On Missing Thanksgiving

Posted on November 25, 2011 by Angela

In the US, today is Thanksgiving. Normally, I’d either still l be asleep or having coffee in my comfy pants, starting to think about chopping celery and carrots or making turnip soup, prepping for Thanksgiving dinner. Thanksgiving, based entirely around eating and being with friends and family, has long been my favorite holiday.  

Here in Oruro, Bolivia, though, I am sitting on a lumpy hotel mattress typing, watching Will’s chest rise and fall has he dreams about something he’ll tell me about the moment he wakes up. In Oruro, it’s a typical Thursday. (“Typical” includes the current border fight between the province of Oruro and its southern neighbor Potosi that has brought a civic and transportation shutdown that has left us stranded here for two days.)

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Tomato, Tomate

Posted on October 31, 2011 by Angela

Before we left on our trip around the world, Will and I made all sorts of preparations, including getting typhoid vaccinations and prescriptions for antibiotics that will kill stomach-wrenching viruses. We knew we would be eating mainly at local markets and on the street. We were prepared, to put it bluntly, to be in what we call “the semi-solid state” for the better part of nine months.

Ironically, in our first couple of weeks here in Ecuador we have had the opposite problem. Perhaps we should have considered that we would be starting our adventures in the homeland of the potato. Here, potatoes are served at every meal, typically in very large quantities. Potatoes are also often served alongside fellow starches rice, plantains, or bread. (Sometimes all three!) Continue reading →

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A Question of Guisado

Posted on May 5, 2011 by Angela


Two cups of white rice are burbling away on the stove. I chop an onion, four cloves of garlic, and two pale, sad, out-of-season tomatoes, and set them aside. Then, without thinking, I reach for the ginger root I purchased for cheap at my favorite produce stand a few days before.

I slice off a small piece of ginger thinking how this big root, with all its branches, nubs and stunted digits, looks like a demented, clubbed foot version of the Hang Ten logo that adorned so many of my brother Jason’s corduroy shorts growing up. Only after I slice away the ginger’s outer skin, dry and protective, and begin cutting it into thin matchsticks, do I realize my mistake. “Goddammit Dad,” I say loudly, to my empty kitchen, sweeping the ginger off the cutting board. “No ginger!” Continue reading →

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Speaking of César Chávez…

Posted on April 14, 2011 by Angela

Two weeks ago, President Obama permanently declared March 31st César Chávez Day.  In the declaration, he had this to say: “A true champion for justice, César Chávez advocated for and won many of the rights and benefits we now enjoy, and his spirit lives on in the hands and hearts of working women and men today.”

This is a lovely sentiment, but it is not entirely true. I’ve been thinking a lot of about Chávez and his work lately. About how he helped achieve, through creative methods of civil disobedience like the grape boycott, basic rights and better working conditions for farmworkers. And how, tragically, so much of what Chávez and farmworkers fought for and won has been undone. Continue reading →

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Kalamansi Dreams

Posted on March 29, 2011 by Angela

Even as a little kid, I knew our family was lucky. My parents both worked and there was always food on the table. Despite our good fortune, there was one thing that we lacked — something that gnawed away, quietly but persistently, at my parent’s happiness. Something that, thirty years later, they still dream of: a kalamansi tree.

Native to the Philippines, where they grow in abundance, kalamansi (also known as calamansi, calamondin, or Philippine lime) are a natural cross between a mandarin orange and a kumquat. They are adorable little fruit — squat green and orange globes that are as tart as all get out.

If you’ve never had kalamansi, the flavor might be hard to imagine. Kalamansi are a bit disorienting — reminiscent of familiar fruits, yet completely unlike any of them. The best I can do is say that it tastes like lime with a touch of lemon, with an underlying tangerine essence: a little bite, a little sweet, and thoroughly, thoroughly sour. Slice or peel one open and you’ll find what appears to be a miniature orange: eight or so small segments made of orange pulp. You’ll also be hit with a hauntingly rich citrus fragrance that seems to linger in the air and in your dreams for days.

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“Food with Integrity,” Short on Humanity

Posted on March 1, 2011 by Angela

Earlier this month, a story emerged that Chipotle restaurants, under pressure and investigation by ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement), had abruptly fired hundreds of its workers in Minnesota. After auditing Chipotle workers’ I-9 forms (the employment eligibility verification form that requires employers to check people’s passports, social security cards, and other forms of ID), ICE informed Chipotle that many of their workers had “suspect” documents.

Chipotle, an up-and-coming Mexican fast food chain that has built its reputation around the concept of “Food with Integrity,” responded to ICE’s audit by immediately dismissing 450 workers.  Those 450 workers make up nearly half of Chipotle’s workforce in Minnesota, where the company has around 50 outposts.

When I first heard about all of this, I felt my heart drop into my stomach, which quickly gave me that sad, sickening deep-down-inside feeling most accurately described as “ugh.” In many ways, it did not surprise me — our food industry is built upon the backs of millions of undocumented workers who are routinely undervalued and exploited. But what made this dismissal of so many vulnerable people worse was that it came directly from a company that prides – and markets – itself on having good values. Values that, to a certain extent, I had bought into. Continue reading →

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My First Chicken

Posted on January 30, 2008 by Angela

Just before I left Seattle for the Philippines, I read Jonathan Kauffman’s terrific story in the Seattle Weekly about attending a pig slaughter (and eating the pork-filled dinner that followed). It’s a great read — vivid descriptions of the event and a very clear, thoughtful look at the complicated decisions we make, and feelings we experience, when we eat meat. The story has been on my mind ever since (along with a slight pang of regret for not having gone myself).

Little did I know that on my first full day here in the Philippines I’d have my own opportunity to witness the death and gutting of an animal that I’d be eating for dinner. And that I would be the one pulling the trigger. Continue reading →

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