July 24, 2012 · 8:17 am

Cooking up summer abundance

Smooth, sun-kissed summer squash. Crispy cucumbers. Billowy leaves of rainbow Swiss chard. Sure, they sound lovely, but have you tried dealing with 10 or 20 pounds of them every week–in a household of one?

Figuring out what to do with all of this takes a huge bite out of my daily spark of creativity–creativity I would like to apply now and then to other pursuits, such as writing. And to my day job that, you know, is going to pay the bills come fall.

Here is the latest innovation I use to trudge through the tide of veggies (recipe and more ideas after the jump): Continue reading →

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July 17, 2012 · 6:43 pm

Recent publication: Small grains getting big

Grain field

A field of grain as seen by small grain farmer Reed Hamilton of Grass Valley Grains.

Could whole wheat flour soon nestle beside bunches of kale in your CSA box? Possibly! My recent article for Grist.org looks at where we stand with producing wheat, oats, and other carb essentials in a local, sustainable way.

Read the piece, “Small-scale grains: Another piece of the locavore puzzle.“

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June 25, 2012 · 12:14 pm

A great week for Freex

Videofreex in the garden at Maple Tree Farm

Videofreex stand in the garden at Maple Tree Farm, with the author’s father standing second from left. Special thanks to Jon Nealon for providing this photo.

The Jew and the Carrot recently published a piece I wrote about my father and food, “The Unlikely Beginnings of a Jewish Cook“. Overall, this has been a great week for the Videofreex. In addition to my piece, in the past seven days news and conversations have appeared in the Woodstock Times and Muff’s Modules and More. Not bad for a small group that made their last tape more than 30 years ago. Perhaps best of all, yesterday the upcoming documentary Here Come the Videofreex hit full funding.

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June 12, 2012 · 11:22 pm

New food writing: Challah

Challah, meet Challah

My Jewish Learning recently published my article/recipe “Taking Challah: A mitzvah that sets the braided bread apart.” Check it out. For more on that topic, be sure to read the charming “Ask the Expert” column.

Photo by  Rhea

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May 31, 2012 · 9:55 am

Fifteen grand for the Videofreex

Imagine what you could buy for $15,000 back in 1971. Would it cover a new car? Some high-end electronic equipment? Definitely the rent for the Lanesville, NY house where my father moved in that year with a group of video-making colleagues who called themselves The Videofreex.

Today, 15 grand is what filmmakers Jon Nealon and Jenny Raskin need to raise to finish their documentary film Here Come the Videofreex and restore Freex tape. The history it will cover has fascinated me lately. I’m not the only one. Check out the Kickstarter page to learn more and support this far-reaching work.

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May 25, 2012 · 5:27 pm

USDA.gov, the ag geek’s friend

Rail against bureaucracy all you want, but you can’t deny it: .gov’s got it going on. I just spent the better part of an afternoon skimming PDFs and spreadsheets, any one of which could anchor an article or conversation.

Scanning these documents is like walking into a happy hour of food wonks (they do exist). Some of them geek out on international import statistics, while others tell you passionately about an organic wheat farmer in Montana. I have to admit that I underestimated the 150-year-old institution. Continue reading →

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May 22, 2012 · 6:14 pm

Image for the Day: Swiss balloons in a small world

Balloons!

More than a year has passed since I last handed over a slim blue book and held my breath.

Will it somehow have expired?

Will he question me about a stamp from China, Israel, East Africa?

So far, no rejections based on my passport, nor cargo I plan to haul across international borders. I hope my record holds for my next trip in August.

As I rev up to dust off those pages, I present a view from last May’s trip to Geneva. I had spent a week in boisterous company, feasting on fondue and rosti, throwing back at least one beer for each article I copy edited. This balloon art hovered over the ground floor of a Swiss mall that I visited on my last night in the country. I ate mediocre Mexican food by myself and drank sangria from a glass rimmed with pink sugar.

I didn’t realize until today how much this scene looks like a model.

Photo by Rhea

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May 21, 2012 · 11:16 am

Discerning the Videofreex

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A woman with an automatic rifle was one of the images in a Videofreex screening held in Washington, D.C. in January 2011. Photo by Rhea.

The package came a couple of months ago. It contained a free copy of Nancy Cain’s Video Days: And what we saw though the viewfinder. The author had signed the title page, “To Rhea with love. (Videofreex: the next generation)”

I tucked into the book eager to learn more about my father’s life before I existed, hoping to understand more now that he’s gone. I found something unexpected.

Video Days chronicles Nancy’s adventures beginning in the era of 30-pound cameras that democratized the art. It continues until 1996, a few years short of the one-handed Flip Cam era. During the social revolution that straddled the late ’60s and early ’70s, the young Nancy runs off to join the New York video-making collective known as the Videofreex. There, she works alongside my dad, Chuck Kennedy. They all live in a rambling former boarding house in Lanesville, N.Y.

Somewhere in this Freex section, I hit a passage that struck me as familiar:

Chuck was born in the Bronx and spent a large part of his youth in a Catholic orphanage. At a certain point, he was given the choice between reform school or the Army, so he joined up. In the Army, Chuck learned electronics and saw the world. Continue reading →

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May 18, 2012 · 10:08 am

Image for the Day: TGI Fish Soup

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It’s Friday, and 16 ounces of Mr. John’s Fish (Tea) Soup costs just $5.50. Shabbat shalom, with a touch of spice.

Photo taken by Rhea outside of the Spicy Delight restaurant in Takoma, D.C.

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May 17, 2012 · 5:15 pm

Why “Image for the Day”?

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For the past 17 days, I have posted a series of photos marked “Image for the Day.” Why? I can’t tell you for sure. It seemed like a good idea on May 1. Perhaps it is because this felt familiar. I have worked for a daily bulletin that published a “Photo of the Day.” I have also experimented with daily 15-minute writing bursts, both publicly on my former food blog and for my personal files that no one will ever, ever see.

Or maybe I wanted to follow this concept because I can’t always think of something profound to write, or do not always have the time to write it out, edit, revise, toss, rewrite, and all of the other steps that fill a writer’s hours on the path to a polished and published story.

This daily photo project probably appealed most, though, because it brings to digital and visual life a practice I have followed for many years. Since I was a teenager, I have carried an image journal–a pad of paper where I jot snapshots of thought. I document a poignant moment, envision poems, or scribble a shopping list. The huge majority of thoughts on these pages go no further than my notebooks, pictured above. Only a few come to light.

I do know that sharing here has helped. Thank you for taking in these moments.

Photo by Rhea

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