Convenience Food is Convenient

I've been a long-time enthusiast of food writer Michael Pollan. However, I got annoyed with him the other day. He was on NPR talking about avoiding "convenience foods" and insinuating that people who say they don't have time to cook, probably do, but just don't want to.

I know Pollan means well, but let's not forget that convenience foods are a technology which, along with the birth-control pill, made possible the mass migration of American women to higher education and the workplace. Sure, it's better to eat fresh food not laden with preservatives, sugar and hydrogenated fats, and cooking from scratch can be fun and meditative. But cooking could also be a thankless, time-consuming drugery for women before the Fifties, when many household conveniences were introduced, or became more accessible.

Yes, gourmet cooking at home has become trendy (or, as Pollen points out, watching shows about gourmet cooking at home has become trendy). And more men are into cooking. But there's still some historical baggage attached to cooking, at least for me, and I expect for others. Heck, let's not even say historical: women now outnumber men in attending college, but they generally still do most of the housework.

Sure, we all need to eat better, fresher food, and cook at home more often. But we should also enjoy the ease and extra time that food technology affords us, especially if the occasional frozen pizza helps crank the stress level down a notch.

All things in moderation, even virtuous cooking and eating. To celebrate this notion today, I bought a box of Bisquick, looking forward to some easy biscuits that always taste better than my scratch ones anyway. And then I had a sandwich: local, co-op grown tomatoes for Michael Pollan, and pre-packaged, pre-sliced Oscar Meyer bologna for Betty Friedan.

Gaiman & Gibson

Neverwhere, Neil Gaiman, 1996. Fantastic as expected, based on what else I've read by Gaiman (Stardust, American Gods). Curiously, the Dante-esque plot and the motifs of an underground feudal society and esteem of rats, is painfully similar to China Mieville's King Rat of 2000. I actually didn't like King Rat very much and didn't finish it - which was disappointing largely because Mieville's The Scar is, no joke, my very favorite book of all time. Anyway, I'm sure Gaiman and Mieville know each other, and I wonder what they talk about when they talk about Neverwhere and King Rat...

Count Zero, William Gibson, 1986. Thrilling, freaky follow-up to Neuromancer. When I read Neuromancer, I could see how the movie The Matrix was a brazen copy, but I'm pretty sure Neuromancer doesn't even use the term "the matrix". Count Zero does contain that term, so I'm starting to think The Matrix is an homage to Gibson's entire opus, with bits taken from each one. I'm anticipating being irritated when the Neuromancer movie comes out and people complain that it's a rip-off of The Matrix.

The main difference between the Matrix movies and Gibson's work: in the movies the mystical stuff is allowed to stand in all its sappy, sentimental, he-is-the-one glory. With Gibson, the mystical stuff (a sort of cyber-vodoun in the case of Count Zero, the Rastafarian Zionists in Neuromancer), is only one perspective represented. With Gibson, you're never quite sure if, instead of god (or loa) pulling the strings, it's unthinkable wealth, corporate power, cutting-edge biometric circuitry, or a rogue AI that's causing all the unexplained mischief. I can't wait to read Mona Lisa Overdrive.

Recently Read

The Blue Sword, Robin McKinley, 1982. Suggested by my friend Melissa. An epic young adult fantasy set in a desert environment. The attention to the world's ecology, culture, and language, plus the themes of destiny and love reminded me of Dune. McKinley is a beautiful writer.

Wizard's First Rule, Terry Goodkind, 1995. First book in the series which is the basis for the TV show The Legend of the Seeker. As with many media franchises, I found out this book is way more intense and dark than the TV show. I read the last two-thirds of it in an eight-hour sitting one Saturday.

The Age of the Unthinkable: Why the New World Disorder Constantly Surprises Us And What We Can Do About It, Joshua Cooper Ramo, 2009. While mostly about matters geopolitical, this book is written to get you thinking about your own personal "deep security": meeting adversity by being adaptable, multifaceted, and sociable.

Dawn, Octavia Butler, 1987. First book in the Xenogenesis/Lilith's Brood series. I've wanted to read this series for a while, after reading some of Butler's Parable series. One thing disturbed me, though, about the cover art on the first edition copy I borrowed from the library. It shows a recognizable scene from the book, in which the protagonist, Lilith, a black woman, opens a stasis container and releases another woman. However, the illustration depicts Lilith as a very pale white woman. Wow. I mean, even in 1987, did Warner Books think they could sell more copies if they put a white woman on the cover instead of a black woman? Did they think it was worth creating a major disjoint between the cover and the story? Bizarre and ugly.