Author: Ms. R.

This article is adapted from the October 30, 2021, edition of Gastro Obscura’s Favorite Things newsletter. You can sign up here. The other day, I was cooking galbijjim: stewed short ribs. According to Maangchi’s Big Book of Korean Cooking, by the supreme online cooking teacher Maangchi, this dish is often made for birthdays and holidays, and it is accordingly lush with jujubes, pine nuts, chestnuts, and ginkgo nuts. Lacking that last ingredient, my mind wandered down the street, to……

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Dodona was a shrine in ancient Greece where priests and priestesses divined the words of the gods from the rustling of oak and beech leaves. It was second only to Delphi in terms of prestige. This manor house in northern Virginia that bears the same name dates back to the early 1800s, when John Drish having purchased eight acres and presumably the original two-story home from George Carter in 1805. Drish then sold the property to his son, Wilson,……

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In East Walpole, at the intersection of Washington Street and Chestnut Street, stands a peculiar sight. A derelict clock tower and a memorial fountain dedicated to members of the Bird family, one of the founding families of Walpole.  The Bird family has a long history in Walpole. George Bird founded the Bird & Son Company in 1795 with a single paper mill and his son, Francis W. Bird, expanded the family business throughout the 19th-century. In 1884, he had……

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The Columbian Exchange was the process by which animals and plants were traded between the Old and New Worlds (the Americas) by European colonial powers. The best-known products to have made the trip were food-related, but decorative plants, although often overlooked, have been a crucial element in the legacy of this exchange. Some became invasive species in their new continents, while others, such as the ahuehete in the Buen Retiro Park of Madrid, have managed to become as beloved……

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The Lower Ninth Ward neighborhood of New Orleans, especially north of Claiborne Avenue, experienced the most significant housing damage after the levee failure caused by Hurricane Katrina. It’s in that neighborhood that a first-of-its-kind house can be found—a house designed to float 12 feet above its foundation, the same height as Katrina floodwaters. More than a decade after Katrina, residents are still in the process of rebuilding what was lost. A struggle throughout the city is the need for……

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Nestled next to the small village of Mitsamioli on the northern tip of Grand Comore, a turquoise saltwater lake sits in a crater just yards from the crystalline ocean. This small lake, known as Lac Salé or Lac Niamawi, likely formed as a result of volcanic activity from the nearby Mount Karthala in the 16th century.  But local folklore has another origin story for the so-called “bottomless” lake. The story goes that a holy man or witch came to……

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Nirvana Memorial Garden is located in the secluded west area of Singapore island. It is surrounded by the cemeteries of Chinese, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, and Hindu. Near the building, there is a famous Second World War tomb memorial. The memorial was created to commemorate the Chinese victims who died in early 1942. It was estimated that about 2,000 to 3,000 Chinese were killed in this massacre committed by Japanese invaders. In 2009, the Malaysian conglomerate Nirvana Asia Group acquired……

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This story was originally published on The Conversation and appears here under a Creative Commons license. As the inhabitants of an ancient Middle Eastern city now called Tall el-Hammam went about their daily business one day about 3,600 years ago, they had no idea an unseen icy space rock was speeding toward them at about 38,000 mph (61,000 kph). Flashing through the atmosphere, the rock exploded in a massive fireball about 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) above the ground. The……

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Listen and subscribe on Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all major podcast apps. In this episode of The Atlas Obscura Podcast, photographer and author Paul Koudonaris brings us into this Ethiopian church and explores ossuaries, jeweled skeletons, and death practices throughout the world. Our podcast is an audio guide to the world’s wondrous, awe-inspiring, strange places. In under 15 minutes, we’ll take you to an incredible site, and along the way you’ll meet some fascinating people and hear their……

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