what's cooking

I came upon a New York Times article by Mark Bittman last week.  It tackles some of the reasons why people eat junk food over healthier options.  The article begins by considering one of the 'truths' people often come up with- junk food is cheaper.  This just isn't true and it has been proven countless times.  One of my favorite websites is Linda Watson's Cook for Good.  She gives price breakdowns, recipes and the like for cooking on a super-cheap budget healthy and delicious meals for your family.  Another idea that Bittman considers is that of 'food deserts'- areas in the country where real, healthy food just isn't available in the same way that fast food is.  In the end, he describes our culture as a "food carnival."  He talks of the addictive nature of fast food, that it literally changes our brain chemistry.  And he goes so far as to compare it to cigarettes and the politics that went into changing the tobacco industry.

His solution is two-fold, changing the food culture and limiting the marketing of junk food.  As he writes:

What’s easier is to cook at every opportunity, to demonstrate to family and neighbors that the real way is the better way. And even the more fun way: kind of like a carnival.

And as much as the liberal, crunchy, earth mama in my applauded his article and agreed with his premise and understood the importance of this change, admittedly, I also felt a bit chagrined.  I can tell you that we eat out a lot.  Not as much as the 'average' family but enough for me to realize that it's more than I like.  And when I really examine my heart for why we are eating out so much I realize that there's definitely a bit of Bittman's idea that cooking has become defined as work and after a long day that's the last thing I want to be doing, but I also realize that, for me it's also the social aspect of eating out.   My life has become very insular lately.  I find there can be multiple days where I have casual conversations with neighbors or short conversations with friends, but the majority of my 'social sphere' is just Jed and Nate.  Cooking and eating naturally feel like a very social activity, something I want to share with others.  Yet with everyone's different schedules, eating restrictions, bedtimes, kid's eating preferences (and we have our fair share of all of these things in our house, for sure) it makes cooking for friends and their families really hard.  Sometimes I find that 'sharing' a meal with a server or the strangers next to me at a restaurant, feeling the camaraderie of ordering a similar item as other people, allows me to feel a connection that's bigger than my small family.  Sometimes I don't want to feel like I'm in some strange mothering competition where the woman who makes the most elaborate 4 course meal for dinner wins.  I just want to sit down with a bowl of pasta and chat with some friends. 

And, yes, maybe I'm over-thinking all of this but I realize that this is one of those 'truths' I've begun to realize about myself.  I do like to cook.  I have ample food- in the stores, the markets, my own backyard. Yet it can get lonely cooking for my family of three (or 2 in the morning/lunch) and sometimes I just want to hand a friend a grilled cheese sandwich without being judged if the bread its on is homemade, the cheese organic or if I used real butter or not and have an honest to goodness conversation as we eat some cheesy goodness.  And, if I'm going to be completely honest here, sometimes I'm just too lazy to want to make the same old thing again.

Hmm, clearly this article got me thinking.  I suppose I could go on and on about the breakdown of society, etc etc.  Or maybe I just need another piece of banana bread with chocolate chips :)  Either way, food for though, right?!