Spread the Love II: this time it's personal

Hello all. My name is Cooper and I am the other half of this proverbial Love Sandwich.
Food has been a big part of my life since I was a little kid. My father was a chef for many years and that is actually how he came to meet and eventually marry my mother (they worked together in a restaurant in Chicago). They both love cooking and I grew up luckily being able to sample a lot of different kinds of food. (my momma makes a mean hungarian goulash and my dad's Feijoada(brasilian stew) is the best thing i've ever eaten!) I, alongside with Riley, am a photo major at Columbia College in downtown Chicago. Over the past year I have moved into my first off-campus apartment, and cooking has become a bigger part of my life. As I cook more,I've been trying to figure out a way to bring my passion for food and cooking into photography.

Originally I was going to do a series called "Dinner Tonight", where I would take before and after pics of my dinner every night for a year. I was going to document where and what I was eating, who I was eating with, and ultimately how much food I wasted in a year and how much money I spent. That idea eventually fizzled for various reasons, but one winter night when I was thinking about this project I ran into Riley in downtown Chicago. It was one of the colder nights and I assumed Riley was heading home, but to my suprise I found he was walking around trying to find homeless people to give sandwiches to. I found the simple generosity of Rileys action really awesome, almost as awesome as the simple creation of a ham and cheese sandwich. That night would be stuck in my head for weeks to come.

Riley and I had a few more conversations following that night and the result is what is here before you: Love Sandwich. Please read Rileys introduction beneath me for what I will call...a more coherant outline of our plans for this blog...but to me the idea is simple:

Life should be simple. 

And for some unfortunately life isn't simple because they don't know where there next meal is coming from.

Sandwiches are simple.

They require the basic of ingredients and costs, and can be distributed easily and safely.

Life+Sandwich= gloriousness.

so may 1st will be the first of what will be many Sandwich Love Days, and our hopes is that this idea will grow and spread into your lives and the lives of both Chicagoans and people that live in other major cities.

thanks and keep reading!

  

  -Cooper

Spread the Love.

Hello! My name is Riley and although I may be a little biased having lived in and around Chicago my entire life, I freaking love this city! Yeah, it has it's problems, quite a few actually, but then I think about all of the wonderful people in it and the potential that each and every one of them hold. I also love the Chicago winters. The bitter cold and tons of snow make me feel absolutely alive! Yeah yeah yeah, I know what you're thinking, "This dude's out of his mind!" Although you're probably not far off, can you blame me? I just try to live every day appreciating all of the beautiful things around me and absorbing what the world has to offer.

Something changed for me this winter though. My love for winter remained, but the actualization hit me of the brutality of Chicago winters for lower income families and more specifically the hundreds of homeless in Chicago. My emotions quickly went from overwhelming helplessness to humanistic actualization. I'm a college kid, I have a very minimal disposable income, how could I possibly help all of the suffering people in Chicago, that may or may not make it through the next night? I couldn't possibly, there's no way. But if I put the amount of money that I spent on one weekend of drinking towards making sandwiches, I could give at least twenty people a dinner. Who knows, maybe that could give some people the energy to make it through another bitter Chicago night, or at least make it a little more tolerable. Of coarse this is a very limited and temporary solution, but none the less a solution better than just sitting on the couch.

Many of the people that I met on the streets were ecstatic, others reluctant, but nobody denied. Some people even asked for an extra for a family member. I made the sandwiches one evening and then handed them out the next day. It didn't take up much of my time and I was able to help some people while embracing my passion for cooking and food.

During this evening I ran into a friend and fellow Columbia photography student, Cooper. Cooper thought it was a fantastic idea and while hanging out recently, he brought that evening up and said that he couldn't stop thinking about it and wanted to broaden the idea. So we came up with the plan to create a blog to promote the idea. So here at Sandwich Love, our hope is to create a monthly sandwich day in which people take to the streets to personally make a difference. In later posts we will also provide recipe ideas, sanitation and safety tips, and hopefully get some interesting feedback from people that have gone out and done the same. The homeless don't only suffer during the winter and they definitely don't only reside in Chicago. If all goes well, this idea will take root in cities nation wide. Our philosophy here is that food not only fills the stomach, but it also enriches the soul and brings people together. Me and Cooper are very excited to make this a regular part of our lives, and we hope that you are just as excited to make this a part of your own.

As of now, the first ever Sandwich Love Day is planned for Friday, May 1st 2009. Expect the first friday of every month to be the regular Sandwich Love Day and make sure to keep an eye out for updates. We will be updating a lot right up until the 1st.

  Food. Love. Life.

  

  -Riley