Posts by Janine
For A Song
The brim of Emilio Nieto’s cowboy hat brushes my forehead as we bend our heads together and sing: Another Saturday night and I ain’t got nobody. Closing our eyes, we reach for the harmony that belies the words. I got some money ’cause I just got paid…. Nieto is singing and strumming to an imaginary…
Read MoreA River Of Chips
Mount Jackson, Virginia – Inside a beige cinderblock building half an hour from Harrisonburg up I-81, 15,000 pounds of potatoes a day thunder down a stainless steel chute and through a chamber where they’re tossed by an auger, knocking off farm soil that is then captured and reused as topsoil for Route 11 Potato Chip employees.…
Read MoreHashi Food Truck
Ross Riddle ladles rice porridge as thick as grits from a stainless steel pot, steam billowing. He adds a dollop of butter, then a bit of Virginia breakfast sausage he has dressed up with cilantro and salt, plus sugar and chilies and vinegar, the flavor a meld of Southern Americana and Southeast Asian. He tops…
Read MoreDestination Punta Cana
Among the many inviting Caribbean resorts, here’s one that stands apart. The rock underfoot is calcified coral, the ferns prehistoric, barely changed from when this island was new some 40 million years ago. The air smells of salt and earth, the tranquility enhanced by the shoosh of palm fronds, the skitter of lizards, and the…
Read MoreOut in the Wild
Sweat bees swarmed over Nick Nichols’ hands, sucking the salt off him, deep in the jungles of central Africa. They crawled up his nose and into his eyes. Still he crouched, frozen, his lens on the naive chimpanzees who had never seen humans before. He didn’t know which shot would be iconic, which would tell…
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