Posts by Lady Bird

While I was eating $1.99 Safeway Organic tomato soup for lunch (don’t hate—it’s close to payday), here’s the menu city council members and staff were enjoying at their annual departmental retreat, held this year at the downtown Bell Harbor Conference Center: Organic Mixed Greens with Assorted Dressings Classic Caesar Salad Seasonal Fruit Salad Greek Pasta [...]

Lest readers think my M.O. is to go to restaurants on opening night and slag on them for failing to live up to my inflated expectations, take note: I waited a full week to go to the Spice Room, the new, hotly-anticipated Thai restaurant in Columbia City. And guess what? I loved it. I’m going [...]

This, in no particular order and chosen somewhat arbitrarily from memory, is my list of some of the best meals I made in 2009. Tellingly, perhaps, several of them are from the now-defunct Gourmet magazine, and none are from its putative replacement*, Bon Appetit. 1. Salsa Verde Carnitas (Pork Tacos with Green Sauce) This recipe, [...]

Or, FoodNerd reads the critics’ prognostications for 2010 so you don’t have to.

My pretend boyfriend, Ezra Klein, has a smart piece today about—stick with me here—the behavioral economics of Thanksgiving. Basically, Klein argues that we can control what we eat at Thanksgiving—and how much—by planning for our (predictable) irrationality beforehand, while we’re still feeling rational. Start with a soup course (what economists refer to as a “default”), [...]

Some last-minute foodie links for the slow pre-Thanksgiving news day: Mark Bittman has a recipe for make-ahead gravy; Ruhlman shares his method for make-ahead stock. Why not combine the two? (And while you’re at it, make Ruhlman’s Brussels sprouts with bacon, roasted red pepper, and pine nuts—or just gawk at his wife Donna’s amazing photos, [...]

When Gourmet Magazine went under, one of the biggest losses was that of Barry Estabrook, whose writing on food politics set the magazine apart from other food and wine glossies like Bon Appetit and Saveur. Estabrook’s writing—on slavery in tomato farms, antibiotic use in fisheries, and the USDA’s “dysfunctional” management of the US organic program—made [...]