Community Cooks

Will I start making easy speed-scratch meals? As my child grows, and our lives get even more busy & complicated, will I start making the meals advertised by Swanson on television?

A university, any university -- how about the U of M -- should have students making a study about 40-something adoptive parents. The study should include how they feed their children. After years of making super-conscious meal decisions, with time to cook and appreciate food (plus cleaning up, while drinking wine), how now, do us 40-something parents feed their families? Perhaps you don't care, but it is interesting to me.

A few years ago, my peers were indignant of food establishment Boston Market. It's a liberal thing: isn't it so terrible that women are picking up pre-made meals instead of cooking the full meal at home... this is the destruction of American society... women who don't cook homemade food are immoral... how dare Boston Market try to capitalize on busy families... etc. etc. Oh, wait, is that liberals or conservatives? I get them confused sometimes.

When I think about homes in other cultures/countries, I see a lot of meals prepared outside the home, and what's wrong with that? It's part of what makes a community. We ought to rely on community folks who cook great meals at great prices, for us, to ease our burden. I wish my neighborhood had more take-out restaurants that I could trust and afford. HOLY LAND is one great place to get a pre-cooked meal, and their chickens are cage-free. It is more economical for us to get a rotisserie chicken from them than for me to cook one myself. THAT's what I'm talkin' about.

Why aren't there more places like that in Minneapolis, Minnesota? My answer is: it's just too cold. It might not make sense to you, but that is the reason we don't have great take-out. It's just too cold.

I propose a new movement by Minneapolitans who want to make a good buck: follow Holy Land's model. Make us some good, wholesome, reasonably-priced take-out food. And before you send me a message that I should do it, I'll tell you right now that I love cooking too much to do it every day, for money. It's just not for me.

The problem with Boston Market is that it was a chain, and therefore associated with capitalism ('cause capitalism is a bad thing... ???). I get it. I want my take-out to have at least the feel of home-made food, like Holy Land. Holy Land is now very successful and national, with a wonderful place in the Midtown Global Market. I don't know how they do it; I don't know how they get all those free-range chickens and abuse-free meats. I'm not an investigator; I simply trust them. They are fast becoming part of a large capitalist market that I'm sure liberals won't like. So, someone has to step up and offer us some of the same, with the local trust we have come to love so much.

If that is you, please offer duck and pheasant. Thank you.