NOT MANY COOKBOOKS KICK OFF with the creation of the universe. Yet that’s where Monique Fiso begins Hiakai, a groundbreaking new book on Māori cuisine. First, there was nothing. Then, in the nothing, there were two lovers, Ranginui and Papatūānuku. Ranginui and Papatūānuku held each other so close that their children were trapped between them. Craving light and…

ON NOVEMBER 4, 1857, A notice appeared in the Cambridge Democrat, the local newspaper of Cambridge, Maryland. Submitted by one Dr. Alexander Hamilton Bayly, it offered a $300 reward for anyone who could locate and kidnap a 28-year-old woman named Lizzie Amby, whom Bayly had enslaved. She had fled Bayly’s house some days before, bound north, along with her…

Between the constant campaign news and the repeated calls from phone bankers to get to the polls, U.S. presidential election season is always hectic. This election season, however, is truly unprecedented. A pandemic, a severe economic downturn, natural disasters, and nationwide Black-led racial justice protests, have left many of us needing a moment to step back…

WHEN KATIE DIEZ TALKS TO me from her home in rural Oregon, the world is red with smoke. It’s mid-September, and wildfires have been raging across the West Coast for weeks. “The air quality is in the hazardous level,” says Diez. “I keep looking out the window hoping that the smoke will start to clear.” Inside…

When emergency physician Lorna M. Breen took her own life this past April, it sent shockwaves through the medical community. Breen was a medical director at the prestigious New York Presbyterian-Allen Hospital, which was overwhelmed with patients in the early days of the U.S. coronavirus pandemic. Colleagues and family remembered her as an extremely talented…

Thoughts on wellness and equality on the Fourth of July. The Fourth of July — like most other things these days — is going to be a little different this year. As coronavirus cases surge across the United States following too-rapid reopenings, the need for social distancing makes our usual backyard barbecues and beachside adventures difficult, if…

For the past week, the United States has witnessed an uprising against racism and racist police brutality unseen since the aftermath of the 1968 assasination of Martin Luther King Jr. While many white Americans are only now waking up to the realities of police brutality against Black communities, racism has always undergirded American life — and…

IN THE 1950S, A FOOD trend swept the United States: the sweet salad. World War II had ended, and with it wartime rationing, but Americans’ penchant for canned goods persisted. The combination of the increased popularity of preserved foods and the overall postwar atmosphere of abundance led to a widespread love for dishes that were modern,…

“At night it would hit me,” Marika Lindholm said. Two decades ago, Lindholm was an adjunct sociology professor, and a newly divorced mom of two small kids. “I was teaching issues of the feminization of poverty. I had a nice analytical approach to it, but I didn’t really get it,” Lindholm said of her academic…

It’s spring in New York City, and Patricia Ross is on the phone. Warm weather has just come to Brooklyn. In normal times, the streets would be pressed with crowds of revelers, giddy with sun. But these are not normal times. For the past two months, since the coronavirus gripped New York, sirens have echoed…