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 "

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!

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.

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.