You want more cooking? Then you want more feminism.
[rebelmouse-image 24748882 original_size="374x500" expand=1]And with this, (hat tip), my boundless enthusiasm for Michael Pollan's body of work starts to subside. Where's the Pollan of The Omnivore's Dilemma, who openly worried that there weren't more sustainable food farms that also had feminist values? I guess he got eaten by a Pollan who knows that taking swipes at feminism gets you fat checks from the NY Times. For even as he praises Julia Childs as a feminist icon---a title she deserves, since she actively resist the sexism that makes women kitchen cooks, but turns men into chefs---he's doing the "best feminists are the ones who get thee to the kitchen and pretend that it's liberation" schtick. Because in his eyes, Childs isn't a feminist hero because she made cooking a career for herself and didn't apologize for that, it's because she really liked cooking. And feminists who suggested that having your own income might be more useful to a woman's quiver of survival skills than knowing how to fricassee were just meany-heads with no sense of beauty.