Enlarge Jennifer Sinco Kelleher/AP

Women's Correctional Community Center inmate Lilian Hussein checks on ti leaves she planted as part of the prison's farming and gardening program in Kailua, Hawaii. The green ti leaves are often used to wrap food or weave into leis.

Jennifer Sinco Kelleher/AP

Women's Correctional Community Center inmate Lilian Hussein checks on ti leaves she planted as part of the prison's farming and gardening program in Kailua, Hawaii. The green ti leaves are often used to wrap food or weave into leis.

If you haven't noticed, gardens are popping up in some unconventional places – from prison yards to retirement and veteran homes to programs for troubled youth.

Most are handy sources of fresh and local food, but increasingly they're also an extension of therapy for people with mental health issues, such as post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD; depression; and anxiety.

It's called horticultural therapy. And some doctors, psychologists and occupational therapists are now at work to test whether building, planting, and harvesting a garden can be a therapeutic process in its own right.

Many a gardener will tell you that tending to plants is soothing. But the science behind just how gardening affects the mind and brain still remains a mystery — and for good reason. The field is still just a sapling.

What scientists do know is that gardening reduces stress and calms the nerves. It decreases cortisol, a hormone that plays a role in stress response. So what about the biological mechanism behind mental disorders? That's a bit tougher.

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Many livestock groups say there's no evidence that antibiotics in livestock feed have caused a human health problem, but researchers beg to differ.

Scott Olson/Getty Images

Many livestock groups say there's no evidence that antibiotics in livestock feed have caused a human health problem, but researchers beg to differ.

Researchers have nailed down something scientists, government officials and agribusiness proponents have argued about for years: whether antibiotics in livestock feed give rise to antibiotic-resistant germs that can threaten humans.

A study in the journal mBio, published by the American Society for Microbiology, shows how an antibiotic-susceptible staph germ passed from humans into pigs, where it became resistant to the antibiotics tetracycline and methicillin. And then the antibiotic-resistant staph learned to jump back into humans.

"It's like watching the birth of a superbug," says Lance Price of the Translational Genomics Research Institute, or TGen, in Flagstaff, Ariz.

Price and colleagues in 19 countries did whole-genome analysis on a staph strain called CC398 and 88 closely related variations. CC398 is a so-called MRSA, or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, that emerged within the past decade in pigs and has since spread widely in cattle and poultry as well as pigs.

The genetic analysis allowed the study authors to trace the lineage of the livestock bug back to its antibiotic-susceptible human ancestors. Price says it shows beyond a doubt that the animal bacterium jumped back into humans with close exposure to livestock.

This year would not be a good year for ice cream. In fact, there would be none at all if we relied on the technique George Washington used at Mount Vernon, his Virginia estate that's perched on the banks of the Potomac River.

His source of ice was the frozen river. Given the warm winter we've had here in D.C. , there's no chance. Seems the weather is nothing like it was on Jan. 26, 1786, when Washington wrote in his journal:

"Renewed my Ice operation to day, employing as many hands as I conveniently could in getting it from the Maryland shore, carting and pounding it."

That's according to a new exhibition on the cookery of Mount Vernon, "Hoecakes and Hospitality," that opens this President's Day weekend.

That ice was stored in a dry well or ice house until milk and cream became available from dairy cows in the spring.

Martha Washington used a recipe from the most popular cookbook of the day, Hannah Glasse's Art of Cookery, to prepare a slushy, creamy version of the sweet treat we've come to love. (Her copy of the book is shown in the exhibit.) But forget chocolate or vanilla. Fruit was the only thing added to the cream and sugar. And the Washingtons served their guests tiny portions, doled out in delicate white French porcelain cups, that appear to hold no more than an ounce or two.

The Salt got a sneak peak of a new exhibit showcasing dozens of artifacts from Martha Washington's kitchen. Some are original, and some are reproductions of items known to be owned by Mount Vernon.

There are the mundane items such as big pots and pans. But there are also some wonderful pieces that we're likely not have in our modern kitchens: a tin still used to distill mint or rose water. A petite, fancy, French cocotte used for serving recipes such as asparagus ragu. And a nifty tin spice container that originally had a grinder at its center.

There's also a page from one of Washington's ledgers that meticulously documents the procurement of kitchen and household items. After touring the exhibit, it's clear the Washingtons had some fussy culinary habits.

For instance, they were big-time importers of coffee. According to one of his ledgers, George Washington imported 150 pounds of beans in November of 1799. And not just any beans. Turns out the Founding Father George loved beans from the Red Sea port of Mocha. Sometimes he also exchanged flour or his Potomac-caught herring for coffee beans from the West Indies.

The amount of labor that went into brewing a cup of joe was pretty intense. Enslaved cooks used one of two "coffee toasters" placed in front of the kitchen fire and then used a hand grinder to grind them.

And other imports? Wine from the Canary Islands; double Gloucester cheese from England; brandy and olives from France; pickled mangoes from India and lots of Mediterranean anchovies, capers and currants.

Coconuts, limes and turtles from the West Indies, and my favorite: pickled walnuts. Why pickled walnuts? Well, maybe it was to preserve them. But it's also possible that the pickling softened up the nuts, making them easier to chew for our nation's first president, who had notoriously bad teeth.

Enlarge Courtesy (C) Carnival Film & Television Limited 2011 for Masterpiece

Michelle Dockery as Lady Mary: As Downton Abbey viewers know, dining in fine style was de rigueur in Edwardian England.

Courtesy (C) Carnival Film & Television Limited 2011 for Masterpiece

Michelle Dockery as Lady Mary: As Downton Abbey viewers know, dining in fine style was de rigueur in Edwardian England.

If you've ever watched the television show Downton Abbey, you've probably deduced that dining was a very, very big deal in the lives of the landed gentry of Edwardian England.

Much of the drama surrounding the aristocratic Crawley family and their servants unfolds against a tableau of the table.

Beaus jostle for the attention of the earl's eldest daughter while eating elbow to elbow. An engagement is publicly renewed during the evening meal. The butler works himself into an exhausted tizzy trying to keep up appearances without enough footmen to serve dishes in "proper" style.

And the food itself? Turns out, it was "incredibly sophisticated," says Ivan Day, one of Britain's preeminent food historians. "The upper-middle classes and the gentry and the aristocracy — they saw food as a way of impressing people," Day tells The Salt.

That's hard to reconcile with the reputation that dogged British cuisine throughout much of the 20th century as boring, tasteless fare.

So what changed? The short answer: World War I.

Enlarge Tom Bullock/NPR

The specialty at Gates Bar-B-Q is burnt ends, the fatty tip of the ribs, laid directly over the fire until black and blistered.

Tom Bullock/NPR

The specialty at Gates Bar-B-Q is burnt ends, the fatty tip of the ribs, laid directly over the fire until black and blistered.

How do you know you're in Kansas City, Missouri? Follow the smoke, and listen for this:

"Hi, may I help you?"

At the famed Gates Bar-B-Q in Kansas City, "May I help you?" is a kind of mantra.

It's how people standing in front of the barbecue pits greet all who walk in the door, while ribs, brisket, turkey, and for all I know, pillow stuffing sizzle, pop, and get saturated with smoke and the signature sauce of Ollie Gates, the barbecue master.

"We've been around a long time," Gates says. "We first started in Kansas City there was probably six shacks by the tracks, bbq joints as we'd call them"

But times have changed. His restaurants are no joints, and his style of cooking has made Kansas City barbecue a regional cuisine that's known worldwide.

He didn't set out to make barbecue legit.

Ollie Gates just thought that a man shouldn't have to worry about bugs to eat good barbeque, so he stresses keeping his places clean. His employees wear white shirts, which stay remarkably unsplotched, and even ties. The show is in the smoke and sauce.

Gates uses closed pits, which trap the smoke and keeps it wafting through the brisket, or turkey or ribs instead of your shirt, eyes, and hair.

But what brought us to Gates is their specialty: burnt ends. To some people, burnt ends would be—forgive this phrase—butt ugly. The meat is placed directly over fire, and stays there to get black and blistered.

Now some people might look at the black, blistered stuff and say, "Whoa! That goes in the dog's dish!" But Gates says that's where the flavor is deepest and smokiest.

"That's the one that's next to the wood, that's the one where you really get the flavor."

Another feature, in these days of molecular gastronomy in which foods are immersed in baths and evaporators and timed to the second, like a spacecraft re-entering the atmosphere, is that the brisket and ribs are on the fire at Gates for ... as long as it takes.

There are no timers or buzzers; just look, feel, and experience. The cooks here know a rack of ribs is ready when it's cooked so tender you can fold it over like a beautifully worked baseball glove.

These days Gates Bar-B-Cue is even more modern. Ollie Gates oversees his operation from a wood paneled room in one of his six restaurants, instead of the pits. Gates has been in business for six decadecs, but makes occasional minor menu adjustments to fit the times.

"Well, we have vegetables that we barbecue, we put them in the pit," he says. "In fact, our barbecue sauce sauce tastes great on greens. Tastes great on broccoli."

But would even Paul McCartney go to Gates just for the broccoli?

Stephanie Phillips/iStockPhoto.com

Clover sprouts look to be the source of the latest e. coli outbreak.

Another week, another outbreak of illness caused by sprouts. The latest troubles come to people who ate sandwiches from Jimmy John's restaurants in five Midwestern states.

The likely culprit is e. coli on clover sprouts, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In the past year, problems with bacterial contamination of sprouts have been almost continuous, ranging from minor problems in the United States to a massive outbreak in Europe that killed 50 people.

So it seems like a good time talk with Bob Sanderson, president of the International Sprout Growers Association. He and his wife, Barbi, have been growing sprouts commercially in Rochester, Mass., for more than 30 years. But lately he's spending most of his time dealing with the pressing issue of safety and sprouts. Here are the highlights of our conversation, edited for length and clarity.

Q: The sprout industry is following guidelines issued by the Food and Drug Administration in 1999, which suggested that fairly high levels of chlorine be used to reduce the number of bacteria on seeds. What's your objection to that?

Sanderson: Chlorine is a very strong chemical, and it's pretty obvious that it's inconsistent in its effectiveness. Most European countries don't allow its use on foods. There's been a lot of research since then on other methods.

Q: What are some of the other possibilities?

A: There are some pretty sophisticated methods. The biggest I've seen is a hot-water treatment for mung beans developed by the Japanese. It's highly automated, and it's not practical for all kinds of seeds. We do grow mung beans, but we haven't got a system like that. We've have to really expand a lot to consider that.

There are liquid treatments related to citric acid that seem to be pretty good. They're not as dangerous to handle [as chlorine].

This month there's a treatment described in an article in the Journal of Food Protection. It involves an organic acid that's about the acidity of apple juice. There's also been some very interesting preliminary research into using existing organisms that are native to sprouts to control the ones you don't want. It's a new way of thinking about it.

Q: But you can't use those treatments unless they've been approved by the FDA?

A: Our customers are saying, has the FDA approved it? And the FDA has not approved anything. But they also haven't come out and said don't use it, because it's not as good as chlorine.

I don't think the problem is technological so much as it's in terms of coming up with criteria. The [FDA] guidance has just kind of been sitting there. There are have been eight or more of these research reports into alternatives, but nobody knows if they can use them or not.

Q: I'm wondering if one problem is that the sprout industry is really a niche, compared to, say, lettuce growers.

A: It's true. We don't have the research budget to hire a whole bunch of scientists. But I don't think money can solve all problems. Maybe in terms of getting people's attention and getting things into the pipeline, it can be useful. But in terms of better methods [for sanitation], there are lots of methods that have already been looked into.

I'm hoping that the new rules [that are part of the Food Safety Modernization Act] will say, here's what you have to do to be acceptable. That would free up the industry to come up with solutions.

Enlarge John Rose/NPR

Sucre in New Orleans is one of many bakeries that leaves the plastic baby out of the king cake.

John Rose/NPR

Sucre in New Orleans is one of many bakeries that leaves the plastic baby out of the king cake.

If you've been in New Orleans for carnival season, or if you're lucky enough to taste a cake that has arrived in the mail from there, there's a pretty good chance that yes, there is a plastic baby that comes with your cake.

The baby, meant to represent Jesus, has become a fixture of the king cake (galette des rois in France or rosca de reyes as it's called in Mexico). It's a frosted yeast dough cake that New Orleans bakeries churn out between King's Day, January 6^th, and Fat Tuesday, the last day of indulgence before Lent.

But just how that baby got in the cake is a strange tale – featuring a mysterious traveling salesman — that's worthy of the best Mardi Gras lore and ritual.