Mad About Maize by Peggy Paul Cassella Most experts agree that the wild ancestor of corn (or maize, as it’s called in other countries) can be traced to Central and South America about 70,000 years ago. After it was domesticated around 7500 B.C., it became a mainstay of the ancient Native American diet and remains
MorePhoto by Gene Smirnov Counter Culture by Anna Herman Many of us with yards have those small animals that are dubbed micro-livestock—chickens, ducks, rabbits and honeybees and the like—as part of our urban homestead and hyper-local food sources. But even apartment dwellers can improve their nutrition and cultivate microorganisms by fermenting food. So many traditional
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Short and Sweet by Peggy Paul Casella Large, watery, cone-shaped strawberries are available any time at the grocery store, but if you want the real thing—fragrant, red all the way through, with juices that dribble down your chin—you have to wait for that sweet spot in the year, when late spring meets early summer. Strawberries
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Stalking the Spring by Peggy Paul Casella Spring hasn’t really sprung until you’ve snatched up your first bunch of asparagus from the local farmers market. It livens up any dish with its grassy, floral flavor, and the prep work—bending each spear until it snaps toward the bottom end—was one of my first kitchen tasks as
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Spring Alliums by Peggy Paul Casella These adolescent stalks are the first signs of green at the market—culled from farmers’ fields to make room for bulbs from remaining garlic and onion plants to swell underground. They are less pungent than their mature counterparts, with zingy, front-of-the-mouth flavors. And their svelte bulbs and leaves add just
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by Peggy Paul Casella Brussels SproutsThe Brussels sprout plant looks like a lanky sea monster: Its thick spine grows straight up from the soil, covered with mini-cabbage “eyes” and dozens of leafy arms. Though the leaves are also edible, like those of fellow Brassicas, the sprouts are the most commonly eaten part of the plant.
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interview by Katie Bohri Eager to excite your palate and shake up your kitchen routine while adding nutrition and probiotics to your diet? Check out Philadelphia fermenting guru Amanda Feifer’s new book Ferment Your Vegetables. With time, a few vegetables, water and salt—key to keeping bad bacteria at bay—you can make vegetables last longer and
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Story by Colleen Davis Illustration by Adrienne Langer AFTER DECADES OF BEING A PRETTY RESPONSIBLE CITIZEN, I felt I’d traveled about as far as I could on the path to eating and living sustainably. Others around me were more zealous, but they were yoga teachers and gardeners whose extreme
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Liberating yourself from processed and prepackaged food often starts with the small stuff. For me, salad dressing was a game changer. Once I realized how simple it was to make, and started reading the labels on commercial brands (Canola oil as the number one ingredient? Water as number two?!), I could never go back.
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by Dynise Balcavage, urbanvegan.net
Nothing is as comforting as being snowed in, puttering around the kitchen and making a huge pot of steaming soup. This filling soup uses pantry staples and humble vegetables. It’s a snap to make, nutritious and filling, and you can improvise, depending on what you have on hand. It also freezes well.
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