Serri Graslie
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Organizers of the Winter Games are preparing to serve up quite a bit of the hearty, deep-red Russian soup. Which is kind of ironic, says Russian food writer Anya von Bremzen, since borscht carries with it complicated political implications. And not all borschts are created equal, she warns.
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Part discount grocer, part social service agency, the supermarkets limit membership to those who can prove they receive some form of welfare benefits. These stores, which are flourishing in Europe, sell food that's been rejected by grocers but is still perfectly edible and would otherwise end up in landfills.
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MenuStat, a site launched by the New York City Health Department, aggregates detailed nutritional information about menu items at the nation's largest restaurants. The department hopes it will encourage consumers to choose healthier items on the menu.
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Dish Network announced this week that it will shutter the 300 or so remaining Blockbuster stores it owns across the country. But in some places, dozens of the video stores will have an unlikely afterlife.
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Restaurants with a "weak" reputation are more likely to write fake positive reviews, a study finds. But chain restaurants, which do not benefit greatly from Yelp, are less likely to commit review fraud.
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Forty percent of food in the U.S. goes uneaten each year. The major problem is also a major opportunity for startups like Food Cowboy and CropMobster, which are trying to cash in by connecting sellers of excess food to people in need of it.
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Basil is a mega-celebrity of the herb world. But if it had a choice, it might prefer to be recognized for its work in lesser-known cuisines and recipes (the indie films and off-Broadway plays, if you will), where it shines in a different way and brings a new dimension to food.
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Hungry bugs and warmer temperatures mean pine trees aren't producing as many seeds as they once did, driving up the cost of Italian pine nuts to $120 per pound in some cases. Cookbook author Julia della Croce found a colorful — and delicious — alternative in pistachios.
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Homemade sodas are hot these days: Americans bought more than 1.2 million home carbonators last year. For the Fourth of July, we asked mixologist Gina Chersevani to help us tap into the trend with a soda float inspired by Independence Day.
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Postwar marketing of convenience foods pushed our grandmothers to take many shortcuts in the kitchen that modern foodies might find unpalatable. Many involved Jell-O. Cookbook author Jeremy Jackson updated his grandma Mildred's famous strawberry cake recipe to remove this old-school secret ingredient.