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The New York Times Magazine 2009 Food Issue is out today. Yum! What a wonderful treat to read over breakfast this morning. Loaded with lots of current thinking about stuff like locavorism, Slow Food, and Michael Pollan’s rules for eating. All great reads.

Something occurred to me as I read the piece on Jamie Oliver. I think the shift has been happening over the last five or so years, but it really seems that food choices are becoming less about simple tastes and more about activism. For Slow Food, it’s about maintaining genetic diversity, supporting local farmers (as opposed to agribusiness), and reducing your carbon footprint. For vegetarians and free-rangeterians it’s about animal rights. When you see the work that Oliver is doing with healthy eating and a foundation that helps low-income kids go to cooking school, Oliver is not longer just a fun and feisty cook on the Food Network – he is a fun and feisty food activist.

For too long, too many of us have simply inhaled barely edible processed “food” while working, in the car, in front of the TV, or even while surfing the web. As a result, we barely taste the food, much less think about the implications of eating that food. However, it’s so encouraging to see the new wave of food activists who think a LOT about food on all levels.

The great thing about food activism is that you literally get to enjoy the fruits of your labors. This is a point really brought home by Barbara Kingsolver in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle:

“Doing the right thing, in this case, is not about abstinence-only, throwing out bread, tightening your belt, wearing a fake leather belt, or dragging around feeling righteous and gloomy. Food is the rare moral arena in which the ethical choice is the one more likely to make you groan with pleasure. Why resist that?”

Indeed.

As Carrie did last year, I thought it’d be a great idea to support local agriculture and buy a farm share from a CSA farmer. Holy green leaves of goodness! This image shows my HALF of one farm share for one week. And, mind you, this is only the second week that I’ve been getting part of this bounty. We haven’t even gotten to the loads of zucchini!

I have to say that I’m totally impressed by the quality and quantity of the food that I’m getting. It looks better than anything that you can get at even the finest grocery stores. And the variety! Bok choy! Swiss chard! Chickory! Pea tendrils?!?

So only in my second week, I’ve already got some advice on how to deal with the crazy influx of veggies:

1. Share: It is a farm “share”, but one share can really go a long way. Go in with neighbors or coworkers. Plus, you can divy things up along pickiness better if there are more people.
2. Stock up on paper towels: Most of the greens come from the farms sopping wet. That’s fine. Shake them off a bit and cut off any roots, then wrap them in paper towels before putting them in the fridge. This will help keep everything from wilting, because, believe me, there’s no way you’re getting all of this in your crisper(s).
3. Stock up on staples: I have no idea how to cook most of this stuff, but I can tell you that with a few staples you can make a meal or a great side dish with most of it. Namely, keep an assortment of nuts, cheeses, and starches (pasta, rice, and potatoes) on hand. For example, saute some chicory with garlic, pine nuts, and some white wine and mix with pasta, tomatoes, and some parmesean cheese.
4. Be flexible: The most interesting part of having a farm share is that you don’t know what you’re going to get each week. If you’re like me, you’re in a rut with the same 3 veggies every week. With a farm share, you’re going to have to take some of your old recipes and incorporate these new ingredients. Sometimes, it makes the old recipe even better.

I have to say that I really like thinking about the food I have and how to cook around it. The whole thing makes me feel so much more in touch with the food I eat, and the process it went through to get to my table.

Last night, I went to the West Roxbury Branch Library to see Michael Pollan speak on his latest book, In Defense of Food. I have a policy of not watching movies if I’ve read the book and vice versa, so I went to this talk completely ignorant of this book and his previous, The Omnivore’s Dilemma. The talk was great. If you have a chance to see him in person, do it. He’s terribly engaging and personable. He’s earnest in a way that puts people at ease about what are really important and troubling issues.

His premise: We’re suffering from nutritionism and that we should probably move away from this in order to develop a better relationship with food, the planet, and ourselves as individuals and a society. He argues to do this we can just apply some pretty simple rules.

His rules: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”

What does this mean for cooksimple.com? Lots. The basic premise of this site is to show people that good meals need not be daunting. We don’t need all that prepackaged crap when we can throw together some great, fresh ingredients to make a delicious meal. Eat local. Eat vegetarian. Eat free range. Whatever you want. Just make it yourself.

And then, eat it with people you love. Eating is most certainly a very biological need, but it can also be very social. It’s a chance to share your life, your ideals, and good food and have a good time doing it.

Amy (from angry chicken) had the great idea of creating a recipe cheat sheet to post on her fridge. I loved the idea as I am constantly rewriting favorite recipes on little scraps of paper. Now anyone who eats with me knows that I rarely make anything more than once. The cheat sheets include my absolute favorite recipes each of which I’ve made multiple times – a tribute to their tastiness. I decided to create two cheat sheets: one for baking and one for my quick, weekday recipes. The baking sheet is quite minimal and barely (or in some cases doesn’t) includes directions. It assumes standard baking procedures. The recipe sheet includes basic directions but I’ve left out some of the frills from the original directions. I’m hoping these sheets will save me time and keep my fridge/counter scrap free.

There are two food movements working to bring everyone closer to sustainability: the organic food movement & the local foods movement.

The main idea behind the local foods movement is to eat as much locally grown food as possible (preferable organic). By eating locally grown foods you are reducing pollution (because the foods don’t have to be transported across the country or world) and supporting your local economy. The movement has increased the number of locally produced goods available and now many people have local food options that haven’t existed since before factory farming.

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