Life Begins at 30

Walking on Western Ave.

I'm happiest when I am organizing random projects. In the past few years, it was "Book Club," a group of friends who traveled from Bay Area bar to Bay Area bar tasting the best that there was to try in the artisan cocktail scene.

In the past month or so, the project has been to walk the entire length of Western Avenue in Los Angeles. This straight street is one of the longest north/south streets in Los Angeles, and runs 27 miles through San Pedro, Rancho Palos Verdes, Lomita, Carson, Torrance, Gardena, Inglewood, Baldwin Hills, South Los Angeles, Exposition Park, Koreatown, Hollywood and up to Los Feliz where it ends close to Griffith Park.

I grew up in Southern California near the San Pedro end of Western Avenue, and before this project I hadn't even walked a block on Western. We're 16 miles into the walk, and have 11 to go which will be split into two more walks. It's been super interesting to see the communities that we're traversing, and we're having a blast. I've been taking a photo every 5 minutes along the way, which has turned into the above Flickr album of 91 photos. I've been joined on all three walks thus far by my intrepid cousin Jocelyn, and Kamilah who keeps us entertained the whole way.

Highlights of the walk so far:

• A man stopping us to ask, "Are you tourists?" You know all those tourists whose life long dreams are to walk on Western Avenue? I've never met them.

• Sergeant Messina of Gardena who took it upon himself to keep us company in his squad car on our rainy day walk in the area.

• The amazing old signage that we're spying. Check out this amazing Sandy Vitale Dance Studio sign that Kamilah captured.

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Let's not mention that this is my first blog post in a couple years, shall we? I'm trying to get back to it. If you miss me, you can find me on Twitter, on Pinterest, on Instagram (@jenmaiser), or on Facebook. I've been writing a lot, though mostly for non-food clients. You can, however, sometimes catch me on Bay Area Bites and Serious Eats.

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I've moved out of the Bay Area! I'm currently spending a little bit of time with my amazing grandmother in Southern California. The story of the long San Francisco good-bye is a story I'll hold for another day. It was a tough—really tough—leap, but I know that it was right, even if I miss some parts of San Francisco desparately.

Talk to you all soon!

Hipsters on Food Stamps: Not the Full Story

My twitter feed exploded this week with links to Salon's article titled Hipsters on Food Stamps. The article is just sexy enough to be the topic that we are all talking about: hip 30-somethings using their Electronic Benefit Transfer cards (ATM-like cards that serve as the currency for food assistance programs) to purchase rabbit, organic salmon, mint chutney and soy alternatives. The article quotes several individuals who purchase their food from Whole Foods and organic/healthful grocery chains like Rainbow Grocery. As is usual with such debates, we are inundated with slanted opinions and half-truths.

The outraged complain that these hipsters are "wasting taxpayer money" and subsidizing their lifestyle on the public dime by taking advantage of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. (SNAP is the new term for the old food stamp program.)

Jessica Grose, on Slate's Double X Blog, summarizes the frustration of food choices nicely:

"even if these hipsters were using their own money to buy their organic food they'd be slammed. Or if they were buying the stereotypical foods purchased with food stamps—which is to say, heavily processed—they'd be criticized for contributing to the so-called "obesity crisis." Eating is now a major moral issue in America, and whatever choice you make is wrong."

The above discussion comes on the heels of a hateful op-ed this month. In it, author Ruben Navarrette, Jr., a nationally syndicated columnist, railed against a bill in the legislature that would require California farmers markets to accept EBT cards, complaining that increased acceptance of SNAP is bad because it removes the stigma of such assistance, and that "we're compounding that mistake by continually making it easier and more comfortable to become a permanent ward of the state."

I bring both issues up in the same post, not because the authors had the same intentions with their writing, but because I can easily see SNAP detractors using both flawed articles as an argument against federal food assistance or expanding its reach to farmers markets.

A brief digression: a few years ago, I attended a panel on which the late Diane Goodman spoke. She encouraged the sustainable food advocates among us to choose our words carefully as we fight the battle for good, healthy food, and to question broad strokes arguments, while being wary of parroting arguments that were not rock solid. We've all seen debates go this route, and it's not specific to the sustainable food industry.

So before we all go out slamming the "hipsters who use food stamps" whenever the SNAP program is mentioned, let's remember the real facts about SNAP:

* It is underutilized. Only 2/3 of eligible citizens are taking advantage of the program, which means that approximately 15 million people who could use the program are not. (NYT)

* Despite one-off stories about hipsters using the SNAP program, the big picture is very different. This terrific interactive map at The New York Times gives us a much truer sense of SNAP usage. For instance, there is high usage in the South, and 1 in 4 of the program participants are children.

* Most food advocates are working extremely hard to make sure that those on SNAP are using their benefits for fresh, whole food. Any movement toward that end should be encouraged. The national obesity and diabetes epidemic is making it clear that we need to encourage good, healthy eating however we can.

* Those who complain that artisanal, local foods are a waste of taxpayer money when purchased with SNAP need to remember that food subsidies (paid for through taxpayer money) make cheap food cheap. Worrying about tax dollars that are paying for the influx of high-fructose corn syrup into our families' lives is probably a more suitable use of frustration. Encouraging SNAP users to eat processed foods (e.g., ramen) over whole, organic foods is just moving your tax dollars from paying for the whole foods to paying for the subsidies to big farmers, or paying for the health care costs of unhealthy individuals.

A post on Eater said it well:

"Deride it as welfare if you must, and complain about entitlement, but also remember that people who receive benefits and purchase organic fruits and vegetables are essentially helping subsidize small producers who see little of the money from the massive Farm Bill (which mostly goes to industrial grain, dairy and livestock production)."

chicken's eye view

chicken's eye view, originally uploaded by jen_maiser.

Best restaurant moment of 2009: Contigo

Gwen Bell is a great and inspirational blogger. She is hosting a challenge in which she is asking bloggers to write about their "Best of" moments of 2009. I don't plan on participating every day, but loved the challenge for today:

What was your best restaurant moment of 2009?

It was about nine months ago when my friend Brett Emerson opened his restaurant, Contigo. I met Brett through blogging years ago. He writes In Praise of Sardines. Nearly the whole time I've known him, he was trying to open a restaurant in San Francisco.

Restaurants are a beast to open, and if you add in San Francisco costs and hurdles, it is even more difficult. If you read Brett's blog, you know that he not only had typical hoops to jump through, but a lot of personal events which caused the restaurant opening to delay ... and delay ... and delay. I think that one day I joked about making Brett a t-shirt that said "Don't ask." Because folks were constantly asking him when the restaurant would open.

Fast forward a couple years, and finally the restaurant was opening. We had lived through many of Brett's decisions and we were all invested. "This had better be good," I worried one day. "What if it's not good?" It's not that I didn't have faith in Brett's cooking abilities. I just knew that the logistics of a restaurant were complicated, and that we San Franciscans are a fickle bunch.

That first night, I think that all Brett's friends breathed a collective sigh of relief. Brett was happy and relaxed and in his element. His dear partner Elan was greeting guests, and making us all feel at home. And then the food started to come out. And it was magnificent.

I didn't mean for this to be a restaurant review, so I'm not going to wax on about the food (oh, the food!). There are many places online you can read about it -- nearly everyone who walks through the door seems to love it.

Here is what was important that first night: Our friend had succeeded among our wildest dreams, and we were ecstatic. And have been celebrating with him and Elan this entire year. It is a joy to go to Contigo, and I'm so glad that it entered our lives in 2009.

(Hat tip to Fatemeh, who wrote about her best trip of 2009 which inspired me to get involved in this challenge)

Meals for Change: A Social Enterprise Kitchen (and me! at Commonwealth Club!)

A few months ago, I was asked to be on the advisory board for an innovative new program called Meals for Change. I'll admit that I initially said yes because of the esteemed company that I'd be in. The other advisory board members are Fritjof Capra, Temra Costa, Dominique Crenn, Cathy Curtis, Ari Derfel, Deborah Koons Garcia, Peggy Knickerbocker, Jill Litwin, Raj Patel, and (ho, hum) Michael Pollan.

The reason that it has such an illustrious advisory board, I believe, is a direct result of the innovative vision that Meals for Change is showing. It's a simple idea: Meals for Change is a program being run out of Bay Area Community Services (BACS). BACS runs Alameda County's Meals on Wheels programs, among other nutrition and health programs for adults. BACS has a focus on farm-to-institution programs and is using local purveyors for their meal ingredients, which is remarkable. When it was noticed that the BACS kitchens are only used for a certain number of hours per day, great minds got together to figure out what else could come out of this commercial kitchen.

And Meals for Change was born.

Meals for Change is a line of ready-to-eat entrees that will be available to all of us in local grocery stores. They are made from local ingredients, and by cooks who are learning in a culinary education program (overseen by a fantastic full-time chef). The proceeds of these meals will go back into BACS and will help to provide more meals for the underprivileged and suffering.

So, it's eating delicious meals with a social mission which is exciting.

The first Meals for Change meals went out to stores this week. You can find them at:

Delano's IGA, Rainbow Grocery, Real Foods, Cow Hollow, Real Foods, Russian Hill, and via Planet Organics deliveries.

Further, if you're interested in hearing more about this dynamic program, please come to the Commonwealth Club panel on Wednesday October 14:

Meals for Change: A new paradigm for non-profit sustainability.

Bhram Ahmadhi, People's Grocery

Larry Bearg, Planet Organics

Kent Ellsworth, Executive Director, BACS

Dominique Crenn, Executive Chef, Luce

moderated by me.

Location: Ferry Building, Port Commission Hearing Room, 2nd Floor

Time: 6-7 pm tasting, 7-8 pm panel discussion and film

Cost: $12 members, $18 non-members

Purchase tickets here.

Hope to see you there!