Today, I learned that some enterprising soul is starting a porridge pop-up in Park Slope, Brooklyn. This stuff might taste good! I enjoy truffles as much as the next dude who enjoys expensive fungi.
However, it also reminds me of my mother, who grew up in a relatively remote town in the Philippines. See, the last time she visited, she went to wash her hands at our kitchen sink and, upon pumping the soap, turned to me and asked, "Is that lemongrass?"
"Yes," I said. "Don't know where we got it, but it smells stronger than most other soaps."
"I don't like it," she said. "It reminds of me of when I was little, when people actually rubbed their hands with this stuff, and it smelled like that."
That is to say, one person's "artisinal" is another person's "subsistence strategy".
(Image cc-licensed: "Lemon grass with dew drops" by Alma Gamil)
