Food

Ahhh, the all-American, all-you-can-eat buffet. Nowhere else do we revel in our own waste with such joy. Overstuffed but determined to sample the cornucopia of desserts, I waited behind a woman at one last weekend. She was scrupulously carving "just a sliver" (as my grandma used to say) from a hefty wedge of chocolate cake. “Take the whole slice and leave the rest on your plate like everyone else,” commented a man nearby. Well, it would make the line move faster, I thought.

By "Tern" Alexa Schirtzinger--This Saturday, I went to investigate another of artist Olafur Eliasson’s contributions to New York, a “reversed waterfall” that complements the “Arctic Hysteria” Scandinavian art exhibit at P.S. 1, part of the Museum of Modern Art, in Queens.

Recently, Audubon intern Shawn Query gave us some good reasons to swear off plastic bags, along with other changes we can make in order to practice whatever brand of environmentalism we preach. As her term ends and my internship begins, I thought I'd expand on one of her ideas. I became a vegetarian back in January. As a former devotee of "delicacies" like cheeseburgers and turkey cold cuts, if two years ago someone had told me I'd one day be a veg-head, I'd have thought they'd lost it.

In yesterday's green issue of the New York Times Magazine Michael Pollan makes a case in his piece titled "Why Bother?" for growing our own food as a way to rein in our global warming emissions.

Patrick Tregenza, USDA

As if plump ripe tomatoes and fresh raspberries picked yesterday weren't already enough reason to shop at your local farmer's market,  researchers at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have provided yet another justification for getting intimate with the origins of your produce.