Interview
The air inside my red and white cooler was still warm from the car and the sun when I opened it on the kitchen counter. I stuck my face inside and inhaled fresh-picked figs from Virginia’s Eastern Shore. They smelled grassy and sweet, of caramel with just a touch of sour. The fruit—grape-sized to large »
Essay
“Compassion and action for the planet cannot exist without compassion and action for the people on it.” While visiting Sarasota, Florida, my husband agreed to join me in doing something I absolutely LOVE and completely unrelated to work—foot massages. We found a quaint little spot in a quiet retirement community. It wasn’t overly glamourous—average size »
Essay
In April 2018, I returned to the neighborhood in northeast Washington, DC, where, over the course of six years at that point, I had conducted ethnographic fieldwork. It was not my first time returning. Every time I went to DC after relocating, I tried to visit, at least stopping into the small grocery store where »
Essay
For someone not accustomed to looking at one, an almanac or calendar that is meant to guide one’s farming and other activities is like looking at Sanskrit, and, in fact, some of the symbols look to be about that old. Comparing different calendars, each of which claims to be the most accurate, reveals enough similarities »
Essay
Thanksgiving gathers us around a table with mouths full of food, stories—and opinions. American Thanksgiving lore suggests that everyone from sea to shining sea enjoys the same iconic dishes: turkey, dressing, cranberries, and pie. In practice, that’s not the full picture. When it comes to a southern family’s (actual and/or chosen kin) T-Day table, most »
Essay
In today’s food and beverage world, the adjective craft often signifies more than technique or ingredients: it points to scale, agency, and audience, to small-batch creations just inventive enough to attract discriminating publics. Trace the word back, though, and its meanings broaden. As archaeologist and historian Alexander Langlands explains it, the Old English cræft referred »
Essay
My grandmother keeps texting me poorly lit pictures of cake pans from her kitchen in North Texas. She’s decluttering, an undiagnosed symptom of late-age grief for a life that didn’t quite turn out as she hoped. Her cake baking tools are the first to go. My grandmother was a professional cake baker and, while it »
Essay
In January of 2019, I began a “listening tour” across North Carolina as editor of Edible North Carolina, work that started in my food studies teaching at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The vision for this book was to create a portrait of North Carolina’s vibrant contemporary food landscape. I chose twenty »
Interview
On a winter afternoon in early 2020, SJ Seldin considers their Judaism. “I’ve heard the term ‘earth-a-dox’ thrown around before,” they tell me over the phone. We’re talking from opposite ends of North Carolina; me in Chapel Hill, and them in Fairview, where they tend land at Yesod Farm + Kitchen—a farm dedicated to “earth-based »
Food
Welcome to our virtual book tour. Since so many literary events have been canceled or postponed during the pandemic, we’re bringing authors with new books directly to you. We hope you’ll get to know an author or book to add to your reading list. We also encourage you to support your local bookshop. A Good »