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These days, it feels as if no cocktail party or girls night in is complete without an Instagram-worthy cheese board, but it’s not as simple as throwing a few varieties and whatever’s in the kitchen on a wooden plank. As it turns out, cutting the cheese itself requires some know-how. We asked Courtney Wright of Savor Style, a custom grazing board curator, to dish on her cheese board knowledge to help us create edible masterpieces with ease and confidence....

There’s nothing better than warm, homemade soup on a chilly day, whether it’s a heaping bowl of hearty chili, comforting chicken noodle soup, or creamy tomato soup. You can never go wrong turning to a recipe box favorite, but one of soup’s most appealing characteristics is its ability to clean out the fridge by using up whatever is hanging around in there. While most recipes typically call for a few fresh ingredients, you don’t always have to dash out to the store when the soup craving hits....

A sweet little dog named Robbie is on his way to his forever home after weeks spent waiting for someone to notice him outside a Houston Dollar General. Kristin Erwin told The Dodo that she had a feeling Robbie needed help the minute she spotted him beneath a plastic chair near the store entrance last month. “I thought he was the cutest thing, with chubby little legs,” Erwin told the outlet....

Researchers are “thrilled” to have discovered an oak tree once thought to be extinct within Big Bend National Park in Texas. A team led by The Morton Arboretum in Illinois and United States Botanic Garden in Washington, D.C. found a lone Quercus tardifolia (Q. tardifolia) tree on May 25. Sadly, the 30-foot tree was described as being in “poor condition.” With its trunk scarred by fire and showing signs of severe fungal infection, scientists deemed it in “immediate need of conservation....

When 11-year-old Davyon Johnson grows up, he wants to be an EMT. Earlier this month, he received some early training for his future career when he helped save the lives of not one, but two community members in one day. The heroic middle schooler at Muskogee Public Schools in Oklahoma was in class when a fellow classmate began choking on a bottlecap. Davyon sprung to action, successfully performing the Heimlich maneuver and freeing his classmate’s airway....

Witherspoon was recently spotted grabbing coffee with her son, Deacon, in Los Angeles while sporting a pair of Ray-Ban Classic Wayfarer sunnies. But this isn’t the first time the multi-hyphenate has worn the timeless black shades. A quick scroll through Witherspoon’s Instagram profile reveals her wearing the glasses on multiple outings. She’s paired them with a high-fashion look while promoting her new AppleTV series The Morning Show and with skinny jeans and a blazer while working alongside Kerry Washington, who she’s collaborating with on a new Hulu TV series based on Celeste Ng’s novel Little Fires Everywhere....

It only takes cooking shrimp once to notice that they’ll morph from undercooked to overcooked in the course of a minute. Deliciously sweet and unique in texture, shrimp are notorious for being finicky on the stove. But there’s a unique method for preparing shrimp that’s been practiced for millennia (probably originating in Peru), and it never involves heating the shrimp. Even though it’s now celebrated in fine dining restaurants and served in martini glasses at high-end cocktail bars around the world, it’s a simple dish with humble origins....

From its inviting spot in the Blue Ridge foothills, Charlottesville, Virginia, summons visitors every spring. When the days grow longer, the landscape explodes with color and the lemony scent of magnolias perfumes the air. Around 100 miles southwest of Washington, D.C., and 70 miles northwest of Richmond, the state’s capital, Charlottesville is perhaps best known as a thriving college town because it’s home to the University of Virginia (UVA). While the Downtown Mall bustles year-round, the more pastoral scenery extending from the city’s nucleus into rural Albemarle County is the big attraction when the earth warms enough to make way for a fresh carpet of butter yellow daffodils and delicate purple crocus....

When berry season has hit its stride and apple season is still weeks away, plump ripe and juicy stone fruits such as cherries and peaches generously drop off the trees to fill the void. What exactly is a stone fruit? Also called a “drupe,” a stone fruit is any thin-skinned fruit with a soft, succulent flesh and a pit, or stone, in its center. The seed is actually inside the stone....

Everything changed when the skillet slipped through his fingers and cracked on the brick steps. Given to him by his grandmother, Dennis Powell had her cast-iron pan and butcher knife since he’d left for college and had cherished them for the 40 years that followed. When the skillet broke in two, “it was like it cracked that literal connection to her hands, her cooking, and the place we came from,” he says....

Still feeling overwhelmed with options? Check out our editor-curated picks for the best kitchen, home, and outdoor deals for the upcoming season, and take satisfaction in knowing you’ll be ahead of the game this holiday shopping season. Best Prime Early Access Sale Kitchen Deals The sale features a number of food storage and organization solutions as well, such as the Cuisinel Heavy-Duty Pan Organizer, now 27 percent off, for keeping heavy cast iron pans organized, or the Rubbermaid FreshWorks Produce Savers, now 44 percent off, which shoppers say keep produce fresh for weeks, as opposed to just days....

Attention aspiring lords and ladies: your chance to own a fairytale castle in Scotland is here. A French Gothic mansion in the coastal Scottish burgh of Arbroath is on the auction block, and the starting bid is just £1 (approximately $1.23). OK, so it might not be everyone’s idea of a fairytale. The Elms, which was built sometime in the 1850’s and has sat abandoned for years, admittedly needs a good bit of work....

A forceful exhalation wakes me before dawn: a blast of air, just beyond the beach. Minutes later, a second exhale, followed by another. Multiple breaths explode in the water. Stretching in my sleeping bag, I peer out to see the silhouettes of coastal bottlenose dolphins feeding in the shadowy water outside my tent. I climb outside. The sand is cold between my toes. San Carlos Bay gently ripples in a breeze, reflecting the waning light of a paper-thin moon, a dock light, and the red glow of a channel marker....

All 180 episodes of “The Golden Girls” are available on Hulu, which translates to hours of eating cheesecake while reminiscing with Blanche, Rose, Dorothy, and Sophia. The show ran for seven seasons and each week, viewers would tune in to laugh along with the four friends of a certain age as they shared a house and their lives. Over the course of the show, the friends navigated life, love, and aging, and endured endless stories about Sophia’s life back in Sicily, Rose’s childhood in St....

Tennessee drivers are required to get new license plates this year, and we have just the thing. By purchasing a Dolly Parton Tennessee License Plate, Tennessee drivers can show their love for the legendary songstress and help a local child learn to read. That’s right. Parton is giving 100% of the plate sales—over $15 per plate—to support local Imagination Library programs in her home state. One plate purchase fully funds one child’s enrollment in the program for a full year....

While the creator sells a variety of handmade velvet pumpkins, many shoppers are opting for this custom bundle because of the ability to mix and match the colors in each set. Reviewers say the shades are not only “vibrant” and “gorgeous” in person, but also “very accurate” compared to the photos on the product page. Others rave about the “amazing quality” of the pumpkins, saying they’re “crafted extremely well.” BUY IT: Starting at $39....

Recipe: Mac and Cheese with Ham Below the Mason-Dixon, the Easter Sunday feast is the gift that keeps on giving. What I’m referring to are the countless Easter leftovers we get to enjoy days after the holiday is over. In my house, day-after-Easter mac & cheese is the Southern cuisine we hold near and dear to our hearts – and for good reason. There are few foods in this world more satisfying than classic macaroni and cheese; a plate full of warm mac & cheese often makes an appearance at every Southern holiday, family reunion, and church potluck....

A little bird just whispered that Hattie, Sadie, and Beatrice may have some competition when it comes to popular baby names. According to Town & Country the next beloved old name to make a comeback is Birdie. As proof, the magazine not only looked at the rising popularity among celebrities— Actress Busy Phillips named her daughter Birdie Leigh and HGTV design star Emily Henderson calls her daughter, Elliott, by the nickname Birdie—as well as the name’s surprise entry on to the list of 100 Best Baby Names for 2017....

Behind the cloud of COVID-19 lies a silver lining. Seed companies are selling record amounts of vegetable seeds as people sheltering in place with time on their hands take their first shots at growing food. Grumpy applauds their efforts and hopes this trend becomes a habit after the pandemic ends. Here are some suggestions for newbie seed sowers to ensure success whether you’re starting seeds indoors or sowing them directly into the garden....

Now that the world has evolved into one big technological megacosm, we can often forget about the time before smartphones, Netflix, and online banking existed. That is, until we’re hit with memories of our mothers using a telephone attached to the wall or balancing a checkbook by hand. Amongst those vague recollections of a simpler era is a somewhat perplexing practice known as the gas station notebook. If you don’t remember it, let us paint the picture....