Health

The future of restaurant food: Silicon Valley cafeterias?

9 May 2013 Brain food
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What would restaurant food look like if chefs actually cared about your long-term health? The restaurant standard of today, in which chefs don’t think twice about melting a stick of butter over your steak, worked in a time when dining out was reserved for special occasions. But in today’s world, where many eat out daily, [...]

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Remembering bread

15 February 2013 Diet
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I have a beef with Starbucks, and it’s not about coffee – I’m a tea drinker – it’s about bread. My favorite bread, an old-school, Poilane-like whole wheat levain called pain Pascal at Trader Joe’s, has disappeared, and it turns out Starbucks is responsible for taking away one of the few breads I feel entirely [...]

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Healthy new year

14 January 2013 Brain food
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Good news for food lovers from 2012: starving yourself will not make you live longer. All those calorie-restrictive diets that increased life expectancy of lab rats by 30 to 40 percent? It turns out the concept doesn’t extend to primates. I’m sure some people (the intentionally-starving ones) might have found this news disappointing. But to [...]

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Badger Anti-Bug Balm

4 June 2012 Health
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Even before I had four kids, I never was a tiny pocketbook girl. All about preparedness, I like a large tote so I can carry items that just might come in handy. In my last-minute packing for my best friend’s wedding in Hawaii, I threw in this small tin of Badger Anti-Bug Balm, figuring it [...]

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My dad

10 May 2012 Brain food
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Seven months after my dad’s pancreatic cancer diagnosis, he is gone, after the kind of week for which the word anguish exists. I flew out to California last Monday with my two girls for a weeklong visit, and he was fine. Chemotherapy had failed him, but he was feeling better without its toxic effects. Suddenly [...]

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40

25 January 2012 Getting older
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My friends and I turn 40 this year. I’m ok with this. We have lost some exuberance of youth, but we have also shed the anxiety of beginners. Volatile years finding our way with careers, relationships and new parenthood have given way to a more relaxed confidence. We’ve learned who we are. We’ve become real [...]

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My friend Faith

13 October 2011 Columbus, OH
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It’s been a strange, volatile week, starting high, plunging low and ending with the realization that most everything is a high compared to the lows that could be. The week began last Thursday with a rare and exciting treat: lunch with a new friend, the lovely, curious Faith Durand, Managing Editor extraordinaire of my favorite [...]

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Apologies to Connecticut

5 October 2011 Getting older
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I owe Conecticut an apology. For six long months in my mid-20s I reverse-commuted from New York City to the suburbs of Connecticut for a job, and every day I wondered at the strangeness of such a nearby but utterly alien land. At lunchtime I struggled to feign interest in foreign conversation topics. “I installed [...]

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A fund for Jennie

26 August 2011 Death
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In a vast world, tragedies happen every day, ones that make me want to reach through the television or the newspaper to devastated families that I don’t know. Using the tools of social media, a group of caring bloggers this week has managed to bridge the divide between caring strangers and someone in need. The [...]

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Pain in the grain: It’s not just the gluten

14 July 2011 Diet
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As my friend Venus said recently, “Gluten-free is the new organic.” It’s true: gluten-free, once a fringe health concern, has gone mainstream. Gluten-free products are at regular supermarkets, and gluten-free menus are available at national eateries like Chili’s and P.F. Chang’s. Gluten intolerance, a problem on the rise, is a serious concern. It’s also a [...]

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