My curious relationship with food

Have been recently rethinking my relationship with food. Two important things have happened to me (to those that know me well: uncle, uncle re: buying cookbooks! I'm down to one per month. I'm not hurting anyone!).

Living La Vida Local
I've signed up for a community-supported-agricu

ltural share (for more info see: http://www.thefoodproject.org/buy/internal1.asp?ID=137) BY MYSELF. In past years, I've buffered myself from the experience by sharing my box with friends or neighbors. If food went to waste, I didn't have enough to justify a second thought.

Spurned on in part by Pamelasitas no meat/no poultry diet I've gone hard core. The box is mine alone. I can count on Pam to take a bite of most everything I make but honestly all them vegetables are on me.

To make matters worse, I'm a farmer's market junkie. I often buy food just because it's gorgeous -- not because I intend to eat it. With the box I'm forced to stop my wasteful ways and focus on eating the food God, by way of the Food Project, has given me.

Last week I had bouquets of scallions (I stored them in a vase for a day or so). I made pad thai noodles and scallion pancakes. BAM.

Week 4 -- I definitely had to step up my game. Our groceries have practically doubled as mother nature is ramping up. I've decided to meet the challenge by resisting unnecessary consumption and to frame all of my meals with the box foods.

Lovely nubile carrots: Indian spiced carrot soup with ginger (http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Indian-Spiced-Carrot-Soup-with-Ginger-241886). Gigantor zucchini: zucchini-pineapple-walnut bread and rice-zucchini frittata.

There were some wonderful loopy garlic shoots in the box too -- they look like curly scallions. I'm using them where ever there onions and garlic are called for. This is what I enjoy about the box: it gets me out of my food comfort zone. I eat what's in season and I'm eating things I would never buy. Like my grandparents used to do. Red swiss chard, watch out!

Don't Compare Your Life to Others. You Have No Idea What Their Journey Is All About.
Pam and I have been asked to lead Trinity Church's Rosie's Place ministry. This involves cooking a meal for 130 people one night per month.

I'm blown away by the face of hunger. Whatever you think hungry people look like -- rewind! There are mothers with their school-aged children, grandmamma's, girls-nite-out women, old hermit-like ladies, addicts, trannies, back-packing students, bejeweled ladies who've fallen on hard times, mentally ill people, butches, femmes, Chinese, Haitian, Dominican, Af/Am, White, Eastern European, Indian, Jamaican, and people that look like you and me. In short: e'rybody.

What I love about working at Rosie's Place: composing the meal, competing with other fast choppers, passing with the King's English (there are very few people of color volunteering), stirring/sauteeing/mixing big vats of food, listening to people's stories, flirting with the women (it's not about sex. It's mostly about: hey baby, I see you) and feeling real.

Sort of related: visited my dad in Brooklyn last week: he and my step-mom, Conchetta, grow tomatoes and use them to make home made sauce.