Home ec. or lessons for scratch cooking

[Trek420]

it bewilders me when even some people, ie. single, childless women /men who complain "how much time" it takes to cook at home. Really? Scrambling eggs for 1 person with some cut veggies and onion is not a huge effort. Under 10 min. Same for a totally different dish of washing, cutting and sauteeing Chinese green leafy veggies in a bit of oil and 1 small of soy sauce. Same amount of time for this side vegetable dish.

We who live in urban areas have access to fresh produce, or are able to grow our own, we who have creative and or ethnic foods and the knowledge and time to learn how to use and enjoy them, wealth and leisure to explore and shop around for the perfectly ripe summer fruit .... we sometimes forget that whole sections of our cities, sometimes whole towns do not have access to grocery stores.

My own wife grew up so poor that though there was a grocery store nearby the family could not shop there, instead sometimes surviving off charity from a church and often raiding the dumpster behind the store. It's impossible to get fresh produce under those conditions. It isn't laziness that keeps people from cooking and prevents them from being scorned by wealthy home cooks, it is poverty.

I never felt poverty or hunger as a child, living on a farm food abounds. Besides our crops we always had a garden and bartered what we did not grow with neighboring farms. But when I asked my Mom & Dad why we supported the UFW (United Farm Workers) since we owned a farm they replied something like "we are in the same boat. We earn about the same. The only difference is we own the land". So we were very poor, I never knew it.

In the Bay Area, where I formerly worked as a chef, large areas still lack grocery stores. They have liquor stores or fast food. Grocery stores and banks do not go to these areas. Working class and urban poor sometimes working 2 jobs are not going to be able to go to the farm market and fast food advertises as the friend of the busy and/or working poor "got a buck? you're in luck".

I'm glad to see a growing (pun intended) movement of non-profit groups literally bringing farms and fresh produce to urban areas.

Rather than criticize others for not eating in the way we are truly blessed and privileged to enjoy, I hope we can all support, donate and/or volunteer for groups bringing gardens to needy areas. Here are just a few:

http://www.heifer.org/site/c.edJRKQNiFiG/b.734899/