Yeah C’mon
So sometimes the universe has a funny way of turning up a giving you a big lesson in humility; you know hitting you up side the head and saying Kate, get over yourself!
The other weekend, I was in Hilton Head with THE ACTIVIST getting some much needed RnR and Frisbee time on the beach with my pups. Now, there isn’t much to do in Hilton Head, which is probably why I enjoy it so much, and let’s just face it there are only so many pounds of peel and eat shrimp a girl can eat, so we found ourselves at Mellow Mushroom.
So there we were perched at the bar with about 100 TV screens in front of us, playing varying versions of UFC, Football and Nascar: Southern high art, don’t ya know. Well, on one of the screens was a hunting/fishing show highlighting deer hunting- and by deer hunting I mean the ‘shootin steers and drinkin’ beers’ kind of hunting which is simply about the glory of the kill and mounting antlers on your wall. Now, when there is a TV screen bigger than your whole apartment in front of your face, it is pretty hard to avert your eyes and low and behold we caught the TV screen just as some Neanderthal- I am sorry -“outdoors enthusiast” shoots some deer to kingdom come for (as far as I can tell) shits and giggles. After uttering a few choice phrases between ourselves (and perhaps the rest of the establishment) we graciously asked the bartender to turn the channel, who did so in a manner of what I felt was somewhat begrudgingly: an immediate judgement call was made. That is the amazing thing about prejudice, it never asks you to either a) examine your world, or b) examine yourself.
Along came our pizza: Gluten-free base, with vegan cheese, mushrooms and BBQ tempeh (hey, don’t knock it until you try it…remember our aforementioned lesson on prejudice). Happily munching away in our bubble ofsatisfaction and self-righteousness our disgruntled bartender wandered over, and we started making small talk: about the island, the weather and the new Harris Teeter under construction next door. Whilst I do love HH, it is a definite struggle to find organic produce (gasp, there is no Whole Foods on the island: I know, how barbaric). Mentioning this to our monosyllabic friend he, to our absolute amazement suddenly got all chatty. He agreed with our observations and began regaling us on the joy of the radishes and tomatoes he had recently pulled from his own little backyard plot. His next comment rendered me dumb founded: not an easy feet as those of y’all who know me well can attest. Here is jist of what he said.
“I apologise to y’all. I know you were upset by the hunting show, but I tell you what, I hunt all my own deer and hog and I use every single part. In fact I haven’t been out to a restaurant and eaten meat in – well I can’t remember when. What is the point? You don’t know what you are getting. That shit is pumped so full of hormones and bleached with some many chemicals just to make it barely edible. I see images of these factory farms out west and I just don’t understand it. The same goes for fishing, I eat everything I catch and I know it is good, and fresh and I where the sonfabitch came from [ok I inserted the sonfabitch to add a degree of authenticity].”
I mean talk about shocked. Here is a fellow toward whom I had fostered a steaming pile of resentments and prejudice, and yet there he was jiving with the exact same ethos as my vegan cohort and myself. Needless to say, we told him about what we did, gave him a card and spent the next 20 minutes discussing the inherent dangers of the current food industry.
Walking out of the restaurant, I was suddenly struck by the enormity of this interchange as well as hit with the sheer magnitude of my own ego. Here were three people coming together, despite our holier than though attitudes, from seemingly worlds apart; we, the dirty liberal, commie hippies with our tofu (his words) and he, the backward right-winging redneck toting his guns (our words) meeting in common accord. To me this became a testament to the strength behind VA’s cause. It really doesn’t matter what your political predilections, or your social and economic status. The health of our bodies, or environment combined with the purity and integrity of our food is something we can all support.
The other weekend, in celebration of Food Day (October 24th) my dear friends (one of whom is half of my beloved 2 fun guys who you might remember from a previous blog and are just blossoming as I knew they would www.2-funguys.com: I am such a mushroom groupie) hosted a real food potluck supper. We smoked ethically raised local chicken wings on a Big Green Egg and ate covered dishes comprised of items from our local farmers or our own back yard. Drinking beer around a roaring camp fire in our flannels and Toms®- write about these www.stuffwhitepeoplelike.com - we sat in our ivory towers discussing the sad state of the nation and attempting thankless task of trying to explain the rules of American football to my British self. My kind of people, right? But you know what? I think our bartender friend would have been right at home. And, by that same token, we would have welcomed him into our fold with hyperbolically open arms. Why? Because, food isn’t about the stuff on your plate, my fellow reader! It is about the joy of sharing and eating and cooking and choosing and, for many now, growing and even rearing your own. That is what it is about! That is where we come together! So hemp bracelets and trucker hats unite ‘cos it is all love baby ; so long as we actually talk about it… oh yeah, and get over ourselves!
Good eating y’all. Love THE EPICUREAN.
