Recipe: Braised Bok Choi With Asian Flavors 23 May 2007 10:54 pm
Posted by Tracy in : cooking,eating,garden,politics,recipes,school,vegan,vegetarian , 2 commentsSo yesterday at the Urban Farm somebody harvested the biggest bok choi I have ever seen in my life, and I could not resist its power, and took it home. Behold!
I mean, holy cow, look at the size of that thing! It’s bigger than my cats! (For comparison, here is a picture of me with an armful of kitty. See? Iggy is much smaller than the mother of all bok choi.) (more…)
Pollanization: an Urban Farm assignment, recycled for your reading pleasure (?) 22 May 2007 11:46 pm
Posted by Tracy in : books,cooking,eating,Michael Pollan,school , add a commentSo last week for Urban Farm we got a list of Michael Pollan articles and the assignment to read one (of our choice) and write a one-page response, due last Thursday. Oh darn! I was momentarily tempted to cop out and recycle my response to “Unhappy Meals” or write about his more recent New York Times Magazine piece, “You Are What You Grow,” I decided to go with something I hadn’t read before, namely The Nation‘s “One Thing To Do About Food”. (I also finished Second Nature not long before the assignment was due, but I have much more than a page to write about that book.) Anyway. Here is what I wrote for class: (more…)
Monkey Monday: I really should get to bed edition 21 May 2007 1:38 am
Posted by Tracy in : agriculture,books,convenience,cooking,CSA,eating,garden,monkeys,politics,reviews,school , add a commentBut I just wanted to say: I am happy to report that I have found another good book about local food, and it is Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life (written with her husband, Steven Hopp, and daughters Camille and Lily — they all appear on the back cover author picture, but Lily was too young for a book contract and so couldn’t get her name on the front cover, just very cute hands full of heirloom lima beans). I was a little worried during the early chapters, especially when they mentioned the very disappointing Coming Home to Eat by Gary Paul Nabham but I skipped ahead a little and found plenty to look forward to, so I kept reading — and was well-rewarded. I had hoped to finish Marion Nestle’s Safe Food in time to make it the subject of the book report due for Urban Farm on Thursday, but I think Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is my new winner. Of course, some (probably extended) version of whatever I turn in will make it onto TracyFood. (more…)
Foto Friday: more garden bragging 18 May 2007 10:56 pm
Posted by Tracy in : books,cooking,CSA,eating,garden,pictures , add a commentSo here’s a picture of the spinach I harvested on Wednesday and cooked Thursday with French lentils according to a recipe from Madhur Jaffrey’s Indian Cooking, which I have on loan from my friendly local public library and am enjoying very much. (I made the lentils-with-spinach dish for the first time last Friday and it was so good I made it again in the hopes of memorizing it. Tonight we had her black-eyed peas with mushrooms dish, and it was fabulous as well — too many more delicious dinners like this and I may need my own copy of this cookbook, oh yes.) But anyway, the homegrown spinach: (more…)
Book review: “Coming Home To Eat” by Gary Paul Nabham 17 May 2007 11:54 pm
Posted by Tracy in : advice,books,cooking,eating,environment,local food,politics,reviews,sustainability , add a commentLet me get this out of the way first: I do not recommend this book. It was due back at my friendly local public library last Thursday, and before that I had it at home for two months, during which I only managed to read the first 110 pages, all of which felt vaguely like a punishment. If you’re looking for a good read about the local food movement, check out Brian Halweil’s Eat Here: Reclaiming homegrown pleasures in a global supermarket, which has no right to be a much better book, but nonetheless is. (more…)
