I’d like to take a moment to put the radish in the much-needed spotlight. Sure, those little red globes are a staple of the store-bought veggie platter, but in my experience at social functions, the poor radish is usually among the last vegetables left rolling around the plate at the end of the night (along…
Category: histories
orange you glad i didn’t say…
One sure sign of winter is the plethora and perfection of citrus now available at your neighborhood grocery store. Recently, when I’ve gone into work on Saturday mornings at the People’s Food Co-Op, I’ve found myself marveling at the incredible variety of orange, yellow and pinkish globes filling the shelves. To be so enraptured with the citrus I’m…
the quinoa breakfast bowl
Today is Sunday. Today is the first day of the week. Today is the first day of the rest of your life. There is laundry to do, a W.B. Yeats poem to analyze, and a haircut to schedule. There is that big expanse called “The Future” to start to fill in. This morning, you will…
eggstra! eggstra!
Dear readers, try as we might, we cannot ignore the fact that winter is upon us. I, for one, am doing my part to keep the cold at bay by continuing to wear my Adidas Sambas in the snow, though a few consecutive days of wet socks may be breaking down my resolve. With the…
be amaized
Woe is corn. This ancient grain, cultivated for millennia for its edible seeds called kernels, may very well be the world’s most misused and misunderstood vegetable. It may be the most American of vegetables, too, having represented so much more than food for generations of inhabitants of the Americas. Recently, corn has taken center stage…
sorry it’s bean a while
Apologies, dear readers, for my Sprout Diaries hiatus! I wish I could say that the lack of recent entries is a consequence of my truly disciplined GRE study schedule, or perhaps a flurry of grad school application activity. But alas, all that can be blamed for my break in blogging is the relentless heat, a…
keen on zucchini
They overrun gardens. They overflow kitchens. Their uncanny abundance leaves home gardeners desperate for zucchini bread recipes calling for pounds of the product, just to get rid of the stuff. Indeed, if left too long on the vine, this strand of cucurbita pepo will reach B-grade horror movie proportions (the largest zucchini on record weighed…
the heart-seed berry
“Doubtless God could have made a better berry, but doubtless God never did.” – Dr. William Butler, 17th century English writer, writing about the strawberry Strawberries have officially taken over market stands all across Michigan, and so it is only appropriate that the Sprout Diaries acknowledge and appreciate this incredibly lovable summertime fruit. Before proceeding…
a fashion and a madness
In a letter dated May 10, 1696, French noble Madame de Maintenon wrote: “This subject of peas continues to absorb all others. The anxiety to eat them, the pleasure of having eaten them and the desire to eat them again, are the three great matters which have been discussed by our princes for four days past….
rhubarbarians!
Tis the season for rhubarb, the pie-friendly, perennial favorite of springtime vegetables. Or is it a fruit? Like the bamboozling tomato, rhubarb challenges easy classification as vegetable or fruit. Most experts agree that rhubarb is, indeed, a vegetable, since the edible part of the plant falls under the grouping of root, stem or leaf. Conversely,…
“asparagus transforms my chamber pot into a flask of perfume”
This arguably controversial opinion of asparagus’s effect on urine, as offered by French writer Marcel Proust in 1913, is a colorful illustration of mankind’s long-standing fascination with asparagus. Since its initial cultivation by the Ancient Greeks, asparagus has enjoyed a 2500 year history of charming palates and, as Proust observed, transforming chamber pots. (Interestingly, research…
the sprout diaries 