My 26-year-old son, Johnny, and I are collaborating on a book/multimedia project. We aren’t working on it front and center because we’re both busy with other things. However, it’s a long-term-thinking-practicing-and-talking-about-it-in-the-background piece about teaching young people how to cook/eat simply, healthily and inexpensively after they launch into the world.
The working title of the project is The Dear John Cookbook. I’ve been gathering research for 6 or so years, since he launched, by answering questions for him and his friends and cooking with them. I’m learning what they want and need.
He recently took on the responsibility of ordering the food for the small residential shelter for homeless youths where he is a counselor. They have one communal meal a week and otherwise it’s catch as catch can from the fridge. This is a great boost for our project because any change in diet is challenging. His goal is to go from processed “instant meals” like pizza sticks and burritos to real foods, organic and local when possible. It’s a huge leap for anyone let alone kids with limited trust and little experience with real food. How do we help them make it in a comfortable and safe way? If he succeeds in helping them make the change we have found an important key to help others.
Some insight about our challenge came in today’s Salon.com in an interview with Dr. David Kessler, author of The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite. Here’s the audio version of the interview.
I’m Austro-Hungarian. Eating is important to us. Visiting with my cousins in the old country is like trick or treating except you don’t get a bag to carry the treats. You have to eat them right then even though you just walked from another cousin’s house, two blocks away, where they fed you. I reference my travels around the world by specific meals. My childhood was rich with growing, preparing, and preserving food. Is it any wonder that it’s one of my primary interests?
