When I started the project of this blog, I wanted to document what I was cooking and thinking, and often how the two related to each other. I was turned off and depressed by “lifestyle” blogs and food-porn posturing. I wanted to create a wide exploration of what it could mean to politicise a meal, to historicise and contextualise it, showing its antecedents and effects
I’m not sure how far I’ve come or where I’m going, but the vision remains strong that food on its own is not inherently interesting a subject to me, pleasurable as it may be to eat something delicious or gaze at beautiful food styling wishing oneself into the scene.
The video below interests me. I happened upon it because Sean Hawkey is a friend and had pointed something else out on the site. Sean is a photographer and filmmaker, often working for Development groups. I love how in the case of “The Breakfast Recipe,” he’s put the actual breakfast in a chain of events and a particular social milieu. It might feel feel easier to express this scenario in places where people grow their own food. But it seems really compelling to imagine the full weight of these stories for those of us buying our food in a globalised world. There will be stories inside of stories, with infinite digressions. All of which makes what we eat more compelling.
Kitchen Counter Culture 
Love it – I’ll be showing that one to the kids later….
We should be helping people to do similar here, I would like to go more in the direction of creating our own food…..
We could do a little film in the summer of your planting and growing and various toils then cooking and eating? xxx
Dear Annie,
Thank you. This video really affected me profoundly. One night each week, I make a Latin American-inspired ‘bean stew’, as we call it, and serve with rice, (wheat) tortilla, and salad (coriander, cucumber, spring onion, green chilli and lime). My kids wrap theirs up along with some cheese and love it.
I look forward to showing them this video tomorrow to help them realise more about both where their food comes from and what so many people still have to do to produce similar meals.
We should be moving towards a more direct relationship with our ‘inorganic body’, as Marx put it, but we shouldn’t romanticise the exhausting domestic drudgery that still plagues billions of women’s lives.
Thanks and love
Joel
Hi Joel, thank you for commenting, and yes I do agree about the possibilities of romanticising drudgery– it’s such a fine line. I’m really interested in the way leisure and privilege can allow the reembrace of food growing and cooking– I tried to explore that a little in a piece I recently wrote for a zine.
Somehow I’m not saying what I mean…. Thank YOU so much for commenting and I’m really feel happy that you were affected by this film. I am as well. Sean is a really incredible person in his work, artistry and commitment.
Thank you for sharing. So important for us to restore connection with our food. I will affect how we use our resources. The scene with the beans in a bowl… how precious each seed is, for feeding the family and for the continue planting and eating!