I have made the most frightening amount of chili ever to have been cooked in one pot (well...not really, but I did make a lot!). My flatmate asked me if I used an Army recipe (specifically one to feed an entire platoon). *sigh* There was a time in my life when I loved to cook, but now (and especially after moments such as the Great 2007 Chili Incident of Undercliffe Road) I can't be bothered! I really, truly am beginning to dislike cooking.

I can just imagine my conversations for the next following months will focus primarily on the types of dishes that can be made incorporating a chili base. Imagine Bubba from Forrest Gump, only substituting chili for shrimp...chili cheese fries, chili jacket potatoes, chili and pasta...

I trekked out to Narrabeen on Sunday to assist with a Dee Why-Warringah BBQ at the Berry Reserve Markets. It's really lovely out in the Northern Beaches region. There are some truly gorgeous ocean views! I didn't get to snoop around much and explore, but I intend to go back soon and maybe spend studying out by the beach.

Narrabeen (above)

This is completely not related to Narrabeen or to anything I've really done lately, but it does pertain to where I'm from (literally)...

To me, it makes me realize just how fortunate I am to have this opportunity to study abroad. Obviously, I know of the poverty of my home region, and it's not something I forget about, but sometimes it's easy to take things for granted and to become a bit shortsighted.

Poverty tour returns to Kentucky
By SAMIRA JAFARI, Associated Press Tue Jul 17, 5:18 PM ET

As a 17-year-old living in one of the poorest counties in Appalachia, Evelyn Cosgriff eagerly listened to Robert F. Kennedy's early morning speech on Feb. 14, 1968 at the Letcher County Courthouse. His speech was brief, but passionate.

"There are great possibilities in eastern Kentucky," Kennedy told the crowd on this stop of his two-day, 200-mile poverty tour. "But there have to be people who are going to fight for eastern Kentucky."

"We thought he would be our savior," said Cosgriff, now 55 and still living in Whitesburg.
Nearly 40 years later, the towns on Kennedy's poverty tour continue to struggle with poverty. This week, Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards is making them a part of his own poverty tour, shifting the spotlight to the issue and in the process, linking himself to a Democratic icon.
But some eastern Kentuckians are less hopeful this time around.

"I don't think people around here will take it as seriously," said Cosgriff, a secretary for a local arts center.
Indeed, poverty tours are nothing new around these hills. President Clinton, the late Minnesota Sen. Paul Wellstone, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Massachusetts Sen. Edward M. Kennedy and Martin Luther King III, son of the famed civil rights leader, have all trekked through central Appalachia on poverty tours — though many remember Robert Kennedy's as the most genuine and meaningful.
Lyndon Johnson declared his war on poverty here in 1964.

Edwards' tour began Sunday night in New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward, still reeling from Hurricane Katrina. He traveled to sites in Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee, Ohio and Pennsylvania, and plans stops in Virginia on Wednesday before wrapping up with a visit to Whitesburg and a speech in Prestonsburg, Ky. — where Kennedy ended his poverty tour at the Floyd County Courthouse.
Still, Edwards has lost some of his credibility in this predominantly Democratic region. They don't forget $400 haircuts around here.
"A haircut's a haircut. You can get the same one for $10," said James Rudd, a 28-year-old Whitesburg resident who's spent the past 10 years mining coal. "If he's so big on poverty, then why don't he give the other $390 to some homeless person?"

Edwards' campaign has said his lifestyle of means shouldn't hurt his candidacy, pointing out the nation's 37 million living in poverty and that nearly all the leading candidates running for president in 2008 are wealthy, as well as those in the past who have championed poverty — including Kennedy.

In the past four decades, much has improved here. Four-lane highways have opened communities to retailers and chain restaurants and, thus, more jobs. Regional hospitals have put health care within reach. Community colleges have expanded into the mountains, making higher education affordable.
Yet, mobile homes built shortly after Kennedy's visit are now rusting and inadequate. People in remote hollows still await water lines. Many feel chained to coal mining — a fluctuating industry that's left many jobless due to mechanization.

Nearly 25 percent of residents in both Letcher and Floyd counties live below poverty, according to U.S. Census figures. It's an improvement from 40 years ago, when 40 percent of Letcher and 60 percent of Floyd lived below poverty, but remains a major problem. The median household income in most eastern Kentucky counties is at or below $25,000, with individuals making an average $12,000.

"If you compare the eastern Kentucky of today with the eastern Kentucky of the 1960s, then we are a very prosperous area," said Tom Gish, who has published the Mountain Eagle newspaper in Whitesburg for more than 50 years. "But if you ask me do I consider the area prosperous, I'd say no."

While Gish believes that poverty tours in the past have been "mostly rhetoric," he said it wouldn't hurt for another to come through and highlight the problems again.
Edwards "will just have to prove himself," added John Malpede, a Los Angeles-based documentary filmmaker who worked with eastern Kentuckians for a 2004 reenactment project, called "RFK in EKY," to rekindle Kennedy's 1968 visit. "People there can smell a phony. They are very acute judges of sincerity and integrity. They'll make the verdict."
Still, he applauded Edwards for tackling the touchy issue of poverty: "I think the case could be made that he's more credible and sincere than other candidates who don't want to touch it with a 10-foot pole."

Cecil Newsome, a 58-year-old disabled coal miner in Teaberry, a small community in Floyd County, was looking forward to Edwards' speech in Prestonsburg.
"He's for the working people and that's one thing that we need," Newsome said.
"He's not outgrown his roots. He was raised hard but he's been blessed to grow and prosper with money and it's not gone to his head," Newsome added. "He's like the Kennedys — they're down to earth people."

Eula Hall, the founder of a Floyd County clinic that serves the needy, said any effort to give national attention to poverty in the region should be encouraged.
Hall was a 41-year-old mother of four when Kennedy stopped in Prestonsburg. She didn't get a chance to hear him speak, but she says the problems today are nearly as bad as they were then.
"We didn't have running water, we didn't have a clinic, no black lung compensation," said Hall. "We still have poverty, a lack of jobs, education and affordable health care."
She hoped that Edwards' visit will result in change.
"In one trip, he ain't going to learn everything, but it'll help," Hall said.

Copyright © 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.