TracyFood

Ridiculously belated Foto Friday: adventures in flying fancy 22 January 2010 11:12 pm

Posted by Tracy in : consumerism,eating,family,food snobbery,fun,not even vegetarian,photos,pictures,restaurants,silly,tea,travel , 2 comments

Today’s post is dedicated to Ansley, not just for reminding me to write it, but also because she is going to Cancún for a long weekend tomorrow and I’m maybe just a little jealous. Anyway, have an awesome trip, lady, and do not even try to match the ridiculously huge pile of stuff I scored in the process of flying to Amsterdam at the beginning of the month:

Schwag from Virgin Upper Class

On top of the shoe bag, which I totally did use, you can see such diverse items as socks, a toothbrush, an Upper Class luggage tag, some very cute envelopes, and a copy of The Economist (which I finally finished reading yesterday because I am a giant slacker and also because I have been reading overtime to keep the pile of New Yorkers smaller than I am. Specifically TracyFood-related items (I guess the toothbrush sort of counts, too) include (more…)

Foto Friday: Linguine Alfredo recipe, for Piett. 15 January 2010 11:08 pm

Posted by Tracy in : cheese,convenience,cooking,eating,eugene,family,Holland,hot mess,Netherlands,pasta,photos,pictures,random,recipes,restaurants,vegetarian,work , add a comment

So I’m back from Holland and recovering from the trip, but still pretty freaking tired and nowhere near done uploading and organizing all the pictures I took. Today’s photo post was going to be all about flying fancy-style, but like I said, I haven’t quite got those pictures processed. Instead, I’m going to blog my dinner, which happens to relate back to my trip in more than just the “so tired, can’t get stuff organized” way. You see, on Tuesday night my brother Piett and I made a huge pasta dinner for my parents, my Oma, my aunt Ingrid, uncle Dako, their daughters Stéphanie and Claudia, and Stéphanie’s boyfriend Raymond (to be perfectly fair, Claud made her own food but I was still happy to have something that almost everyone could agree to eat). We cooked 1 1/2 kilos of spaghetti and three different sauces for people to mix and match to their own tastes: tomato-meat, tomato-vegetable sauce, and creamy pesto. Piett was an awesome sous-chef, and somewhere in the chatting over cooking we got to the topic of Alfredo sauce. My basic point was that it’s super-easy, and Piett said he’d like me to show him how to make it some time. While this post is not the video podcast recipe he suggested, it’s a step in that direction.

Linguine Alfredo: it’s what was for my dinner tonight.

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Monkey Monday: more looking forward 9 November 2009 8:06 am

Posted by Tracy in : cooking,eating,events,fangirl,friends,geekery,monkeys,nyc,politics,random,restaurants,school , 3 comments

First and foremost, happy birthday Liz! May you look forward to many excellent things as you join the rest of us in our fourth decade (sounds intimidating, doesn’t it? We’re olllllllllllld. And it’s awesome, I promise.)

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Next, I was right last Tuesday about my having near-future awesomeness to look forward to — Krishnendu’s lecture was fantastic, full of food for thought and Indian restaurant recommendations. Also it inspired me to make dal, because dude. It had been way too long.

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This week is also looking good on the looking-forward front, starting with the Food Systems Network NYC’s monthly open meeting tomorrow. (more…)

Foto Friday: the last time I ate tuna. 30 October 2009 3:32 pm

Posted by Tracy in : books,consumerism,eating,environment,fish,food safety,food snobbery,health,Holland,Marion Nestle,Netherlands,not even vegetarian,photos,pictures,restaurants,sustainability,tuna , 1 comment so far

It has been exactly four months since I last ate tuna. I believe this may be some kind of personal record; at the very least, it is the longest I can remember going without tuna since I cared to keep track of such things. Let me explain.

I love tuna; I think it’s incredibly delicious. Unfortunately, since because of that deliciousness it’s effectively an endangered fricken species, I try not to eat it too often, on account of how I’ll be a very cranky old lady indeed if large ocean fish are extinct in the next 40 to 50 years and I’m trying to do my part to reduce demand and all that. (Because I eat it so rarely, I’m not freaking out about the whole methylmercury problem, but it is horrific and I am eternally grateful to Marion Nestle’s What to Eat for the revelation that it’s not bioaccumulative.) Anyway.

I’ve been reading a bunch about tuna farming this week — real tuna farming, not “catch baby tuna in the wild and raise them in captivity” tuna ranching, but actual farming, baby fish hatched in captivity and everything, and my personal jury is still out, to put it mildly. I wanted to come to some kind of conclusion about this latest development in time to add it to this post, but it will have to wait for another time. In the meantime, I will continue my tuna-free streak. Luckily, the last time I ate tuna was so fantastic that it’s given me an even better motivation not to crack open the canned stuff — simply put, it’s going to be very hard to find another tuna meal this good. Behold:

I’m guessing that’s a good quarter kilo of fish, at least.

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Restaurant review (and flashback): Hotel Utse, Kathmandu 13 October 2009 10:33 am

Posted by Tracy in : Kathmandu,nepal,pictures,restaurants,reviews,school,travel,writing , 1 comment so far

Hey party people, remember how I was in Nepal two years ago? Yeah, me too. Today I’m rocking a bit of a head cold, so I’m posting another reworking from last year’s food writing class, this piece was written for the travel writing assignment. Professor Sax was particularly entertained by the lede, and I’m still pretty proud of it myself. I’ve updated this version to correct some typos, and incorporate a few of her suggestions, as well as links and pictures.

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If you eat only one meal in Kathmandu, make reservations for dinner at Krishnarpan, the restaurant at Dwarika’s Hotel, rightly recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site for its celebration of Nepalese art, architecture, and culture, including food. But if you have more opportunities to eat in the capital of Nepal — and I hope you do — try the restaurant at the Hotel Utse, on the outskirts of the Thamel tourist district.

Hustling-bustling Thamel. (more…)