Fresh Beans Come Out of Their Shell

Summer cooking is all about fresh vegetables. It’s the season for salads, leafy and otherwise. Nearly every offering at the produce stand qualifies. Just now, beans of every stripe are making their way to the market. From my perspective, beans ranks high on the scale of superb summer vegetables. Their flavor is as heavenly as…

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This Fruit Should Go in Everything

I’m in the honeymoon phase of summer cooking, the golden time before I can’t even look at the six zucchini that are in permanent residence in my fridge. Right now I’m especially enamored of nectarines and peaches — for breakfast, for snacks, for dinner, for dessert. (Nectarines are in fact superior to peaches, but both…

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The Rise of the Spice Girls Generation

When, through the nighttime murk of the Amazon River, an electric eel locates a feeder fish, what happens next is instantaneous: A jolt of electricity surges through the fish’s nerves. Its muscles contract simultaneously, and it is transformed into a living, floating statue. This is roughly the same reaction that women born between Labor Day…

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