Why I’m so excited about the weight loss drugs I’ll never take

Last year, for the first time, food consumption went down, reported the Financial Times, making 2025 “the first year on record where the volume of food consumed in America has decreased.” The weight loss drugs are taking their pound of flesh: not just from their own delighted customers, but from the food industry too. Meanwhile, this week […]

Weird Things You Learn About Food When You Garden

One of the great joys of gardening is learning how stuff grows. Did you know that green beans are just baby bean-beans? You harvest them when the pods have developed but before the beans inside get plump and then hard. Green peppers are just unripe red (or orange or yellow) peppers. Green olives are just […]

Snapshot: Approaching fig season

In 2021, I discovered figs, and I wrote about it here. Where have figs been all my life? I asked. A generous neighbor had a productive fig tree and over the next few Augusts, I made fig tarts (pictured above), fig cake (gift link to the recipe in the New York Times – you’re welcome), […]

Zee Lady

You might have read this post before. And you might have read it while listening to Jack Black sing “Peaches.“ And maybe you did both of these things while eating a peach! But wait! The last time this post ran, in 2023, a kind commenter let me know that Western Colorado was a magical stone […]

By the Spoonful

There is always one section in our utensil drawer that is emptier than the others. Spoons are useful for so many things, and they seem to have a natural restlessness. They leap away from the confines of the kitchen. They jump into cars and carry-ons. Sometimes the places they go are even stranger. All they […]

Something I Ate This Week

Here’s a picture of something I found and put in my mouth. You get to guess what it is. The season for these where I live is just getting going, and this first ran four years ago, so it’s about time to show it again. First, is it organic or manufactured? Don’t scroll down to […]

Zee Lady

So, you might have read this post before. But have you ever read it while listening to Jack Black sing “Peaches“? Bonus points if you are eating a peach at the same time! * Confession time: I used to be a peach hater. What was wrong with me? It’s a question I often find myself […]

Free

Twenty-one years ago, Domino’s Pizza ran a fairly mundane promotion: customers who purchased a large one-topping pizza would also receive an order of cheesy bread, on the house. This event would not have even registered for me, or anyone I knew, had Domino’s not advertised it like this: