Happy Nirvana

This was a terrific year for pears and peaches and I haven’t been without one or the other for the past 6 weeks or so. Peaches are gone now for this year, but you can still get pears. Aside from just eating them plain, there are lots of things you can do with pears to [...]

Photo: Kelly Rossiter I arrived home from my cottage last week to find a rather large number of eggplant ready for harvest.I was quite happy with the harvest we had throughout August, and I thought we were more or less done with them. I was a bit surprised to find 5 or 6 ready to [...]

Sam Kerr for Time Graham Hill’s Weekday Vegetarian concept is controversial among some of our readers, who don’t think people should eat meat at all. But Time Magazine says that only 2.5% of Americans are strict vegetarians or vegans, and Graham’s idea is that any cutback in meat consumption is good for the environment. Not [...]

Photo: Emma Alter The eggplant that I have been growing in my garden has been extremely successful this year. The flowers are beautiful, which is always nice, and each plant is providing a large number of vegetables. I’m girding my loins for the onslaught of eggplant ready for harvesting. I have at least six coming [...]

Photo: Kelly Rossiter Anyone who reads my column regularly knows that I am a big fan of legumes. They are really good for you and it’s a bonus that they are cheap and easy to prepare. They are also really versatile and can be paired with all kinds of vegetables…. Read the full story on [...]

Photo: Emma Alter Once I discovered earlier this spring how really delicious fava beans are, I have been buying them every time I see them. There’s no doubt they are a bit more work that the average bean, but I love the taste and the texture and I think it’s worth the work. The season [...]

During heat waves in my childhood, my mother would send us outside with thick slabs of sweet, dripping watermelon. My brother and I would stick out faces into it and let the cold juice run down our chins. Watermelon today is seedless, thereby depriving the current generation of children the joy of competitive watermelon seed [...]

Photo: Kelly Rossiter This is the time of year for barbeque and cocktail parties. So many canapes involve meat or dairy products, so it’s great to find a recipe that all of your guests can eat. This sun-dried tomato spread is so creamy, people might think it has mayonnaise in it, but the secret is [...]

Photo: Emma Alter My husband was hosting a working dinner with 12 people. It’s been very hot and humid here in the past week, so I wanted to serve a buffet where everything was room temperature. I made the vegan potato salad which has become a staple at dinner parties because everyone loves it. We [...]

Photo: Kelly Rossiter I guess like most home vegetable gardeners, I am having my share of hits and misses this season. Some enterprising little critter ate all of my carrot tops as soon as they started to come out, so that was the end of that. My beets were doing fabulously, but something has started [...]