It’s getting close to graduation time, when we’ll see our interns leave and grow on to new opportunities. We decided to collaborate on one last lunch together before they have to go. I wanted to share with you our fun experience and tell you how easy it was to just walk into the store, pick up food and learn together about food prep. Build-Your-Own-Burritos is such a perfect meal idea for eaters who have different ingredient preferences. Here’s the recipe we used. We had more than enough for all of us, and everyone got to try different things we had never had before!
First, we used the recipe to see what ingredients we might need at the store. Then, we went to the fridge and found out that we only needed to go out to buy four things missing from our pantry and fridge. Afterward, it was off to the grocery store to pick up those things. The sun came out on a predominantly rainy day for our walk there and back, so we knew we were on the right track. From Kristy, we learned how to find a perfect mango, from Mary, how to choose and ripen an avocado and we all learned that beans are an incredibly inexpensive way to get nutrients (even in the relatively expensive neighborhood of Soho in New York.) Throughout our exercise, mushrooms were a point of contention- some of us disliked them, some of us were prejudiced against them, and some of us loved them. From assessing the fridge, to shopping at the grocery store, to over the stove, we heard strong differing opinions on the fungi. As an extremely biased eater, I’m happy to say that the noble baby portobella mushroom managed to convince at least two more hungry eaters that they aren’t “gross.”
Bria arrived to help chop and share her stories of her plans for her summer, and we set the table using a few of Tenzin’s tips from the WOYP? book: flowers on the table, cloth napkins for everyone, and mismatched dishes for all of our burrito ingredients. We all experimented with new styles of wrapping a tortilla around our piled food, tried at least one ingredient we didn’t think should be in a burrito, and generally enjoyed ourselves.
Bria, Reginald, Kristy, and Jermal
We wish all of our interns the best for their futures and hope to hear great news around the world about each very soon.
Image courtesy of TheNakedLabel.com
Hello, my name is Reginald Greene and I’m an intern at Aubin Pictures. When I found out I would be working here, I didn’t know what to expect. I just believed that I would be working in a field that I want to continue in for the rest of my life, journalism. I began to see perspective in my eating habits and how I wasn’t eating the way I was supposed to. Before I watched What’s On Your Plate?, my eating habits were not healthy.
In the movie, I witnessed many parts that I thought were interesting. In particular, I found interest in the in-depth interviews by the main characters in the film, Sadie and Safiyah. I wondered, as they did, why food that was better for you cost more than fast food? When I finished the movie, I had a revelation about how my eating habits could lead me to become like Caleb’s dad in the movie. I was concerned that I could have a heart attack.
Now, I eat salad and fruits. I haven’t eaten a meal at McDonald’s in a week, and I feel like I haven’t missed anything about it. What I figured out was that the healthier food tastes better and costs less. Pineapples, strawberries, and cantaloupe are a few of my new found cravings. I always liked fruit, but now after watching the movie, I’m beginning to realize that I’m becoming an adult, and I need to make adult decisions. I’m doing this now by changing the way I eat.
Fellow viewers! I am excited to announce that my most recent film project is being screened tomorrow, yes, tomorrow! It is a short film that describes teenager’s take on love, what it is, why it’s here, how it’s interpreted, and the process. The screening begins at 6:00 pm at the Jewish Museum on the Upper East Side. (1109 5th Ave at 92nd street) Come if you can and help support my dreams doing this as a profession.
Filmmaker Bio:
After watching a Christmas commercial about the new release of a kid’s toy, for the next month, my mother never had to ask me to do my chores or clean my room, my sister and I never got into an argument, and all my homework was finished on time. The commercial displayed a girly commercial about the size of two fists put together and made out of pink sparkly plastic. At eight years old, after Santa blessed me with this Barbie accessory, I fell in love with the art of filmmaking.
Years later I asked for a real digital camcorder. As time passed, my desires morphed into something deeper. I not only enjoyed using the camera, but got interested the art of editing what has been recorded, which, now that I am older, I know is called cinematography.
Fortunately, my school helps me to build on my aspirations of landing a vocation that has something to do with cinematography. It offers modules every semester that require exit projects where film is always an option. As a freshman I was able to create a Public Service Announcement with my group, in which we shed light on issues in Zimbabwe. My sophomore year, I created with my group a documentary that focused on individual’s personal experiences on the day of September 11th, 2001. This year, my junior year, I recently finished a project where I read a novel, then interpreted it into a trailer. Link here. Currently I am in a Module called “Sixteen”. My class and I are in the process of creating a documentary that talks about what it is like to be sixteen around the world.
I now spend my Wednesdays interning at Aubin Pictures, witnessing and blogging about the different fields that film can touch. This experience is essential for me to know what I want to be when I grow up because it teaches me how to critically and objectively write about different films, articles and announcements. I feel like this site has helped me to realize that all types of films require bucket loads of writing, whether it be a screenplay, interpreting a movie into a novel, blogging about themes that relate to a film, or spreading the word about a certain film.
Hi! I’m Bridget, and today I’m taking part in a one-day internship at WHAT’S ON YOUR PLATE? I’m actually in NYC for a week-long feminist intensive program, and have been very excited to come to WOYP? since I found out that I would be coming here as part of my week, because food justice and social justice are very much connected. Everyone should be able to find healthy, good foods! At a meeting earlier this week at Sista’s On the Rise I told some of the women there that I would be at WOYP? and they told me about the excitement in their community and around NYC to create community gardens so that healthy food that is accessible to everyone. They then told me about the urban rodent problem in the gardens and how much of the food is being compromised due to the rodents burrowing into the gardens and eating the crops. There are about 600 community gardens in NYC and rodents often thrive there because humans aren’t in the gardens often enough to scare them away, and the crops and seeds are easy for them to find and eat undercover. It seems that the rodents are ruining individual’s gardens as well. I could really relate to this problem because where I’m from, in a more rural area, we deal with other animals such as rabbits and deer eating the crops! So, the fact that animals are invading gardens is not just a New York problem, they just happen to be rats rather than bunnies! But, I’m really enjoying my visit to NYC and was saddened to hear about this problem that the farmers and communities are facing. Hopefully, more strategies and more groups such as Green Guerillas (a group that helps people cultivate community gardens,) will be developed to protect the gardens from rodents and to keep opportunities for healthy, fresh food available to everyone!
What do you think? Are rats our neighbors? Do they deserve to share some of our food?
courtesy of http://tastytufts.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/ratatouille.jpg
Hi
I’m Angelica, and I’ve been interning at What’s On Your Plate? since November, give or take a little. I’m sixteen years old and I attend high school in New York. I’m 5’2 (and a half) and I tend to giggle a lot. My favorite foods are sushi and mangoes (separately), and I like the word kayak because its spelled the same way forwards and backwards. I like the color red, traveling, people who make me laugh, spring/summer, and art. Spiders are probably my least favorite thing in the world. I’ve never really gardened before, but once as a child I planted cherry pits in my grandmother’s backyard and it grew a tree a couple year later. Coincidence? I think not.
I came to WOYP? hoping to gain more experience on blogging and writing. But I actually ended up getting a whole lot more out of it. Its exposed me to a whole different perspective on food. We’re all used to scary documentaries badmouthing food and giving it a nasty reputation. But WOYP? goes beyond that to celebrate food and promotes healthy local communities at the same time. As a blogger at WOYP?, I want to enforce that message, and show that despite all the greasy corporate industries, there is still fresh and organic produce, even in bustling cities. I’ll probably never look at my lunch the same way again.
Hello, I am Cassie and I blog here.
Jasper and I
Some tidbits about me:
1. I’m from the DAIRY CAPITOL OF THE WORLD and currently live in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. 2. I compost in my kitchen and garden in Queens. 3. My greatest joy is taking my dogs to the Prospect Park Dog Paradise. (Mornings before 9 a.m. dogs take over Prospect Park. It is Lovely and Amazing) 4. I study video & radio documentary, media advocacy, and journalism in the Integrated Media Arts graduate program at Hunter College. 5. I have a radio show where I interview friends and colleagues about their art & activism. 6. I hop around NYC yoga studios in search of a good deal. 7. I love driving across the country and sleeping outside. 8. I’ve been at WOYP since October and have relished the opportunity to champion find my favorite topics: media activism, the healthy life, community, and growing things in the dirt.
Hi there! I’m Nate, and I’ve been an intern at WOYP since June, 2009. I’m 22 years old (aquarius) and I will soon graduate from the lovely and prestigious Sarah Lawrence College where I’ve been studying urban planning (I get really excited about rooftop gardens and farmer’s markets). I’m 5’10″ tall and I need a haircut. I enjoy ginger cookies (snaps or non-snaps) and detective stories. I dislike squash and making a fuss. My favorite color is blue, I like the Beatles better than the Stones, and I am afraid of heights. I like to cook enchiladas because all of the ingredients are different colors, so I know when I’ve forgotten something. I love portable foods in general (sandwiches, dumplings, pies, things with tortillas) and my ambition is to learn to make all of them deliciously.
My favorite thing about WOYP is that it is an optimistic take on what can be a very depressing and pessimistic subject. Much of what I read about and blog about paints a picture of a scary food-world, in which much of what we eat is either bad for us, or produced and distributed in ways that are harmful to the planet, rob communities of their economic autonomy, and distance us from our neighbors. Where most information about food reform focuses on the problem, WOYP is all about the solution. WOYP shows that building strong, efficient, local food-production systems is entirely possible, even in a city like New York. My favorite part of the movie is the big meal at the end, which reminds me that making food and eating it are community activities. I hope that films like WOYP will help people see how a community can come together around a meal, from the farm to the table, and how, even in these times of e-z mac and Cargill, such a meal isn’t so impossible a goal.
When I write for the WOYP blog, I try to focus on good things that are going on in the world of food reform. Sometimes I have to let the Internet know about depressing things or urgent problems that I get outraged about, but mostly I think the problem is all around us and impossible to ignore and I try to post solutions I find as often as I can. That tends to mean a lot of jokes and fun links, but I try to stick to helpful things.
