eating & shopping Archives - Page 3 of 4

Our Daily Bread

January 22, 2025February 15, 2012

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.

@WholeFoods? Cost-conscious? Say wha? http://ow.ly/8qn0O

April 1, 2024January 12, 2012

The Whole Foods press release copy was pretty trite (“Frugal is the new black!”*) for this post about America’s cost-conscious consumption. But the actual content—findings from a WF-commissione survey of American’s shopping habits—was pretty striking. The poll of 2,100 Americans in August found: 74 percent wouldn’t compromise on the quality of the food they buy … Read more

What heroin addicts can teach us about eating well: a belated take @nprnews and @aspiegelnpr

April 1, 2024January 9, 2012

I spent the day after New Year’s careening—if a resolute dedication to the speed limit can be called careening—down I-80 from Detroit to Brooklyn, so it’s taken be a few days to double back and re-listen to this beautiful piece by NPR correpondent Alix Spiegel, What Vietnam Taught Us About Breaking Bad Habits. What I … Read more

“Lunch Line”: A Meaty Lesson for Moviegoers

January 22, 2025June 10, 2010

The Atlantic • June 10, 2010

How did it get so hard to feed kids healthy food?

This inquiry undergirds most recent efforts to examine what we feed our kids in school, yet from Two Angry Moms to Jamie Oliver’s School Food Revolution, the focus has tended to be on documenting what is wrong with school lunch: the chicken nuggets, the greasy crackerbread pizza, the nacho cheeze products, and the mozzarella sticks. But it’s the former question that matters most if school lunch is going to change—and that is precisely where Lunch Line, Uji Films’s ambitious new documentary that premiered in mid-May, makes its mark.

The Gourmet Q & A: Joshua Viertel

January 22, 2025November 21, 2008

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.

Read more

Corner Store Cornucopia

January 22, 2025March 19, 2008

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.

Soothing Chicken Soup is Worth the Time

January 22, 2025February 16, 2007

MSNBC.com • Feb. 16, 2007

My first attempt at chicken soup ended in an explosion. I was nine, and making a Laura Ingalls-inspired effort to nurse my pneumonia-stricken father to health. In keeping with the pioneer theme, I had grabbed an old-fashioned ceramic pot out of my mother’s china cabinet. It shattered in about five minutes, having endured the highest heat setting possible on the electric stovetop.

This particular experience illustrates several rules to keep in mind before undertaking the creation of your very own chicken soup. Nostalgia may well work against you. Though the end product will be pretty, the process is not. And while the work stops short of being complicated, it nonetheless attains the label of “time-consuming.”

The Anxiety of Appetite

January 22, 2025January 23, 2007

Salon • Jan. 23, 2007

America’s food enthusiasts may find it hard to place the name Barry Glassner. He’s not a television chef, or a restaurant critic, or a diet guru. Indeed, the University of Southern California sociologist is known primarily for his best-selling 2000 book, “The Culture of Fear,” a dissection of the anxious underpinnings of the American psyche. It’s a subject that might seem to have little relevance to the dinner table, but Glassner begs to differ. If his latest book, “The Gospel of Food,” makes one thing plain, it’s that few topics generate more worry among Americans than our breakfasts, lunches and dinners.

Perfect Grilled Cheese is Simple, Satisfying

January 22, 2025January 4, 2007

MSNBC.com • Jan. 4, 2007

It’s easy to overlook the grilled cheese as a culinary delight. Reminiscent of rainy childhood afternoons, and most typically prepared with highly processed ingredients, this hot sandwich can in fact yield an opportunity for fresh and delicious experimentation — even for the most cooking-averse grown ups.

“Put together properly, you can really experience the perfect bite,” says Nancy Silverton, whose famed Campanile made waves in L.A. with its sandwich nights — so much so that she went on publish “Nancy Silverton’s Sandwich Book.”

The Julia Child of Malaysian Food

January 22, 2025December 12, 2006

Salon • Dec. 12, 2006

Pre-made sushi and pad thai may now be making appearances on American dinner tables from coast to coast, but mention Malaysian food to your Midwestern aunt, and you’re still likely to get a raised eyebrow. James Oseland is on a mission to change that. Just as Julia Child‘s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” brought French food into the hearts and hands of American housewives 40 years ago, Oseland’s new cookbook, “Cradle of Flavor: Home Cooking From the Spice Islands of Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia,” is a comprehensive and charismatic attempt to introduce Americans to a great, global cuisine.