Food, glorious food, DO care where it comes from

[plantmom]

I just finished reading Julia Child's My Life in France, on which part of the recent movie was based.  It was striking to read about the early stages of her career, as by the time I heard of her she was well-established.  I feel tremendously sympathetic to her philosophy, seeing how hard she found it to get Americans to cook in a way that was labor-intensive at a time when the trend was away from that sort of thing and toward things like t.v. dinners, McDonald's, and canned ravioli.  Thirty, almost forty years ago, when she was developing her oervre, those aspects of American eating were not as well-established as they are now, yet she had to fight.  Now, it would be both easier and harder, I imagine.  Cooking shows proliferate - there would be far more competition than there was then - yet prepackaged-prepared mashed potatoes are the norm for some people.  We've gone farther in both directions than we had when she was in her heyday.

Time magazine has a wonderful article this week about that transition, and the mess it's gotten us into:  Getting Real About The High Cost of Cheap Food.  Sobering indeed.

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In other news, I went out to garden today, and again had that terrible rash break out on my arms, just like I did last week Monday.  I thought then that it was juniper, but since I hardly touched any today, I wonder if it's a reaction to sun.  Yikes.  I'll be hanging around in the shade until it calms down.