the tragedy of southern baptist cuisine

Y'all know I am out of town at a non-profit training this week for work. We are at a lovely little conference center tucked away in the North Carolina woods. I must say, this training is excellent. The other participants and the trainers are all fabulous people, and we're all learning a lot.

There are even other knitters here (you know how we pop out at meetings).


Shelly is knitting a hat


Jenny is knitting a shawl with locally-grown & dyed yarn


my sweater is making some good progress in this good company.

But the thing here that is not good, that is in fact very, very bad, is the food. It's helping me understand something that has been weighing on me.

When I got here, I was unhappy to find out that the conference center is owned by the North Carolina Baptist Convention. The reason this made me unhappy is that I care pretty deeply about gay rights, and the NCBC has been rather unfriendly towards gay folks in the last few years. You can read all about it some time when you feel like having your blood pressure spike.

This always really gets me upset. It's just mean. Plain old cussed mean. I have never been able to stomach the mean-spirited intolerance among some right-wing churches that leads them to turn people out for just being who they are.

After spending a few days with the NCBC, though, I have to say I finally understand it. It's the no-fiber diet. There is not one ounce of fiber in any of the food here! These poor people must have a BM on a bi-monthly basis. No wonder they're so dang mean and cranky - they must be perpetually constipated!

Really, there are 2 seasonings in the food here: sugar and salt. If it's salty, then it's butter- or meat-based. If it's sugary, then it's white flour- or milk-based. Dear heavens! The things they do to the vegetables are criminal. If a sweet potato has whipped cream and a cherry on top, I think that's a sign that somebody doesn't get the "vegetable" concept. And let me tell you, nobody around here looks very healthy.

I seriously think I started to suffer from malnutrition after a couple of days. Thank goodness one of the other students brought digestive enzymes with her -- I won't go into details, but it was a good thing.

We have been moping a lot at mealtimes, and I think the cooks noticed and took pity on the out-of-town liberals. The salad bar became a bit more colorful later in the week. Then somebody found a health food store in town and I bought some vitamins, peanut butter, granola and oranges to get me through the week. The trainers felt so bad for us that they took us out to dinner at a restaurant in the little two-horse town nearby, which lifted the general morale greatly. I almost stopped whining about the food entirely!

But I'll tell you what, I can't wait to get home to whatever HWWLLB is cooking.


All week this little guy has been meowing to come in, while silently I have been meowing to be let out.