In agrarian(农业的), pre-industrial Europe,“you'd want to wake up early, start working with the sunrise, have a break to have the largest meal, and then you'd go back to work,”says Ken Albala, a professor of history at the University of the Pacific.“Later, at 5 or 6, you'd have a smaller supper.”

    This comfortable cycle, in which the rhythms of the day helped shape the rhythms of the meals, gave rise to the custom of the large midday meal, eaten with the extended family.“Meals are the foundation of the family,”says Carole Couniban, a professor at Millersville University in Pennsylvania, “so there was a very important interconnection between eating together and strengthening family ties.”

    Since industrialization, maintaining such a slow cultural metabolism has been much harder, with the long midday meal shrinking to whatever could be stuffed into a lunch bucket or bought at a food stand. Certainly, there were benefits. Modern techniques for producing and shipping food led to greater variety and quantity, including a tremendous increase in the amount of animal protein and dairy products available, making us more energetic than our ancestors.

    Yet plenty has been lost too, even in cultures that still live to eat. Take Italy. It's no secret that the Mediterranean diet is healthy, but it was also a joy to prepare and eat. Italians, says Counihan, traditionally began the day with a small meal. The big meal came at around 1 p.m. In between the midday meal and a late, smaller dinner came a small snack. Today, when time zones have less and less meaning, there is little tolerance for offices' closing for lunch, and worsening traffic in cities means workers can't make it home and back fast enough anyway. So the formerly small supper after sundown becomes the big meal of the day, the only one at which the family has a chance to get together.“The evening meal carries the full burden that used to be spread over two meals,”says Counihan.

    In 1943, when I was 4, my parents moved from Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, to Fairbanks, Alaska, where adventure was never very far away.

    We arrived in the summer, just in time to enjoy the midnight sun. All that sunlight was fantastic for Mom's vegetable garden. Working in the garden at midnight tended to throw her timing off, so she didn't care much about my bedtime.

    Dad was a Railway Express agent and Mom was his clerk. That left me in a mess. I usually managed to find some trouble to get into. Once I had a little fire going in the dirt basement of a hotel. I had tried to light a barrel(桶) of paint but couldn't really get a good fire going. The smoke got pretty bad, though, and when 1 made my exit, a crowd and the police were there to greet me. The policemen took my matches and drove me home.

    Mom and Dad were occupied in the garden and Dad told the police to keep me, and they did! I had a tour of the prison before Mom rescued me. I hadn't turned 5 yet.

    As I entered kindergarten, the serious cold began to set in. Would it surprise you to know that I soon left part of my tongue on a metal handrail at school?

    As for Leonhard Seppala, famous as a dog sledder, I think I knew him well because I was taken for a ride with his white dog team one Sunday. At the time I didn't realize what a superstar he was, but I do remember the ride well. I was wrapped (包裹) heavily and well sheltered from the freezing and blowing weather.

    In 1950, we moved back to Coeur d'Alene, but we got one more Alaskan adventure when Leonhard invited us eight years later by paying a visit to Idaho to attend a gathering of former neighbors of Alaska.

    Want to choose an English novel to enjoy? Here are four popular books sold on the website of Amazon, with formats and editions of kindle, hardcover, or paperback.

    Every morning, Ben Mumford starts his school day with math. At the age of ten, he is already working at GCSE level, but he does not always bother to get out of his pajamas (睡衣裤) in time for the class. He reads more books than most of his friends, studies science on the beach, and recently built a go-kart (卡丁车) in a technology lesson. Ben is happy and fulfilled, all, his mother believes, thanks to homeschooling.

    Homeschooling is not what it used to be. What emerged in the 1970s as a way for Catholic (信天主教的) parents to infuse (灌输) religion into their kids' education is now probably the fastest-growing form of education in the U.K. The number of homeschooled children has risen by about 40 percent over three years. Here are a handful of reasons why homeschooling makes sense in the 21^st century.

    Contrary to the name, homeschooling takes place in an actual home only a small part of time. A great deal of instruction happens in libraries, museums and community colleges. These experiences have the effect of helping kids mature much more quickly and developing a trait of open-mindedness.

    The key idea of homeschooling is that kids need to learn at the speed, and in the style, most appropriate for them. Without formal curriculum to guide their education, homeschoolers get the chance to explore a range of topics that might not be normally offered until high school or college. They can study psychology in the fourth grade, or finance in the eighth grade.

    The most common misunderstanding about homeschoolers is that they lack social skills. However, social media makes it convenient for homeschoolers of today to have just as much opportunity to make friends as kids studying in traditional schools. Meanwhile, they do not need to deal with the potential problems of being around kids in a school environment, including bullying, which might result in anxiety and depression.

    For most people, school is really good, and it works for them because they learn in the way that school teaches. However, there are so many different ways of learning and processing (处理) information and knowledge. It does not necessarily work for everyone.

Tea is currently the world's most popular drink, only after water. However, there was a time when tea was known only to the Chinese. So, how did tea originate in China? And how did it get to conquer the world to the extent that people often describe something they really like as their "cup of tea"? 

While we know that tea drink started in China, its true origin remains something unknown. Legend has it that about 5, 000 years ago, Shennong came across tea when dried leaves blew into a pot of boiling water. Following his discovery, tea was used as medicine, included in meals and later offered as a refreshing drink to officials and noblemen. Eventually, it became a common drink enjoyed by all Chinese people. 

The love of tea inspired many people to write about it. Over the years, tea drinking became an important part of China's rich culture. The great poet Du Fu described his tea-drinking experience in poetic language. Lu Yu, a tea master, wrote The Classic of Tea, which remains the earliest and most famous detailed study on tea in the world. 

It is then not surprising that the beauty of tea was eventually spread to a wider world. Tang and Song Dynasties needed strong Tibetan horses, so the Tea Horse Road was born. Porters (脚夫) carrying back-breaking loads of tea bricks made their way through dangerous snow-covered mountain passes, to trade Sichuan and Yunnan tea for horses. Over time, the gift of tea was further delivered to Western Asia and Easten Africa. As early as the Tang Dynasty, Saicho, a Japanese monk came to study in China and took tea seeds and tea-making customs to Japan. Around the 1600s, tea was shipped to Europe from China by Portuguese and Dutch sea traders.

I was cutting up lettuce in the kitchen when I suddenly remembered watching a video about soaking the lettuce stub (莴苣残余部分) in water to grow a whole new vegetable. So I took out a wide-mouthed cup and placed the stub into it, gave it a little water, and placed it by the window. 

On a snowy morning I noticed the first sign. A first small leaf from its heart spread out. A tiny green flag of hope. Beaten, but not defeated. This lettuce was not done living! Within days, it was impossible to see the cuts where I had removed the leaves. The growth was explosive. And when I lifted the blossoming head out of the cup, tiny root threads fell down, seeking for the earth. 

What is growing here? Lettuce or hope? 

If I were a lettuce in a similar condition, I'd want to skeptically assess where I found myself before committing to full growth. Yet for this lettuce, my inadequate offering of water and a place by a window was enough for it to decide to reclaim itself again. It grew in a cup of water, in faith. This is the heart of this lettuce: alive, strong and fearless. It deserved a name. I decided to call it Monty. 

Monty wanted to grow, as we all do. I think I gave him a little love and freedom. Those two were all he needed to return to himself. I see joy in this lettuce. The return to self is always an expression of joy, which is life itself. This is the tendency of all living things. 

Monty still lives in a cup, but I'm going to transplant him outside. He deserves to become his full self. The only problem I see now is my ability to support Monty. I hope I have enough of a green finger. 

I'm surprised to find myself where I am. Maybe Monty is, too. I have the same choice as he does: give in or start again. The prospect of starting again is discouraging. But my lettuce-friend, Monty, leads the way. I can only hope to be as brave.