craftsmanship, consumerism, virtue, privilege, and quality

worth noting that 'artisan' once solely described producers of durable & decorative goods, describing food producers as artisans is a v recent development

Mayo lady is a million feet tall and amazing looking and makes faces for the camera more often than she looks into it, judging by the gis, and is my new hero. WWEVD? She'd make a face to distract you and then slam your drink. And write about it.

sometimes yes, sometimes no. i mean, i know who makes good bread, cheese, chocolate and cured meats locally, and most of my favorite beers are produced in small quantities. whether an "artisanal" beeswax candle is any better than what you'd get at the mall store is more of a judgement call.

i do think that there's real value in supporting small, ethical local businesses wherever possible, even if their stuff isn't markedly better than what you can get at the supermarket.

xp to elmo

WEABLTW

i do think that there's real value in supporting small, ethical local businesses wherever possible

IMO the small ethical local business in my neighborhood is the burrito shop across the street, not the jackasses who just built a huge ugly new bar decorated w/ pista frames and repurposed wood and are charging $10 for a plate of homemade sauerkraut using local cabbage

i was pining for an artisanal burrito today, not gonna lie.

i just looked up pista frames. they are part of a bicycle!

they want $20 for two sausages and a piece of homemade bread

fuk u guyz i can do that in the comfort of my own home for half the price, even if i was a fool and went to whole foods for it

re tlg & ethics: yeah, it's a judgment call

nothing wrong with locavores, imo, though the eco-yupster trappings do sometimes grate. and i expect to pay more at a decent restaurant than i would at home. i'm cool with that, though i don't often have money to spare on that kind of thing. happy hour imo.

localvores should eat people

Preferably themselves.

eh, i can't get too worked up about it. good for the environment, good for the local economy. stuff that hasn't been shipped around the world is generally healthier and tastes better. i like the "pig lady" who sells homemade sausages at the farmers market. i like growing my own food.

actually there is no guarantee that locavorism is good for the environment, there was a very recent NYT editorial (last week?) that cited some studies showing that a lot of "sustainable" and "ethical" practices re: livestock farming were actually worse for the environment than traditional farming

the writer was not a good industry hack but a pro-veg dude arguing that all meat consumption is inherently unsustainable, not that I give a fuck but score one against locavores

I was feeling all smug as I was ready to post a "Portlandia is artisanal TV comedy," but someone already name-checked the show upthread.

Back to crafting small-run artisanal PHP code.

is yr code /usr/local/src?

i understand the same is true for many non-meat practices, esp if you can get away w charging a high premium for what you do you don't have much incentive to be efficient

ie how is it any better to buy vegetables grown in San diego rather than the central valley if the water comes from colorado or lake shasta?

exposto

i can't say that really convinces me of anything. would have to know more about the article to really respond. from what i can tell, the people who are most deeply involved in sustainable and ethical livestock farming tend to be pretty well-informed about environmental impact. and like any subject, there will always be disagreement regarding what is, in fact, better and worse.

locavorism is a relatively recent movement driven, for the most part, by genuine ethical and environmental concern. plus lol yuppie narcissism if you wish. while it may not always get everything right, it seems more likely to respond to valid lessons about what it gets wrong than commercial agriculture.

ie how is it any better to buy vegetables grown in San diego rather than the central valley if the water comes from colorado or lake shasta?

that's a fair point, but it's obvious that it's "better" in some ways to grow vegetables in your backyard, provided you do it responsibly, than it is to have them shipped in from chile or wherever. between the two extremes, you arrive at a pretty solid in-principle defense of locavorism, imo.

yes well what has ever convinced contenderizer of anything, certainly not evidence and reasoning

yeah vahid I made more or less the same argument upthread. well, I think it was upthread. or somewhere. anyway the argument happened.

also if only not knowing things really kept you from responding, would be a miracle imo

plus locavorism tends to go hand-in-hand with serious organic farming, commitment to sustainability, and support for small local producers, all of which i'm in favor of, so long as they successfully walk their talk.

road to hell, good intentions, etc

more talk than walk imo

chile is a pretty good strawman, but most of my vegetables come from the central valley which is a lot closer than where my agua comes from

but yeah basically people who are really into 'efficiency' w/r/t lightbulbs sometimes care less about effiency when it comes to production or transportation chains

*ears burning*

yes well what has ever convinced contenderizer of anything, certainly not evidence and reasoning

lol, provide some, and we'll see.

like i'm seriously curious about the NYT editorial you mention, but absent the article and the evidence in support of it, you're right, i'm not convinced.

fwiw, i was briefly convinced, by an study that iatee posted in the gentrification thread, that gentrification might not be such a bad thing after all. i was then promptly unconvinced by some good, evidence-evidence-and-reasoning based argument provided by others itt. anything is possible...

so if you grow veggies in your yard where does the fertilizer come from?

yes that's right, shipped from chile

chile is a pretty good strawman

chile is not a "strawman". it is a country. lots of food comes from there. shipping it elsewhere uses a lot of resources.

so if you grow veggies in your yard where does the fertilizer come from?

compost dude

Just shit in your garden.

Organic, natural.

artisanal compost from local vegetables no doubt

and fertilizer does not necessarily come from chile. iirc, most of it comes from the composter.

i'm not sure what your point is here. yes, things come from all over. no, no one is perfect. but that doesn't mean that it's foolish to pay attention to where your food comes from, or that you can't accomplish some modest good by eating locally produced food where possible.

it is really easy to make your own compost...? wtf

Do ppl still do worm composting?

every household generates organic waste, it isn't that hard to collect it.

more hipster knife talk please! this is where i come for my hipster hatchet talk!

sorry. but wasn't there just some huge thread about the evils of local produce?

was it this one? i think it was another one.

I think it was

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Th1FOsmBlYE/TwtY5IvXD4I/AAAAAAAADWQ/64_DaA9ydtU/s400/842.fd.YNTKAwhaleknives.jpg

i keep getting the quiddity thread and this thread and now the gentrification thread confused! i don't know where i am anymore.

my point is that your green consumerism backpatting indicates shallow and facile thinking

if i seem het up its cause i get annoyed when people tell me things are "obvious" and then spout a bunch of crap

quiddity thread and this thread kinda my fave ile threads though. i'm no hater. they speak to me.

we're doing the farmshare thing this year. we will be making a lot of soup. well, we're splitting a share with someone else.

my point is that your green consumerism backpatting indicates shallow and facile thinking

perhaps, but you're not offering any kind of substantive rebuttal. you're just snarking douchily at me (see above).

i honestly don't see any sin in my use of the world "obviously" a few posts back. if that sort of thing really gets your tits up, i recommend 3 beers.