Page 4 RAIN Eating High I think the-~eason I like to cook is that it brings me closer to other people-whether food .with or for others, there is a cer- . r tain camaraderie and cooperative spirit involved that is very· special. Some of my favorite memories center on fixing food with friends. The ice was quickly broken at my"_sister's wedding where neither of the families had met before. We all pitched in for two days and cut and chopped and mixed the ,food for the wedding supper as well as the meals we ate during that time.:....suddenly it became everybody's party! Many people at Farallones Institute this summer said that the best learning experience of all came from working in the kitchen-5 or 6 people (rotated daily) planning and preparing the mountains of zucchini hot dish, French onion soup and cream puffs, or grilled cheese sandwiches that were eaten out on the hillside. At the Community Design Center in Minnesota a couple of years ago we had homemade soup ev,ery day for lunch. It was a time for staff and visitors (often as many as 20 folks) to sit together around the big table without any other agenda than enjoying each other and the creations of our chef. I'm convinced that the ritual provided a large part of the warmth of the place. • Consideration of food-preparation and·eating-is definitely a part of living lightly. In a general sense, it doesn't really Energy & Food, Fritsch, Dujack & Jimerson, 1975, $4 from: • and Lightly matter whether one eats no meat at all, enjoys only o'rganically grown foods, or simply stays away from the sinful yummies like sugar,' bacon and white flour. I pever have been much of a purist and find I can't draw any strict lines around my dietit wouldn't be Christmas without my great-grandmother's sand tarts, and I can't resist a little nitrate-loaded bacon now and then. It's all part of the weaning process~starting easy, little by little, figuring out what you can do without or do for yourself. Getting the breadmaking down and then-beginning to grind your own flour. Making choices-white flour only on special occasions or fried chicken as a treat. (Like the two friends who met each other in a Kentucky Fried Chickenboth-~greed they were still vegetarian in principle!) The main,poiJ?-t is to be aware of what you eat-what it is doing to you, the land and our natural resources. The folks at the Center for Science in the Public Interest in Washington, D.C. are doing·;ome of the best work on the hidden costs and problems of food. They sponsored Food Day last year to make·the public-aware of problems such as nitrate in bacon, sugar in baby food and preservatives and coloring in general. Their.book, Energy and Food, gives figures for energy costs-ice cream and frozen orange juice head the list of "gas guzzlers." • • The Vegetarian Epicure, Anna Thomas, Center for Science in the Public Interest 1779 Church St:, N.W. . Washington, D.C. 20036 Regional Cooking of China, Margaret Gin and Alfred Castle, 101 Reproductions, San Francisco, 1975, $4.95. 1 Vintage Books, 1972, $3.95. The Tassajara Br~adbook, Edward Espe Brown, Shambala Bo.oks, 1970, $2.95. Diet for tl Small Planet, Frances Moore 4pp~, Ballantine, 1971, $1.25. The Complete Yogurt Cookbook, Karen Cross White, Ballantine Books, 1970, $1.25. Tassajara ·cooking, Edward Espe Brown, Shambala, 1973, $3.95.
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