Domenica Marchetti -- Politics Daily

Published: 09/18/09

Debunking the Myth of 'Cheap' Fast Food

Linda, the scene you describe from the movie "Food Inc.," in which a family of four is unable to afford fresh pears and instead is compelled to choke down fast-food "dollar meals" sounds heartbreaking. I have yet to see the movie because -- most frustratingly -- it is not playing anywhere in the D.C. area, where I live (though I did read both '"The Omnivore's Dilemma" and "Fast Food Nation," on which the film is based). Like you, I am lucky. I go to my farmers' market every week; at the supermarket I can choose to spend my grocery money on organic eggs and milk and high-quality meat and ...

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Published: 09/15/09

Fast Food Tarnation! A Rant (With a Recipe)

Okay fellow WUppers, at the risk of being branded a food Nazi (it wouldn't be the first time), I am going to jump in on this fast-food debate, because, as you might guess, it is a subject about which I have many opinions -- or perhaps just one big fat one. I despise it. I hesitate to even call it food. The problem is, the minute I say that, I feel bad, like I'm voicing my superiority over the rest of the population that continues to happily down Big Macs and McNuggets and whatever else those places are serving these days. "Don't make it about you," my husband warned when I told him I would ...

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Published: 09/10/09

Farmers Market Frenzy Is My Kind of Crazy

A lot of people look forward to their weekly trip to the farmers market the way most kids look forward to the last day of school. The words joy, anticipation, and abandon come to mind.For me, the word dread also applies. I know, it sounds crazy, especially for someone who cooks and writes about food for a living. But crazy is just what I'm talking about, because from the minute I step out of my car and into the cluster of stalls that sets up every Tuesday in the parking lot of my local library, I risk losing my sanity. Not to mention my children's college savings. ...

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Published: 09/9/09

Women Come Out Swinging at the U.S. Open

While much of the tennis world continues to be consumed with the Rafa/Roger rivalry -- will Rafael Nadal's over-stressed knees give out, thus preventing the Spaniard from capturing his first U.S. Open title, or will Roger Federer win a record-breaking sixth consecutive U.S. Open title? -- I have been captivated by the stories, not to mention the amazing match play, of some of the women in this year's tournament. ...

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Published: 09/4/09

Did Bob McDonnell Read 'The Handmaid's Tale'?

Three years before Virginia gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell submitted his now-famous thesis at Regent University, (in which he described working women as detrimental to the family, called for a "covenant view" of marriage, and said government should favor married couples over "cohabitators, homosexuals, and fornicators"), the Canadian writer Margaret Atwood published her novel "The Handmaid's Tale." The same principles that McDonnell puts forth in his thesis are imagined into action in the extreme. ...

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Published: 09/2/09

School Lunch: It's Not Rocket Science

This morning I sent my daughter off to school with a smoked turkey and Monterey jack sandwich (on a ciabatta roll), two plums from the farmers market, a handful of cashews, and a small square of chocolate (she gets a carton of skim milk at school). Like millions of other parents who are sending kids back to school this week and next, I now face the challenge of packing my two children a nutritious and enticing lunch five days a week, more or less, for the next nine months -- a subject I'll be talking about at 1 p.m. today on WAMU's "Kojo Nnamdi Show." It's enough to make any busy working ...

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Published: 08/31/09

'The Silver Palate:' A Tribute to Sheila Lukins

If Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" taught Americans how to cook, then surely it was "The Silver Palate Cookbook," first published in 1982, that taught us how to cook American -- or, more accurately, new American. The cookbook by Sheila Lukins and Julee Rosso was filled with recipes that crossed cultures, that folded in fresh ingredients, and that introduced us to then-exotic products such as sun-dried tomatoes and goat cheese. The recipes were stylish without being intimidating. The book was a yuppie's (or an aspiring yuppie's) dream, and for New York it seemed to herald ...

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Published: 08/28/09

Top Chauv: Feeling the Heat

Here in the nation's capital, a minor brouhaha is brewing over a recent episode of "Top Chef," in which contestant Mike Isabella, chef at Jose Andres's popular D.C. Mediterranean restaurant Zaytinya, made a disparaging remark about a female co-contestant. I don't watch "Top Chef" (or any reality TV), so I did not see the entire episode. But apparently, Isabella is not winning over many fans with his less-than-winning personality. In a race against contestant Jennifer Carroll to shuck a pile of oysters, Isabella spits out this pearl: "There's no way, no offense, that a girl should be at the ...

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Published: 08/26/09

The Book That Keeps on Cooking

Now that I've aired my dirty little secret -- that I have never cooked a recipe from "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" -- let me go on record to say that I am ecstatic that Julia Child's seminal book is, for the first time ever, a New York Times No. 1 best seller. ...

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