Summertime

I'm done. My first year of college at UC Berkeley just brushed by like a glorious breeze, a breeze filled with so many emotions and experiences and friends and foodies. I was expecting college to be new and exciting, but I couldn't have ever expected the exhilarating roller coaster ride it ended up becoming.

Concerts in run-down bars, filled to the brim with hipsters and punks, bustling street festivals with vendors straight from the 70s, BART transfers, MUNI transfers, and miles and miles of walking completely opened my eyes to a beautifully different approach to life. A life that is local, conscious, and deeply passionate.

And I am passionate. Passionate about saving whales and sharks, passionate about human rights, and definitely passionate about food. FOOD.

Something that can be as simple as a home-grown carrot to something so complicated as a genetically modified soybean, injected with a bacteria strain, treated with pesticides, drenched with synthetic fertilizers, heavily subsidized, and just beautiful looking at that. Its something so essential as nutrients to run metabolic functions and keep our engines running day by day, yet something so exquisite that schools have been built on its behalf, to explore every taste, texture, and aroma it has to offer. It exists as three designated meals a day, organized in a pyramid of colors and numbers, yet it is so fluid and malleable, with new recipes, new diets, and many snacking opportunities allowed in between.

In conclusion, I love food. A lot of people love food. And I do too. I love knowing where my food comes from, who grows it, how its produced, and how it gets to my local stores. I love creating recipes, and sharing them with the people around me. That's the best.

So here we go. An adventure through a food jungle, bursting with juicy fruits and crunchy veggies among other things, ready to me nom nom nommed right up. Yum.