Tokyo VegeFesta 2015

This year’s Tokyo VegeFood Festa was very successful due to a good turn-out of participants and decent weather, despite thunder, lightning and rain predicted for Saturday. The food highlight for me was vegan paella made with fresh vegetables and long-grain rice. It was truly delicious. I also tried Nataraj’s vegetable and soy meat curries with vegan (komatsuna) nan. There were representatives of NGOs, such as Ark, an animal rescue group that is also involved in anti-fur campaigns. I spoke with one of its enthusiastic members there, a beautiful British woman named Nadia McKechnie. It turned out that she was also the organizer of the Vegan Meetup Group in Tokyo. I ended my day at the VegeFesta by purchasing a week’s worth of organic vegetables from a farm in Nagano: Chinese cabbage (known as “hakusai”), carrots, round daikon, and water greens (AKA “mizuna”). The farm apparently ships fresh organic vegetables directly to customers in Tokyo. Such direct, farmer to consumer, arrangements are becoming more common. It's a great way for customers to get fresher vegetables and farmers to get more fair compensation for their hard labor.

You choices of food books

Last week, I asked you all to choose a fiction or nonfiction book that has something to do with food: food production, food consumption, food and health, eating disorders, food culture, or food politics. Today we will share with our classmates a bit about the book that we selected. Also, as I would like to compile a list of the books and your reasons for choosing them, please fill about this form: You'll be able to view the responses of your classmates by going to: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1r-bp_QRDNw7os1F_ZB2m03lfEH4wRfDxOh0WEbaNgU4/edit?usp=sharing

Contributing to a flashcard set on vocabulary in food-related books

In our seminar we'll all be reading different books about food culture and reporting on them. As you encounter unfamiliar vocabulary in these books you should contribute the word (or phrase) and its meaning to a flashcard set that I've set up for that purpose.