apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Persian Green Plums are early-ripening plums grown in the mountains of Iran and are often eaten sour.

Starting yesterday, Slow Food Nation has begun stripping up the sod in front of San Francisco's City Hall in preparation of planting a large victory garden. With food prices rising and arable land shrinking, cities worldwide are encouraging urban gardening.

Imagine never having to go to the grocery store again, and having all your food and household items delivered to you at the push of a button. This may be possible with Ikan.

What a neat idea. Supercook is a recipe search engine that allows you to enter ingredients that you have at home and finds recipes for you that contain the ingredients you have, so you don't have to go out and shop for new items.

Well, summer's in full swing and the Fourth of July is only a few days away! We've been drinking a lot of iced tea, and this pitcher is perfect for it.

Lamb's quarters are a weed-like plant that most people don't realize is edible and tasty.

English peas, which popped up in the farmer's markets in May, are on their way out of season, so we've been buying them up before they're gone.

Cherry tomatoes and varieties of squash and bitter melon

Yesterday we hopped to the Crocker Galleria Farmer's Market to pick up a bag of edible flower salad greens from Happy Boy Farms, and snapped these lovely pictures. Enjoy!

Recently we bought a package of dried fava beans and made this delicious recipe that goes back thousands of years in Egypt.

We've been seeing a lot of purslane popping up recently at the Farmer's Markets. But what exactly is it?

Many cocktail recipes for the spring and summer call for the addition of simple syrup. Even better is when the recipe calls for a flavored simple syrup, such as rosemary.

It's Hump Day, which means we're here with the food news of the week! This week's been a little quiet in food news, so this will be a quick read.

A lot of people think this is an unripe green tomato, but it isn't. It certainly looks like a tomato, but it's covered with a paper husk on the outside. What is it?

Simmer sauces are an easy and healthy way to make a quick, delicious meal for your family. It's simple - add your choice of vegetables, tofu, meat, chicken, or seafood to a pan, add a jar of simmer sauce, cover, and cook over low heat. While that's cooking you can prepare a salad, fold the laundry, or catch up on your email.

Spaghetti squash is a cylinder-shaped squash that ranges in color from pale yellow to canary yellow. Do you know why it's called spaghetti squash?

A friend of ours was in an accident recently and broke her leg, requiring surgery. She's unable to walk for the next few months, and a group of us are banding together to prepare foods that she can store in the freezer and heat up easily. What should we make?

In April, the United States Postal Service released these new 27-cent stamps with beautiful illustrations of tropical fruits.

At the Ferry Plaza Farmer's Market last week, we saw tomatoes.

Check out this picnic trunk! It comes with everything you need for a picnic for two. And the really neat part?

At the Ferry Plaza Farmer's Market last week, we saw blueberries for the first time this season in San Francisco.

We came across this recipe for Asparagus Linguine with mint pesto on No Recipes and noticed the cutting tool used to cut the asparagus into julienne strips. It's a Japanese kitchen tool called a negi cutter. More about this little tool below the jump. Look and then tell us what you think...

Artist Sarah Cihat likes to take old dishes and give them a new life.

The Ferry Building is a historic building that opened in San Francisco in 1898 and was a major transportation hub in San Francisco before the Bay Bridge and Golden Gate Bridge were built. Damaged in the 1989 earthquake, the Ferry Building was restored as a food market hall.

At the farmer's markets in San Francisco right now, we're seeing a lot of the salad vendors selling edible flowers mixed in the salad bags. Edible flowers are not only colorful and pretty to look at, but they also taste good.