There’s nothing like a fight in which different states and regions square off about who’s better at producing a popular food. One of the most energetic rivalries involves barbecue, pitting (where pork is the thing) against Texas (land of beef, and in particular). If you’re loyal to North Carolina or Kansas City, please know that I’m aware these places make good barbecue, too. No need to call and scream at me.

This sort of competition turns up all over the place. There’s an old episode of The West Wing in which windbag president Jed Bartlet, a former governor of New Hampshire, is appalled when he sees that Vermont maple syrup is on the menu at an upcoming official . (“New Hampshire syrup is what we serve in this White House,” he grumbles.) șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű correspondent Tim Neville, who grew up in the heart of Maryland’s blue crab country, swears that Marylanders and Virginians argue about which state’s are better—something surprising to outsiders, since they both swim and crawl in the same briny waters. (Doesn’t matter. Neville’s dad insists that Maryland crabs are “fatter.”) Then there’s the ongoing scrap over the very different burritos made in Southern and Northern California.

“In the North,” magazine explained years ago, “a burrito is a foil-wrapped behemoth: a tortilla the size of a manhole cover bursting with rice, black beans, and an unending list of ingredients.
 [I]t’s unrecognizable to partisans of the austere (and rice-free) parcels of refried beans and cheese found in the South. Allegiances run strong.”

The post Why Colorado and New Mexico Are Fighting a Hot War Over Green Chile appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

Malcolm Gladwell and Peggy NoonanÌęare concerned that many of you want to keep working at home, now and in the future, whether there’s a pandemic going on or not. I agree that you should start thinking about a return to the office, but I suggest that, before giving in, you deliver a nonnegotiable dress-code ultimatum to your employer that goes like this: Let the people wear shorts. I’ll come back to this theme in a moment, but first let’s review the Gladwell-Noonan policy positions.

During a recent on the podcast The Diary of a CEO, Gladwell, author of seven bestselling books, includingÌęThe Tipping Point and Blink, got genuinely emotional as he described what we’re losing culturally when people shun office life, such asÌęa sense of camaraderie, belonging, and shared purpose. “It’s not in your best interest to work at home,” he said. “I know it’s a hassle to come to the office, but if you’re just sitting in your pajamas in your bedroom, is that the work life you want to live? Don’t you want to feel part of something?”

Before that, in a Wall Street Journal op-ed called “,” Noonan, a prominent pundit who was a speechwriter during the Reagan administration, lamented the “transformation of work” that has led to more people avoiding offices for good, a shift that, she wrote, had been going on for a while and was “simply sped up and finalized by the pandemic.” She finds the change depressing, for a combination of nostalgic reasons (she loved office culture as depicted, um, 50 years ago in ) and more serious worries about productivity and the U.S. national spirit.

“There is something demoralizing about all the empty offices, something post-greatness about them,” she wrote. “All the almost-empty buildings in all the downtowns—it feels too much like a metaphor for decline.”

As often happens when people with big media platforms weigh in on anything, Gladwell and Noonan got trashed. Gladwell trended on Twitter for most of the day on August 7, with mockers pointing out that he’s written in the past about his preference for working alone in coffee shops. Noonan got keel-hauled by the online magazineÌęWonketteÌęin a story called “.”

The pile-on struck me as unfair. Gladwell, in fact, is part of an office culture: during the interview, he talks about employees who work for Pushkin Industries, an audio company he runs with his friend Jacob Weisberg. In addition to an office in Manhattan, Pushkin has an in Hudson, New York; Gladwell works with colleagues there in person. I have no idea where Noonan works, but I’m sure she knows enough about office life to have sincere thoughts about its decline. And they’re not the only people about this.

That said, I’ll add that their generalizations may not apply to the lives of large numbers of people, including me. For starters, I happen to love offices and never really abandoned ship: I’ve been working in the spacious Santa Fe HQ of șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű since the spring of 2020, when I ignored a stay-at-home order issued by the governor of New Mexico and started sneaking back to the office instead. (Please don’t tell the governor I did this. She’s .)

People have returned to work at the șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű building (or not) in waves that ebb and flow in sync with their justifiable nervousness about the latest COVID-19 variant, and there have been times when it was pretty lonely in here. Before the pandemic, there were dozens of people scurrying around inside the two-story Santa Fe hub. During low tide in 2020, there were sometimes only four or five humans on the scene, plus the three turtles who swim in our courtyard fountain.

For me, that was fine. In addition to being able to concentrate fully because few others were around, I could shout in the hallways and check for echoes (there weren’t any; no flapping fruit bats, either), jog, jump rope, run an indoor mini-farm in my office using hydroponic gardening equipment, and, most precious of all, realize my lifelong dream of working in an office in shorts—without getting on my case.

And I don’t just mean I’ve worn shorts on Luau Fridays. I mean I’ve tried to wear them seven days a week, 52 weeks per year, including in the dead of winter. (Sometimes when it snows a foot or more, I break down and wear what women on Twitter call “”) This multiyear experiment in wardrobe liberty has been a glorious revelation—good for my health, mind, and soul—so I would say this (in a friendly way) to Gladwell and Noonan: You think we should all go back to the office? OK. As long as we can do it in shorts.

Or . In any event: #FreeTheLegs.

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In the tradition of , the , and all those people wrote about, Lauren Boebert—the Trump-loving, firebrand from western Colorado—and her husband, Jayson, can get a little too rowdy on the home front. According to the Denver Post, the Boebert family allegedly has a track record of in their hometown (Silt, in Garfield County) with reckless driving, property damage, threats, and noise.

Most recently, on August 4, a rattled caller told a 911 dispatcher that one of the Boeberts’ sons was upsetting domestic tranquility by “speeding up and down their street in a dune buggy.”

“He’s going like 50 miles an hour and this is a residential lane, there’s kids,” the caller said. “We tried to stop him and he’d just freakin’ cuss at us and just left.”

According to the Post, by the time a second neighbor called 911, deputies hadn’t yet arrived, but Jayson had sprung into action and “began to run the second neighbor’s mailbox over in a truck.”

“There’s about to be some shit going down here,” this neighbor told dispatchers. “It’s Lauren Boebert’s jackass husband, Jayson Boebert.”

Whew! That’s a lot, and it makes me think that we’d be better off if people with this much negative energy had a constructive way to channel it. Perhaps through sports.

Fortunately, we do. The epic event described below consists of ten separate and exhausting tests of human performance. Here, for the first time, are the rules and scoring system for a decathlon that captures the spirit of our age.

Abusive Shouting for Distance and Accuracy

Reading from a curated list of insults frequently hurled at neighborhood foes—“All y’all can kiss my ass!”, “You want some of this, motherfucker?!”—contestants will be judged on whether their lacerating screams, measured at 50-yard intervals, register on a recording device, wake up a sleeping grandma in a rocking chair, or cause a tethered pit bull to start barking. (Points awarded based on decibel levels and insult clarity at each checkpoint.)

ATV Hatchet Throw

Five per contestant; all tosses must be executed at 40 miles per hour or more. Helmets not allowed unless they double as . (Ten points for damaging mailboxes and stop signs; 20 points for knocking out exterior home lighting; 200 points for automotive glass; 1,000 points for police car beacon lights.)

Declutter the Landscape

Using a 16-inch gas-powered chainsaw and an fitted with a diamond grit cutting wheel, your assignment is to make the world a little flatter. (Fruit trees and crabapples, 25 points; mature deciduous trees and conifers, 100 points; wooden utility poles, 200 points; industrial-grade light and power pillars, 500 points. Not recommended for felling: redwoods, wind turbine towers.)

Where No Musher Has Gone Before

Fifty points awarded for each documented instance of driving a snow machine on a substance that isn’t snow. Past attempts have included lake, river, and ocean water; mud, beach volleyball sand, and wet concrete; the wood-planked floor of a Portland brew pub; a bed of pig-roasting coals at a Hawaiian luau; baseball fan entrance ramp at in Queens, New York; and a department store escalator full of excited bargain shoppers.

Quick-Draw McPaw

How many frisky pets can you “hydrate” with your water cannon? (Ten points for cats, 20 points for dogs, 250 points for large, angry dogs that are able to jump fences.)

Fakeout-the-Media Challenge

Wearing only cutoffs, can you and your partner argue passionately enough in your front yard, trailer slab, or motel parking lot to attract coverage by a local TV news team? (250 points.)

Elk Tipping

Cautionary note for beginners in this famously burly event: check to make sure that the standing, sleeping elk you intend to tip over is 1) actually asleep, and 2) not a moose or a bear. (Elk calves, 25 points; cows, 50 points; bulls, 100 points; moose or bear, 500 points plus a $1,000 emergency-room copay.)

Bring It On!

You’re blind drunk, and though you’re being a mindful citizen by walking home instead of driving on the sidewalk, you get hassled anyway. A cruiser pulls up, flashes its lights, and a cop rolls down a window to shout: “Where do you think you’re going, punk?” After you say “Go to hell,” your quest is to show how long—using a combination of agility, street smarts, strength, and sweaty skin—you can avoid being subdued with . (Points based on time and total bruise count.)

Think Like a

Hmmm, smells like somebody in the nabe is making smoked brisket. Negotiating a winding course that features a maze of derelict cars, the slippery roof of an assisted care facility (full of nervous patients with bedside emergency buttons), and a sewage lagoon, your goal is to steal this beefy treasure and bring it home fast. (500 points; 750 if you do it while squinting and clutching a Marlboro in your lips.)

Liquor Store Steeplechase

Our marquee event, conducted as always with generous help from these fine sponsors: the Devil’s Dew family of beer, wine, and spirits mini-marts; Don’t Come Back chain-link fencing; and WetButt above-ground pools.

At participating Devil’s Dew locations, contestants will shoplift all they can hold of the following items: beer (in cases), vodka (1.75-liter handles), cigarettes (cartons), meat sticks (all lengths), and . Winner is chosen using a combination of total weight carried and time required to flee the premises, climb a fence, and swim across a portable pool. (1,000 points. Lifetime entry fee exemption for anyone who beats Jayson Boebert’s personal best: 187 pounds.)

Thanks to for contributions to this article.

The post Do You Have What It Takes to Win the Lauren and Jayson Boebert Boil Over Decathlon? appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

This spring, New Mexico was hit hard by wildfires, and two of them burned through vast swaths of public and private land to the west and east of Santa Fe, where I live. The Cerro Pelado Fire, which at press time had scorched more than 45,000 acres of backcountry south and west of Los Alamos, started on April 22 and is now mostly contained; its origins remain unknown. The fire known as Calf Canyon–±á±đ°ùłŸŸ±łÙ’s Peak, which has made news all over the world, began as two separate controlled burns—both run by the U.S. Forest Service—that broke out and turned into historic disasters. By early June, those fires had covered nearly 320,000 acres, in a part of the state that contains a mix of population centers, most of them traditionally Hispanic, and wilderness areas. The latter fire’s southernmost boundary is just west of the city of , near a mountain called ±á±đ°ùłŸŸ±łÙ’s Peak, and extends north in a wide path that’s home to thousands of people living in or near villages like , Rociada, Upper Rociada, Gascon, and Cleveland. This fire is still not tamed, and as of June 8, it had destroyed 880 residences and other structures. (You can get a sense of the location and scale of these fires .)

Big fires can be hard to make sense of, even from a short distance away, but I learned a lot by following two Facebook pages that I heard about from my friend Dave Cox, a who lives in Glorieta, New Mexico, where he did volunteer work and took pictures of the enormous smoke plumes generated by the Calf Canyon–±á±đ°ùłŸŸ±łÙ’s Peak inferno. Cox told me about two especially useful sites: the and .

While monitoring them, I read a lot of bad news, obviously: stories of those who lost everything to flames, of the difficulties survivors were facing when dealing with agencies like FEMA, and of widespread rage against the federal government that’s going to play out for years—often in courtrooms—as people seek financial compensation for what they lost.

But there was uplifting information on those pages, too, and by following them, I got a better sense of the immeasurable contributions made by firefighters, volunteers, and concerned citizens from all over the country. Before long, I started coming across amazing tales from a particular part of the fires’ overall narrative: pet and wildlife rescue. With help from Facebook, pet owners, and animal-welfare volunteers, I learned about some incredible creatures who came close to the brink.

Spoiler alert! These stories all have happy endings.

The post Meet Porky, Cinder, and Other Furry Survivors of the 2022 New Mexico Superfires appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

It’s a sunny Saturday afternoon in late August, and °żłÜłÙČőŸ±»ć±đ’s man in the field, Dave Cox, is driving west on New Mexico State Road 58, loaded for bear.

Actually, he’s packing a breakfast burrito, a Snickers bar, and Gatorade that he plans to give to Bearsun, an anime-inspired character created by Jessy Larios, a 33-year-old man from Los Angeles. Bearsun’s goal is to hike from inside a heavy, full-body bear suit, raising thousands of dollars for five different charities as he pads toward the finish line: Times Square. During his walks through Arizona and New Mexico, he became a , and he was especially popular in the vast , which includes territory in both states. An August 16 column in the Navajo Times captured the phenomenon well: “Bearsun’s effect: Why are DinĂ© obsessed with man in bear suit?”

Cox knew almost nothing about this until yesterday, when I called and said something authoritative like “Help! Please find this bear for me!” (I was stuck at home and couldn’t go.) He gamely hit the road the next morning, driving north for 125 miles from his home near Santa Fe to look for a six-foot-tall Endurance Muppet. Any comparison you want to make between his mission and Stanley looking for Livingstone is probably accurate.

As Cox rolls along in an area east of the Rockies known as the , he’s not certain the hunt will be successful. All he has to go on is a vague social media update Bearsun posted in Cimarron, New Mexico, which said he was heading east toward the town of Springer. Now he’s scouting a 28-mile stretch of rolling grasslands, grazing antelope, and endless undulations, where he sees plenty of white-and-tan pronghorns, but no sign of a man doing cross-country Kabuki in a white-and-tan bear suit.

The quest ends as Cox heads down a draw toward a pretty little waterway called Ponil Creek. He spots a solitary figure in the distance, and 
 yes! Bear, ho! As Cox will learn shortly, Bearsun isn’t always alone, and today he’s accompanied by an escort: Theresa Galvan—executive staff assistant to the president of Navajo Nation—who came out to help make sure Bearsun gets through New Mexico safely. Later, when Cox is walking along with Bearsun, taking photos and asking questions, Theresa will gently cut in to offer the bear a plum. Down the road a bit, the whole entourage will be invited to sit under an impromptu hospitality tent erected by a group of indigenous people who drove in from various spots in New Mexico and Colorado just to say hello.

After Cox parks and exits his truck, he walks up and introduces himself, and any nervousness he felt about meeting our nation’s most charismatic plush toy quickly evaporates. As you can gather from posts that Bearsun has put on , , and (where he has 131,000 followers and counting), he’s a friendly person who loves to laugh, say “Let’s goooo!,” free-associate (in one video he says he’s going to walk from Florida to Alaska someday), and engage with hordes of people who want to connect, shoot a photo, or give him food, water, or a gift.

Cox hands Bearsun the burrito, a glorious combo of beans, cheese, and New Mexico red chile he bought at a carryout called . Bearsun is able to maneuver it through a gap between the bottom of his large headpiece—a round, bulbous thing mounted on top of a motorcycle helmet, with two big, mesh-covered eyeholes—and his neck. The burrito goes down in what seems like two seconds. It’s good that it was meatless, because it turns out that Bearsun is a vegetarian.

Soon Cox asks the obvious question: Why?

“Pretty much everything was based on an impulsive decision,” Bearsun says in an upbeat, slightly hoarse voice, adding that the experiences he’s had have been incredible and life-changing. The Navajos treated him like a returning astronaut. Two nights ago, he was an honored guest at another special place: . The Tiwa people there welcomed him warmly, let him (not just anybody gets to do that), and told him about historic episodes from their past—including the , which originated there under the command of a legendary figure named .

As Bearsun explained to Cox, the cross-country walk sort of just happened. He developed the suit for fun in 2016, as part of his love for cartoons and art projects. (Bearsun drew the design and sent it off to a company in L.A. that makes costumes on order.) He’s also a runner, and one year he decided to enter the and do it in the bear suit. He didn’t quite finish, but the experience gave him the urge to try a second time (he made it) and to envision an entirely different kind of marathon: charitable walking.

Starting in April of this year, Bearsun put paws on the blacktop and legged it from L.A. to San Francisco, raising $17,000 for the National Alliance on Mental Illness. Then he walked from L.A. to San Diego to Las Vegas. Then he figured, Why stop? If he can raise thousands of dollars in a few hundred miles, how much could he gather during a full-blown transcontinental trek?

He began the third walk on July 5, setting out from the neighborhood of L.A. and heading east. At the pace he’s on—he averages about 25 miles a day—he hopes to make it to New York by late October or early November.

The suit and the gear that Bearsun uses—among other things, he carries a GoPro, a hydration pack and food, a lightweight tent, a lantern, personal hygiene stuff, and two space blankets—weigh 78 pounds all told, and he’s marched many miles with this load, in temperatures of more than 100 degrees. He does it day after day after day, a truly incredible endurance feat. Bearsun’s serpentine route through New Mexico measured approximately 470 miles. He covered that in 19 days.

How does Larios manage to do this? Well, in a sense, Larios isn’t doing it: Bearsun is. As the amiable bear explained to Cox, he wouldn’t be able to handle the physical challenge without seriously, deeply getting into the character, which is all about spreading joy, goodwill, and healing. When the suit is on, he’s somehow stronger than he would be as a plain old human being. Describing conditions near Barstow, California, where Bearsun says it was 120 degrees, he said, “I pretty much let my body adapt to the weather. And the only thing I focus on, the only thing running through my mind, is controlling my breathing. I go into this meditative mindset where I’m just trying to stay relaxed and make sure the oxygen is being provided to my muscles.”

Bearsun can also handle pain. When he stopped in Flagstaff, he visited the , saw a pair of moccasins on display, and said, “Dude, those look tight!” The next day, locals showed up to give him a pair on the road. He started using them, which became difficult because holes developed in the bottoms. “It hurt!” he recalls. “But I mustered up the courage to wear them until I got to Window Rock.”

Those are the Bearsun basics, and Cox and I are guessing that you may have more questions. Below, we attempt to answer a few.

Is Bearsun a character from Japanese anime?

No. Though Bearsun looks a bit like —the lazy teddy bear featured in the animated series Rilakkuma and Kaoru—he’s an original creation. When Larios drew the design, he was inspired in part by his now-gone Alaskan malamute, Rowpa, who was nicknamed Bear because of his shaggy fur. Larios imbued Bearsun with an appearance that suggests his spirit-driven mission. “He imagines the character to be beyond stereotypes and one that uses action over words,” the Arizona Republic noted when Bearsun cruised through the Grand Canyon State. “[H]ence Bearsun’s absence of a mouth.”

How much money has he raised?

A lot: $55,212 and counting. Go here for info about the he selected.

Are we sure the money Bearsun is raising for charities is actually getting to those charities?

Yes. Using the GoFundMe link set up on , we made a test-run donation to , an L.A.-based charity that works with intellectually and developmentally disabled people. Here’s the .

Do you know anything more about Jessy Larios?

Not a ton, partly because Larios prefers to keep the focus on Bearsun. We can tell you that the man inside the suit is five foot seven and weighs around 150 pounds—though his weight may be down because of all the sweating he’s been doing. In interviews and on social media, Bearsun has expressed enthusiasm for Kobe Bryant, computer games, , outdoor sports, the positive life lessons imparted by , and art. In an interview with the Farmington Daily Times, a New Mexico newspaper, Larios said that what he’s doing is, in a way, a large-scale performance piece. “I decided to create his persona in the real world,” he said of Bearsun. “This is my paper. … It’s a giant piece of canvas.”

How did Bearsun train?

Mostly by getting out and doing it—walking from L.A. to San Francisco, it turns out, is pretty good prep for walking from L.A. to New York. Bearsun also spent a month prior to departure repeatedly walking up hills in L.A.’s —inside the suit.

In the photos Cox took, Bearsun appears to be wearing rust-red boots. What brand are they?

Those groovy trail shoes are called the . They were created by , an indigenous designer from Shiprock, New Mexico, for , a Black-owned firm based in Alexandria, Virginia. RockDeep arranged for a pair to be delivered to Bearsun on the road near Angel Fire, New Mexico.

Why are Native Americans so into Bearsun?

We can’t speak for them, but there definitely appears to be fascination and . In Window Rock, Arizona, capital of Navajo Nation, officials held what looked like an outdoor for Bearsun in early August, emceed by Theresa Galvan. This enthusiasm showed up again and again in Arizona and New Mexico. “Everywhere he’s been, people have flocked to the man in the adorable bear suit,” the Santa Fe New Mexican reported after Bearsun did a long walk from Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo to Taos.

Reasons for such reactions are varied. For some, Bearsun is simply fun, a welcome relief from the drudgery of pandemic life. Others draw real inspiration from his quest. “While we face our challenges in our Nation by simply walking with Bearsun, even for a few minutes,” wrote Navajo Times columnist Krista Allen, “… this reflects something much more: how Bearsun has come to represent a lever for change and a guiding voice on issues we face in DinĂ© BikĂ©yah.”

She’s onto something. When Bearsun walked through Española, New Mexico—a town where many people suffer from drug and alcohol addiction—fans reportedly approached and said that just seeing him gave them strength to fight for their own recovery.

Bearsun always seems cheerful in the videos he posts. Does he ever get down and depressed?

After watching many hours of Instagram videos, we’d say maybe, but so far we haven’t detected it. Bearsun gets worn out sometimes, as seen in this shot at a hotel in Clayton, New Mexico. But he always bounces back. We were particularly impressed by footage of Bearsun at the of his journey. Making his way along a depressing, broken-sidewalk street in downtown L.A., he mentions that the bear suit he’s wearing is a new model and feels too stiff and heavy. (No problem! He only has to walk 3,000 miles in it.) Later he passes a dog turning angry circles behind a chain link fence. The animal clearly wants nothing more than to get through the fence and eat Bearsun. “That dog really wants a hug!” he says, unfazed. “Look at him, he’s all happy!” Then: “I don’t think he wanted to give me a hug. I think he wanted to attack me, but whatever!”

Bearsun really seemed to love New Mexico. Does this mean it is America’s greatest state?

Well, since you asked: yes. As you can see from the video Bearsun made when he crossed into Oklahoma, the , which only makes sense. The place isn’t called the Land of Enchantment for nothing.

Is there anything I can do to help?

Donating money is a good start, and if you own a motel or restaurant along Bearsun’s route, please give him a free room or a meal. Or do what Native people did time after time as Bearsun marched through the Southwest: if he comes near your town, get out on the road and . What better way to keep this fuzzy pilgrim ?

Photography and additional reporting by Dave Cox

The post Six Million Steps in a 70-Pound Bear Suit appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

Jason Motlagh, who’s been reporting in Afghanistan off and on for the past 15 years, wrote an unforgettable șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű story in 2017 about the wild and dangerous horseback sport called buzkashi. Working in a nation at war required developing a network of dependable journalists, translators, and travel facilitators. And when Afghanistan devolved into a state of chaos during the rapid takeover by the Taliban, we asked Motlagh if he’s involved in efforts to get people he knows out of harm’s way. He said he is. How many? “Right now it’s more than 100.”

Motlagh happened to be in Santa Fe, and he came to the șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű offices to discuss the evacuation effort with editorial director Alex Heard. Just as they were sitting down, Motlagh’s phone rang. On the other end was a man who’s currently hiding in Kabul and in fear for his life. Motlagh tried to calm him down—“Remember that there’s a plan and we’re working on it”—but his words only seemed to be of partial help. The man was terrified and despondent, and he said he’d just gotten word that two of his colleagues had already been captured and killed by the Taliban. Their crime? Working with Westerners.

OUTSIDE: Don’t use names, obviously, but walk us through the particulars of somebody who you and others are trying to save.
MOTLAGH: One is a friend I worked with a few months ago in Kandahar on a National Geographic assignment. He’s an experienced Afghan journalist, one of the beneficiaries of the post-Taliban era who received training and some funding from Western organizations to become a reporter. He’s from Helmand Province. Several of his closest reporter friends have been assassinated over the past year, part of a systemic campaign to take out people who, under the Taliban regime, would be considered undesirable.

So his being a journalist is, by itself, enough to get him targeted?
Not necessarily. It’s the fact that he has aggressively reported on Taliban lies and abuses. When the militants were encircling Kandahar, he had to get his family out because he was on a hit list. He knows that for a fact.

And if he’s caught he’ll be executed?
He’s been told as much. He has a wife and six children.

What has to happen to rescue people like this? How do you get somebody out?
This man and his family already got out of Kandahar and fled to Kabul. Now they’re hiding there. We’re trying to get them on a flight—one of these ad hoc flights organized by the U.S. military. The challenge in this case is emblematic of a lot of the cases we’re managing. He has the documents he needs. His children don’t. That complicates the exit process.

Have you seen any improvement in the logjam we keep hearing about?
It seems like some of the bureaucratic hurdles are now at least starting to melt away. People are getting how urgent this is, and that we have to act as quickly as we can and work together. The folks I’m working with at National Geographic, and a network of journalists who have worked in Afghanistan, are doing everything they can to get people out.

Once the paperwork is set, what happens?
It’s a matter of gathering everyone and getting them to the airport, through the chaos outside. That’s the real challenge now.

Do they have to go through Taliban-controlled checkpoints to get there?
Yes. Which, as you can imagine, is not going to be easy for a lot of evacuees to swallow. They’re fleeing the Taliban. They have a mortal fear of the Taliban. It’s a waking nightmare.

Moving back in time a bit, I assume that the deal made by the Trump Administration was like a signal for you, in that you knew it was time to start preparing for this massive transition. Did you assume it was going to be this chaotic, or has that been a surprise?
I think we saw the writing on the wall—that the Taliban were gathering force, and that things were falling apart in the provinces. But I don’t think anyone anticipated that the fall would be this precipitous. You know, until about two weeks ago, the Taliban didn’t even have a provincial capital. No one saw this happening as quickly as it happened.

What’s been so damn frustrating is that a lot of us—journalists and people who have worked with Afghans, foreign military, NGOs—have been trying to coordinate visas for AfghansÌę for months and months. And it has felt like a totally futile process, just full of bureaucracy, basically sending messages into a black hole. The U.S. could have made this a lot easier by expediting that process. That’s one of the reasons we’re stuck with this massive bottleneck now.

The Trump and Biden Administrations are very different, but did you expect Biden to handle this better than he’s done? Or are you not really surprised?
Trump made his commitment to withdraw, and after that the question became: Will Biden stick to Trump’s timeline—which had the U.S. military exiting completely by May 1—or would he bump it back? He ended up delaying it just a few months. Biden made it clear, as he has in the past, that he wanted U.S. troops out, ending the so-called Forever War. And I think that both Trump and Biden were in alignment on this. Politically, it was the place to be: support among the U.S. public for this war was gone. I think it worked in Biden’s favor to continue the Trump playbook and get troops out. But he definitely owns how it has played out. We never saw any meaningful signs that he was planning for the worst case scenario and streamlining the bureaucracy to issue visas and begin to evacuate the people whose applications have been pending for years. My people are journalists, but there are thousands of people who worked with the U.S. military, bet their lives on support, and were promised an exit card when the time came. It simply hasn’t happened. And then there’s this fiasco at the airport. With all other outlets gone, how on earth did anyone in the U.S. government or military think a mass evacuation could be carried out at a facility smack in the center of a city of 4.5 million? A total failure of leadership at the highest levels.

Looking at the people in your group, where would they go if given the choice?
Every person I’ve worked with over 15 years, man or woman, would come to the U.S. right now—across the board. I think some see that their prospects and support may be better in some European countries or Canada, but if given the option versus what they’re facing now? Absolutely, 100 percent, they would leap at the chance to live in the U.S.

What makes them still want to come here?
For all the disappointments and the betrayal that a lot of people are feeling, many Afghans have had strong relationships with Americans. Many have family members who fled previous wars and went to America. So they have roots here. I think many Afghans, based on their impressions of the U.S., still have a high degree of hope about life here, an expectation of security and opportunity. At least compared to the alternative at home. But they’re devastated to leave the land they love.

There’s been a predictable amount of racism about the prospect of large numbers of Afghans suddenly coming here. There was a picture of a planeload of refugees on social media, with a caption that went something like: Do you want this landing in your town?
I would. I’ve been fortunate to meet a lot of extraordinary people in Afghanistan over the years, people who take the values that the U.S. stands for very seriously, even bet their lives on them. These are people who have really enriched our understanding about what’s happened in Afghanistan. I couldn’t have done my work without them.

Have you lost anybody yet—that is, have any of the people you’re trying to save already been killed?
Not that I know of. Though people we’re trying to get out of the country have already lost family members and friends.

And have any of your friends and colleagues gotten all the way out?
Yes, this morning we got the first bit of good news. A man named Aziz Tassal, a reporter for the Washington Post who is one of my closest friends and someone I’ve worked with for the last five years, had made it from Kabul to Doha, Qatar. We just got word that he and his family arrived in Washington, D.C., with his wife and four children. We started working on projects for Al Jazeera years ago, and have since teamed up on some documentary films and several stories for Rolling Stone. He’s been my right hand man and we’ve become very close friends. I’m so grateful that he’s out. It gives me hope for others.

As Afghan refugees make their way to the U.S., how can Americans best support them?
There are plenty of organizations, national and local, that are preparing to receive Afghan refugees. We have to remember that a lot of these people have left their homes in the dark of night with maybe nothing more than a backpack. So, good places to start are by volunteering to pick people up at the airport, and help with living arrangements and meals. Donating food, clothing, and other basic essentials will go a long way. And when the time comes, Afghans will need help securing jobs, arranging, child care, and getting the emotional support they need to integrate in their new communities. Among established organizations, two good ones are the and . Boundless has to US Immigration, including information for refugees.

What scares you most about what’s happening in Afghanistan right now?
I think there’s a huge disconnect between what you’re seeing in Kabul day to day—where the Taliban, who are savvy aboutÌę cultivating the media, are trying to make a good impression—and what’s happening in the provinces. We don’t know the full extent of what’s going on because reporters are just unable to get there. But it’s clear that really bad things are happening in the dark. We know, through word of mouth, through social media, that there have been summary executions of people connected to Westerners. We know that people are disappearing—not to be heard from again.

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In October 2017, my mother-in-law was hospitalized for a week. When she was sent home, I started cooking dinner every night for her, my father-in-law, and my wife, a routine I’ve kept up ever since. After more than three and a half years of doing this, I recently ran into a familiar problem: I got bored with the food I was cranking out. I was in a rut and needed inspiration.

I hit a wall partly because these three can be a little picky, which restricts what I can make. My wife, Susan, is a vegetarian who’s trying to go vegan—a decision that, if it holds, will remove two staples that I’ve relied on for her, eggs and cheese. My father-in-law, who’s in his mid-nineties, is a healthy eater—almost every day he powers down a lumberjack-size breakfast of granola, yogurt, mango, and strawberries—but he has a sensitive stomach and can’t touch the following: garlic, onion, brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, beans, corn, beets, bell peppers, peas, red chile, apples, pears, pickles, and chocolate. Limiting! These restrictions also rule out many prepared foods, which often contain onion powder or garlic powder (or both). My mother-in-law, also in her mid-nineties, is a native of Louisiana who used to be a first-rate cook and hostess. But she’s gotten more finicky as she’s aged, and now mostly subsists on crackers, biscuits, cheese spread, and soup.

In response to such challenges, I decided to shake things up with a move I’ve tried in the past: pick a cuisine I want to learn about and dive in. I’ve done this with southern food, New Orleans–style seafood, southwestern food, Italian food, and baking and grilling in general, and I decided that my choice this time would be—ta-da—vegetarian food.

This does not mean that, up until now, I didn’t know how to buy and cook vegetables. I started learning to cook right out of college, when I lived in a with other young people who were always semi-broke, so we ate a lot of beans, lentils, rice, potatoes, and noodles. The roundup of dishes I’ve been cooking for my family members was already pretty veg heavy, but when I looked at my recipe collection, I realized it was short on what I would call main events—entrĂ©es that take the place of the animal protein that most of us are accustomed to seeing on our plates.

To get started on the hunt for new recipes, I drew on a DIY instructional method that I developed when I was a teenager and decided to start playing golf. Basically, you line up the exact things you need to get going—like clubs, shoes, and a book that offers A-to-Z instruction—and then you obsess on learning, ignoring everything else in the world until you achieve some level of proficiency.

As it happens, the decision to step up my vegetarian game dovetailed nicely with the fact that, during the pandemic, my main form of relaxation has been vegetable gardening, so I was already following a natural path. The next step was to assemble a solid collection of resources, ones that combine people and tools that are familiar to me—like the work of Santa Fe–based vegetarian expert —and some new ones, including the current revolution in home hydroponic gardening. I also spent hours reading the all-about-salad Substack created by my friend Emily Nunn, along with the wonderful recipe collection curated by the good people at , an online publication that’s owned by the same company that now owns șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű.

On the food-production front, the big headline for 2021 is that I now have year-round access to fresh greens, thanks to a hobby that entered my life last summer: hydroponics. One of my șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű buddies, Mary Turner, told me she was being sent an elaborate hydroponics rig made by a Los Angeles–based company called Lettuce Grow. Would I be interested in learning how to use it? Yes, I was, and I think it’s safe to say I became obsessed with the thing.

The device is called the Farmstand, and as you can see on the Lettuce Grow , it looks like a UFO. Once you’ve assembled it, you fill the big bulb-shaped tank at the bottom with 20.5 gallons of water, then you mix in two types of fertilizer sold by the company.

At the bottom of the tank there’s a small pump, the kind used in garden fountains. Cued by an external timer, the pump periodically sends the fertilizing juice up through a six-foot length of pipe. Once the liquid reaches the top, it hits a diffuser that causes the fluid to splash down, creating an internal shower.

The holes you see in the upper sections hold plant cups that cradle seedlings grown and sold by the company, and itsÌę offers a ravishing array of selections. In the summer of 2020, I got started late—early August—so there wasn’t enough time to attempt vegetables like squash, zucchini, or tomatoes (all of which I grow in my backyard during summer months). But I did plant an amazing number of greens, including about a dozen different types of lettuce, kale, rainbow Swiss chard, bok choy, tatsoi, arugula, sorrel, basil, cilantro, parsley, and thyme.

Growth happens fast: the seedlings I started with, which were roughly three inches tall when I installed them, grew into harvestable plants just four weeks later. Everything kept going strong until frost arrived in October. Then I moved the tower indoors and started over with new plants and a set of grow lights. In January, I was taking home enough fresh greens every day for three people.

I’ve also been testing a spiffy system made by a company based in Skokie, Illinois, called . Its design looks like a bookshelf; it fits neatly against a wall, where it quietly does its thing. In this system, the plants are installed atop deep trays that contain fertilized liquid that’s kept moving by a pump. You can sync the whole thing to your mobile phone, setting a timer that, for example, tells the device when to turn its grow lights off and on.

One nice thing about both systems is the way you harvest. You don’t have to cut an entire head of lettuce all at once; instead, you can take a few leaves at a time, and the plant will continue to thrive and produce new leaves. So? Well, this means you can put together a big salad—every day—that contains a dozen or more different greens, and you can do this for months. To me it felt like a revolution, and it quickly redefined what I was serving at dinnertime. Salad became a main event rather than an afterthought.

As I knew from my earlier self-instruction sagas with food, the key to getting better at vegetarian cooking is to take it one recipe at a time, keeping careful track of what I’ve made and any variations I tried. I put every recipe I consider a keeper into a big, heavy-duty binder that’s sectioned off with labels like “Egg Dishes and Breads” and “Stuffing, Biscuits, and Sandwiches.” My “Vegetarian” section isn’t empty, of course, but it is a little thin. That’s about to change.

One go-to source is an old standby with 1,400 recipes in it, Deborah Madison’s , first published in 1997. Earlier this year, I read Madison’s memoirÌę, a beautifully written account of how she went from being a full-time Zen student in San Francisco to becoming one of the founding talents behind Greens, the groundbreaking vegetarian restaurant in the Marina District. Madison had been cooking meals for years at the San Francisco Zen Center—a huge job, more like running a dining hall than a restaurant—and she had worked at Chez Panisse, Alice Waters’s famous farm-to-table restaurant in nearby Berkeley. After her first trip to France in the late 1970s, she came home and heard that the Zen Center was planning to open a restaurant called Greens, which it did in the summer of 1979, and that she would be tapped as head chef.

In the early days of this job, Madison grappled with something I mentioned earlier: when you’re used to eating traditional American dinners—featuring a main course that usually involves beef, pork, chicken, or fish—the absence of this element can stand out. “I tried to imagine some tired man dully anticipating a plate with a big hole in the middle where the meat would have been,” she wrote in her memoir. She knew that vegetarian entrĂ©es had to “proclaim without wavering, ‘Here I am! I’m what’s for dinner! No need to look elsewhere!’”

Madison offers a lot of main events in her cookbook. One I make regularly is the timbale, which she describes as “vegetable and herb-saturated custards paired with sauces.” I make one of hers called zucchini timbales with red pepper sauce, using for New Mexico red chile sauce as a substitute for the sauce she describes, which relies on red bell peppers.

In addition, I frequently consult my favorite recipe Substack, Emily Nunn’s a hilarious and highly informative roller-coaster ride in which Nunn, a veteran food writer who’s worked for The New Yorker and the Chicago Tribune, shares her obsessive quest to find the best recipes for any kind of salad you can imagine. Not everything on the site is vegetarian—one recent dispatch focused on tuna salads—but much of it is. Her style has a way of making you hungry for all of it. I’ve never particularly liked fruit salads, but after reading her recent on the subject, I want to try some. I asked her to send me a salad recipe that seems just right for summer, and she shared that features fennel and mangoes.

Finally, I’ll rely on the invaluable maintained by Vegetarian Times, a trove of roughly 5,700 recipes that dates back to 2007. Brittany Martin, who edits it, says she’s assigning new recipes all the time, so the offerings will continue to grow. When you look at the history of Vegetarian Times—which started in 1974 as a print publication and only transitioned to a web-only magazine in 2017—it’s clear that we’re lucky to have as many of these creations as we do.

Founded in Oak Park, Illinois, by a nurse named Paul Obis, who’s now deceased, Vegetarian Times grew into a web magazine that, over the decades, changed hands many times, which can be a formula for everything getting lost. That didn’t happen, fortunately, and what remains on the site is exactly what I need: a searchable database that allows me to enter whatever vegetable I feel like cooking and then get a long list of ideas for using it. During one recent week, I made something new from the Vegetarian Times files four nights in a row, and the experience was really fun.

As I usually do, I introduced variations to the recipes that were based on the dietary restrictions of my family members and on the ingredients I happened to have. With the first dish I made, , that meant omitting onion and garlic and using New Mexico red chile powder instead of ancho chile powder, bar chocolate instead of cocoa, and corn tortillas instead of flour. I suspect that some purists will find this mole sauce too simple—recipes for mole usually contain several different types of chiles—but for a quick weeknight meal, it worked great. I served it with lettuce from the Farmstand, along with three different store-bought vegetables.

On other nights I tried recipes for , , and . The pizza was the hit of the week. I used a good brand of coarse polenta and spread the crust on an oiled pizza stone before putting it in the oven to cook and firm up. I skipped the red sauce—Susan and my father-in-law generally don’t like it—kept the goat cheese, and layered on thin-sliced tomatoes, shredded artichoke hearts, Parmesan cheese, fresh basil, and dried oregano. It was terrific, as was the eggplant dish.

On the fifth night, I made something that I developed myself, stuffed with a mix of butternut squash, toasted pumpkin seeds, Parmesan, shredded cheese, green chile, and cumin. Of the four dishes I made that week, the only one that won’t go into my binder is the white-bean mix. I liked it a lot, but Susan was more meh about it, and she reminded me that she and I once invented a smooth white-bean spread that’s at least equal to this. And yes, that recipe is in the binder.

Anyway, the batting average for this initial period of testing was high: .750! I know I’ll discover a lot of other winners as I work through more of the collection. This feels like the start of an endless plant-based feast.

Heard’s Cannellini Bean and Green Olive Tapenade

• 30 ounces cooked and drained cannellini beans (or two 15-ounce cans)
• 1 cup pitted green olives, coarsely chopped
• 4 tablespoons chopped parsley
• 4 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 teaspoons lemon zest
• 2 teaspoons crushed red pepper flakes
• Juice from 2 lemons
• Salt and pepper
• 2 teaspoons cumin
• 2 teaspoons coriander
• 1 teaspoons curry powder

Put everything into a food processor and pulse until smooth. This spread is great on crackers, celery, and toast.

Vegetarian Times is part of șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Inc., the same company that owns șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű magazine and șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online. If you join the șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű+ membership program, you’ll gain unlimited access to all of our stories, along with the journalism and recipes of Vegetarian Times and content from other șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Inc. publications. Learn more about șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű+ .

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Let’s do a mental exercise about Confederate monuments in public spaces: I’ll describe one that doesn’t exist, and you tell me whether you’d find it offensive if it did.

It sits near a major city, on a scenic patch of federally owned land, in what used to be a Confederate state. It was placed in 1914 by the (UDC), a group of elite Southern white women who were highly influential back thenÌęand whose main purpose was to push Lost Cause myths about the origins and legacy of the Civil War. Two favorites were that slavery wasn’t the war’s main cause and that human bondage wasn’t all that bad anyway—in fact, it was a largely benevolent institution that rarely involved cruelty. Another was that the , a terrorist organization that arose to restore white supremacy during Reconstruction, was good.

The finished product, sculpted by a Confederate veteran and unveiled with the blessing of President Woodrow Wilson—a Virginia native who wrote a popular history of the United StatesÌęthat in terms similar to the UDC—features a goddess-like femaleÌęsymbolizing the South, standing on a huge pedestal decorated with shields representing the Confederate states, along with life-sized figures that show mythological beings mingling with Southern soldiers and civilians. In one spot, an enslaved female is holding the child of a white officer. In another, an enslaved man is dutifully following his master off to war.

Sounds bad. And as you may have guessed, I’ve been playing a trick: the monument exists. Known as the , it stands in Arlington National Cemetery, and it rises over the graves of several hundred Confederate soldiers, some of whom were brought in for reburial during an era when Northern politicians, including , were keen on public demonstrations of North-South reconciliation. Celebrating this idea mainly involved white people—Black people and their views of the conflict weren’t part of the process—and the mood among Southerners was notably defiant. Speaking at the monument’s unveiling on June 4, 1914, , commander-in-chief of the United Confederate Veterans, insisted that the South’s cause was just in every way.

“The sword said the South was wrong, but the sword is not necessarily guided by conscience and reason,” he said. “The power of numbers and the longest guns cannot destroy principle nor obliterate truth. Right lives forever.”

Why is the Confederate Memorial still there in an era when the Black Lives Matter movement has led to widespread statue-toppling? If it were standing in the middle of Richmond, Atlanta, or New Orleans, it might still be up—pending the outcome of a political or courtroom battle to take it down—but it would be so disfigured by graffiti that it would look like a 1970s New York subway car.

The monument is being reviewed by the Army, as reported last summer in TheÌęWashington Post, and it’s currently inaccessible to close public viewing. Many would like to see it go away, including descendants of the sculptor, Moses Jacob Ezekiel. But you can probably count on it getting strong support from President Trump, who has vigorously defended military installations named after Confederate generals like Braxton Bragg, Henry L. Benning, and John Bell Hood, a view opposed by , chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Trump is also a big fan of Robert E. LeeÌęand thinks statues of him should be left alone. During a in Minnesota on September 18, he said Lee was a “great general,” called statue removal the work of “thugs,” and said Lee would have won the Civil War, “except for Gettysburg.”

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When I was 13, holding a scalpel that I’d “borrowed” from my dad’s old autopsy bag—a big step in my quest to learn the difficult art of taxidermy—there was one thing I never would have seen coming.

Wait. What? Be patient. We’ll get to me and my weird hobby in a minute. For now, I’ll just add that my late father was a respected pathologist who had no part in what happened and shouldn’t be blamed. Nor should my mom, who briefly deluded herself into thinking my interest in taxidermy possibly meant I wanted to be a surgeon.

As I was saying: I wouldn’t have predicted that The New York Times would someday think taxidermy is cool, but this very thing has happened in the 21st century. Granted, theÌęTimes doesn’t cover the subject like it’s a normal beat, but if you cruise itsÌęarchives, you’ll see that it comes up surprisingly often, usually in articles that try to convince you there’s a “taxidermy craze” underway (fact check: there is never a taxidermy craze underway), or that it’s an art form popular among hipsters (there’s truth to this one, since taxidermy is inherently Goth), or that displaying stuffed animals in your Manhattan or Brooklyn apartment is a cool design choice (it is not).

For me, picking the best story in this genre came down to a pair of heavyweights. The first is a , a “socialite, celebrity journalist, and author” who filled a big Midtown apartment with around 200 taxidermy specimens, including a bison head. “He was the wooliest bully I had ever seen, so I called him Buffalo Bill,” Speck says, trying way too hard.

But the win goes to a piece published in 2003 under the headlineÌę“.” It stars a hipster couple, Erik Sanko and Jessica Grindstaff, who live together in “a small, exuberantly overstuffed apartment in TriBeCa.” (Overstuffed! Get it?) Sanko was a well-known bassist who’d played for the rock group Skeleton Key and John Lurie’s jazz band, the Lounge Lizards. Grindstaff was an artist who liked to make dioramas and music boxes using old pieces of taxidermy. “On a worktable in the living room, she had attached the flattened body of a mouse to the head of a small bird,” the story tells us. “‘That’s wrong on so many levels,’ she said. ‘But it’s so right.’”

No, Jessica, it’s wrong. On all the levels.

Occasionally, a writer uses a more conventional approach and simply says taxidermy is gross, which prompts a mixed reaction from me. On one hand, I have to agree: it can be kinda gross. But as a former teenage taxidermist, I feel defensive and protective.

That’s why I was excited by ÌętheÌęTimes published in 2013, because it provided a useful rundown of what modern taxidermy is really like. A book reviewer had written that taxidermy workshops are creepy places filled with “dust, fumes, stench, viscera and decay.” She got clobbered by an avenging correspondentÌęfrom Ontario, Canada,Ìęnamed K. Kilburn, who was married to a professional fish taxidermist. Kilburn, a no-nonsense sort, said her man ran a clean operation.

“Fish taxidermy requires expertise with a great range of paints and finishes,” she wrote. “Careful removal of all possible traces of flesh from the skin, which is then tanned and treated so there are no future infestations of insects—and no decay. There is no dust—dust is the enemy of good taxidermy. Chemical fumes and any temporary odors are removed by powerful fans.”

This was a rousing defense of the art form that so many people love to hate. It almost made me want to put on rubber gloves and try it again.

Almost.

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In the famous Greek myth about Icarus and his father, Daedalus, Icarus is flying over the sea wearing wings that Daedalus, a master craftsman, made using feathers and wax. Ignoring dad’s warning, Icarus flies too close to the sun, and we all know what happens next: the wings melt, and he plunges into the water and drowns. This sad story is usually presented as a cautionary tale about hubris, but in Anne Sexton’s 1960 poem, “To a Friend Whose Work Has Come to Triumph,” she celebrates Icarus for his adventurous spirit, while chiding Daedalus for being a too careful bore.

Feel the fire at his neck and see how casually
he glances up and is caught, wondrously funneling
into that hot eye. Who cares that he fell back to the sea?
See him acclaiming the sun and come plunging down
while his sensible daddy goes straight into town.

Strange though it may seem, Sexton’s words perfectly describe a long-running feud between me and my friend Dave about the best way to make ice cream. Dave is a good cook, and he’s more creative than I am—he can invent something out of thin air and, defying all logic, it works. If I try that, I usually produce bubbling sludge, so my method goes more like this: I think of a dish I want to attempt (chicken pot pie, say), and then I look at a couple dozen recipes, mixing and matching ingredients until I arrive at a blend that’s good but also unique to me.

When it comes to ice cream, I’m more likely to make and modify tried-and-true favorites—maple-walnut, strawberry, peach—while Dave, Icarus-like, tests the boundaries of what is possible. In the past, he’s made red wine ice cream that was actually quite edible, along with unusual and yummy creations that contained green chile, red chile, and tequila. In the menu below, which was hand-lettered by my wife for an ice cream party Dave and I cohosted a few years ago, you can see the difference in styles. I’m Don Diego Dairies; he’s Singletrack Farms.

The ice cream debate between Dave and me will last forever, but we agree on one thing: DIY ice cream is well worth the effort—just ask the people who came to our party—and it’s a lot easier and cheaper to do than you’d think. As I discussed in my recent article on smoking chicken, I’m all about making good food in ways that are both simple and affordable. Let’s join hands and take a look at how DIY ice cream goes from dream to reality.

Create Your Base

Ice cream usually features some combination of dairy products, sugar, flavorings like vanilla, almond, and chocolate, and, in the recipe I use, eggs. Dave refuses to use eggs. I asked him to explain why, and he threw down hard in an email reply: “I make American ice cream—sometimes called —rather than or frozen custard. And why wouldn’t I? My forefathers didn’t fight at Lexington and Yorktown only to succumb to the capricious whims of Lafayette.”

Hmm. Lafayette was on our side during the Revolutionary War, so this rant might make more sense if Dave had name-checked the ÌęBut never mind, because the point is clear enough: my friend’s Francophobia has driven him to make ice cream that comes out wayyy less rich and velvety and scrumptious than mine. It’s sad, but at least he gets to sound like Oliver Wendell Douglas giving a patriotic speech on Green Acres.

Recipes vary, but the French-style base I settled on (after a lot of trial and error) goes like this. Once you’ve made it, you can add additional things to produce any number of variations. And in case you’re wondering: you won’t taste the eggs.

Ingredients

• 2 eggs
• 1 cup sugar
• ÂŒ teaspoon salt
• 2Âœ cups heavy cream
• 2 cups half-and-half
• 1 vanilla bean or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Steps

In a heavy saucepan, combine everything but the vanilla. Heat the mix over a low flame, using an instant-read thermometer and whisking slowly but constantly, until the temperature reaches 160 degrees. (This makes the eggs safe to eat.) Remove from the heat, and add the vanilla. Cool in the fridge overnight.

I use fewer eggs than many recipes I’ve seen—they sometimes ask for six to eight!—but even so, you may be shocked by all the eggs and dairy and sugar that goes into a standard quart of vanilla. All I can say is: that’s ice cream, folks. Enjoy it without guilt, but maybe not every day.

Gear Up

The first time I experienced homemade ice cream was at a family reunion in Mississippi in the late 1960s. I was probably 10 or 11, and I was wandering around looking at tables loaded with the greatest of all lunch foods—fried chicken, ham, ribs, sausage, potato salad, deviled eggs, pimento cheese, and
 did I say fried chicken already?—when I ran into a friendly man I didn’t know, because he wasn’t one of my many, many uncles or adult-size cousins. (My mom grew up in a farm family with 12 kids.) He was sitting in a folding chair and cranking an the kind that looks like a big wooden bucket with a metal handle on top.

If this man had explained how it worked, I wouldn’t have understood him, but here’s the gist: The bucket holds a metal canister that contains the dairy mix and a stirring and scraping device called a dasher, which keeps the mix moving and adds air as you crank away. The canister sits in a bath of ice and rock salt. The rock salt lowers the temperature of the ice-and-water bath to 27 degrees, which is the temperature at which cream can start to freeze. Without the salt, you’d just be pointlessly moving your mixture around at a temperature of 32 degrees until the ice melted and you had to give up and start sobbing.

At the reunion, I was fascinated by this gizmo, and I soon pitched in and did a long session of cranking, which was hard work. I didn’t mind. It was fun, and I wanted to share in the cheers that I figured would rain down when we were done.

Which is exactly what happened. The ice cream we produced was a bit soupy but delicious. Somebody suggested I put syrupy sliced yellow peaches on mine. I did. That made it even better.

You can still buy the hand-cranked buckets, but they also now come in models, and these days, there’s also the miracle of compressor ice cream makers that freeze the mixture using refrigerator technology. I’ve shied away from both because the old-fashioned machines are clunky and the sci-fi units are expensive. (This fancy is listed for up to $550!) Instead I use It’s affordable (usually around $60 or $70), you can store it in a pantry, and it works.

The key component is the bowl that you see under the clear plastic lid. It’s made of sturdy, double-walled metal, with an inner layer of liquid that is permanently sealed off. What’s inside isn’t plain water, but I don’t know what it is exactly: my owner’s manual just calls it “cooling liquid.”

You keep the bowl in a freezer when you’re not using it. When it’s time to make ice cream, you put the bowl on the base’s round platform, add a plastic dasher and your dairy mix, and flip the switch. In my model, the bowl moves around while the dasher remains stationary. The freezing process takes roughly 20 minutes. The ice cream you get will probably seem a little too soft, but that’s OK. Just store it in a freezer overnight and it will become thumpingly solid without being icy. You’ll want to let it sit out for five to ten minutes before scooping. And then—yum.

Collect and Invent Recipes

There are some excellent recipe books out there, but the one I’ve been hearing the most buzz about on the ice cream street is David Lebovitz’s The Perfect Scoop: Ice Creams, Sorbets, Granitas, and Sweet Accompaniments. Lebovitz knows vastly more about this subject than I do, and his contains a bunch of great ideas and wonderful concoctions, including a terrific variation on cookies and cream called

(While we’re at it, here’s one of Dave’s signature creations, margarita madness.)

Some of my personal faves include maple-walnut, lemon, coffee malted, cardamom-vanilla, , and one that I did make up out of thin air, almond paste swirl. Someday we’ll all be able to have normal dinner parties again. When that time arrives, please try this one on your friends, and let me know how it goes.

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