You Say Tomato

Cripes. Tomorrow is Palm Sunday, and in Britain, the clocks - très bon - go an hour on.
Tick tock.
Earth Hour soon. A black wave that circumnavigates the globe.

Last night, I was determined not to watch the recorded programmes of Jamie Oliver's U.S. Food Revolution. Jamie may be unpoisoning their bodies, but his sexist language is sure as hell subconsciously poisoning their self-esteem. He also wasn't THAT successful at unpoisoning their bodies. Yes, I got sucked in anyway. The children in the Elementary School couldn't even name a tomato or a potato. They were completely and utterly clueless about anything that didn't come out of a fryer. (Apart from Pizza).
The family he was supposed to be sorting out told him they'd followed his recipes, but much of the food he had bought them was still in the fridge.
But worse was in store. When he did the demonstration of the disgusting things that went into reclaimed meat products, the children all seemed to be horrified....until he turned them into a patty and fried them. When he asked them if they'd still eat it, they ALL said yes. This had never happened before.
He had to think bigger, so he got all the mums (aka, 'the parents')to watch as he dumped a trailer's worth of beef fat into a tarpaulin and then told them this was what was going into their kids' bodies every week. Finally a reaction.
Of course, ultimately he'll win, but I can't see how.

Canadian Karen and I discussed 'Chick Lit' the other evening, surreptitiously of course, so that no-one noticed (mostly). I think she's right. We shouldn't sell it down the river like that. One thing I have come to learn through Feminism, and this is why I now prefer the term 'Gender Equality', is that challenging socially constructed gender roles liberates men as well as women. Ok, they have to give up being the default sex, but they gain so much more.
So if we stopped labelling comedies of manners as 'Chick Lit', it not only avoids the implied 'and therefore second rate', but also opens it up to men to read. And maybe, if they did read it, they'd quite enjoy some of it.
After all, it's by no means just women who watch Soaps.