Food

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December 17, 2010 | 2:13 PM | By

A Debate about Food Deserts

DCentric

Fast food: unhealthy, but delicious when you're too exhausted to travel for nutrition.

Postbourgie’s Nicole takes on “The Myth of the Food Desert“, by The Root’s John McWhorter. McWhorter wrote:

The no-supermarket paradigm discourages us from considering that human beings acquire — through childhood experience, cultural preferences and economics — a palate…

Culture, too, creates a palate — and to point that out is not to find “fault.” Example: Slavery and sharecropping didn’t make healthy eating easy for black people back in the day. Salt and grease were what they had, and Southern blacks brought their culinary tastes North (Zora Neale Hurston used to bless her friend Langston Hughes with fried-chicken dinners)…All of which is to say that our take on the obesity issue at hand cannot be that sugary and high-fat food is always the only food that is available to poor people within walking distance. It simply isn’t true.

Nicole responds:

I’ll lay it out for him. Obesity (along with hunger) is dramatically higher among poor communities. And guess what? If you are poor, your access to affordable, nutritious food is more likely to be limited…

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FILED UNDER: Around the City, Food, Poverty, Race and Class
November 29, 2010 | 4:29 PM | By

D.C. Budget vs. The Healthy Schools Act

USDAgov

Mmm, cruciferous veggies!

Balancing the city’s budget is going to require some painful cuts in spending…but who should get less? If you’re concerned about how cuts could affect D.C.’s youngest residents, this may be of interest to you (via DC Action for Children):

A last-minute opportunity to take action for DC’s Kids! The DC Council is holding a hearing tomorrow morning on the Mayor’s gap-closing budget, and more than $4.6 million in funding for the recently passed Healthy Schools Act is on the chopping block.

The Healthy Schools Act was passed this summer to help ensure that children in DC Public Schools receive fresh, healthy meals in the classroom and comprehensive wellness services to combat childhood obesity and malnutrition. With 43 percent of District students overweight or obese, we can’t afford to squander this progress to fix a short-term budget gap.

I know that it’s almost 4:30 pm, but I just saw this and there’s still time to call your Councilmember if you are so moved. Readers: are there other, similar programs you are worried about, with regards to gap-closing?

FILED UNDER: Government, Children, Food, Money, Schools
November 24, 2010 | 1:10 PM | By

Whole Foods for some, Bodegas for others

DCentric

Organic fruit at a D.C. Farmers' Market

I just had a conversation about this with one of you yesterday, about the stark disconnect and borderline shame I felt when I came home after buying cheese, local plum chutney and organic bread for entertaining– and walked right in to a display for a food drive. Newsweek is thinking about food inequality, too:

Alexandra says she spends hours each day thinking about, shopping for, and preparing food. She is a disciple of Michael Pollan, whose 2006 book The Omnivore’s Dilemma made the locavore movement a national phenomenon, and believes that eating organically and locally contributes not only to the health of her family but to the existential happiness of farm animals and farmers—and, indeed, to the survival of the planet. “Michael Pollan is my new hero, next to Jimmy Carter,” she told me. In some neighborhoods, a lawyer who raises chickens in her backyard might be considered eccentric, but we live in Park Slope, Brooklyn, a community that accommodates and celebrates every kind of foodie. Whether you believe in eating for pleasure, for health, for justice, or for some idealized vision of family life, you will find neighbors who reflect your food values. In Park Slope, the contents of a child’s lunchbox can be fodder for a 20-minute conversation.

Over coffee, I cautiously raise a subject that has concerned me of late: less than five miles away, some children don’t have enough to eat; others exist almost exclusively on junk food. Alexandra concedes that her approach is probably out of reach for those people.

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FILED UNDER: Media, Food, Poverty, Privilege, Race and Class
November 23, 2010 | 1:20 PM | By

17 Million American Families are Food Insecure

Obama-Biden Transition Project

The Obama family volunteering at a food pantry, Thanksgiving 2008.

Two days before a holiday which results in, if not celebrates overeating, I’m reading the Washington Post’s “5 Myths about hunger in America“. The dissonance I feel is like a bucket of ice water to the face:

The person most likely to be hungry is a single, working mother. Federal programs ensure that low-income children can get free meals at school, but their mothers – many of whom are single and work low-paying jobs in the service sector – often have to make tough choices between food, rent, gas for the car, health care or new shoes for their kids. Millions of American women who face this predicament will feed their children and go without meals themselves.

Another tragedy in America is the rapidly growing number of seniors who have to choose between food, medicine and utilities. Though few of our elders will admit to needing help, a 2007 study by Meals on Wheels indicated that as many as 6 million are going hungry. Meanwhile, that free food-delivery service has waiting lists in many cities. The 80 million baby boomers approaching retirement are expected to live longer than any previous generation, but not all have set aside enough resources for their final years. When that silver tsunami strikes, hunger will come with it.

FILED UNDER: The People, Food, Hunger, Poverty
November 23, 2010 | 11:06 AM | By

Lined up Behind IHOP’s Velvet Rope

This picture was taken at 9am this morning, when people were already in line for free pancakes from the new IHOP in DCUSA. There were jugglers, clowns, balloon artists and what looked like a giant, stuffed pancake strolling down Irving street, entertaining the crowd, who started chanting “Pancake, pancake!” during the opening ceremony, which featured members of the City Council and Mayor Adrian Fenty. Council Chair-elect Kwame Brown tweeted this amazing photograph of the Mayor, Council member Jim Graham and himself wearing blue IHOP cardigans. What a festive way to start the day, in Columbia Heights.

FILED UNDER: Around the City, Columbia Heights, DCUSA, Food
November 17, 2010 | 10:58 AM | By

IHOP: “We are here for this community.”

When our server walked up, she put this coaster down next to our coffee pot.

Yesterday, I visited the new IHOP in Columbia Heights. It was opening day and despite the oppressively gray sky and fat rain drops, the place was almost full. I reviewed the food and wrote about my first impressions, here.

At the end of my late lunch, Briana– the most pleasant server I have encountered this year– brought over her towering boss, Clarence Jackson. He was so tall that my neck cracked from looking up at him and I was relieved when he cordially asked if he could sit down. I immediately realized that this was the “cop” whom people had commented about online, who owned both this IHOP and the one in Southeast. Suddenly, I was much less worried about hordes of marauding teens Metro-ing up from Gallery Place to invade Columbia Heights. As Briana had merrily said earlier when I asked her about potential rowdiness, “See that 6’7″ man over there? He’s my boss. And he’s a police officer. We’re not worried.”

I asked Mr. Jackson how his newest endeavor’s first day was going.

“I am very pleased.”

He inquired about my meal (and was the sixth person to do so, at that point) and I told him the truth; that it was better than I had expected and that the service was wonderful, too.

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FILED UNDER: Restaurants, Business, Columbia Heights, Food, Race and Class
November 10, 2010 | 9:22 PM | By

Suddenly, an IHOP.

On my way home from WAMU, I passed the new, soon-to-be-open IHOP in Columbia Heights. Much to my surprise, it was brightly lit, filled with tables and it looked as if they were training employees, inside. It was shocking to see new furniture and activity where there had previously just been dust, but then I remembered that they hope to start serving diners, this month. Finally, a late-night dining option in Columbia Heights. Some of my neighbors are vocal about their fears; they worry that IHOP will attract drunks, rowdy teenagers, gang members (?) and the like. I’ll wait until it’s actually functioning to worry about any of that. I’m a pragmatist (who loves pancakes).

FILED UNDER: Around the City, Columbia Heights, Food
November 9, 2010 | 2:11 PM | By

It’s easy to be a critic, when English is your first language.

Santa Fe Nachos, Dos Coyotes, Davis, California

One of the things I miss most about Northern California is the Southwestern restaurant, Dos Coyotes. Please note: I did not say “Mexican” food. I fully admit I want some sort of “inauthentic” dish which contains spicy salsa, black beans and an obscene amount of cheese. That’s a pretty basic want, but it’s difficult to fulfill here in D.C. When I worked near K Street, I’d go to Pedro and Vinnie’s burrito cart and 80% of the time, I’d be satisfied; unfortunately, it’s not open for dinner or on the weekends. So I often end up at…Chipotle. I know. It’s not real, ethnic food. I know.

But it’s spicy and across from my house, so I go. When I do, the staff switches to Spanish while asking for my order. Years ago, I was fluent in it, so my accent is decent and I can bust out these impressive sentences every so often…but I’m much more likely to be left staring at the ceiling, agonizing over a verb I can’t remember. The 14th Street crew doesn’t mind this, in fact they exhort me to keep practicing. I do, because it’s kind of them to help me, but also because it is a potent reminder of how privileged I am.

I speak English.

It’s not my first language, but I speak it as if it were and I don’t take that for granted. When some dolt on the street compliments me by telling me something like, “You’re Indian? You speak good English for an immigrant!”,  I smile a wan smile and reply that I was born to immigrant parents in California, where English is often spoken.
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FILED UNDER: Around the City, The People, Food, Immigrants, Little Ethiopia, Race and Class, Race and Ethnicity, Shaw