While early dusk settled across downtown Portland, the sun still shone brilliantly orange a mere fifteen minutes away, casting long and dappled light onto Sauvie Island.
A few weekends ago, I sat at brunch, my husband to my right, two friends across from us, forks dipping into eggs Benedict and quiche, a kale salad nudged to the middle for easier sharing.
When Danny Gabriner first began baking bread, he gave away 1,000 loaves for free.
Americans consistently elevate Italian food culture onto a mantle of gastronomic fulfillment.
Talking about food is best on a full stomach, as the resulting discourse, often fraught and conflicted, flows best when not hindered by hunger-induced crankiness.
Around the fifth time we dropped a few pounds of eggplant into our red market basket, we paused and took a closer look at our selection.
At a Wednesday CSA pick-up at Working Hands Farm in Hillsboro, Oregon, that “imperative to feed people” stood out clearly, just as it had when I observed the farm’s CSA pick-up last year.
Tunnels bypass previously impassable areas, free up congestion in cities, and hide unsightly traffic.
It wouldn’t surprise anyone who reads this site that my list of favorite foods is exceedingly large, ranging from cheese to bread, beer to wine, sauerkraut to pickles.
People are either going to drink transgenic orange juice or they’re going to drink apple juice.
"Farming” in America holds many meanings, and only a few have anything to do with food.
If you live a middle class life in a first world country, you have the option of absolving yourself from any connection to self-sufficiency.
On a warm Seattle Sunday, Bob Redmond paused in the middle of teaching a beginner beekeeping class to notice the silence.
As I was fillings bags of bulk ingredients on a recent trip to New Seasons, I overheard an earnest conversation that brought this question to mind.
In a food cart built from scratch, I watched Picnic's John Dovydenas and Jen Cox form bread from giant containers of yeasted dough, roast carrots into softly blistered orange chunks, slice freshly roasted Kookoolan chickens to order, and hand customers hearty, creative cookie combinations like olive oil and pine nut.
It was simpler to clarify my eating preferences several years ago, when I was a complete vegetarian.
Any conversation about American food culture eventually comes around to a familiar set of topics: the decline of the "family dinner", the pervasiveness of fast food, and ways to make cooking more convenient.
It's no surprise that living in an age of globalized trade and supermarket chains has changed the way we shop for food.
This article is Part Two of my research on our country’s relationship to milk, specifically the culture surrounding milk, milk pricing, and milk consolidation.
If I had to guess, I'd say that nearly everyone has made blueberry muffins before.
The Farm Bill reauthorization is steadily moving forward, with Senators and committees recommending cuts and shifts.
Despite its innocuous name, the Farm Bill is a beast of legislation.
Anyone who has watched Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution, followed the recent "pink slime" food debacle, or rolled their eyes when pizza was deemed a vegetable, knows that school food has its fair share of problems.
I already wrote about one way to cook radishes: as a component in a refreshing spring pasta.
The failure of federal efforts to feed the poor cannot be divorced from our nation's agricultural policy, the congressional committees that dictate that policy, and the Department of Ag that implements it.
I didn’t read Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food until last month.
That’s the question Barry Estabrook uses as a jumping off point for his new book, Tomatoland.
I’ve noticed a common thread among the local artisans, farmers, and purveyors I most admire: they’ve each learned to accept, and even embrace, nuance and unpredictability without sacrificing the quality of their product.
The CAFO Reader has been a long (clearly, I started over four months ago!) and challenging read.
What image comes into your head when you hear the phrase ‘technological takeover’?
We’ve had several people ask us how we’d describe Portland’s food culture, and we’ve found ourselves repeating words: unpretentious, fun, ingredient focused, and welcoming.
I attended a panel discussion several weeks ago at NYU that corresponded perfectly with the section I just finished in The CAFO Reader--in fact, the timing of the panel felt almost like I had planned it.
I found Part 4 of The CAFO Reader to be dense and slightly repetitive.
My mother likes to mail me packets of newspaper clippings and articles she’s saved that she thinks will be of interest to me.
Each summer in elementary school, my brother and I would participate in the summer library program.
Fittingly enough, Part 1 of The CAFO Reader starts from the true beginning of the development of industrial meat production.
Some people assign themselves enjoyable New Year’s resolutions along the lines of ‘See friends more’ or ‘Take time for me’.
My mother loves to clip out articles from newspapers and magazines and send them my way.
A reflection on this year’s Thanksgiving dinner starts out in a nearly identical fashion to last year’s Thanksgiving dinner post: we’ve just moved; we want to cook Thanksgiving dinner because we love sourcing and cooking elaborate meals; we view Thanksgiving as a fitting celebration after an exhausting move.
Yesterday, I browsed through some old archives on this blog and came across one dated July 25, 2009.
About a week ago, my brother shared an article from Foreign Policy Magazine with me, thinking I would find it of interest.
Until moving to Brooklyn, I was unaware of the relative insanity that surrounds the start of ramp season.
This past weekend, I had the chance to visit The Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture.
This past Monday, I had the pleasure of attending the premiere of Big River, the sequel to the documentary King Corn.
As partially expected, Niman talked about similar issues (and even farmers) that Jonathan Safran Foer and Michael Pollan have written about.