Reading Mark Bittman’s excellent proposal to tax soda and other junk food in the New York Times has me thinking: There has to be a way to make eating well sexy. Because as much as I agree with Bittman, charts, graphs, admonitions on diabetes and health care costs aren’t going to combat the magic allure of junk food. Or persuade the food industry, which as he rightly points out, controls the diet debate through its advertising and lobbying power, to change its ways.

Americans are obsessed with using food as an indulgence, as something to get away with. And it’s not just junk food. From the current foodie craze of gourmet calorie-laden hamburgers to Big Mac’s double cheeseburgers, from sugar-laden classic cocktails to Red Bull as a breakfast substitute, from poutine (a Canadian dish of French fries, cheese curds and brown gravy) at the trendy gastro pubs to boxes of Dunkin Donuts at the soccer match to iced mocha blueberry lattes with whipped cream flooding the land, we’re cheerfully adding calories onto calories, from gourmet land to trailer park.  Some of us may have more restraint — or more access to the gym — but it’s not just the cola-dependent poor who need to rethink their relationships with food.

I say tax sodas, fries and whatever else (Bittman was a little murky about exactly what might earn taxes) fat-laden can be added. But until a bowl of perfect green beans minutes out of the garden are as tempting as bacon-laced chocolate ice cream, we’re going to have trouble turning the tide. Who has some ideas on how to rock those beets for the common man?

Last night I dined on magnificent sushi for a cause – Oishii Boston’s benefit to aid the earthquake, tsunami, and radiation victims in Japan. Ting San joined with other chefs, including Dante deMagistris of Dante and Il Casale, Anthony Caturano of Prezza, Michael Serpa of Neptune Oyster, and Luis Morales of Tico, to raise funds for relief efforts.

Oishii sushi

The place was more than packed — a sold out house — and the food fantastic. Spicy pork meatballs with fonduta sauce from Dante;  oysters from Neptune, a spicy Asian-style taco from Tico, and pristine sushi from True World Foods, which supplies many of the sushi restaurants around town. But we found ourselves hanging around Oishii’s sushi bar where chefs, including this very young rockstar sushi chef (below), were putting out tray after tray of simple and irresistible sushi.

Sushi chef at Oishii

(By the way, we gladly paid the $100 each for the benefit — a belated and treasured Valentine’s Day gift to each other).

A display of cheeses

The food(ie) controversy du jour is the New York Times article last Sunday about USDA support and money spent surreptiously to encourage Americans to eat more cheese. Aaargh! Will cheese suddenly become as dangerous as high fructose corn syrup? Will there be a rush to de-cheese our diets? Or to push low-fat or diet cheese, one of the abominations of the dieters’ world.

Or, like so many other puzzle pieces in the American love/hate affair with food, is there an alternate view? As Walter Willett of HarvardPublic Health, the healthy food oracle for our times, says, cheese eaten in sensible amounts can be part of a good diet. However, when Domino’s Pizza and other chains are doubling down — cheese in the crust, more cheese on top, cheese hidden — we get the familiar American scenario. Instead of food as a life force and as a social joy, we seem determined to view food as an obsession or as a danger. 

If those of us who love cheese — definitely count me among them — can agree that cheese is not a diet food and should be eaten in moderation, couldn’t we join the French,  known for eating a lot of cheese, but not known for obesity? Enjoy cheese, really good cheese  – on your cheeseboard, in fondue, even on a pizza. But know what you’re eating. Cheese, glorious cheese!!

Hazelnut oil over veal crudo

After a week in Italy, most of it at Salone del Gusto/Terra Madre in Torino, I can safely say that artisanally-made, and sometimes a little eccentric, food is still the Italian way of life. We saw amazing products from small producer (check www.salumeriaitaliana.com where I’ll continue to talk about what we saw and what will hopefully turn up in the North End shop and in the online store). And met amazingly committed and articulate people.

But now a trend blast — Italy, even in landlocked cities and towns like Torino and Modena, is in the grip of crudo, both seafood and meat served raw. A fascinating restaurant in a Torino neighborhood, Al Grassi,  served course after course of delicious seafood crudo — my favorite was scallops sliced thinly and delicately over monkfish liver with a French olive oil. And in Modena, not only did I eat delicious crudo, but a favorite of the Italians at our table one night was steak tartare matched to a steak burger with a baked potato in foil in between.

But the very best was at the show. The Gava brothers, who produce lovely Piemonte wines, are also bottling 100 % hazelnut oil from their vineyards, where hazelnut trees are everywhere. To show off the oil, they improvised an antipasto by slicing raw veal sausages into chunks, making a hole at the top, and pouring in hazelnut oil. Magnificent!!

Food truck at Boston Festival

Food trucks are big news in the culinary world. Food cultists may think New York, LA, or even lately  Boston, have the trend covered. But last week, I stopped by the sparlingly clean truck parked in a shopping center lot in Dodge City, Kan. It’s there every day, and has been for years, selling tacos, tortas, and a few other specialties. No monster burritos, no orange cheese, no Americanized fast-food tcochkes.

The temperature was about 96 at 7 p.m. as I went up to the window. A teenager took my order for three tacos — al pastor, barbacoa and lengua. And, yes, they had tongue, he said, a little confused that I had to ask. “Do you want everything on it,” he inquired. That turned out to be onions and cilantro. Then he told me he’d bring it to me in the car. In Kansas, people seldom emerge from their cars in the heat, so I probably seemed deluded.

Two older men in cowboy hats and boots were talking in back of the truck, but I seemed to be the only customer. Up the street is a new Wendy’s, one of a string of fast-food places where there was a line of cars at the takeout window.

In a few minutes, the teen was back with my order, on a heavy paper plate, carefully wrapped with foil. The small tacos, each in several fresh corn tortillas, were beautiful, plenty of tender meat, adorned only with sprigs of fresh cilantro and chopped onions. The bill was $3.75. I gave him a $5 and told him to keep the rest. (And the tacos, with a little bottled salsa added, were delicious when I ate them later).

Amazed by this, he was even more dumbfounded when I told him that food trucks were the craze on the East Coast. “You’d be a hit in Boston,” I told him, as he walked away, shaking his head at the craziness.

Ray Gillespie and me

Last Saturday, Raymond Gillespie, chef at Salumeria Italiana in the North End, and I sacrificed a perfect beach day to demonstrate Rubio Aged Balsamic at Shubie’s in Marblehead. Here we are (Ray is the cute one on the left).

Most of the customers were busy gathering provisions for boating excursions (lots of chips, takeout, beer, and cheeses). But plenty stopped by to sample Rubio over ice cream — even the skeptics were won over– straight up, and in a cocktail with vodka, bitters and soda water. Shubie’s is a beautiful store, and we had fun talking to people, changing their views about vinegar. Of course, there were some who’d recently been to Italy or were already customers of the North End store. Those we didn’t have to convince.

When the Highland Park Scotch tasting started in late afternoon (hard to compete with free Scotch), we packed up our recipes and brochures, and shopped for wine and French cheeses — a little cross-cultural exchange is always good in food.

Saturday evening I get an email from Gordon Hamersley. Would I like to blog about the Chefs Stand for Haiti dinner at Rialto the next night? This was not a difficult decision — the cause is so stellar, the chefs are so fantastic, the idea is so fun — no contest. So Sunday June 6, I drive through torrential rain to Rialto. There, the kitchen is full of some of the best and most celebrated chefs in Boston — Gordon, of course, and Jody Adams of Rialto, Frank McClelland of L’Espalier, Ken Oringer of Clio and Toro, Jamie Bissonette of Toro and Coppa, Barry Maiden of Hungry Mother, Steven Brand and Susan Regis of Upstairs on the Square, Tim and Nancy Cushman of O Ya, Dante deMagistris of Dante and Il Casale, Louis DiBicarra of Sel de la Terre, Joanne Chang of Flour and Myers & Chang, Andy Husbands of Tremont 647 and Sister Sorel, Rich Valente of Legal Sea Foods, Peter Davis   of Henrietta’s Table, Patricia Yeo of Ginger Park, and Ron Abel and Nookie Postal  of Fenway Park.

The mood is jovial, the banter quick, the connections those close and vital ones that bind chefs together no matter how short the time or strong the competition. Jody Adams explains it best: “We didn’t quite expect them all to say yes,” she says. She, Gordon and Andy were contacted in the winter after the devastating earthquake in Haiti by Billy Shore of Share Our Strength and by Partners in Health. “Could the chefs help.” Chefs and restaurants are known for their charitable work. But this query was unusual because of the urgency and the dedication of those involved. And the response was immediate. So a winter tragedy led to an early summer feast.

Susan Regis works

The kitchen was humming with chefs working quickly against a tight deadline to feed 91 guests who had paid $1,000 a plate. But the conversation flowed, showing the tight bonds that bind Boston’s chef community. And the appetizers were gorgeous. Regis and Brand worked to on boudin blanc with topped with rhubarb from a friend’s Marblehead garden and garlic crisps. Maiden prepared hoe cakes to go with lamb crepinettes with a pistou of basil and black walnuts. Yeo fried foie gras and short rib dumplings to be served with a spicy chili sauce. Davis finished house-smoked duck with a rhubarb chutney on pumpkin bread. DeMagistris patiently pressed 200 servings of veal tonnato paninis, an irresistible Italianate version of grilled cheese.

There was urban gardening: Bissonnette’s green pea and sheep’s milk ricotta with lardo was garnished with sweet cicely from his garden next to Toro in the South End. And rural farming: All the greens for the dinner to follow (by the Rialto team) was from McClelland’s Hamilton farm. And he also provided beautiful French breakfast radishes with sweet butter and salt.

French breakfast radishes

Hamersley passed out succulent lamb chops with an apriot jam. Cushman stirred a spicy Thai tomato and chanterelle soup, musing that at O Ya, he might have added lobster. Oringer composes a delicate oyster Royale (oyster cream with coconut milk, sake, and thyme) on shrimp toasts. Abell passes around lobster rolls, quickly snapped up by the chefs “Only the Red Sox could afford lobster,” one quips.

As the chefs worked, guests begin to filter in, eager to meet them. “This is so much fun in here,” says one as the stainless-steel restaurant kitchen began to resemble a house party.

In Rialto’s bar, Jim Ansara, formerly of Shawmut Construction who has been working in Haiti as well as raising money, talks proudly of a Partners in Health teaching hospital that’s about to begin in construction. “This would be challenging here,” he says. In devastated Haiti, “it’s really challenging.”

Hamersley's lamb chops

As the guests take their seats, and begin to look at the Rialto menu of a light summer vegetable antipasto and organic chicken, nibbling on breads brought out in huge wooden baskets, Adams introduces the chefs. Then she gives a benediction of sorts, the reason that chefs came together to help others in a time of ongoing need.

Quoting Gandhi, she says: “There are people so hungry that they cannot see God except in the form of bread.”

Breaking bread together to help those in need: It’s a beautiful thing.

NEXT: An auction followed the dinner. Find out about the dream venues and the chef matchups, plus how much money was raised!

Chefs laugh in Rialto kitchen

My husband, who first dismisses the trendy — Twitter, any music after 1970, any clothing past UnderArmour — and then embraces it with a passion, has discovered food blogging.

 It started with his new phone — a Droid. He began taking photos of dishes I made. Then he started taking photos at restaurants. Now, you can’t stop him. I think it’s embarrassing (not to mention the food gets cold) but restaurant personnel are so used to blogging that flashes going off at every table don’t even cause a ripple in the staff’s attention.

I must admit, his photos are pretty good. Here is his photo of bibimbap at the H-Mart food court in Burlington.

Delicious bibimbap

He’s now way into Twitter, and sometimes he’ll listen to music past the heyday of rock n’roll.

But will I ever get to eat a meal in peace?  And, by the way, will he ever get over his UnderArmour fascination?

See you in the next decade, a restaurateur emailed me, and I had to stop and think: “Oh, yes, tomorrow’s not just the new year but the 20teens.”

The last day of the year is always a time for remembering what we liked about the last, but I think looking ahead is more appropriate for a brand new 10 years. So what do I want?

1. That food safety comes to the forefront of American attention. Those stories about ammonia-treated processed (or as one insider calls it “pink slime”) beef sold for school lunches because it can reduce costs by pennies even if e coli and samonella might be present are truly horrifying. And disgraceful for a country rich with agricultural resources.

2. That farmers, including vegetable farmers, be recognized and rewarded fairly for what they do.

3. That independent, gimmick-free restaurants do well by feeding us well.

4. That obesity become a past-tense problem.

5. That hunger be diminishes, if not wiped out.

6. That we eat wisely and well.

For those of us working in the world of food, the subject of hunger is vexing. That some seek out the most luxurious and rarest in comestibles, others consume much, too much, and yet so many never have enough to eat seems unreconcilable.

Boston area restaurateurs and chefs are famously known for being charitable to hunger-related causes. But even the waves of donations — from benefits for Greater Boston Food Bank  to Share Our Strength to local groups such as My Brothers’ Table  in Lynn — are a drop in the bucket. This year, especially the need far outstrips the giving.

So what can we personally do about hunger? I have no set answer, no panacea for the ills of the world. Only the beginning of  a gift list.

Heifer International and pig gift

 Yesterday, I went online and bought my parents, who spent their younger years giving as much as they could to their extended families, community, church, and those in far away places, a pig. Well, not really a live, squealing pig Fed-exed to them, but $120 to Heifer International. This will pay for a family in a developing country to have a pig that can feed and provide for them. Oh, and I dropped a couple of dollars into a Salvation Army bucket (my mother rang a bell for years at Christmas time).

Next week, I’ll decide how much I can give to My Brother’s Table, which feeds and cares for homeless in Lynn. After that, I’ll consider my New Year’s Resolutions — what will the next year bring and what I can do — from helping to find restaurateurs willing to participate in charitable events to volunteering to putting up some money. 

It’s only a little, a drop in the bucket of need, and certainly miniscule compared to what others give.  But it’s my drop into the bucket of hunger.