For the birds?

Fri, 16 Nov 2007 11:43:00 +0000

The love of bird-watching works a bit like a virus. Some contract it in early childhood, perhaps when nursing a downy chick back to health or when a grandmother points out a black-capped chickadee at the backyard bird feeder. Others catch it through contact with other birders, who tend to gaze off into the sky as you talk to them, mumbling something about wishing they had their binoculars. Either way, the epidemic is on the rise as more and more people get hooked on the simple pleasure of identifying and watching birds.

In "Of a Feather: A Brief History of American Birding," author Scott Weidensaul places birders in a long historical context, from our Founding Fathers to today, bringing the bird geeks from the fringe into the fold. Weidensaul, raptor expert and author of "Living on the Wind," the Pulitzer Prize-nominated book about migratory birds, paints a seamless narrative of the early Americas and the first men (and a few women) who discovered the unfamiliar bird life of North America as Europeans swept over the unknown territory of the continent.

Dark chocolate goes green

Tue, 12 Jun 2007 10:51:00 +0000

There was a time when chocolate was an artisanal product created by small European chocolate makers. Craftsmen used cocoa beans gathered from the spoils of their cacao-rich colonial empires in the Americas, and then Africa and Asia, where they'd transplanted the favored crop. But that time has come and gone. With the industrial revolution, the chocolate industry grew in size and complexity and the chocolate-making process became more refined; large companies rose to dominate the market and still do today. Americans may spend more than $15 billion each year on the food of gods and mortals -- but 80 percent of those sweets are purchased from one of the two mega-candy conglomerates that bully the market: Hershey's and Mars.

But maybe you're one of the few consumers who seek out organic, fair-trade chocolate, maybe a Nibs 68% made by Dagoba Organic Chocolate, a small, award-winning American premium chocolate producer. Sorry, but even then you're out of luck. Last fall, Dagoba was bought by the Artisan Confections Co., a wholly owned subsidiary of Hershey's that was created as a shelter for fine dark chocolate companies. And Scharffen Berger -- another once-independent chocolate maker -- was purchased not long before that. Who's left?

Salon.com > Meera Subramanian

For the birds?

Dark chocolate goes green