Countering Iniquity

The world is full of iniquity.  Guys shoot up college classes; they also shoot up churches, malls, and elementary schools.  Little kids get shot playing on their front porches.  A hospital gets bombed and its doctors die.  Drug companies raise prices of drugs for sick people by obscene amounts. Gun advocates keep the country locked […]

Petty Larceny, Vegetable

I may have stolen my neighbor’s tiny cherry tomatoes right off the vine. They were so glowingly red, so warm, how could I help myself? Maybe “stolen” is a little harsh because I didn’t have to go onto her property to get the tomatoes, we share-crop them in pots in my back driveway.  And after […]

How I Eat My Veggies

I’ve done it. I figured out how to eat vegetables. Maybe everyone else figured this out a long time ago. But it took me until this year to figure out how to stuff myself with plant parts all summer long. It’s a two-step process. One, a service. The second, a device on my refrigerator door.

Guest Post: Learning to Appreciate the Untracked Life

In the weeks after I bought a Fitbit, I noticed I was acting bizarre. I started carrying bags with my left arm so my right arm – the one with the Fitbit – could swing freely to ensure the Fitbit’s accelerometer would count my every step. In the evening, I would pace around my apartment […]

Redux: The Scientist in the Garden

This is an updated version of a post that originally appeared in January 2012. I can’t remember why the seed catalogs started showing up, but once they did, I was a goner. If you haven’t ever gotten one, imagine full color photo spreads of produce, like the striped Tigger Melon and and the orange-red lusciousness of […]

Very Aromatic Plant Chocolate Chip

In my freezer is the last of a batch of mint chocolate chip ice cream I made early this month. The ice cream maker had lived in my kitchen since Christmas. It had been hidden in a closet for a few months before that, so its intended recipient wouldn’t see it. Now that recipient has […]

On the Menu

A local restaurant reviewer has a monthly feature in which he lists openings and closings of eateries around town. The list only contains the restaurants’ names and addresses, which always seems especially stark when it comes to the places that have shut their doors. It’s the culinary equivalent of a gravestone. There’s nothing about the buckwheat crepe […]

The Iniquity of Candied Orange Peel

*NOW WITH UPDATE: See below The neighbors came over, maybe a year ago now, and one of them, a Hungarian physicist, brought along candied orange peel he’d made from his grandmother’s recipe.  The physicist is the nicest human on earth, but his grandmother is the one I love; I’d love anyone who thought up those […]