Eating Without Thinking

I just put down "The Omnivore's Dilemma" and it really made me rethink the way that I view food. But in my newfound vein of keeping things simple, I'll just break down my most basic revelation.

To eat in an age before industrialized agriculture, every meal was a product of both a relationship with nature, and a relationship with others. No one person was self sustaining, and everyone was at the mercy of nature. Apples were only consumed in season, and only if you had access to the trees, or spent time and energy cultivating them. Meat was for the price of raising and animal and killing it, or hunting something wild and dressing it. If you didn't want to do these things, you had to pay the person who did, which meant haggling (where they probably made you hear stories of their struggles so you paid for it in essence anyway).

But somewhere after the government subsidized corn, fertilizer homogenized the farm and McDonald's revolutionized the food industry, we've lost our place in the food web. There is no more relationship with the people who deliver our food. We usually go to a place that is familiar (any Chipotle will do), even if it is a location that is not. In such a way we have the pretense of relationships, without actually having the benefits of them.

The same is true for our food. We used to eat foods seasonally, and with such variety. We understood that there was a time and a place for everything, and eating an overabundance of anything was difficult, because nature took care of that. But now we have no relationship with any of our food. Most of it doesn't even look like what we are actually eating, so we couldn't even if we wanted to.

If you don't want to hear some soapbox, feel free to stop reading now, and take whatever you want from what I've previously said. There is enough there, and thanks for reading.

Upon finishing "The Omnivore's Dilemma", which was written from a non-religious perspective, I couldn't help but think about God. It seems that the system we had in place was almost perfect. Everything worked in relationship with the things around it, and that relationship enriched the earth, making it more abundant. Even disasters like fire yielded opportunity for different plant and animal structure. The only thing that the old order didn't have was the ability for man to feel he was completely in control. We couldn't have what we wanted when we wanted it. The lack of instant gratification is great for me, but doesn't suit the human condition.

So we slowly traded relationship with our food, and then relationship with the people who had relationship with our food, for convenience and cheapness. What did we give up in this trade? I'm not sure anyone really knows. Our diets, as Americans especially, are horrific, leading to obesity and depression and eating disorders. Most of us don't know what healthy food is in the first place, much less how to eat healthily if we wanted to now. Not to mention the cost to the environment or the true cost of what it takes to make our food (since the government subsidizes much of it).

We have slowly but surely moved away from a wonderful and amazing system of nature, and into an equally amazing system of man, but perhaps at a cost greater than we can pay. I hope that in the future, I can slowly refocus my eating habits back to a way that is in better relationship with the world around me, and perhaps help others make an informed decision on the eating habits of their own.

The Hard Part is to Keep the Simple Things Simple

I've been making this too difficult. I wrote recently about a breakthrough, and I've been trying to think of how to write about it in an accessible way. But last night, sadly while watching Confessions of a Shopaholic, I realized that the most important, and hardest part, is to stay focused.

Because the vehicle for what I want to write about it is food, but what I really want to write about is simplicity. The hard part, is to keep the simple things simple.

I am almost done reading the book "Omnivore's Dilemma", and it has convinced me that there are things horribly wrong with the way that we do food. I don't think that anyone would eat fast food if they understood what went into it, and what would be going into them.

But we have no transparency in anything we do anymore. That is why Bernie Madoff can take millions and millions of dollars, or why politicians can continually get elected while not doing anything they say in office. Not to mention healthcare or Enron, the recent mortgage crisis, or our whole national government.

When you actually take the time to research these things, they are stupid things done very poorly, but on such a large scale that people can't be bothered to figure out how dumb they really are.

So my breakthrough is this. I'm going to move towards simplicity. I'd like to do it in a simple way, taking small steps to clarify what I am a part of, and how I affect my surroundings in life. In such a way I can be a part of the select group that are working to better the world, instead of the vast majority that just tries to get by (and the other minority that is actively destroying it to satisfy the majority).

I encourage others to do the same.

Breaking Through

There are lots of barriers that we experience. Many of them are real, like the sound barrier (the speed at which sound travels through air). Still, many of them are imaginary: birthdays, New Years, marriage. These are real dates and events, but only socially. When you have a birthday you are in fact one year older than you were, but without a birth certificate it is hard to prove it is different from any other day.

Sometimes real things happen on those days (New Years resolutions have to work sometimes right?), but they have nothing to do with the day. A person is just as likely to have a close call in the car and decide to give up smoking (that always sticks right?).

Anyway, I happen to have had a breakthrough and a marriage recently. The latter is a wonderful thing, and I'd like to get the final transcript on here because Shep did a brilliant job and the ceremony was dare I say, perfect (girl included).

But the former was not planned for roughly a year in advance and just hit me on my honeymoon (like my new wife wanted to I'm sure). I don't know exactly how I'm going to put it (because the first time I heard I didn't take to the information too kindly either), but get ready. If you open your mind, and care a little bit about any sort of earthly, humanly, or spiritual well being, it should interest you a little bit.

Stay tuned.

Getting Married Today!

that's all I got. Just excited.

The Lion King Lesson

The Mavs lost their series with the Nuggets two nights ago, and I'm disappointed that my team lost, but I think the better team won. If you had any emotional stake in the games, you probably got caught up in the controversy of how poorly the refs officiated these games. Shortly after game 3, the NBA released a press statement saying that they missed an obvious call that most likely changed the outcome of the game, giving the game to Denver. Now a lot of ink has been spilled on this topic berating the refs for missing the call or chastising the Mavs for not defending to the whistle, so I won't go into that.

I am really frustrated by the NBA in general, and the refs in particular. I think the refs have made themselves too prevalent, because the mark of a good ref is to officiate the game in a way that he doesn't dominate it, and every time I watch an NBA game it is dominated by the refs. So my reaction to my team getting jobbed was the general "I'll just stop watching the NBA" response, which is bad for two reasons.: 1) I don't watch it much anyway and 2) It does nothing for me to stop watching if I want to watch.

But the more interesting story here is Dirk Nowinski's (the star player on the Mavs) response to the bad call. He said that he wishes that the NBA hadn't come out and said that they screwed up the game, because it doesn't help anyone.

I love that response. While the rest of us fans are being childish and dwelling on the past, Dirk is moving on, and working towards the next game. And even though that game has passed, I think that mindset is good for all of us. Most of us spend a lot of time thinking about all of the bad things that have happened to us. We hold grudges, relive past horrors, and generally spend a lot of energy in the present being hamstrung by things that we can't do anything about.

What we should be doing, is looking forward, planning the next step, using the time we have now to positively impact the future. Thanks for the reminder Dirk, I think all of us needed it.

Technology

Yes I love Technology

I really do. I had a million things to do today (a list 10 things that I expected to take at least a half an hour each). I got through the first 5 in about 20 minutes. Everything was really nice, I only had to deal with an actual person once, and that was through the phone, which only lasted a couple minutes.

How great is technology? All of that paperwork would have taken days without the computer, and now I'm watching my DVR, catching an episode of The Office that I would have missed if it weren't for great video recording, and playing poker while writing a blog.

It amazes me how much we can do with the simple technology that we have, and as far as I can tell, things are only getting better. I know I'm a dork, but still I love technology.

5 Best Things

My restaraunt was telling us waiters the 5 best things that we could do to help the restaurant yesterday, and since the waiters are pretty selfish we immediately started thinking about the five best things our guests could do. After that the conversation moved to the five worst things a guest could do. I present this as an actual list of three good and bad things that have happened to me in my short two months of waiting. Enjoy.

Best Things a Guest Can Do:
1. Tip well - it's how we make our living. (best tip, 100%, best tip on a big order, 50%)
2. Compliment me to my manager - they feel better, I feel better, hopefully you feel better. (He was great, we loved our waiter)
3. Have fun at my table - a fun table makes my job fun. (I've had a couple try to get me to go home with them, I've been kissed by a guy (on the cheek), and I've had lots of great conversations)

Worst Things a Guest Can Do:
1. Not tip - you eat, but I don't. (I had a table tell me that this was their favorite restaurant experience, and then not tip)
2. Stay talking at your table long after the meal is gone - corollary to number 1, keeps me from making money. (My first table yesterday ordered a salad and stayed through lunch, cutting my section essentially in half. They left 3 dollars.)
3. Make lots of changes to your order - this makes my job much harder than it has to be. (Not a huge deal, but some of the changes people ask for are crazy. Oh well, you can't win them all.)

I realize that other people's lists are different, but those are mine (at 6:00 am on a day where I can't sleep).

Some interesting side notes:

People who are bad customers (lots of changes to their orders, rude, stay talking a long time) they are generally bad tippers.
People who are really complimentary are bad tippers.
Kids and really old people are spotty tippers (some tip well, but most don't).
People who split meals are bad tippers (so they tip you poorly on half an order, for full work from the waiter).
Gay guys are great tippers (they usually think I'm cute, so maybe that's why, but they are my best tippers on average).
In general, I don't like knowing who tipped me what, because the bad tippers frustrate me more than the good tippers make me happy, so living off of other's gratuity is a frustrating experience.

Any thoughts from others out there about job frustrations, or restaurant experiences (serving, eating, etc.)?