Bodacious broke me.
Ms. K and I grow tomatoes. Have for years. According to the Department of Agriculture, 93 percent of home gardeners do. Our production strayed from the norm only, possibly, in its division of labor. She bought, started and transplanted the seeds. I did the digging, helped with the staking, devised, revised and improvised a series of chicken wire contraptions meant to fend...
In the early 1990s the U.S. federal government began to describe communities lacking access to nutritional food as “food deserts” conjuring up an image of arid emptiness overlaid with fast food shops. The allusion implies that a lack of healthy food is a natural phenomenon, but there’s a better metaphor to illustrate the problem, scholars and activists now say: call it food apartheid.
“It speaks...
Anyone who says life’s no picnic is clearly in need of one, stat. Spreading a blanket somewhere scenic and taking in the fresh air while you kick back with an assortment of tasty vittles is the optimal way to get out and experience nature—and all it takes is a little planning. Happily, we’re here to help! Whatever your picnic style, we’ve gathered the essentials...
When the news dropped last week that, in the name of sustainability, the popular cooking website Epicurious won’t post any new beef recipes, and Eleven Madison Park, one of the world’s top restaurants, is pivoting to an entirely vegan menu, I couldn’t help thinking of a cattle operation I saw a few weeks ago an hour or so from where I live in Northern...
One morning last April, I left my dirty breakfast dishes in the sink, let the kitchen door slam behind me, and walked into the woods with a knife in my hand. My mission wasn't sinister. I was just looking for something exciting to eat.
For nearly 20 years, I'd managed to make a living by thinking about, playing with, and writing about food—but it had...
Some people stress-eat or hoard shoes. Me? One evening about a month ago, when a foot of snow lay outside my bedroom window and I could not face another night of insomniac doomscrolling, I clicked “buy now” on a $150 maple tree-tapping kit.
Had I ever tapped a maple tree before? No sir! Did I even know what a maple tree looked like? I can identify...
Descending into Ministro Pistarini International Airport a few years back, I stared out the window at the smoke below, hungry with anticipation. Those gray dots were tiny plumes from backyard grills in Buenos Aires, thousands of them, all over the metro region.
It was Saturday, which meant just about everyone was firing up an asado. We’d call it a backyard barbecue, but in Argentina it is mucho...
Chimayó chilis, pride of New Mexico, are the possible progeny of the ur-chilis of Mesoamerica. (Photo: Universal Images Group North America / Alamy)
At the beginning of lockdown, I returned to Greece to be with my family as the headlines became grimmer. Already, in March, the earth around us was swollen with the bulbs of asphodels and wildflowers carpeted the hills. When I snuck out...
Just about every restaurant has some kind of salad on the menu. But why would I ever order one?
For the past 25 years I have eaten my way around the globe as a travel and food journalist. And while I’m not a fine-food critic, I’ve dipped my spoon at eateries ranging from Michelin-starred dining temples to roadside barbecue shacks and choosen hotels by the...
A major ice and wind storm is whistling and crackling at the window. It’s freakin’ February, bearer of bleakness and Valentine’s Day. But before I get desperate enough to order pet hermit crabs or text my ex, I’ll turn to my pandemic pick-me up: growing mushrooms.
Opening the homemade plastic terrarium above my desk, I’ll spritz them with water to mimic the conditions of a misty old-growth...
