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Easy Spring Dishes With Time-Saving Shortcuts

I confess: I refuse to blanch, peel and seed a tomato, even if the recipe says to. Every cook has a fussiness threshold, and that exceeds mine. So when the whole blanch-peel-seed thing comes up in dishes as delightful as Pierre Franey’s sautéed salmon with leeks and tomatoes, I simply cheat and throw unblanched, unpeeled,…

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The Health Benefits of Getting Dirty

Scientists have long known that a little dirt can be good for you. Research has suggested that people who grow up on farms, for instance, have lower rates of Crohn’s disease, asthma and allergies, likely because of their exposure to a diverse array of microbes. In the 1970s, scientists even found a soil-dwelling bacterium, called…

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Read Your Way Through Accra

What should I read before I pack my bags? Nii Ayikwei Parkes’s “Tail of the Blue Bird” brings the city to life. This slim novel is set in Accra and Sonokrom, a small village. Kayo, a forensic pathologist working in Accra, has been forced by a high-ranking police officer to investigate a sinister discovery in…

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