Published Work Archives - Page 13 of 23

The Gourmet Q & A: Joshua Viertel

January 22, 2025November 21, 2008

Gourmet

Gourmet.com • Nov. 21, 2008

By the time Joshua Viertel took the helm of Slow Food USA this fall, the 30-year old already had a quiet reputation for mixing a refined palate with grassroots sensibilities. The former farmer’s résumé would make most recruiters pause: There are stints in Sicilian sheep pastures, hurricane-ravaged towns in Honduras, and small New England farms; a philosophy degree and protester bona fides from Harvard; and a job history that includes a reference from Alice Waters. If it seems like a no-brainer to hand the reins of the country’s most prominent food-culture group to this man, some of Viertel’s other passions—grassroots organizing and social justice—suggest where the next generation of American foodies may be headed. Writer Tracie McMillan spoke with Viertel, fresh from Slow Food International’s Terra Madre conference in Italy, to talk about founding Yale’s landmark farming initiative, whether we should be paying more for our food, and finding inspiration in a bodega.

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Looks Good on Paper [pdf]

January 22, 2025August 1, 2008

Harper's Magazine

This annotation from Harper’s magazine cannot readily be translated into text only. You can check it out on Harper’s site, or download a PDF here.

Looks Good on Paper: With welfare-to-work, presentation is everything

January 22, 2025August 1, 2008

Harper's Magainze

By Tracie McMillanRead the original publication in Harper’s Magazine. The welfare system was overhauled, in 1996, on the premise that the un-employed and supposedly unemployable could be forced into jobs. Tougher restrictions on welfare, we were told, would lead the poor to self-sufficiencyand eventually to upward mobility. But to enter the job market, welfare’s millions … Read more

Doing Good at a Distance

January 22, 2025June 1, 2008

Town & Country

Town & Country • June 2008

When Christel DeHaan heard of the sexual abuse scandal at the Oprah Winfrey Academy for Girls, west of Johannesburg, South Africa, the private philanthropist didn’t tsk-tsk. She sympathized. Ten years after founding Christel House, an international academy based in Indianapolis that Winfrey studied before founding her own, DeHaan knew that bad things can happen even at charities with “the best of practices.” Horrible as they can be, however, such occasional violations in trust were once an unavoidable risk for donors supporting organizations abroad. But as news of criminal activity at charities—whether international or domestic—has spread, donors are increasingly wanting more than an assurance that their gifts are being put to good use. They want proof.

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Urban Farms

January 22, 2025June 1, 2008

Contribute

Contribute • June 2008

For years, urban dwellers have tinkered with window-box and roof-deck gardens, toiling to transform small patches of empty land behind brownstones and beneath skyscrapers into bounty.

But now, there’s something bigger growing out of those neighborhood plots. More and more people—and most notably, nonprofit health advocates—are creating urban farms to promote healthier and less expensive local alternatives to corporate processed foods.

Urban Farmers’ Crops Go From Vacant Lot to Market

January 22, 2025May 7, 2008

New York Times

New York Times • May 7, 2008

In the shadows of the elevated tracks toward the end of the No. 3 line in East New York, Brooklyn, with an April chill still in the air, Denniston and Marlene Wilks gently pulled clusters of slender green shoots from the earth, revealing a blush of tiny red shallots at the base.

“Dennis used to keep them big, and people didn’t buy them,” Mrs. Wilks said. “They love to buy scallions.”

Growing up in rural Jamaica, the Wilkses helped their families raise crops like sugar cane, coffee and yams, and take them to market. Now, in Brooklyn, they are farmers once again, catering to their neighbors’ tastes: for scallions, for bitter melons like those from the West Indies and East Asia and for cilantro for Latin-American dinner tables.

After Loss of Markets, NY May Boost Groceries

January 19, 2025April 21, 2008

City Limits

Harlem— While the city’s trying to increase the number of produce carts and encourage bodegas to carry healthier food, state officials are angling for bigger game: Supermarkets.

Agriculture officials said they’re hoping to establish a program to boost supermarket development in underserved communities, basing the effort on a Pennsylvania program – the $120 million Fresh Food Financing Initiative – that’s been on the books since 2004. Widely considered a national model, Pennsylvania’s program has already helped to renovate or build 50 food stores statewide, all in underserved areas, since its inception.

Corner Store Cornucopia

January 22, 2025March 19, 2008

Good

Good • March 19, 2008

At Romano’s Grocery, a small bodega in northeast Philadelphia, former staples like beef jerky are suddenly hard to find. That’s because last December, Juan Carlos Romano renovated his old establishment and ‘created what many hope will become a national model: the healthy corner store. With assistance from Philadelphia’s Food Trust, a food advocacy group, Romano is pairing a sustainable makeover-low-energy coolers and lights-with a transformation of his store’s wares, from packaged and processed to fresh and healthy. Studies have found that for each additional supermarket in a given area, fruit and vegetable consumption increases by as much as 32 percent. By increasing access to fresh produce in Romano’s neighborhood, the Food Trust hopes it can improve community health and, if the plan works, expand the program to other areas. There’s no official verdict on the store’s success yet, but David Nixon, a diabetic and regular customer, was pleased on opening day: “I’d rather have an apple than a Little Debbie,” he says.

Superdelegate Sleaze: A Case Study

January 22, 2025March 18, 2008

The Huffington Post

The Huffington Post • March 18, 2008

At a moment when Democratic Party officials are urging voters to trust unelected superdelegates to act in the country’s best interests, HuffPost’s OffTheBus investigation into the background of DNC superdelegates reveals at least one appointed superdelegate who is as likely to use his political connections for personal profit as for the greater good.

Take the case of Joseph F. Johnson, a member-at-large of the Democratic National Committee from Chantilliy, Virginia –a suburb of Washington D.C. — and a superdelegate currently tilting toward Hillary Clinton.

In Harlem’s Test Kitchen: A Taste of Local Recipes

January 22, 2025January 28, 2008

City Limits

City Limits Weekly • Jan. 28, 2008

Flushing— The Go Green East Harlem Cookbook, edited by Scott Stringer, Jones Books, $17.95 in stores, free at community events.

It’s difficult to take critical aim at a community cookbook. Rarely intended as just a repository of cooking advice, the recipe collections of neighborhood associations, houses of worship, immigrant clubs and tenants’ groups are often aimed more at raising funds and morale than actually generating whole, good meals. Any true culinary skill gleaned from them is a result of luck as much as intention.