January 2021

The holidays are here, and among the many treats of the season are chocolate and hot cocoa. While these traditions provide a hefty dose of sugar, there’s a bittersweet side to chocolate’s history, too. This year, at Stratford Hall Plantation in Westmoreland County, Virginia, a plantation museum where, as a historian, I work as the director of…

Read More Oppression in the kitchen, delight in the dining room: The story of Caesar, an enslaved chef and chocolatier in Colonial Virginia

I clean my fridge regularly, because, in my house, I’m the only one who eats leftovers. I also check out all of those half-empty jars of condiments. I find those packets from the Chinese food place, catsup from fast food, cheese from Italian take out, and bottles/jars of mayo, mustard, relish, chili sauce, BBQ sauce,…

Read More When to Toss Food Out

The Daily Skimm, December 31, 2020 Oh, 2020. Not all years are good but you were especially crappy. Our Google searches went from ‘best places to travel on a budget’ to ‘how many plants is too many plants?’ We all baked bread. Everything was cake. We made margs with Martha Stewart, cosmos with Ina Garten, and negronis with Stanley Tucci. No one remembers jeans.…

Read More Daily Skimm: That’s a WAP on 2020

By Michael Cavna Dec. 31, 2020 at 6:00 a.m. EST “A new year…a fresh, clean start!” a joyous boy in red mittens said a quarter-century ago this week, shortly before soaring forth on the most famous sled in American arts this side of “Citizen Kane.” And just like that, the high-spirited 6-year-old and his best buddy were…

Read More ‘Calvin and Hobbes’ said goodbye 25 years ago. Here’s why Bill Watterson’s masterwork enchants us still.