So, yes, that canning article was pretty interesting, no? I loved the inclusion of Edon Waycott, the woman who acted as my canning gateway drug so many years ago (and who, honestly, covered the same territory as the piece's focus but better and first) and the mention of community-based preserving co-ops. Lovely! And, like Ace Commenter Catherine I appreciated the nod to resisting the temptation to profile home canning as the next big retro craze.
I did chafe at the bit about canning being a "quasi-political act" if only because there is little more polarizing in our world than politics and even people who share wide swaths of common ground fall out all too easily when politics are brought into the act. You like to make jam, your neighbor also likes to make jam and although you may make it for different, unfathomable-to-each-other reasons (perhaps you're a locavore while he's feverishly preparing for the zombie apocalypse, say) make it together anyway. You might find lots of stuff will taste better as a result.
In other New York Times news, I was fascinated by a recent Op-Ed concerning Michelle Obama's off-the-cuff remarks that, now living in the White House, she doesn't miss cooking. Now, I adore the piece's author, Amanda Hesser, and have gone to great lengths to defend her whenever the opportunity arises (you'd may be surprised how often this actually happens, it's strange the lightening she attracts). But! I think she's off base on this one.
Not that she didn't touch on the right notes. Frugality, health, self-reliance all get shout outs, and rightly so. And I've said often enough (here and here and here and here) that I bemoan the current state of family cooking and wish more kids could be lured into the kitchen, of which the happy byproduct would be less of a burden (yes, Amanda, even for someone who loves to cook the process can be a chore) for the one person who usually finds herself with the job. (For the record, Michelle Obama and I both have two children, full-time jobs - although I'm willing to cop to the fact that hers is a wee bit more demanding than mine - and husbands whose work takes them out of the house more often than not. There the comparison of our lives breaks down - I rarely travel, I have near complete privacy and I seldom am held up as a role model of anything but, still, if someone offered me a highly trained chef to "help" on a daily basis I would require less than a heartbeat to accept. And I really like cooking.)
I don't think this is really Michelle Obama's fight. As much as I share the desire for a very charismatic roll model showing families the way back into the kitchen together, I don't think the solution is to tsk-tsk women who admit that it's just not their thing. Moreover, reading that Obama's well-documented toned arms somehow prepare her for whisking duty leaves me with the same faint queasy feeling I get whenever I hear someone demand of my very tall brother-in-law why he never played basketball. Poor form, that.
And? I'm uncomfortable with the idea that there is one way to be First Lady. Is it really so hard to work with the idea that First Ladies, just like us regular, er, ladies will come with some variety?
Finally, and on a completely different topic, I've been for some time mulling a post about my enduring but conflicted love for All Recipes. Enduring because I almost always find a good starting point for whatever it is I've got a notion to make. From flourless chocolate cake to fish tacos, All Recipes has never let me down. Conflicted because, my word, is there any other site out there which has user reviews so consistently useless (if entertaining)?
Turns out I don't have to write that post because the New York Times did it a little over two years ago,making all the points I'd make if I were going to write about it, which I nearly did but now won't. Go read the article instead. Very entertaining.