This is a story of American ingenuity and entrepreneurship. It is the story of the meat straw. Yes, you read that right.

“It is a straw made out of pork,” explains Ben Hirko of Coralville, Iowa, the man behind Benny’s Original Meat Straws.

It’s a half-inch in diameter, the same length as a standard plastic straw. And it has a hole running down the middle of it, through which you’re meant to slurp up Bloody Marys.

Like many good stories, this one involves a snowstorm — and maybe one beer too many. Back in February 2009, Hirko was tending bar, and there was only one couple there to drink, so as the snow piled up outside, he poured himself a beer. The bar didn’t serve food, but the couple brought a bunch of meat sticks to snack on.

“After a few beers, I reached over and grabbed one of the snack sticks,” says Hirko. “And I was like, ‘You know, this would make an amazing Bloody Mary garnish.’ It just had great flavor.”

The Bloody Mary Meat Straw: An All-American Story

Photo: Tamara Keith/NPR

THE LOST LANDSCAPE: A Writer’s Coming of Age by Joyce Carol Oates

JCO explores the world through the eyes of her younger self and reveals her nascent experiences of wanting to tell stories about the world and the people she meets. She vividly re-creates the early years of her life in western New York State, powerfully evoking the romance of childhood and the way it colors everything that comes after. From early memories of her relatives to remembrances of a particularly poignant friendship with a red hen, from her first friendships to her first experiences with death, The Lost Landscape is an arresting account of the ways in which Oates’s life (and her life as a writer) was shaped by early childhood and how her later work was influenced by a hardscrabble rural upbringing.
#newrelease #joycecaroloates #thelostlandscape #childhood #onwriting #indiesfirst

Small shack on Forsythe’s Bog occupied by DeMarco family, 10 in the family living in this one room. Room is 10 feet x 11 ft. x 5 ½ ft. high and gable attic above. Wooden toilets near at hand and bushes used as such, gave forth offensive odors. Turkeytown, N.J., 9/29/1910

Series: National Child Labor Committee Photographs taken by Lewis Hine, ca. 1912 - ca. 1912. Record Group 102: Records of the Children’s Bureau, 1908 - 2003

Investigative photographer Lewis Hine spares no detail in his description of seasonal berry pickers’ lodging in New Jersey.  Taken 105 years ago, this photograph is one of a series of black-and-white prints by Hine and given to the Children’s Bureau by the National Child Labor Committee.  

“There were actually two types of family history. There was the documented version that sat properly in my grandfather’s office. But there was also the undocumented version, consisting of fables, family customs, and hearsay passed along by my grandmother Bari Bauwa and the other women of the house. This version had begun seeping into us since birth, very subtly, with the honey on our tongues. And, to start with, it was the only one I knew.”

- Madhur Jaffrey, Climbing the Mango Trees