Hungry In The Hood: Bodega-Style Ethnic Noodle Bake

What if you had to buy all of your groceries at your local convenience store? For about 23.5 million people in the US who live in neighborhoods without easy access to fresh food, or ‘food deserts,’ this is often a day-to-day reality.

On Wednesday, July 20th, First Lady Michelle Obama launched another phase of her Let’s Move! campaign that will help businesses in these so-called food deserts sell healthier food.

Naturally, we thought it appropriate to launch our five-part web series “Hungry in the Hood,” in honor of the occasion. These webisodes take a farcical look at what “interesting” culinary delights are possible using food often found on convenience store shelves. Yes, we hope you find it as absurd as we do. Obama aims to eliminate food deserts in the U.S. so people will not have to resort to following our twisted recipes.

The Let’s Move! initiative even made a nifty “Food Desert Locator”, based on census data, that helps:

• locate food-deserts in the U.S.
• show population characteristics of those living in food deserts
• offer data that can be downloaded for community planning and/or research

In ‘Hungry in the Hood,’ we take a farcical look at what interesting culinary delights are possible without regular access to fresh groceries.

In this episode, we show you a different spin on the traditional pasta bake – bodega style.