Some beginning's end

The end of the semester is always so gastronomically frustrating. You can't buy anything new to cook, there's nothing in the fridge, it's raining and delivery options are usually limited to shitty pizza or overpriced crap. I finished my peanut butter, my almonds, cashews, raisins, fruit, vegetables, had eggs for lunch, and Gia doesn't deliver. When you're stuck with campusfood.com, what's a girl to do?
After eliminating the 23 pizza choices out of 56 total, and the 6 chinese, and the 5 indian because I had that two days ago, and all the other bad choices and closed restaurants, you're left with basically nothing to choose from.
So of course, despite the fact that I kind of wanted a salad (and I had two yesterday...I guess my body might be trying to tell me something?), I opted for Phoebe's Bar-B-Q, a South Street mainstay. I've had it once before, but didn't have the meat (long story) so tonight I got one of their combo plates: 2 sides, 2 meats, and a piece of cornbread. I'm currently anxiously awaiting my mashed potatoes, sneaky spicy greens, brisket, ribs, and cornbread. And contemplating running over to Greek Lady for a salad as an appetizer. Crazy? Might be. I'll let you know how it is.

Cheers.

Just Like My Mother Used to Make

What could be better in the middle of finals week than a home-cooked meal?
I'll tell you: nothing.

I and several others were invited to the home of a prestigious campus figure for Friday night dinner. Food and conversation (and wine?) were all delicious. Yes, conversation can be delicious, but that is besides the point.

You can get good food a lot of places, especially in a city, but nothing says "good meal" like, well, a good meal. Cooked in a real kitchen by real people, and eaten around a table in a totally relaxed atmosphere, there's really nothing like it. This is especially true for college students (and particularly during finals), when the majority of our meals are shitty and more than most of the time in a disposable container. Not to mention the harm this does for the world, it is neither socially for gastronomically satisfying.

So close to the end of the year and so close to mom's cooking you can almost taste it, there's nothing like a sit-down, laugh-out-loud, home-cooked meal. Find a few friends and a few hours and try it yourself. Trust me, you'll love it.

Why We Shouldn't Use Economics to Solve Problems

The Economist from a few weeks ago seemed to be all about the food crisis. It also proposed a solution - use SCIENCE and TECHNOLOGY to breed specifically high-yielding crops. Sounds a little like GMOs...and a little like a bad idea.

Lack of diversity in agriculture, much like in the human gene pool, increases susceptibility to diseases and pests and tends to favor the less nutritious varieties. This solution also causes a loss of traditional crop varieties and seeds (amaranth, anyone?).

There has to be a better solution, but I'll think of one later.

Ironic...

Standing on oil and gold to get food ... interesting perspective on this global food crisis we have going on these days.

More commentary on economic perspective of the crisis to come ... need to organize thoughts.