Reading, Viewing and Listening Suggestions

Back to the Land

The new illustrated blog entry from Maira Kalman, the author and illustrator behind - among
other things - the "New Yorkistan" New Yorker cover from 2001, is a pretty wild and creative meditation on Thanksgiving. Check it out.

Waste

This video on food waste from the folks at Good Magazine is definitely worth a watch.

Food Stamps

In conjunction with some writing on "The Safety Net," the New York Times features this fascinating graphic on food stamp usage around the country. By clicking around on the U.S. map there, I discovered the following: 5% of all people in the Minnesota county where I grew up utilize food stamps; that's a 42% increase from 2007; 16% of the people in Suffolk County, Massachusetts, where I currently live, use food stamps; this is a 34% increase frm 2007; 31% of the people in Buffalo County, South Dakota, the poorest county in the United States, are on food stamps; in 2007, 11% fewer residents of this country, most of which lies on the Crow Creek Indian Reservation, received food stamps.

Eating Meat

Jonathan Safran Foer discussing his new book "Eating Meat" on WBUR's On Point. Definitely worth a listen.

Fruit Season: All Along Alewife Brook*

Colombian Banana

Floridian Lemon

Californian Dates

These three photographs explore the following juxtaposition: warm-climate and tropical fruits that can be found in supermarkets in New England in late fall with - and literally affixed to - the leafless trees found here, none of which bear the above fruits. There's a jarring dissonance here, hopefully one which forces us to consider what we eat, how we come by what we eat, and how we look at - gaze at - that which we understand to be food, ready and readily available.

*In Medford/Somerville, Massachusetts