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As I read through my rss feeds I note that there are a number of posts about Black Friday.
How to organize yourself!
How to get the best deals!
How to find the sales!

I used to love going to the mall on Black Friday. Not so much for the sales, as I have little patient for standing in line, no instead for the sheer delight of watching that many people interact in the public sphere and enjoying the energy.

Others tout this as Buy Nothing Day.
This is supported by adbusters and is touted as the day for environmentalists, activists and concerned citizens who  want to see over consumption end.
Sounds good. After all, this is my second quarter in an environmental class and I can see how it would be needed. On the other hand, I’m not sure reducing consumption really needs an ad campaign and billboards. This would make more sense as a grass roots effort with an educational arm instead of a shiny marketing campaign with public demonstrations.

And another is claiming this should be Make Something Day
A day to sit down and make something yourself. A step up from the  Buy Handmade pledge for me as it does encourage getting out there and making your own stuff, not just buying someone else’s stuff. Use what you’ve got though, no need to go over board and buy into a new craft right?

So what will you be observing this year? Does your budget drive you to Black Friday sales? (My lack of a budget absolves me of taking part)
Will you be self righteously buying nothing?   or will you be making something for the effort of making something and not just for the pure joy of it?

I think I’ll get Miss Bit started on some small soapmaking with me. I saw a plan where you make soap sheets and cut them out with cookie cutters, then sandwich them together to make decorative soaps.  But thats more to do with having a schools out activity then anything else.

I walked in, unsure of what I was going to find.
<first the job>
You see, I’ve been offered a job, at UW Technology starting Monday, and before I start, I want to verify the earliest I can get into the Tower after dropping Miss Bit off.  Testing the buses this morning tells me if I drop her off right at 8:45, I can make it to the tower early enough for a 9:30 start.

I decided it made sense if I brought my laptop and picked a coffee shop to work in for a while. So I loaded up my Mac book and opted to come to Mosaic in Wallingford. i knew that I could ride most of the way to the tower to test the time, then get off and wander over for coffee.

<the coffee house>
Why Mosaic Coffee? Well I’d come across their “Den” for meeting space when I was looking for a place to hold my next session of Meal Planning and Grocery Shopping 101.  It’s a non profit , church run space. The price being free for using their meeting space is really attractive. (I looked into maybe using my church basement but the fee was out of my price range*).

<So? It’s that cool?>
First its a No price cafe, meaning you pay based on what you think your item is worth. I don’t mind paying what my drip coffee is worth and am glad to be able to try out a cafe that has that agenda.

Second, the space is big, warm and a strange but comforting mixture of cozy and bright.
I was worried when I walked in and the first thing that I smelled was patchouli, but the scent went away pretty quickly.

Third, they brew Fidalgo bay coffee. Local coffee from my favorite roaster. How can it be bad? 

<Geek>
I’m a church geek sometimes. I’m fascinated by this in part because it is a church coffee shop. Beyond the pricing thing, and some chairs scattered around that look like they belong in a church. Beyond that, it just looks like a nice coffee house. There are nice tiffany lamps, leather coouches, and jazz music being played. I wonder  if this works for them as soft evangalism or if they just consider it a service for the community.

Anyway, I’m in love!

*Yes paying for space goes against the Seattle Free School Mantra, I figured if I had to pay for the space I would either remove the free school name from the class for that session or I would just call it a personal donation.

I recently wrote a post about personal responsibility and food availability in a particular neighborhood, and said I’d get back to you with a second post, here it is.

Why do we make the choices we make?

• We like to eat crap
• We don’t like to spend money
• We don’t like to be told not to do something. (there will be a whole separate post for this one.)

We like to eat crap. Even in this enlightened urban landscape that is Seattle, we still eat foods that are less then ideal for us. I believe that people complain then turn around and snarf down there triple cheese organic pizza from Pagliacci believing its better for them. It’s not.

Working at the big Seattle University I saw this illustrated for me all the time through our dining halls.

The call I remember most vividly was the mom who called three months into the quarter. She had visited her son in the dining halls and she was horrified to see that they did Fried Food Fridays. The Big Seattle University deigned to serve unhealthy fried food. On a regular basis ! How could that be, we are a large medical research institution and what a horrible example we are setting by serving fried food.

Nevermind that the fried food was only one of three stations for hot food, plus a salad and sandwich bar and a pasta on demand bar.

Nevermind that when it came down to it, the dining hall was serving the food that the students requested and the food that would actually “sell” to the business.

Sitting in the dorm on a regular day for lunch I could see the food that was selling. There was always lines for the station with the french fries. Even in the grab and go section of the main non residential dining halls the burgers and fries were the popular ones.

We like french fries, pizza, sweets. They taste good to us, and think people are very willing to “treat” themselves with one hand, and complain with the other that there is no healthy food available.

I think we forget a lot of times that there is a business involved in most transactions. They sell what people buy. With enough financial encouragement a store will overcome most any hurdle to supply a product. It’s all about the profit baby.

And we’re fussyy, and vocal. We want it all. We want it to be healthy, organic , local, fresh, fair trade and cheap. (and we’ll give up a number of the former, for the latter)

Sure that may be an overstatement but look at the reviews for Molly Moons. It”s a small business, local. They claim to be using organic ingredients, small batch production unique flavors. The big complaint? It’s too expensive. They didn’t give me enough.

It appears that no matter if you are a business or an individual it always comes down to money.

(look for part three in teh next couple of days.)

This is not the post I wanted to post today. I have another one in the can ready for you, but I got derailed last night by  incredulous shock. Remember the post about kids not eating fruits and vegetables? I’d mentioned that two authors had “revolutionized” feeding their children by making up bland vegetable purees and adding  them to normal recipes to boost the  nutritional content.  Examples were adding spinach to brownies, cauliflower to chicken nuggets and so on.

Well apparently one of the chefs has a second book  out.   The Sneaky Chef : How to Cheat on Your Man in the Kitchen  Hiding Healthy Foods in Hearty Meals any Guy Will Love.

I’m agog at this.  I swear this is worse then A Man A Can and A Plan. 
At least in Man/Can/Plan  its straightforward in regards to what  you are getting. This act of sneaking around and adding things to someone else’s food “for their own good”  is degrading to the person you are cooking for, and to assume that the woman is in the kitchen “cooking for her man” smacks of sexism as well.  

This whole concept  is just immature and I hope that folks “fooling” their families learn to educate them instead  and work with them on their food issues.