The onions had softened and the wine had reduced to a glossy layer in the pan when the search for tomato paste turned up nothing but an empty tube. For home cooks who grow their own tomatoes or keep a well-stocked pantry, this moment arrives more often than expected. The good news is that several...
Something quiet but unmistakable has been happening in gardens and flower shops over the past couple of years. Blooms that were once dismissed as outdated, the kind your grandmother grew along a fence or pressed into a scrapbook, are suddenly everywhere again. Social media feeds, wedding florists, and seed catalogs are all telling the same...
Hawaii’s Big Island is dealing with the latest twist in a stubborn weather system. Hurricane Lala weakened into a tropical storm after passing near the islands without coming ashore, yet the storm has continued to deliver punishing conditions across the region. Forecasters noted that the system has not finished its work even after the downgrade....
Anthony Bourdain long favored a straightforward Portuguese kale soup rooted in Provincetown. He worked with Laurie Woolever to adapt the dish from a local favorite. New York Times Cooking editor Pete Wells has now made the recipe available to a wider audience. Provincetown Roots Run Deep The soup draws from the coastal Massachusetts town where...
The Southwest’s water crisis has taken another sharp turn. Less than two weeks after Lake Mead set a new record low, Lake Powell, the nation’s second-largest reservoir, has now done the same. This milestone arrives amid ongoing drought conditions that show little sign of easing across the region. The development carries immediate weight for communities...
Scientists are assembling living systems from non-living chemical building blocks inside controlled laboratory environments. The effort forms part of synthetic biology, a discipline that seeks both to clarify how life works at its most basic level and to develop new tools for medicine, industry, and environmental management. Progress in the field has moved from theoretical...
Most kitchens today run on electricity. The hum of the refrigerator is so constant it barely registers anymore. Yet for centuries before plugs and compressors existed, people kept food fresh through entire winters using nothing more than soil, darkness, and the steady cool of the earth below the frost line. The root cellar is that...
Gardeners across many regions often face the same satisfying yet practical challenge each August and September: an abundance of ripe produce that arrives faster than it can be eaten fresh. Squash vines keep producing, corn stalks yield multiple ears, peach trees drop fruit daily, carrot rows need thinning, and jars of pickled vegetables accumulate from...
Las Vegas – A strong heat ridge has settled over the region, bringing continued sunny conditions and pushing daytime highs toward or above 100 degrees by midweek. The pattern is expected to hold throughout the week, extending the stretch of hot weather that already affects daily routines for residents. For local gardeners, the sustained temperatures...
Raised beds have become the dominant visual shorthand for “serious home gardening.” Scroll through any garden content on social media and you’ll see neat cedar frames filled with dark, fluffy soil, sitting in a sunlit yard like a promise of abundance. It’s a compelling image, and the popularity is real. Gardening searches related to raised...
High pressure has settled over the southern United States, locking in above-normal temperatures and a prolonged stretch of triple-digit readings. Meteorologist Hannah Gard has noted the pattern will keep conditions hot for an extended period. Gardeners across the region now face the challenge of shielding plants, lawns, and soil from sustained stress before lasting damage...
Most of us have one. It’s the shrub that got away from us somewhere between last spring and the summer before that, now bushy, sprawling, and vaguely embarrassing at the garden’s edge. But before you reach for the pruning shears, there’s a real and growing body of scientific evidence suggesting that “unidentified” or long-neglected plants...
