http://www.ejlife.net/blogs/john/ Environment, Technology, Politics, and Anything Else I Feel Like Mentioning. http://www.ejlife.net/blogs/john/2008/08/29/1220035555504.html In his article here, Steven Dubner tries to argue against local food, in favor of the globalized food chain we have today. His argument seems to be that we can all have the best products in the world - not to mention the highest economic output - if we pick and choose from the best producers without regard to geography. He, and the person who apparently inspired the post with her question, illustrates this by relating two failed attempts at producing goods locally instead of buying them. His attempt to make sherbet resulted in an exorbitant amount of money spent on a not-so-good result. Then, there's the friend of the woman who inspired the post, who tried to make a dress for herself, and wound up spending something like four times as much on a product with a crooked hem. Therefore, we must support the economic efficiency of globalism. It's clearly the better alternative. But consider: what experience does Mr. Dubner have with producing ice cream? What experience did the other woman have with making dresses? ... http://www.ejlife.net/blogs/john/2008/08/28/1219943912353.html Ever since I read The Wal-Mart Effect, by Charles Fishman, I've had a half-thought nagging at the back of my mind. I think today is the birthday of that thought; I think I can finally put it into words. The problem I have with Wal-Mart - and every other national chain store I've read about, including Walgreen's, Best Buy, Target, Home Depot, and others - is that it abstracts the economy away from you and me. What do I mean by this? That's the hard part, the part I've been trying to articulate to myself for a couple years now. Think of an economic exchange between some supplier and some consumer on a face-to-face basis. It may help to think about a waiter at a local restaurant, for example. If the waiter is lazy, and the service is horrible, then from an economics standpoint, you should give him a lower tip than if he performed stellarly, or even up to expectations. This is basic vote-with-your-dolla... http://www.ejlife.net/blogs/john/2008/07/23/1216786693133.html The other day, Emily started shopping for plane tickets for our yearly Christmas trip home. We were both shocked to find out just how limited our options were going to be this year. It seems that neither of the only two carriers that make direct runs between Kansas City and anywhere in Florida will be available: ExpressJet appears to be going under, and Midwest Airlines is trimming its routes into Florida to seasonal travel, and only out of its Milwaukee hub. For the remaining carriers, we're looking at paying somewhere around twice as much per ticket as last year (when we had a direct flight...not to mention warm cookies en route). We've even looked into Amtrak for the trip, since we'd had such a great experience traveling between Washington, D.C. and Baltimore earlier this summer. However, the train offered no relief with its 36-hour trip duration and stops in Washington and Chicago along the way. Six days spent on a train (for the round trip) is just too much to cut out of our already limited vacation ... http://www.ejlife.net/blogs/john/2008/06/22/1214185754775.html I've been holding off on this post for awhile, to see how things would take shape before I drew any conclusions. For those of you who don't know me, my favorite hobby for the past few years has been learning how to roast green coffee beans and extract the best flavor possible from them. While I don't drink as much of the stuff as most people assume upon hearing that I've decided to cut out the middle-man and roast my own, it's fair to say that I'd be very sorry to have my supply cut off. In fact, despite trying to find local sources for almost everything we use in daily life - with very mixed results - for me, coffee is one of those untouchable items that are beyond examination. Over the years, I've built several coffee roasters and learned how to make coffee according to the traditions in Cuba, Vietnam, Turkey, and Italy (well, it's real espresso, at any rate). I've roasted in modified popcorn poppers, cast-iron skillets, and most recently a custom-designed drum roaster made from a pasta pot and attached ... http://www.ejlife.net/blogs/john/2008/06/22/1214169623249.html At the risk of posting something that will sound like an ego-centric rant, I'm interested in responding to something that came out of a comment I posted on Red State Green. Her post was about much more than the thing that I locked onto, but I was struck by the fact that she's growing wheat (I assumed for flour) in her home garden. This made me realize that I've been reading quite a bit from certain blogs (see my sidebar for some of them) about some pretty original attempts to recapture some of our lost agrarian heritage. I have similar conversations with Emily all the time about how many recipes are nearly forgotten in the wake of so many boxed cakes and potatoes. Now, I've broken through the despair that came with the realization that we've created a monster with our fundamentalist free-market philosophies (especially as applied to our food chain, which consists at least in part of living things). As a result, I'm starting to see that what we used to talk about with respect to recipes can be applied much ...