OccupyThanksgiving2012

OCCUPY THANKSGIVING 2012

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 "

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.