EatingWell September - October 2016

After work most nights you’ll find me in the kitchen. I pour a glass of wine, get organized and start cooking. I listen to the radio. Or chat on the phone. I’m not in a hurry. I buzz along at my own pace, winding down from the day. But I’ve got two things going for me: no kids and a husband who loves to eat late. My laid-back take on cooking most nights is not the norm. The editors here at Eating Well tell me about it all the time. Take our senior food editor, Carolyn Malcoun. She gets home by 6 and the whole family is sitting down to eat by 6:30 every night. She’s a speedy cook, plus she’s got some tactics, like meal planning and shopping on the…

FEEDBACK While I enjoyed your Taste makers article on Ramona Button in the July/August issue, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the valiant efforts of Native Seeds/SEARCH, a nursery and seed bank in Tucson. Their aim is exactly the same as Ramona’s: the promulgation and preservation of native Sonoran agriculture. —Wendy Walker, Tucson, AZ Page 61 of July/August [“A Real Taste of the Vineyard”] showed someone holding a false albacore, a great game fish—with a poor taste when cooked by conventional means. Does Chef Nathan Gould have a recipe? —William Henn, Harwich, MA Chef ’s reply: False albacore is a very strongflavored fish that is best on the grill with a lot of seasoning. I like creating a rub with brown sugar, cayenne, smoked paprika, salt and pepper. Then I char it on…

Pumpkins are taking on new colors for some good causes this fall. Keep your eyes peeled for a pink variety (pictured herfall. here), originating from the plains of La Junta, Colorado. Named Porcelain Doll, this pumpkin came from the experiment fields of plant breeder David Froese, who owns Colorado Seeds, Inc. with his wife, Carol Holsopple-Froese. Light pink on the outside with deep orange flesh, these pumpkins are not only gorgeous, but delicious, too—great in squash dishes, soups and desserts. And for Carol, a breast-cancer survivor, the pumpkins blossomed into a bigger idea to help others battling the disease. In 2012, she founded the Pink Pumpkin Patch Foundation, a nonprofit that raises money for breast cancer research through sales of these pumpkins. Today, several hundred growers across the U.S. and…

The days of legislators wanting to make ketchup a vegetable in school meals have passed. Now, many schools are serving up tomatoes, kale and beets grown by local farms, and even sometimes by the students themselves, thanks to the USDA’s Farm to School program. This initiative gives schools the resources to bring locally grown food into cafeterias. Plus, it teaches kids to make healthy choices through hands-on agriculture education, including school gardens, field trips to actual farm fields and vegetable taste tests. “The advantages around eating healthier foods are profound,” says Doug Davis, director of the Burlington (Vermont) School Food Project. “The Burlington school district leads the state in fruit and vegetable consumption. I think that has to be impacted by the education around the benefits of fruits and vegetables, but…

There’s a reason many of us love a juicy steak or a beefy burger: it tastes good. Aubry Walch, who’s eaten meatless for nearly 20 years, knows that meat’s texture and flavor can be hard to re-create in a vegan diet. So, she and her brother Kale came up with their own solution: The Herbivorous Butcher, a vegan butcher shop, in Northeast Minneapolis. “We made what we were hungry for,” Aubry says. “Many people want to reduce or eliminate their meat consumption, but find that black-bean burgers and lentil sloppy Joes aren’t always satisfying. But our vegan meats are deliciously deceiving.” Many of the products are made with a high-protein wheat flour that takes on a texture similar to meat; others are soy-based. The “steak” is fibrous just like its animal-meat…

$2.10 The minimum daily cost of eating 4½ cups of fruit and vegetables according to a new USDA study. The menu included 1 cup each of apple and orange and ½ cup each of romaine lettuce, carrot, Roma tomato, canned corn and frozen green beans. 7 Percent of income spent on groceries by the average American household. 23 Percent of income spent on groceries ($2,506) by households* in the lowest income bracket (making below $18,362 per year). *Average size of household in this category is 1.7 people. 25,364,000 American households that earn under $18,362 per year. This is about 20 percent of all households. $452 How much those who make under $18,362 spend on produce annually. 73¢ How much the daily recommendation of fruits and vegetables needs to cost for people in the lowest income bracket…