TracyFood

Monkey Monday: post-whirlwind trip edition 14 May 2007 11:59 pm

Posted by Tracy in : Marion Nestle, Michael Pollan, Morning Glory, books, convenience, eating, environment, monkeys, restaurants , trackback

In this edition of Monkey Monday, I will attempt to predict my entries for the coming week. Short version: lots and lots about my trip this weekend, including food logs because there’s nothing like traveling to shuffle the usual eating patterns, something about cookies because I still feel like I owe them to everybody at Morning Glory who made it possible for me to take the weekend off, a book review (probably Gary Paul Nabham’s Coming Home to Eat, which I returned to the library before my trip and started purging from my mind with the far superior Second Nature by Michael Pollan and Safe Food by Marion Nestle, both of which deserve their own reviews in good time), and a recipe, to keep back on my Sundance recipe adaptation plan.

Other weekend trip-type thoughts:

Vending machines remain a source of inspiration to me, and other airport food-induced ponderings.

The automated offerings in Eugene (which frame a water fountain, for anybody with the foresight to carry an empty bottle through the “no liquids” security checkpoints) made me wonder: Has anybody done a study of the nutritional geography of airports? “Spot the food desert” or something to that effect? For some reason airport food always reminds me that I would have lots of cheap options if I could only stop thinking about what I eat, and sends me into an extra-bonus angry rage about that fact. It was bad enough when I just didn’t want to eat beef, but it’s much worse now that my food snobbery has advanced. Fortunately I had homemade samosas to sustain me on the outbound legs of my trip, and then of course the first thing that really caught my eye at Boston Logan airport was a bigger-than-me model of Dunkin Donuts iced coffee, and I could not resist (in fact my determination to procure coffee and donuts was probably what got me through security without any remarks more snide than “I have never been prouder to be an American” — no kidding, the TSA drone sent me back to the ticket counter to exchange the paper I was issued in Eugene for something that actually had the words “boarding pass” printed on it… sigh). Anyway.

I got to visit a Hannaford!

In What to Eat, Marion Nestle describes how upscale Northeastern U.S. supermarket chain Hannaford hired a team of nutritionists to develop a system of rating foods and labeling them so customers would easily be able to identify better choices (especially those with less fat and sugar and more nutrients, especially vitamins, fiber, and protein). Yesterday, my parents and I passed a Hannaford in Rutland while looking for a way to kill a few hours before my flight, and I got all excited and talked them into touring the supermarket with me so I could see the Hannaford star rating system in action, because apparently I am exactly that kind of nerd. It was super-fun, and it occurs to me that the star system would be a very easy way to do the kind of mapping I was thinking about for airports: you could just track the density of items labeled with one or more stars (three is the highest possible rating; it mostly appeared on fresh produce and dried beans). The other question I want to factor in somehow is cost of “good” food versus “bad” but I’m up much too late past my bedtime to articulate that idea any more clearly.