lucien freud

I will miss sharing food with Lucian. We had some lovely breakfasts together at his place. I would say he was a good, plain cook – an idiosyncratic cook, perhaps, but a good one. He could take a hung woodcock and pop it in the oven and it would be a very good lunch. He was generally good on the subject of wine and on food. He was a stylish man and, although not a great eater, he did like to go out in the evenings. He would have day sitters and night sitters in his home and he would usually take them out afterwards as part of the payment. He liked the Wolseley in Piccadilly, in particular. I would say it was his current favourite and had been for a while. He called it "the best room in London", so I am not surprised they have honoured him with a black tablecloth and a candle on his regular table. He liked Clarke's in Kensington, too, and, in fact, both Sally Clarke and Jeremy King of the Wolseley sat for him. Lucian used to like the River Cafe too… I have lost count of the places we have gone out to together.
William Feaver

all you need for breakfast

Right here.

making food visible

Michael Pollan's NYRB article, which I like very much, is here.

'you can buy honestly priced food or you can buy irresponsibly priced food'

Joel Salatin, from this article, sent on by my friend Richard.



I am about to move into the section in Omnivore's Dilemma that features Joel most prominently.

And this, from the same Michael Pollan article, seems as good a summary of any of what it is that anyone who wants to eat good food responsibly is up against:

Shortly before I traveled to Virginia, I’d reread an essay by Wendell Berry in which he argued that reversing the damage done to local economies and the land by the juggernaut of world trade would take nothing less than “a revolt of local small producers and local consumers against the global industrialism of the corporations.” He detected the beginnings of such a rebellion in the rise of local food systems and the growing market “for good, fresh, trustworthy food, food from producers known and trusted by consumers.” Which, as he points out, “cannot be produced by a global corporation.” Berry would have me believe that what I was seeing in the Polyface salesroom represented a local uprising in a gathering worldwide rebellion against what he calls “the total economy.”

On a related matter: From the time I saw this post on David Dark's site, I have been angry again about the US healthcare mess. My position is very simple - healthcare for everyone. This is a theological and spiritual question. I thought about the church and this issue and I wondered for the first time in a while what the kind priest would say. This matters. It really matters.



I am listening to President Obama's speech right now.

industry of war and the industry of farming

Reminded twice in the past two days of war industry repercussions reaching through to today. Both of them to do with farming as industry. There was the quote above and then today in the Guardian an article on Monsanto. The odds against real change felt insurmountable again.

when the boat comes in

In the aftermath of my fish post a couple of days ago I read two sobering articles on the crisis facing the fish population. There was a good editorial in The Independent on trawlers as weapons of mass destruction. And the New York Times had a piece on the many questions we must ask before eating a fish.

On a more buoyant note, there was also a great NYT article on urban food foragers, who have been building networks of people willing to share the harvest from their city trees. That's where I pulled the quote from.

And Kyoto, from 3 posts ago, came up in an encouraging NYT editorial by Pico Iyer on living a simpler life. Some of the piece felt a little too neat and tidy but I need to be reminded about a lot of what he is saying again and again, especially as I try and begin to think about what to do next. And I don't really know how long, or how circuitous a route, he took getting to where he is now.

'Even in Kyoto
Hearing the cuckoo's cry
I long for Kyoto'
Bashō