Food Weekend and Food/Farm Dreams
By Tamika Whitenack
This blog has 2 parts. The first is about my life right now, or rather my life this past week. It was actually a very good week for me! I'm pretty busy with classes and lots of extracurriculars (this week I went to the first Asian Students' Committee meeting and also Multiracial Biracial Student's Association, which has had meetings for a while but I hadn't gone yet). Preregistration is also coming up, which is very exciting!! But also a little stressful. I'll share more once I actually know what classes I'm trying to get next semester.
This weekend was full of food, which I will mostly share about through pics. I helped with scallion pancakes and dumplings for ASA Night Market, made pumpkin pie with Food Rescue, and had another Sunday morning kitchen party featuring chickpea curry, kale, bulgur, fontina biscuits, pumpkin cookies, and a small batch of sesame cookies. See the pics at the bottom of this post!
Now, for part two of the blog post. I have been playing around with some future plans. Remember our econ farm plans? So, I have sort of taken that to the next level and now have this super idealistic dream of the perfect future life. I shall share it with you:
I would love to be involved with a non-profit organization that uses farming and food as a way to model better environmental practices and work to improve the health and economic situation of marginalized communities. I envision this project to be centered around a farm that uses sustainable agriculture practices for food production, as well as produces renewable energy. The farm would be owned by the workers, hopefully founded in collaboration with existing small farmers and then using outreach to ensure the farm is accessible to people of all socioeconomic status. There would be a community-supported-agriculture component of the farm intended to provide healthy food to members of the community, again with programs to ensure that the food is accessible to all. The renewable energy farming would be a source of income to help run the farm. I also envision a restaurant that is designed to showcase the produce of the farm and share its values with the community. The restaurant would also be run my members of the group and would focus on fresh and healthy food. The restaurant could have different purposes depending on the day of the week, such that some days it served paying customers in order to make money, but other days it was intended to be a space to provide food for those in need. I would also love to incorporate an education component into my farm dream. Ideally, there would be on-site classes offered to members of the community. These classes would have a broad range of topics: sustainable agriculture and farming practices, backyard garden tips, renewable energy, healthy cooking, and other ideas that members found interesting and important. Similar to the restaurant, the education programs would be available to people of all socioeconomic status. The goal of the education program would be to raise awareness about issues and to help people adopt practice in their own lives that have environmental and personal benefits. In addition to these on-site classes, I would also like to have an urban garden program. The goal of this program would be to create vegetable gardens at urban schools or apartment buildings that would provide easy access to healthy food to urban communities and get people involved in their own food production. The last component of the education program would be on a much larger scale, in which this farm/organization worked to help other small farmers to implement sustainable agriculture practices and renewable energy. This could start with other local farmers but potentially extend towards farmers across the country, and hopefully build a community of farmers committed to similar values. Workshops and conferences could be helpful for achieving this goal.
So, it might not be realistic but it is a dream! Who needs to be realistic? That's what's been occupying some of my brain space lately. Okay, time to sleep....the time change is real! Wish me luck as I learn to survive without sun after 4:30.
This blog has 2 parts. The first is about my life right now, or rather my life this past week. It was actually a very good week for me! I'm pretty busy with classes and lots of extracurriculars (this week I went to the first Asian Students' Committee meeting and also Multiracial Biracial Student's Association, which has had meetings for a while but I hadn't gone yet). Preregistration is also coming up, which is very exciting!! But also a little stressful. I'll share more once I actually know what classes I'm trying to get next semester.
This weekend was full of food, which I will mostly share about through pics. I helped with scallion pancakes and dumplings for ASA Night Market, made pumpkin pie with Food Rescue, and had another Sunday morning kitchen party featuring chickpea curry, kale, bulgur, fontina biscuits, pumpkin cookies, and a small batch of sesame cookies. See the pics at the bottom of this post!
Now, for part two of the blog post. I have been playing around with some future plans. Remember our econ farm plans? So, I have sort of taken that to the next level and now have this super idealistic dream of the perfect future life. I shall share it with you:
I would love to be involved with a non-profit organization that uses farming and food as a way to model better environmental practices and work to improve the health and economic situation of marginalized communities. I envision this project to be centered around a farm that uses sustainable agriculture practices for food production, as well as produces renewable energy. The farm would be owned by the workers, hopefully founded in collaboration with existing small farmers and then using outreach to ensure the farm is accessible to people of all socioeconomic status. There would be a community-supported-agriculture component of the farm intended to provide healthy food to members of the community, again with programs to ensure that the food is accessible to all. The renewable energy farming would be a source of income to help run the farm. I also envision a restaurant that is designed to showcase the produce of the farm and share its values with the community. The restaurant would also be run my members of the group and would focus on fresh and healthy food. The restaurant could have different purposes depending on the day of the week, such that some days it served paying customers in order to make money, but other days it was intended to be a space to provide food for those in need. I would also love to incorporate an education component into my farm dream. Ideally, there would be on-site classes offered to members of the community. These classes would have a broad range of topics: sustainable agriculture and farming practices, backyard garden tips, renewable energy, healthy cooking, and other ideas that members found interesting and important. Similar to the restaurant, the education programs would be available to people of all socioeconomic status. The goal of the education program would be to raise awareness about issues and to help people adopt practice in their own lives that have environmental and personal benefits. In addition to these on-site classes, I would also like to have an urban garden program. The goal of this program would be to create vegetable gardens at urban schools or apartment buildings that would provide easy access to healthy food to urban communities and get people involved in their own food production. The last component of the education program would be on a much larger scale, in which this farm/organization worked to help other small farmers to implement sustainable agriculture practices and renewable energy. This could start with other local farmers but potentially extend towards farmers across the country, and hopefully build a community of farmers committed to similar values. Workshops and conferences could be helpful for achieving this goal.
So, it might not be realistic but it is a dream! Who needs to be realistic? That's what's been occupying some of my brain space lately. Okay, time to sleep....the time change is real! Wish me luck as I learn to survive without sun after 4:30.
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| food truck mac&cheese |
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| scallion pancake batter |
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| pumpkin pie |
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| cows at the Shunpike dairy this morning! |
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| kitty!! |
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| more cows |
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| bad lighting, good cookies and biscuits |
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| chickpeasss |
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| blurry kale |
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| blurry bulgur |
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| beautiful tree!! |
Why are the trees over there so much prettier T_T
ReplyDeletealso wow you really have it all planned out
I love your life plan! It's really really beautiful! I can def see it happening :))
ReplyDeleteP.S. bulgur is a staple for us here. Also tonight I ate chickpea curry :) I call it garbanzo beans but I'm being converted
@Jae-An, the trees are pretty, until they no longer have leaves and then resemble massive twigs.
ReplyDelete@Emma, I used to call them garbanzo beans, but I didn't use to eat them, and now I love them and call them chickpeas...