Healthy food awareness
The modern consumer is on the one hand the easy target of advertising campaigns for food products whose consumption is not necessarily an instance of a salubrious lifestyle; and on the other hand he is often assailed by a sense of guilt regarding the anti-aesthetic consequences of a disorderly diet, and, if worse comes to the worst, he may regret compromising his very health.
And so in comes the ample offer of products or services, ranging from drugs, slimming diets, gym courses, you name it, that try to counteract the effects of fundamental errors in an earlier stage. In a word, we close the stable door after the horse has bolted. However, granted that whatever is marketed in respect of foodstuff or fitness counselling obeys to the same perverse economic system, there is hardly any contradiction between these two opposing trends: as long as something can be sold it makes the economy spin and a profit can be made. If the market doesn't have any scruple, it is only the consumer who, under the illusion he can indulge to gluttony at the same time as aspiring to having an athletic physique, falls victim to this paradox.
We met as volunteers working at the same night shelter but we found out that we had already been colleagues unawares when both of us had served, albeit at different times, at the same institution in Jerusalem. It usually didn’t take long until she talked about her volunteering in Israel with someone new, and it must have been like this that we discovered common ground. She was rather chuffed when it came to the topic of her yearly stays of over a month each time.
I invited my friends to celebrate three November birthdays, among which mine, and I prepared a genuine Moroccan dinner because of my recent visit there: harira with dates and chicken tajine. On another occasion I had tried out this particular harira recipe which had turned out above my best expectations and had gathered the unanimous praise of all my guests. I was glad that the flavours resulting from the mix of coriander and unfamiliar spices did not taste too strange to my more conservative friends, and therefore I listed it among the dishes that deserved being offered again. As for the main course I went for something blander that the previous time and prepared a chicken tajine.
In the internet era Christmas cards have become a rarity. The young have not lived in the heyday of the post, and many older people consider it outmoded or too formal to send cards, but the main reason may be that they are rather inconvenient. Because you’ve got to buy one, write in good hand a well thought-out message parsed with punctuation and capital letters (an insurmountable stumbling block for most email writers), copy the address, buy a stamp, stick it on the envelope, and mail it. Compared to the click of the mouse required to send an email, this takes much longer, involves more commitment and more expense. In most cases it involves a process that is not accomplished in just a few hurried minutes in front of the laptop screen.
When I met him in the lift he was carrying a globe in his hands. Across the lands of two continents red and blue lines were drawn that must respectively represent his proposed route and the one already carried out. It was an original way to take note of a travel itinerary and it naturally led me to exchange a few words during the handful of seconds that the lift ride lasted. At the hostel door we said goodbye. I was going into town and he to a bookshop, with his globe.