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The artisanal geniuses at Blue Hill Farm in New York's Pocantico Hills have created what may just be the world's best pickle. That sounds lofty, but if you've ever bitten into one of these, you'd be obliged to agree. The flavors are so subtle, so intricate, that it's hard to believe that the list of ingredients is so simple: Kirby cukes (from Cherry Lane Farms in Bridgeton, NJ), white wine......read more
There may be no better way to eat than with the seasons. That's the time when food is at its peak in both freshness and flavor. The time when foods can be grown locally. When you can avoid eating fruits and vegetables shipped from halfway around the globe, which have ripened on their journey to your grocery store. Not only will seasonal food taste better, you will be causing less impact on the......read more
Last week you learned a little bit about asparagus. So what’s next on the list for seasonal eats? Rhubarb!Another vegetable (or is it a fruit?) that pops up in early spring in many locations around the globe. Before writing this piece, I will admit I had never cooked with or tasted rhubarb ever before. I knew that it looked like a mix between celery and red chard but that it’s......read more
To most of us, the sustainable food movement is a relatively recent phenomenon. But to chef/author/food activist Alice Waters, it began four decades ago, before "sustainability" was even a word. That's when she opened Chez Panisse, the Berkeley eatery that helped pioneer the now-popular concept of serving local, organic, seasonal food. Over the last forty years, Waters and Chez Panisse have......read more
Believe it or not, there was a time not too long ago when the only root vegetables anyone ate were carrots and potatoes. Thankfully, as Mark Bittman points out at NYT Mag, that's changed, "in part because it was all wrong; in part because if you’re going to eat seasonal and local, you are going to eat roots in winter, even if you live in California; and in part because roasted root......read more
Today, Alice Waters is the queen bee of sustainable food movement. But it was flavor, not sustainability, that led the owner of Chez Panisse to local, organic food. Since founding the Berkeley eatery 40 years ago, Alice has helped inspire nothing short of a culinary revolution. These days, you won't find her in the restaurant's kitchen because she is too busy heading up the Chez Panisse......read more
As fall fades into winter, people in northern climates are hunkering down for the cold, silent season ahead. But there's a happy trade-off for high latitude folks; the transition between seasons delivers times of unparalleled natural beauty, with dazzling shifts in color and light. Swedish cinematographer Bart van der Gaag knows all about it. In "Changes," he deftly captures the passing of the......read more
Wooden pallets have emerged as a favorite source material for crafty repurposers. And why not? There are an estimated two billion of them floating around the world. Atlanta's Clarke Titus, whose roughsouthhome Etsy shop is chalk full of great repurposed homewares, makes expert use of salvaged pallet wood for these Pallet Chairs. Custom-made for your individual purposes, the......read more
Never mind, for now, fast food's negative nutritional value and its contribution to America's obesity problem; the one thing that really irks us about the industry is all the garbage it generates. If you're wondering where all those boxes, wrappers and cups end up when you're through, look no further than your local landfill, where they sit, for all intents and purposes,......read more
Believe it or not, there was a time when food didn't come packaged for purchase at a grocery store, when eating a meal meant going out and finding food yourself. Eager to get in touch with our foraging roots, a growing group of people are getting passionate about picking wild food from our own backyards. Now, progressive minds at the city of Seattle are hopping on the foraging bandwagon, with......read more
