In My Kitchen and In Our World

New in my kitchen: a little oil cruet.

February fun: chocolate truffles for Valentine’s Day,
made by a neighbor.

At the end of each month, I share my kitchen thoughts and experiences with a group of like-minded bloggers who post at Sherry's blog. Other than one little oil cruet, the only new item in my kitchen is my new over-the-stove microwave oven: we have been waiting for about a year to finally replace the one that broke. It’s very nice to have my countertop space freed up again, after using a countertop microwave for a year.

As for cooking: I continue to try new vegetarian and vegan dishes, and to avoid buying meat. I’ve already documented my experiments with Ethiopian vegetarian foods, and a few others.

In this spirit, here are a few photos of my kitchen and what I cooked in February.

Biggest change: my new microwave oven.

Impossible meatballs. Made from Impossible Burger meat, following my standard recipe.
I haven’t been buying beef, so it’s been a long time since I made these, and they are amazing.
They look like beef, they feel like beef, and they taste like beef.

Brown rice, lentils, and squash.

Crispy tofu garnished with green onion: a new recipe from the web.

More vegetarian cooking: pasta with broccoli.

Soba noodles, snow peas, bamboo shoots, and peanut sauce.
Plus a glass of wine.

Along with several loaves of bread, Len made cinnamon rolls.

 

Salad lunch: lettuce with garlic croutons and
white beans with red bell pepper and cilantro.
Small dish: jalapeño peppers for garnish.

 

Soup lunch: Trader Joe’s corn chowder — with extra (frozen) corn!
Some packaged foods are really good.

In this photo of our Ethiopian dinner, you can see our glasses of wine and water,
which I’m sharing with Elizabeth’s blog party that celebrates drinks each week.

The World Outside My Kitchen

The world this month has been full of shocks. People in many cities in Ukraine are under bombardment, suffering from the worst types of fear and terror, fighting back with surprising effectiveness. As I post this,  negotiations are ongoing, but little is known. Globally, the ongoing consequences of the covid pandemic have reduced many people who were insecure before to utter desperation, near to starvation. Hand in hand with food insecurity, a large number of the world's population suffer from a lack of health care. Health care inadequacy obviously proved even more disastrous when the new, highly virulent, and exceptionally contagious virus appeared two years ago. 

One man, Dr. Paul Farmer, through the organization Partners in Health, a social justice organization which he founded in 1987, brought exceptional relief to a large number of people in the world, especially in the medically-underserved areas of West Africa, in Haiti, and in other places. Dr. Farmer believed: “The idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that is wrong with the world.” (source)

Dr. Farmer in 2013 (Wikipedia)

Dr. Farmer's sudden death on February 21 reminds us of how he challenged the cynical view that people in the third world were incapable, or even undeserving, of being helped by modern medicine. From The Boston Globe:

"Where others saw insurmountable obstacles — civil conflict, remote villages, lack of funding, corrupt institutions and governments — Farmer found a way to deliver care in a sustainable way. Farmer and Partners in Health have been behind, directly and indirectly, scores of global public health efforts, like campaigns against tuberculosis and AIDS. The group has worked locally, too. When the COVID-19 pandemic first hit Massachusetts in 2020, Farmer and Partners in Health brought the expertise gained when they helped fight the Ebola outbreak in West Africa to a contact tracing initiative to combat the spread of the coronavirus. The nonprofit coordinated the state’s contact tracing initiative, which was responsible for making roughly 2.7 million calls to residents." (source)

From The Financial Times:

"Farmer doggedly campaigned to change attitudes. This did not fix the problems: healthcare systems in low-income countries remain poor. But Farmer’s campaigns helped to improve standards in some places, including Rwanda and Haiti. It also contributed to a shift in the debate in global health about what should be expected in poor nations. ... Farmer’s life reminds us that ideas that once seemed crazy can sometimes become mainstream, if they are championed with patience and passion; and that sometimes individuals can deliver real good. That’s reassuring — and heavens knows, we need to celebrate our heroes in these dark times." (source) 

I first heard of Dr. Farmer from the book Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder (published 2003), and I’ve been aware of his remarkable accomplishments, the success of Partners in Health, and his mentorship of numerous medical practitioners throughout the world. Yes, we need heroes in times like these.

In a just world, adequate food and decent health care would be much more available than they are now.  Dr. Farmer’s contribution to such justice is immeasurable. The topics of healthcare and food adequacy, and the way that the pandemic has made global health and hunger so much worse, is frequently in my thoughts and also a topic of my blog posts. For those in need, the pandemic has made both health issues and food issues more severe. So that's what's on my mind -- along with the terrors of a war in Europe -- as I think over what happened in February 2022.

Blog post © 2022 mae sander.