December 5th

If anybody reading this blog hasn’t tried local organic food, they really taste different. It got all goodness from nature; blessings of soil and sun. Please try it and see how you like. Thank you!!

December 4th

Today was a presentation day. I was really amazed by the quality of all groups’ presentation. It was highly academic and well-thought. I just felt so much enthusiasm and strong belief in them. Our professor and community partner, People’s was a strong inspiration for us. Food from recipe group was fantastic too. I’m also grateful that I had highly motivated group members. It was truly inspiring to work with them and I learned a lot about team work, which relates to my field of study. We all wanted to provide information that People’s can use to maximize return for society. I want to be involved in some way after this project too. I want to see how it goes.

December 4th

I cooked my curry with the ingredients from People’s and it was really good.

November 27th—December 3rd

I spent about 22 hours revising my paper, going through other members’ sections, doing more additional researches. Justin found out from Lori that People’s want to establish Community trust as their nonprofit wing. Trust is a quite unusual form of nonprofit organizations. Oregon law doesn’t even recognize it as a nonprofit business form. The IRS does. It just took me so many hours to find that out. That was too much for a last minute research. I decided not to put that information anyway since it requires so much explanation and leaves with uncertain conclusion. I’m not a lawyer. I cannot be sure about how it works in reality from my experiences. I just don’t know how benefits of trustors and trustees are going to be protected under Oregon law. It can be protected under federal law. I just couldn’t know it from my research. Lori and I are going to meet with the professional who’s been doing this for a while on December 12th. I probably can ask this question to her.

December 3rd

I went to Thai restaurant to pick up some food. I was actually going to cook curry for myself, but I found rotten potatoes and onions in my pantry. I guess storage condition wasn’t so good. I got them about a week ago. I thought about cooking something else, but I already spent some time washing dishes, and cleaning up the kitchen. I also realized about the things I have to do for school. It’s a final week. So, I walked to the restaurant which is about 4 blocks away and ordered my food. I ordered string beans, vegetable stir fry, and phad tai. That’s going to be our meal. You might think my menu is quite healthy, but in my standard, those are just ok food. When it’s cooked at restaurants, it’s cooked with so much oil and salt. My Thai food comes with relatively less oil compared to other restaurants, but still it’s a lot more than I use when I cook. What I’m glad about this meal is that I don’t taste yucky animal fats or MSGs. They still could be in the meal, but when I don’t taste it, I know it only has very small amount even if it’s there. I’m really sensitive to those things, so... In my culture, we are supposed to eat everything we are served. That’s part of politeness and a way to show gratitude to the cook and food. Wasting food is a sin. That’s sometimes hard when I go to restaurants, especially somewhere new. Some restaurants cook with ridiculous amount of fats, salt, sugar, or MSGs. As I age, those things became increasingly hard for my body. I just can’t take it. Otherwise I will stay sick for a few days. So, I usually do a little bit of research before I go to new restaurants. I pay close attention to what I eat. I actually don’t know whether my Thai food is cooked from scratch or use local organic food. I didn’t ask. Even if they told me so, I would still be skeptical unless I work there for a while. It’s not that I don’t trust the owners and cooks. They are very nice people for sure. It’s just that people have different standard and it is hard to know what that is without close observation. So, anyway, I was quite happy with my Thai food. It filled me up and I enjoyed all wonderful flavors.

November 29th

I went to eat my lunch at one of the cafe that uses all natural ingredients they buy from coops. I had soup and salad meal that comes with bread. It was all great with so many kinds of vegetables in it. But..., but, the soup was really salty and the bread was kind of greasy. Salt and oil..., not good for heart, right? I don’t have heart problems now. But I just don’t enjoy that kind of food. I added about 5 oz of hot water to dilute my soup, but it was still salty. Salad was wonderful. The bread was home made from scratch, but with plenty oil and salt. Well, I guess the food is more than just organic. It needs to be considered with other health factors like low fat and less salt. Oh well, the safest way is still cook at home.

November 20th—November 26th

I spent about 27 hours to put everything together for my part of the project. I also went Reed College and Lewis and Clerk to find “Nonprofit Corporation Handbook.” Lewis and Clerk’s Law School had one. I studied it and made copies to bring home. I wish I could just have bought one and give it to People’s after this project. But I’m just a student with little money, so I couldn’t. I was glad I found information that I needed though.

My thanks giving dinner (November 23rd)

I was invited by the family who live upstairs. It was easy for me and I’m quite comfortable with the people and food. I was reluctant to go any places before this family invited me. I don’t like most of thanksgiving food. Most of them are creamy and sweetened, which I really don’t like both. I can’t look at huge roasted turkey. There’s something wrong with that huge turkey. I knew it with my instinct even before I take this class about natural food. It’s too huge and so much flesh with fragile bones. When I read the article “What about free-range turkey?,” I really could see what’s wrong with it. Producers do genetic control to make turkeys that huge and give all kind s of unhealthy diet to make them fat. They live in a terrible environment too even if it’s called “free range”. I’m Buddhist and I’m told to respect the way of nature. There are so many blessings we can learn from nature. So, this kind of practices make me really uncomfortable and mad. I feel like I’m taking a part in this disrespect to nature when I eat abused turkey. I truly apologize to those turkeys I ate. I knew they weren’t raised in healthy condition. I couldn’t resist when I saw nicely cut meat. I’m just one of stupid human beings. I wish all of them went to the heaven. That’s really all I can do after I ate them. I’m a big hypocrite. Going back to thanksgiving dinner, I actually enjoyed a lot even though I didn’t like them before. My host cooked everything from scratch spending four days. He said he bought stuff from WinCo, which is definitely not a natural food store. But anyhow, I knew he put his heart in it and it was all delicious. I just make prayers to be forgiven and I will work hard to make world a better place.

Portland Farmers Market

I went to Portland farmers market at PSU to hand out fliers for People's farmers market.

I was so glad that many people I talked to were very friendly and smiled to me when I said hi.

I made two rounds to send out fliers and when I was ready to go for the third, there were no fliers left. So, we were very quick to finish our task. It only took us an hour to hand out all fliers.