After the events of this past week and some personal soul searching, I am struck by a comment author Ruth Reichl posted on her blog about why she writes about food, especially during difficult times. It was in response to a reader that suggested she should maybe stop writing about all the great food she eats in light of the Haitian crisis. She said after thinking about it, she decided it was a spurious argument and the opposite of life affirming, and reminded her of when her grandparents stopped celebrating after one of their children died.

It reminded me of a class discussion in art school a few years ago where there was much discourse around what kind of art we should be making after 9/11, and was it (or not) the artists’ job to make work that is political, or at the least, to respond critically to a political/tragic situation? One of the pieces in discussion was by art critic Dave Hickey, where in an essay about beauty, he essentially pleas for the return of it in contemporary art (a simplification here). “What’s wrong with beauty (or objects of beauty),” my sculpture professor asked, as we all struggled to make art of meaning (for some, thinking it couldn’t be both meaningful and beautiful).

In the summer of 2006, while visiting Oaxaca, Mexico, I spent an evening with a group of artists at a fabulously funky (in an artsy way) bar owned by one of them. They were meeting in response to the local teacher’s crisis that at one point shut down the city, and the impending presidential race in Mexico City. In anticipation of their traveling to the city by caravan and my asking what position they would take, one of them responded–”We are artists, not politicians.”

And last night, I heard the tail end of an interesting discussion on a City Arts and Lectures broadcast with the author and journalist Eric Schlosser (“Fast Food Nation”) where he confessed that he felt like a fiction writer’s job used to encompass writing about the bigger life questions in a way that engaged us in world issues (paraphrasing); that his own writing was informed by the world he lived in and lived through, in relation to history, and that he felt privileged to be able to write about subjects that were important to him.

I’m not quite sure where I’m going with all this, but as I sat down to write today, these were the thoughts and ideas swirling in my head.  Meanwhile, it is raining something fierce outside with flashes of thunder and lightening, and I am grateful to have a roof over my head.

The world is in perpetual crisis, natural and man-made, as Ruth points out, and so isn’t it then in the moments and acts of beauty where life persists and invites meaning? Perhaps, not unlike the life affirming birth of a baby amidst the rubble of Haiti; the poets exquisite lament in response to tragedy. It seems, too, as Ruth also writes, we have a moral obligation to do something where/when we can, that daily there is opportunity to participate in making change, small or large, in our own way, in our own communities. As a friend once reminded me long ago, “begin at home.”

So why do I write about food and what about it is important to me? My reasoning is at once permeable and somewhat less than solid. I don’t profess to have the answer(s).

I write about food for the same reasons that I write about anything, the need to understand my relationship to the world, to write out what is central to my life–my children, cooking, creating, a passion for what sustains us, community and the art of gathering around the table. To not write about it would be a personal failing, a negation of meaning as I understand it, or rather want to engage with it. Today, I write hoping to open the door, to celebrate life while affirming its more meaningful connections.

On that note, a huge thank you to all who donated to the Menu for Hope last month in support of the World Food Programme, who incidentally are at the center of providing humanitarian aid in Haiti. A collective of bloggers raised close to $80,000. The winners of the raffle are now posted here.

And don’t forget, if you live in the bay area, belly-up this Saturday at a Bakesale for Haiti, as per my earlier post.