At the TASTE3 conference in Napa, instructor and author Peter Reinhart told a fascinating life-and-death tale about breadmaking. Although a baker with Reinhart’s years of experience might have some tales of Lethal Weapon-style escapes from exploding flour mills or daring bread-delivery runs through a hurricane, he told the audience a much more common life and death story: The transformations of wheat, water and yeast that happen each time a loaf of bread is baked.

Our Victory Gardens have reached harvest season, and we’re celebrating the coming Labor Day weekend with a virtual potluck.

Who’s afraid of zucchini? Here are several ideas for using that bumper crop…

According to an article in Sunday’s New York Times, the increased levels of carbon dioxide that characterize global climate change have given weeds — better defined as those plants “out of place” — a supernatural advantage. So what’s a gardener to do when faced with a bed of weeds? The answer is simple: eat them.

The May 20 episode of Quest, the science program on San Francisco’s public television station, had two segments that might be of interest to Ethicurean readers.

The first people to eat takenoko, or young bamboo shoots, must have been really, really hungry.

A study released last week by West Virginia scientists finds that workers who make Teflon are on the front lines of the chemical-intensive food system. Meanwhile, the Bush Administration further weakens the process used by the EPA to review chemicals in consumer products.

Remember last year’s Penny-Wise Challenge? The rising cost of food this year causes me to look back to what I learned then — and to cook from my pantry more and more.

I’ve always been tickled by the pairing of decadence and duty at the Swanton Berry Farm stand at the Berkeley farmers market: sweet, fragrant, addictive strawberries sharing the table with fibrous, disrespected, and most-likely-not-addictive broccoli, cauliflower, and brussels sprouts. It turns out that this collection makes a lot of agricultural sense, as strawberries are […]

As March draws to a close, I start counting the weeks until the farmers market returns. (Ten, thanks.)
After a long winter rounded out by a handful of late snowstorms, I’m really looking forward to the first local salad of mixed greens, the first fresh asparagus, and the chance to restock my garlic stash. […]

This year was the first time I have ever eaten just-picked asparagus: I tagged along when my husband photographed Vision Cellars winemaker “Mac” McDonald for an upcoming Edible San Francisco out at his place in Windsor, CA; Mac plucked a tender head straight off a stalk shooting out of the dirt and offered it to me. … Fresh lemonade is one of my favorite things, and I have been experimenting with making a spicy version of Marc’s Whole Lemon Lemonade , using less organic evaporated cane sugar than the recipe calls for, plus finely diced fresh ginger (I usually supplement with powdered too, to get the full strength I’m after), and a few dashes of cayenne.

Of all of the alliances between egg and dairy, custard is one of the most interesting to me. Silky in texture, elegant in flavor, acceptable to tastes ranging from unadventurous children to the most discerning adult, it’s a perfect way to enjoy the eggs and milk you worked so hard to source from SOLE producers. […]

In part 1 of "Bake on the wild side," I wrote about how to create a sourdough starter and some of the science behind it. In this post I’ll tell how I used the starter to make loaves of bread.
There are many different ways to turn sourdough starter into bread: some easy, some complicated. […]

I love pasta. There’s just no getting around that simple fact.
Others may avoid carbohydrates like the plague, but I find that a meal isn’t quite complete without something a little starchy to hold everything together. An old-fashioned trencherwoman, that’s me. And pasta ranks at the top of the list because it’s so easy to […]

The high-starch vegetables play an important role in our winter diets, giving us the extra nutrition and energy we northerners need to stay warm and well-fed when the snow flies. But you’d better believe that we’re counting down the days until the start of this year’s farmers market -– and the first fresh leafy greens and other spring vegetables!