Section » Reviews
Marie Catrib’s: Finding love, and community, in the center of the G-Rap universe
The following is a guest post from Stephanie Pierce in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Stephanie writes, dreams, and plans at Fourth Sector Consulting, a for-benefit company that works only with mission-driven organizations. Her unofficial title is Practical Wonderer. Stephanie is a graduate
More articles
An “Unsettling” look at industrial agriculture
The flaws of industrial agriculture and the current backlash against it came into sharp focus a couple of weeks ago, following the death of former Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz, well-known for his exhortations to
Digest – Features: Azuluna veal, ethical meat in the UK, Minnesota experiment
Can veal be humanely raised?: Interesting Q&A (despite the dumb title) on rebuilding local meat infrastructure with Dr. George Saperstein of the Tufts University Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine. He's created a rancher network under the name Azuluna Brands, for raising bull calves for veal
Comments Off • Read more »
Finding common grounds: a review of “Black Gold”
How many cups of coffee do you drink during the day? Now, how many cups of coffee would you guess are consumed every day throughout the world? Not being a hard-core coffee drinker myself – one cup will usually satisfy me, if I even need that – I hadn't given the global coffee trade a whole
Digest – Pollanation mania
There's a bumper crop of reviews of Michael Pollan's new book, "In Defense of Food" (see ours) along with an interview with the SOLE Brother No. 1 about it on NPR.
Comments Off • Read more »
The jury is in: A review of Michael Pollan’s “In Defense of Food”
In December 2005 I quit smoking, after 12 years of a cigarette habit that sometimes reached a pack a day. After many, many failed attempts that included nicotine patches, Wellbutrin, and even hypnotherapy (I lit up five minutes after the session), I read a book by Allen Carr called “The Easy Way
Book review: “Super Natural Cooking” by Heidi Swanson
The mass media's coverage of food is a cacophony of quick fixes ("Eat a handful of goji berries and wipe out the effects of those two fast-food burgers you ate for lunch!") and hype ("Do cranberries cure cancer? Stay tuned for a shocking new report"). Heidi Swanson — creator
Getting a feel for Philadelphia’s local-food scene
Note to RSS readers: Flash-based slideshow is embedded in post. When you come from a smaller city in a rural area and your main local-foods choices consist of a couple of upscale restaurants or your own home cooking (with produce from the farmers market, of course), sometimes you want to know what it's
Good cob, bad cob: “King Corn” isn’t against the grain
We feed ourselves very cheaply now. You see those tremendous fields of corn out there, corn as far as the eye can see? That's the age of plenty. —Earl Butz, former secretary of agriculture, in "King Corn" A terrific new documentary called "King Corn" is opening this Friday
Digest – Blogs: “King Corn” dispatches, Bruce helps out People’s Grocery, estate tax loopholing
"King Corn" star blogging: Curt Ellis, one of the co-producers of the new documentary “King Corn” (see our review) is blogging about the movie and its string of openings across the country. (Culinate.com) The
Comments Off • Read more »
Catching up: Washington State locavoreanism
The Butter Bitch and I have been on hiatus for the past few months, due to our day jobs and ongoing projects. The Seattle Times' Pacific Northwest Sunday Magazine devotes most of this week's issue to an overview of Washington's locavorean
Postcard from Tunisia: Heaven — I’m in heaven, and my heart beats so…
...that I can hardly blog. I'm in Tunis, and I've finally yanked out the DSL plug fused directly into my brain, in order to enjoy the past few days of serious R&R, while Marc so ably keeps the Ethicurean home fires burning. (Pelosi,
Digest: Dairy ads restricted, worrisome hormones in all milk, the Bay Area oyster wars
Like Americans, the Digest just gets fatter and fatter. We'd love to put it on a diet, but there's a lot of good stuff out there, and just as at foodie potlucks, we just can't help but load up our plates. NEWS Checkoff, unchecked: The Federal Trade Commission is asking the USDA and the dairy industry
Comments Off • Read more »
Actor/activist Ed Begley gets no respect in “Living with Ed”
My husband watches Home and Garden Television every minute that he's not actually soldering copper or sawing wood. (The Potato Non Grata does occasionally break to do a photo shoot or to watch "Law and Order," the latter over my heavy sighs.) So there was no way I could have missed the promos for "Living
Eclectic Oregon pinot noir: Medici
Over the past two Thanksgiving holidays, the Butter Bitch and I have found ourselves in the Oregon wine country, sampling a number of excellent wines and enjoying the scenery. Our
