Thinkingest Bill Lascher Thinkingest Bill Lascher

The Thinkingest Thoughts on Food With Rhea Kennedy

Produce at L.A.'s Grand Central MarketThe Thinkingest is back with a new episode featuring Rhea Yablon Kennedy. Rhea is a Washington D.C.-based writer and teacher whose work often addresses food and foodways (though she explains it better herself on the Podcast). Food is, of course, one of our most primary needs, so it's no surprise we mull over the ways we eat so much. The decisions we make about what kind of food to buy, about how much of it to eat, about how to grow and distribute and sell food are all topics worth, well, chewing upon. But it still fascinates me how much energy we expend making sure we eat well, how much strain the realities of our modern life places on our ability to do so consistently, and how much imbalance there remains in the way food is distributed, marketed and subsidized. Many thinkers have digested these discussions far better than I, but they're still worth having.

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Life Bill Lascher Life Bill Lascher

No one wants to read what I had for lunch

Wake to the parched taste of a dry mouth. Rise to the scent of a half-cleaned kitchen. Continue with instant maple nut oatmeal, a pat of butter, some almonds, a banana and a glass of milk. Two percent. Jerry's Farm, Mulino, OR. Coffee once. New Seasons Concordia Blend. French press.

Toothpaste. Peppermint with baking soda.

Coffee again, thicker and coarser, dripped from a DeLonghi machine in the kitchen of a temporary workplace.

Tap water.

Sub-par street cart seafood ramen served in a plastic container. Wet noodles, orange broth and a gritty mussel. Tortilla chaser. More water.

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Portland, Travel Bill Lascher Portland, Travel Bill Lascher

Ducking the Elephant in the Room

The day takes shape slowly. Getting out the door just happens. Once you do the bus is ten minutes late. Then, so is the MAX, but you don't mind. You've been quietly extricating yourself from time. You wait in the chill beneath an interstate, listening to teenagers gossip. Staring at the spikes lining the steel beams beneath the roadway you think perhaps a bit too long about pigeon deterrence.

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Consumerism Bill Lascher Consumerism Bill Lascher

More and More

We need to share the message that the culture of more is not the answer. More wealth is not the solution. Economists lament that Americans are saving too much money, they're not spending enough to support our economy. Is anyone willing to suggest that might be a good thing, that, for once, some Americans are living within their means? Consumerism's weaknesses are so visible. Why are we so eager to return to where we were, and why are we so eager to bring the rest of the world into our mess?

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From New York to Jollibee and Back Again
Los Angeles Bill Lascher Los Angeles Bill Lascher

From New York to Jollibee and Back Again

It's not so much that I'm protective of my L.A. gems, but that it seems a latent instance of the somewhat annoying irony fad that so infected late 90's and early 00's Western culture, often fueled by inaccurate understanding of the term's definition. Perhaps, perhaps not. Whatever the case, I still keep picturing New York's food editors thinking how recession-chic it might be to list a new fast food outlet among the openings.

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