Latest / The Nation Podcasts / Trump condemns Marjorie Taylor Greene, praises Mamdani; plus Alice Waters on ‘A School Lunch Revolution’ / Start Making Sense

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Trump condemns Marjorie Taylor Greene, praises Mamdani; plus Alice Waters on ‘A School Lunch Revolution’ / Start Making Sense · The Nation Podcasts

0:08
[SPEAKER_01]: From the nation magazine, this is Start Making Sense.
0:11
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm John Weiner.
0:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Later in the hour, Alice Waters, the legendary chef who founded shape and niece in Berkeley, will talk about how to make school lunch delicious, affordable, organic, beautiful, and locally sourced from regenerative farmers.
0:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Her new book is a school lunch revolution.
0:30
[SPEAKER_01]: But first, Marjorie Taylor Greene is out and Zoran Mombani is in.
0:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Harold Myersen will comment in a minute.
0:41
[SPEAKER_01]: We're still thinking about the wild week where Marjorie Taylor Greene announced she was quitting after Trump excommunicated her from maga.
0:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, the same day, Trump welcomed Zorin Mamdoni to the White House with open arms and high praise.
0:58
[SPEAKER_01]: What the heck?
1:00
[SPEAKER_01]: For comment in analysis, we turned to Harold Meyerson.
1:03
[SPEAKER_01]: He's editor at Large of the American Prospect.
1:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Harold, welcome back.
1:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, he's good to be here, John.
1:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, let's start with Marjorie Taylor Greene on Friday, even her closest associates were stunned when she posted a 10 minute video on X announcing she would be leaving office January 5th, one year before her term expires.
1:25
[SPEAKER_01]: She's the one who talked about Jewish space lasers starting forest fires, taking anti-Semitism to new heights.
1:33
[SPEAKER_01]: She promoted Trump's claims of election fraud that led to the capital riot of January 6, 2021, and the last few months, though, she split from Trump on at least three fundamental issues.
1:47
[SPEAKER_01]: She called Israel's action in Gaza genocide.
1:50
[SPEAKER_01]: She said Trump was wrong to cut health care, and she defied Trump on release of the Epstein files.
1:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Trump responded by calling her Marjorie Trader Greene and said he'd endorse a challenger to her in the next primary.
2:04
[SPEAKER_01]: So she quit.
2:06
[SPEAKER_01]: The simplest conclusion we can draw is that if you don't agree with Trump, you can't be in the Republican Party.
2:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Is that the way you see it?
2:14
[SPEAKER_00]: So let's start to agree.
2:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
2:16
[SPEAKER_00]: the Martyr Taylor Green, if she's to be judged only by her last month or two, has been coming around to what we might term reality.
2:27
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's always a welcome development when people do that.
2:31
[SPEAKER_00]: We encourage such excursions into what may be terror in cognita for that particular person.
2:37
[SPEAKER_00]: But, you know, also a couple of points, first of all, by announcing she would leave on January 5th, her term in office would then include five years, which makes her eligible for the congressional pension.
2:50
[SPEAKER_00]: I suspect she's been thinking about this for a while, even though she wasn't telling anyone about it.
2:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Precisely because, at some point, it occurred to her, she could leave
3:01
[SPEAKER_00]: on January 5th and still collect, still collect her pension.
3:05
[SPEAKER_00]: That said, she probably has some kind of future in the post-Trump Republican Party, which will really begin to take shape after the midterm elections when Trump, despite his best efforts to completely flout the
3:26
[SPEAKER_01]: want to talk a little bit more about her critique in her 10-minute video that kind of talk you hardly ever hear from elected officials.
3:35
[SPEAKER_01]: She said, quote, during the longest shutdown in our nation's history, I raged against my own party for refusing to pass a plan to save American healthcare.
3:46
[SPEAKER_01]: and protect Americans from outrageous overpriced and unaffordable health insurance policies.
3:53
[SPEAKER_01]: The House should have been in session every working day to fix this disaster.
3:58
[SPEAKER_01]: But instead America was forced fed, disgusting political drama once again from both sides of the aisle.
4:06
[SPEAKER_01]: People know, she said, how much credit card debt they have, they know food costs too much.
4:12
[SPEAKER_01]: They know their rent has increasingly gone up that the college degree they were told to earn only left them in debt and with no big six-figure salary.
4:23
[SPEAKER_01]: They can't afford health insurance or practically any insurance and they just aren't stupid, close quote, doesn't that sound a bit like Bernie?
4:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but for the reference to sharing on a bipartisan basis, the blame for the shutdown, that could have been said by any mainstream to left of mainstream Democrat.
4:47
[SPEAKER_00]: That obviously comes as a surprise, but as I said in my previous remark, we've got a welcome, you know, anyone who begins to grapple with what is the reality that most Americans have to live through today.
5:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, are you suggesting that she should or could become a Democrat?
5:06
[SPEAKER_00]: I think there are still too many issues that would keep her from doing that on the social side of the spectrum, but we have to acknowledge and she's apart from this, but we have to acknowledge sort of the Josh Hawley tendency.
5:23
[SPEAKER_00]: within the Republican Party to, you know, attempt to begin to grapple with the immense economic inequality in the United States.
5:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Josh Hawley is becoming a, at what Thomas Payne would call the Sun, a sunshine soldier for some unions.
5:41
[SPEAKER_00]: This is all related to the Republican Party, increasingly seen as having a working class base.
5:47
[SPEAKER_00]: and the realization, therefore, of a number of Republican elected officials, not a lot, but some, that the working class is not making out at all well, and that traditional Republican economic policy is complicit in the sort of dismal state of economic affairs for the American
6:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, what seemed to rankl heard the most was being called a traitor.
6:11
[SPEAKER_01]: She said she had been loyal to Trump except for, quote, standing up for American women who were raped at 14, trafficked and used by rich powerful men.
6:24
[SPEAKER_01]: She said that should not result in me being called a traitor and threatened by the president of the United States who I fought for, close quote.
6:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, well, you know, she has a very good point.
6:38
[SPEAKER_00]: I find nothing there to argue with a single syllable of Trump's criteria for trader boils down to, are you sufficiently pro-Trump today?
6:51
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's actually a very low bar to clear, and as far as Trump was concerned, she had cleared it.
6:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, she's in some way as a step ahead of most people.
7:01
[SPEAKER_01]: She said Republicans will likely lose the midterms, then I'll be expected to defend the president against impeachment after he hatefully dumped tens of millions of dollars against me and tried to destroy me, close quote, well, that's a good reason to quit.
7:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you would think, you know, I mean, if this, if this were a legal brief, based on facts, never mind legal precedence, there would be very little to quibble with.
7:29
[SPEAKER_01]: And then she went on CNN and said, quote, I'm sorry for taking part in the toxic politics, close quote, after say there's some skepticism among some of our friends that she's really intent on pursuing a kinder gentler politics.
7:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you share that?
7:47
[SPEAKER_00]: What, well, you know, I don't really go into the prophecy of goodness.
7:52
[SPEAKER_00]: If she runs for higher office, either statewide in Georgia or nationally in 2028, she still has to win votes from what is essentially the MAGA base.
8:04
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that will require her not to jettison all of her past customs.
8:16
[SPEAKER_01]: This is north of Atlanta issued a statement affirming it's quote unwavering support for her and praise her for working quote tirelessly to support the needs and views of her constituents close quote.
8:31
[SPEAKER_01]: But the same group declared in the same statement quote, our support of representative Green does not in any way diminish our total support for President Trump close quote.
8:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Right, and that's, you know, if you run for any other office, that's still the electorate she has to grapple with.
8:48
[SPEAKER_01]: So, she joins Liz Cheney and actually pretty distinguished group of people, Senator Tom Tillis from North Carolina, who came to the same conclusion, there's lots of others on this list.
8:59
[SPEAKER_00]: And of course, all of the old Bush neocons, most of them, have long since bailed.
9:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Many of the Reaganites, yeah, this is a different Republican party.
9:12
[SPEAKER_00]: It's really a cult of Trump.
9:14
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you don't want to be in the cult of Trump, odds are you will either find your own way or be booted out of the Republican party.
9:23
[SPEAKER_01]: The same afternoon, Mom Downey went to the oval office.
9:28
[SPEAKER_01]: This is just after Trump called Marjorie Taylor Greene a traitor.
9:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Trump treated Mom Downey in a warm and friendly way expressed hope that Mom Downey would be a quote really great mayor, and that he was quote confident that he can do a very good job close quote.
9:46
[SPEAKER_01]: They two of them agreed that cost the living issues were key in American politics today.
9:51
[SPEAKER_01]: And as for the police, uh, the Republicans have been trying to paint Mombani as anti-police, Trump said he would feel safe living in New York with Mombani as mayor.
10:04
[SPEAKER_01]: He said he had no plans to send federal troops to New York City, which is a huge, uh, thing.
10:08
[SPEAKER_01]: for Mamdani as he prepares to take office.
10:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Nothing about Mamdani being a communist lunatic or a stupid person.
10:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And nothing about withholding billions in federal funding from New York City.
10:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Instead Trump said he quote, Feel very comfortable, close quote, Living in New York City, as with Mamdani as mayor.
10:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Trump told reporters, quote, we agree on a lot more than I thought.
10:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I want him to do a great job and we'll help him do a great job.
10:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Close quote.
10:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, that's a surprise.
10:46
[SPEAKER_00]: It is a surprise, a several observations.
10:50
[SPEAKER_00]: First, kind of a fundamental level, Trump is sub-ideological.
10:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Trump's value system is based on what can you do and what have you done for me.
11:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, admittedly, Mandami has not really done.
11:05
[SPEAKER_00]: anything for Trump, but I think there are a lot of CEOs and Wall Street types who live in New York who understand that if Trump does to New York what he tried to do to Los Angeles when and what he's doing in Chicago and now Charlotte, in a city as densely populated as New York,
11:29
[SPEAKER_00]: breaking loose and or just perpetual gridlock, metaphoric and literal, and I think a number of those folks have spoken to Trump probably about all of that.
11:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Also from Mandami's point of view, look, Mandami, I think historically quite correctly sides Fierrello, the Guardia, as the greatest mayor of New York, but Fierrello, the Guardia,
11:52
[SPEAKER_00]: had the closest relationship with the president of the United States, probably of any mayor of any city in American history, much of what he was able to do in New York City was based on his personal conversations with Franklin Roosevelt and Roosevelt's
12:12
[SPEAKER_00]: appropriation of lots of funds to New York City, and Mandami completely understands that Trump has a power to really screw up New York.
12:23
[SPEAKER_00]: There are boats he does not need to rock and Trump loves a winner, that's the other side of this.
12:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
12:30
[SPEAKER_00]: And Trump understands when someone runs a smart campaign.
12:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Trump valorizes winning above anything else, I mean, you know, this is the flip side of his doing things like denigrating, you know, Americans captured in wars as prisoners of war.
12:48
[SPEAKER_00]: They were losers, therefore.
12:50
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, he's expressed that opinion.
12:53
[SPEAKER_00]: So this was, you know, the weirdest of, uh, convergences, but, uh, weird is a, uh, kind of, in addition to other
13:06
[SPEAKER_01]: the weirdest moment for a lot of us came when a reporter asked Mombani about his having called Trump quote a fascist.
13:16
[SPEAKER_01]: And Mombani kind of paused and Trump jumped in and said quote, you can just say it.
13:22
[SPEAKER_01]: That's easier.
13:23
[SPEAKER_01]: It's easier than explaining it.
13:25
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't mind close quote.
13:27
[SPEAKER_01]: He says publicly he doesn't mind being called a fascist by the mayor of New York.
13:33
[SPEAKER_01]: What is going on?
13:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, just as Mandami and Myers-Fierrella Gordia, Trump may admire Benito Mussolini, you know, choose your favorite person of Italian extraction.
13:47
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, like I said, we're definitely Ocarant.
13:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, and this post-ideological thing of Trump's returns dramatically here.
13:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Trump has had the government buy or get a, you know,
14:05
[SPEAKER_00]: In any number of corporations, that's either called state capitalism or some version of socialism or whatever.
14:13
[SPEAKER_00]: He's not really hemmed in for better and worse, mainly worse, by the usual ideological constraints that have hemmed in every previous president of the United States and most of the people
14:33
[SPEAKER_01]: So, where does this leave the Republican Party?
14:36
[SPEAKER_01]: They had been planning to run a midterm national campaign that would put Mamdani at the center of their picture of the Democrats.
14:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Mamdani, the Communist, Nandami, the Jihadists, Nandami, the Muslim radical, as the face of the Democratic Party, anti-police, anti-capitalism, anti-Israel,
15:00
[SPEAKER_01]: It's triple rectal that.
15:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, he sure has for now.
15:04
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I think, you look, Republicans are going to need a theme.
15:08
[SPEAKER_00]: At the moment, the economy is their enemy.
15:11
[SPEAKER_00]: They've tried to distract the gubernatorial campaign.
15:15
[SPEAKER_00]: In Virginia, the Republican had, I think, the someone calculated 50% of her ads were about trans people in women's sports, and that had no effect.
15:27
[SPEAKER_00]: The Democrat won that race by 15%.
15:30
[SPEAKER_00]: And so what Trump did with the mandami, certainly leaves her a public and sort of desperately groping for themes.
15:37
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, this is a time-honored Republican tradition.
15:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Mandami turned out in praise of a member of Congress in New York's historic past named Vito, Mark Antonio, who was quoted a fear-religuardia and represented East Harlem in the 1940s.
16:01
[SPEAKER_00]: in Congress, but also was was pretty close to the Communist Party in that he kind of followed what the American Communist Party did vis-a-vis foreign policy vis-a-vis the Soviet Union.
16:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, the Republicans eventually tried to run against every democratic member of Congress by pointing out, look, he voted on the same side as veto-mark Antonio.
16:24
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, that is like voting
16:27
[SPEAKER_00]: But on the same side as Vito Marcantoni on their publicans clearly, we'd like to have done this with with with with Mondami I suspect they still will find a way to do it, but Trump sure gave them you know a major obstacle in the middle of that road
16:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, Mabdani doesn't take office until January 1st, which is what five weeks from now, at five weeks is a long time in Trump made, made, made, made, they discover some ties to Satan himself that Mabdami has between now in January 1st or he may have discovered on January 10th.
17:04
[SPEAKER_00]: So everything with Trump is is is is provisional.
17:09
[SPEAKER_01]: One last thing, this weekend there's a big consumer boycott being organized, a pause on chopping at three major corporations that have supported Trump.
17:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Sponsored now by indivisible, the working families party, black voters matter, and more, together they issue the collective call for a boycott this week entitled, we ain't buying it.
17:35
[SPEAKER_01]: From Thanksgiving Black Friday to Cyber Monday, they say, don't buy anything from Home Depot, from Target or from Amazon.
17:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Those are the three targets.
17:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Because Home Depot has allowed its parking lots
17:49
[SPEAKER_01]: ground zero for ice raids on immigrant day laborers, and its billionaire co-founder Bernie Marcus has funneled millions into Trump's campaigns.
17:59
[SPEAKER_01]: They're saying don't buy anything this weekend black Friday through cyber Monday from Target.
18:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Target once branded itself a friendly inclusive big box store.
18:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Now it has scrapped its DEI goals, scale back its LGBTQ offerings to
18:17
[SPEAKER_01]: And don't buy anything this weekend black Friday through cyber money from Amazon.
18:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Amazon didn't just shower Trump's inauguration with cash.
18:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Jeff Bezos company pitched facial recognition tools to ICE.
18:32
[SPEAKER_01]: And Amazon cloud services power the Palantir system ICE uses to track and deport immigrants.
18:43
[SPEAKER_01]: People say, well, three companies, aren't there lots of other companies that have supported Trump and contributed to his inauguration?
18:53
[SPEAKER_01]: As are 11 of invisible-explained it, quote, we want to concentrate our focus.
18:59
[SPEAKER_01]: on Home Depot, Target, and Amazon.
19:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Because we've seen that organizing is far more effective when it is concentrated, when it is easy to join.
19:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Doesn't mean they're the only three, they're the ones, but they're the ones we're gonna focus on this weekend.
19:16
[SPEAKER_01]: I wonder what you think about consumer boycotts.
19:19
[SPEAKER_01]: I myself was skeptical until the boycott of ABC and Disney actually brought back Jimmy Kimmel.
19:27
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, well, that was a particular incident, which got the sort of universal recognition.
19:33
[SPEAKER_00]: It was so much in the news that it produced a real backlash.
19:38
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not sure this will produce that backlash on that scale because there's no precipitating one event that is dominating the news as the temporary sacking.
19:50
[SPEAKER_00]: We did no was temporary at the time.
19:52
[SPEAKER_00]: of Jimmy Kimmel did that said Amazon controls just such a high share of American consuming of American buying that if you just really got something going at Amazon that would be that would be huge but then again of course Amazon shopping is done on your on your phone or on your home laptop or what have you so that that's kind of hard to mobilize
20:22
[SPEAKER_00]: whatever works.
20:23
[SPEAKER_00]: You and I are old enough to go back to the old great boycott of the United Farm Workers around 1970.
20:29
[SPEAKER_00]: So these things can have long-term and short-term effects and divisible will certainly write that they really only work when you focus on just a handful of companies or a single company.
20:42
[SPEAKER_01]: So, we ain't buying it from Black Friday to Cyber Monday, not from Home Depot, not from Target, not from Amazon.
20:51
[SPEAKER_01]: More information online at www.weaintbyingit.com.
20:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Harold Meyerson, read them at Prospect.org.
21:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, Harold.
21:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, it's good to be here, John.
21:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Now it's time for 20 minutes without Trump.
21:19
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll talk with Alice Waters about a school-lunch revolution.
21:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Of course, she's the chef who's the founder and owner of shape unease in Berkeley.
21:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Winner of the National Humanities Medal awarded by President Obama, the French Legion of Honor Medal, the Julia Child Award, three James Beard Awards.
21:38
[SPEAKER_01]: She's also a covalieria of the Italian Republic.
21:42
[SPEAKER_01]: and she's Vice President of Slow Food International and founded the Edible School Yard.
21:48
[SPEAKER_01]: She's the author of many books, including a wonderful memoir called, coming to my senses, the making of a counter-culture cook and many cookbooks, of course, including the art of simple food.
22:00
[SPEAKER_01]: This month, she's got a new one out.
22:02
[SPEAKER_01]: It's called a school lunch revolution.
22:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Alice Waters, it's an honor and a pleasure to say, welcome to the program.
22:09
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you, indeed.
22:11
[SPEAKER_01]: your book, a school lunch revolution has just been published, but you've been talking about school lunch for a long time.
22:18
[SPEAKER_01]: You wrote about it for the nation in 2009.
22:22
[SPEAKER_01]: What's new here is it's not just about organic food, but it's about connecting school lunch to regenerative agriculture.
22:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Schools, buying ingredients from local regenerative farmers and producers,
22:36
[SPEAKER_01]: and then cooking those ingredients on site in school kitchens.
22:41
[SPEAKER_01]: I think we should start by explaining for those who don't understand, what's the difference between organic farming and regenerative farming?
22:50
[SPEAKER_02]: My first farmer was Bob Canard and he told me he was a regenerative farmer and I said,
23:06
[SPEAKER_02]: everything to be in the soil and you're bringing in the compost, put in there.
23:11
[SPEAKER_02]: What happens is it pulls down from up there in the sky.
23:18
[SPEAKER_02]: What should not be there and put it in crout.
23:22
[SPEAKER_02]: And I said, oh, is that so bad?
23:26
[SPEAKER_01]: You're talking about carbon.
23:28
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, talking about carbon.
23:30
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you very much.
23:33
[SPEAKER_02]: But he wanted me to put it on the menu way back when.
23:37
[SPEAKER_02]: And I said, you know, it's hard to write that word there, because it's hard to write organic 40 years ago.
23:50
[SPEAKER_02]: that we think about that right now.
23:54
[SPEAKER_02]: And so ultimately we have put it on the menu.
23:58
[SPEAKER_02]: I thought both words were very important because of the high standard of organic,
24:05
[SPEAKER_02]: And the fact that regenerative farming is directly relating to climate change.
24:14
[SPEAKER_02]: And since climate change is the really frightening future of this planet, I wanted to use both words in the book.
24:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Well from the kids point of view, I think the most revolutionary thing about your menus here is the vegetables.
24:33
[SPEAKER_01]: What you hear over and over when you do school lunch, I know this is true at your Los Angeles restaurant at the Hammer Museum at UCLA, Lulu.
24:44
[SPEAKER_01]: They do lunches for kids who are visiting sometimes, and the kids say every time I never knew vegetables could taste this good.
24:54
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you do that?
24:55
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you do that?
24:56
[SPEAKER_01]: What school lunch?
24:58
[SPEAKER_02]: we only buy fruits and vegetables in season.
25:04
[SPEAKER_02]: So when we have peaches or we have string beans, that is the moment that they are the most tasty.
25:15
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you know I'm back here's Jen.
25:19
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm picking apples in the fall.
25:21
[SPEAKER_02]: I remember my parents had a victory garden during the war, and they can't all of the apples said that they would have them for the winter months.
25:33
[SPEAKER_02]: And I learned about canning from that time, but I've known about it around the world how foods can be preserved.
25:44
[SPEAKER_02]: for different times of the year.
25:47
[SPEAKER_02]: And I mean, it's very different tasting than fresh of that moment of vegetable or fruit.
25:56
[SPEAKER_02]: But it's delicious and another way.
25:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, a lot of people will tell you organic food is better, but it's too expensive.
26:05
[SPEAKER_01]: One of your principles in this new book is affordable.
26:09
[SPEAKER_01]: And to me, the most amazing thing about a school lunch revolution is that all the menus fall within the cost guidelines of the Department of Agriculture School Lunchory Investment Program.
26:21
[SPEAKER_01]: That is something like $4.43 for lunch,
26:26
[SPEAKER_01]: in $2.28 for breakfast.
26:29
[SPEAKER_01]: That seems almost impossible in our world today.
26:33
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you do that and keep it organic?
26:37
[SPEAKER_02]: You don't have a middleman.
26:40
[SPEAKER_02]: That's how you do it.
26:41
[SPEAKER_02]: A middleman.
26:42
[SPEAKER_02]: who is taking his percentage, and it costs more.
26:47
[SPEAKER_02]: From the very beginning, we bought directly from Baha and he picked up all of our compostable food.
26:57
[SPEAKER_02]: And it was what Captain completely loyal to us and when the word got out around the state,
27:08
[SPEAKER_02]: Every farmer wanted to bring food to us and I love to because you know I as much as I love the community supported agriculture.
27:21
[SPEAKER_02]: making farmers market available and for organic food.
27:27
[SPEAKER_02]: The farmer has to go a long way to get there.
27:31
[SPEAKER_02]: Number one, very often, has to go a long way.
27:35
[SPEAKER_02]: And they don't know whether all the food's going to be purchased.
27:39
[SPEAKER_02]: So they probably take some home.
27:41
[SPEAKER_02]: But if a school boss, they buy everything.
27:45
[SPEAKER_02]: And they pay the real cause because there's no middleman and you're buying from people that live near by and I think it can work out even with farmers that are near each other maybe.
28:04
[SPEAKER_02]: pick up all the green beans from all the different farmers and bring them, but I just know that we need to support the farmers who are taking care of the land for us, for our health and the health of the planet.
28:22
[SPEAKER_02]: And I know also deeply that this is the way people have
28:31
[SPEAKER_02]: Every country knows deeply about this.
28:36
[SPEAKER_02]: We're one of the few countries that doesn't.
28:39
[SPEAKER_02]: We started really learning about it during World War II, though.
28:44
[SPEAKER_02]: And there are pamphlets that the United States government put out, and I've got a couple of them.
28:53
[SPEAKER_02]: but they're so detailed about what you can plan.
28:58
[SPEAKER_02]: It's exactly what time of year, what soil, where everything they give detail.
29:05
[SPEAKER_02]: And I want to get those printed and distributed.
29:09
[SPEAKER_02]: But I just know that we need
29:13
[SPEAKER_02]: a very positive program of food and schoolbooks that everybody can help make happen.
29:24
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a school over in my rent that I use as a model because they started this conscious kitchen.
29:32
[SPEAKER_02]: probably 10, 15 years ago.
29:35
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's because the principle of the school said, do whatever you wanted to.
29:40
[SPEAKER_02]: And Judy Shills, who started it, she said, I'm going to have organic lunches.
29:46
[SPEAKER_02]: I want the students to sit down at long cables like we all used to do.
29:53
[SPEAKER_02]: and eat their lunches together.
29:55
[SPEAKER_02]: But better place to learn democracy than at that table.
30:01
[SPEAKER_02]: And she got the principal to agree.
30:04
[SPEAKER_02]: Then they started asking the parents whether they would help go to the farmer's market, bring food, principal said good.
30:14
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was there the day that they were
30:21
[SPEAKER_02]: the regenerative farm right out there and the valley.
30:27
[SPEAKER_02]: And they were bringing in a cool container and they poured in glasses at the table.
30:33
[SPEAKER_02]: And I haven't had milk like that since New Jersey, but I was a kid and I was afraid I'd be embarrassed and couldn't drink the milk.
30:44
[SPEAKER_02]: But it was so delicious.
30:48
[SPEAKER_02]: And I can't get out of
30:50
[SPEAKER_02]: believe that they had fundraisers and I went to the fundraisers, but they raised as school from parents and people that are seamless all the money that was needed to keep the project going.
31:08
[SPEAKER_01]: I wanted to go back to that word delicious, which is one of your principles for school lunch.
31:14
[SPEAKER_01]: It's got to taste good.
31:15
[SPEAKER_01]: The kids are going to eat it.
31:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, in America, we have a culture where tasting good means fatty, starchy, sugary food.
31:25
[SPEAKER_01]: The kids have grown up eating.
31:28
[SPEAKER_01]: The way fast food is designed to appeal.
31:31
[SPEAKER_01]: But you wanted to be delicious without those qualities and you also wanted to be simple.
31:39
[SPEAKER_01]: That sounds tough.
31:40
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, if I hadn't made lunch for my daughter every single day, she was at the middle school in high school.
31:49
[SPEAKER_02]: I wouldn't believe that it was possible.
31:53
[SPEAKER_02]: but I saw her lunchbox when she wrote it home.
31:58
[SPEAKER_02]: All of her friends, I had finally start making more food that her friends could join in.
32:06
[SPEAKER_02]: And things are middle school children.
32:09
[SPEAKER_02]: They're very picky according to the word of mouth around this country.
32:15
[SPEAKER_02]: But I didn't find that at all.
32:22
[SPEAKER_02]: So if you have any great, you don't trust a salad.
32:25
[SPEAKER_02]: You give them leaves, and they dip themselves.
32:29
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's part of the way that something is prepared or not prepared on the table.
32:39
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, they can't deal with the whole apple.
32:42
[SPEAKER_02]: No, but if you cut that half a lens, slice the steak, the whole thing.
32:47
[SPEAKER_02]: And when a friend across the table says, oh, God, this is good.
32:52
[SPEAKER_02]: All the kids at the table pick it up and eat it.
32:55
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's two things, it's understanding the way that they've liked that and their lunchbox sort of separate so that they can choose how they're going to eat it.
33:10
[SPEAKER_02]: But they also need to be in that circumstance of the table.
33:17
[SPEAKER_02]: where people are eating something they've never had.
33:20
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like, oh God, you know, try this.
33:23
[SPEAKER_02]: And there are the same things around.
33:26
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a beautiful experience to watch.
33:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Your final principle after delicious is that school lunch should also be beautiful.
33:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, that seems like asking a lot, especially after delicious, a lot of people say, delicious isn't enough.
33:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, if you got delicious, you've got to eat.
33:42
[SPEAKER_01]: But for you, beautiful is really important.
33:45
[SPEAKER_01]: What does it mean in a school lunch?
33:47
[SPEAKER_01]: And I know you start not just with the food, but with the space, with the table itself.
33:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
33:53
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, I always start with the table.
33:55
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe you can't put antals on the table at school.
33:59
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe you can, but maybe you can put
34:04
[SPEAKER_02]: a bowl of fruit on the table.
34:06
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe fruit that's gonna be served during the course of the week.
34:11
[SPEAKER_02]: But I just feel like there's needs to be a consideration, either what the tables may have, or napkins that you're using.
34:23
[SPEAKER_02]: You probably can have cloths, napkins, but maybe you can.
34:28
[SPEAKER_02]: And I just have always thought, even in my daughter's lunch box, that I made just pick a flower from the garden and put it on top.
34:42
[SPEAKER_02]: And so she opens the box.
34:45
[SPEAKER_02]: And maybe it's as simple as a little extra bouquet for herpes that comes with the farm box.
34:53
[SPEAKER_02]: there's always a way to make the table feel like we want this to be special as to cook the main teacher at the Audible Square.
35:05
[SPEAKER_02]: She brought every day flowers from her garden and she put them in the center of each table.
35:14
[SPEAKER_02]: Now I know those kids were affected by that.
35:17
[SPEAKER_02]: And she decided the one of the classes that she would say to the kids, now it's time for you to go to the garden or where everything's like and make the center pieces for the table.
35:33
[SPEAKER_02]: And one I just loved.
35:35
[SPEAKER_02]: He took his boot and used it as the
35:47
[SPEAKER_02]: But that's creative, that's art, that's seeing the potential of deeply what she was talking about.
35:59
[SPEAKER_01]: So your school lunch revolution is not vegetarian.
36:04
[SPEAKER_01]: This school lunch cookbook does have a section of recipes that include meat.
36:09
[SPEAKER_01]: What's your approach to meat in school lunch?
36:12
[SPEAKER_02]: I think a little mean is fine.
36:15
[SPEAKER_02]: It's fine, maybe it's a salad with roasted chicken in it.
36:21
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not talking about a bit piece of meat on a plate.
36:24
[SPEAKER_02]: No, I'm not talking about that.
36:27
[SPEAKER_02]: But I'm talking about maybe it's a chicken stock that's for a soup.
36:35
[SPEAKER_02]: I think
36:35
[SPEAKER_02]: meet can be good for proteins like eggs and we can't just cut that out.
36:45
[SPEAKER_02]: I think there are ways you can very limited for flavor and also for health.
36:56
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm always been concerned about health.
37:05
[SPEAKER_02]: It always has something with meat, but it's not a big piece of meat, it's a small piece of meat.
37:14
[SPEAKER_02]: And as I said, they can have a completely without meat.
37:20
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's important too.
37:23
[SPEAKER_02]: If at school they don't want the meat course, that's fine.
37:27
[SPEAKER_01]: What I remember about my own middle school long ago was first of all the rush and second the noise and I know the slow food movement is something very close to you that you're a leader of and this we really need this in the school lunch too, I think.
37:45
[SPEAKER_02]: you're at exactly right.
37:47
[SPEAKER_02]: You're sitting down together.
37:49
[SPEAKER_02]: There's no fresh because you don't have to get in line.
37:54
[SPEAKER_02]: You're going to sit down and have the food props the table.
37:59
[SPEAKER_02]: You can pause for a little moment before the dishes are put on the table.
38:05
[SPEAKER_02]: I know that this works because someone in my foundation who worked at shape and ease for a long, long time has a child brought up the struggle.
38:18
[SPEAKER_02]: Has been doing a lot of
38:21
[SPEAKER_02]: work with Jen Newsom, Gavin Swife, who's got farm-to-school program happening at California.
38:31
[SPEAKER_02]: And so she's been going to the schools, cooking the food from this book, putting it on the tables the way I imagined it could happen.
38:42
[SPEAKER_02]: And she took a couple of videos of the kids at the
38:50
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, everything that I wanted to happen was happening there.
38:56
[SPEAKER_02]: They were talking, they were sharing, they were eating everything.
39:01
[SPEAKER_02]: And I just know from always having family meals and friends over all the cooking that we do at the restaurant that there's always something
39:16
[SPEAKER_02]: that everyone will eat, always something.
39:21
[SPEAKER_02]: And they may not eat a bite of everything at the table, but what they eat is all good for them.
39:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Food is the most political thing in all our lives.
39:35
[SPEAKER_01]: You wrote it your memoir.
39:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Eating is an everyday experience.
39:40
[SPEAKER_01]: In the decisions we make about what we eat have daily consequences.
39:45
[SPEAKER_01]: And those daily consequences can change the world.
39:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Close quote.
39:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Alice, thank you for, thank you for everything you're doing.
39:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for this book, a school lunch revolution, and thanks for talking with us today.
40:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for giving me this very special opportunity.
40:14
[SPEAKER_01]: You've been listening to Start Making Sense, a podcast from the Nation Magazine.
40:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Renée Reynolds is our associate producer, Alan Minsky is our producer, Jack Merkinson is Executive Producer.
40:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Baskar Sunkara is President of the Nation, Katrina Vandenhuvul is editor and publisher of the Nation.
40:34
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40:39
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40:43
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40:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for listening.