How to Grow Everything Extreme opinions attract the most attention online. This dynamic can be innocuous, if stupid, as in the case of sports, or incredibly corrosive, as in the case of politics. But in other areas it’s just confusing. For example, I’ve recently seen people condescendingly claim that it’s delusional to imagine that anyone...
Pork Inferno When cooking goes wrong Building a cinderblock oven is simple. Smooth out an area of ground, decide on a size, then stack up four courses of cinderblocks, leaving an opening to shovel coals or charcoal into the bottom. Use a mason’s hammer to chip out divots from a few of the blocks and...
Werewolf Agriculture The spookiest thing about werewolves (aside, perhaps, from being giant, bloodthirsty man-beasts) is their double nature; the werewolf that comes prowling around your door one night might return to it in the morning as Bill the mailman. Depending on the particular folklore involved, Bill himself might not know it. The same guy who...
Cornell Pork Chops A new twist on an old favorite If you’ve spent any time in central or western New York, you’ve likely noticed that lots of groups from churches to to libraries, but especially fire houses, raise money by holding chicken dinners. Chicken is put in a tangy, savory marinade, then grilled. There are...
Real Spontaneous Combustion Why hay lights itself on fire As a kid I was enthralled by and terrified of spontaneous human combustion. The thought that I might be walking out the door for recess one minute and reduced to a smoldering corpse the next took vivid hold of my eight-year-old imagination. Looking back, I think...
Slow Cooked Lamb Shoulder Roast Tender, flavorful lamb in a simple pan sauce For some reason many people find cooking lamb intimidating. part of the reason is likely a bad experience with tough, or gamey, but I think the biggest issue is familiarity. In America we eat far less lamb than is the norm in...
The Money Saving Garden Intuitively, a vegetable garden should be an easy money saver; put some seeds in the ground, pull up a few weeds, and before you know it you have lunch growing in your backyard. While this can be the case, there are a few common mistakes that can leave you with a...
Shallow Roots The gardening season in central New York is short. Nights stay cold deep into spring, and two years ago all the squash got killed by a frost on the last day of August. You only get one shot at growing most vegetables, particularly those that take a long time to mature. My project...
The Global Burden of Disease I have been experiencing something of an epistemic crisis, which is a fancy way of saying I’m less sure about not just what I know, but why I think I know it. And I’m not talking about the pressing but obviously intractable issues facing the country, like how to bridge...
How Bad Will Food Shortages Get? In the spring of 2020, as lockdowns spread across the country, there were a couple weeks in which supermarkets emptied out, with meat and other fresh goods in particularly short supply. Even after the initial shock, the prevalence of COVID in industrial meatpacking plants along with other ongoing supply...