Homecoming | Food Media | Recipe: Chickpea and Pomegranate Salad
Issue No. 45
In this week’s edition, Jackie’s heading home. Also, definitely watch the cat video at the end. You’re welcome.
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At the end of June, my employment here at the Rauschenberg Residency will become the latest casualty in this long season of loss and upheaval. We haven’t had any artists at the residency since March, and we don’t know when the space will begin hosting them again. Certainly not before 2021. The presence of a full time chef - as lovely as I am - is understandably tenuous. I’m privileged enough to have the safety net of a supportive family and a savings account, so I’ll be heading back to my hometown of Stuart, Fla. and taking some time to plot my next move.
During each five week residency, the artists - most of whom have never met - engage in a collective performance art piece in which they design and build their own little society from scratch. I witnessed and participated in six of these community-building experiments, each with varying degrees of success. The strongest communities were built on a foundation of empathy, curiosity, mutual respect, flexibility, and generosity. Food was often at the center of communal life. Long conversations over a leisurely lunch. Weekend potlucks-turned-dance-parties. Friendships forged through bread baking or iguana hunting.
Last summer during the “family residency” -- when invited artists get to bring their kids and partners -- the kids, their counselors, and I collaborated on a dinner for their parents. The kids created the theme (“Princesses vs. Dinosaurs”), decorated, chose recipes from a Disney-themed cookbook in the library, assisted as waiters and prep line, and closed the night with a dance routine. One of the parents (a very serious art critic) made funny hats for everyone. It’s one of those dreamy, rose-gold memories- the artists and their families together around the table, celebrating as one big goofy, loving community.
I’m not quite sure what the future holds for me, but I know what will be at the heart of whatever comes next: food and community. I want to bake bread for sure and maybe start a little (vegetable-centric) deli. I want to have my family over for pizza in the wood-fired oven I’m going to build in my backyard. I want to get kids excited about eating vegetables and grandmas excited to brew kombucha and make miso. I want to be sassy at town commission meetings and laugh about it over beers with my buds. I want to host civics conversations where a cross-section of the community comes together to listen to each other and break bread. I want to volunteer at the soup kitchen with my mother. I want to buy veggies grown by my friends at Colab Farms. I want to organize pop-up dinners at local parks. I want to get active with the local Slow Food chapter. I want friends to stop by unexpectedly for tea on my front porch. I want to go into business with my nephew.
I feel like I’m swimming through uncharted waters right now, and I know that many of my friends and family, and much of the world it seems, agree. But I personally find hope and solace and security in the life rafts of food and community. I hope you do too.
love,
Jackie
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Watch this
A wild week in food media…that’s been a long time coming
There’s no better demonstration of all the issues bubbling up in food media than this video of chef Sohla El-Waylly offering cooking advice and support to all the white people in the Bon Appetit Test Kitchen — while not getting paid to be on camera! Like, can you imagine doing all this and not receiving additional compensation?
In light of a photo of Bon Appetit’s editor-in-chief in brownface (he later resigned at Sohla’s behest), food media was forced to confront its insular world where white people build careers on the backs of other cultures’ cuisines and other peoples’ cooking. For more on institutional inequality in food and Sohla’s thoughts, listen to the latest episode of The Sporkful podcast.
-matt
Fresh Links
🌺A Juneteenth of Joy and Resistance | NY Times
The Black Lives Matter protests have raised mainstream consciousness of the holiday Juneteenth. Major U.S. corporations are giving employees the day off — to commemorate “when enslaved Africans in Galveston, Texas, learned from Union soldiers that they were free, two years after Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation,” Nicole Taylor writes in the NY Times.
The holiday is normally seen as African-Americans’ independence day and a big part of the celebration is feasting. Taylor interviews Black chefs about the ruby-hued dishes that make up Juneteenth meals. The red drinks and foods reference hibiscus and kola nuts that arrived in the Americas as a result of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and the color red can be seen as a marker of resistance. Recipes mentioned in the article include strawberry soda, sausages, watermelon-scented shaved ice, sweet potato pikliz and a classic red punch.
🍊Should I Be Taking Something? | The Atlantic’s Social Distance
Our favorite baby-faced doctor James Hamblin hosts a podcast on the pandemic with his Atlantic colleague Katherine Wells called “Social Distance”. The podcast goes beyond the most obvious coronavirus-related questions to tangential topics like restarting sports or police and safety.
On last Tuesday’s episode, Hamblin explains the problem with vitamins — and how they help your immune system to fend off COVID-19. For example, Emergen-C is worthless and won’t provide the body any added benefits nor will the “immunity” pills that Tom Brady is promoting. An orange will always be better than a Vitamin C pill. Supplements are a loosely regulated industry that preys on people with health problems. Even Mel Gibson has gotten involved in the grifting!
As Hamblin explains, science has never been great at replicating food. Eating a hearty meal (made from mostly plants) will do far more for the immune system than any vitamin.
💲The Un-Heroic Reality of Being an ‘Essential’ Restaurant Worker | Eater
The longer the pandemic goes on, the more people seem to (willfully?) forget it’s still happening. That attitude persists despite a spike in cases in a number of states across the United States. Tbqh, now is not the best time to return to restaurants. But it’s understandable to want a break from cooking to pick up a hot meal.
In an Eater feature, Sara Selevitch asks customers to not forget about the efforts and labor of the essential workers risking their health at those restaurants. Please don’t forget to tip. Generously. Not like this:
Regulars who never tipped before the crisis have continued their practice of not tipping. “Thanks for staying open!” one of them chirped as he pocketed his change. Another customer put a $5 in the tip jar, then took two $1 bills for change. “I’m leaving you $3,” he told me curtly. During a rainstorm, a customer called and asked that we bring her order out to the car. When I handed her the receipt, she wrote “0.00” and signed her name with a flourish. She was wearing a T-shirt that said “Wild Feminist.”
The unacknowledged absurdity of the situation is almost comical. I am handing you noodles wearing gloves and a mask because we are in the midst of a global pandemic! I want to yell. I am risking my health for your greasy meal!
In the midst of a busy Sunday night, a woman called to complain about her order.
“I’m really disappointed,” she said. “I expected the food to be here in time for my virtual happy hour.”
“I don’t know what to tell you,” I responded. “I’m doing my best.”
Chickpea and Pomegranate Salad with Feta and Herbs
There is a white pomegranate tree on the property that has been teasing me for the last year. But finally it is dripping with fruit, and I’ve managed to salvage some from the birds. Here is a simple salad I made as a welcome treat for some friends that came to visit over the weekend. We ate it outside on the patio with focaccia and some cold beers.
Serves 3-4 as a main salad
Ingredients
4-6 cups cooked chickpeas
fruit from one pomegranate
1/2 cup feta, crumbled
2-3 garlic cloves, chopped
a couple handfuls of fresh herbs of choice, destemmed and roughly torn or chopped (basil, parsley, cilantro, rosemary, oregano)
a couple handfuls of greens of choice (moringa, arugula, baby leaf lettuce)
red wine vinegar
honey
olive oil
red pepper flakes
salt
optional but lovely: chopped kalamata olives, zataar, grilled lemon wedges
step-by-step
Add a couple glugs of olive oil to a pan and set over medium heat. Saute garlic for a minute or two, until just beginning to tan.
Turn heat up to medium-high and add chickpeas. Add a splash or two of red wine vinegar and a pinch of salt to pan and saute for a few minutes, until chickpeas take on some color.
Add pomegranate, feta, herbs, greens, and chickpeas to a large bowl. Add a glug of honey, a splash of vinegar, a three-fingered pinch of red pepper, and two four-fingered pinches of salt. Stir to combine. Taste and add salt, honey, or vinegar as needed
Remember the game Hungry, Hungry Hippos? Here’s the cat version:
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Sunshine + Microbes team
Jackie Vitale is the current Chef-in-Residence at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation. and co-founder of the Florida Ferment Fest. Her newsletter explores the intersection of food, culture, environment and community.
Matt Levin is a freelance reporter based in Colombia. He edits Sunshine + Microbes and contributes other scraps to each issue.