In the Weeds
Rest easy, junk food fans: it seems that Hostess is in negotiations with its second-largest union, and the fate of the Twinkie may not yet be sealed [Ed. note: The latest update is looking bleak for Hostess again]. I’m thrilled that the workers...
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My head exploded a tiny bit when I read the New York Times yesterday. One of the most-emailed stories of the day, on a new Stanford University study, ran under the headline: "Stanford Scientists Cast Doubt on Advantages of Organic Meat and Produce."
The research, a meta-analysis of 237 studies, concluded that organic food, in general, is not...
read more >Today would have been Julia Child’s 100th birthday. Like so many other Americans, I have Julia to thank for my interest in food and cooking. She (along with the writers and editors of the much-lamented Gourmet magazine) provided my very young mother with the inspiration to learn to cook. My mom, in turn, passed her enthusiasm and competence in the kitchen to me.
I remember watching Julia’s legendary PBS show, The French Chef, on our tiny black-and-white TV. Perhaps my memory misleads me, but I could swear that on more than one occasion, my mom cooked alongside Julia, mastering everything from...
For the first time last fall, I planted garlic. And last week, for the first time, I harvested what could be a year’s supply of a crop I grew myself.
I’m hardly a homesteader and am accepting of the limitations to my self reliance, but I’ve had past successes growing potatoes, carrots, and parsnips for storage. Still those pale in comparison to how deeply and surprisingly satisfying it was to provision my larder with garlic, an everyday staple.
From start to finish, the process was absurdly simple, and growing garlic is totally achievable for anyone who has even a small...
I stopped by a local farm earlier this week to pick up my chicken subscription. You read that right. For the last three years, I’ve pre-purchased a monthly supply of meat from a farmer friend’s CSA (community supported agriculture) program. Besides being delicious and humanely raised, one of the best things about my subscription is that it comes to me without prescriptions … for antibiotics, that is.
All meat sold in the U.S. is required to be free of any residual medicines by the time it gets to market (and it usually is), but drugs...
Thank goodness for farmers. If it weren’t for farmers, I’d be reduced to eating the food I can grow myself. And this hot, dry summer has not provided as much of that as I'd like. My garden -- though overheated and underwatered -- is still struggling along: the asparagus was abundant, the garlic is ready for harvest, and...
In an editorial entitled "Pig Out" this week, the prestigious science journal Nature called for an end to the overuse of antibiotics in the production of livestock. The editorial says the ever-increasing problem of multi-drug-resistant bacteria won't be easily controlled in a global marketplace without a worldwide willingness to...
Breaking news from the Northeast: It's hot this week! But even if you and your garden aren't sweltering through this early summer heat wave, drought conditions across the country are defining (and limiting) this year’s growing season.
Southwestern states like Texas, New Mexico, and Colorado are suffering the most, but nearly every region of the continental U.S. (and Hawaii) has experienced abnormally dry weather patterns this year. In some...
read more >No matter how much you mulch, pull, prep, and tend, the weeds will come to your garden, your yard, even your pots and containers. What if, instead of fighting the invasion, you could learn to embrace and even relish it?
That’s the potential gift of Tama Matsuoka Wong’s new book, ...
Lead, cadmium, phthalates, and other nasty chemicals may be lurking in your garden. But they might not have arrived there through fertilizers, pesticides, and pollution. Your own gardening tools could be the culprit.
A recent study, conducted by the Ecology Center based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, checked 179 common garden gadgets (newly purchased garden gloves, hoses, kneeling pads,...
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