. And while most of us probably realize that eating a whole cheesecake is not going to be great for us, some of the foods on this list are particularly sneaky — like a chicken burrito that has more than a day’s worth of fat, calories and sodium. I don’t think that most people are under the impression that Chipotle is healthy, but if you’re on the run and trying to make a health-conscious choice, the chicken option might be your pick. Similarly, the portion size at some of these restaurants is unreal — if a dish is marketed as a “personal pizza,” it shouldn’t be enough food for four.

Part of the problem with the American dependence on fast food is cultural, which is enabled by (and to some degree helps to create) the structural problems that keep us from accessing the healthiest foods possible. We’re bizarrely puritan when it comes to centering pleasure in our lives — we just don’t do it. We think that Just Say No works for food and for sex — two of the most basic human pleasures and (on a species-wide, if not individual, level) necessities — but then we heavily market the most reductive and unhealthy versions of both. We’re inundated with advertising that uses women’s bodies as symbols of sex itself and with mainstream pornography that centers heterosexual male experience and dominance. Culturally, we’re not focused on holistic sexual pleasure so much as easy titillation and shock-value sex, coupled with disdain and judgment towards people who actually do have sex in whatever way is deemed outside of local values — whether that’s outside of marriage, or at too young of an age, or outside of a monogamous relationship, or with someone of the same sex, or wherever else we draw that line (and we like to draw and re-draw that line).

We do the same thing with food (and obviously I’m far from the first person to make this connection). We talk a big game about The Horrors of Obesity and the necessity of healthy eating. We blame feminism for taking women out of the kitchen and into the workplace. We look at fat people like they’re moral failures. We watch television shows like The Biggest Loser, which contribute to the cultural myth that If You Just Work Hard Enough, You’ll Be Ok. We ascribe fatness to simply eating too much.

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Following up on the Sydney feminist blogger meet-up

Some folks who couldn’t make it requested that the picnic be blogged, so here we are!

We had loads of fun with much conversation (oh, you wish you were there for the discussion of Middle English slash, I know how you do) and laughter and food. I was particularly taken with the boob cupcakes made by the news with nipples, which were both hilarious and delicious. I was kind of amazed that we had so many people come who live outside Sydney: Bridget came especially from Bathurst and we were fortunate enough to have timed it so that folks from Canberra, New Zealand and the United States could be there, too!

It was a beautiful sunny day and it was fabulous to put some faces to names as well as to catch up with some people I hadn’t seen in a while. Thank you so, so much to those who came, it was a real pleasure to see you all. Hopefully we can do this again sometime.

Just a lost property notice: a black bag was left behind. If it’s yours and you would like it returned, email me at chally [dot] zeroatthebone [at] gmail [dot] com and I shall put you in touch with she who has it.

Vegetarianism and Weddings

The answer to the New York Times’ question “Should a vegetarian bride serve meat at her wedding?” seems pretty straightforward to me: Since she’s apparently marrying herself, as it’s “her” wedding and she is doing the serving, she should serve whatever she damn well pleases.

Of course, marriages usually involve two people, not all vegetarians are women, and what to serve at a wedding should probably be determined by both parties. Details!

That said? Get over it, meat-eaters.* If a wedding is being thrown by someone who is paying for you to eat and celebrate, you eat and celebrate and you don’t act like a brat because you’re eating pasta instead of filet. If you go to the wedding of a Kosher couple, you don’t get bent out of shape when there aren’t oysters and pork shoulder on the menu. As long as no one is passing out PeTA pamphlets or rolling by in the Mitzvah tank, why be bothered? Will it really be awful to go without meat (or pork or shellfish) for one meal?

Of course, there are lines of reasonableness and hospitality, and those lines go both ways. Don’t whine if you’re a guest and there’s no meat, but if you’re the person throwing the wedding you really should not be passing out those PeTA pamphlets. If you’re a meat-eater and you know you have vegetarian guests, you should probably provide a vegetarian option. Also maybe also don’t act like an asshole and charge people to get in to your wedding, or refuse to allow alcohol, dancing or seats at your wedding.** You know, err on the side of hospitality when presented with complex etiquette questions such as “Should I let my guests sit down?”

See? Reasonableness is fun! And I really have a hard time understanding how any of this is such an issue.

Although vegans, I reserve the right to continue thinking it’s ridiculous that you don’t eat honey. I will, in my head and on my blog, continue to argue that such a position is silly and inconsistent, and apparently staked out for the sheer purpose of valuing consistency over rational or independent thought. But that’s just, like, my opinion man, and I promise won’t complain when there isn’t honey at your wedding (although I will raise a brow at your flowers). Just so long as there are chairs. The end.

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*I say that as a meat-eater.
**To be clear, I don’t think you’re an asshole if you don’t have alcohol at your wedding. The “no alcohol, no dancing, no seats” line is from one specific story of a particularly horrific wedding — it was the “no seats” part that I found particularly offensive.

Sam Sifton describes my ideal man.

In his review of the delicious Prime Meats, which I fear is now going to become even more crowded (the weisswurst and the spaetzle are otherwordly), Sifton describes the staff as “exceptionally well trained and efficient, a crew of handsome men and women dressed as if ready to ride horses back home to Bushwick, where they trap beaver and make their own candles.”

Sounds about right. Also sounds like a delightful one-sentence description of my ideal man.

I know we can’t all write like Sam Sifton, but give it a shot. Your attempt to paint an enchanting little portrait of your perfect mate (or friend or whatever). Go!

If you want to know the best places to eat in New York…



Dinner on the rocks, originally uploaded by JillNic83.

Ask marijuana users. This article basically lists half of my favorites places in NYC (Frankies, Roberta’s, Momofuku, Prime Meats, the Breslin). Wow. Apparently I like haute stoner cuisine. But really, who doesn’t? (Communists, that’s who).

Why don’t we pay attention to women in the kitchen?

Because men are “chefs,” but women are “cooks.” I do love this article, especially the conclusion:

As Cohen — not to mention any number of thoughtful, well-reasoned articles on the subject — points out, there’s a sore disparity between the number of women running kitchens, and the number of women receiving acknowledgment for same. (Nominal efforts to address the achievement gap, like last year’s Barbie-hued “Women in Food” James Beard Awards, don’t exactly help.) Flat-out sexism is almost never directly addressed in these articles, and so it is that the conversation tends to come back to wondering what it is that’s wrong with women, rather than what it is that’s wrong with the system. There’s the “women cook to nurture, men cook to win” line; the insistence that a cooks’ hard-living lifestyle doesn’t jive with the family oriented preferences of the weaker sex; and our favorite, the frankly ridiculous notion that girls just don’t like to play with fire and knives as much as boys do.

But of course, women can play with fire, and they do it brilliantly. Chefs like Cohen — not to mention folks like April Bloomfield, Gabrielle Hamilton, or brand-new Beard Award winner Koren Grieveson — poke all kinds of holes in these theories; they’re as talented, badass, nuanced, tireless, and innovative as any men cooking today. And yet Cohen and Hamilton, who work independently, are largely missing from the breathless media coverage of all things food-related, and Bloomfield and Grieveson, who have managed to crack into the club, both cook under the aegis of men. Ken Friedman and Paul Kahan are emeritus members of the culinary boys’ club if anyone is, and their long shadows hang over their protégés’ successes.

The more a chef is written about, the more likely he is to win awards, and vice versa — so being excluded from the media-awards continuum hits female chefs coming and going. “Why would an investor back a female chef in a restaurant?” asks Cohen. “He knows that she won’t get the hype and attention a male chef will get.” Hype seems to be the key here, not talent: Women just don’t seem to come by it as easily as men do. That points to there being an outside bias, not an inherent problem; it’s a systemwide failure of inclusion. If Bloomfield, Grieveson, Hamilton, or Cohen were given the kind of attention (and subsequent funding, and subsequent more attention) lavished on young turks like Nate Appleman or David Chang, they could easily achieve comparable rock-star status. Even better, it would be without being ghettoized as “women chefs.”