The Thinkingest Thoughts on Food With Rhea Kennedy

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I'm a little disappointed with myself that I didn't go with the obvious title for this latest episode of The Thinkingest Podcast: "Food for Thought."

Alas, you'll have to live without corny titles. The good news: The Thinkingest is back with a new episode featuring Rhea Yablon Kennedy. Rhea is a Washington D.C.-based writer and teacher whose work often addresses food and foodways (though she explains it better herself on the Podcast).

"Food is a great thing to think about or overthink, because you're rewarded with it," Rhea said during our chat.

I overthink food quite often. Food is, of course, one of our most primary needs, so it's no surprise how much we mull over the ways we eat. The decisions we make about what kind of food to buy, about how much of it to eat, about how to grow and distribute and sell food are all topics worth, well, chewing upon. But it still fascinates me how much energy we expend making sure we eat well, how much strain the realities of our modern life places on our ability to do so consistently, and how much imbalance there remains in the way food is distributed, marketed and subsidized. Many thinkers have digested these discussions far better than I, but they're still worth having. Chatting about food with Rhea was great fun. We were friends in college and she was one of the first people who got me thinking about food from a more philosophical perspective, from a perspective that I find very similar to the way we view art and writing and interpersonal interaction.

This episode of The Thinkingest touches on this and other topics, such as community agriculture, Michelle Obama's "Let's Move," program, real food, the intersection of Judaism and food, managing the logistics of food preparation, and even a little about car-free commuting.

You'll notice I lagged a bit in getting this episode up. I mention Mark Bittman having been here "last week," when his visit was actually September 20, and, of course, Rhea mentions how we were chatting some time between the Jewish New Year and Yom Kippur. I hope you'll forgive the delays (but it was for a good reason: I was pouring nearly all of my energy for the last month into finalizing a formal proposal for literary agents about my book about Melville Jacoby. It's a fun, dramatic story. Learn more about it here).

Thanks again to Rhea for helping me out. Don't forget to check out Rhea's web page, read some of her writing, and find some inspiration in her recipes at rheakennedy.com.