Category Archives: food in culture

Vote for a blind chef

Oprah’s taking auditions for shows on her tv network, which I guess means that Oprah has a tv network now.  (You see how closely I follow these things.) My aunt shared with me an audition from her friend Celia Chacon, who wants to do a cooking show. The catch: Celia is blind. What a great [...]

Posted in food in culture | 1 Comment

Meatless Mondays are great – but Mario Batali’s doing it wrong

I love the idea of Meatless Mondays: to eat less meat, have one day of the week devoted to meatless meals.  It makes it easy to plan for eating less meat, helps home cooks learn new vegetarian dishes, and even makes it easier to eat less meat during the rest of the week.  There are [...]

Posted in food in culture | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Is growing your own food the new feminism?

A few months ago, Michael Pollan wrote an editorial in the NY Times urging Americans to cook more.  Feminists called him out, claiming that this burden would inevitably fall on women rather than men, and called him sexist.  I disagree – I think we do need to cook more, and both men and women should [...]

Also posted in food politics | Leave a comment

Why you should cook even though you worked late

Among the many excuses for not cooking, working late is a really popular one.  You worked long hours, you’re tired, you’re probably stressed and you’re definitely hungry by the time you get home.  You want nothing more than to toss something in the microwave and settle down to watch the Simpsons (or, depending on how [...]

Posted in food in culture | Leave a comment

Julie, Julia… and me

This afternoon, I saw Julie & Julia, and it was excellent.  It isn’t really a movie about food – it’s a great movie where food happens to play a major role.  There’s plenty of amazing-looking food to make you hungry (and by the time I left the theater, I sure was hungry!), but the most [...]

Posted in food in culture | Leave a comment

Green tea in ginger ale? Why?

I’ve been hearing bits and pieces recently about how Canada Dry is now selling ginger ale with green tea in it.  Yesterday, I heard it advertised on the radio for the first time. I’m a little baffled.  I can see how the flavors of ginger and green tea would go well together (ginger green tea [...]

Posted in food in culture | Leave a comment

Organic can still be bad for you

There’s some confusion in the world about exactly what “organic” means – in fact, it means less than you think.  Organic food – essentially food certified that it was made without pesticides – can still be junk food, and can still be unhealthy.  Mark Bittman has a great article this week about how the “organic” [...]

Also posted in easy meals | Leave a comment

A vegetarian-friendly Thanksgiving

Of all the holidays, I find Thanksgiving the hardest to do as a vegetarian.  That’s mostly because it’s so steeped in tradition, and in many families (certainly in mine) particular recipes are expected year after year.  It’s okay, because many of the traditional side dishes are vegetarian by nature: sweet potatoes (maybe skip the marshmallows, [...]

Also posted in mock meat, seasonal | 1 Comment

A good Southern meal?

One of the food vendors at the Green Festival yesterday was selling a fixed plate of vegetarian Southern fare: collards, macaroni and cheese, and corn bread.  I was scared away by the long lines, but it looked so delicious that the meal stuck in my mind, and I decided to make something similar tonight. I’ll [...]

Posted in food in culture | Leave a comment

Wall-E: Score one for plants!

If you have a child, or know a child, you should take them to see Wall-E.  If there are no kids around, you should go see it anyway.  (When we saw it last night, a large percent of the audience was there without kids.) Not only is it an excellent movie in its own right, [...]

Posted in food in culture | Leave a comment