2025 年 全国二卷

1English Market Towns to Visit in the UK

2English market towns come in many shapes and sizes. Each has a personality shaped by the goods and services produced and traded for centuries. But each town has more to do than shop.

3Hereford, Herefordshire

4Hereford has remained a lively market town since 1189. Skirting the town square, you’ll find lovely shops, eateries, and the Black and White House Museum. The Hereford Cathedral is the most impressive building in town. It’s also home to an ancient library. One of the four original copies of the Magna Carta is displayed there.

5Ludlow, Shropshire

6Ludlow is known as the Foodie Center of England. Butcher shops, greengrocers, bakeries, and cheese shops line the town square. Bordering the square, the Ludlow Castle is a “must explore” medieval stronghold. The three-day Ludlow Food Festival is held each September.

7Shrewsbury, Shropshire

8Getting to Shrewsbury Town Center from London is challenging but worth the anxiety. The River Severn has a significant turn through town, almost making an island of Shrewsbury Town Center. The shape creates a perfect market where goods could be shipped and received using the river as a highway. Flowers are everywhere-hanging baskets, window boxes, and planters-just what you imagine in an attractive English market town.

9Mevagissey, Cornwall

10Even if you haven’t been to the small fishing village Mevagissey, you’ve probably seen it in a movie or British TV show. The working harbor(港口) took shape in 1774. Fishermen go out to sea daily and sell their fish in harbor-side markets. Don’t leave the harbor without a traditional Comish pie. It’s delicious.

1Kathy Ho teaches high school inside Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford (LPCH). “Sometimes I don’t like saying that I’m a teacher,” says Ho. “People get in their minds an idea of what teachers do, but that’s not really what it is here.”

2“Here” is room 386, where each year, about 500 LPCH patients also become students. The hospital school is free of parents, doctors, and medical procedures. It’s a place of learning. About half of Ho’s students stay for a week or less; others are there for more than a year. Most of Ho’s students will recover, which means that preparing them to return to school is an increasingly important component of care.

3Still, in room 386, academics don’t come first. Physical health and mental health are the priority. “If you’re scared about something and thinking only about that, there’s no way you’re going to be able to learn,” Ho says. “I’m a coach, an adviser, and a comforter, and that’s what it means to be a hospital teacher.”

4There are up to 30 students at any given time in Ho’s class. She generally works with their regular teachers to get lessons and tests being used at their home schools. Some teachers don’t give the kids any assignments; they express sympathy instead. “I feel like it is a disservice to the kids,” Ho says. “They think their teachers don’t care about their schoolwork.”

5Ho recognizes the psychological benefit of helping kids keep up with their peers (同龄人) outside the hospital. “I actually think the medicine is only a small piece for some problems,” says Julie Good, director of pain management services at LPCH. “It’s about problem-solving around what it means to have a full life. Those kids have dreams. School can keep those dreams alive by giving kids a way to learn and grow.”

1When Sonja Detrinidad opened her online shop selling houseplants, she didn’t have high hopes for it. But the opposite happened: She was flooded, shipping out 1,200 orders in June of 2020 alone. In the past year, Detrinidad sent out more than 70,000 plants. Her success is just one example of increased time at home leading to an explosion in the houseplant industry.

2“Plants are in fashion right now,” says Dr. Melinda Knuth, a researcher from the University of Florida. “People who live in plant-rich environments report a higher life satisfaction rating, ” she says. “Adding more nature to our environment can change our mood and how we think.” Plants can improve our state of mind in a few ways but the biggest is by decreasing our level of cortisol, the stress hormone (激素) in our body.

3“Students who are around plants perform better academically than students who are in a classroom without plants,” says Knuth. “This productivity also translates into the workplace for adults. Our study showed that there was a 30% decrease in sick leave for people who were in plant-rich workplaces.”

4If you’re among the groups of people who are enjoying the mental and physical health benefits of surrounding yourself with plants, don’t beat yourself up if one (or a few!) doesn’t make it. “Doctors practice medicine and lawyers practice law and you should allow yourself the practice it takes to sustain a plant. Tending to plants is an exercise in patience and learning. Be invested in taking care of it, but if it dies, go get another one,” Detrinidad says.

1Does your soul die a little every time you throw away unused food? Mine does. Maybe that feeling comes from growing up in South Africa, where the phrase “there are children starving in Africa” was more of an uncomfortable reminder of fact than a prayer at dinner time.

2Food waste is a growing concern in the restaurant, supermarket, and supply chain industries. From technological solutions to educational campaigns, food producers and sellers are looking for ways to use more of what we’re already growing. But last month, one popular New York City restaurant tried a different way: It changed its menu to exclusively (专门) offer food that would otherwise be thrown away.

3For two weeks in March, Greenwich Village’s Blue Hill restaurant was renamed wastED, and served items like fried skate cartilage, a juice pulp burger, and a dumpster diver’s vegetable salad. Each dish was tailor-made to raise awareness regarding food waste.

4A study by the Food Waste Alliance determined that the average restaurant generates 33 pounds of food waste for every $1,000 in revenue (收入), and of that waste only 15.7% is donated or recycled. Up to 84.3% is simply thrown out. Restaurants like Silo in the UK have experimented with zero-waste systems, but wastED took the concept to its logical conclusion.

5It should be noted that none of the items on wastED’s menu was technically made from garbage. Instead, all the ingredients (配料) used were examples of meat cuts and produce that most restaurants would never consider serving. Things like kale ribs, fish collars, rejected sweet potatoes, and cucumber butts were all re-appropriated and, with the help of a number of good chefs, turned into excellent cuisine.

6Though wastED received enthusiastic reviews, it was designed from the start as a short-lived experiment; Blue Hill has since returned to its regular menu. Nevertheless, it serves as a reminder that there are many ways to address problems of sustainability, and that you can make an amazing meal out of almost anything.