Now she once again wants to dictate what you eat:
As a Bronx resident, there have been many times, it's almost a way of life, where it can be very difficult to get access to fresh and healthy foods. I remember one of the earliest times, like, one of the worst stories I have about this, was that I was very excited, to make, I think I was making gazpacho, or something like that, I looked at this recipe, I needed basil, and um, I was going home, and I get off the subway station, and I go into the grocery store and there's no basil, no fresh basil in the grocery store. so then I walked to another grocery store, two blocks down. No fresh basil! I was very stubborn about making this recipe that evening, and I must have been, walked around for an hour, in the neighborhood, visitng four or five grocery stores, and there was no basil, no fresh basil in any of them! And it just goes to show, it's very illustrative of the difficulties that we have in our comunities in accessing fresh produce, and even when we do, or are able to access some of that fresh produce, a lot of times it's on a styrofoam tray wrapped in plastic, um, or if you are able to access it it may have been sprayed with tons of pesticides or what have you, and it's almost as if to access the good stuff, you have to travel to affluent neighborhoods to do that.
Basil? Freakin' basil?
Here's the thing, dimwit:
Basil is easy to grow on a balcony, the porch or indoors next to the window. And home-grown basil is better than any store can stock. You can squeeze basil into small cubes and freeze them for later use, or simply dry some of your fresh crop. It's generally possible to harvest for several months from a single window-pot.
Fresh-cut basil is also extremely perishable, which is why your NYC bodegas (small convenience stores) don't stock it; it rots before it can be sold.
