Published Work Archives - Page 15 of 23

Q&A: Mister Bean

January 22, 2025September 11, 2007

Salon

Salon • Sept. 11, 2007

Every food has its fans, and with Ken Albala’s new book, “Beans: A History,” the humble legume may well have found its champion. Over a year spent eating beans on a daily basis, from minuscule rice beans to 4-inch whoppers called gigantes, the culinary historian put his expertise — and his stomach — to work, compiling a detailed family history of the world’s edible beans.

But lest that seem like an avalanche of research to pour into a humble subject, Albala is quick to point out that beans are one of the few foods that appear in nearly every national cuisine, from French cassoulets to Filipino bean and fruit desserts. Pairing a foodie’s curiosity with an academic’s knack for detail, Albala carefully charts the food’s historical arc while also offering recipes in keeping with each era.

The Cause Web / Innovators

January 22, 2025September 1, 2007

Contribute

Contribute • September/October 2007

Contribute’s Tech 10 is not a hot list. It’s a selection not of the most powerful or the most glamorous or the most famous. There aren’t presidents of established foundations, nor celebrities. They’re not even the most vocal. Rather, they are a handful of some of the most influential new leaders at the very front lines of advocacy today, all using the power of The Cause Web to reshape the reach, impact, and experience of what it means to make a difference. They are innovators like Suzanne Seggerman, who founded Games for Change, to use video games to raise funds and awareness for those caught in the crossfire of global strife. Or Ailin Graef, a Chinese-born entrepreneur who is the first philanthropist in the maturing new world of Second Life. Or Charles Best, whose simple online auction model matches specific individuals on both sides of the give-get divide — a Manhattan banker, say, with an impoverished public school teacher in South Central Los Angeles — and completely removes the middleman to more quickly help those in need. But the real magic of our Tech 10 is the array of new technologies they represent. Herewith, our Tech 10:

Restaurateurs-to-Be Look Before Leaping

January 22, 2025August 8, 2007

The New York Times

The New York Times • Aug. 8, 2007

PASQUALE VIGGIANO and his wife, Geraldine, thought they knew the restaurant business. Ms. Viggiano had helped her mother run a cafe in Honduras and Mr. Viggiano had grown up hearing his parents’ fond tales of the luncheonette they opened when they came to Brooklyn from Italy.

“They described how they put the restaurant together and it kind of excited me,” Mr. Viggiano said.

Digging Deeper

January 22, 2025August 3, 2007

Plenty

Plenty • Aug. 3, 2007

When Will Allen was offered a buyout from his job at Procter and Gamble in 1982, he knew exactly what to do with the corporate cash: Buy a farm. Allen dropped $80,000 on 100 acres south of Milwaukee’s airport, and eventually added a couple of acres within city limits.

Today, the 58-year-old has 25 years of urban agriculture experience under his belt—and he’s put it to good use. As the executive director of Growing Power, an urban agriculture group, Allen oversees a wide array of innovative programs that have made the organization one of the country’s preeminent teaching institutions for city-based, grassroots farming practices. “Our strength is in inspiring people to get up off the planning table,” he says.

Mapping Out Meals

January 22, 2025July 27, 2007

Plenty

Plenty • July 27, 2007

Two days before Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, Marnie Genre was putting down roots in the Big Easy—literally. Planting backyard fruit and vegetable gardens in the city’s Hollygrove neighborhood, Genre and her colleagues at the New Orleans Food and Farm Network (NOFFN), a food justice group, were aiming to improve the health of residents in the low-income communities while bolstering local food systems.

Then Katrina hit. Hollygrove sat under floodwaters for days. And when they receded, NOFFN knew that everything had changed—including what they needed to do.

Not Your Average Turnip Truck

January 22, 2025July 13, 2007

Plenty

Plenty • July 13, 2007

The corner of Market and Brockhurst in West Oakland, CA doesn’t look much like a food mecca. A small church, a low-slung YMCA, and an elementary school occupy three corners of the treeless intersection. On the fourth corner sits the only clue: a two-story house converted to apartments, bearing a colorful, graffiti-lettered sign declaring, “Be Healthy!”

It’s fitting that the offices of the People’s Grocery, an Oakland-based food justice group, offer the brightest sign of fresh food for blocks. Founded in 2002 by Malaika Edwards, Leander Sellers, and current executive director Brahm Ahmadi, the group started with one simple premise: Bring fresh, healthy food to the city.

One Stop Shop

January 22, 2025July 6, 2007

Plenty

Plenty • July 6, 2007

A couple years ago, Veronica Uy, a staffer for the Philadelphia-based food justice group the Food Trust, got an intriguing assignment: Visit the country’s biggest and best farmers’ markets—and help create something similar in the City of Brotherly Love.

It was a perfect fit for Uy, a Filipina-Canadian transplant to the States who developed a passion for food markets during a trip to Southeast Asia. She’d recently dropped a fledgling career as a computer programmer to work on food issues, and the project came with a double lure. Not only would a flagship market appeal to Uy’s foodie instincts, (she’s an avid home cook) it would highlight the local produce available in the city—and help publicize the fact that in Philly, most farmers’ markets accept food stamps and other government benefit coupons.

Motor City Harvest

January 22, 2025June 29, 2007

Plenty

Plenty • June 29, 2007

“All right, when you’re starting your seedlings, you don’t need to go buy those trays, right?” Ashley Atkinson, a bespectacled and freckled 29-year-old, is quickly wrapping a piece of newspaper around a bottle of water, talking to a dozen tables of Detroiters eating through a potluck dinner as she works. “Because what are those trays made out of?”

The room chuckles: “Plastic!”

Low-wage Work Can Be Nasty, Brutish, Ignored

January 22, 2025June 25, 2007

City Limits

City Limits • June 25, 2007

Thousands of workers in New York City – from payroll staff in high-end restaurants to undocumented immigrants helping to build new housing – aren’t earning minimum wage or overtime pay, a new report from the Brennan Center for Justice has found.

In addition to minimum wage and overtime violations – researchers found the latter so common in most of the restaurant industry as to render overtime pay “purely optional” – researchers identified a string of other common violations. In interviews with 326 workers, employers, agency officials and advocates conducted between 2003 and 2006, researchers found consistent problems ranging from slippery floors and unpaid meal breaks to outright human trafficking.

From Stories to Strawberries

January 22, 2025June 4, 2007

Plenty

Plenty • June/July 2007

With her rare mix of storytelling skills and a social conscience, best-selling author Barbara Kingsolver has built a career on the premise that a well-told story can move mountains. Her latest effort, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, tells an entirely new tale: her own. Spun around her family’s move to Virginia and their subsequent decision to eat only foods grown and raised in their county—including their own farm—Animal marries Kingsolver’s narrative gifts with reported essays from her husband, biologist Steven Hopp, and recipes from her then-19-year-old daughter, Camille. Plenty caught up with Kingsolver to talk about the local food movement, taking your dinner seriously, and why eating well is for everyone—not just the elite.