Showdown: Grits vs. Polenta

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After staring for what felt like hours at the imported food shelves in my local grocery store this afternoon, I had a burning question for the Google machine: What on Earth is difference between polenta and grits?  I mean, they look the same.  They’re typically cooked in a similar fashion.  Their prices can vary wildly from one shelf to the next, but they are still born of the same grain, the illustrious corn.  So what gives? What’s the difference? Continue Reading…

Types of CSAs: More than Just Veggies

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Many people have heard about CSAs, or community supported agriculture. One of the biggest hesitations about joining a CSA program is the idea of a “fixed” menu of foods that you get each week — even if they are things you don’t like. But, did you know that there are several types of CSAs? The variety includes everything from the types of food in the CSA to how hands on you’d like to get with your produce. CSAs can also help support charitable efforts or economic development projects. Thus, you weekly spend on healthy foods has an even greater benefit for all. Here’s some of the options available. Continue Reading…

Why Onions Will Make You “Smile.”

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Onions may make you cry when you chop them up for Carciofi alla Fiesolana but their health benefits will wipe the tears streaming down your face away. Continue Reading…

Five Good Reasons to Support Local Family Farms with a CSA

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There’s over a foot of snow outside my door but its time to start thinking about vegetables! Not just the seeds to plant before the last frost (when I can find the ground again), but March and April are also the months to sign up for a CSA. Continue Reading…

Pairing Sauce With Pasta

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If you live in Italy, the best way to get the neighbors to gossip about you is by serving pasta with the wrong sauce. Sure, there are over 600 different types of Italian pasta, but without the sauce nobody will want to eat the dish. While food naturally pairs better with certain wines, so too certain pastas pair better with certain sauces. Pici wants ragù, for example and that’s how Italians see it. Basta. Continue Reading…

“I’ve got a lovely bunch of coconuts…”

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“…Deedlee, Dee”

Zazu, the red-billed hornbill bird in the movie The Lion King was spot-on when he sang about coconuts being “lovely”.

Coconut, especially coconut oil, has been gaining intense popularity lately and for good reason. This saturated fat if chock full of lauric acid, which when in the body is “converted into monolaurin, a compound that is highly toxic to viruses, bacteria, funguses and other microorganisms.” Continue Reading…

Farm-to-Farm (or Composting)

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Think of this as the farm-to-farm movement, or composting. Picking up fruits and vegetables, incorporating kitchens, tables, and sporks, and heading right back into the soil, the act of composting has been biodegrading since prehistoric farmers roamed the earth. Continue Reading…

We Hail Kale!

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Nutrition news headlines sing the same tune when it comes to filling up on leafy greens. Regrettably, people tend to turn towards the ever-popular Iceberg and Romaine lettuces when they do decide to munch on greens. Continue Reading…

The History of the Food War

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Most of us are familiar with a world full of supermarkets, hot dog stands, pizza parlors and coffee shops. Chemicals can improve the flavors of our favorite fruits; vegetables appear to grow in Styrofoam trays and materialize on crammed shelves. Mushrooms are made of marshmallow, meat is flat and round and comes wrapped in a sauce-filled bun, stamped with a yellow ‘M’. We have entered an age of mass production and commercial farming, of obesity and anorexia. Food is tied up with everything from our impressions of our own bodies to our economy, but how and why did we get to where we are today in the US? Well, there are several reasons.  Continue Reading…