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BONUS: Updated Double-Fried Chicken, Sweet-Hot Peanut Sauce and Herbed Fritters

I had so much fun playing with Frida Kahlo’s recipe for Double-Fried Chicken and Nut Sauce for Yahoo Food that I couldn’t help tweak it to my liking. Here’s what I came up with:

 

Frida Kahlo’s Double-Fried Chicken

Sweet and Spicy Peanut sauce

Herbed Fritters

Adapted from Frida’s Fiestas

Servings: 8

This is not a quick weeknight meal. There are three major steps: Making the sauce, frying the chicken the first time, and then frying it the second. Unless you relish long and arduous cooking, I say break it up: Make the sauce in advance, as much as a day or two. Round one of frying can be done ahead of time if you like, though you may sacrifice some crispness. As you near the second frying time, warm the sauce on the stove, but keep in mind that the white peanut sauce will darken from snowy white to beige if you heat it for very long.

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BONUS: How Whole Foods really prices its food

It’s easy to gloss over the details in all the hubbub over the feature I just published with Slate and the Food and Environment Reporting Network, “Can Whole Foods Really Chance the Way Poor People Eat?” But I would encourage anyone interested in the nuts and bolts of food reporting to pay attention to the data set we amassed for the piece.

What’s the big deal with the data?

Comparing food prices between stores is phenomenally difficult to do well. Brand names, sale prices, different sized packaging…all of it gets very confusing, very quickly. The USDA does track food prices, but only at the bulk level—for a pound of green peas, for example. But most of us don’t buy just a pound of shelled green peas. We buy Green Giant, or we buy Cascadian Farmr, or we buy White Rose, with all the presumed differences between them affecting price. There simply isn’t anywhere that researchers can go, let alone consumers, to see a coherent comparison with name brands. Until now.

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Southern Foodways Alliance Symposium: Introducing Joseph Piko Ewoodzie

I had the complete pleasure of attending this year’s Southern Foodways Alliance Symposium Oct. 23-26 this fall.It was a particularly compelling program, centered on “Who Is Welcome at the Welcome Table?” and examining issues of race, class and equity in food. I also had the delight of introducing the work of Mr. Joseph Piko Ewoodzie, who … Read more

Total honor: I’m one of Eater’s 72 Ways Food Can Change the World

Sept. 21, 2014 I not only enjoyed writing a quick piece for the delightful Eater website about what inspires my work, and why I think food can change the world, but am honored to be among 71 (!) other food world names, most of whom are way plenty more accomplished than me. You can read the whole … Read more

The New Face of Hunger in America (coverage)

“Happening Now with Jon Scott and Jenna Lee,” Fox News • August 4, 2014 National Geographic Magazine uncovers surprising new information about poverty Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com   

I was a hungry college kid, too

The Washington Post has a sobering piece up this morning: Hunger among college kids is now so common that more than a hundred schools have established food banks on-campus for students. First, I was appalled. And then I remembered: I could have used one in school, too. I’ve long had a running joke for use in … Read more

Top dollar for heated sidewalks while 1.2+ million New Yorkers too poor to heat their homes. #CantMakeThisUp

In 2011, the most recent year for which data is readily available: 1.2 million New Yorkers received help from the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program  This weekend, the New York Times real estate section reported on a burgeoning market for heated sidewalks in the city’s tonier neighborhoods. Among the benefits: “It’s just really nice to have … Read more

February 2014 rears its chilly head

Looking for fun in February? Perhaps you’d enjoy catching one of my talks, in NYC and Philly. Hear about those, other upcoming talks, my favorite new reads and my wonderful new gig at Wesleyan here.

T. McMillan Feb 2014 Update: NYC, Philly and More

   Check out my upcoming talks in Philly and NYC; hear about my new professorship at Wesleyan, and hear about my favorite new journalistic projects! Feb 2014: Talks in NYC and Philly; teaching at Wesleyan and more! Tracie McMillan February 2014 new title: Professor I’m thrilled to announce that I just started the semester as a … Read more

A crazy year: Tracie McMillan’s 2013 update

  Fall and year-end round up for Tracie McMillan, author, The American Way of Eating. Is this email not displaying correctly? . Tracie McMillan Check it: Fall highlights, and many thanks, for a crazy year. new website! I loved iCompendium, who I would recommend ANY DAY,  but I needed to better-manage all my online text. So: courtsey … Read more

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