Mother may have had more patience than I do, although I am more patient today than I was some thirteen years ago, my daughter having taught me to slow down and smell the flowers, literally. When I spent those years with her as a mom who didn’t earn income/work outside the home I have vivid memories of her slowly making her way from the house to the car, from the car to the store (any store), to the library, stopping whenever she saw a weed, wildflower, insect or anything else that interested her. Smelling the flowers, picking them, taking them apart, petals, sepals examined, stamen plucked; observing the insects up close, asking questions to which I may or may not have known the answer about what kind of insect it was, was it a grown-up and did it bite.
But, even all my daughter’s on-the-job patience training can go right out the window when I am triggered by something that strikes me as grave social injustice, especially when I can identify with the person who is unjustly treated. I think this strong sense of equity is what Ms. Austin saw in me at five-years-old when she told my mom that despite my mom’s desires for me to be a doctor I was going to be a lawyer. Occasionally, I don’t find myself sympathizing with the oppressed, especially when I see someone (to paraphrase Mother), make they bed and lie in it. Most recently, this happened when I was having lunch last week.
I was walking around the neighborhood near my office looking for somewhere cool and fun to have lunch when I stumbled upon Canto 6 on Washington Street. On “that side of Jamaica Plain” where those afraid of brown people, cowed by the nonsense they hear on the news about “high crime” neighborhoods rarely dare to venture. Me, I’m brown-skinned, I rarely believe what I hear, and we’ve already established on this blog that I live to be adventurous. (Judging by my recipes alone, you should get that sense that I’m curious and daring.)
Canto 6 is a tiny, breakfast, lunch spot with amazing sandwiches with hip names like “Goat in the Road,” “Guac in the Park,” and “Peas on Earth.” The day I was there, I had the Goat in the Road, which had all the fillings/toppings I love (beets, onions, goat cheese, arugula and balsamic vinegar) on top nutty bread. I could eat this on a rubber slipper (flip-flops in the U.S.). While I was waiting for my sandwich (which took way longer than I expected, but was worth the wait) a young man came in. He, likely of Afro-something descent couldn’t have been more than 25 years old, but his truncal obesity made him appear older. Beneath his ball-cap, bill turned skyward, Rocawear shirt and multi-colored Nike high tops, he looked at least 40! I usually don’t care to make these kinds of judgments about people, especially when I am distracted by the wonderfulness of a well-prepared sandwich. But, when he asked about the tuna sandwich and left without buying anything because he said the tuna sandwich wasn’t “regular” (which I imagined meant white bread and mayo-heavy tuna with no vegetables) this really irritated me.
In Trinidad, thicker women with curvy hips and full thighs are (or at least used to be when I was growing up there) revered. Trinidadian children who weren’t lean were better than those who were skinny, something I’ve written about on this blog before. But, over the last three decades, this has not been true in the U.S., in part because childhood obesity rates in the U.S. have tripled. More striking perhaps is that one-half of Black children are overweight or obese. It’s predicted that 1/3 of all children born after 1999 will suffer from diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure or asthma. The First Lady, Michelle Obama, recently unveiled a nation-wide campaign, Let’s Move, to combat the challenge of childhood obesity. Former NBA-player, Will Allen, has been working since 1993 to bring good food, natural food, to those who usually live in what’s called food deserts – where they only have access to packaged, fast food and no fresh fruit and vegetables.
I think my awareness of these social, racial, cultural phenomena is what made me angry with my urban-brother at Canto 6. Here he was in an establishment that provides an oasis in a food desert on that side of the tracks, turning down a delicious, new take on the “regular” tuna sub, that had fruit and vegetables (both, if memory serves) on fresh, baked, whole-grain bread. I was incensed! I’m all for giving people, especially oppressed people, in this case, poor people of color, the benefit of the doubt when it comes to what’s socially constructed and out of their control. But, when I see, hear or have some experience with “my people” and one of them is making bad choices even when good ones are right before them, I have less compassion for him regardless of any institutional/societal oppression. Even though I understand, especially because I work with addicts, that habits are easy to form and hard to break.
At the end of the day (and I fear that I will sound like a Republican when I say this) we are all individually responsible for our choices. Whether it’s choosing a sandwich that’s a healthier version of one that we’re used to or taking the stairs instead of the escalator, taking the initiative to break out of habit is what helps us crack the shell of societal pressure to conform to, in the case of food deserts, what may not usually be in our environment.
This week’s menu challenges us to eat better, eat differently, but using a sort of what they call in the addiction world – a harm reduction model. The menu begins with a chicken salad made with B-vitamin laden tofu, followed by a meaty lamb with vegetables, and a lighter version of a frozen dessert, a rose lime sherbet. In making healthier choices, may we all at least try to modify what we choose to put in our bodies when we can, where we can. Feeding our children and ourselves healthy and well is the next civil rights frontier, I believe. And, I hope that we shall overcome our habits, despite the unfairness of oppression, we shall overcome some day, maybe today, using this menu.
MENU
Mediterranean-Style Lamb with Rose-Scented Israeli Cous-Cous
Mother may have 