Thoughts when on a sugar high

"Under the pavement - a beach!"

"In food, as in death, we feel the essential brotherhood of man."

I feel like all of my co-workers have something that they live for outside of the office. Something greater than a hobby; an obsession or a goal. Cecilia is a singer with performances to prepare. Stephane is training for marathons. Lisa performs folk music. Amber has the baby and Barry his music and Carter his kids. But me? I cook and craft and bike with no real goals.

In a fit of distractedness at work, I came across a little more inspiration. I printed out some information on The Congress for the New Urbanism, which put me on a tentative path, or it has at least got me thinking. The CNU is an organization which promotes pedestrian-friendly, "neighborhood-based development." Established by architects, its ranks have swelled to the thousands with landscape architects, planners, economists, real estate agents and developers, lawyers, government officials, educators, citizen activists, and students.

Reading about the CNU puts in mind how I felt after reading the interview with David Pinder in Bad Subjects (which, sadly, appears to be defunct.) I have so many thoughts about this city: biking and busing and walking, economic access to various modes of transportation and the racial and cultural opinions on each; the supposed economic boom as evidenced by multitudes of expensive new housing but belied by a breakdown in education; the ease and encouragement of business venture but lack of assistance in sustainability. To name a few.

I ran into Aytan on Tuesday, and he mentioned an impending need for free and low-cost housing. In all of the news on the economic crisis and corporate bail-outs, no one actually mentions the small-scale impact: that all these companies pushed through mortgage loans that couldn't be paid; houses were foreclosed; the people in those houses must go somewhere, no? I've heard no anchorman, no politician, no pundit mention the housing - or lack of housing - crisis. Shame on them all.

But on my other hand is my obsession with food communities. I printed out an article called "Mezze Ideology: Community, Class, and Multicultural Cuisine." (Shame on me; I oughtn't use so much paper. But there's something about a page I can tote around that makes so much more sense than an article read on a computer screen.)

There's a subscript to the title that says something about the author giving his colleagues a "lesson in class and generosity." I think this makes the article sound trite or didactic, which I didn't find to be so. Like the folks at Re-Thinking Soup at the University of Illinois-Chicago, Schaffer attempted through food to both build community and discuss food politics. I'd like to do that. He mentions reciprocity in hospitality, too, and MAN I wish other people would have dinner parties and invite me. I love hosting potlucks, but I'd like to be, well... repaid.

On that selfish note, I'll be back with more later.

Sugar high dwindling. Body aching. Silly homemade applesauce cookies.