How Can Seedless Fruit be Fruitful and Multiply?
If fruit trees grow from seeds, how do you grow seedless fruit? It's not unusual for plants to produce mutant fruit that lacks seeds, but these fruits are usually the end of their line. Naturally occurring hybrids can also make sterile fruit. The varieties that we eat are specifically hybridized to...
March 24, 2011 |
By Laura Helmuth
Marvelous Macaroni and Cheese
The exact origin of macaroni and cheese is unknown, though it most likely hails from Northern Europe, with the earliest known recorded recipe being scribbled down in 1769. A staple of American cuisine, the creamy combo made its way to the United States courtesy of Thomas Jefferson, who, while visit...
March 22, 2011 |
By Jesse Rhodes
Inviting Writing: The Most Memorable Meal of Your Life
We were so pleased with the variety of entries we received for our last Inviting Writing, about food and dating—they were sweet, funny, endearing, sad. Let's see if we can top it with this month's theme, a topic that anyone should be able to relate to: memorable meals. If it was the food itself tha...
March 21, 2011 |
By Lisa Bramen
San Giuseppe's Day, When Sicilian Eyes Are Smiling
The Catholic calendar is chock-a-block with saints' days, though some are observed with more gusto than others. A few become crossover holidays (pun not intended) celebrated even by people who don't know their "Hail Mary" from their "Our Father." For instance, yesterday, March 17, was St. Gertrude'...
March 18, 2011 |
By Lisa Bramen
For a Taste of Ireland, Have a Big Mac?
As delicious as the golden arches' minty nod to St. Patrick's Day—the Shamrock Shake—may be (or as delicious as I remember thinking it was the last time I had one, circa 1978), it's not exactly Irish. Surprisingly, something on the McDonald's menu is authentically Irish, and green to boot: its beef...
March 17, 2011 |
By Lisa Bramen
Inviting Writing: The Secret of Lemon Soup
This month's Inviting Writing series focused on food and dating. We got some great contributions: sweet stories, quirky stories, sad (but triumphant!) stories. Today's entry, sweet but very tangy, comes from Christie Zgourides, who teaches college English, grows her own vegetables, cooks from a ran...
March 14, 2011 |
By admin
Chugging Maple Sap
If you've been reading this blog for awhile, you may have noticed that we've given a lot of the-stuff-formerly-known-as-ink to maple syrup. We've written about how it's made, how to turn it into a sticky taffy by pouring it on snow, maple creemees, vodka made from fermented maple sap, even an entir...
March 10, 2011 |
By Lisa Bramen
Lent in the Fast Lane
Yesterday was Mardi Gras—that last hurrah before Lent. Traditionally Catholics are called to three practices during Lent: alms giving, prayer and fasting. The first two are generally satisfying to most people. The third not so much.The tradition of the Lenten fast as we know it likely didn’t develo...
March 09, 2011 |
By admin
Mardi Gras, Po-Boys and Streetcar Strikes
My first trip to New Orleans was in July 1984, the summer it hosted the World's Fair. I was 13 and had gone to visit my best friend, Jenny, a New Orleans native who had moved back there from California a few months earlier. I remember pulling up to her family's home, half of a double-barrel shotgun...
March 08, 2011 |
By Lisa Bramen
Inviting Writing: Doomed by Soup?
For this month's Inviting Writing, we asked people to share their stories about food and dating. Of course, as in Lisa's starter story, dates don't always end well, and sometimes, in some way, the food is to blame.Today's story comes from Evelyn Kim, who lives in Berlin and writes about food and su...
March 07, 2011 |
By admin
A King Cake Special Delivery
One can’t truly celebrate a New Orleans Mardi Gras without the doughy delicacy
March 07, 2011 |
By Maria Keehan
Sprouting Seeds and Beans: The Gardener's Gateway Drug
The first thing my city friends asked when I told them I had bought a 19th-century farmhouse on several acres was, "what are you going to do with all that land?" The idea of owning acreage is alien to a lot of urbanites, who consider even a small patch of grassy yard a luxury. But for the last year...
March 04, 2011 |
By Lisa Bramen
Lightbulb Ban Means Reinventing the Easy-Bake Oven
The common incandescent light bulb will soon become a lot less common. In an effort to reduce energy waste and greenhouse gas emissions, the provisions laid out in the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (pdf) stipulate that manufacture of the classic 100 watt bulb will cease in 2012, with...
March 03, 2011 |
By Jesse Rhodes
The Ice King Cometh: Frederic Tudor, Father of the Ice Industry
One of my first winters after moving from L.A. to the East Coast, I made the astonishing discovery that I didn't have to rush my perishable groceries home if it was cold enough outside. Obvious, I know, but old habits die hard. The liberating effect this epiphany had on my errand schedule almost ma...
March 02, 2011 |
By Lisa Bramen
Experiments in Cooking: Salmon Poached in the Dishwasher
Last week, a Smithsonian editor sent me a screen capture of a portion of her Facebook news feed. A friend's status update read, "It's official: salmon cooked in the dishwasher, complete with dishes and soap, is not only delicious but a boon for the lazy person (e.g., me)." *The post was lit up with...
March 01, 2011 |
By Megan Gambino
Inviting Writing: The Parents or the Date?
For our latest Inviting Writing, we asked you to send in stories of food and dating: funny stories, sad stories, romantic stories, goofy stories—as long as they were true and involved food. This week's entry is about being stood up for someone else's date.The story comes from Judy Martin, who works...
February 28, 2011 |
By admin
How to Make the Pies From Waitress and Other Movie-Inspired Meals
It's that time once again when people do last-minute shopping for their Oscar parties, which leads to the agonizing task of meal planning. For those of you who really want to work the themed party angle, check out Cooking with the Movies: Meals on Reels. The book draws inspiration from 14 films fro...
February 25, 2011 |
By Jesse Rhodes
Birthday Cake for Mother Ann, Leader of the Shakers
Sometimes a recipe, especially a historical one, is more than the sum of its instructions. It may not even sound mouthwatering—instead, its appeal might lie in a surprising ingredient or method, what it says about the people who developed it, or the paths of inquiry or imagination it sends you on. ...
February 24, 2011 |
By Lisa Bramen
Food in the Films of Charlie Chaplin
Before Natalie Portman pirouetted her way into a Best Actress nomination for her performance in Black Swan, there once was a pair of lowly dinner rolls. On their own, they were completely unremarkable; however they had the phenomenally good fortune to be laid on Charlie Chaplin's table in the 1925 ...
February 23, 2011 |
By Jesse Rhodes
Thomas Jefferson's Maple Sugar Love and More Presidential Food Facts
Tasty nuggets of presidential trivia include little know facts, including the answer to who was the first locavore president
February 18, 2011 |
By Lisa Bramen
