The Greater Grand Crossing neighborhood on the South Side currently has the edge in national voting with a proposal from the Gary Comer Youth Center and Make Miracles Grow Foundation to redevelop a two-acre brownfield into an urban farm. more ›

The parade of unfamiliar fruits (at least, unfamiliar to us) continues. After our brief encounter with the Buddha's Hand, which ended in tasty shortbread, we returned to the local market to find this strange creature sitting next to the checkout counter. At first, it looked like some sort of strange nut - it came in a small cluster of 3, with a long stem. It almost looked like a petrified, fossilized cherry. As we quickly learned, it was a Longan. more ›

Consumerist and NPR tipped us off to this story last Friday - apparently the blueberry-like objects in many cereals, frozen muffins and other processed products have absolutely nothing to with blueberry's at all! Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised, but while we generally assume that the "marshmallows" in cereal are fake (especially since they taste like chalk) when something is masquerading as fruit, we assume it has something to do with fruit. Not so. The blueberries, which are noted on the nutrition label as "blueberry flavored chrunchlets" or something similar, are actually made of "sugars, soybean oil, red #40 and blue #2." more ›

One of the joys (and troubles) of having an appreciation for strange foods is that people tend to bring you things without knowing what they are. One of our friends dropped this strange prickly ball in our lap, with the frightening statement, "You like weird stuff, right?" Gosh, what a reputation! The fruit had no information, no sign and no name. It kind of looked like an alien egg, and we had no idea how to go about eating it. Even worse, we didn't know how to identify it, because googling "red spiny fruit" is unproductive - trust us. more ›

Back for another installment of Seek Out New Life Forms, the column where we investigate strange and mysterious creatures of the grocery store. Today's candidate for cutting and probing is the Persimmon, an odd little orange fruit that has never darkened our doorstep before. more ›

Hybrid grapes, with regard to winemaking, are often ignored or ridiculed by the wine "experts." Sometimes this is with good reason; a mere mention of the word "chardonel" transports us back to Sundays at the Magic Pan. more ›