Cross posted at Dreamsfood.org
As one of the two cooks with a winning recipe card (mine was the pot pie cupcakes), it's partially up to me to post updates on the status of my Dev Cycle and maybe get everyone excited! Be that as it may, I am going off on a tangent about the "Why?" behind Dreamsfood.
A few years ago, before I had a job that had insurance, before I had a job with a desk, before I moved to Columbus, before I graduated from Youngstown State University, way back then in 2003 round the eve ofOperation Iraqi Liberation (OIL), I had a job as a dishwasher.
I worked for a place called Station Square. It was my first restaurant experience. As for a backend it was a great place to work, as for the front they got the paychecks into accounts effectively. Still, even between myself and my girlfriend at the time, pockets weren't deep and a bill is a bill and a paycheck just doesn't always stack up. Despite decent work hours for a full time student, and budget skill and dedication, and doing most shopping at Aldi, we had to rely on a church in the suburbs for food a lot of the time.
We weren't wholly desperate, and rarely went hungry, but this allowed us that necessary modicum of flexibility in our budget that kept gas in the car and the rest of the bills paid on time. If it weren't for some luck and a food bank, I have no idea if I would have had the luxury of caring about finishing school.
Years later, when I came to have some small scratch to donate, a fondness of remembrance for that church came to mind. Having relocated and forgotten the name and location of the church, my donations went happily by proxy to the Mid-Ohio Food Bank.
A part of the Big Idea behind Dreamsfood is, ultimately, charitability. I want Dreamsfood to step out eventually and have community events where the cooks prepare food at give-back events. My hope is that fund-raising can be done for charities. Hopefully Dreamsfood will catch on because people enjoy investing in a cook and her or his vision. What would be even better is if the individual groups can then mobilize as little dynamos of outreach.
That is the reason for the model being a Co-Op. My grasp of Dreamsfood may have had Food Banks in mind, but each group should look at the community's needs. Maybe you have steam-roller food banks and need to support local agriculture or slow food. Each community has different problems, and better and worse solutions to those problems.
"Dreams Food" isn't just about experimental food that comes from the wild dreams of cooks; it's ultimately meant as a vehicle to reach out to people for whom their daily bread is as often a dream as a reality. Dreamsfood wants to feed the person that dreamsfood.
Mar 29, 2012 at 6:32AM in 
