Category: Uncategorized

Instead of a journal prompt this week, I’d like you to let me know if there are any job/work/life questions you’d like to discuss in class. This is optional, but if you think of anything, leave it here.

You have two options for your third story assignment. Details here.

What do you know about growing food? Have you ever done it yourself? Or helped a parent/grandparent grow something? Worked in food production? If you haven’t grown/raised food, how do you think about the process of growing/raising food? Which lens is most important to you when you think about buying grown/raised food? Cost to you? Cost to the planet? Healthiness of the food? The way it was grown/raised? Its source? Talk to me about your thought process when it comes to sourcing your grown/raised food.

Read this trio of stories by Tamar Haspel, a columnist for The Washington Post: 1) One thing might keep the Impossible Burger from
saving the planet: Steak; 2) Why we should ban junk-food ads aimed at children; 3) The “uncured” bacon illusion: it’s actually cured and it’s not better for you.

Respond to these stories in your journal doc before class on Tuesday, November 8.

You’re going to prison for five years. Write about your last meal before going in. Explain why you chose what you chose.

Talk to me about your relationship to Halloween candy. What’s your favorite? How, if at all, did you sort your Halloween candy haul? Did you trick or treat in the same place every year? What non-candy Halloween food traditions did/do you have? You don’t have to answer all of these? Just riff on your food/candy relationship to Halloween.

To what extent, if at all, do you think/care about where — geographically, I mean — your food comes from? If you do think/care about this, why? And to what degree? And for what specific foods do you most think about this? If you don’t care about this, why? As with all these journal entries, there is not a right answer here. I’m just curious how much, if at all, you think about the point of origin of the food you eat.

Another sequential reading assignment. Read the following stories in the order listed. In your journal, collect your thoughts as you go along.

• I Found the Best Burger Place in America. And Then I Killed It., by Kevin Alexander (Thrillist)
• Did a Rave Review Really Shut Down Portland Burger Bar Stanich’s?, by Matthew Singer (Willamette Week)
• The Making of a Sympathetic Man, by Molly Osberg (Jezebel)
• It’s Never Just about the Burger, by Helen Rosner (The New Yorker)

Throughout the day, try to keep track of everything you smell. Make a list in your Journal doc, and as you catalog a smell, try to attach to it some memory, association, feeling, impression, question, or thought. Aim for at least 10-15 smells.

Here are the details for your second story in JCM 429. New deadline: October 21.