Duck in a Tub

The front page of the Los Angeles Times recently featured a Column One piece about Alice Waters called “Yanking their food chain.” You can find it here.

Through Joy, I’ve learned some of the most notable advocates for local, organic food, and I knew that Alice Waters could be considered the Julia Child of the organic movement. Before Joy came along, the only cooking Alice I knew was from the Alice’s Restaurant song, which I heard Arlo Guthrie sing at my first concert in the 1970s. Now I can read this article about Alice and Julia and Michael Pollan and have a real understanding of the food and farming issues being debated.

Since Joy is (a) vegetarian, and (b) willing to cook for us, I’ve become a house-trained vegetarian myself. By that I mean I don’t cook meat in our kitchen, but I will occasionally barbecue it, or eat it at a restaurant. But Joy’s organic kitchen is really Joy’s organic - vegetarian - kitchen.

I watch Joy cook and help her shop at the Hollywood Farmers Market. All the extra time in the kitchen gives us time to (a) discuss food and (b) drink wine and eat cheese. Last week, I bought some Cowgirl Creamery (Point Reyes, CA) Red Hawk cheese at Whole Foods, at Joy’s suggestion, and learned that washed rind cheeses are very stinky. We had to open the windows.

I’m also the one who browses the used bookstores and L.A. Central Library for food books for Joy. (Brand Books in Glendale has a great food section.) It’s a vicarious pleasure that is slowly shifting my consciousness and habits from (a) wanting to keep my wife occupied to (b) really starting to enjoy the issues and experiences that come with a commitment to local food.

One recent summer we watched our neighbor, Jose Martinez, try to domesticate a duck. God knows where he got her, and we’re pretty sure that she returned to God, because Jose did not shelter her from the coyotes and other predators.

Joy had grown particularly fond of this duck she named Louise. Our kitchen window overlooks the backyard patio where Louise lived (and briefly swam in a Rubbermaid tub).

As Alice Waters said in the LA Times piece, Julia was a pioneer in her time; and she blazed a path that led to Chez Panisse and Joy’s Organic Kitchen. Instead of learning how to bone a duck like Julia did, we chose to photograph Louise and memorialize her short time on earth with a special edition of homemade salsa.