Some Food for Thought

Hello everyone!! We are so sorry we have done a horrible job at keeping you all updated on everything that we have been experiencing through our first official month with our new roommates living in Frogtown as "Urban Neighbors." This past month of September has been a crazy one filled with lots of moving, transitions and changes. So, needless to say we feel very thankful we are done with the move-in process!

In addition to moving in, this month has been filled with numerous cooking experiments. Mindy found a bunch of recipes she wanted to try out after we all moved in, so this past month the term “master chef”  has become something other than a “reality TV show”… it has become OUR reality! Okay, so maybe I’m exaggerating just a tad, but we can dream can’t we? J Some of our first cooking “experiments”, which I thought would most likely go horribily wrong (especially with me cooking haha), actually turned out to be  some of the best  recipes we’ve made so far. We made “Pisto Manchego” for our first attempt. It turned out amazingly well despite my skepticism at first. We cut up a bunch of different vegetables including green peppers, onions, tomatoes and added seasonings and then we cooked it in a frying pan. We then made holes in the veggie mixture and cracked eggs into the holes. Its sounds kind of strange, but if was actually really good! One dish that definitely did not turn out like we had hoped it would, was our “radish pesto” spaghetti dish. Mindy and I thought we were being so resourceful by using the leaves of our radishes we bought  to make a pesto. Unfortunately, the dish ended up tasting more like a mixture of spaghetti and dandilions and looked like we had left it in the back of the fridge too long and had gone green with mold! We definitely were still hungry after dinner that night. Another dish we made that was a success is something a little more mainstream…aka “chicken nuggets”. Mindy wasn’t super into the idea of having to cut up a dead chicken, so I had to take the reins on that one! I actually got the hang of it, and cut one that I claimed was the “perfect” chicken nugget shape…you can judge for yourself whether you agree with me or not on that! And, man did those chicken nuggets taste delicious! (especially since the “chicken died happy” as I would say, because it was raised on a free-range organic farm!)

 Mindy and I are trying to be more “food industry conscience”, meaning we want to be more intentional  about where we buy our food products from and how the animals and workers are treated by those corporations. Mindy and I recently watched a movie called “Food, Inc.” which exposes many of the injustices within the U.S. food industry.  According to the “Food Inc.” movie website www.foodincmovie.com , approximately 10 billion animals (chickens, cattle, hogs, ducks, turkeys, lambs and sheep) are raised and killed in the US annually. Besides the fact that this is a massive consumption of meat, the way the majority of the animals are treated at these “factory farms” is an outrageous injustice. Even worse, is the way that many of the workers at these “factory farms” are exploited and abused.  Because the corporations that own the majority of these “factory farms” are huge multi-billion dollar industries the injustices and exploitation become justified in the name of “quality meat”. As this documentary (Food, Inc.) shows, often times these injustices are nearly invisible to the general public, because we have no connection to the land and those who are processing our food. By trying to spend money more locally, and actually meeting the people who are growing your food, we can take one large step towards a more humane food system. When Mindy and I are able to we have been trying to buy fresh produce from the St. Paul Farmer’s Market. I have found this to be a wonderful way to meet those who are doing the hard labor of harvesting our food.  Despite my initial assumptions about farmer’s markets, it has been a pleasant surprise to find out that the produce we buy locally there is probably at least ½ the price, if not less, than the produce I would typically buy at Cub or another chain supermarket. Unfortunately, I still have found organic food in general at supermarkets to be a bit more expensive most of the times.

While it may sound like we have this whole eating “local and organic foods” thing all figured out, we are by no means anywhere close. I feel like I have so much to learn about the food industry, how to buy “intentionally”, and of course the actual cooking part of the foodJ  However, like all things in life we are on a journey. We may never buy “all organic” or “all locally grown”, but what’s truly important is where our motives lie in doing this. God cares more about where our motives lie, then what so called “good acts” we may be doing. If we are trying to buy more local or organic but are only doing it to look “righteous”  we must be reminded that we are no better than those we are supposedly so against. God calls us to be good stewards of his land and work towards restoring to justice who have been denied their rights. In Leviticus 25, Moses speaks about a year declared by the Lord every seven years called the “Year of the Jubliee”. This was meant to be a time when debts were forgiven, land was redistributed to those of whom it had been taken away, and mercy was shown to those who were foreigners working in a strange land. Imagine what this could like look in our world today. Families being foreclosed from their home finding out their land was bought and given back to them by a neighbor, or migrant day laborers actually receiving a livable pay and humane treatment by their bosses. I wait in hope for the day when these “Jubliee” acts will not seem so outrageous and will be an ordinary part of the ETERNAL “Year of the Jubliee”! Until then, I’ll keep looking heavenward. Much like our failed cooking “experiments”, I’ll keep living my life by seeing the beauty in the complete messes and finding joy in the small triumphs, like making a recipe without burning our house down! May God fill you with peace, wisdom and a maybe even a hunger to try out some new “food experiments” of your own in the kitchen. J

His peace, love & justice,

Sarah