Perhaps you've never stopped to consider the banana. You've never thought about how bananas, which don't grow anywhere near New York, are shipped here and ripened to the perfect shade of yellow so that Fairway or Whole Foods or that sketchy fruit vendor who's always chain smoking on the corner will buy them. But the secret life of bananas is actually quite fascinating: they're shipped in from South America and must be artificially ripened in special pressurized rooms designed to trick the fruit into thinking they're still in the tropics. Where can you find one of these rooms? Why, the Bronx, of course! more ›

Tie-dye is making a comeback in the fashion world (though most higher end shops are calling it "dip dye"), and it's not uncommon to hear Phish or The Grateful Dead playing at a coffee shop on Bedford Avenue...but are all of these signs that hipsters are becoming hippies? It seems the proof is in the homegrown pudding, as The NY Times reports on many young city slickers trading in their tight-jeans for some overalls (making their thrift store 4-H t-shirts no longer ironic). That's right, hipster librarians are so over, all the cool kids are taking up farming now -- and even current city-dwellers are cheering them on. One commented on the winds of change a-blowin', saying, "our rock stars are ricotta makers.” more ›