Medicine
Holiday Gift Guide: A Food Book for Everyone On Your List
As Christmas draws closer, have you finished your shopping yet? If not, try turning to your local bookstore to find something for nearly everyone on your list:The Aspiring Home CookRadically Simple: Brilliant Flavors with Breathtaking Ease, by Rozanne Gold. All the recipes in this lovely cookbook a...
December 17, 2010 |
By Amanda Bensen
Five Ways to Eat Kohlrabi
Kohlrabi isn't the coolest kid in its class. It has a weird name, and looks even weirder. I admit I've always ignored it in favor of prettier, more popular vegetables. Why befriend it now?Well, because kohlrabi is nutritious: no fat, lots of fiber and vitamin C, even some protein. It's cheap and in...
October 21, 2010 |
By Amanda Bensen
A Showcase School Garden in D.C.
When I was new to D.C., many people gave me the same advice, "Avoid Anacostia."Separated from the District's heart by the Anacostia River, the southeast swath of the city loosely known as Anacostia has long been associated with high rates of violent crime and poverty.But after finally venturing acr...
October 14, 2010 |
By Amanda Bensen
Five Ways to Eat Lima Beans
Lima beans used to remind me of a line in a Josh Ritter song: "I'm trying hard to love you / You don't make it easy, babe."You know what I mean, right? That wan, wrinkled skin; that wet-sawdust texture; that hospital-cafeteria smell...those are the lima beans I recall picking out of the "frozen mix...
September 30, 2010 |
By Amanda Bensen
Food in the Raw at the U.S. Botanic Garden
After almost three years of working right down the street, I finally made time to explore the U.S. Botanic Garden on a recent lunch break. I expected mostly flowers, but found a food nerd's Eden: So many of my favorite edibles, in their purest forms! So many tidbits of culinary history and science!...
September 29, 2010 |
By Amanda Bensen
Eating Irish Moss
Today's post is by Smithsonian staff writer Abigail Tucker.On my recent trip to Ireland—where I discovered "real" Irish soda bread—I expected to encounter potatoes aplenty, and I wasn’t disappointed.Traditional champ (or mashed) potatoes and chips (fries) were offered alongside more cosmopolitan sp...
September 28, 2010 |
By Amanda Bensen
A Long Way to Go for Utica Greens
Utica. The very name sets my mouth to watering. What? You don't think of the Central New York rust-belt city as a center of culinary excellence? Well, neither did I until recently. In fact, the entire basis for my Pavlovian response is a single dish—Utica-style greens—that I have eaten only at a La...
September 24, 2010 |
By Lisa Bramen
Confronting Childhood Obesity: Chef Jose Andres Speaks Out
National Hispanic Heritage Month starts today, and it's a great opportunity to celebrate our ever-growing Latino population, which will make up 29 percent of the U.S. population by 2050. But it's also an opportunity to confront an ever-growing threat to that population: childhood obesity."Although ...
September 15, 2010 |
By Amanda Bensen
The Pathway Home Makes Inroads in Treating PTSD
An innovative California facility offers hope to combatants with post-traumatic stress disorder and brain injuries
September 2010 |
By Robert M. Poole
The Shock of War
World War I troops were the first to be diagnosed with shell shock, an injury – by any name – still wreaking havoc
September 2010 |
By Caroline Alexander
Inviting Writing: Alchemy in the College Cafeteria
We asked you for stories about college food in this month's Inviting Writing, and it's been fun to read the responses so far. If you haven't submitted yours yet, there's still time—please send it to FoodandThink@gmail.com by September 3rd.Let's start off with this one from Eve Bohakel Lee, a Louisv...
August 30, 2010 |
By Amanda Bensen
Five Ways to Eat Okra
Okra's a strange little vegetable, the kind of thing you might not guess was edible if no one told you. Its prickly skin can sting your fingers, and slicing into it reveals little more than seeds and slime. I admit, if okra hadn't been included in our CSA share these past few weeks, I would probabl...
August 26, 2010 |
By Amanda Bensen
Seitan: The Other Fake Meat
Like Amanda, I became a vegetarian in my teens, but in my case it had nothing to do with a white lie; basically, I just thought meat was "gross" and realized I was old enough to make my own food choices. And although I now eat fish and some meat, I still like—even prefer, in some cases—"fake meat" ...
August 25, 2010 |
By Lisa Bramen
Inviting Writing: College Food
As I was reminded on a trip to a packed Target the other day, the back-to-school season is upon us. Seeing carts filled with things like electric hot pots, microwave popcorn and instant soup got me thinking about dorm life...which brings me to our latest Inviting Writing theme: College food.As alwa...
August 23, 2010 |
By Amanda Bensen
Listening to Bacteria
By studying microbial communications, Bonnie Bassler has come up with new ways to treat disease
August 2010 |
By Natalie Angier
Melinda French Gates on Saving Lives
The co-chair of the world's largest philanthropy talks about what can be done to improve global health and poverty
August 2010 |
By Terence Monmaney
Can Nanotechnology Save Lives?
Harvard professor and scientific genius George Whitesides believes that nanotechnology will change medicine as we know it
August 2010 |
By Michael Rosenwald
The Sociology of Picky Eating
A couple of months ago I wrote about two major influences on individual food preferences: genetics and early exposure to flavors in the womb and through breast milk. I recently spoke to Marci Pelchat, a researcher with the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia, about another piece of the pu...
July 30, 2010 |
By Lisa Bramen
Painting With Penicillin: Alexander Fleming's Germ Art
The scientist created works of art using microbes, but did his artwork help lead him to his greatest discovery?
July 12, 2010 |
By Rob Dunn
Salt: A Matter of Taste, And Genes
On the premiere episode of Top Chef's seventh season last night, there was a moment when judge Tom Colicchio dismissed one contestant's dish with a single complaint: "I couldn't get past the salt."It's not the first time he's said a dish was "way too salty." How could these skilled chefs keep makin...
June 17, 2010 |
By Amanda Bensen
