Leah Mayor

Alec Baxt claims to have gotten goose bumps from his first visit to Eagle Street Farm in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Baxt is a native born and self described "New York City kid." His personal search for self reliance and sustainable community led him first to Alaska, then to French...

Within the world of an increasingly localized food movement, we are ever more familiar with buying a peck of heirloom apples, serving up a pound of grass-fed beef, decorating with a bouquet of seasonal flowers, and adding a pinch or a dash of our local agricultural products to any...

It is an interesting time for agriculture. There is more demand than ever for healthy, fresh, local food. Organic and green consumers take pride in knowing their farmers, considering the seasonality of vegetables, and putting foods that they have never tried before on their plates. The move toward local food...

Few people have fueled my respect for cheese more than Nat Bacon, head cheesemaker for Shelburne Farms. Two years ago I spent some time with Nat on this farm, in the "make room," and it forever deepened my understanding of the hard work and elbow grease that goes...

In graduate school, after long days of study, my favorite way to unwind was to read cookbooks, online recipes, and magazines devoted to cooking. Cooking made me feel creative. Immersed in an intangible world of research and chapters, I found solace in the tactile act of creating something from beginning...

At age 39, Kylie Spooner put her Ivy League education to unexpected use. She moved into the farmhouse where her father, Dean Spooner, was raised. The late Henry Spooner, Kylie's grandfather, bought the two bedroom farmhouse in 1938 along with the small plot of land upon which the house sits....

"A self-made man is as likely as a self-laid egg" -Mark Twain

Despite growing support for local food systems, America's farmland is at risk. Every minute of every day, we lose more than an acre of agricultural land to development. This loss has potentially devastating consequences for our economy, our...

Eight years ago, Gary Giberson, Founder of New Jersey-based Sustainable Fare and Director of Dining at the Lawrenceville School, set out to make the school's lunchroom more sustainable. This meant not only challenging the way that kids ate but also how they experienced lunch both as...

Travel, for many, is a search for an authentic cultural experience. Many a trekker, tourist, and seeker have found themselves going to greater lengths at greater cost to find unique and meaningful encounters; a momentary refuge from the day-to-day reality of a modern life. All over the world, lives have...

In honor of Women's History Month, I have been interviewing women who are leading the way in creative travel -- back road, off-the-map and Slow Adventures. The best part of seeking out women to interview is that I haven't had to look very far to find inspired women...

The word tourism, first used in the early 1800s, was derived from the Latin 'Tornare' or Greek 'Tornos," meaning to circle. And like its root, tourism suggests movement around an axis point or home. Lately, I have also been thinking about travel as a cultural pilgrimage; a way to trace...

The cruel joke about urban life is that while I can turn the corner and buy almost anything imaginable, I am disconnected from being able to actually make anything. And despite the fact that I am just one D.I.Y. class away from being able to learn a craft, I am...

Recently, I heard a story of a yoga master who sought the secrets of attaining enlightenment. The yoga master asked her teacher for guidance, and in response, the teacher advised her to work toward mastering 3 things: cooking, cleaning, and gardening. By conscientiously participating in seemingly unimportant tasks of daily...

The earliest travelers were likely to be religious pilgrims whose journeys were rooted in a trial of faith and moral significance. Christian pilgrims in Europe walked hundreds of miles on the Camino di Santiago and Tibetan pilgrims have circumambulated Mount Kailash for thousands of years. By the 17th century, European...

Since 1986, the Slow Food Movement has successfully been providing alternatives to Fast Food. Carlo Petrini's Slow Food motto, good, clean, and fair and accompanying ethic offered an alternative model to a world that was, at the time, mindlessly consuming enormous quantities of corn syrup and supporting agribusiness. The Slow...