Doggy Bag: The Sarah Palin of Food Politics

The Atlantic

Caitlin Flanagan

Circling the Priuses: Caitlin Flanagan's Atlantic rototilling of Alice Waters re: the Edible Schoolyard hit progressive foodies the way a Sarah Palin speech at CPAC plays out on Keith Olbermann. Grist's Tom Philpott put Flanagan through the chipper shredder more than once, including his unearthing of Flanagan's 2006 überpink appearance on The Colbert Report, in which she hypes her anti-feminist book To Hell with All That: Loving and Loathing Our Inner Housewife. "Ever since I read Caitlin Flanagan's oh-so-contrarian rant against school gardens and the women who volunteer for them ...," Philpott writes, "I've become a bit (a very little bit) obsessed." Indeed. We'll leave it up to you ― if you haven't by now ― to critique Flanagan's scorched-earth treatment of the Edible Schoolyard. But it's clear from the reaction from even semicritical Alice watchers that Flanagan's attack struck a conduit every bit as vulnerable as a barely submerged water main.