Ask TracyFood: questions from my mom! 7 October 2008 8:01 pm
Posted by Tracy in : New York, advice, consumerism, kitchen gear, random, vocabulary , 1 comment so farToday’s Ask TracyFood comes from none other than my mom, who has sent me a number of questions and recommendations by email and paper mail in the past week. Hi Mom! You have questions; I’m online at the NYU library with answers. First up:
What does the phrase ” Sweat the onions” mean in a recipe?
Monkey Monday: so much mystery meat! 29 September 2008 8:48 am
Posted by Tracy in : Marion Nestle, advice, consumerism, food safety, food snobbery, health, ingredients, meat, monkeys, mystery meat, news, politics , add a commentSeriously, kids, was it International “Make Tracy Happy to Avoid Mystery Meat” Week and nobody told me? I just kept finding more and more news stories and blog posts to that effect. Also, on a metaphorical level, the TracyFood comment spam just kept pouring in — I broke 16,000 17,000 deleted comments over the weekend (number edited on Sunday morning after I started the post on Friday night). Woo? But seriously, all the scary meat news you can read:
22 September: Sucks to be a factory-farmed pig.
Last Monday, U.S. Food Policy alerted me to a news report about pig abuse at factory farms. The official Associated Press news piece is here, along with a video which I cannot bring myself to watch. You can click through to the full piece without being forced to watch the video, but (more…)
Recipe: Party Hummus 23 September 2008 11:13 pm
Posted by Tracy in : America's Test Kitchen, advice, cooking, events, recipes, school, vegan, vegetarian , 2 commentsThere was a fantastic recipe titled “Best Hummus” in the May-June 2008 issue of Cook’s Illustrated, and I’ve been using it as a guide to improvise delicious chickpea-based dips for parties this summer, with great success. I had sort of been brushing aside the resultant compliments until I was thoroughly underwhelmed by the hummus offered at a few NYU orientation events (sorry, NYU catering!) Turns out I’d forgotten how mediocre hummus can be. On top of that, I realized that I could submit my post about hummus to the third round of My Legume Love Affair, a blog event created by Susan of The Well-Seasoned Cook and hosted this month by Lucy at Nourish Me. I mean, really, it’s about darn time I jumped on that particular bandwagon of beany goodness. But back to hummus. The following hints should help prevent disappointment in homemade concoctions.
First, everybody’s taste in hummus is slightly different, but when in doubt, I vote for a texture with more light fluffiness and less pastiness, and this recipe achieves that goal. If you’d rather have something suitable for home decorating projects (caulk, spackle, you get the idea), by all means leave out some oil and water. That said, it is possible to omit ingredients and still get delicious results. Just before our going-away party in Eugene, I discovered that our tahini had grown mold, and threw it out. The hummus turned out fine anyway; I used a little extra olive oil to make sure it got a nice creamy consistency even without the sesame goodness. At our housewarming party here at the Moon Monkey Bar, Grille, and Cocktail Lounge, I forgot the lemon juice and substituted a few extra cloves of garlic for pungenty goodness. If you do this variation, I highly recommend finishing the hummus the same day it’s made, because the raw garlic will get stronger with time and try to destroy you, even if you aren’t a vampire.
And now, on with the recipe. (more…)
Ask TracyFood: about my granola 9 September 2008 10:10 am
Posted by Tracy in : Morning Glory, advice, baking, breakfast, cooking, health, ingredients, restaurants , add a commentSo a few weeks ago, I got an email:
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Hi, Tracy.
I heard that Padnah’s Pit BBQ is now serving Tracy’s Granola.
First, is this your granola?
If so, is it gluten free? (i.e. no wheat products, rye or barley … and are the oats from a dedicated, wheat-free source, such as Bob’s Red Mill?)
Many of us are gluten intolerant or have full-blown Celiac disease, and most granola uses oats that share process facilities with wheat flour manufacturing, so every grain of oats has a small amount of flour on it, making it dangerous.
If you’re the one making this granola people are raving about and you have not been processing it with gluten free ingredients, your market would increase HUGELY if you began doing so and labeled the packaging with “GLUTEN FREE”.
I appreciate your time and hope to hear from you …. I miss granola!
Sincerely,
Carolyn
Portland, OR
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Here’s what I wrote back: (more…)
Monkey Monday: shiny new things edition 14 July 2008 2:45 pm
Posted by Tracy in : advice, baking, consumerism, dessert, environment, garden, kitchen gear , 1 comment so farThings to read, toys to play with, secrets I’m bursting to tell…
Firstly: Hey! Awesome! Grist has a new column all about food! It’s called Checkout Line and if you dig Tom Philpott’s Victual Reality and wish Ask Umbra would answer more questions about grocery shopping, well, you’re a lot like me, and Checkout Line might be right up your alley, too!
In other awesome news, (more…)
