It’s been a couple good days here in the AWE offices. (Note: by “office,” I do mean “laptop perched on lap in apartment I’m settling back into after 3 years of reporting from, more or less, my ’94 Ford Escort”). First, the trenchant Stacy Mitchell published a piece on Walmart’s increasing control of our food … Read more
Today’s procrastination bonus: The American Way of Eating is in the top 20 new releases being sold on Amazon in the “Poverty” category. I can’t imagine that it’s incredibly competitive as a category, but at least I beat out the reference text on disability. (Which is plenty important, but it not the sort of book … Read more
All my life, I’ve been looking for this: A smart, easy take on how to make Hamburger Helper from Scratch. In fact, I did a quick experiment for the book showing that it was cheaper to make Hamburger Helper from scratch—and just as easy. (Formal stats: 43 percent cheaper, 1 minute longer.) But that was … Read more
In the crushing buildup to the holiday, I nearly missed this scuffle in New York over Walmart’s ongoing effort to open stores in the city. Manhattan Borough President Scott M. Stringer released a report a couple weeks ago suggesting that adding a Walmart to Harlem would force local businesses to close. That’s a reasonable fear, … Read more
I don’t have much in the way of fact to add to Jane Black’s summary of this interesting new study from UC-Davis researchers showing that it’s not America’s poor who are eating fast food, but our middle class. But I think this is interesting: Figuring out how to make healthier food rival the drive-through for … Read more
I’ve been waiting for the Dining Guide from the Restaurant Opportunities Center for a while, and it does not disappoint. Well, scratch that: It does disappoint, but only because they find such depressing norms across the restaurant industry, which now employs nearly 10 percent of U.S. workers. My alma-mater, Applebee’s, came through with straight failing … Read more
I’ve long been a fan of Earthworks Urban Farm in Detroit, and farm manager Patrick Crouch was my first tour guide there. This charming interview with local urban farmer Edith Floyd encapsulates exactly what led me to cover urban farming in the first place: Normal people, living in neighborhoods, passionate about good food and growing … Read more
I’ll be moving content over from my old blog, 5DollarDinner, soon, but welcome to the new blog for Tracie McMillan (that’s me). This is where I’ll be talking about food, class, opportunity and inequity in America—which, as it happens, is the topic of my forthcoming book, The American Way of Eating: Undercover at Walmart, Applebee’s, … Read more
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
By Tracie McMillan, available at City Limits. State officials are considering temporarily cutting people from the welfare rolls if they reach the federal five-year time limit, City Limits has learned. In an obscure regulatory change announced for consideration in mid-October, the State Office for Temporary and Disability Assistance put forth plans to require families to submit a … Read more
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