Ari LeVaux

2 months ago | shepherdexpress.com | Ari LeVaux

In winter when tomatoes are anemic and the lettuce has jetlag, pomegranates can add a zest to your food that’s fresh as a daisy. The bright red orbs dangle like Christmas tree ornaments from their bushy trees. Native to Central Asia, some historians believe them to be the originally sinful fruit of the Biblical Tree of Knowledge.

2 months ago | mtstandard.com | Ari LeVaux

He didn’t like curry, and to this day purports to hate coconut, but my son Remy would walk on molten lava for a bowl of red chicken curry. I don’t need to solve this paradox to benefit from the fact that curry offers great leverage to get kids and grownups alike to eat their vegetables. A good curry allows you to work with whatever is fresh, and there are almost as many curry recipes around the world as there are vegetables at the farmers market.

Feb 11, 2025 | thepulp.org | Ari LeVaux

Not everyone loves chocolate, but those who do feel it deeply. My son Remy is one of those people. A skilled cook with the ability to think himself inside the dish he’s preparing, traveling between the food molecules and comprehending the forces at work. All cooking is an expression of love, but chocolate, more than most foods, confers the feeling of being loved. And for the last several years Remy has been researching the process by which chocolate is created from raw cacao beans.

Jan 23, 2025 | randomlengthsnews.com | Ari LeVaux

By Ari LeVauxIn Genoa, Italy, the birthplace of pesto, it goes without saying that the sauce is made with basil — Genoese basil, to be exact. Pesto is so big in Genoa that the airport had to loosen its rules, allowing travelers to bring more than three ounces of the liquid in their carry-on baggage. They screen it with the machine used for medicine and breast milk. The further you get from Cristoforo Colombo Airport, the looser the rules of pesto are.

Dec 16, 2024 | shepherdexpress.com | Ari LeVaux

The dark days of winter solstice have a way of making human beings hunger for light. That is probably why, whatever your creed or culture, you have a tradition that involves casting some kind of glow during the period we call “the holidays.” Perhaps you have a lit-up tree, or a menorah on the windowsill, or maybe a string of lights strewn about your house. But sometimes pretty lights alone might not do it. If perhaps we are bidding farewell to a particularly flamboyant dumpster fire of a year.