Keeping the Heat In

As my mother never fails to point out over dinner, I have always been obsessed with food. The vast majority of my childhood memories are oriented around what food we ate where, from the salsa in the sublevel bar in Boston in 1993's dead of winter to fried bread in London in 2004, I always associate my experiences from place to place with the food I discover there.

When my darling friend Katie asked me where I should send her in Paris, I couldn't think of anywhere except the tiny, tres cher Mexican restaurant that Abby and I drunkenly rediscovered on one of our ridiculous nights out. Then, as an afterthought: Centre Pompidou (where we went the first day it got cold for tea and a croque monsieur)! Since the age of 15, the idea of drinks I've had has entered the equation, beginning with Pabst Blue Ribbon (party house on Dock St, Wilmington NC, 2004) all the way up to Delerium Tremens (Cafe des Artistes, 5eme arrondissement, Paris, 2009).

It's funny and also appropriate then that I know have self-imposed these dietary restrictions due to connectivity with my health, both physical and mental as well as, by extension, metaphysical and spiritual. Similarly to my education in AFAM studies, I actively engaged in research on a subject and found its extreme effects upon so many realms outside of what one would ever conceive of as being affiliated. But then, once you associate them, it's like, "duh."

Of course it's weird to drink milk from a cow or goat when it's only meant to transmit nutrients and high caloric fats to their spawn, i.e. NOT humans. We make a big deal out of drinking breast milk (challenges on Fear Factor; jokes on sitcoms, etc.) yet we load up on other animals' breast milk daily. In our coffee: cream. In our eggs and toast: cheese, butter. Grilled cheese for lunch, potatoes au gratin for dinner in front of the TV where we learn about cancers and diseases, all blamed upon genetics (because flashing, spinning images of DNA are just THAT compelling to the TV audience). But looking back, there wasn't a single green living thing in your entire day's worth of food. What nutrients did you intake, you know, for your health?

So we have people in poverty who are sick and can't afford to get better because they don't have health insurance. But they also don't have grocery stores in poor neighborhoods that sell fresh produce, whole grains, juice without added sugars. What's a lentil? you ask. I ask, what the fuck is the deal with this?

So I wonder what to do about it, other than (selfishly and from a position of relative privilege) eat a plant-based, leaning raw diet for my own well-being. That doesn't put an organic grocery stand in the inner city, though it just may get rid of my migraines and sinus issues as well as my penchant for depression or whatever other psychospeak I have put myself through. So, can't this work for more people? Of course, you might have to be as obsessed with food as me to really throw yourself into it, sacrificing night after night out in exchange for organic bread, organic clementines, leeks, kale, jicama, pomegranate, avocados, melons, apples, bananas... but is it really more expensive? Isn't your time and your well-being worth more than the $2 and 10 minutes you "saved" getting Wendy's? It depends upon how you prioritize.

For me, food is my priority. Plants and loaves of bread. I guess there's no getting away from it. I am a total foodie, but with a purpose. And it's not to liberate the local swine, but rather to save myself all the trouble of being sick as eff from my diet like so many people are. And right now, it's purely selfish (not only is it better for me, it's also undeniably cooler ;)) but I'd like it not to be forever. It's a positive activism, working for something instead of always pushing against, always pushing to no avail. Instead, it can build a community. I'm going to check out Food Not Bombs this weekend and will see.

Eating a clementine, drinking green tea. Cold as hayle. Bisous.