Re: Local food makes more sense than ever
- Subject: Re: [cg] Local food makes more sense than ever
- From: A*@aol.com
- Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 21:18:13 EDT
Sally is absolutely right about all communities, especially urban ones
needing to create local food security systems.
Another story: My son's friends, six seventeen year old high school kids
left for the boroughs once the subways started working, but only after they
had cleaned out the fridge like the bottomless pits they are.
I was home from work quieting my nerves with a nice cup of coffee - believe
me after falling buildings, caffeine is a soporific.
My wife the nurse tells me (on her way out to work) that we were going to
have alot of stranded hospital co-workers coming over to shower, chill out
and eat around 7:00 pm. Our deal: when I'm home, I cook. I spent 20 years
in the restaurant business so it's easy for me.
Extra towels and soap I had. If they didn't bomb the aqueduct, I had water.
This was not hard.
Manhattan is a great place to shop with food from all over the world. We
even have a company called "Flying Foods" which fliesin fish from the
antipodes and delicacies from all over the world. When the primeurs hit Les
Halles in Paris, we've get them a few hours later.
The Grand Central Oyster Bar gets shipments via train and shipped by truck
from ports all over the world.
Local food production? There used to be farms in the Bronx and Brooklyn 50
years.,great local cheese makers ago but real estate development ate most of
them up.
In truth, the only roosters I hear in the morning are kept by morons who
raise them for cock fighting over on 10th & 11th Avenues.
So, in Manhattan on day two after the World Trade Center blast, I realized
that most of the fresh bread on Manhattan island was shipped in from the
outer boroughs or New Jersey on trucks via bridge and tunnels. Milk too...
As you may recall, the city was closed off...you could get off the island,
not on because of the emergency crews.
From my restaurant business days, I remembered that there were a few
Manhattan bakeries left - Orwashers on the Upper East Side, Columbia Bagel
near, you guessed it, Columbia University and the a few bialy and italian
bread bakeries on the lower east side.
As there were to be about twenty to dinner and it was 6:30 am I realized
that had better get my ass out there shopping before all of the non
frozen, anti -Wonderbread bread was gone.
When I got to my usual haunts, the old ladies from Europe, the deep south and
Latin America were already filling their baskets - mother wit as always wins
- I got out there just in time and filled my cart before the yuppies rolled
over in bed (heh, heh.)
Bottom line: I got lucky and had 20 stuffed people at the end of the
evening. The last two pints of grape tomatoes from Allegra's plot were more
of a star than my lasagne ( and I make a mean mushroom lasagne!)
A few bottles of red wine, fresh ground espresso and some brandies
afterwards helped them all leave death outside the door for a while.
You have to feed champions well.
However, I didn't know what I'd do the next day though. Bread was gone from
the delis and grocery shelves by 3:00 pm, even the Wonderbread.
This sounds funny, but if incoming deliveries were held up longer on this
island, where we have so many people and grow virtually none of our food (
tofu sprouts in Chinatown basements and seasonal tomatos and veggies in our
community gardens aside) unless we shipped food in by ferryboat, we might
have had an interesting time of it.
The stores are getting deliveries from tractor trailers now, but I have a
loaf of my own home baked bread in the oven as I type. It smells great and
the skill that I'm reviving may come in handy some day soon.
Local food security and victory gardens look to be in all of our futures, and
this time the ACGA and our food security friends are in the vanguard.
Best wishes,
Adam Honigman
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