Sunday, March 21, 2010

Post 2: Prepare a Meal & Response to "In Defense of Food"


So, this afternoon I made a meal for myself. Well, in fact, I prepared what will be the entrée of my lunches and dinners for the next week. I am keen on left-overs, since they are convenient. I love to cook, and it is pleasurable and scientific; creative and domestic in all the pieces of time that make up the experience.
From start to finish, my endeavor took me about 2 hours. 1 of those hours was the baking of the casserole; so I could clean up and do other things like write this post while I waited. The first half was the preparation: chopping the vegetables, mixing the eggs and meat together, and constructing the finished product. In actuality, the preparation began much more than within a few hours before the construction; it began as thought processes as I imagined what I would prepare for myself, which is continually being molded by my understanding of what makes for a good dinner.

Eating is “something more than animal indulgence (55),” since I think that humans “indulge” with things intact that animals don't contain: intellectual, moral and reasoning abilities. Despite science predisposing Americans to think about eating as simply filling a fuel tank – God never said we cannot enjoy what we eat (though in moderation) – or sex (within marriage), or art (of things worthy of depiction), in response to fundamentalist attitudes toward life and all things in it. Therefore, if Americans are to savor food today, they must change the way they themselves operate, for example, their attitudes and temperaments. This is not an issue of food, in my opinion, for as Courtney Pool says in her blog, "our relationship to food is an exact microcosm of our relationship to life itself.” Therefore, people today must move away from their fast-paced lifestyle and make time for the things that are the most important: family, love, God, peace, rest. We all need these things.
I have not eaten my meal yet, but I can assure you that it will be delicious, as well as nutritious. There needn’t be compromise!
And of course, I know well that low-fat foods are a joke, so reading this chapter was fine.

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