Slow Food, Seasonal Living

Andrew outlines the manifesto of his new secret society/social club.

Well, I am not sure I am young anymore, nor am I broke, and clueless, well perhaps we should say curious instead. But I am back none the less. I approach food with a scientific method that is based on trial and error. Yes I could open a cookbook and read a recipe, and yes I could look up cooking times and temperatures, but then where would be the fun in that? I never would have wound up with pumpkin cheesecake slop, which by the way, was the most delicious dessert soup ever slurped from a soggy crust. And I would never have come up with apple and pear raspberry granola spice crunch from my last dinner party, the one with chili from inside a pumpkin that rocked the world of people age 25-52 from two continents. That one could also be nicknamed Told You So Crumble, as Teresa kept criticizing me through the entire process: "you can't just make up recipes while you slice apples! That is going to be disgusting! No one will eat it!" For the record, it was delicious. Way delicious, and no one ate it faster or insisted more sweetly and loudly that the guests already bloated with chili and looking like they were now re-assessing my chefing skills as one of my sneaky vicious streaks instead of a kindness than Teresa did. She did the LDS church girl equivalent of holding a gun to these poor gorgers while they mmmmmmmed politely, looking sicker with every delightful bite. So I won that one. And would you believe the next month when I was making dinner "on the bounce" thinking only one shake of seasoning ahead of the next and inventing turkey burgers with crushed wheat thins, apple chunks, craisins, cinnamon, ginger, garlic and parsley, she did the same thing? Thinking on the fly is how great things happen sometimes. You want to get outside of the box? Well you have to elude the box- by not knowing where you'll be, so it can't find you there. Think about it. Pretty much a perfect analogy. Am I worried right now about my triple berry cheesecake which is currently rising faster and higher than any loaf of bread I ever made (not saying much sadly)? A little. Did I overadjust? Perhaps. There-in lies the game.

Now, onto my little social club. It is shall we say, a full-blown foodie society for snobs and the few of us with tastebuds who can really appreciate too the story of Nelson Mandela, who was an immature, irrational, irresponsible, and probably dangerous young punk before he went to prison. Did he have a right to be? You bet. Was the anger righteous? Probably. But he would never have made a good leader had he not seasoned for a long time in the slammer, where all that anger couldn't escape and had to be conquered. My point? Human beings are meant to suffer a bit. That's where my club comes in. Slow Food, Seasonal Living, is an adaption from a French group I heard of: Slow Food. They are a team of card-carrying superheroes who have sworn to fight for truth, justice, and the death of microwaves. Or something like that. They might just be some frogs who enjoy a good laugh around a good bottle of wine and a table of fine food. Also they hate McDonald's. A lot. Well, so do I. But I believe human beings are unhappy in general for more than getting too much salt, too many calories and too little flavor and variety. I think we are out of touch with our world too.

If reading the books of DH Lawrence and Brian Jacques and the poems of Robert Frost, to name a scant few examples off the top of my head, has opened my eyes to anything, it is first and foremost that food brings people together (or tears them apart), and that life in the country may be slow and boring sometimes, but there is a lot to look forward to. Namely: seasons. There is a harvest, which means work, feasts, and festivals. There is winter, which gives you time to relax, get fat, rest your knees and back, and to have a good time, go to a dance, spend time with family and friends, and strap on the skiis, or go for a sleigh ride. Or it did. Spring, well, warmth, flowers, growth. Summer, lots of work, lots of sun, more heat than you can stand, drought, but, long days, staying up, the sound of cicadas, sleeping under the stars. The problem with modern living, is we've reduced winter to an inconvenience. When you spend all summer in air conditioning and licking popsicles, you wonder how anyone ever put up with being cold. And when you spend all winter being too warm in a blistering dry house, streaking from the front door to a car with yet another strong heater, you never shiver enough to look forward to sweating. But not so in my group. Last summer, I never once thought, its too hot. Even on 90+ degree days. And it isn't because I grew up in Arizona, it is because I spent four solid months shivering. I was cold from October through March, and when the sun finally came out to stay, it took me halfway into June to warm up all the way through my bones. That might sound crazy, but I didn't mind, because the summer and fall before, I hiked so many bright afternoons in the mountains, that I was diving into dirty snowpiles when I found them lingering. I was taking ice showers when I got home just to stop my temperature from continuing its ascent. In short, sparing further examples, when you let yourself experience the seasons, you are in tune with the world, the world we have been a part of for a very long time. And I have been much happier since I got back into step with the seasons. Have you ever thought about why Christmas is such a special time of year? Is it the presents? Maybe, in part. But it also is magical because you count down to it, you look forward to it as the hap-happiest time of the year. Well, in a poetry group I go to at times, made up of mostly older ladies, every spring meeting these women would bring dry poems about strawberry picking or baking a cherry pie, and would water out of their mouths, and gasp, and clap one another on the back, and even wipe away tears, then trade stories about berries. This confused me, as there are berries in the freezer section, fresh and plentiful, every day of the year, as well as bad out-of-season berries. Plus I mean, its just berries- what is that to a chocolate chip cookie you know. (Bear with me.) Well, reading a Willa Cather prairie novel, I suddenly got it. They canned a whole orchard worth of peaches and apples, and that was it. They got buried by deep snows and only left the "burrow" for church one day a week, and didn't go to school and had no fresh fruit, vegetable, and few sweets of any kind for months. Did they look forward to spring in that novel? You bet. And I understood why these older ladies had when they were young too. Sarah Lee and the girl scouts didn't keep their larders full. Your body can tell you what you need if you are in tune with it. You will crave an orange when you are low on Vitamin C, you will drool dreaming about strawberries if you don't give in constantly to impulses at the grocery and buy those cardboard and plastic out of season ethanol-colored tomatoes and apples. Is it a struggle to learn to ignore what is right before your eyes for half the year, waiting for a farmer's market? Yes. But there is a big reward too. All you have to do to taste the most delicious meal of your life is fast for a week. For the best apple of your life? Wait until the first one falls from your own tree, and even if its a crab, it will taste astoninishingly sweet. Just like the first hop in the pool every summer after school lets out is the best two seconds of your life. You might find the same to be true, should you join my club, which anyone can join, if I tell anyone about it. I might not.

Now I know you are thinking, Andrew, you start clubs all the time. Remember your book club that you bitterly abandoned to die by exposure after the first meeting when only 8 out of 40 overworked college students failed to read slender little "The Old Man in the Sea" in their spare time, and when that one god-banger kept saying everything was a metaphor for Jesus. (Here is an actual transcript from the meeting to discuss the book: God-Banger: "I think the old man, was a metaphor for Jesus." Group leader: "Yes, that's one interpretation- I suppose. Now back to the shark." God-banger: "The shark was Jesus too." Group leader: "Aaaaaalllll right, how about we talk about the young boy then." God-banger: "You mean Jesus?") You are thinking: Andrew, you are an anti-social, judgemental, smoldering perfectionist who won't even hike a mile with most people because they don't walk right enough for you, and you are nearly impossible to be around for very long. If you are to yourself at all how you are to others, then its a wonder you can sleep at night and waking up must be miserable. Those are valid points, I grant you. But I am still going to found this club. It needs founding. Though perhaps, not other members. For now, we are getting along just fine with a president. Participation at each meeting is 100%, with all the good suggestions we can handle at this time.

But if you like the sound of my society, you can found a chapter in your area. Here are the doctrines of membership:

I will be cold in winter. I will be hot in summer. I will eat in season as much as possible. I will buy local and organic whenever I can. I will learn to appreciate craving things. I will learn to put up with and ignore things, and eventually, to not notice or mind them. I will can and freeze my own stores.

I will grow whatever I can, even if it is only herbs on a windowsill, or sprouts in a jar. I will be a producer, even if it is only to ferment my own yogurt or beer. I will take part in a harvest, even if it is only to pull my own pumpkin off the vine in its patch.

I will ween myself off the microwave, if I own one, and use it only for the most basic of tasks, like warming water or melting butter. I will prepare leftovers in a toaster oven or eat them cold. I will do everything the hard way at least once, so I know how. I will prepare my own meals whenever possible.

If I do not prepare my own food, I will at least have to wait for it, sitting down, to come to me. It will require skill to prepare. I will avoid chain restaurants. I will seek out dining experiences from cultures new to me, and maybe even scary to me.

I will eat socially at least once a week, and this does not include talking to my television or texting, even if it means inviting over a neighbor I think is weird or rude. I will gaze into the eyes of a person across from me as if I were Walt Whitman, and into the eyes of my food, as if I were Henry the Eighth. I will savor my food, and enjoy it.

I will eat to be happy, and to add to my life. If I exercise regularly, seriously, and even competitively, I will think about nutrition. If I do not, then I don't care about health anyway, and do not need pills, powders or expensive water.

When I crave something at the store or in a vending machine, I will not buy it. I will wait, and go home that night, and try to make it. I will find a friend who knows how, read a book, or search the internet, or failing that, will take a wild stab in the dark at it. If it turns out all wrong, then I will go and buy it the next day.

I will learn to make everything I can for myself, such as soda, seeking healthier and more individual alternatives, such as baking and freezing calzones or empanadas rather than buying "Hot Pockets," or baking oat and granola bars instead of buying them. I will make my own sauces and snacks and spreads.

I will resist ready-made bag and box meals. I will oppose the word "instant" in all its carnations. I will not eat like an astronaut, because they do not, when they have better options.

I will host one or more dinner parties per season. I will contribute a dish to every holiday celebration I go to. I will share recipes and ideas with anyone who wants them.

I will cook and shop green. I will eat and drink organic, when possible and practicle. I will not drive three times farther to a grocery store to save 50 cents. I will buy organic if I can. I will question every chemical that has been presented to me as a natural part of life, as to why I really need it. I will warm the smallest surface or space possible. I will use lids.

I will stop to smell or pluck a flower in spring, I will sunbathe or swim once every summer, I will ride in a haycart or build a scarecrow or carve a jackalantern, I will play at least once in the snow, each year. I will seek out new activities which cannot be sustained all year.

I will waste as little as possible. I will compost if I can. I will find uses for disposable parts of fruits, such as making zests to keep in the freezer from the rinds of many fruits, and baking the seeds of squashes for snacks. I will wear clothes until they evaporate, and cling to old electronics rather than buy the latest thing. I will resent technology in spirit even as I utilize it. I will be out-dated and pretend as much as possible that I am living in the 19th century or any other era. This means limiting television, radio, and computer usage. To do otherwise would be hypocritical and people would be right not to take me seriously.

I will shy away from meat when there are plants in abundance and the weather is warm. I understand that meat raises body temperature, digests slowly, and tends towards weight gain, which are desirable qualities only for parts of the year.

I will be on the lookout for crime, vice, red dye number 40, and potassium sodium benzoate. I will avoid food products with ingredients I cannot pronounce or buy individually. I will read food labels, especially the fine print. I will ignore health claims.

I will not hold anyone to be a bad person if they choose to live differently than me. I will remember that we are as a society out of touch with ourselves and with our food. I will try to be a positive example to others. I will try to influence others because it is good for them as individuals, and not just because it is good for us all. I will remember there was a time when I could not tell a difference between real food and processed impersonations and was helpless in the kitchen. I will rue that time.


Well, that about covers it. Though that was all off the top of my head. It isn't too hard to join is it? No quotas, few specifics, few thou shalts. Oh and I also am starting a local tennis club, because the hiking conditions have been bad so far this year and I could not bring myself to give away my racquet while cleaning out the closet. I will probably recruit for that club. And that cheesecake I was watching? Well, its not half bad. And it did not fall apart.