Courtesy of Mike Riggs at Eye Street, here’s a minority it’s okay to hate: fey hipsters who spend their food stamps at Whole Foods.
In the John Waters-esque sector of northwest Baltimore — equal parts kitschy, sketchy, artsy and weird — Gerry Mak and Sarah Magida sauntered through a small ethnic market stocked with Japanese eggplant, mint chutney and fresh turmeric. After gathering ingredients for that evening’s dinner, they walked to the cash register and awaited their moments of truth.
“I have $80 bucks left!” Magida said. “I’m so happy!”
“I have $12,” Mak said with a frown…
Magida, a 30-year-old art school graduate, had been installing museum exhibits for a living until the recession caused arts funding — and her usual gigs — to dry up. She applied for food stamps last summer, and since then she’s used her $150 in monthly benefits for things like fresh produce, raw honey and fresh-squeezed juices from markets near her house in the neighborhood of Hampden, and soy meat alternatives and gourmet ice cream from a Whole Foods a few miles away.
“I’m eating better than I ever have before,” she told me. “Even with food stamps, it’s not like I’m living large, but it helps…”
“I’m sort of a foodie, and I’m not going to do the ‘living off ramen’ thing,” [Mak] said, fondly remembering a recent meal he’d prepared of roasted rabbit with butter, tarragon and sweet potatoes.
Sometimes I think that maybe Obamacare is just the punishment this country needs. That maybe it’s the only way to drive home the fact that elections have consequences. But then I read something like this and realize that it’s just feeding the beast. These things are called “entitlements” for a reason.