"cilantro" news and stories

It's peak avocado season, but even the most die-hard guac lover can get a little weary of the usual recipe. Here, are three ways to kick it up a notch.

• Why do so many (even the late Julia Child) hate cilantro? There's a scientific answer.
• In the age of local, organic and grass-fed, plain old kosher isn't enough for some Jewish delis.
• The power ingredient of the week: pimenton. It kicks paprika's butt.
• Here's a light spring dish that's just ducky.
• The food at Nello, to put it simply, is "not very good." So what's the appeal?

Know your basil from your borage? Fennel from fenugreek? Mint from marjoram? It's the zestiest quiz ever from Slashfood.

When I was a teenager, George Orwell's 1984 was my favorite book, both for its writing, which I thought was superb, and for its depressing viewpoint, which beautifully dovetailed with my own adolescent angst. One of my favorite parts was Orwell's description of the effects of "Victory Gin," the official hard liquor of English Socialism:

Instantly his face turned scarlet and the water ran out of his eyes. The stuff was like nitric acid, and moreover, in swallowing it one had the sensation of being hit on the back of the head with a rubber club. The next moment, however, the burning in his belly died down and the world began to look more cheerful.

When I first tried cheap tequila, I came to the conclusion that it was Orwell's famed Victory Gin. Oily, hard to swallow, and packing a wallop, it was also among the most popular tipples in the mid 1980's, far outstripping gin, which seemed pale and weak by comparison. If tequila was a hard whack with a rubber club, gin was a sip of chilled perfume.

I remember the first time someone clued me in that it was possible to make salsa at home, I was agog (I was 13). It took me a few minutes to wrap my head around the fact that it didn't need to come from the grocery store in a jar or a tub. Even more amazing was that the ingredients were fairly basic and easy to come by. Fast forward about fifteen years and homemade salsa fresca is one of my favorite summer treats. Here's what you do.

Pull out a mixing bowl. Take 1 huge tomato to two medium-sized ones and cube them into 1/2 inch square (no need to be perfect). Mince up an onion, seed and dice a jalepeno (if you don't want your fingertips to burn for the rest of the day, wear gloves), crush two or three cloves of garlic and top it off with a handful of chopped cilantro. Hit the veggies with the juice of one lime and a generous pinch of salt. Stir it and let it sit for a while (I recommend at least an hour before eating). I make it in a lidded bowl, so that I can mix and store it easily. Eat it with tortilla chips, over scrambled eggs, on top of beans and rice or simply with a spoon, straight out of the bowl.