Tracie McMillan REASON #3 to buy The American Way of Eating comes from Raj Patel: “These tales lay bare the sinews, the minds, and the relationships that our food system exploits and discards. In a work of deep compassion and integrity, Tracie McMillan offers us an eye-opening report on the human cost of America’s cheap food.” —Raj … Read more
Los Angeles Times • Feb. 19, 2012
Readers curious about food have been able to deepen their knowledge exponentially over the last decade. They know how bad fast food is (thanks to Eric Schlosser), understand the complexities of food production (thanks to Michael Pollan), and know how hard it is to work in a kitchen (thanks to Bill Bryson). There are shelves upon shelves of books about how, why and what we eat by restaurateurs, farmers, chefs and even moonlighting novelists.
REASON #4 to buy The American Way of Eating comes from Barry Estabrook: “To uncover the truth behind how our modern food system works, Tracie M. McMillan took jobs in a supermarket produce section, a chain restaurant kitchen, and the fields along side migrant laborers. If you eat, you owe it to yourself to read this masterful … Read more
Toronto Star • Feb. 18, 2012
Formerly known for her fatty-sweet recipes, TV cooking show host Paula Deen came out as a closet diabetic last month and announced she was the new spokesperson for a diabetes drug company.
Chef, author (Kitchen Confidential) and TV personality Anthony Bourdain responded with this twitter quip: “thinking of getting into the leg-breaking business, so I can profitably sell crutches later.”
REASON #5 to buy The American Way of Eating comes from James Oseland, Saveur magazine: “Tracie McMillan has written a remarkable book for right now—a book that smartly tells us what is wrong with what we eat and how we might improve it. But what is even more remarkable about the book is how deeply … Read more
Well, the trolls may be out in full force, but @Slate put up a lovely front image for #AWE. http://ow.ly/i/sOoM
REASON #6 to buy The American Way of Eating comes from Janet Poppendieck: “This is the book I’ve been waiting for ever since I started teaching about the American food system. It pulls you in with compelling stories of the real people who do the work, often exhausting and dangerous, that makes our American way … Read more
The Detroit Metro Times • Feb. 15, 2012
I first met author and foreign correspondent Annia Ciezadlo in New York City. Like me, she was a Midwestern mutt torn between the city’s seductive bustle and the airs it put on. It was the early 2000s, a decade before Ciezadlo published her stunning memoir, now out in paperback, Day of Honey: A Memoir of Food, Love, and War. The book chronicles her “honeymoon in Baghdad” in 2003, the months she spent there, and her subsequent move to Beirut, all the while working as a foreign correspondent alongside her Lebanese husband, journalist Mohamad Bazzi. (Like many Lebanese, Bazzi has family in Dearborn.)
I caught up with Ciezadlo while she cooked up greens and shallots to talk about what it’s like to move to the Middle East as an American woman — and how stories of daily life and meals tell us as much about a country as the tales of its wars.
Slate • Feb. 15, 2012
Nearly three years ago, Tracie McMillan left New York to go undercover within the American food system. McMillan had grown weary of lectures about local food that dismissed the importance of price to working-class people. At the same time, she knew from her work as a poverty reporter that poor families cared about the quality of their food, too. McMillan hoped to get a ground-level view of how Americans actually make decisions about their meals, especially when money and time are scarce.
Great news: My initial account of working undercover at Applebee’s has gone up on Slate. Inside sources say it’s hanging out near the top of the “most emailed” list!
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