For most of the years of my life, my family has eaten string beans as the main vegetable for Christmas dinner. We don't do the traditional green bean casserole, instead choosing to steam them and dress them with butter, toasted almonds, salt and a little roasted garlic. They are so good and my sister, mother and I often fight over the leftovers the next day.

However, this year we're planning on deviated from our tradition in order to have a huge bowl of these Brussels Sprouts instead. Sadly, according to our friends over at Green Daily, Brussels Sprouts are not a particularly green choice for the holiday table. Apparently the seem to have the ability to cause some people to have a bit of gas after they eat them. If you multiply that gas over the millions of people who eat sprouts for Christmas dinner, it can have something of an effect on the green house effect. Luckily, for those of us who don't want to give up our sprouts, we can follow these simple cooking tips in order to reduce their gassy effects.

I cook on a 41-year-old turquoise electric stove. While it has a certain amount of retro appeal, it has many features that render it an total pain in the tuckus. Chief among the frustrations is the fact that the oven hovers a mere 13 and a half inches above the rear burners. This means that if you have stuff on the front burners, you can basically forget about using the rear ones. This is why I often find myself with lust in my heart for the stoves that other people get to cook on. I'm particularly jealous of my friend Jamie's stove, which is hulking stainless steel gas-powered monster with five burners and a double oven.

Over on the Epi-Log, cookbook author Melissa Clark has announced to the foodie world that she is in the market for a new stove, and she's asking people to send in their recommendations. Since reading her post, I've found myself shopping online for potential stoves for her kitchen, living vicariously through her impending new stove purchase. If you have a stove you love (or one you hate), feel free to weigh in on the discussion over at the Epi-log or here in the comments. Because there's nothing that generates more intense feelings of passion than a cook's relationship with their stove.

There are two reasons why brussel sprouts are not the most universally popular of foods. The first is that they are easily over cooked and, like the larger cabbages that they are related to, can develop a mushy texture and an unpleasant smell. The second reason that they aren't that popular also has to do with smell, but this one is one that they cause, not one that the sprouts give off themselves. Fortunately, both problems are easily remedied by proper preparation.

"Overcooking causes chemicals in the sprouts to react and emit sulphur," in turn imparting a biter taste and smell to the sprouts. To properly enjoy sprouts, start with fresh, crisp ones that have tightly curled leaves. They should require only 6-8 minutes of steaming or boiling before they are crisp-tender. Taking care not to overcook them, try braised brussel sprouts or oven roasted brussel sprouts, which will hopefully change the way you think about (and smell) brussel sprouts.

If you still don't like the cabbagy flavor of the sprout once it has been properly cooked, you can always try Shredded Parmesan Brussels Sprouts or Bacon and Cheese Brussels Sprouts.

When it comes to cooking, grills are no more than tools. As long as the tool you have is functional, it's how you use it that counts when cooking. A taste test between rib-eye steaks cooked on a $1,600 Firestone Legacy grill and a Big Green Egg charcoal grill/smoker that was less than half of that price confirms this theory: almost all tasters preferred the meat cooked with the Egg.

Of course, the reason that tasters preferred the Egg steaks was because they had a slightly smoky/woodsy flavor from the charcoal, which was not present with the larger gas grill, and the tasters liked their meat that way. The point is that both grills performed well, cooking the steaks evenly despite their differences in price. The specific flavor preference of the tasters, while an interesting addendum to the gas vs. charcoal debate, has nothing to do with the functionality of the grill.

I'm sticking with my gas grill because I like the way it works and am not a huge fan of charcoal flavors in my everyday foods. But whether you like charcoal or gas, as long as you buy a well-made grill and not necessarily an expensive one, you are bound to have more than a few good meals.

Not to be confused with art made from ripening bananas, the Miami Herald recently ran an interesting profile on Pat Foster (right), the director of ripening for Chiquita in Port Everglades, Florida. As the shipments of bananas (400 tons a week) come in, Foster decides how the fruit should be ripened using ethylene, a gas that also occurs naturally as fruit ripens. According to the article, Foster has to consider not only the weather and production patterns in the countries where the bananas are grown, but also the buying habits of the customers to whom they're being shipped. Hispanic customers in some areas by fruit more frequently, so it must be closer to ripe. Other customers might only make it to the store once a week, so they want greener bananas. Foster has apparently been working with bananas for 40 years and has trained other ripeners all over the country.

[Photo: Jared Lazarus/Miami Herald]
[Via FreshPlaza]

Many people love beans and they are a staple in the diet of hundreds of thousands of people all across the globe. The problem with beans is that they can have unwanted social side effects, like farting. Scientists in Venezuela have been working furiously, trying to eliminate or reduce this problem and have finally come up with a solution.

Farting is the end result of a process that begins when the soluble fiber in beans, not already broken down in the small intestine, is broken down by the large intestine. They found that adding two strains of bacteria, Lactobacillus casei and Lactobacillus plantarum, to the beans, reduced soluble fiber by 60% and lowered the level of another gas-causing compound known as raffinose by 88%. This means that there were fewer farts. It also increased the insoluble fiber in the beans by almost 10%, adding more nutritional value of the beans, in addition to uncovering the root of a social problem.

Having grown up with, learned to cook on and generally taken for granted the vintage gas stove in my family's kitchen, you can imagine my surprise when I saw a red one just like it on the Food Network, crouched behind Rachael Ray. Stoves like our 1952 Chambers Model 90C (above) have become all the rage and it's no surprise. They're beautiful, obviously durable and hey, what good cook doesn't like cooking with gas? When restored, these stoves can command upwards of $4,000.

We acquired ours in the mid-70s while our house was being restored. As you can imagine, the house has evolved around the stove, which hasn't really moved in a few decades. While it still cooks just fine, there's a bit of finesse involved. There's no pilot, so the oven and ranges must be lit by hand. This usually results in a fun "booof" sound that makes most guests back away from the stove.

[Photo: John Vagnoni]

What's the most important thing to remember about Super Bowl snacks? (And I know you just didn't answer "health," because no self-respecting football snacker counts calories during the Super Bowl!) Well, reducing the number of farts induced by your food, of course.

OK, maybe that's not on your mind, but Bill Downs (creator of the "world's first fart blog") says it should be. His advice is to avoid refined foods ("if it's white, it ain't right") and broccoli, eggs and beer (uh-oh). He advises that you start your day with an apple, some oatmeal, or whole grain bread. And drink water.

So what does make a good, low-fart, Super Bowl snack? He doesn't really say, so I'll take a couple of stabs. Maybe a nice layered dip with salsa fresca, avocadoes, and plain yogurt, served with flax-seed tortilla chips? Savory biscotti served with tapenade? Pimiento cheese toasts made with homemade mayo, green olives, and wholegrain country sourdough? Now I'm getting hungry...