A Food, Inc. for Tweens

Does anyone enjoy cocktail hour more than an eight-year old? Not possible. Though my grandmother was an excellent cook, her pan-roasted pork chops with string beans and potatoes remain the height of culinary achievement in my estimation, it was the hour or so before her dinners that most…

Yesterday, at a gathering of the nation’s mayors, First Lady Michelle Obama tackled the obesity epidemic, saying it is one of the biggest threats to the American economy. Ms. Obama has long been a leader in the farm-to-table movement and in championing healthy, local foods (the White House…

This has been a hard month at the end of a rough year capping off a real doozy of a decade. It seems like everybody’s saying it, not just me. And what are we going to do about it? I reckon we’re all going to drink a good deal on New Year’s Eve, to celebrate the back of 2009 and to buck…

Most of the highlights in the food realm over the last decade can be framed in the context of two competing paradigms that have clashed. In one corner we have big food: factory farms, fast food restaurants, mystery meat, biotechnology, and other examples of the economics of scale applied to…

with Severine von Tscharner Fleming

If you shop at farmers’ markets you might already associate farming with the young, rosy-cheeked vendors who bag your beets and apples. By contrast, the 2007 Ag census reports (although not in these words) that America’s farm operators are primarily white…

“Too much of anything is bad,” wrote Mark Twain, “but too much champagne is just right.” Drinking champagne is like finding money or listening to an early Ramones record—there isn’t really a down side. I’ve yet to meet someone who doesn’t like it. So I’m puzzled that a great…

When Kerouac went on the road his snack of choice was apple pie a la mode. Of course, his chief companion was Neal Cassady and they made their way west via bus, ’49 Hudson, and thumb. On my road trip to the (mid) west I’m accompanied by Ronan and Molly, their 18-month-old baby Jude,…