By: PROJECT:OBJECT

Kicking off a series of 25 true stories about objects with which we are obsessed.

By: Tom Nealon

What’s the difference between Russian and Thousand Island — and who invented them?

By: Tom Nealon

Maltodextrin makes not just food, but flavor itself thicker.

By: Tom Nealon

Suspicious post-prandials, gnawed corpses, bloody cravats, cannibal neighbors….

By: Tom Nealon

Gingerbread isn’t so much complicated as it is a complicated illusion.

By: Adrienne Crew

When I look at the fish scaler, I see my family’s frugality and ingenuity.

By: Alissa Walker

Selections were made with a satisfying double-thwang of a letter key and number key pressed in quick succession.

By: Erin M. Routson

The paper wallet still makes me laugh. And cry.

By: Chelsey Johnson

The horses developed complex social networks, animosities and affections.

By: Dave Boerger

I became a “soldier in God’s army.”

By: Tony Leone

Model building was considered nerdy, but I didn’t care — and I still don’t care.

By: Karl Taro Greenfeld

He became the world’s foremost expert in opium antiquities.

By: Jason Gilbert

I was no longer purchasing the Hand; the Hand had been entrusted to me.

By: Tom Nealon

There is a yearning at the heart of turkey tetrazzini, the memory of a void unfilled.

By: Malcolm Evans

The blue ribband; how the ship would look dwarfing Nelson’s column…