A new ‘Blue Food’ cookbook champions fish and other seafood for any meal

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By MARK KENNEDY

NEW YORK (AP) — Andrew Zimmern and Barton Seaver are what you’d call seafood fanatics. Or blue food evangelists. They want us to eat more things from the water, even first thing in the morning.

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“Seafood for breakfast is delicious,” says Zimmern, a chef, writer and TV host. Seaver, a chef and National Geographic Explorer, agrees — he argues that some lean protein with omega-3 fatty acids is a great way to start the day.

“Seafood belongs in all places at all meals at all times,” Seaver says.

The two — in collaboration with the ocean food advocacy nonprofit Fed by Blue — have combined for “The Blue Food Cookbook: Delicious Recipes for a Sustainable Future,” part cookbook and part educational resource to help make food from oceans, lakes and rivers less confusing for many people.

“Seafood, categorically, is a food that needs a little help getting into more people’s diets across more demographics,” says Seaver. “That was the intent of this book — to be inviting, but also to give people a sense that, hey, maybe it’s time to look anew at seafood.”

The two use “blue food” to describe the category, which embraces more than just ocean food but also freshwater animals, as well as algae and marine plants. The authors argue that picking blue food doesn’t have to be baffling, expensive or hard to cook.

“There’s so much confusing information out there,” says Zimmern.

Labels don’t always help

Is wild caught better than farmed? Is fresh better than frozen? Zimmern and Seaver discuss the pros and cons of each, but that’s not really what they care about. The labels don’t always help: Thanks to technology on trawlers, frozen fish can be fresher than unfrozen.

More important: Where is your fish from and was it sustainably caught?

This image released by Harvest, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, shows a recipe for fish sticks on a rustic Italian salad called panzanella. (Eric Wolfinger/Harvest via AP)

“The Blue Food Cookbook” stresses that the fish at the center of any dish can be swapped out with a similar animal in the same family. If there’s no fresh, good-looking haddock at the store, try halibut or pollock.

The authors say consumers may be shying away from buying fish and marine plants because of blaring headlines about depleted oceans, labor abuses,antibiotic use and radiation. They argue those issues are dwarfed by what’s happening on land with chickens, cows and pigs.

“To be very clear, there’s a lot that we yet need to get right about seafood. But there is so much that’s also going right currently, so many innovations that we’ve created that have really opened the door to this new perspective. And that’s what Andrew and I seek to celebrate,” says Seaver.

The 145 recipes in the book go from high-brow caviar to a humble tuna noodle casserole, and bounce from North African flavors to Nashville hot catfish. One dish — a panzanella — seems to perfectly encapsulate their approach; it takes frozen, pre-made fish sticks and adds heirloom tomatoes, fennel and onion to make a new twist on a rustic Italian salad.

Zimmern recalls fondly when, in his childhood, Mrs. Paul’s frozen fish sticks started to appear, and he would dip them in mayonnaise and ketchup mixed together. “It was one of my favorite things ever,” he says. He may have become a James Beard Award-winner but he doesn’t look down on the often-derided cafeteria staple.

“Anytime we have a meal that doesn’t rely on a Big Ag version of beef, pork and chicken, we’re making a vote to save our planet,” Zimmern says. “If America ate another seafood meal a week, we would be doing such a benefit to our economy.”

Dueling recipes

The book includes cooking techniques; tips on buying fish; and must-have pantry items. There are recipe sections for bivalves, small silver fish like sardines, preserved and canned seafood, seaweed, flaky white fish like cod, the salmon family, meaty dense fish like carp, steak fish like swordfish, fillet fish like branzino, and shellfish and cephalopods, like octopus.

This image released by Harvest, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, shows cover art for “The Blue Food Cookbook: Delicious Seafood Recipes for a Sustainable Future,” by co-authors Barton Seaver and Andrew Zimmern. (Harvest via AP)

The authors offer dueling recipes for crab cakes, linguini with clam sauce and clam chowder, playfully laying out their cases for why their version is supreme.

“We both firmly believe there’s no one way to do something that’s right,” says Zimmern. “And in an effort to sort of poke fun at all of those other chefs and food writers who were like, ‘No, this is the only way to do X,’ we decided that we’re going to have multiple versions of the same things in our book.”

As for breakfast, the authors look to ideas from Japan, China, Thailand, India and even England, where smoked herring is traditionally eaten. It’s not so foreign a concept; in New York, salmon lox on a bagel is a common breakfast.

Seaver even suggests bringing seafood in for lunch at the office, an idea often considered too smelly. “There’s plenty of chilled seafood dishes in here that don’t need to be microwaved to piss off the whole floor.”

Judge tosses complaint against St. Paul DFL, Vote Yes treasurer Rick Varco

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An administrative law judge has rejected a complaint filed by Peter Butler against Rick Varco, the sole remaining board member with the St. Paul DFL, alleging violations of the state’s Fair Campaign Practices Act in advance of the Nov. 4 election.

Fliers for two “Vote Yes!” campaigns photographed on Oct. 27, 2025 show that the St. Paul DFL supported both the special school district property tax levy and a charter amendment related to administrative citations. (Frederick Melo / Pioneer Press)

The Oct. 27 complaint alleged that Varco violated a provision of the act when the “Vote Yes for a Fairer St. Paul” campaign sent out a recent mailer urging voters to approve a ballot amendment to the city charter that would allow the city council to create new administrative citations, or non-criminal penalties for violations of city ordinances. Varco serves as the campaign’s treasurer.

The mailer — like another mailer in support of a school district tax levy from the “Vote Yes For Strong Schools” committee — listed the St. Paul DFL among a series of labor unions and progressive organizations supporting a “yes” vote. Butler called the label misleading, noting the citywide DFL party unit is on hiatus, has no chair or vice chair and rescinded its constitution in August.

Butler, in his complaint, “alleges that Varco knew that this claim was false when the mailer was prepared and disseminated.”

On Thursday, Judge James LaFave of the Minnesota Court of Administrative Hearings found insufficient initial or “prima facie” evidence to allow a hearing to move forward, noting nothing in Butler’s complaint showed or even alleged Varco had any involvement with creating the mailers.

“The statute specifically prohibits a ‘person or candidate’ from making a false claim,” reads the judge’s opinion. “Yet, the complaint does not allege that respondent had any direct role in preparing the content of or distributing the mailer. In fact, the complaint does not allege any connection between respondent and the making of the allegedly false claim of support.”

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Acting in place of the St. Paul DFL, the Ramsey County DFL drew together some two dozen members of St. Paul’s four DFL Senate districts for a Sept. 28 vote of support for both ballot questions. Both votes of support passed unanimously.

In addition to the school district property tax levy and the charter amendment, the St. Paul ballot will feature the mayor’s race. The election is Tuesday.

More information about the Nov. 4 election — including how to vote — can be found at twincities.com/news/politics/elections.

Your latest prescription is to get outside

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By TODD RICHMOND

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Find a shady spot under a tree, take a breath of fresh air and call me in the morning.

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Health care providers have long suggested stressed-out patients spend time outdoors. Now hundreds of providers are going a step further and issuing formal prescriptions to get outside. The tactic is gaining momentum as social media, political strife and wars abroad weigh on the American psyche.

Of course, no one needs a prescription to get outside, but some doctors think that issuing the advice that way helps people take it seriously.

“When I bring it up, it is almost like granting permission to do something they may see as frivolous when things seem so otherwise serious and stressful,” said Dr. Suzanne Hackenmiller, a Waterloo, Iowa, gynecologist who started issuing nature prescriptions after discovering time outdoors soothed her following her husband’s death.

Getting outdoors can improve your health

Spending time in natural areas can lower blood pressure, reduce stress hormones and boost immunity, multiple studies have found.

“Study after study says we’re wired to be out in nature,” said Dr. Brent Bauer, who serves as director of the complementary and integrative medicine program at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. The program focuses on practices that usually aren’t part of conventional medicine, such as meditation, acupuncture, massage and nutrition. “That’s more than just ‘Woo-woo, I think nature is cool.’ There’s actually science.”

Telling someone to go outside is one thing. The follow-through is something else. Starting about a decade ago, health care providers began formalizing suggestions to get outside through prescriptions.

Dr. Robert Zarr, who doubles as a nature guide, launched an organization called Park Rx America around 2016, offering providers protocols for prescribing nature outings. The guidelines call for talking with patients about what they like to do outside — walking, sitting under a tree, maybe just watching leaves fall — how often to do it and where to go. That all then gets included in a prescription, and Park Rx America sends patients reminders.

Nearly 2,000 providers have registered with the organization across the U.S. and a number of other countries, including Australia, Brazil, Cameroon and Spain. They’ve issued more than 7,000 nature prescriptions since 2019, said Dr. Stacy Beller Stryer, Park Rx America’s associate medical director. About 100 other organizations similar to Park Rx America have sprung up around the U.S., she said.

A nature prescription can motivate

Bauer specializes in treating CEOs and other business leaders. He said he issues about 30 nature prescriptions every year. The chief executives he treats sometimes don’t even know where to begin and a prescription can give them a jump start, he said.

“I recommend a lot of things to a lot of patients,” he said. “I’m not under the illusion all of them get enacted. When I get a prescription, someone hands me a piece of paper and says you must take this medication … I’m a lot more likely to activate that.”

Hackenmiller, the Iowa gynecologist, said she’s having more discussions with patients about getting outside as a means of escaping a world locked in perpetual conflict.

“When so many things are out of our control, it can be helpful to step away from the media and immerse ourselves in nature,” she said. “I think time in nature often resonates with people as something they have found solace in and have gravitated to in other times in their life.”

Getting outside is the important part

The effectiveness of nature prescriptions is unclear. A 2020 joint study by the U.S. Forest Service, the University of Pennsylvania and North Carolina State University concluded that more work was needed to gauge follow-through and long-term health outcomes.

But unless you’re choking on wildfire smoke or swatting swarms of mosquitoes, getting outside — no matter what motivates you — can be helpful.

FILE – In this March 5, 2020 photo, hikers head across a dune in White Sands National Park at Holloman Air Force Base, N.M. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski, file)

At William & Mary college in Williamsburg, Virginia, students issue nature prescriptions to their peers. “Patients” obtain prescriptions by filling out online applications indicating how far they’ll travel to get to a park, times they can visit, whether they need a ride and favorite outdoor activities.

Students issued an average of 22 online prescriptions per month in 2025, up from 12 per month in 2020.

Kelsey Wakiyama, a senior, grew up hiking trails around her home in Villanova, Pennsylvania, with her family and their dog, Duke. When she started her freshman year in Williamsburg, she didn’t know where to walk. She saw an advertisement for nature prescriptions in the weekly student email and eventually got one that helped her find trails near campus.

“I love the greenery,” Wakiyama said. “When you’re sitting inside — I was in the library for four hours today — the fresh air feels very nice. It calms my nervous system, definitely. I associate being outside with a lightness, a calmness, good memories. That kind of comes back to me when I’m outside.”

Giuffre family welcomes Andrew’s fall from royal status but wants more action

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By JILL LAWLESS and BRIAN MELLEY, Associated Press

LONDON (AP) — British politicians, the public and the family of Virginia Roberts Giuffre praised King Charles III’s decision to strip his brother Andrew of his princely title and spacious home, a banishment that has left the disgraced royal increasingly exposed to political and legal scrutiny over his finances and his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein.

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The king acted to stem mounting public disapproval as damning new details emerged about Andrew’s relationship with the convicted sex offender. Charles moved to preserve the monarchy from the fallout by forcibly removing a British prince’s title for the first time in a century.

Julian Payne, a former communications secretary to the king and queen, said that, as the scandal around 65-year-old Andrew grew and grew, the royal family had decided that “a tipping point had been reached.”

The former Prince Andrew is now known as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor. As of Friday, he was no longer listed on the roll of the peerage, where he had previously appeared as Duke of York, another of his titles.

He also will move out of Royal Lodge, the 30-room mansion near Windsor Castle where he has lived for more than 20 years, and into a more remote home funded by his brother on the king’s 20,000-acre (8,100 hectare) Sandringham Estate in eastern England.

Locals were not overjoyed about their soon-to-be neighor.

“Well, he’s got to go somewhere. It is what it is, isn’t it?” said Vanessa Beech. She said the king had “most certainly” made the right decision about Andrew.

Politicians welcome move

The British government, which was consulted but not directly involved, welcomed the king’s decision.

“We warmly, I warmly support what the king is doing today,” trade minister Chris Bryant told the BBC. “I think the vast majority of people in this country will think that it’s the right thing to do.”

Andrew surrendered his use of the title Duke of York earlier this month over new revelations about his friendship with Epstein and renewed sexual abuse allegations in Giuffre’s posthumous memoir. Andrew denies all her claims.

But the king went even further to punish him for serious lapses of judgment by removing the title of prince that he has held since birth as a child of a monarch, the late Queen Elizabeth II. Andrew also lost the designation “his royal highness,” making the former prince effectively a commoner now.

“These censures are deemed necessary, notwithstanding the fact that he continues to deny the allegations against him,” the palace said. “Their Majesties wish to make clear that their thoughts and utmost sympathies have been, and will remain with, the victims and survivors of any and all forms of abuse.”

It is almost unprecedented for a British prince or princess to be stripped of that title. It last happened in 1919, when Prince Ernest Augustus, who was a U.K. royal and also a prince of Hanover, had his British title removed for siding with Germany during World War I.

Calls for further investigation

Giuffre’s family declared victory on behalf of Andrew’s accuser, who died by suicide in April at the age of 41. She said that in the early 2000s, when she was a teenager, she was caught up in Epstein’s sex trafficking ring and exploited by Andrew and other influential men. Epstein was found dead in a New York City jail cell in 2019 in what investigators called a suicide.

“Today, an ordinary American girl from an ordinary American family, brought down a British prince with her truth and extraordinary courage,” Giuffre’s family said in a statement.

Her brother Sky Roberts said Andrew should face further investigation.

“We need to take it one more step further: he needs to be behind bars, period,” Roberts told the BBC.

Bryant, the government minister, said that Andrew was now an “ordinary member of the public,” and should agree to answer questions about Epstein in the U.S.

“If Andrew is asked to do something by a Senate committee, then I would have thought that he would want to comply,” Bryant said.

Andrew could face legal trouble in Britain, where police are investigating a claim that he asked one of this police bodyguards to dig up dirt on Giuffre.

A committee of U.K. lawmakers is also looking into how Andrew paid for Royal Lodge, which he leased for a nominal annual fee — known as a “peppercorn rent.”

Andrew’s is the most dramatic royal exit since 1936, when King Edward VIII abdicated the throne so he could marry twice-divorced American socialite Wallis Simpson. The couple were given the titles Duke and Duchess of Windsor and lived the rest of their lives in exile.

Prince Harry, despite renouncing his royal role, feuding with his family and moving to California, remains a prince and the Duke of Sussex.

Andrew faced a new round of public outrage after emails emerged earlier this month showing he had remained in contact with Epstein longer than he previously admitted.

Then came publication of “Nobody’s Girl,” by Giuffre, who alleged she had sex with Andrew three times, the first when she was 17. She said he acted as if he believed “having sex with me was his birthright.”

Andrew has long denied Giuffre’s claims, but stepped down from royal duties after a disastrous November 2019 BBC interview in which he attempted to rebut her allegations.

In 2022, Andrew paid millions to settle a civil suit filed by Giuffre in New York.

Peter Hunt, a former BBC royal correspondent, said the king and senior royals were “fearful of remaining out of step with public opinion” as they “attempt to restore credibility and trust in an ancient institution.”