This article was posted by a friend on Facebook.  She and her friend have been members of the sustainable living and environmental movement in a significant way far longer than I have had the privilege.  I think this article helps to shed some light on what is -and may not be – important to the notion of localizing our food system.  Once a movement gets momentum there is always a fringe (and this case more than a fringe, especially in the city) that take a minutia of the movement and blow it up into monumental significance.  In this case, the micro-managing and obsession of cooking.  You know of which I speak.  When I was in high school my family was one of the first around to take up long distance bicycle touring.  We had decent bikes and we wore those old white helmets that looked like half an eggshell.  But we did it in T-shirts, shorts, and tennis shoes.  Now 30 some years later, everyone thinks they need to shave their legs and look like a competitor in the Tour de France simply to go on a nice bike ride.  This has now happened in cooking.  While having good equipment is nice and having a gathering of friends over wine and a nice meal contains a soothing animal warmth, the hipster movement has made cooking the Tour de France of food.  While yes cooking is important, the movement now has a plethora of those who are still out of touch with how their food is produced and the simple pleasures of eating foods that comfort like grandma used to cook.  A loose quote from the article is that if you cooked like your grandmother you would likely never open a cookbook.  Having to open a cookbook is indicative of how much of our roots, traditions and simple self-sustaining skills we have lost.  I would suggest that instead of learning how to cook Thai cuisine or attempting to become the next Julia Child, go to the farmers market, buy some great produce, and cook yourself up a good old fashioned hearty stew.  You will glow with satisfaction and you will have the basis of a recipe that you can build on and change and let evolve, that doesn’t require you to wear a stupid white hat and apron.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/11/03/shut-eat