Today is World Pasta Day, created by the Italians to celebrate the food the whole world loves. How do you pasta? For me, pasta without a drizzle of olive oil for silkiness and gilding seems lonely, It’s probably nothing your nonna would approve of, either. You don’t want to piss off your nonna. I’m stingy…
Making Every Day Earth Day
This Thursday is Earth Day, that time of year when we remember, oh, yeah, gotta do something about the planet. Here’s an easy answer – eat plants. Some of the most ardent plant-based people I know got scared straight — health issues or having the veil of factory farming ripped away. Every reason to eat…
Cowpeas with Za’atar
Originally posted on 07/11/2011 for Huffington Post Meatless Monday: Jack and the GMO Beanstalk Once upon a time, there was a boy named Jack. Jack came from a hard-up family, but he considered himself a savvy, enterprising lad. To prove it, he went to the market, worked a deal and ran home to show his…
Arugula Pasta with Salsa Cruda
Posted originally on 07/19/2010 for Huffington Post Meatless Monday: Home Field Advantage Ben Hewitt is the author of The Town Food Saved and a farmer in Cabot, Vermont, population 1,000. I’m a food writer and sustainable food advocate in Miami, Florida, population 2.5 million. Neither of us, given our chosen professions, are exactly raking it…
Briam – a Greek casserole of summer veggies
By Ellen Kanner Posted originally on 05/23/2010 for Huffington Post Meatless Monday: Carrying The Earth Get cozy, it’s story time, and the tale is Jason and the Argonauts, your classic Greek myth. Jason, a nice enough guy, was promised the kingdom of Iolcus if he produced the Golden Fleece, a magical ram’s skin bestowing all…
Civility Pulaw/Perlou/Pilaf
By Ellen Kanner Posted originally on 01/27/2014 for Huffington Post Meatless Monday: Table Manners I believe being meatless has a positive impact on your health, your karma, your planet, but you can argue otherwise and I will listen and not reject you. Call me a wimp. Or call me civil. Civility, the very thing President…
BEAN AND FENNEL STEW
Posted originally on 01/06/2014 for Huffington Post Meatless Monday in the City of Pleasant Living To start the new year off right, a true story in which the seemingly impossible comes to pass — and in my ‘hood, of all places. Sprawling Miami-Dade County may be best known for Miami, where I live, but it…
Summer Surprised Us
“Summer surprised us,” writes T.S. Eliot. The phrase comes early in “The Wasteland’ and it surprises the reader, too, already so lost in the poem’s rich layers as to be startled by these five simple syllables that come in the seventh line. Summer always surprises me, especially September, which I still associate with fall, with…
Lovely for Lent Black-Eyed Peas With Fennel and Kale
Some people (and you know who you are) do not share recipes. It’s time to give, darlings. Wouldn’t you rather be known as a big-hearted person who shares the wealth? And even if you write out your prized recipe in painstaking detail, your friend’s version will come out different. Different stove, different cookware,…
Still Life With Food
I always liked the idea of ceviche, fresh-as-hell seafood that “cooks” in its citrus marinade. It’s the fish part that lost me. Creating veggie ceviche had a bonus — a still life shot that had nothing to do with the photographer and everything to do with produce’s intrinsic beauty. Lovely round purple onion, green jalapeno,…
