The Orchid Journal

Thanksgiving is a day in which we eat copious amounts of food with friends and family while giving our (sometimes meager) thanks to the air or God or each other, whichever one prefers. We learn in school growing up that Thanksgiving was initiated by the Pilgrims and we see drawings of people in black cloth hats sitting next to Native Americans in an idyllic circumstance. Because of my parents, who often read the following proclamation at the dinner table before our Thanksgiving meal, I learned that the holiday was set as a national observance because of President Abraham Lincoln. Most people seem unaware that Thanksgiving was initiated as a national holiday by President Abraham Lincoln following the Civil War in which the North fought the South over the issue of slavery. Thanksgiving had been celebrated on different days throughout the States for years, but it wasn't celebrated uniformly. After the Civil War, the country was in need of a unifying and healing observance. Batter...

Grocery shopping and I have a history filled with enmity. A combination of subpar cooking skills and limited repertoire, little money, an inability to make quick decisions when faced with too many options, an intense dislike of enormous spaces lit by florescent lights, crowds, and disorganized layouts, made grocery shopping the last thing I would ever want to do on a Saturday. Or any day. There were many times in my twenties that I wished humans did not have to eat, or at least, if only I could eat like a snake and the food would tide me over for a week or two. Eating multiple times throughout the day was wearisome. Grocery stores did not inspire me to eat unless I was smelling the hot food in the deli section of generic grocery stores or I was standing in the beautiful bread and produce sections of Whole Foods. Soulard Market is a different sort of place. It is a historic part of St. Louis, existing since 1779, and pleasing playground for the senses. With an eclectic ambiance...