Food

KANSAS CITY, Mo. _ The barbecue trail to this Midwestern city, known for its historic rail and steamship routes, pioneer trails and cattle drives, is paved with a thick, ketchup- and molasses-based sauce _ and leads to a crossroads of sorts.

With the older of her two sons just off to kindergarten, Robin Miller may be new to the school-year drill, but she's more than ready for the daily challenge of fitting healthful, home-cooked dinners into a busier-than-ever schedule.

Flor de sal hibiscus. Danish Viking-Smoked. Peruvian pink. Hawaiian red alaea. Black Cyprus. Australian Murray River.

A quick, pork tenderloin is perfect for this weekend. The flavorful glaze combines honey, ginger, garlic and toasted sesame oil, which is available in most supermarkets.

SANTA ANA, Calif. - Come hungry and wear flip-flops. Sounds like a great summer dinner party theme, doesn't it?

FRESNO, Calif. - It sounds so simple: Place food in a couple of pots, then open them hours later to find a hot meal. And you don't even have to turn on the stove.

Got plenty of ice?

FORT WORTH, Texas - My back yard is a festival of fecundity these steamy summer days.

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - Put some sizzle on your plate, what most redblooded Americans crave: a thick, juicy, grilled steak.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Darren Cusick drinks iced tea all day, every day.

Cuisines are defined by clusters of ingredients that make up regional or national flavor palettes and by techniques that reflect cooks' collective conclusions about how best to achieve particular effects. In Latin America, no method is more emblematic than braising.

NEW ORLEANS - If Chef Emeril Lagasse seems to be everywhere at once in the culinary universe, well, that's because he is.

In the blogosphere, where words rival pixels, anyone can be an author. Or a diarist. Or a political pundit. Or, to the task at hand, a cook.

Anyone who has paid twice the price for cardboard-tasting organic vegetables that may have been stuck on a truck for a week, then cold-warehoused for a month, knows that organic isn't always the best deal.

A cold pasta salad - the staple at many summer cookouts - can be a signature dish or something thrown together by a novice.

Oh, the decisions. It used to be easy to decide which steaks to buy. You based the purchase on which cut you preferred and whether you wanted to pay the premium price for beef labeled "choice" (a grade that notes plentiful fat streaking called marbling) or, if you could find it, "prime" (a grade with even more marbling) instead of the less-flavorful "select" grade found in many supermarkets.

Cooking outdoors is quickly getting in full swing. That means observing food-safety guidelines to prevent harmful bacteria from multiplying and causing food-borne illness.

March 9, 2005 To feel satisfied and stay healthy, try to eat foods that naturally have lots of water and low energy density. Barbara Rolls recommends including high-water foods in your meals. For example, use low-fat salad dressing and put extra vegetables in your salad so you'll get more food but eat fewer calories.

Wednesday, March 22, 2006 This article originally ran on Wednesday, March 22, 2006

This morning, when you turn on your faucet to fill your tea kettle or coffee pot, give pause to the fact that today is World Water Day. In 1992, the U.N. General Assembly designated March 22, the day after the vernal equinox here in the northern hemisphere, as an annual observance to "set up concrete activities as deemed appropriate in the national context." National context is a loaded term.