Food Archives

August 6, 2013

Tomato Season

Posted 5:15pm

“They are not for me,” replied the women “some friends are down on their luck, so I’m helping them out with groceries.”

I love this time of year when tomatoes are a plenty.

I recently joined a farm co-op, where you work a few hours a week in exchange for vegetables, meat, and eggs. They just started the work co-op about a month ago, and conversations are plentiful among members about the positive impacts it is having on their lives. I was having one such conversation last Saturday as I helped clear out an area for fall planting.

We were chatting about the wonderful opportunity it gave us, the grounding feeling of working for our food and how rich we felt eating it, when a relation of the land’s owner came up to pick some tomatoes.

“What are you making?” asked my fellow co-op member.

“They are not for me,” replied the women “some friends are down on their luck, so I’m helping them out with groceries.”

As she worked her way down the tomatoes and to the peppers she explained that she was getting them everything they need to make a big of pot of chili, enough to freeze. Something to fill their stomach, and warm their souls.

Looking at the red tomatoes in her arms I couldn’t help but smile. It’s hard to feel down on your luck with a few of those at hand. There is something about a good meal that makes life feel abundant.

I hope that her friends feel abundance and love when they sit down to that meal of red hot chili.

Elise Springuel is an AmeriCorps*VISTA working with the Presbyterian Hunger Program and she likes her tomatoes hot off the vine.

July 3, 2013

I’m Patriotic as CAN be

Posted 4:21pm

Tomorrow is Independence day. The day we American’s celebrate the signing of a document that asserted that all men were created equal and with the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. On the Forth we normally assert those rights and pursue our happiness with flag waving, gracious displays of fireworks, and grilled food. I’m not knocking it, I enjoy a good cook out. But I do find it interesting that many think of this day as display of patriotism.

June 5, 2013

Embracing Imperfect Eating

Posted 9:39pm

I am going to share with you, a poem:

Enriched flour

and cheese powder,

monosodium glutamate

and ammonium sulfate,

silicon dioxide

and yellow number 5

Okay, it is not really a poem. Just a selection of ingredients you’ll find listed on the back of the store brand cheese-its box in my recycling bin…

It’s the dirty laundry of this food justice advocate. But I air these treason in favor inclusion and the prevention of burnout.

December 17, 2012

Food Justice- A WIDE subject

Posted 5:30pm

Earlier this month, I was asked to give a talk on food justice to a near by congregation. I knew this was a broad topic, but I didn’t realize exactly how broad it was until I began compiling my presentation. I felt overwhelmed, the same feeling I usually experience when going into a “big box” grocery store, after spending most of my time at local markets. The choices were unlimited. After discernment and a better understanding of the crowd, I decided to focus on the social dimensions of our food system- looking at those key players that often times go unnoticed. Narrowing the topic still suggested an extensive amount of coverage. Realizing I had to start somewhere, I put together my prezi entitled, “It’s Just Food: Social Inequalities within the American Food System.”

Found here

I began with the story of Thanksgiving. While we can thank those closest to us, we often times never get a chance (or forget entirely) to thank those doing the work to get us our food. After focusing on the producers and suppliers: small farmers, workers in the fields, and more specifically dairy farmers, I switched gears and looked at the consumers, spotlighting the working class living in food deserts, and the homeless. I wanted to give food justice a face, while still showing the extensiveness of this subject.

Our food system has gone astray, so much so that it’s harming other areas of our life and we don’t even realize it (health and well-being). I have grown up in a culture that is famous for the elevator speech. Fit everything you have to say in 20 minutes or less! Starting ….NOW..GO! It’s hard to fit so much information into a 20 minute talk, let alone come up with a quick and easy solution (impossible!). I’m still unsure if people walked away with the message I wanted to bring, but at least I planted a seed.

Vickie Machado is a 2012 Food Justice Fellow. She is currently living full time at the Gainesville Catholic Worker and pursuing her Master’s in Religion and Nature at the University of Florida.

February 8, 2012

Taking the Time to Make Food Sacred

Posted 9:55am

TRY this: place a forkful of food in your mouth. It doesn’t matter what the food is, but make it something you love — let’s say it’s that first nibble from three hot, fragrant, perfectly cooked ravioli.

Now comes the hard part. Put the fork down. This could be a lot more challenging than you imagine, because that first bite was very good and another immediately beckons. You’re hungry.

So begins an article called “Mindful Eating as Food for Thought,” which challenges us to not eat like the Cookie Monster.

And in case you haven’t yet done the Just Eating? curriculum, one of the sessions is all about food as a sacred gift from God. You can download it for free here. Look for Unit 1 on Food Sharing as Sacramental…

And if you’ve never tried a food meditation, here are the simple instructions for a Raisin Meditation!

February 2, 2011

We live in a beautiful world: let’s CELEBRATE!

Posted 1:08pm

A colleague Roger Doiron and Kitchen Gardeners International produced this video about the beautiful food we can choose. Roger found it ironic that “one day after the government issues its strongest recommendation to date to eat less and better foods, the snack food industry lobby launches “National Snack Food Month” to get Americans to eat more and worse.” So they launched 28ate.org . . . for fun, and to bring attention to the billions of dollars spent on advertising unhealthy, processed foods.

August 11, 2010

August Farm Report – Northern California

Posted 4:31pm

It’s been a cool summer out here on the West Coast. We’re all remarking on it. This morning, (on the 10th day of August) I walked about the house thinking about turning on the heat and not for the first…

May 28, 2010

“The strawberries taste like strawberries!”

Posted 5:10pm

It isn’t exactly the magical candyland of Willy Wonka, but it just so happened that when my parents and I were travelling in Peru, they were consistently amazed at the fierce flavors of seemingly commonplace foods. They remarked that they…

March 4, 2010

A Better Way to Feed the Hungry?

Posted 3:28pm

Bill Gates thinks he’s got a brilliant idea: fighting malnutrition abroad by fortifying food. The scheme, backed with $50 million from the Gates Foundation, in part encourages Proctor & Gamble, Philip Morris’ Kraft, and other companies to develop vitamin and iron-fortified processed foods. It then facilitates their entry into Third World markets. Gates seems to believe we don’t have time to address the complex social and political roots of malnutrition. But in opting for this single-focus, top-down, technical intervention, Gates can end up hurting the very people he wants to help.

January 15, 2010

Haiti and your favorite comfort foods

Posted 3:27pm

This was to go up yesterday, until Tuesday’s earthquake devastated Haiti. Rather than cancel the post, I’m posting it with this suggestion… Think about the comfort food you love, the things you love to do, the people in your life whom you love – really generate in your heart an intense feeling of love – and send that to the people of Haiti and to the souls who have so suddenly been separated from their bodies. Favorite comfort foods for North American Presbyterian Hunger Program facebook fans. List! Cheese grits win. Pot roast, mac’n cheese and chicken with dumplings close runner ups.

Posts Categorized: Food