I read this on Facebook and absolutely love it. The author, Arun Gupta, understands and acknowledges cultural appropriation as a fact and a legitimate concern (as do I). But he also believes the “reactionary left” spreading lists of ethnic restaurants run by white people …essentializes the notion of culture as
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wmtc: in which i test a bit of conventional wisdom and find out is in false: the mystery of roman tuna salad
I’ve noticed that ideas that I used to blog about, I am now posting on Facebook instead — a combination of laziness and time pressure. I’m going to try to get the ideas here, first.Conventional wisdom has it that preparing food at home is less expensi…
Continue readingwmtc: in which i test a bit of conventional wisdom and find out it is false: the mystery of roman tuna salad
I’ve noticed that ideas that I used to blog about, I am now posting on Facebook instead — a combination of laziness and time pressure. I’m going to try to get the ideas here, first.Conventional wisdom has it that preparing food at home is less expensi…
Continue readingwmtc: what i’m reading: salt sugar fat by michael moss
Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us by Michael Moss is an excellent addition to a bookshelf that includes works by Michael Pollan, Eric Schlosser, Marian Nestle and others who write about the health of our food and the un-health of the industrial food system. Moss lifts the
Continue readingwmtc: rtod
Revolutionary thought of the day: Hunger isn’t about the amount of food around. It’s about being able to afford and control that food. After all, the U.S. has more food than it knows what to do with, and still 50 million people are food insecure. Raj Patel, author of Stuffed
Continue readingwmtc: mini-garden update: the eggplant arrives
I grew this! It’s eight inches long, and three more are on the way. What’s ordinary to you veteran gardeners is still miraculous to me. Gardening on a small scale is easy, fun, and very rewarding. Next stop, eggplant recipes.
Continue readingwmtc: zucchini abundance recipe of the day: zucchini-corn-tomato bake
I found a bunch of recipes similar to this, and adapted them to my tastes. This one is easy (especially if you use a food processor to shred the zucchini and cheese), healthy, and tasty. I feel like the ability to tweak and change recipes marks a turning point in
Continue readingwmtc: zucchini abundance recipe of the day: penne with zucchini and fresh herbs
This is probably the easiest way to use zucchini from your garden, and if you’re growing herbs, it’s an excuse to use those, too. It’s also one of those dishes that takes just about anything you like in pasta. I’m keeping it very simple, so as not to drown out
Continue readingwmtc: zucchini abundance recipe of the day: zucchini fritters
Apparently if you grow zucchini, you have too much of it. Being new gardeners, we didn’t know how prolific our one zucchini plant would be, or the insane quantities – and size! – of the vegetables it would produce. And those leaves! They’re gigantic and there’s so many of them!
Continue readingwmtc: for those who believe meat-eating can be ethical: in praise of beretta farms
I’ve mentioned Beretta Farms in many different posts over the years, but I’ve never specifically blogged about them. With grilling season underway, it’s time to give Beretta a shout-out. When I learned about the horrors of factory farming, first from reading Michael Pollan, and later through other sources, I knew
Continue readingwmtc: this year’s garden and diego’s new favourite food
Three years ago, we planted our first-ever garden, really a tiny garden-ette, growing two tomato plants and some daisies. (I had forgotten about the flowers til I saw that older post.) I really enjoyed growing the vegetables, and was surprised and pleased to learn that it wasn’t very time-consuming, at
Continue readingwmtc: the gluten-free hoax: nutritionism run amok
Today I saw a bag of high-end cheese puffs, made with organic corn and real cheese. WHEAT FREE and GLUTEN FREE, the package boasted, which made me chuckle. Yup, just like all cheese puffs for all time. Like most snack food, cheese puffs are made of corn, and corn does
Continue readingwmtc: is the food movement elitist? michael pollan connects the dots between labour and our tables
In an excellent interview in Truthout, Michael Pollan responds to critics who accuse the food movement of being elitist. He very rightly credits Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation with explicitly drawing the connection between labour issues, animal issues, and our own food issues. And Pollan calls out the industrialized food
Continue readingwmtc: healthy slow-cooker recipe of the week: i finally make delicious lentil soup, thanks to you
Last summer, I asked for help in turning my drab lentil soup into something more yummy and enticing. Thanks to wmtc readers, I’ve done it. Yesterday for the first time, I made lentil soup that I will actually look forward to eating (as opposed to tolerating because I made it
Continue readingwmtc: a small green victory: more plastics now recyclable in peel
Yes! A few years back, I blogged about discovering that many of the plastics I had been putting in my recycling bin were not, in fact, recyclable. A few months after that, I unpacked a typical environmental dilemma: organic lettuce. Organic lettuce is the perfect example of a green paradox. It’s
Continue readingwmtc: healthy slow-cooker recipe of the week: help me make delicious lentil soup
The healthy slow-cooker recipe of the week – now running about every-other week – has hit a snag: lentil soup. I love lentil soup, but my own is turning out just OK, not really delicious. After the first try was too bland, Stephanie suggested using allspice and more bay leaves.
Continue readingwmtc: healthy slow-cooker recipe of the week: chicken in wine with sun-dried tomatoes
When it comes to soups and stews, there is a seemingly endless number of variables that can be changed to create new variations of any given dish. If you like chicken stew, for example, you could experiment with different combinations of vegetables, different seasonings, better (or quicker) stocks, fresh herbs
Continue readingwmtc: healthy slow-cooker recipe of the week: sausage and three-bean stew
Whether this recipe qualifies as healthy depends on whether you think sausage can be part of a healthy diet. I buy sausage that is made from local, organically raised turkey and free of preservatives. The sausage is slightly higher in saturated fat than skinless chicken breast, but way lower in
Continue readingwmtc: healthy slow-cooker recipe of the week: beef, barley, and mushroom stew
This week’s healthy slow-cooker recipe features barley, a yummy and healthy grain. I especially love the chewy texture. Barley is one of the four oldest grains to be cultivated by humans.* Unfortunately, whole-grain barley is difficult to find. The more common pearl barley is not a whole grain. I haven’t
Continue readingwmtc: healthy slow-cooker recipe of the week: vegetarian chili
This has turned out to be one of our favourite slow-cooker meals. It’s delicious, incredibly easy to make, super healthy, and inexpensive. Adapted from nowhere: it’s my own. Canned beans, properly rinsed and drained, have the same nutritional value as dried beans. They’re much easier to use and work well
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