OccupyThanksgiving2012

OCCUPY THANKSGIVING 2012

OccupyOaklandGA8July2012

I was wondering if I could convince you to bring some of your amazing cuisine to this Sunday's GA.  I can help you cover your costs if you don't receive enough on spot donations to cover everything.  We are trying to get quorum so we can have an important group vote.  So, hopefully a lot of folks will come out.  Let me know your thoughts.

Thank you,

H*****r

 

Maya helped me deliver the food.

Pasta with sauce: sauteed onions, garlic with "Shaan" vegetable curry mix, zucchini, a couple of hot banana peppers and then chopped tomatoes cooked for 3 minutes.

Occupy Food Donors - Thank You!

Nikunj, MM1, MM2, Aji, Krishanu and all the GA attendees who ate a bit and donated what they could - Thank you.

(List of donations. I'm at a break even point right now, haven't been to Oakland in a month, and with produce being donated, will not need cash donations to cover my expenses for a while. If you feel moved to do so, please donate directly to OccupyOakland.)

Leila, one of the OccupyOakland Kitchen coordinators, wrote this to the cooks and donors. I want to share her expression of gratitude with you. (Business stuff redacted.)

"hi everyone. i just wanted to give a shout out to all the amazing and powerful food people. I would love to make the email list more accessible to anyone that wants to write something and/or reach out to the whole kitchen crew.  please let us know if you're inspired. The BBQ crew has been on it! We also have a ton of occupy oaklanders helping at the farm in the kitchen...yahoo, also thanks to the crazy autonomous cook and his huge meal actions all over town.....you know who you are, suspenders and all. its such hard work and we all know what it takes to cook for dozens and dozens, if not hundreds of people.

I wanted to touch base with everyone and see if anyone wanted to do food for an upcoming action, or had other food related ideas? i have been getting a ton of produce donations and have been processing a bunch. I would love to get some continuous weekly food actions going....similar to food not bombs but Oakland style! Maybe at a park, a big intersection, a hospital or community center.......at least a few days a week. we need groups of people who want to cook certain days and kitchen space offered to cook in.

Most of all i want you all to know how important you all are, and how much i love working with you.  Food justice is a passion we all share. These are the relationships we build for the future we are creating. I did an interview recently for occupy oakland and as interviews generally go, my description of the kitchen process was sized down from 25mins to 30seconds. It did not convey in the slightest my appreciation and admiration for everyone involved in the kitchen, from people who transport and set up, to cooks, to people who donate, to people who come and serve at events, or to people who eat and are grateful. i hope we all can see and feel how much love exists in the work we do and with each other.
Let's organize, open food centers and continue building for the future! food revolution! food Sovereignty!

That being said if you haven't been to the farm in Albany (san pablo and marin) please go see it! I would like to talk about getting Oakland farming as well. setting up more and more gardens. pot luck soon to insight ideas further?! love, Leila "

Salsa Al Raul

"Bright" Salsa Colorada Asada

Roasted red salsa, very bright, recipe from Raul.
Video 1:

Video 2:

Quoted text*****************************
Here's the simplest yet tastiest salsa you can get. The key is to avoid any sweet items (tomatillos) or sweet chili peppers like anaheims.

Jalapenos and/or serranos -- tons
Red tomatoes -- 8-12
2-4 limes
Salt and pepper


Turn on the grill and get it to 350-400

Grill the peppers and tomatoes. Grill the peppers until the membrane on the outside is blackened.

Grill the tomatoes a bit longer (not quite cooking them but somewhat ala parboiling) but make sure the skin is blackened as well.

At very end (with 1-2 minutes left on the tomatoes), cut the limes in half and put them pulp-side down on the grill.

Put everything in a big bowl and then with a clean kitchen towel or even paper towels just wipe the blackened parts off -- the easy thing here is that you just want to get a good portion off so leaving a bit is okay and makes this part very quick.

Put one tomato in and blend quickly; put the peppers in and blend until smooth(ish).

Squeeze grilled lime halves into blender.

Then for chunky style, put the rest in and hit the button 2-5 times; for smooth style, turn blender on for 15-20 seconds.

(Later, from Raul.)

I just made the first half of the tomatillo one and it’s HOT HOT HOT!

So, for Gringos you might try do 2 serranos, then 3 and so on until you think it’s just right.

The way I saw it made by my dad’s best friend: 2 tomatillos, one small white onion, tablespoon of oregano and THE REST serranos. Totally a “quien es mas macho” style but I’ve been the US of A for too long!End Quote *********************************

For the kiddie version I replaced the serranos with red bells. Based on that little experiment, even for the "cojones" version,  would add a few roasted bell peppers for a really bright color to counteract the green of the serranos, for flavor and body.

Mango GInger Ceviche

A slight modification of a ceviche recipe I'd found years ago.

Ingredients: snapper/fresh cod/sierra mackerel/ hake/ tilapia - mostly any medium to mild flavoured white fish, non-oily. Filleted, skinned, de-boned.
About equal weight in ripe mangoes - the longish yellow "philipine" mangoes or mexican "maraton", slightly tart is OK.
bunch of fresh ginger
limes or lemons
green chillies or serranos
fresh coriander
salt, pepper, garam masala

Watch the videos for how-to.

Video 1:


Video 2:





VERY Important step:
This was pointed out to me by Raul. To prevent the ceviche from getting mushy (in both texture and taste):
1) Don't put the mango in the marinade!
2) When you are ready to serve the ceviche, drain it thoroughly and then add fresh lemon juice, seasonings if needed and the mango.

UptownOaklandFoodDistrict

That is what the sign says, on a lamp-post near the OccupyOakland GA location at the "Remember them" memorial park, "Uptown Oakland Food District"

So, we have 1) a pot full of green salad,

2) spicy kale, tomatoes and potatoes, 3) roasted potatoes Indian style (Cut, soak, rinse, dry. Coat with lemon juice, oil, dry onion, turmeric, chilli, garam masala, salt and bake with 1/2 cup of water at 350 till done, mixing often, 4) Missing Saiya samosas,

Big Ed, purveyor of fine food, he is there without fail at every GA and for numerous events during the week. Let's see what he cooked.

5) A traditional Spanish dish called "moros e Indios". If it is made with white rice (traditionally) instead of the brown rice, it doesn't have the same meaty texture, and is called "Moros y Christianos". Delicious!

6) Corned beef and cabbage. As they say in Cuba, "And where is the corned beef?"

7) Chef salad,

ans 8) Maudlin Mandarin Marmalade!

OccupyEggs4

Did someone donate these dozens and dozens of eggs? “No, you could say they were remaindered. I rescued them from the garbage, one of the grocery store's dumpsters had a caseload, there must have been upwards of 25 dozens. None of the cartons, none of the eggs were even broken. But Josh and I smelt them and we broke open a few to check and they smell fine. So as long as you cook them thoroughly you'll be fine.”

But she hadn't cooked them fully, considered cooked yolk a waste of her own cholesterol allowance, so sunny-side up the first time in the Occupy Kitchen, then deep fried in super-hot oil, the white crusted, the yolk warm but uncooked, and later fried whole in their shells, the white rubbery, runny and the yolk again warm and uncooked, pasting the insides of her mouth with that full yolky taste so rare in American eggs or even Indian ones, these days.

With the deep-fried eggs, she'd struggled single handedly, alternating the scissors and her fork in her right hand to cut the egg and bread and red peppers and then scoop it all to her mouth, until she realised with the last bite that for some length of time now she had been looking only at her plate – the yolk cascading down the bubbled and crisped egg-white, the red bell peppers with their flecks of black skin and bits of chopped garlic embedded in the flesh, the multigrain bread now soaked in the liquid from the peppers and the oil and yolk, she hadn't been reading the book still propped open in her left hand.

OccupyEggs3

Unlike Rutherford and rainbows, Hemingway had not analogously ruined fried eggs for her, nor even art, perhaps because artists didn't take on fried eggs on a plate in the way they took on fruit in a bowl or fish skeletons on a plate or a rainbow in the sky. Since she hadn't already gotten sick from these eggs, which she'd first eaten three days ago, she thought she would be okay. She'd delivered, to the OccupyHungerOakland kitchen, 

OccupyOakland Food drop 11 March 2012

 the sunchokes they'd given her the previous week, cooked with her homegrown fenugreek leaves, 

Add chopped methi and mint leaves to the fried onions.

Sunchokes with methi leaves.

 rapini sauteed with garlic and salted-yogurt chillies,

Sauteed rapini.

 a salad of blanched broccoli tossed with garlic, salt olive oil and vinegar,

and two gallons of rajma dal with rice.

Rajma dal over rice

She picked up produce to cook and bring back the following week 

Produce pick up

 – potatoes, tomatoes, a half bushel of kale, 7-8 dozen mandarin oranges

Delicious remaindered mandarins

(rejected as blemished and donated to OccupyHungerOakland, she'd found only 1-2% were unusable, she and her girls had eaten a dozen or so, and the rest she'd made into Melancholy Mandarin Marmalade)

Melancholy Marmalade, yes it is bitter-sweet.

and some lettuce for herself. Then she'd stayed, to help Fiesta, the Occupy Kitchen coordinator, yes the name suited her, and she herself had not yet dared ask whether Fiesta had chosen it herself or whether it had been chosen for her by one of her possibly hippie-throwback parents.

She'd stayed to help since she didn't have her kids that weekend, and it helped her to hang out with other people, younger people with so much energy that they could devote some of it to others. She helped Fiesta process all the rest of the produce – apples, tomatoes, papayas, watermelons, all either donated as “blemished” or de-dumpstered by Fiesta herself. She showed Fiesta how to fry the tomatoes, 

Cooking in the OccupyHungerOakland kitchen.

a few percent of which were beginning to get pale squishy spots with occasional mold, and not let them just cook or stew. Then she helped cut the apples. What was wrong with the apples? “They have spots.” Can't people just eat them, so it saves us the trouble of having to cook them? “No, it is sad, in this country, even the poor and hungry are picky about their food and won't touch an apple unless it is blemish free.” The watermelons looked bad, most had rot on the outside – black and white mold and softened outer flesh. But when Fiesta cut them open, the thick outer part had protected the pink inner flesh almost entirely, only one of the 8 melons had needed to have pink parts cut away. Fiesta chunked the melons and froze them, for later use in aguas frescas at one of the community outreach picnics.

She looked at the papayas, 

Papayas with outer rot...

they were just about beginning to show some moldy spots, but the rest of the flesh was still hard. She mentioned that in her house she would put these papayas back in a paper bag for another week, then cut them open when the flesh would be that beautiful pink-orange. 

... and inner beauty.

 And these were being thrown away? It was true that Americans did not know how to eat tropical fruit, unless it was canned of course. Indians, on the other hand...

Still, she felt that many Indians could cure their feelings of rootlessness in America by eating beautiful, locally grown seasonal produce from a CSA, perhaps even work at a CSA to plant or harvest.

After all that work cooking, she'd gotten hungry. That was when Fiesta had offered her some eggs and “resprouted” bread – resprouted from a dumpster of course. She fried them and ate them with some of the simmering tomato sauce right there in the OccupyKitchen, before she had to leave for her late date that night.

Back at home, a few days later, she considered the irony of having taken $3.89/doz. eggs from the Occupy kitchen, to bring them back and eat them in her home, bought and paid for, no danger of eviction. But Fiesta had insisted she take a dozen, “God, yes, I still have 6 dozens left, and I've given away a hundred eggs each to two community kitchens here already. You liked them, and you bring us food every week, we are giving these away, and other produce, distributing them to our cooks to prepare and bring back for feeding the homeless or for the GAs, or just for their families. So go ahead and take them.” Did someone donate these? “No, you could say they were remaindered. I rescued them from the garbage, one of the grocery store's dumpsters had a caseload, there must have been upwards of 25 dozens. None of the cartons, none of the eggs were even broken. But Josh and I smelt them and we broke open a few to check and they smell fine. So as long as you cook them thoroughly you'll be fine.”

But she hadn't cooked them fully.

OccupyEggs1

OccupyEggs0

She'd cracked the first egg on the edge of the frying pan, but as she'd held it over the oil it had fallen out of her hands when she'd tried to pry it apart. It had been a bitch to get all the pieces of shell out of the hot oil, but it had been worth it just for the idea that had occurred to her – to deep-fry the egg, whole, in its shell. Of course it had cracked in the hot oil, but what oozed out of the crack coagulated and sealed the rest of the egg. She'd let it fry, rolling it around for about a minute before taking it out. Now, with the shell cool enough to touch, she tried to peel it, but that pesky inner membrane stuck fast to both the shell and the egg. So she lopped off the top and scooped the egg out with a spoon, holding the egg in her hand, just as she used to do with soft boiled eggs as a school child. Of course, she'd known even before tasting it that the white would be rubbery, egg proteins have to cook slowly to avoid that texture. But she liked her eggs best that way – unevenly cooked, the outer part of the white rubbery, the inner part runny and the yolk warmed but silkily fluid. It handily beat the fried-egg sandwich Hemingway ate over the course of a paragraph in a bar in Florida. She couldn't fish, couldn't play a bull, and her mountaineering days were long past, but she'd outdone him, Old Hem, at last. If she could only avoid sticking a double barreled shotgun in her mouth, she would outdo him forever, outlast.

Why she liked Hemingway, DWM, misogynist because of all the women he'd loved who hadn't loved him back the way the rivers and seas and mountains did, she couldn't even begin to explain why she liked Hemingway. She'd never read him in school, none of the girls from school had, only certain and very few geeky and wannabe macho guys she knew had read him in school. In the Women's Studies course in college, he was their first assignment, and it was painfully easy to do a feminist deconstruction, and it was all over in a few seconds. Yet there were certain passages that had become ingrained in her brain, and fried eggs were forever associated with Hemingway the way rainbows were forever associated with Rutherford.

OccupyEggs2

OccupyEggs0

OccupyEggs = Insemination? Would only a guy have thought of that? Why had she thought of it then?

Reluctant to put her book down for even a few seconds, holding it in her left hand while the BookEasel © lay unused within easy reach, she tried to cut into the deep-fried egg with the fork in her right hand, using its edge to press the egg down, but the fork couldn't cut through the crusty, brown parchment like egg-white. The roasted bell peppers –she'd marinaded them overnight in olive oil, salt and garlic– squeezed out from between the egg and the holy numbered 9-grain X 12-nut bread, the bread itself crumbled pastily and finally she had the browned egg-white with its back to the plate, and still the fork wouldn't cut through it. She grabbed the kitchen scissors which happened to be on the table from cutting open the packet of “lonely” seaweed soup –if she'd had company, she would have served dal or squash soup or clam chowder, not seaweed soup– and used them to cut the thin leathery egg crust. Now she could scoop up part of the warm yolk, the egg-white, the bread and the peppers.

As she mashed the yolk against the roof of her mouth, and felt that sunny explosion of salt fat sticky coagulating tooth coating creamy yellow in the inside of her mouth, she was reminded of afternoon sex during the early days with …, and of Old Hem, of course, always Old Hem. Fried eggs and Hemingway like rainbows and Rutherford. Then she wondered if she would die of salmonella poisoning from eating free range, organic, cage-free, all-natural, vegetarian fed, family farmed eggs. Her concern arose not from any of the above, but from the fact that they were past their expiry date. She smiled at herself, she'd been about to think “due date”, had in fact thought “due date” before correcting herself –as she'd been doing with the date on egg cartons ever since she'd become pregnant with her first child.

She ate the two eggs she'd deep-fried sunny-side up like her soon2BX husband used to like them until he started worrying about his high cholesterol and its effect on their non-existent sex-life, and turned to her experiment. She'd cracked the first egg on the edge of the frying pan, but as she'd held it over the oil it had fallen out of her hands when she'd tried to pry it apart. It had been a bitch to get all the pieces of shell out of the hot oil, but it had been worth it just for the idea that had occurred to her – to deep-fry the egg, whole, in its shell. Of course it had cracked in the hot oil, but what oozed out of the crack coagulated and sealed the rest of the egg. She'd let it fry, rolling it around for about a minute before taking it out. Now, with the shell cool enough to touch, she tried to peel it, but that pesky inner membrane stuck fast to both the shell and the egg. So she lopped off the top and scooped the egg out with a spoon, holding the egg in her hand, just as she used to do with soft boiled eggs as a school child. Of course, she'd known even before tasting it that the white would be rubbery, egg proteins have to cook slowly to avoid that texture. But she liked her eggs best that way – unevenly cooked, the outer part of the white rubbery, the inner part runny and the yolk warmed but silkily fluid. 

OccupyEggs1 

29JanPostOaklandMoveInDayLunch

On Jan 24th I took excess food from OccupySF, my own and other leftovers. We'd decided that I would take it to OccupyOakland's MoveInDay rally and occupation planned for the weekend of Jan 28th and 29th. I had a previous engagement for Saturday January 28th, to suck on some cracks. (I use protection in cracks, specially when they are slick, and even if they are warm, as were the ones I encountered, deep in the bottom of a gorge. No accidents, but I did come out heavily bruised and scraped.)

Before leaving for the trip I had to make arrangements to get the food delivered to OccupyHungerOakland. I took the food with me to Zeth's place on Friday night, stored it in his fridge and handed it over to Melanie. The arrangement was that Melanie would contact Marie, who'd been delegated by Leila of OccupyHungerOakland, and the two of them would work out how and where to heat the food and transfer it to wherever it was required.

As you know, OccupyOakland's MoveInDay turned disastrously violent, which is so anti-American that I feel like bombing Iran just for the heck of it. More on this later. On Saturday night we heard from Melanie the bad news, and that she had not been contacted. She thought our contacts were probably hospitalised themselves, in prison, or taking care of all the wounded and tear-gassed, smoke-bombed people.

On Sunday morning though, Marie and Melanie did get together and heat up all the food and took it out to Oscar Grant Plaza. It was a good thing I had delivered the food, and that it was such huge quantities because that was the only food there for lunch!

A young male Occupier who'd not been arrested by the cops? What is he? Gay? Or an FBI informant?

Leila (serving) and Marie (behind the water jug) on the day after the Oakland Police terrorised the populace and lost control of themselves. Send OPF to where they are needed - to take on the Israeli Defense Forces and protect the Palestinians.

Scenes of the people at the kitchen.

ArastraderoWaterCressSalad

Wild watercress

 The trails upstream are open for horseback riding, so I only tasted a bit of it to make sure it was watercress ...

Elsa and Maya helped me gather the cress for a salad

Triple washed (very little detergent, gentle cycle, short spin).

Served with KeyLime/OliveOil/Salt/pepper/Garlic/Walnuts dressing. The KeyLimes were also gleaned with permission from a neighbour.

Why is this on my "political" blog? Because of gleaned and foraged ingredients.

OccupySnaFu

Jan 24, 2012

My heart sank the moment I walked up to 101 Market and saw the 8 large aluminium trays of food already there! Every person I had asked had insisted on their great need for food at the General Assemblies, and nobody mentioned to me that they have a semi-regular donor who buys and delivers cooked food most GA nights. On their website, the page which is supposed to have such up-to-date info for potential donors hasn't been updated since October! (As of last night their WebMaster was asked to resign and, apparently out of spite, curtailed access by other Working Group members.) Since they have no kitchen, they have no Kitchen Working Group, and there is no single point person who integrates "distributed information" (more on this later). My kitchen contact Meagan is involved in many other more important Working Groups (e.g. Financial), as well as reciprocal commitments to other causes (e.g. yesterday Meagan was to attend the first anniversary of the Egypt street protests), in between making a living (last night she was called to the restaurant to substitute for another employee. Have I mentioned that she is a Stanford grad.? - employed waiting tables! Who in their right minds thinks this is by choice?). In addition, Meagan's priority, perhaps, is and should be to ensure that there is food. So if there is uncertainty about the regular donor, she can't afford to turn away another. Hence the double-booking.

My on the ground contact for that night Miles apologized for not having called me as soon as he found out there was food there already, but in his defense, let me point out that the Occupy site is fairly dynamic. While the General Assembly proceeds there are satellite discussions, new people coming in that need to be filled in, pamphleteered or whose questions need to be addressed. Plus, Miles may have seen the task as solely to help me unload and serve, and there is a general skittishness about making decisions without "consensus". Distributed decision-making doesn't work either.

My reaction? Of course, personally frustrated or offended, "never going to bring them food again", my home-cooked food going to waste etc etc. OK, over it.

The fix: I decided and told Miles I would just take the stews back with me and refrigerate them for another day. He then had the excellent thought of taking it to Oakland this weekend, where they plan to take over an abandoned building and establish Occupy there, with a social center, first aid post, full working kitchen etc. A big call is going out, Move-in day rally is at noon at Oscar Grant Plaza and a two day festival is planned. So my thought was to find someone/place in Oakland where I could drop the food off on Friday night for the OO social center. There was also a large amount of food left-over from the cooked food donation - three trays each of rice and soft flour tortillas, which I volunteered to take back, refrigerate and deliver to Oakland. Somehow! I've come back home with more food than I left with!

The Solution: RyanRh, independently of me and my problem, boldly announced the formation of the Post of Food Coordinator and Food Point Person. He is going to be my main contact henceforth, and will coordinate information for me. Plus, he has a place in Berkeley where I can store all the food on Friday night for the Oakland events. And I now have Aluminium trays for my food so I don't have to take my pots.

The best part? After the General Assembly, Big Mike and Miles still had not eaten, neither had I, and the pseudoSpanish rice and plain soft flour tortillas looked unappetizing compared to the stews I'd cooked.

Vegetarian beans and greens

Beans Greens and Hotdogs

 So 6 of us went back to where I'd parked on Beale and Market and ate my stews out of the back of my station wagon,

Mike and Miles

sitting on the curb. And I now realise that I seriously overestimate how many people 3.5 gallons of stew and 8 kg of cooked rice can feed, if the people are twenty-something guys who haven't eaten all day and are allowed unlimited seconds.

Distributed Information and Decision-Making: I know various people in OccupySF, one of whom, Meagan, has been my principal contact so far, the others have mostly been helpful with physical aspects like carrying things back and forth and serving food. From the other extreme at which information is present, at a minimum the Regular Food Donor knew that food would be available that night, but there is no central clearing house with meal requirements that both RFD and I can access. Both RFD and I must know Occupy Peeps in common, though it is not clear that Miles knows RFD. Why could I not have been in touch with RFD earlier? Because there is no central clearing house for responsibilities/roles and contact information. Because decision-making is diffuse, no one person was in the position of making the connection (RFD's peeps know my peeps, which is a 3rd degree connection.). From the computational analogy, you still need one single processor for integrating the assignment of tasks to the other parallel processors and interacting with the human. All processors are equal, some processors just have to be more equal than others.

OccupySF really needs a web-based information clearing house and space for community contributions. Maybe with a new webmaster.

Outcome so far? I've got contact info for other possible Food coordinators, met and interviewed various other new people: a latina-palestina, an artist doing political Occupy related work, and 2-3 people who are engaged in the sustainable food movement - community gardening, integrated agriculture and sustainable landscaping. Miles has his own landscaping company and now is interning with SF Parks and Rec. Dept. Someone with expertise in helping communities self-organize should connect with him and help out.

How did the GA go? I haven't yet reached consensus on that, most of me thinks it was a waste of time and inefficient and too much time is dedicated to the opinionated nay-sayer holdouts who exercise their effective veto power to prevent things from moving along, but my left pinky wants to be heard, the rest of me respectfully listens to its point, that this is the nature of the beast of consensus decision-making and hence it refuses to join in the general censure of the GA by the rest of me and refuses to walk-away. We tried to decide to vote and adjourn but Left Pinky still has something important to say, even though it has been pointed out to it that everybody else has heard this same point, has understood it and disagrees. So we continue. Once the motion passes unanimously I'll let you know my opinion about the GA proceedings.