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Monkey Monday: new books and more 14 November 2011 4:53 pm

Posted by Tracy in : agriculture,books,consumerism,eating,geekery,news,science , add a comment

Almost halfway through NaBloPoMo, definitely feeling the crunch on my brain, even for short attention span theater like Monkey Mondays traditionally are. So today I’m keeping it short, with some excitement about new books, and a bit of snark-rant about a news item that made me go “durrrrrrrrr.” Here we go. I’ll start with the snark and end on the happy book geekery notes.

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Last Wednesday a New York Times “Well” blog post appeared in my Facebook feed: Tired of Feeling the Burn? Low-Acid Diet May Help and I reposted it (more…)

Monkey Monday: weekend in review, week in preview 7 November 2011 10:10 am

Posted by Tracy in : books,economics,food snobbery,geekery,meta,monkeys,news,politics,random,society , add a comment

Today’s Monkey Monday randomness starts with a a shoutback to the weekend’s successful continuation of my NaBloPoMo efforts, because they both include responses to recent food-relevant news events. (Also, and speaking of success, I am happy to report that as of checking in at NaBloPoMo Central on Saturday afternoon, I have at long last managed to sign myself up! I’m #2011 on the official blogroll, which seems auspicious.) There’s also a preview of what I’ve got planned for TracyFood this week: lots of pictures, a long-delayed recipe, and… um, I’m not sure what I’m writing about tomorrow. Open to suggestions over here…. but meanwhile, on with today’s show!

First things first, a bit of serious news: my former classmate Christine is in northern Italy, where flooding and mudslides have turned her blog away from a dreamy chronicle of emigration and gastrotouristic entrepreneurship, into the story of life in a disaster zone (the town of Monterosso, which was devastated, to put it mildly). There are links in her posts to various charities and other efforts to help support the region’s recovery, as I wrote in this weekend’s letter to global climate change, which I totally believe in and really wish would stop proving itself through dramatic, disastrous weather events. (more…)

On milk and monopolies. 31 March 2010 1:22 pm

Posted by Tracy in : agriculture,books,economics,geekery,GMOs,milk,politics,reading,school , add a comment

So yesterday I spent some quality time (read: almost four hours) in the Rose Reading Room of the main branch of the New York Public Library, blasting through Nature’s Perfect Food: How Milk Became America’s Drink by E. Melanie DuPuis, for my food processing and industrialization class. Today I gave it three out of five stars on GoodReads (which I won’t link to because their shiny toys and WordPress do not get along, sigh) but that might have been a bit ungenerous on my part, perhaps an inevitable result of reading the whole darn thing in one sitting. Also I was maybe a little resentful to be reading DuPuis instead of Anne Mendelson’s Milk: The Surprising Story of Milk Through the Ages, which has been on my “to-read” list for something like two years now (and I know I love Mendelson’s writing; her Stand Facing the Stove: The Story of the Women Who Gave America The Joy of Cooking remains one of my favorite bits of food geekery ever). But I digress. Back to DuPuis, and why I might have to upgrade her book’s rating. (more…)

Ask TracyFood: should I freak out about genetically modified foods? 10 March 2010 11:05 pm

Posted by Tracy in : agriculture,books,economics,environment,food safety,food snobbery,friends,geekery,GMOs,health,history,Marion Nestle,politics,science,sustainability , 1 comment so far

So I got a message from the splendiferous Ms. Lara earlier today:

Hey, Tracy! Someone on FB is arguing that GM crops are categorically horrible and bad and whatnot. Can you send me some informative links to help educate her (and myself!)? (I seem to recall you linked to an article about the death of an agriculturalist who saved millions of lives with his crops, so of course I thought of you…)

Many thanks to my favorite foodie!!
-L

Well. How could I resist the chance to go all run-on sentence on that? (more…)

Something fun to do tonight? 1 December 2009 2:59 pm

Posted by Tracy in : books,events,not even vegetarian,nyc,random,reading,school,vegetarian,writing , add a comment

I know, I know, where’s my ridiculous post-Thanksgiving update? (It’s hard to believe that it’s been almost exactly a week since we started all the cooking.) My guess is it’s in the same hiding place as my motivation to work on finals. Anyway, this event should be interesting, if only for the juxtaposition of Anna “if world hunger didn’t motivate you to take my mom’s advice to eat less meat (or none), how about climate change?” Lappé with Julie “did I mention I’m a butcher now?” Powell.

True Story: Nonfiction at KGB – Julie Powell & Anna Lappé

KGB Bar, 85 East 4th Street
New York City, NY
December 01, 2009
7:00 pm – 9:00 pm

Knowledge of this reading was brought to me by Food Sociology classmate Sam Kressler. Thanks Sam! You rock! For more information, check out the full description at KGB Bar’s website. (I just could not bring myself to cut and paste all their text; I may be slow getting back into gear after the long weekend, but that’s just too much cheating.)