TracyFood

Monkey Monday: vacation, schedules, and readings 11 June 2007 10:24 pm

Posted by Tracy in : Morning Glory, baking, cooking, dessert, eating, feminism, friends, monkeys, news, politics, recipes, restaurants, reviews, work , trackback

Like it says in the title, I’ve got our upcoming vacation on the brain, and as I schedule stuff around it, I’m also assembling a big list of fun reads that might interest TracyFood readers as well. Pretty fun and easy, right? Right.

Cake-Off Rescheduled!

So first of all, as Victor pointed out on Friday, the Cake-Off 2007 has been postponed until this Thursday, and relocated to Victor’s house. Which is all very much for the best as it frees up our house for more bike trip preparation-type messes in addition to the cake-baking kind. Yay! Peter and I are getting ready for our upcoming bike trip in the Netherlands this week, which will probably involve making all kinds of messes in this house besides the cake-preparing kind. Yay!

Vacation!

Um, about that bike trip… TracyFood posts will probably be few and far between from June 17 until July 6, because Peter and I will be in the Netherlands for those almost three weeks, adventuring on our tandem and visiting with my extended family. Yay! But: our internet access will probably be sporadic at best and although I expect to take plenty of notes on anything interesting we cook or eat or see grown or cooked or eaten on this adventure, I don’t know if I’ll be able to write even Monkey Monday-quality rambles, let alone post them, until we’re back at home in Eugene. So. Consider yourselves warned. Starting next week Monday, June 18, TracyFood updates will be rather sporadic for awhile. I plan to resume regular weekday postings on Monday July 9.

Good Reads!

However! I have been doing some fabulous reading this weekend, and thought I’d share some of my favorites so that if in two or three weeks any of you are feeling deprived of geeky food writing, you can look back here and find something. So!

First of all, there’s my Blogroll (scroll down; it’ll be on the right-hand side of the page) and especially the Feed Your Awesome section if you’re looking for food stuff specifically.
Then there’s my Google Reader shared items, highlights from various and sundry sites I read regularly.
Speaking of sites I read regularly, have I plugged Culiblog and Culinate enough? Because they’re both pretty fantastic.
Helen Rennie is a Boston area food writer whose Culinate contributions were so good that I started reading her personal food blog, Beyond Salmon. Last week Wednesday she posted a completely fantastic rant about some of the worst cooking advice I’ve ever seen. Readers, you can out-cook your favorite restaurants at home, just like you can out-grow professionals in your home garden. The secret ingredient is pride. “I made this!” tastes freaking great.
And while I’m listing fantastic rants, I sure loved Food, Glorious Food on Kate Harding’s Shapely Prose (”humorless feminism and fat acceptance”). I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: I don’t care what you eat — okay, no, that’s a lie. I do care what you eat, but I care much more that you know and love what you eat, and please, for the love of whatever you love (including, I hope, food), don’t feel guilty about eating.

Now, to range just a bit further afield than the blogosphere,

Remember when I wrote about vegan chocolate chip cookies for Cj? I think I’ve found my winning recipe. Scroll down; it’s at the bottom of the page, and looks fabulous.
Speaking of fabulous-looking recipes, Cookz is an intriguing experiment in food writing and graphic design. I look forward to more from these crazy creative New Zealanders. (Also, um, the first recipe they demonstrate is, um, chocolate chip cookies again.)
This excellent article about the rise and fall of French bread (puns intended) made me feel a little guilty for using instant yeast in my no-knead bread recipe, especially since just the day before, Culiblog had a fairly extensive piece (with pictures and links for further research) all about wild yeast and sourdough and such. But never guilty about the fantastic deliciousness of the results, let alone eating them. This weekend I repeated the part-polenta loaf that was such a hit at the end-of-term Urban Farm potluck, and used a bunch of the rosemary I pruned on Friday to make some very nice-smelling no-knead bread indeed.
Slow Food founder Carlo Petrini caught some heat for the description of the San Francisco Ferry Plaza farmers market in his new book. Here’s a good summary and discussion of the controversy and more general issues of food and social class. If you want to read some of the earlier reactions, or just see the passage that got so many people so defensive, The Ethicurean provides both in this post here.
Speaking of the food of the social (or at least economic) elites, would you believe our government has nothing better to do than prosecute the Whole Foods/Wild Oats merger? It’s true. The Federal Trade Commision opposes the merger on the grounds that it would create a monopoly. Oh, the ridiculousness. Here’s Slate’s take on the story, but I think my favorite comment came from Organic, Inc. author Samuel Fromartz on his blog, Chews Wise: Advice to Whole Foods CEO John Mackey: Call Bill Gates and get the number for his lawyer.
and finally, Kelly Kettle — I want one for this upcoming trip, oh yes.