Latest Features

Farm to Table Pioneer

06 | 11 | 2016

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In the 22 years since Kurt Timmermeister bought four acres of rocky, suspect farmland here for $100,000, he has had his ribs broken by an amorous female cow, lost a lamb to a crow that pecked its eyes out, and recoiled from the cannibalism of his chickens (when they weren’t eating one another, they were…

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The Locavore Empire by Anya Fernald

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Thirty seconds after I met Anya Fernald, the co-founder and C.E.O. of Belcampo, a sustainable-meat company whose ambition is to seduce Americans away from industrial food, she offered me a plate of lamb tartare. Fernald is thirty-nine and nearly six feet tall, with growing-out ombré hair and the exuberant energy of a team of wayward…

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Beetroot

05 | 16 | 2016

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First it was kale, then cauliflower — now beetroot is the latest vege to enjoy its moment in the sun. It’s an unusual place for a root vegetable, I’ll admit, but since some clever PR person re-branded it as a superfood, sales have soared — retail analysts Kantar claim they’re up 20% in the last four years. Quite an…

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Out of the Yard and Onto the Fork

10 | 02 | 2015

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My peas are coming up — sugar snaps and snow peas — and the seeds I scattered out in my cold frame a month ago are now a blanket of baby greens. A few mornings ago, while weeding, I popped a tiny bok choy seedling into my mouth and let its peppery, sweet flavor explode…

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The Sacred Act of Eating: A Hindu Foodie’s Daily Ritual

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In my great grandmother’s house in Thanjavur, a small town in Tamil Nadu, every meal represented an elaborate ritual. Each night, she washed a fresh set of clothes for the next morning (always a colorful nine yards sari and its blouse) and hung them atop the highest clothing line on the balcony, to prevent anyone…

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The Power of Touch

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Throw away your tongs and toss your food processor. Chef Daniel Patterson believes that in the kitchen, nothing can replace human hands. Recently, I was sitting in a friend’s kitchen, watching her toss a salad with a pair of restaurant-issue metal tongs. I had picked the wild greens just hours before, lovingly washed and dried…

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Rules and Reality Test Chefs Who Think Locally

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Carole Peck can’t forget the horseradish incident: 15 quarts of locally grown and preserved horseradish in the walk-in cooler of her well-known Woodbury restaurant, Good News Cafe, confiscated by the local health inspector. “They threw them all out on me,” Ms. Peck said, adding that there was so much acid in horseradish, it could survive just about…

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