Back when I lived in an apartment, I used to cringe during the food-prep phase of every dinner party I threw. With each soufflé or pistou or rellenos con crema, I was throwing away entire garbage bags full of carrot butts, peanut shells and grapefruit rinds.

Sure, you can turn a lot of that stuff into stock — but even after all the simmering, that's still a lot of biomass headed for the landfill. (According to the EPA, over 27 million tons of food waste was generated in 2003.) Alas, if only someone had told me about in-kitchen vermicomposting.