A plant that thrives on cold winters and humid summers, the gooseberry may just be the ultimate Illinois fruit. The season is short, but it can be extremely prolific, with a single bush being capable of producing several pounds of fruit. And the fruit can be harvested at almost any stage–meaning you can pick it […]

It’s a fruit, it’s a vegetable, it’s a BERRY! Eggplants are not only botanically fascinating (no, they are not a vegetable) but they also come in all sorts of colors and shapes (including a small white one that looks like an egg). And they are delicious. Don’t be fooled by that mushy eggplant parmesan of […]

As a child, I often wondered what sort of monstrous creature would lay a huge, purple-black egg, for surely the eggplant was named after such an egg laid by such a creature. Imagine my relief, tinged with disappointment, when I eventually learned that the first eggplants, grown in China, were small, ivory, and egg-shaped, with […]

Edamame (eh-dah-mah-may) are sweet young things — sweet, young soybeans, to be exact. And they are perhaps the world’s easiest and most nutritious snack food. Popped from the pod directly into your mouth, the slick orbs have a pleasing toothiness, followed by a sweet, buttery taste that makes it impossible to eat just one. In […]

When I go out on hot summer days, I often trade my bottle of water for a cool cucumber—or two, or three. The clean flavor and crunch make cucumbers much more satisfying and thirst quenching, not to mention more nutritious, than plain old water—or even newfangled vitamin water. A TALL, COLD…CUCUMBER? Because cucumbers are mostly […]