Oh please. 4 November 2008 5:01 am
Posted by Tracy in : eugene, news, pictures, politics, responsibility , 2 commentsI’ve got even fewer fingernails now than when that picture was taken:
…but according to the U.S. postal service, my ballot was received on Saturday afternoon. So. If you haven’t yet taken your turn, I want you to vote, as hard as you can. And even if you’re not eligible to do so in the U.S. this time around, I hope you’ll join me in hoping for the very best this Election Day. (more…)
On dinner parties. 19 March 2008 7:21 pm
Posted by Tracy in : cooking, friends, identity, politics, responsibility, school, time versus money, work , 2 commentsOh, lady. Stuff White People Like wins again with yesterday’s post on dinner parties, a subject I’ve written about on a few memorable occasions. The following little essaylet, first posted on Everything2.com on September 1, 2001, tells the story of one such occasion. (Writing it was another, and I suppose reposting it here is yet one more, in a very meta way.)
* * * * *
For years and years, my parents have belonged to a club that treated its members to gourmet dinner parties, sometimes in restaurants, but also for some time hosted at members’ homes and prepared in a prescribed potluck style by the guests, who were given recipes for dishes selected to fit the evening’s theme. In addition to these smaller seasonal events (four times a year; you figure it out) the club — ominously named The Establishment — used to meet in its entirety twice a year for an annual formal, black tie dinner in January and a much more informal outdoor picnic/barbecue in July. The venues for these latter two events were fixed for years, at the homes of the club members with the most extensive silverware, glassware, and flatware collection, and the largest back yard, respectively. But I digress.
As a result of my parents’ participation in those black-tie dinners, I learned quite a bit about the workings of the dinner party, first-hand, by working as part of its catering staff (with the help of a rotating roster of friends recruited to help) for five years in a row (the pay got better every time, especially when I returned to “the annual dinner” as a starving college student). However, I believe that it was as a result of this experience that I failed to earn a potentially valuable scholastic distinction during my senior year of high school. (more…)
Four ways of looking at Trader Joe’s 5 February 2008 10:34 am
Posted by Tracy in : convenience, environment, fangirl, friends, politics, responsibility, sustainability , add a commentI’ve mentioned repeatedly that I’ve been a month or so behind on all kinds of stuff since my trip to Nepal, which is why it was January before I caught up to the fact that it was open season on Trader Joe’s in early December, and I’ve been concocting a reply ever since. Today I’ll finally be discussing the two blog posts that got my attention, and sharing a few other pieces from even more way back in the day, just to add to the fun. (more…)
Ask TracyFood: Veg-what? 14 August 2007 8:29 am
Posted by Tracy in : Morning Glory, advice, books, friends, meat, responsibility, sundance, vegan, vegetarian , 5 commentsA few months ago, Marcy (who is so much better than Barbie) wrote:
So right now are you a vegetarian, almost vegetarian, or veggie-friendly? Ever since I started cooking for myself, I’ve been fairly veggie-friendly because I don’t really like dealing with raw meat. Up here I’m even more veggie-friendly because I’ve been shopping at the local food co-op which is all vegetarian except for the frozen free range, hormone-free, chicken breasts and assorted frozen fish. So because I’m lazy, and the food co-op has really nummy everything else, I’ve been very veggie-friendly lately. Yum yum! It’s so great to have access to tempeh and other such delicious veggie novelties.
Shameless nerditude: Belasco’s culinary triangle 25 April 2007 10:27 pm
Posted by Tracy in : Michael Pollan, Sidney Mintz, Warren Belasco, anthropology, convenience, cooking, culinary triangle, eating, identity, responsibility, school, vegetarian , add a commentSo. Warren James Belasco is a historian and professor of American studies at the University of Maryland who writes about food — and very well, I might add. I read his 2006 book, Meals to Come: a History of the Future of Food over winter break, and today I finished his 1989 book, Appetite for Change: How the Counterculture took on the Food Industry, because it was due back at the UO library today and I wanted to return it on time rather than provoke the wrath of our housemate The History Librarian. Belasco is the co-editor of Food Nations: Selling Taste in Consumer Societies, a collection of excellent academic papers about food and its marketing which was also due today. (Eventually I would like to review all these books on TracyFood, because I am a colossal geek.) In my Fall 2006 food and culture anthropology class (ANTH 365 at the University of Oregon), we used Belasco’s “culinary triangle” model of food selection to describe and discuss the way individuals approach the question of what to eat, and I find myself wanting to refer to Belasco’s terminology on TracyFood a lot, so I’m going to define it here for future reference. (more…)
