Monkey Monday: news and upcoming awesomeness 14 September 2009 3:46 pm
Posted by Tracy in : Marion Nestle, agriculture, events, fangirl, geekery, local food, news, nyc, politics, school , CommentsHoly cats, readers. I take a little break from class readings to check the news, and find out that Norman Borlaug is dead. Cue big hot flashbacks to my UO sustainable agriculture class, two and a half years ago. If you don’t know his name, maybe you’ve heard of a little agricultural transformation called the Green Revolution? The Nobel Peace Prize? You get the idea. End of an era and all that. I find myself wanting to reread Warren Belasco’s Meals to Come: A History of the Future of Food
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Suddenly I’m not as interested in snarking about Michael Pollan’s “big food versus big health” fantasy New York Times op-ed. Suffice it to say I think the diet industry would be the real winner in that fight. And speaking of dieting, I have more than a few bones to pick with the cover of this week’s New York Times magazine. Stay classy, guys. Especially since freaking Newsweek is all over how B.S. like that is the real public health problem. Gah. And that’s without getting into the NYT Mag article that goes with that cover. Seriously what now? (more…)
Saying goodbye to Eugene. 25 August 2009 7:08 am
Posted by Tracy in : CSA, Morning Glory, cooking, eating, eggs, eugene, events, fangirl, friends, fun, garden, good news, local food, meat, news, not even vegetarian, nyc, oregon, seasonality, summer, writing , CommentsI wrote this piece for an assignment on personal essays and memoir in my food writing class last fall, and it isn’t exactly true anymore — I have had a few more last Saturdays in Eugene since the one described here. It’s still emotionally true, perhaps more so than ever now, and it’s appropriate, since Peter is saying goodbye to Eugene this morning and coming home to New York City, at last, with his shield, not on it. Congratulations, love. See you soon.
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My last Saturday in Eugene, Oregon was pretty well perfect, thanks to a chance encounter with some carrot greens. I spotted them in the totebags of a pedestrian on the bike path south of the Lane County fairgrounds. She was on her way home from Saturday Market; Peter and I were riding our tandem to coffee after a morning of blueberry picking with Kevin and Laurel. It was August second, and thanks to those greens, I remembered it was our last chance to go to Saturday Market before our move. So after coffee, pastries, and a stumper of a New York Times crossword puzzle, we said goodbye to Kevin and Laurel. They rode south, and Peter and I went north, to our last Saturday Market for a long time. (more…)
Tuesday tasting: bike trip beers, part one 14 July 2009 3:17 pm
Posted by Tracy in : Holland, Netherlands, food snobbery, geekery, local food, reviews, taste test, travel , CommentsI learned a new appreciation for lagers on this bike trip in Holland, which is that hoo lady do they ever go down deliciously on a hot, sweaty summer day. In particular, I have never enjoyed a Heineken as much as I did with our rijsttafel dinner in Hoek van Holland — but honestly, my judgment was probably completely ruined that night by all the babi pangang spek. NOM NOM NOM. Anyway. It turns out I’m way too long-winded to write just one post about all the beers I tasted during Bike Trip! Holland! 2009! so I will break things up into shorter posts, organized in chronological order. Our first stop is
Erik de Noorman, Huisbrouwerij Klein Duimpje
Foto Friday: touring Gustiamo’s with Radishes and Rubbish 19 June 2009 5:07 pm
Posted by Tracy in : consumerism, eating, food snobbery, local food, nyc, pictures, school , CommentsSo last weekend I went back to Eugene to visit Peter during his department’s graduation festivities. It was… surreal, and I’m very impressed that he’s managing to get any work done in a setting that made me constantly worry that Bush was still president. Eek. I did manage to revisit several of my favorite things to eat in Eugene while I was there, which leads me to the subject of food tours, which is as good an excuse as any to finish writing about one I took back during spring break (I know, awkward transition, but today I am beating my little hater of writer’s block perfectionism).
On Friday, March 13, Gallatin senior Annie Myers led a small band of intrepid explorers (gastronauts?) from NYU’s Radishes and Rubbish club to a warehouse in the Bronx, which despite the date, was not as ominous as it sounds:
See? The warehouse in question is home to Gustiamo, a small import company whose specialty is nothing less than the finest foods Italy has to offer. (more…)
Report: “Room to Grow” mini-conference at NYU, 4 February 2009 10 February 2009 1:31 pm
Posted by Tracy in : agriculture, environment, events, garden, geekery, local food, nyc, people, school , CommentsAs you probably guessed from the title of this post, on Wednesday 4 February 2009, I attended the “Room to Grow: Envisioning Urban Agriculture at NYU” mini-conference. It was a great way of getting up to speed on gardening efforts around campus, and inspiring pictures of city farms and gardens always do a Tracy good. Plus I got to plant kale in a nifty newspaper pot (you can bet I snagged an extra to dissect, in the hopes that I can learn the relevant origami), hang out with other NYU gardening geeks, and there was tasty food, much of it locally grown. All told, it was a fabulous evening. (more…)
