Make it local. Episode 2: Food carts for the masses.

Despite Madison being the 82nd largest city in the United States, it does have a pretty vibrant food cart scene. Between Library Mall and the Capital square, there are quite a few choices in terms of ethnic cuisines and styles. My current favorite on Library Mall is Surco, a Peruvian cart that serves the best Chicken Adobo over cilantro rice and green lentils. I buy a half-order and a soda for lunch and it sets me back $6. So damned tasty!

Speaking of food carts, Madison is celebrating it's food cart scene with Isthmus ala Carts. It's at Olin Park on Friday, May 11, 2012. 4-8pm $15 in advance or $20 at the gate gets you all the food you can eat. All of the participating carts will be serving sampler-sized portions of their best dishes. Try out any and all of the carts you like for one low price. I will most likely be there! Come say hi to me!

Monsanto: the company you love to hate.

Those of us in the food 'blogosphere' have spent countless hours hating Monsanto and everything they stand for. They are the largest crop seed company in the world. They make bio-engineered seeds with their patented pesticides. They were one of the major players in the production of the defoliant Agent Orange, (along with Dow Chemical) We've read the stories of farmer's, who themselves never bought Monsanto seed, being sued by the company because their non-Monsanto seed had cross-pollinated with Monsanto seed, giving their crops the 'advantages' those seeds claimed and were patented. Farmer's who have run into this dilemma have been given a choice, switch to Monsanto seed or allow your fields to go fallow and replant the following season. Most farmer's have capitulated and signed contracts to buy Monsanto seed long term. Those who stood up and fought have been crushed under the weight of a massive multinational corporation and a legal system that protects the interests of large businesses over small ones.

I bring this up for two reasons: 1.) This article about another class-action lawsuit won by Monsanto. And 2.) The term that is always brought up when discussing Monsanto, 'GM crops'.

Genetically modified crops have gotten a bad rap lately and I wish they would find another technical term that could be applied to what Monsanto creates. We have been genetically altering crops for thousands of years. What Monsanto does is make seeds by creating an artificial DNA sequence and embedding it into the plant's genome. This embeds the company's patented pesticides right into the genome. This HAS proved effective at increasing crop yields and made them drought resistant, but it has also created superbugs, who are resistant to the pesticides, and legal headaches for farmers and anyone associated with them.

I could probably write a 20+ page paper on this topic, but I'll save it for a future class. Have a great weekend!

Inspiration can be so random sometimes.

Case in point: I had mentioned yesterday the idea of Slow Food UW starting their own food cart. I had read a post on Facebook from the Vendy Awards that had a link to this story about food truck lobbying in Philadelphia and it mentions this guy, Andrew Gerson, who's spearheading this movement. What struck me about the guy wasn't his activism, but where he went to school and the title of his master's thesis.He went to the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Turin, Italy. Not a gastronomic sciences department at some university, an entire fucking university!!!! God, I love the Italians! And the title of his thesis? "Food Trucks Can be Utilized to Promote Sustainable Agriculture in Urban Environments." I so wish I could find this thesis and read it! Maybe I should write this guy. Anyway, the title makes so much sense to me. What better way is there, (besides farmer's markets) to promote local, sustainable foodstuffs at the ground level than a food cart? I haven't had a chance to talk much with the Slow Food UW kids yet. Perhaps I should pass this idea on to them when I do.

I do wonder, though, is this an idea worth trying? Besides the obvious learning curve, start up costs, licensing, etc., what could keep this from working?

My budding food activism

As a student, my time is partitioned out in multiple directions,

sometimes simultaneously. Getting a job means even less free time.

 Despite not having enough hours in the day, I want to connect with the food scene here in Madison in some meaningful way. I see it as a part of my continuing education in all things food. Starting a food-oriented Facebook group was just the start. I'm looking at two other groups to get involved with this year: Slow Food UW and F.H. King Student Farm.

Both of these groups are student organizations within the UW. Slow Food UW is a student run extension of the Slow Food movement with an emphasis on educating fellow students, creating a relationship between local farms and the university, and redirecting university food service resources towards more local and sustainable food purchasing practices. F.H.King Student Farm is pretty self-explanatory: they have a two acre plot on campus and a greenhouse they use to grow crops.

Both organizations have internships that I could apply for. F.H. King would be during the growing season only. Slow Food UW is year around and has several different internships to choose from. I'm not sure what direction I want to take just yet, but I do have a rather grandiose idea for the Slow Food folks...they should open up a food cart!

Tomorrow's post will explain why this idea came to me, after reading about someone's Master's thesis. Stay tuned!

I got a J-O-B!!!!!!

Is it food related?

Of course it's food related! Keep reading!

I like to pretend that I have this massive audience that isn't a majority of my Facebook friends and doesn't know too many of the particulars about me and my daily life. But, perhaps someday I will have a legitimate "readership" who requires some of the more mundane details for contextual purposes.

I can dream, can't I?

For those few of you that don't know, I'm an adult student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison studying anthropology. My main area of focus is food, it's social and cultural relevance, and the like. I needed a part time job and I found one this week. I'll be working in the production area at the Babcock Hall Dairy Plant, which is part of the Food Science Department here at the UW. Now, I'm not a Food or Agricultural Science major, I'm less interested in the biology of food than I am the cultural aspects of it, but I am interested in how food is produced. As a student employee, I could be helping in several areas: milk bottling, ice cream making, cheese making, and delivery of said products. I am most interested in making cheese. I've always wanted to learn how. I'd be working with a guy by the name of Gary Grossen. He's the UW's master cheesemaker, 20+ years of experience, and he wins awards for his Gouda cheeses, including the Cheese and Butter Grand Champion at the World Dairy Expo in 2011.

All in all, I'm pretty excited. Tomorrow, I'll talk about something else I'm considering getting involved with that is food related...and another idea that borders the line between workable idea and delusion of grandeur!

Cafe Mob-Madison:putting our money where our mouths are.

I started a Facebook group.

I've started one or two of them before, but they were always meant to be ironic and/or funny. I am one of those people that can come up with lots of ideas, from the most mundane to absolute delusions of grandeur, but what I rarely do is follow up on any of my ideas. If I think an idea has enough potential to become something great, I'll pass it off to someone with the energy and single-minded determination I don't have to get it done. I'm often not motivated by anything more than just wanting something get done that has utility to it, or I just think the idea is neat, but I lack the attention span to see it through.

That changed this past weekend when I started Cafe Mob-Madison. Most people know what a flash mob is, (and if you don't, Google it!) and some people have even heard of a cash mob; where a group of people get together, set a minimum amount of money to spend per person, and then collectively go into a struggling, locally-owned business at the same time and buy stuff. It has an immediate economic impact on said business, but the event can also provide free advertising as well, either by exposing group members to a business they may have never been to before, and/or the event can receive local press, exposing even more people to a place they may not be aware of.

The idea behind Cafe Mob is to organize a cash mob that is specific to restaurants here in Madison. I'm a food guy. For fucks'sake, I blog about it! The least I can do as a food guy who gives a shit about the local dining scene is support it any way I can. I'm a college student, so my food dollars are stretched pretty thin already. But, I know plenty of people who aren't in a position of having to know every conceivable way of making ramen into a complete meal and are willing to spend some of their hard-earned food dollars on good locally owned restaurants that may be struggling a bit. The group is open to anybody. There's 35 members so far, several of whom I've never even met. I'm excited to see where this goes.

That's all for now. In the future, my posts are going to become shorter. I think I could write almost every day if I stick to just one central idea per post. I tend to wander a bit at times, but we'll see how it goes.

Your intestines and you: a quick owners guide.

I've been away for awhile and I'm not as sorry about it as I should be.
There are some people who actually read this stuff and it ceases to amaze me that this is so. Alas, I am a busy boy these days with school and other less noble pursuits. Compounding any disappointment you may have for my recent lack of material is the fact that I will not be talking about food today. Instead, let's talk about you.

But first, let's talk about me.

In 2006, at the tender age of 33, I was diagnosed with a condition called Diverticulosis. It is a weakening of the colon wall that forms a small pouch. Occasionally, tiny bits of mostly digested matter will get stuck in that pouch and will become infected, causing the intestines to become inflamed and causes a great deal of abdominal pain. My doctor back then wouldn't initially diagnose me with the condition, saying that I was too young to have it. He had never seen a case of diverticulosis in anyone under the age of 55. If the affected part of the intestine becomes too much of a problem, doctors can simply remove that part of the intestine. (you have a lot of intestines to work with) My condition is not that severe. However, it has nearly put me in the hospital twice. The latest bout with it was in early January and I had never told a doctor that my pain level was a "9" before that day. I didn't eat solid food for 4 days afterward and ate nothing but food that had the consistency of baby food for several days more. In a word: it sucked.

Now, how can you, humble reader, be lucky enough to experience this horrendous affliction? For starters, you can do what I did leading up to my diagnosis and eat less than a quarter of the daily recommended amount of fiber for a healthy 33 year old male. Eating nothing but processed foods will help you along with that. Add a tremendous amount of stomach-gurgling stress and you will be well on your way to diverticulosis hell! Also, to relive those wondrous moments of pain, continue to eat a low fiber diet and/or be stressed out as much as possible. Your colon won't thank you for it!

That's all for now. Next time, we'll talk about the other food relating excitement I'm dealing with these days. Until then, happy eating! (or something)