FOOD52

    

     Recently in doing research on the ramps of Spring I stumbled upon an interesting website developed by two women, Amanda & Merrill, who set out to exchange recipes and ideas and to support cooks.  They have a simple philosophy: If you want to eat better and you want to change the food system, you need to cook.  They claim not to be extremists in a cult of purity, slow-foodness, or locavorosity, but realists who believe in applying the best aspects of  those food movements to every day living.  Here is their Food52 Manifesto:

How you eat is how you live.

We love spending time in the kitchen, and we believe that memorable cooking doesn't have to be complicated or precious.  It's about discovering that frying an egg in olive oil over high heat gives the white a great crackly texture, that slashing the legs of a chicken before roasting allows the dark and white meat to cook evenly, that maple syrup adds not only sweetness but depth to an otherwise ho-hum vinaigrette.

Many cooking sites take a top-down approach, telling you what to cook and failing to give you a sense of the people and creative process behind the recipes.  We don't want to be yet another site that insists on dumbing down recipes to make them "quick" and "easy"--so we won't.

Because:

If you cook, your family will eat dinner together.
If you cook, you will naturally have a more sustainable household.
If you cook, you'll set a lifelong example for your children.
If you cook, you'll understand what goes into food and will eat more heathily.
If you cook, you'll make your home an important place in your life.
If you cook, you'll make others happy.
If you cook, people will remember you.

To that I can only add, "Amen!"