Nasturtiums Taste as Good as They Look

I recently returned to the store after a short vacation and was greeted by a cascade of nasturtiums overflowing their window boxes and spilling merrily down the side of the building. It was a cheering sight, made all the more so by my knowledge that these colorful blossoms are as tasty as they are beautiful. […]

You Say Tomato

One of the drawbacks of living in Alaska is that you can’t grow tomatoes. Where I grew up in Virginia nearly everyone had at least a couple tomato plants growing in their yard. The sight, taste, and smell of ripening tomatoes was as sure a sign as any that summer had come into its fullness. […]

A Peach by Any Other Name is…a Nectarine

When is a peach not a peach? When it is a nectarine. While the similarities between peaches and nectarines are obvious, few people realize that they actually belong to the same species. In fact, the flower and leaf of peach and nectarine trees are indistinguishable, and it is not uncommon for the branch of a […]

Brown Rice: a Grain of Truth

Sometimes you learn about new things from unusual sources. I first heard about brown rice almost 30 years ago from a fellow named Minor Lyle. Minor was a street person who’d blown his mind in the ’60’s taking one too many acid trips. He was prone to rambling soliloquies on various topics, but every so […]

Seaweed Eaten by Ancient and Modern Humans

A recent news story announced the discovery of the oldest human meal in the Western Hemisphere, and it wasn’t hamburgers. Cooked and partially eaten seaweed was found at a 14,000 year old site in southern Chile. Archeologists found no fewer than nine species of seaweed and marine algae in the hearths of the most ancient […]