TracyFood

Pizza party! In pictures! 31 March 2009 3:23 pm

Posted by Tracy in : baking,cooking,geekery,pictures,pizza,school , View Comments

Today I was hoping to finish and post a piece about why I should not have gone to my friendly neighborhood Fairway to research foods marketed to kids for my nutrition class, but my brain is still too fried from writing the assignment. On Sunday night, Peter joked that I was going all “Grad Student Deconstructs Take-Out Menu” — and that was well before he beat me to bed by two hours because I could not stop writing stuff like “this product is sold less by health and more by cuteness, with stuff like whole grains and sensible solutions sort of afterthoughts, maybe for people who need to justify the purchases to themselves” and

Why does milk drinking have to be made more fun? Leaving aside the whole “milk is for babies” issue, and that for all the conventional wisdom — I mean, marketing hype — about how kids can’t grow big and strong without milk or whatever, can’t a glass of milk just be a glass of milk anymore?

You get the idea. Also, I love that Onion article so hard. But not as much as I love pizza! Check it out:

Aw, yeah. (more…)

Monkey Monday: thoughts on a theme, and more. 30 March 2009 8:55 am

Posted by Tracy in : Harold McGee,cooking,geekery,monkeys,pasta,pictures,random , View Comments

First things first: last week, I made Harold McGee’s One-Pan Pasta With Garlic and Oil, and it worked:

Readers, I put raw noodles into cold water — and way less water than the recipe/back of the box standard — and they came out. Yes, the texture was a little different than the pasta I’m used to, but boy monkeys is this trick going to save us a lot of white gas on future camping trips! Coming up later this week: more pictures and comments on the experiment.

Along those same lines, I continue to enjoy Rachel Laudan‘s blogging on fuel, water, and pasta, which led to a great post on fire, water, and salt.

Speaking of cooking fuel and efficient resource usage, this coming Wednesday, April 1, is the deadline for voting on the Financial Times / Forum for the Future Climate Change Challenge and I for one think the Kyoto Box solar stove is a super-cool idea, not just because of the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions but also because of all the potential energy saved — human energy and time spent collecting firewood, that is. So go read about cool inventions, and vote for your favorite, even if it isn’t the shiny, shiny stove.

Also on my mind this week: (more…)

Geeky Friday! 27 March 2009 11:48 pm

Posted by Tracy in : books,consumerism,eating,geekery,random,reading,school , View Comments

This morning I got up and breakfasted on a toasted pumpernickel bagel (half with butter, the other with cream cheese) and a slice of the banana bread I made last night (slight recipe modification: ran out of walnuts mid-measure, tried to make up the difference with hazelnuts, ran out of those too, and finally made it all the way to 1/2 cup by adding almonds), with Irish Breakfast tea.

(Slight digression: Y’know what’s really fun to sing to the tune of “C is for Cookie”?

Tea is for Tracy, that’s good enough for me
Tea is for Tracy, that’s good enough for me
Tea is for Tracy, that’s good enough for me
Oh, Tracy, Tracy, Tracy starts with tea!

Okay, back to my geeky day.)

After browsing the day’s New York Times and making a pretty good stab at the crossword puzzle (grrr lower left corner o’ references to diamonds, ever so not this girl’s best friend), I kicked things up an intellectual notch by finishing Arjun Apparurai’s “How to Make a National Cuisine: Cookbooks In Contemporary India” (Comparative Studies in Society and Society, January 1988).

I told you today was geeky. (more…)

Tea for Tuesday: still life with subway 24 March 2009 10:50 pm

Posted by Tracy in : nyc,pictures,random,tea , View Comments

Look at me, easing my way back into posting after spring break! It was a good one, complete with bike-riding and my traditional getting sick as a dog, and “thanks” to the latter my liver has some serious recovering to do, because cold medicine is rough stuff. Blech. BUT. I’m back, and wrangling pictures, and I’m having a hard time deciding picking which favorites to publish (as always, click on pictures to see larger versions on Flickr).

I like the way this one frames the tea bag I spotted on top of a pay phone at the 125th Street ACBD station (downtown platform):

But (more…)

Monkey Monday: supplement hangover edition 9 March 2009 11:17 am

Posted by Tracy in : geekery,monkeys,nutrition,school , View Comments

Hoo lady, readers, is my brain ever fried. Last night I went back to the Whole Foods at Columbus Circle for yet another class assignment, this time in the Whole Body section. I’d pretty much skipped the bodycare section on my last expedition, reasoning that there wasn’t really any food there, and also no way could it be as epic as the food court kaleidescope of ready-to-eat offerings. I mean, holy cow is that stuff ever amazing. But it turns out the supplement aisles at Whole Body are pretty overwhelming in their own way. Today’s Monkey Monday post is a writing warm-up for the report I’m handing in at 4:55 — here’s hoping ranting here will help clear out some snark and sort out my thoughts about yesterday evening’s adventures.

The assignment, by the way: pick a dietary supplement to analyze. Read the packaging, take notes, try to figure out what it does and how. Enlist store employees if necessary, all that. Oh yes, go there. Here’s what I got:

* * * * *

Thyroid Support — “Now With Real Thyroid.” ColdFusion^TM FoodState^TM Nutrition. Extreme Nutrient Synergy. Raw, Beyond Vitamins & Minerals supplement for “50 & Wiser Women.” I canNOT make this stuff up. (more…)