Four ways of looking at Trader Joe’s 5 February 2008 10:34 am
Posted by Tracy in : politics, fangirl, environment, sustainability, responsibility, convenience, friends , 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…)
Book review: “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle” by Barbara Kingsolver and family. 7 June 2007 1:33 pm
Posted by Tracy in : seasonality, reviews, garden, local food, milk, sustainability, books, recipes, cheese, eating , add a commentWhat can I say about this book that has not already been said? Local food is a hot topic right now, what with this book coming out at almost the same time as Plenty by Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon of the 100-Mile Diet, and so I started reading articles about Animal, Vegetable, Mineral even before I got my hands a copy. I’m reluctant to write anything that just repeats all the responses already in print (or online, as the case may be). Instead, I will give just a brief summary before proceeding directly to my personal responses, with a minimum of the general analysis that’s already been done in many other places. (more…)
Book review: “Coming Home To Eat” by Gary Paul Nabham 17 May 2007 11:54 pm
Posted by Tracy in : reviews, politics, local food, advice, environment, eating, books, sustainability, cooking , add a commentLet me get this out of the way first: I do not recommend this book. It was due back at my friendly local public library last Thursday, and before that I had it at home for two months, during which I only managed to read the first 110 pages, all of which felt vaguely like a punishment. If you’re looking for a good read about the local food movement, check out Brian Halweil’s Eat Here: Reclaiming homegrown pleasures in a global supermarket, which has no right to be a much better book, but nonetheless is. (more…)
Monkey Monday: “eat local” weekend food logs 23 April 2007 8:22 pm
Posted by Tracy in : seasonality, work, milk, school, monkeys, breakfast, America's Test Kitchen, tea, local food, environment, sustainability, hungry planet, CSA, eating, anthropology, eugene, responsibility, cheese, dessert, convenience, cooking , 2 commentsImportant finding number one: Quitting caffeine cold turkey is not for the faint of heart like me. I had a raging headache by around 2 PM Saturday and gave in and had some freaking tea already around 8 PM, after which sources report I was much less hellish to be around (and I will concede that it was much more pleasant to be me, oh yes). But! Aside from that tea and some salt and some cumin, everything else I ate this weekend was grown or manufactured in Oregon, with the exception of some russet potatoes from Washington, because I miscalculated the amount of spuds it would take to get me through the weekend. The single lamest part of the experiment (besides the whole wanting to kill everything for lack of caffeine) was that I got totally insanely possessive about my food, because there were so few things in the house that fit my (admittedly totally arbitrary) dietary parameters. The caffeine-withdrawal-induced crankiness almost certainly didn’t help with my food possessiveness, to put it mildly. Anyway. On to what I ate! (more…)
Monkey Monday: short attention span edition 2 April 2007 10:28 pm
Posted by Tracy in : monkeys, garden, work, Morning Glory, agriculture, sustainability, books , add a commentOof. I am maybe still a little tired after the big spring break ride to and from Corvallis and the gardening and then the working three days in a row. We had a super-busy Saturday at Morning Glory; Sunday (yesterday) was surprisingly mellow, and today was even more chill, which was good because as previously mentioned there’s me and there’s tired and the two are pretty synonymous at the moment. BUT! (more…)
