The best of the long read in 2023
Battle of the botanic garden: the horticulture war roiling the Isle of Wight – Mark O’Connell
When a US businessman took over a beloved garden a decade ago, he decided on a radical new approach, all in the name of sustainability. But angry critics claim it’s just plain neglect
How Deborah Levy can change your life – Charlotte Higgins
From her shimmering novels to her ‘living autobiographies’, Deborah Levy’s work inspires a devotion few literary authors ever achieve
Weizenbaum’s nightmares: how the inventor of the first chatbot turned against AI – Ben Tarnoff
Computer scientist Joseph Weizenbaum was there at the dawn of artificial intelligence – but he was also adamant that we must never confuse computers with humans
The trials of an Indian witness: how a Muslim man was caught in a legal nightmare – Rahul Bhatia
Nisar Ahmed was almost killed in the Delhi riots. But when he became a witness in court cases against the alleged perpetrators, he realised that was only the start of his troubles
Foreign mothers, foreign tongues: ‘In another universe, she could have been my friend’ – Dina Nayeri
Having grown up in different cultures with different expectations, my mother and I have often clashed. But as my daughter grows older, I have come to see our relationship in a different light
‘We are just getting started’: the plastic-eating bacteria that could change the world – Stephen Buranyi
When a microbe was found munching on a plastic bottle in a rubbish dump, it promised a recycling revolution. Now scientists are attempting to turbocharge those powers in a bid to solve our waste crisis. But will it work?
Days of The Jackal: how Andrew Wylie turned serious literature into big business – Alex Blasdel
Andrew Wylie is agent to an extraordinary number of the planet’s biggest authors. His knack for making highbrow writers very rich helped to define a literary era – but is his reign now coming to an end?
‘All that we had is gone’: my lament for war-torn Khartoum – Nesrine Malik
Since Sudan’s capital was engulfed by violence in April, life there has been all but destroyed. As we tried to get family members to safety, the ruination of my former home became hard to fathom
Chainsaws, disguises and toxic tea: the battle for Sheffield’s trees – Samira Shackle
What started out as a small protest escalated into a decade-long struggle between the council and hundreds of ordinary people who decided to take radical action to save their city’s trees
The impossible job: inside the world of Premier League referees – William Ralston
Players, pundits and fans complain bitterly that referees are getting worse each season – but is that fair?
(Football fans should also see this piece about Juventus)
Dark waters: how the adventure of a lifetime turned to tragedy – Sally Williams
The Clipper round the world yacht race was created for amateurs seeking the ultimate challenge. But did they underestimate the risks?
‘Incoherence and inconsistency’: the inside story of the Rwanda deportation plan – Daniel Trilling
There were so many warnings it would fail. How did it get this far?
The war on Japanese knotweed – Samanth Subramanian
Once hailed as a ‘handsome’ import, this most rampant of plants has come to be seen as a sinister, ruinous enemy. Can it be stopped?
The widow and the murderer: a friendship born of tragedy – Giles Tremlett
A decade after Maixabel Lasa’s husband was shot by Basque separatists, she received a message from one of his killers. He wanted to meet her
One Swedish zoo, seven escaped chimpanzees – Imogen West-Knights
When the great apes at Furuvik Zoo broke free from their enclosure last winter, the keepers faced a terrible choice. This is the story of the most dramatic 72 hours of their lives
‘I remember the silence between the falling shells’: the terror of living under siege as a child – Zarlasht Halaimzai
I was 10 years old in 1992 when Kabul was bombarded by warring forces, and life became a cycle of hunger, fear and horror. Then as now, children bear the brunt of war
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o: three days with a giant of African literature – Carey Baraka
The Kenyan novelist’s life and work has intersected with many of the biggest events of the past century. At 85, he reflects on his long, uncompromising life in writing
‘I know where the bodies are buried’: one woman’s mission to change how the police investigate rape – Melissa Denes
For the past two years, Betsy Stanko has been leading an unprecedented investigation into why the police have been failing so badly to tackle sexual violence. But is there any chance of fixing a system that seems so broken?
A funeral for fish and chips: why
are Britain’s chippies disappearing? – Tom Lamont
Plenty of people will tell you the East Neuk of Fife in Scotland is the best place in the world to eat fish and chips. So what happens when its chippies – and chippies across the UK – start to close?
Last love: a romance in a care home – Sophie Elmhirst
Mary and Derek weren’t the first couple to get together at Easterlea Rest Home. But those other relationships had been more like friendships – and this was something else entirely
And finally: In case you’re curious, thesewereourTop10mostreadpiecesof2 0 2 3 a n d thesewerethe10mostreadpiecesfromou rarchive.
• Several of these pieces appear in The Guardian Long Read magazine – a beautifully bound 100-page special print edition, available to order from the Guardian bookshop and on sale at
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with barbecue sauce and crème fraiche.
If you want to incorporate your potato skins into a main dish, Goff suggests frying them, grinding them in a food processor, and sprinkling them on top of a casserole. You can even add extra turkey or chicken skin from your main roast, which, Goff said, lends the mixture a strong umami flavor.
Recipe: roasted potato peels
Carrot tops
Do your carrot tops always end up in the compost or garbage? There’s another way. You can substitute herbs for carrot tops, whether that’s in a sauce for meat or a pesto for pasta. Jamie Bissonnette, a James Beard Award-winning chef based in Boston who appeared on the food waste challenge cooking show Scraps, said that if your recipe calls for parsley or cilantro leaves or stems, you can swap out half the cilantro or parsley for carrot greens. He also suggested finishing any holiday carrot dish with thin-sliced tops and stems for additional flavor.
If you’re serving a roast for your holiday dinner, Goff recommends transforming carrot tops into chimichurri, which can act as a delicious side sauce. Mince the carrot tops by hand or toss them in a food processor, then combine them with olive oil, garlic, and grated onion. “I like to do that the day before or a little earlier in the day to let it really marinate like a soup,” Goff said.
Recipe: carrot top chimichurri
Stale bread
Most of the bread-based products you buy in-store, like croutons or breadcrumbs, are easy to make at home. The simplest preparation, said Adler, is to transform stale heels or hardened loaves into breadcrumbs. Adler recommends grinding them in a food processor and tossing the big hard pieces. “You’ll end up with a few cups, certainly enough for mac and cheese or chicken cutlets,” she said. Goff added that you can also combine those breadcrumbs with lemon zest and pan drippings from turkey or roast and use them to spruce up a casserole. If you already have enough breadcrumbs, you can also use stale bread for croutons or make your own stuffing.
For a bruschetta-like appetizer, Bissonnette suggested slicing the old bread, toasting it, then rubbing a clove of raw garlic over the browned surface, topping it with a juicy, savory-sweet fruit like tomato or persimmon, and drizzling it with olive oil. “That becomes a quick, delicious snack,” he said.
If you’re tired of leftovers, you can make a whole new meal using stale bread: ribollita, an Italian soup that incorporates stale bread, beans, kale and other winter-time pantry staples, said Adler.
And don’t overlook the power of a bread pudding. It can be made as a dessert – Adler says you can make it from unwanted fruitcakes and other sweetbreads – or it can be savory. Goff says brown and rye bread can make a delicious savory bread pudding, topped with caramelized onions or even bacon.
Recipe: Adler’s ribollita
Apple cores
Bissonnette recommends having a saucepan standing by while chopping up vegetables. When Bissonnette cooks at home, he throws all his vegetable scraps into that pot, and when he’s done, fills it with ice water, adds salt and simmers it until he has stock, which he keeps in the freezer for soups and stews. Apple cores make a fruity addition. Bissonnette chops them up, removes the seeds, and throws them in to add flavor.
Apple cores can also be made into a spread or flavoring liquid. Adler recommends making an apple cider vinegar, which involves pickling the apple cores with sugar for a few weeks, which will give you fruity vinegar. Goff and Adler also both recommended steeping the apple cores either with sugar or with simple syrup and spices, which you can then use to flavor plain seltzer or make cocktails.
Goff also suggests cooking apple cores with brown sugar and spices, pureeing them to make apple butter.
Recipe: apple scrap vinegar
More scrap cooking
For many home cooks, figuring out what’s food and what’s food waste is often the most challenging part of scrap cooking. But experts say to trust your instincts about what’s good to eat, even if expiration dates tell you otherwise.
“There’s nothing wrong [with an ingredient] as long as it tastes good to you,” Goff said.
Adler added that our bodies adapted to assess ingredients a long time ago: generally if you smell it and don’t recoil in disgust, it’s not going to hurt you.
While preserving scraps may seem like an additional chore, Adler says it can actually save you time – and money – later on.
“Because I save things and constantly transform them into other meals, I spend less time, not more time, cooking,” Adler said, noting that she’s been making meals off her Thanksgiving food for weeks after the holiday. “I think it’s much easier to start with something than to start with nothing at all. Starting with something is always easier.”
The most important preparatory step, Adler says, is to take a few minutes to chop or blanch and then store your scraps in clean, well-labeled containers so they look like ingredients. “Get them into a shape where they’re enticing and quick to use and you’ve communicated to your future self how to use them. Lighten the cognitive load,” she said.
But cooking with food scraps isn’t for everyone at all times. And Dan Barber, chef and co-owner of Manhattan’s Blue Hill, says that’s OK. “Don’t be burdened with food waste over the holidays,” he said. “Be burdened with everything else.”
If the idea of preserving food scraps during an already-busy time feels insurmountable, Barber offered other ways to stay conscious of our food systems at this time of year. If you live in a rural area, he suggested finding a local farm and pledging to bring your scraps there to feed pigs for all of 2024. You could also ask your supermarket manager about buying imperfect foods, which are misshapen produce that often gets thrown away. Or, abstain from eating energy-intensive foods like meat and white flour for the weeks leading up to your holiday of choice, then indulge in a roast.
“That’s what celebrations are about. That’s when we should really indulge,” Barber said. “The rest of the year, we should think about how we should eat with the least footprint on the world.”
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What will happen to the Gulf Stream?
“If I had to know one thing that is uncertain at the moment, it is whether, and if so when, the Gulf Stream will shut down abruptly, completely changing the climate in Europe, causing a drastic drop in temperatures – with potentially catastrophic impacts on water and food security – while the rest of the planet bakes because of human-induced climate change.”
• Sir Robert Watsonis one of the UK’s most distinguished climate scientists
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Do universal rules govern how plants and animals evolve?
“Organisms from very different ancestry (including both animals and plants) seem to follow a limited number of general ‘styles’. What are the general, simple rules that govern the way they are ‘put together’, and what makes some of these styles much more successful on Earth than others? And if such rules exist, are they the same for animals and plants?”
• Sandra Myrna Diazis professor of ecology at the National University ofCórdoba in Argentina
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How many humans could Earth support?
“The one thing I would like to know is how many more people the Earth can accommodate. At the current rate, it will take only 10 years to add another 1 billion people to the planet. We are already witnessing the devastating impact of unsustainable human population growth, as more people destroy pristine habitats for food and other basic needs leading to climate change and more frequent zoonotic disease outbreaks and pandemics. If we are able to live in balance, health and harmony with nature, how many more people will the Earth be able to accommodate?”
• Dr Gladys Kalema-Zikusokawas Uganda’s firstwildlife vet and is a conservation pioneer
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Which species will adapt to the climate crisis – and which will not?
“What are the limits of species adaptation and why? We know that climate is changing and species are adapting but we don’t understand what the limits are and why they vary. Which species will fail to adapt quickly enough and at what point? Which will adapt and flourish – and what determines these responses? What can we as a society do to help species to adapt? These are fundamental questions, the answers to which will determine what the natural world looks like in the future, but which also give profound insights into how biology works and evolves.”
• Sir Patrick Vallanceis the former UK government chief scientific adviserand chair of the Natural History Museum’s board of trustees