 | COOKING for
PEACE Cultivating Community, Reaping Revolution Preface Page 5 I started writing this book in Washington, DC, during the first years of the Obama administration, sitting in an air-conditioned cafe, on breaks from baking bread in a solar oven on Pennsylvania Avenue outside the White House to encourage, as our banner said, "The Change We Knead Now!" Congress was creating a national healthcare bill. America was struggling with unemployment at levels near those of the Great Depression, and over 3 million families foreclosed on their homes. There were reports of a global food crisis, food riots and escalating wars against Afghanistan and Pakistan. I received news of police confiscating the Food Not Bombs banner during the weekly meal in Flagstaff, Arizona, and reports that health inspectors had ordered the Lancaster, Pennsylvania chapter to stop feeding the hungry after a land-mine manufacturer made a complaint to city officials. Police took plates of food out of the hands of hungry people who were hoping to eat with Food Not Bombs in Concord, California. The city of Orlando took Food Not Bombs to the eleventh circuit court of appeals in Atlanta after the district court ruled the city had violated the group's right to free expression and ordered the city to pay our attorneys $200,000 in expenses. I lived in the Food Not Bombs school bus, Katrina, and cooked with Food Not Bombs every weekend. When the cafes closed, I returned to the bus and drifted off to sleep listening to the news on the BBC: drone attacks mixed with environmental crisis and poverty. One crisis after another encouraged a sense of urgency about completion of this book and the strengthening of the Food Not Bombs movement. |
