Radio Daze

It seems like there has been lots on the radio these past few weeks about food - and much of it worth listening to.

Michael Pollan has a new book on cooking, and appears to be on tour with it.  His interview on Science Friday was pretty interesting.   I did have some concerns, though, about who might be listening to or reading about his experiments with fermentation, and what they might come up with.   If you know me, you know I could never be one of the sanitation police, but people who do experiments with bacteria without understanding the science could be in for some trouble.  
http://www.sciencefriday.com/segment/05/03/2013/michael-pollan-you-are-what-you-cook.html

And, Mark Bittman has a new book, too, and is making the rounds. This sounds like the third in a series on the same theme. Bittman's Food Matters laid out the program of part-time veganism, then the cookbook of more revised recipes followed, and now the program in detail, perhaps, with an elaborated description of being vegan before 6 p.m.   I'm a Mark Bittman fan, but I began to lose interest when someone keeps rewriting the same material.  I also have a question about vegan breakfasts and meaty dinners.  Perhaps this is the easiest rule to follow for those who have a social life.  But if I could eat fish and cheese and eggs and butter at only one meal, I'd want to be Swedish and have them for breakfast.
Bittman was interviewed on the San Francisco radio call-in show, Forum.  
http://www.kqed.org/a/forum/R201305090900
I'm not going to buy the book - just for the tofu jerky recipe?  no -  but I still enjoy Bittman's reasonableness.

On the local scene, Andrea Davis of Quarter Acre Farm has a new radio show, Sustainable Growing, on SunFM Radio in Sonoma. Andrea is a hard-working, creative and articulate small scale organic farmer.   If you don't live in Sonoma, or aren't free to listen on Fridays at 2 p.m., you can listen via podcasts posted on the web site.
http://quarteracrefarmsonoma.com/sustainable-growing-radio-show/past-shows/

Pollan Fan Club episode # 973

Probably everybody else has already seen this - certainly a few have told me about it -
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/11282008/profile.html

A little new material, much recycled - but for a different audience - probably ones who can identify with Moyers taking the grandchildren to MacDonald's so they can cheat on their diet.

Wear clothes. Not too many. Mostly plant fiber, animal hair, or pounded bark.

Michael Pollan, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto (Penguin, 2008) urges us, with humor and good sense, to "eat food, not too much, mostly plants."

Put that together with headlines like


Nalgene to nix BPA bottles due to consumer concern
(Houston Chronicle, April 18, 2008, 10:38AM)
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/fn/5712126.html

and you have to wonder what's next....

Containers your great-grandmother would've recognized as containers.

Clothing your grandmother would've recognized as clothing.

Music your parents would've recognized as music....


What Michael Pollan writes about is hard to dislike - and encourages a simpler way of consuming food, simpler in the 'common sense' way, but not simpler in terms of obtaining foodstuffs. It requires intentionality, care and attention. And may pay off in better health, for you and the planet.

One enjoyable suggestion is to purchase food at local farmers markets and 'shake the hand that feeds you'. In Sonoma County, California, you can, for example, buy at farmers markets (in places like Healdsburg) organic potatoes from the farmer - the same potatoes you would be served at the French Laundry or John Ash restaurants.

Buying containers from the potter, purchasing coffee from the growers' collective, buying cheese at the dairy, etc., -- both a pleasure and good sense. Could living good also mean living well?