Seattle gets Pollan-ated
Ever get the feeling that food is no longer your friend? That while you used to have some laughs with Stouffer’s lasagne and chill out with your best friend Diet Coke, secretly food has been going behind your back, stealing your boyfriend, gunning for your job, and making you fat?
Has food got it in for you?
Crazy, we noticed it too. Seattlest is just about ready to skip lunch and get an IV drip, until we realized journalist Michael Pollan was on the case.
In his 2001 book The Botany of Desire, Pollan argues that although humans think we control nature, at least in the case of four different crops (apples, pot, tulips, and potatoes) maybe NATURE controls US. Eww... freaky-deeky!
Ok, but since we don’t actually eat tulips or pot (usually) what does this have to do with dinner?
In his new book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Pollan turns his participatory journalism to the creation of four meals, by hunting, gathering, shopping at Whole Foods, going through the McDonald’s drive-through, etc. It’s all very Greg Critser meets Eric Schlosser with a dash of Walt Whitman.
Pollan reads from “The Ominivore’s Dilemma” tonight at Bellevue Community College’s Carlson Theater. It’s free. Or catch him 7:30 Friday at Elliott Bay Books It’s food for thought. As for lunch, just have one of these.
