Of barley, beasts and the decline of the kitchen

I clicked onto a fascinating article today, about a show that I have never watched, which is apparently becoming a huge fad in America these days, no pun intended: The Biggest Loser.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/04/dining/04loser.html?em

At the bottom of the story, this alarming statement is shared:

"The decline of home cooking worldwide, is an underlying cause of obesity."

The article describes how these terribly obese people are weaned from bad habits and introduced to actual food that doesn't come salted in a vacuum packed bag. They learn about spices and fresh produce, and how to savor the flavors that Mother Nature has made, not some factory in New Jersey.

Americans by the millions, it is said, have begun to forget the basics of how to use their own kitchens. And apparently this is the case in other "developed" nations as well.

Well, I, too, eat fast food more than I should, thanks to my work schedule. Had a burger just last night. But being able to cook in my own kitchen, when I get the chance, is a treat for me, not a terror.

I can vouch for the fact that some of the ingredients I try to purchase for recipes, are nearly extinct or virtually unknown. I had the devil of a time trying to find barley a few years back. The grocery stocker had no idea what it was. Barley -- a basic grain eaten by human beings for 10,000 years! C'mon!

I spent a full year trying to track down cracked wheat for a bread recipe.

I'm not talking about beluga caviar or rafflesia fruit, for Pete's sake. I'm talking about grains - staples of the human diet, things any peasant worth his woolens, with a farthing in his grubby paw, could have hefted home from market in the old days and with which the goodwife in the cottage could have whipped up something tasty.

We were once a people who hunted our own game, built our own homes, boiled up our own soap, churned our own butter. We've left our roots behind. Some of that is not a bad thing -- if I had to hunt beasts in the forest to fill my belly, I wouldn't get much else done on behalf of society.

But we neglect our culinary skills at our own peril.

I just may start watching this show.

Have we lost our manners or our minds ... or both?

Someone posted this up on that yahoo questions-answers website, and the issue was resolved and closed before I could add my input.

"Would this be considered rude?
Last week I was at Disney World, and I stopped for a cigarette break in one of the "designated smoking areas", which is clearly marked and written on all the trashcans and ashtrays as the only places to smoke in the park. It's even marked on the maps so people know exactly where they're located.

Well, all was fine and dandy until about a minute after I sat down and lit up a cigarette, when a couple decided to sit down next to me in the smoker's area to eat. After a few seconds, the lady started doing the "fake cough" that non-smokers do when they're annoyed by your smoking, then she just gave me an evil death stare. When I didn't respond to her, she went off on me about how disgusting smoking is and saying "Can't you see we're f**king trying to eat here?!?!"

I was shocked. Yes, I know smoking is disgusting and gross and yadda yadda yadda... but if she felt that strongly about it, why on Earth would she sit down in the smoker's area to eat her food? Out of all the places in Disney World to sit down, you choose to sit in the smoker's area and then yell at ME?!? The area is CLEARLY marked... she could have sat across the street... I don't get it.

So was it rude for her to yell at me or did I do something wrong that I'm not aware of? Why would she sit next to me in the smoking area if she felt so strongly about smoking? I'm so confused.
2 weeks ago
Additional Details
2 weeks ago

Thanks for the answers everybody. I wish I wasn't so non-confrontational... I wish I said something to her, but I was just in shock that I was being cussed out at Disney World of all places for seemingly doing nothing wrong.

I know most nonsmokers are offended by cigarette smoke, and I'm pretty used to being berated for it, so I always try to be as polite as possible, which I thought I was doing by smoking in one of the few places I was allowed to in the park.

I don't know if she was trying to prove a point or what she was trying to achieve by sitting there... I mean, she was sitting practically right in front of the ashtray, so she obviously knew she was in the smoker's area. I seriously don't understand."


Something no one mentioned in their responses to this poor guy: not only was it a designated smoking area, he was in that place FIRST. When it comes to the great outdoors, unless there is a sign that clearly says NO SMOKING, if I see someone smoking and I choose to sit next to them,I have zero right to complain.

More and more lately, it seems that when it comes to smoking, people have utterly forgotten their manners -- and I am NOT talking about the smokers!

As most of you know, I do not smoke. But I passionately object to people using their dislike of smoking as a screen for simple, ugly rudeness. It's the smokers today -- who will be attacked tomorrow?

And now I will step down from my soapbox and let my blood pressure return to normal.

Why Wednesday will be important this week

Celebrate National Girls and Women in Sports Day -- from the National Women's Law Center.



"This Wednesday is the 23rd annual National Girls and Women in Sports Day, which began in 1987 as a day to remember Olympic volleyball player Flo Hyman for her athletic achievements and her work to assure equality for women's sports. NGWSD is marked annually with events around the country and on Capitol Hill to celebrate the athletic achievements of girls and women and to promote the continued expansion of opportunities for girls to play sports and live physically active lives.

"Unfortunately, women and girls continue to face barriers to fair play in the athletics arena, far too often receiving far fewer opportunities to play sports than their male peers and inferior benefits and services when they do play. This year, champion female athletes and young girls will arrive in Washington D.C. to advocate for bills in Congress that address the ongoing inequalities girls face at the high school level by requiring these schools to report information on the gender breakdown of their teams and athletics expenditures.

"One way to shine a spotlight on the problems that women and girls still face in athletics is to require schools to publicly disclose gender equity information about their athletics programs. A federal law requires colleges to make such information publicly available each year, but high schools are not required to disclose these data, making it difficult to ensure fairness in high school athletics programs.

Two bills that were introduced in the last Congress — the High School Athletics Accountability Act and the High School Sports Information Collection Act — will soon be reintroduced. These bills will address widespread inequities by requiring high schools to report information, broken down by gender, on sports participation and expenditures. Much of this information is already collected by schools, and making it publicly available will allow schools, parents, and students to evaluate their athletics programs to make sure that they are treating boys and girls equally.

"Women and girls continue to make tremendous contributions to sports, and they in turn reap great academic, economic, social and health benefits. Yet more than thirty-five years after Title IX was enacted, too many schools still are not providing their female students with equal athletic opportunities."



Support:
National Women's Law Center,
11 Dupont Circle NW Suite 800 Washington, DC 20036 202.588.5180 202.588.5185 (fax) http://www.nwlc.org/

My desk

The view from my desk today, with Miss African Violet in full bloom.

A drawing I don't like

Someone emailed me a sketch the other day, entitled "What Really Happened on the Hudson."

It appears beautiful, at first glance, showing divine hands holding up that plane that crashed into the Hudson River recently, protecting the occupants from a watery death.

But something in me does not like that mode of thinking at all.

Those divine hands could just as easily have brushed away that flock of geese a few minutes before, preventing the whole terrifying ordeal.

Those divine hands have apparently been withheld when scores of other planes have gone down.

Why would an impartial God save one plane and allow another to crash, each containing a relative random grouping of people, some probably good, some probably evil? I mean, I could understand if some Mafia dons or a gang of Neo-nazis or Bin Laden and his buddies had chartered a flight and God stood by and calmly let it slam into a mountainside ...

I'm not one of those people who finds the existence of evil to be the disproving of God's reality ... although I question the wisdom in creation of such fiendish horrors as candiru, guinea worms and cystic fibrosis. I can grant that sickness and pain can teach important life lessons and shape our character -- but worms that gnaw their way through your feet -- what do those poor African villagers learn from that?

I have chosen to believe this year and I will believe. But I still don't like the picture of those hands. What if you were a relative of someone who was incinerated in a plane on Sept. 11, 2001? How would you react to the implicit message that God directly intervened to save these folks but let your loved ones die?

Immortality

"nh hr=k nfr ms.t=k rn=k rwd r nb." -- Egyptian Book of Breathings.

Translated, "Thy beautiful face liveth in thy children."

(Latter painting by Christine Daae)