Greetings! This is Caroline here. As you may recall, back on August 12th we featured our first installment of “Meet LFC.” If you missed the post, you can check it out here.
As I explained then, we at LFC thought this “Meet LFC” feature would be a great way for our readers to get to know the over 200 people who make up Local Foods Connection; this collection of volunteers, clients, and farmers work together to make the magic of LFC happen. Everyone comes to LFC for a different reason and with a different story. “Meet LFC,” then, is a place where you can read about some of those stories and personalities.
With that in mind, I’m happy to introduce you to volunteer Monika. Monika recently moved off to Brooklyn to spread the gospel of food security from the east coast inward. Nonetheless, she remains a friend of LFC!
1. What is your name?
Monika
2. Where were you born and where have you lived?
I was born in Philadelphia and grew up in Fairfield, IA. I graduated with a degree in Political Science and German from the University of Iowa in Iowa City, and was fortunate enough to live a year in Southern Germany.
3. How long have you been working with Local Foods Connection?
Since last October.
4. Who are your favorite heroes of fiction (books/movies/songs)?
Spicoli from Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
5. Who are your favorite heroes in real life?
My mom, my dad, my sister and my brother. I have these friends who bring up ideas I never would have considered, and smart, thoughtful cousins, aunts and uncles.
6. What is your favorite food or meal?
Lots of cilantro in a bowl or on a plate, and jalapenos. I toss them in the oven with a little olive oil and sea salt for 15 minutes. For friends you can put them on a stick like a hot lollipop. They pair well with cold beer.
7. What is the quality you most admire in another person?
Being considerate.
8. What can’t you live without in your refrigerator or cupboard?
Bragg.
9. What do you like most about the work you do with Local Foods Connection?
Every person I have met through Local Foods Connection has enhanced my understanding of how a community works. The nature of Laura Dowd’s non-profit has attracted experienced, skilled people in areas ranging from farming and other local businesses, social work, and political activism.
10. What is your most marked characteristic?
Fast talker.
11. What is your first food memory?
Being terribly confused by diet soda.
12. What kind of work do you do with Local Foods Connection?
Anything Laura needs done is time well spent. Specifically, I got to work on the distribution of Thanksgiving turkeys from Henry J.C. and Ila Miller’s farm in Kalona to LFC clients as well as producing LFC organic bgreen t-shirts.
13. What is your favorite thing about eastern Iowa?
The hills, or that you notice hills here.
14. What led you to an interest in local foods?
Questions about why food travelled from other places to my town. Could it not be grown here? What were the obstacles? Who benefits from local food? I’m finding out that it is not only possible, but more efficient to grow food in and around our cities.
15. What is your dream of happiness?
That everyone would know what it feels like.
16. What was your favorite food as a child?
Skittles.
17. How do you spend your time outside of Local Foods Connection?
Thinking about Local Foods Connection.
18. What foods do you most dislike?
Meat.
19. What natural gift would you most like to possess?
I would like to be better at Math.
20. What is your favorite cookbook?
I cannot remember the last time I used a cookbook. It seems more important to maintain a focus from concept to plate on who you are cooking for and why.
21. What is your motto?
“Screwing things up is a virtue. Being correct is never the point. I have an almost fanatically correct assistant, and by the time she re-spells my words and corrects my punctuation, I can’t read what I wrote. Being right can stop all the momentum of a very interesting idea.” -Robert Rauschenberg
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