My Extended Time Away

i recently returned from excursions to w.palm beach, detroit, and reidsville. this was my first visit to detroit- as i have extensive experience in both w.palm and reidsville i'll spare the details.

i attended the first FoodCorps summit, and i dare say it was the most fun i've ever had at a food/ag conference. first of all rather then the normal smattering of foodsystems folks one runs across at CFSA for example this event was FULL of folks who like to talk about, thinking about, grow and cook food. sheer joy.

almost everyone there seemed to have experience working with or participating with the AmeriCorps VISTA program. there were other current VISTA's there working with extension agencies, community gardens in maine and iowa among other places.

during the summit participants presented their agencies work to the group, many of them addressed issues/barriers they encountered in their work and i found that many of them (or actually ALL of them) i had experienced here in sparkle city. these issues ranged from isolation to the lack of communication and exposure to community members who are doing work in similar or related fields. this experience has helped me to identify these issues as systemic and not completely personal... it's good to know that others face the same issues.

sea of broken dreams

so things aren't that bad, but some days i feel like i may have sold myself down the river.

weekend back up:

saturday i managed a pie. it was a chocolate number with a deep chocolate ganache buried inside. the strawberries i topped it with were the inspiration for this culinary adventure, the berries themselves were bland and not very palatable, they needed the chocolate.

sunday i was treated to bunch by "nat" a friend of a friend. his black bean cakes were better then anything i've made for myself in weeks. he inspired my to pick up Judith Jones book "the pleasure of cooking for one". i'd like to devote sometime to making some of these meals.

and:

i've given up reading anna karenina for now. not for any good reason. instead im reading "it must've been something i ate" the follow up text to "the man who ate everything" by jeffery steingarten, a true culinary adventurer.