Fotos before Friday: in which I sing the praises of Halloumi cheese 6 December 2007 9:10 pm
Posted by Tracy in : cheese,cooking,eating,salad,sundance,tea,vegetarian,work , add a commentThis post is dedicated to Jonathan, who was a little grossed out upon overhearing Peter’s half of tonight’s dinner plan phone conversation, but I won’t hold it against him; he takes mighty fine pictures. Anyway…
It’s been more than a year since I resigned from running the Sundance cheese department, and that was a few months after the last (and fortunately first and only) time the walk-in cooler broke down on my watch. When this happened (and it happened at least twice during my time at Sundance), the cheesehead (I did love my title, though I also went by cheesebeast) would recruit a helper or two, and a few shopping carts, which would be used to take all the back stock out of the cheese cooler to the walk-in fridge in the warehouse. If the cooler hadn’t been broken for too long, all the cheese in the displays could be moved as well. That was the case when the cooler went down on my watch (because we checked it obsessively and moved quickly when the temperature had been in “the danger zone” of above 40 degrees F for more than an hour). However, the other time I was present at Sundance for a deli walk-in failure, someone came into the deli in the morning and discovered that the cooler was at 50 degrees F — and had no way of knowing how long it had been too warm. In this case, to be on the safe side (and because doing otherwise would be a health code violation), none of the cheese that had been in that cooler overnight could be sold. The cheese worker that day spent it weighing all the cheese that was deemed no good, writing a long list of product lost, and filling the cooler’s free food shelf, over and over again. All the cheese eaters at Sundance that day made out like bandits.
What does this have to do with Halloumi cheese, you may ask? (more…)
Recipe: My Favorite Lentil Salad 12 June 2007 10:49 pm
Posted by Tracy in : America's Test Kitchen,cheese,cooking,eating,eugene,recipes,restaurants,salad,seasonality,vegan,vegetarian , 4 commentsIt’s like lentil appreciation week here at TracyFood headquarters, I swear. Yesterday I made Madhur Jaffrey’s Green Lentils With Spinach for dinner, and today I made this salad: a fantastic summer-y meal that can be hearty without being heavy — but only if you have the self control not to eat a double portion, which is difficult because it’s so darn delicious. (more…)
Friday photos and fun! 8 June 2007 9:14 pm
Posted by Tracy in : baking,dessert,friends,garden,people,pictures,salad,school , 2 commentsSummary: the end of spring term at the Urban Farm, a really big bottle of wine, and an invitation! With pictures! For everybody (like me) who’s less visually and more verbally inclined, I was going to post a big list of fun things I’ve been reading lately as well, but that little project will have to wait until Monkey Monday because I am all tired from playing in the garden for hours (take that, rosemary bush!) and filling up on delicious dinner (soft corn tacos with garlicky greens and refried beans, from Jack Bishop’s A Year In a Vegetarian Kitchen). The weekend is certainly off to a good start. But I digress. (more…)
Confessions of a food geek: Olive oil obsession and more. 6 June 2007 10:46 pm
Posted by Tracy in : America's Test Kitchen,cheese,cooking,eating,fangirl,food snobbery,geekery,Harold McGee,identity,news,salad,taste test , 3 commentsSo in case it wasn’t obvious from, oh, this entire blogsite, I’m a bit of a food geek. My kitchen scale is the coolest new toy maybe since Harold McGee’s On Food and Cooking, I think Cook’s Illustrated is by far the best food magazine in the entire universe not just because it has no ads but even more so because their recipes read like lab reports (here’s what we wanted, here’s what went wrong, here’s what we learned and how we eventually fixed the problem), and until recently I was pretty sure that nothing could beat the culinary nerdiness of Cook’s TV show, America’s Test Kitchen. However, until just a few hours ago I had never seen a single episode of Good Eats with Alton Brown. Wow. (more…)
Garden update! 16 May 2007 11:32 pm
Posted by Tracy in : books,cooking,dessert,garden,pictures,salad , 2 commentsI had hoped to take pictures, but it was dark by the time the camera battery was recharged and I’d gotten anything cool-looking done, so proof of today’s awesome accomplishments will have to wait (although I did update my garden pictures on Flickr to include last week’s adventures in the front yard and at the Urban Farm). What did I do today? Well… (more…)
