Book Review of “Zooland: The Institution of Captivity”

Thank you all for your thoughtful responses to the post on marriage and childrearing. I’d love to hear more thoughts on this subject from everyone as it can be topic that draws out strong opinions one way or another. And I’ll definitely be posting another post on this topic soon. In the meantime, though, I […]

Help to End Child Slavery

Chocolate is a luxury many of us enjoy quite a lot. For years, I’ve been making a concerted effort to buy ‘Fair Trade Certified’ chocolate, coffee, tea and sugar with the aim of ensuring that producers around the world get a fair wage for the products they grow. Thus, you can imagine my horror when […]

Holiday Gift Giving

Since I moved to Seattle and in with Eric, Christmas (and the winter holidays generally) have become fairly non-event kind of events. For one, Eric was raised Jewish and so doesn’t have an attachment to Christmas (or Hannukah, really, for that matter). I grew up celebrating Christmas and we decorated a tree every year and it […]

Elephants in Captivity and the Ethics of Zoos

I’m not sure if you all have been following the explosion of news in the last week about elephants in zoos. The Seattle Times has published in the last week at least 3 articles on the ethics and politics of keeping elephants in zoos. Beginning with the article, “Elephants are Dying out in America’s Zoos” […]

Peanut Butter Cups and Pigs!

Serenity in the Storm has gotten quite a few new readers in the last few weeks. Welcome to all of those who are new and thanks for reading! To all of you who have been reading all along, thank you for your commitment and interest in the blog and the stories & recipes shared here. […]

Voting for Justice?

I hope you all are planning to get out and VOTE today! If you haven’t voted yet, read this later and get your behind to the polls! And I hope you’ll think about equality and justice for all while you’re there. These last few weeks in my “Animals, Ethics, and Food” class, we’ve been talking […]

Our Hen House Workshop at the UW

Today we have the pleasure of having Jasmin Singer and Mariann Sullivan from Our Hen House here in Seattle to do a workshop at the University of Washington. It should be a fun and productive conversation! If you’re around and would like to join us, please do! Details here: When: Friday October 12, 2012; 12:00-2:00pm Where: […]

Thoughts on Tradition

Yesterday, in class, I asked the students to shout out responses and we brainstormed on the board. First was…What constitutes home? comfort family love safety security bed food Next was… What constitutes food? taste nutrition comfort community satisfaction access Then I asked the class to think about familiar traditions that are centered on food: Barbeque […]

Gearing up for Teaching & Understanding Doublethink

School starts on Monday and I’m excited to say that I’m going to be teaching the course, ‘Animals, Ethics, and Food: Deconstructing Dominant Discourses’ again. I’ve tweaked the syllabus from last time and I hope it’s an improvement.  Last winter’s teaching adventure was one of the best experiences I’ve had at the University of Washington and […]

Sitting Quietly at a ‘Cull Market’ Auction

Every now and then, I’m deeply ashamed to be part of the human species. Last Wednesday was one of those days. I went to a cull market auction with my friend Tish, who kindly agreed to go with me and who, afterward, wrote a very nice post about buddy system research on her blog. We arrived […]