TMI Tuesday: McRib edition 15 November 2011 1:57 pm
Posted by Tracy in : comics,consumerism,cross-posting,economics,fangirl,fast food,fun,mystery meat,not even vegetarian,pictures , add a commentFirst and foremost, full disclosure seems in order (and very much in the spirit of Too Much Information): I have never eaten a McDonalds McRib sandwich (TM?) In fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen one in the, um, flesh — if something as hyper-processed as the McRib (or, for that matter, McNuggets or Spam or… you get the idea, the list goes on) can still be considered flesh. Maybe it’s like honey in that regard, if it gets sufficiently processed it can no longer be called by that name? I don’t know. Anyway, that seemed like an important bit of information to get out of the way: this post is more about the McRib as cultural phenomenon than anything else. For whatever reason last week seems to have been McRib Week on various and sundry online media I follow, and so here are the items that made me say, “Ok, clearly I need to do a TracyFood post about this,” starting with some hilarious conspiracy theory economics, and ending with comics for people who want to skim past all that boring long reading stuff. (more…)
Another Twitter Tuesday! 8 November 2011 11:24 pm
Posted by Tracy in : America's Test Kitchen,diet stress is a health hazard,events,fangirl,fast food,food safety,food snobbery,health at every size,media,meta,news,Twitter Tuesday , add a commentHey, so like I confessed yesterday, I really didn’t know what to blog about today, only then suddenly, to my surprise and delight, the Twitters, which I kinda sorta really hadn’t been watching since last Tuesday, came through for me in a big way. Check these out! First and foremost, my former classmate Shanti with news that makes me want to make horrible puns about sticky messes:
Shanti Elise Prasad (@shantielise)
If you eat honey, this may blow your mind. Tests Show Most Store Honey Isn’t Honey… foodsafetynews.com/2011/11/tests-…
I’m having a little trouble wrapping my head around this story, personally, because as far as I can tell from the article, the definition of “honey” being argued about here is whether or not (for example) the sweet golden goo in the plastic bear has pollen in it. But the article’s scandal-monger-y lede:
More than three-fourths of the honey sold in U.S. grocery stores isn’t exactly what the bees produce, according to testing done exclusively for Food Safety News.
really rubs me the wrong way. Because with the possible exception of some wild-caught fish, pretty much no animal product sold in U.S. grocery stores is exactly what the animals in question produce. It’s all processed one way or another. (more…)
Monkey Monday: “Is this thing on?” 26 September 2011 10:22 am
Posted by Tracy in : consumerism,convenience,cooking,cross-posting,eating,economics,fast food,food snobbery,health,kitchen gear,photos,pictures,tea,time versus money , add a commentPretend I started out here with a hilarious bit about trying to remember how I used to do these posts — or don’t, if meta-self-referential cutesiness is sooo turn of the 00′s and hellooo we are well into the second decade of the 21st century now, dur-hurr… Also maybe read (or reread) that August 2011 New York Times Magazine piece about how David Foster Wallace maybe kinda sorta invented the language of the Internet but he was one of only a very few writers skilled enough to actually employ this style without being super-annoying, and now everybody does it, gah! But I digress.
Here are a few things from this past month that got my attention and couldn’t just be camera-phoned and summarized in a caption on Flickr. There’s a picture and a rant, but then there’s some short and sweet and funny stuff, I promise. (more…)
Belated randomness! Now with extra funny! 28 October 2009 5:32 pm
Posted by Tracy in : books,culture,fast food,food snobbery,fun,funny,health,health at every size,media,nutrition,random,video , add a commentI don’t know about the rest of you, but I find regular laughter to be an essential component of a balanced media consumption lifestyle, right along with serious hard-thinking stuff like class readings. (For sociology next week I had to choose between Barry Popkin’s The World is Fat and Hank Cardello and ghostwriter Doug Carr’s Stuffed: An Insider’s Look at Who’s (Really) Making America Fat. Yeah, that’s rough. But the Popkin book is shorter and not based on the premise that only the food industry can save us from ourselves, so it wins, even if it may yet force a ranty post or two out of me.) I digress. Here’s a few instances of food politics in pop culture that helped me keep things in perspective: (more…)
Taco Tuesday! 12 May 2009 8:44 am
Posted by Tracy in : convenience,eating,fast food,nyc,pictures,street food,vegetarian , add a commentThese may or may not be a hot mess, but they are definitely delicious:
Those are vegetarian tacos from the Tacos Idolo(s?) truck that sometimes appears along Avenue of the Americas by the West 4th St./Washington Square subway stop. They contain refried beans, shredded lettuce and cabbage, tomato, avocado, crema (Mexican sour cream), and cotija cheese. Last time I got them, they cost $2.50 apiece, which is heck of cheap but kind of a bummer at the time because I only had five bucks on me and before the price went up I could get two tacos and still tip the guy.
Still, mmm, tacos. And yay having the option of ordering fillings like goat, tripe, and ear, even if I’m too wussy to try them. Reason #238593 for loving life in New York City is ready access to awesome street food. Nom nom nom.
And now, once again, I go back to work.
