The Week in Guy Fieri: Flavortown Days, Hollywood Nights

May 31, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

How Many of These 73 Food Words From Last Night’s Spelling Bee Can You Spell?

May 31, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Cleveland Restaurant Allegedly Threatened With Losing Liquor License Over Gender Neutral Restrooms

May 31, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Is the LaCroix Trend Running out of Gas?

May 31, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

The Pain and Pleasure of the ‘Fleabag’ Dinner Party From Hell

May 31, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

We can’t get this classic awkward dinner party with a bloody twist out of our minds

If you’re looking for explosive interactions between characters in fiction, look no further than a dinner party; from Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner to Big Night to the Real Housewives, entertainment has always looked to shared meals as an opportunity to explore -- and exploit -- tension. Consider The Office episode “Dinner Party,” where Michael invites his subordinates (and newly public couple) Jim and Pam to his condo for dinner with his increasingly unhinged girlfriend, Jan. Because of the mockumentary set-up of the show, we’re both there and not, free from the social hostage situation that these situations present and able to commiserate through the characters’ increasingly panicked glances to our proxy, the camera.

If The Office dinner party is the appetizer in the dinner party from hell, the dinner that opens Fleabag’s second season is the entree. That much is apparent from the very first scene, in which the eponymous protagonist (played by showrunner and creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge) washes her hands at a sink in an upscale restroom, her back to the camera, a jazzy croon (“You are the one / I want to be close to”) spilling gently from the speakers. Suddenly cut to: Fleabag’s reflection, a violent smear of blood coming from her nose and mouth. There’s a knock on the door, a man’s voice offering assistance; in customary Fleabag fashion, she declines, and proffers help herself to an equally bloodied woman sitting on the floor tiles next to her.

“This,” Fleabag states, making thrillingly familiar eye contact with the camera, “is a love story.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XM_vefU_pTE

Suffering and love; pain and pleasure. The promise of those feelings, two sides of the same coin, run throughout this dinner party, which takes place, as the title card informs us, 371 days, 19 hours, and 26 minutes from where we last left off. It’s been longer than that for us in the audience -- Fleabag’s first season was released in the summer of 2016 -- and we’ve missed our girl, in spite -- nay, because -- of her flaws. Seeing her again is like seeing an old friend, the one who texts you jokes under the table and communicates through wry glances, letting you know that yes, you’re on the same page and yes, this shit is bonkers.

Of course she’s a little older and wiser now than the last time we saw her. She’s healthy, or at least she’d have us think that, but our Fleabag is still there. And thank god she is, otherwise we might not make it through this family dinner alive. Sharing the table: her emotionally infantile father, her pretentious and self absorbed god- (soon to be step-) mother, her lecherous, drunk brother-in-law and her sister, who is so emotionally repressed that she’d rather pretend that she’s fine while having an actual misarriage at dinner. Fleabag is our only friend in this all-too-familiar and cringe-y scene, just as we are hers… at least for a moment.

Dinner party conversation, both real and fictional, can be painfully performative with social graces upstaging true connection or more volatile emotional undercurrents. “No one’s asked me a question in 45 minutes,” Fleabag says to the camera, noting her family’s inability to execute this basic social norm — only for a question to come, chasing her words closely: “So what do you do?” asks the priest, the sixth member of the party and the sole outsider. He is attractive, he is “cool,” he is “sweary”; he is the only one at the table to actively express curiosity and interest in Fleabag. By the end of her second smoke break, the spark of attraction has been lit: “Well, fuck you, then,” the priest says under his breath after Fleabag begins to walk away mid-question. She looks back over her shoulder, brow furrowed. Slowly, they exchange sexually-charged, but guarded smiles.

Even if you don’t relate to Fleabag’s exact situation (and for your sake, I hope you don’t), we can all find ourselves in the scene. We’ve all known the pain of interacting with a parent’s new — and maybe unlikable — spouse; of grief; of alienation even when surrounded by our own families. We’ve sat through dinner with the oafish people our siblings or friends have puzzlingly chosen to date or tried to suppress familial idiosyncrasies in front of someone we’re hoping to impress. No one wants to be the one to step outside the norm and yell “For fuck’s sake!” the way Fleabag is ultimately driven to. But that’s what makes Fleabag such a remarkable character. Not only does she step outside the boundaries of social construct, she also takes us with her.. Somewhat ironically, it’s her closeness to the viewer that keeps her from emotional intimacy with the people around her..

Google’s Latest Innovation Will Show Restaurant Reviews If You Point It at a Menu

May 30, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Watch: How to Turn a Whole Pig Head Into Thinly-Sliced Charcuterie

May 30, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

The 14 Hottest New Restaurants in Cleveland

May 30, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

From fried chicken sandwiches to koji-cured pastrami to fat wedges of salted caramel pie, these are the Cleve’s buzziest new bites

Today, Eater returns to Cleveland, Ohio, to focus on 14 new restaurants and bars that have been garnering some serious hype. Once again, dining editor, cookbook author, and Cleveland resident Douglas Trattner has offered up his picks for the hottest openings of the past year.

“It’s been a productive and diverse 12 months in terms of food and drink gains for Cleveland eaters,” says Trattner. “A pair of food halls finally gave locals two great places to graze, twin takes on new-Jewish delis opened up on opposite sides of town, and a Miami-based chef planted a flag in the Land. Add to that exciting new spots for everything from Korean barbecue and Chinese soup dumplings to tacos, pizza and sliders. It all gets washed down with a chic wine bar and bookish brewery that bucks current trends.”

Here now, and in geographic order, the Eater Heatmap to Cleveland.

Trump Administration Wants to List Spray Cheese, Beef Jerky as ‘Staples’ for Food Stamp Users

May 30, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Why Young Chefs Still See Cookbook Deals as a Path to Success

May 30, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Farmers Are Using Twitter to Document the Disastrous Effects of Climate Change on Crops

May 29, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

A terrible, wet planting season is threatening U.S. crops, and farmers are live-tweeting it

In case we need anymore evidence that the globe is disastrously warmed, a pattern of conditions is impacting the world’s agricultural systems and threatening food supplies in the U.S. and abroad. Because legislators will continue to deny the what’s literally happening before their eyes (*cough* Climate Change), U.S. farmers have now turned to the Twitter hashtag #NoPlant19 to bring attention to the extremely wet spring that’s made it difficult plant corn and soybeans.

The U.S. is currently in the midst of its wettest 12 months on record, with regions of the Great Plains and Midwest — where much of the nation’s corn and soy is produced — bearing the brunt of this spring’s rainfall. Not only are homes being damaged as a result of the extreme flooding, but the conditions are making it damn near impossible for farmers to plant their crops.

On average over the past four years, farmers in the states that represent a majority of the nation’s harvest would have planted 90 percent of their corn and 66 percent of their soy by May 26, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture report. That makes a lot of sense since crop yields tend to decline when corn is planted after May 10 and farmers typically wrap up their planting efforts by May 31. However 2019’s crops are far behind schedule. As of May 26, only 58 percent of the nation’s corn had been planted and just 29 percent of its soy. Farmers are rightly worried and consumers should be too. Crop shortages will likely result in higher prices for consumers and since corn and soy are basically in every part of the American diet, that could be a real problem.

The whole issue is of course compounded by the Trump administration’s trade war. Retaliatory tariffs between China and the U.S. have made it difficult to sell soy on the international market. As a result, many farmers planned to grow more corn this year, UPI reports. Some farmers may cut their losses and turn to insurance if they’re unable to plant; however, those same people would then also face challenges in qualifying for a federal government aid package designed to ease financial strain from the U.S.-China trade war because it requires that they plant crops.

That layer of stress on the agricultural industry is only intensified when you zoom out to the international level, where farmers around the world are facing various dire situations. As one North Dakota farmer and Twitter user Jordan Gackle pointed out in a recent thread: Drought is continuing to disrupt wheat crops in Australia forcing the country to import some of its wheat from Canada. Some farmers in Canada are now reporting long stretches without rain under the hashtag #drought19. Head over to China and you’ll find that a legion of fall armyworms are spreading rapidly and devouring key grain crops.

The various international agricultural crises paint a dire picture, which is made so much worse by the climate denial by politicians who would rather invent a fake war against burgers than take profound policy action. If hashtags are the only thing standing between the world and food shortages, everyone better start tweeting.

Blue Apron’s Co-Founder Wants to Sell America Better Chickens

May 29, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Delivery Apps Aren’t Getting Any Better

May 29, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

The lawsuit against Grubhub is just the latest in the battle between restaurants and third-party deliverers

To order delivery food in the olden days, a person would consult the oracle of paper menus piled up by the landline (that’s a phone with a cord that’s mounted to the wall), call the restaurant (which was often too noisy to hear), and eventually a delivery person would arrive and they could only accept cash.

But then, the “problem” of takeout was solved with the internet. Seamless launched in 1999, Grubhub in 2004, Postmates in 2011, and Uber Eats in 2014. (Grubhub and Seamless would merge in 2013, and the company, while still maintaining separate sites for each brand, went public on the New York Stock Exchange as GRUB in 2014.) Chances are you’ve used one of these sites, or one of dozens of smaller apps like Slice or Foodler to get your lunch without having to ever speak to another human being.

In the beginning, these apps appealed to both businesses and customers. They allowed restaurants to offer online delivery without having to build their own sites from scratch. They allowed customers with mobility issues, inconvenient schedules, or those who just don’t feel like leaving the house to have a greater variety of dinner options available to them. But sadly for restaurants, this access to a bigger consumer base comes at a cost. Commissions can run as high as 30 percent, and some restaurants say not only that it’s not worth it — but that the apps are engaging in some shady practices to actively rip them off. As one Harlem restaurateur put it, “Sometimes it seems like we’re making food to make Seamless profitable.”

The Lawsuit

A number of restaurant owners have joined a class action lawsuit against Grubhub, alleging the service is sneakily charging restaurants up to hundreds of dollars more a month. The suit, brought by Minush Narula, who owns Tiffin in Philadelphia, argues Grubhub has been counting non-order calls as orders, and charging restaurants for things like customer questions or complaints.

When restaurants join Grubhub (which also owns Menupages), Grubhub sets them up with its own POS system — the more apps a restaurant is on, the more independent systems it has to manage, which is already a hassle. Grubhub also gives the restaurant a new phone number, which is displayed on Grubhub’s app and website, and reroutes to the restaurant’s existing number. If a customer wants to call a restaurant before placing an order, likely they’ll use the number listed on the app, and Grubhub uses an algorithm to determine whether or not the call is an order. But according to Narula and other restaurateurs, they’re getting charged up to $9 (that’s like, a wholeass entree) per call for calls that are not orders. In a statement, a GrubHub representative noted that its algorithms use “a number of factors” to identify phone calls “driven by our marketplace... including the duration of the call and the number of times a diner has called.” The lawsuit, which was filed in January, argues that “Diners primarily call the restaurants to check on the status of their delivery orders or to ask questions about the menu.”

A spokesperson for Grubhub says the suit is “without merit,” and that “restaurants have the ability to review and audit recordings of phone calls through their dedicated portal and can easily dispute any charges by providing context details.” Narula claims Grubhub refused to provide him and others transcripts when asked.

Grubhub also argues restaurants typically see their revenue grow by partnering with them. According to its own research, Grubhub is the cheapest for diners to use, “which in turn helps restaurants drive even more digital orders to [restaurant] locations.” That’s largely because services like Uber Eats and Doordash charge diners service and delivery fees to cover the overhead of the app. The lack of fees may keep customers coming back, but it also usually means the restaurants are the ones to cover the costs.

Other problems

Even if these apps aren’t charging for bogus calls, restaurants still need to contend with the huge chunk that these services take out of their bottom line. According to Chris Webb, CEO of ChowNow, some apps are charging as much as 50 cents per dollar ordered. Most hover between 15 to 30 percent per order. Seamless introduces a pay-to-play system — it allows restaurants to choose between four commission levels, but promises higher search results if restaurants choose a higher commission percentage. If a majority of a restaurant’s orders are take-out or delivery, those become incredibly tight margins to work with, especially when even take-out orders are routed through Grubhub phone numbers, allowing them to collect commission. When Gaslamp Cafe in San Francisco closed in February, it explicitly blamed delivery apps for its shuttering, and implored customers to go to the restaurants themselves, or at least call directly if they wanted take-out. “Ordering online does more damage to businesses than it helps,” they wrote in a sign after their closing. “Any profit from sale is stripped away by the fees they charge the restaurant, which leaves only enough to cover the cost of food.”

Taking on these delivery services requires major adjustments in terms of operations, pricing, and expectations. But even restaurants who don’t sign up for these apps have to get in on the fight, since some say they’re appearing on delivery sites without their permission. Canadian restaurants have been fighting Doordash, which says they add restaurants in high demand for a “trial period,” sometimes without contacting the restaurant first, but emphasizing “we’ll always attempt to get in touch.” This leads to customers thinking they can get delivery from restaurants that don’t offer it, and sometimes leaving negative reviews over something a restaurant never promised. In the U.S., Postmates is creating the same problem by sometimes not getting permission from restaurants before making their food available for delivery. Restaurant owners then can’t guarantee their food will be handled properly, and if customers aren’t happy with the quality, they blame the restaurant, not Postmates.

Overall there’s a lack of communication between these middleman apps and the restaurants, as apps focus on building their own profiles. One former employee of a major online delivery app anonymously told Eater that it takes the app days to respond to complaints about orders, and that it was difficult for restaurants to update their profiles to reflect new hours or closures, which could lead to restaurant fines if an order came in and they happened to be closed. “Our system was never set up to be easy for the restaurant; all the investments went toward consumer ends,” they said.

These issues are all exacerbated by the desperate attempt to snag loyal customers by any means necessary — low prices, no fees, free meals. Uber Eats still isn’t profitable, which has resulted in the recent slash in pricing. “Inevitably, Eats and its competitors, which all have similar offerings, will have to stop swallowing their losses and start charging more,” writes Recode. “And when they do, success will depend on which company has the most customers and restaurant partners.”

Can the problem be fixed?

Apps like Doordash and Grubhub still have billions-dollar valuations, and Uber Eats looks to be the only part of Uber that is still growing. Its sales grew 58 percent between March 2018 and March 2019, according to Fortune. And that’s because you can’t really argue with the services offered. On the consumer side, having dozens of restaurants available for delivery without having to make a phone call or carry cash is pretty hard to give up, especially if you live in an area that didn’t have a robust delivery culture before these apps started popping up. According to one survey from Tillster, 85 percent of delivery customers aren’t willing to pay more than a $5 delivery fee, and in cities with a longstanding take-out culture like New York, many aren’t willing to pay one at all.

Some restaurants, however, are fighting back. Karen Heisler of Mission Pie in San Francisco has refused to use any delivery apps. Others offer special deals if you order directly through them. And some are opting to list themselves on smaller apps which have the express mission of helping small businesses. Slice, a pizza-delivery only app, charges $1.95 per order to the restaurant regardless of size, and advertises itself as a company focused on keeping independent pizzaiole in business. Slice founder Ilir Sela grew up in his family-owned pizzerias on Staten Island, and says the goal behind the app is to counter the “necessary evil” of apps like Grubhub, which, according to a Slice spokesperson, “were taking the restaurant’s margin, and building a business at the pizzeria’s expense — a non-mutual relationship.” However, Slice only covers pizzerias, and has to convince potential customers that the cost of delivery apps is something they should care about.

There are things that can be done, but sometimes, the issue seems insurmountable. We’d have to fundamentally restructure the modern economy — undo the gig working culture, raise the minimum wage, change expectations for the value of food and labor — in order to make Seamlessing every meal a sustainable option (and that’s not even counting the waste from take-out packaging). Delivery is a necessary service for many, and an enjoyable one for many more, and no one should go out of business or be paid less than a living wage in order to provide it. For now, maybe we just try to call the actual restaurant.

Egg Boy,’ the Aussie Teen Who Egged a Conservative Senator, Donates Nearly $70,000 to Christchurch Mosque Attack Victims

May 29, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

5 Essential Items for the Perfect Dinner Party, and More Things to Buy This Week

May 29, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

IHOPed We Were Done With This But IHOP Is Changing Its Name Again

May 28, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Inside the Exceptionally Shady World of Truffle Fraud

May 28, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Trump Got to Eat All His Favorite Foods in Japan 

May 28, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Sobriety Alone Doesn’t Change a Restaurant Culture

May 28, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Bud Light Must Pull Ads Saying That Miller Lite and Coors Light Use Corn Syrup, Judge Rules

May 28, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Why You Should Skip a Microplane and Buy a Japanese Copper Grater

May 28, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Netflix’s ‘A Tale of Two Kitchens’ Is a Loving Ode to Restaurant Workers

May 25, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Mario Batali Pleads Not Guilty to Assault and Battery of a Woman in Boston Restaurant

May 24, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Arby’s Needs You to Know It Will Never Serve Fake Meat

May 24, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Why Fury Toward McDonald’s Is at an All-Time High

May 23, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Burger King Wants You to ‘Feel Your Way.’ But What About Its Own Employees?

May 23, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Watch: What’s the Best Way to Cook Dino Ribs: Smoke or Sous Vide?

May 23, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Kansas Buffalo Wild Wings Accused of Denying Service to Black Customers

May 23, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

A Town Drowned in the Smell of Fish Sauce

May 23, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

This Strawless Bubble Tea Cup Purports to Be Good for Boba Drinkers — and the Planet

May 22, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Imagine a future in which bubble tea’s tapioca pearls are slurped from a cup, not sucked through a straw

Bubble tea, in all its glorious, sugary forms, has but one flaw: the inconvenient truth of its plastic packaging’s environmental impact. With its typically single-use plastic cups, covers, and — most critically — oversize straws that must be large enough to accommodate the girth of a tapioca pearl, the drink has proved a challenge for bubble tea vendors looking for eco-friendly alternatives that aren’t overly cost-prohibitive, the way silicone, metal, and bamboo straws can be.

What if the solution is to simply … get rid of the straw? Float, a bubble tea vessel created by Taipei-based industrial designers Mickey Wu and Fang Shih, operates on that very premise. The cup is comprised of six reusable, washable components: a recycled glass cup that, judging from photos, is at least a 20-ounce big boi; a Tritan hard plastic inner cup designed to hold tapioca balls or other add-ons; and four parts that make up the lid, which appears to have two openings that allow the drinker to alternately sip just the liquid, or the liquid and the add-on.

As demonstrated in the promotional video, the makers recommend pouring the liquid first, adding ice to the middle of the drink for better temperature distribution, and topping it off with the tapioca bubble-filled inner cup, which creates the illusion of pearls suspended mid-drink, rather than sinking to the bottom of the cup as they are wont to do.

According to the product’s design page, Float is currently “in manufacturing” and is slated to come out at the end of 2019. Should that projection hold true, the release will be perfectly timed with Taiwan’s sweeping plastic ban, which will outlaw the in-store use of plastic straws in large food and beverage vendors starting in mid-2019, restrict any use of free plastic straws in those establishments starting in 2020, and require customers to pay a fee for carryout plastic straws starting in 2025. By 2030, Taiwan News reports, “the goal is to have a complete blanket ban on the use of plastic straws at all establishments in Taiwan.”

American boba connoisseurs, sit tight: Eater has reached out to Float’s designers to inquire if the cup will be available to customers outside Taiwan. (For my sake, I hope to god the answer is yes.)

• FLOAT：Non-Straw Glass Cup For Bubble Tea [Behance]
• Strawless Boba Cup Will Change How You Drink Boba Forever [NextShark]

Sweetgreen Is Giving Employees Five Months of Parental Leave

May 22, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

The newly announced policy is better for new parents than those at bigger companies like Starbucks and McDonald’s

Sweetgreen, the place you drop $13 on a salad or a warm bowl because you “forgot” to meal prep for the third week in a row, has announced that employees are now entitled to five months of parental leave. This ranks it as one of the best parental leave policies among major food brands.

“At Sweetgreen, mothers, fathers, adoptive parents, foster parents, and others with new additions to their families,” will all be eligible, and a Sweetgreen representative told Eater the policy will cover both restaurant and corporate employees, full time and part time. “We believe it is our responsibility to lead the way, given the U.S. is one of the few countries that does not mandate any paid leave for new parents,” the company said in a statement.

Currently, the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 requires mothers of newborn and newly adopted children be allowed 12 weeks of unpaid leave if they work for a company with more than 50 employees. There are no federal requirements for fathers or other parents, for foster care, or laws requiring that leave be paid, and it doesn’t meet the 16-week standard recommended by the WHO.

While Sweetgreen might earnestly want to provide for their employees, they also probably see the writing on the wall—food workers are becoming much louder about the conditions they face. McDonald’s employees are both striking and suing the company over sexual harassment complaints, better wages, and union rights. They’re planning a strike in 13 cities for this Thursday. Last year, Starbucks expanded its parental leave policy. (In the food industry, motherhood specifically can often be a trap for women chefs.)

Sweetgreen has been making other strides toward inclusivity recently, such as reversing their classist, discriminatory cashless policy, which was implemented under the guise of “convenience” for both customers and employees. Local governments have already started banning cashless restaurants, so maybe this time, they can take a page out of Sweetgreen’s book and implement some paid parental leave policies.

For Grilling Like a Pitmaster, You Need the Right Tools

May 22, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Conan Reveals All the Other Accidental Beverage Cameos in ‘Game of Thrones’

May 22, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Kurt Cobain’s Used Pizza Plate Selling for $22,400 at Auction Is the Least Grunge Thing Possible

May 22, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Schools Shouldn’t ‘Lunch Shame’ Kids With Meal Debt

May 22, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

For Refugees in New York, a Graduation Dinner Is a Final Test

May 22, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

How the Backyard Grill Took Barbecue Out of the South

May 22, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Salt & Straw Ice Cream, a Target Collab, and More Things to Buy This Week

May 21, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

The Ultimate Kitchen Gadget Shopping Guide

May 21, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Watch: What Is the Best Knife Sharpener Under $200?

May 21, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Watch: Will a $400 Steam Oven Actually Improve Your Cooking?

May 21, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Finally, Chick-Fil-A Will Have Government Protection

May 21, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Just Ask for the Table You Want

May 21, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

My First F-Up: Dropping a Prime Rib Special Down a Flight of Stairs

May 21, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Joe Beef Restaurateurs Say They’ve Changed, but Bigger Strides Are Needed

May 20, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

The Grills and Smokers That True Pitmasters Love

May 20, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Netflix Orders Up More Seasons of ‘Somebody Feed Phil’ and ‘Chef’s Table’

May 20, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

For the Love of God, There Were Water Bottles on The ‘Game of Thrones’ Series Finale

May 20, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

JFK’s Retro Bar Inside a Plane Is Weirdly Tempting

May 20, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

How the GM of Majordomo Runs One of the Buzziest Dining Rooms in America

May 20, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

The Most Imaginative Desserts in Los Angeles

May 20, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Eater Young Guns: On the Ground With the Future Leaders of the Restaurant World

May 20, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Restaurateur Katrina Jazayeri’s Essential Books Shaped Her Fight Against Inequality

May 20, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Jon Favreau and Roy Choi Will Cook With Their Famous Friends on Netflix’s ‘The Chef Show’

May 19, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

The Five Best Cake Fails of ‘Nailed It!’ Season 3

May 18, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

How ‘Iron Chef’ Chairman Mark Dacascos Fuels Up to Battle John Wick

May 17, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Inside the #Brand #Activation Cheez-It Bunker

May 17, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Why would you fill a bunker with hundreds of bags of Cheez-Its?

Uber Eats Is Facing an Uber Problem — and a Price War

May 17, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Just like its ride-share customers, Uber Eats users aren’t very loyal

Texas Proposes ‘Save Chick-fil-A’ Bill After the Chain Is Ousted From Airport

May 17, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Why Are You Still Drinking LaCroix?

May 17, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

A generation was tricked into drinking poorly flavored seltzer, but there’s a better option

In the beginning, there was seltzer in a bottle, delivered by the case, or in the bubbly treat of an egg cream at a soda fountain. That was the first wave. The second wave began the moment Italian waiters started asking “con gas?” while we — yes, we, every last one of us — dined on cobblestone streets in Rome. “Bravissimo!” we cried in unison. The third wave, the arrival of Big Fizz as we know it, was the LaCroix frenzy, fueled by the desire for flavor without calories or whatever’s in diet soda, and which drove millennials and the startups where they worked to fill their fridges with a rainbow of pastel cans that read things like “apricot,” “pamplemousse,” and “muré pepino.” (That’s “sweet & sour blackberry notes and the natural earthiness of crisp cucumber,” for the uninitiated.)

The fourth wave, which we’re just now entering, is a seltzer market that is positively flooded. Have you walked down the liquids aisle in a Whole Foods lately? We’re at peak seltzer here: There are as many bubble brands on the shelves as there are influencers in the infinite scroll of the Instagram Explore tab. Waterloo, Fizz Co., Bubly, SmartWater seltzers, boozy seltzers, seltzers with CBD, vintage seltzers, brand-new seltzers pretending they’re vintage, more carbonated water than any person could drink in even the thirstiest lifetime. (To say nothing of dear, sweet Polar.)

Does this mean that seltzer is not cool anymore? Maybe, but being thirsty and having no seltzer is even less cool. Besides, it’s the wrong question. There’s another, more important question we never stopped to ask along the way — no, not does seltzer hurt your teeth? Does any of the flavored stuff actually taste good?

No, it doesn’t. Not at all. Not even a little bit. We’ve been settling for bad flavored seltzer, particularly when it comes to LaCroix (whose CEO is also apparently a bad man?). We need to stop accepting that LaCroix and its knockoffs taste good “for what it is,” and find something actually worth drinking.

I realize that having an extremely strong opinion about seltzer, a take so forceful that I would publish it on a website and hope to infuriate at least a handful of people in the process, is totally ridiculous, but it’s even more ridiculous to drink something that tastes not-great or even terrible when you could drink something that tastes very good.

And there is a better flavored seltzer out there. It’s called Spindrift. Like LaCroix, it comes in a can (and tallboys!) and you can probably find it at your local bougie bodega when you need it most, though honestly I order it in bulk. Before you ask, there is a trick to it. The trick is... juice.

Here’s the thing: If you want something to taste good — i.e., have an actual flavor — you’re probably going to have to ingest some calories. LaCroix’s no-calorie concoction was too good to be true, a Faustian bargain. Its ingredient list seemed so short: carbonated water and natural flavor. How... natural. But then you learn that “natural flavors” could contain pretty much anything.

“Natural flavor” is an umbrella term used to describe a chemical that was originally found in a naturally occurring source. As nutritionist Keri Glassman, MS, RD, and CDN, told Coveteur, the “key word here is ‘originally.’” The Code of Federal Regulations describes natural flavor as “the essential oil, oleoresin, essence or extractive, protein hydrolysate, distillate, or any product of roasting, heating or enzymolysis, which contains the flavoring constituents derived from a spice, fruit or fruit juice, vegetable or vegetable juice, edible yeast, herb, bark, bud, root, leaf or similar plant material, meat, seafood, poultry, eggs, dairy products, or fermentation products thereof, whose significant function in food is flavoring rather than nutritional.”

Which, fine, except that companies don’t have to disclose what, precisely, makes up their natural flavors. “The loophole,” Roni Caryn Rabin writes in the New York Times, “is that for nonorganic foods, the regulations do not restrict the dozens of other ingredients like preservatives and solvents that can go into a so-called natural flavor.” What is in that can of zero-calorie pamplemousse? No one knows!

So, juice. Spindrift’s drinks consist of between 3 and 10 percent juice, adding up to about 15 calories and a couple of grams of sugar per can — it’s not zero calories, but I think it’s a reasonable nutritional price to pay for a superior flavored seltzer. And while Spindrift previously used natural flavors in some of its drinks, it doesn’t anymore, in case that’s the kind of thing that freaks you out.

Because we live in the 2019 that we live in, I might sound like a shill or brand influencer (if only!), but it really does come down to this: Spindrift tastes better. So much better. Spindrift’s flavors taste like the fruits it lists on the can, because it uses just enough real fruit juice to flavor the bubbles without it becoming actual juice. So you get a cucumber and it really tastes like spa water… but bubbly. Or a strawberry that’s slightly sweet, but not cloying. Then there’s my all-time favorite flavor, Half and Half, a take on the Arnold Palmer that somehow doesn’t taste like a watered-down iced tea and lemonade, even though it really should. Like a 2 a.m. slice of pizza or the Cadbury Mini Eggs available only around Easter, a Spindrift is worth every last calorie (which, again, I remind you, are so few).

Fair warning: Once you cross over to Spindrift — or “start drifting,” as the real Spinheads say — no other brand will be good enough for you. It’ll be hard to drink that LaCroix without grimacing when it’s handed to you at a barbecue. Your friends and family will think you’re an elitist or a snob. But do your best: Toast your host, drink that free seltz, and hide your disappointment until you get home. Because home is where you’ve been stockpiling Spindrift this entire time.

Lindsey Weber is a writer in Brooklyn and the co-host of a podcast called Who? Weekly. She hides her Spindrift under a coat rack whenever people come over.

Ali Wong’s Celebrity Chef Rom-Com ‘Always Be My Maybe’ Looks Hilarious

May 16, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

We’ve Entered the Era of the Large Adult Meatball

May 16, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Michelin Announces First-Ever Guide to Japan’s Aichi, Gifu, and Mie Prefectures

May 16, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Not a Punchline: McDonald’s Branches in Austria Are Now Outposts for the U.S. Embassy

May 16, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

This Coffee Tool Is Like a Shower Head for Your Pour-Over

May 16, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Food Brand Thirst Is at an All-Time High on Twitter

May 15, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Watch the Trailer for Netflix’s Gabriela Cámara Documentary, ‘A Tale of Two Kitchens’

May 15, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

American Express Buys Resy to Reclaim Its Place in the Hearts of Power Diners

May 15, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Is this the end of the online reservation wars?

Resy, the upstart that took on OpenTable and became the largest privately held reservation service in the country, reaching 4,000 restaurants in over 200 cities, has been acquired by American Express.

Resy co-founder Ben Leventhal (Disclosure: Resy’s Ben Leventhal was one of the co-founders of Eater, but is no longer involved in its operations) told the New York Times, “Putting Resy and American Express together will give Resy valuable scale.” The company has a valuation of about $53 million, with investors including AirBnB and Danny Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group, and had recently acquired Reserve, the reservation app launched by Uber co-founder Garrett Camp’s incubator, Expa.

The Resy acquisition fits into AmEx’s campaign to reclaim its place in the hearts (and wallets) of power diners since the launch of Chase’s Sapphire Reserve, which became the overwhelmingly preferred credit card of millennials who spend everything they earn on avocado toast and Airbnbs abroad. Last year, AmEx launched a revived (rose) gold card that offered quadruple points on dining, and a $120 credit toward meals at Shake Shack or via GrubHub and Seamless.

While Resy has moved away from requiring users to pay for reservations, it had already offered exclusive deals to AmEx holders, like special tables and early access to ticketed events. “Our plan is to continue to have Resy be open and to the public so anyone can use it to book restaurants,” Chris Cracchiolo, American Express’s SVP of global loyalty and benefits, told Fast Company. “Over time, we will look to bring some of those capabilities into the AmEx ecosystem.”

Looking at other recent hospitality acquisitions by Amex — in the past year, it’s acquired LoungeBuddy, PocketConcierge, and the UK-based restaurant billpay startup Cake — it’s possible things could go the other way; after the LoungeBuddy acquisition, booking services became available only to cardholders. Whether AmEx curbs Resy’s aggressive expansion or makes it members-only, it’d be an unfortunate retreat, given that it had become an important check on OpenTable’s absolute dominance in the reservation space, forcing the 20ish-year-old company to actually compete again. Now, it appears that OpenTable might be able to rest easier, leaving most diners to contend with two less-than-ideal options: navigating its impossible UX, or, you know, actually picking up the phone and calling a restaurant.

• American Express to Buy Resy, a Restaurant Booking Service [NYT]
• Resy Acquires Reserve, the Other Non-OpenTable Restaurant Reservation System [E]
• The Quest to Topple OpenTable [E]

Hershey’s First Chocolate Bar Redesign in 125 Years Is for the Texting Generation

May 15, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

The company is upending the bar’s design by adding emojis

Hershey’s first chocolate bar redesign in 125 years is for the texting generation

After 125 years of serving America with the comforting stability of a classic milk-chocolate bar that never changes, Hershey’s is upending the bar’s design by adding emojis, the chocolate company’s edgy version of sitting backwards on a chair.

The new emoji chocolate bars, which will be available for a limited time starting this summer, will feature 25 of “the most popular emojis” engraved in the bar’s squares. “In today’s text savvy world, many conversations start (and end) with an emoji,” Hershey’s senior brand manager Kriston Ohm told People. “By adding an emoji design to each pip of chocolate, we hope that parents and kids are inspired to share a chocolate emoji and make a connection with someone new.” Looking forward to forming meaningful human connections by breaking off squares of poop emoji-engraved chocolates!

And in other news…

• A 50-year-old billionaire and heir to a Greek Coca-Cola bottling fortune has been arrested after authorities allegedly found 5,000 cannabis plants, hemp seeds, and CBD products on the man’s private plane. He was also ordered last month to pay $11.1 million in damages to a former employee who said she was fired after refusing his sexual advances, so safe to say this guy sucks? [Vice]
• Rumor has it longtime partners New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Food Network star Sandra Lee are no longer living together. To those rumors, Lee says: “knock it off!” [Page Six]
• Ruby chocolate, known for its gorgeous millennial pink hue, is coming to the U.S. and Canada. If all goes well, Swiss maker Barry Callebaut says ruby chocolate will be widely available as soon as next month. [Food Dive]
• McDonald’s is shrinking its all-day breakfast menu. By the end of fall, local restaurant operators will get to pick and choose which breakfast items to serve past 10:30 a.m. [Restaurant Business]
• Burger King’s Impossible Whopper is now available in three more cities — Miami, Florida; Columbus, Georgia; and Montgomery, Alabama — following the chain’s initial test in St. Louis, Missouri. This is part of Burger King’s planned nationwide rollout. [CNN]
• A social media backlash followed a Pittsburgh amusement park’s switch to a new kind of cheese sauce for its “world-famous” fries, resulting in the park’s return to the old cheese sauce, as well as this singular line uttered by a local fan: “I’m pretty passionate about my cheese.” [CBS Pittsburgh]
• How sourness and acidity came to dominate our dining habits (and our discourse), as seen in the rise of kombucha, sumac, and other tart foods. [NYT]
• Laura Dern and Will Ferrell are going to star in a comedy-drama based on true events about a couple who embezzles millions from a fruitcake company. [Deadline]
• Instant ramen: good for college dorm eating, great for … DIY home repairs?

• All AM Intel coverage [E]

Red Hen Owner Says Kicking Out Sarah Sanders Ultimately Boosted Business

May 14, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Knives on Sale, Restaurant Collab Sneakers, and More Things to Buy This Week

May 14, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

25 Blistering Food Takes to Set the Internet on Fire

May 14, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

‘A Lot of Us Feel Like Instacart Is Playing Games With Our Income’

May 14, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Grocery startup Instacart says it’s fixed its payment problems. This gig worker says it hasn’t

Why Genetically Engineered Foods Have Some Scientists Nervous About the Future

May 14, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Chick-fil-NAY: A Meat Alternative Could Be Coming to Your Favorite Homophobic Chicken Chain

May 14, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Plus, some guy dressed up as the Joker is terrorizing Toronto restaurants and more food news

Could Chick-fil-A be the next fast-food chain to add a meatless option?

Fast-food’s push towards a plant-based future shows no signs of slowing down, with chains like Burger King, White Castle, and Del Taco all having added meatless protein items to their menus. Chick-fil-A — known for its solid lineup of chicken options and much less palatable politics — could follow suit, as Amanda Norris, the executive director of the chain’s menu, told Business Insider recently.

According to Norris, Chick-fil-A has been watching and studying vegan options for a few years at this point. With a more limited menu compared to its competitors, the chain tends to take longer — typically 18 to 24 months — to research, test, and roll out new products. Chick-fil-A is now moving “from the watch stage” into the initial “understand” or “imagine” stage, Norris told BI.

As for what that vegan option might look like, Norris said: “We think it is certainly beyond just no meat on salads or no meat in a wrap. It might be some kind of alternative protein on a sandwich.” So don’t be too surprised if, in a year or two, Chick-fil-A debuts a version of its fried-chicken sandwich, hold the chicken.

And in other news…

• Plant-based meat is hot — celebrity-hot. Serena Williams, Jay-Z, Katy Perry, and Trevor Noah are all among Impossible Foods’ latest round of investors, bringing the company’s valuation to more than $750 million. [Eater SF]
• Students at an Australian university were forced to evacuate the library after the — uhh — pungent aroma of a discarded durian fruit prompted concerns of a gas leak. [CNN]
• Some guy dressed as the Joker is stealing tip jars and performing other acts of villainy in Toronto restaurants. Where’s Batman to stop this asshole? [Vice]
• A court ordered Steak ‘n Shake to pay up $7.7 million in unpaid overtime. [San Antonio Express-News]
• There’s an E. coli outbreak linked to ground beef that has affected 196 people in 10 states. [USA Today]
• A fascinating look inside the “pampered and personalized” world of D.C.’s VIP diners, from politicians to athletes. [Washingtonian]
• Say hello to your new Oreo flavors for the summer: S’mores, Latte Thins, Marshmallow Moon, Mint Chocolate Chip, and Maple Creme. [Today]
• How A.I. engineered the world’s smartest batch of basil. [The Daily Beast]
• Popeye’s is serving heart-shaped biscuits at select locations for today only, in honor of the definitely-fake-sounding National Buttermilk Biscuit Day. [People]

• All AM Intel coverage [E]

12 Restaurant-Approved Bar Stools You’ll Want to Haul Home

May 14, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Impossible Foods’ Meatless Burgers have Made It a $2 Billion Company

May 13, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Following Beyond Meat’s IPO, Impossible Foods says it has raised $300 million in its latest funding round

Selling Garlic Noodles to the Rich and Famous

May 13, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

‘Lunch-Shaming’ School District Reverses Plan to Deny Hot Food to Low-Income Students

May 13, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

‘SNL’ Cooks Up a Pitch Perfect ‘Chopped’ Parody

May 12, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Do You Love Your Mom As Much As These Brands Love Her?

May 11, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

From Tim Hortons to Tropicana, these brands are rolling out the emptiest Mother’s Day gestures possible

Ah, Mother’s Day, that extra special holiday for celebrating moms and their endless contributions to the patriarchal world order, which you spend the rest of the year entirely ignoring. Your plans for the mom in your life may vary (breakfast-in-bed, which means less sleep and more clean up for mom, brunch in a crowded restaurant with a two-hour wait, macaroni necklaces, etc), but no one is more dedicated to celebrating (the money spent on) Mother’s Day than The Brands.

Used to selling cooking as a Woman’s Domain, food and beverage companies reliably deliver the thirstiest — PARCHED, even — campaigns, all invested in giving female homemakers a single day off in order to keep them working (and buying) the rest of the year.

Take Tim Hortons’ Mother’s Day deal: Show up at one of six participating Tim Hortons locations across the U.S. on Sunday, ask for a “mom-sized” coffee, and you will receive a 52-ounce iced monstrosity in return. That is nearly twice the volume of Starbucks’ biggest 31-ounce Trenta size. Tim Hortons told the Takeout that the company is aiming for inclusivity by allowing moms of all genders and of all offspring — even “dog moms” — to get in on the deal. But the understanding of the joke hinges on the implicit understanding that moms are so busy and overworked that they need 572mg of caffeine to get through the day. (The Mayo Clinic suggests that “up to 400 milligrams (mg) of caffeine a day appears to be safe for most healthy adults.” Why does the Mayo Clinic hate working moms who just want to lean in and have it all?) Paid parental leave and work-life balance may be lost causes, but Tim Hortons is here to fuel the never-ending hustle and productivity of mom bosses everywhere.

Tropicana’s attempt falls back on the tried-and-true tradition of preparing breakfast in bed for Mom, this year in the form of a “Mother’s Day Hotline” from 5 a.m. to 2 p.m. EST on Sunday, during which “advisors will be waiting to give dads and kids advice and answer all of their burning questions, like: What’s the ratio of OJ to bubbly in a mimosa? What should I serve my mom for a special holiday brunch? How do I make the perfect scrambled eggs?” Once again, the concept only works if we accept the norm of moms grinding away alone in the kitchen, while dads — all dangerously stupid, if you believe advertisers — look on cluelessly. Rather than celebrate Mom by giving her “a morning off of breakfast duty and a few extra minutes to snooze the alarm,” as the PR copy suggests, maybe advocate for a more equitable division of “breakfast duty” labor in the first place?

Both these gimmicks fall into the same trap that German supermarket Edeka recently stumbled headfirst into with its trope-filled Mother’s Day advertisement. In the video, which has been downvoted into the depths of hell, bumbling fathers are depicted as incompetent fools who fail at everyday parenting tasks like blending up baby food, combing hair, and reading bedtime stories. The final shot — a mother, gentle and maternal, in contrast with a sloppy, chips-shoveling dad — and the closing punchline, “Mom, thank you for not being Dad,” encapsulates everything wrong with the way advertisers reinforce gender stereotypes. Unsurprisingly, the campaign has not been popular, accomplishing the double-whammy of pissing off both women and men.

It’s worth considering Kraft’s Mother’s Day stunt, which takes a similar approach to Tropicana’s promotion by promising some time off for mothers — but by reimbursing up to $100 worth of babysitting. The idea and the accompanying ad still panders to the notion that women are primary caregivers (an unfortunate truth), but here, at least, the gimmick’s purported beneficiaries actually walk away with a tangible measure of absolved labor and capital. In a time when women are stripped of rights to an increasingly dangerous degree, this particular example of brand #empowerment is, at least, a more tolerable substitute for real systemic changes and strides towards gender parity.

This Mother’s Day, as you face the mild inconvenience of celebrating a hardworking woman, the best move, perhaps, is to look beyond the grocery aisle or coffee line to ways — like, say, advocating for universal childcare — that can benefit her and other moms more permanently.

Netflix’s ‘Wine Country’ Feels Like a Chill Hangout Session With Six ‘SNL’ Greats

May 11, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Shower Paula Pell With Olive Garden Croutons and Give Her a Good Glass of Chianti, Please

May 10, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

RIP Craft Beer: Sam Adams’ Company Buys Dogfish Head Brewery

May 10, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Plus, Natty Light needs an intern and other news to start your day.

Two big beer players merge in $300 million deal

If craft beer wasn’t already over, this latest news might be the nail in the coffin: the Boston Beer Company — the producers of Samuel Adams beer and the second largest craft brewer in the U.S. — is merging with Dogfish Head Craft Brewery, the 13th largest independent brewery as ranked by the Brewers Association. The deal, valued at $300 million, follows other major consolidations in the beer industry, such as Constellation Brands’ $1 billion acquisition of a San Diego’s Ballast Point in 2015.

Boston Beer CEO Dan Burwick (who is NOT the guy in all the Sam Adams commercials) will lead the merged company. “We expect that we’ll see more consolidation in the craft industry over time, and we’ll be in the best position to take advantage of those changes,” he said in a press release.

And in other news…

• Also on the beer beat: Beer pong favorite Natty Light is taking a unique approach to summer intern hiring with a nationwide search to attract candidates who are “just as creative writing an English 102 essay as they are converting a bathtub into a cooler.” Hey, for a generous $40 an hour, no task is beneath me, including drinking Natty Light on the job. [MLive]
• Amy Sedaris’s wonderfully batty hospitality show has been renewed for a third season on TruTV. More cheese balls and goofy dancing, please! [@AHWAmySedaris]
• Gene-edited crops are making their way into our food supply, but governments still haven’t figured out the whole regulation bit. [NPR]
• Michael Pollan wants you to slow your roll on psychedelic mushrooms. [NYT]
• Armyworms are rapidly spreading across China’s grain production and could majorly impact staple crops like rice, soybeans, and corn. [CNN]

• All AM Intel Coverage [E]

Watch: Slow-Roasting a Juicy Porchetta Over an Open Fire

May 09, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Burger King Will Never Not Be Thirsty for Your Attention

May 09, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Ana Gasteyer Might Show Up to Your Party With Thin Mints

May 09, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Making a Thirst Murderer

May 08, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Ranking Celebrity Chef Cookbooks How Many Animals Their Recipes Kill

May 08, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Buffalo Wild Wings Was My One-Man Gay Bar

May 08, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

In the home base of beer-swilling straight men, nobody could tell I was only playing at being a bro

On the first day of March Madness 2014, I found peace in the Ann Arbor Buffalo Wild Wings. Everywhere I looked, there were TVs showing different basketball games and rapt, rowdy men, wearing plaid and downing chicken and beer. In a restaurant where the servers wore football jerseys and the only food on the menu I could eat was french fries, I should’ve felt alienated. I was a gay vegetarian who hadn’t set foot on a basketball court since I was forced to in high school gym class. I should’ve felt mortified at the bad taste, oppressed by the performances of straight masculinity, hungry without anything real to eat — but instead I felt soothed. There was something comforting about watching athletic events I couldn’t explain in the most mainstream sports bar imaginable.

My first trip to Buffalo Wild Wings was the peak of my return to boyhood, a process that started a few months earlier — and 20 years too late — with pigskin. When I was 26, I learned to throw a football. In a park at dusk, I played catch with two straight men. They’d taken me under their wing when I asked them to teach me how to play the game I’d managed to avoid completely back in 1994.

I didn’t actually care about throwing tight spirals or using my eyes to track the ball into my hands. I was more interested in boyishness as a style. I’d always worn crewneck sweatshirts and simple sneakers and had recently introduced a backward baseball hat into my wardrobe, even as my main passions remained The Real Housewives of New York City and Britney Spears deep cuts and gossiping with all my girls.

I had come out as gay seven years earlier, yet I was addicted to the look of male heteronormativity. I didn’t know if it was self-hate or repression, perhaps a fear of my own effeminacy, but in my first few semesters in grad school at the University of Michigan, I had a fantasy of growing into the perfect normcore boy. On the cozy Midwest campus, I found myself in a dreamscape of athleisure and mac and cheese and football-viewing parties. During a time when I wanted to explore my sexuality, but still hadn’t gotten past my shame and cultivated the self-possession I needed to go wild on Grindr and convene with my own kind, I lost myself in the hypnotic habits of straight people.

It wasn’t until my fourth year in Michigan that I set foot in bro mecca. I’d walked by the Buffalo Wild Wings on State Street almost every day since moving to Ann Arbor, mildly disgusted by the stench of wings and crass displays of sports fandom, but also intrigued. This shrine to American masculinity had some mystery behind it. The windows were tinted like those of a Social Security office or an offtrack betting storefront. What did this college-town branch of one of the country’s biggest sports bar franchises have to hide?

Inside, the heat blasted. The TVs blared. The bros cheered. The design aesthetic was the bedroom of 9-year-old boy hooked on steroid-laced Adderall: dizzying referee stripes, pennants, and jerseys everywhere. The only rule of color they followed was team colors — for seemingly every major football, baseball, basketball, and hockey team in the country.

Deep into my boyhood bender, I felt glorious. I loved the classroom-like attention grown men paid to games that seemed to go on forever. I loved their bourbon honey mustard-stained fingers touching in awkward high-fives. I loved overhearing snippets of their cute convos about bracket busters and how the referees always favor Duke. I wished every day could be March Madness.

After a few minutes in the restaurant, I spotted a familiar face seated under a screen showing the Syracuse-Western Michigan game. It belonged to a boy I’d seen on Grindr, maybe once even messaged with. We’d spent three months making and breaking plans. I could tell he was on a first date. The boy kept crossing and uncrossing his arms. His date took frequent, nervous sips of his beer.

I’d heard that the Ann Arbor Buffalo Wild Wings was a secret gay meet-up place, but I hadn’t believed it. The sports bar as a destination for discreet, pre-hookup meetings seemed too rich to be true, like something between a joke and an urban legend. Once I saw my Grindr ghost, however, the pieces snapped into place and I understood: Through the tinted windows, no one from outside could see in. On the edge of all the rah-rah action, two men sharing a drink could achieve something close to anonymity.

The boys on the date looked both dazed and in the zone, somehow bewildered and at ease. They clearly hadn’t realized that they’d arranged their first date on one of the busiest days of the sports calendar, yet they also appeared at home amid the swirling cries of “Call the foul!” and “Pass the damn ball!” They — and only they (and I) — knew what they were doing.

I liked what I saw: twinks and bears coming together in the same nacho-scented space with meatheads screaming at basketball games.

When the delirium of that March Madness visit cleared, I worried that to adore Buffalo Wild Wings was to root for the wrong team. Was this place that represented generic masculinity by definition averse to homosexuality? The chain had been called out four years earlier for its homophobic slogan joking that, “No, it’s really cool to wear a man’s name on your back.” In 2017, patrons at a Buffalo Wild Wings in Rockford, Illinois, denied their lesbian waitress a tip, declaring her rainbow flag tattoo the mark of someone “who doesn’t love Jesus.”

My concern was that the homophobia ran even deeper than anything in the atmosphere of Buffalo Wild Wings or endemic to sports culture — that the real hostility came from within myself. Was lusting after the idea of masculinity a form of self-loathing?

I’d long shuddered at the thought of becoming a gaybro. Gaybros started as a subreddit in 2012 and the community still attracts gay men who have interests that are stereotypically straight: beer, sports, camping, video games, fishing. They proudly assert their distaste for the femme pursuits usually associated with gay male culture. They want the world to know that they don’t like Beyoncé or Joan Crawford or drag shows or the boys who do like those things. For years during the mid-2010s, the subreddit inspired regional groups and meetups at pubs and places like Buffalo Wild Wings. The gaybros even called Buffalo Wild Wings “a gay man’s paradise.”

Many queer men, myself included, disapprove of gaybro culture. It’s fine, if a little tacky, to favor bro-y things as a gay man, but isn’t the search for pride in hyper-masculinity linked to the strand of homophobia that shames all feminine behavior? That’s the question I asked myself as I woke up to my first Buffalo Wild Wings hangover, foggy-headed from Miller Lite and my mystifying bro lust.

Still, I wanted more. For a month, I frequented Buffalo Wild Wings with my queer female friends. We played pool. We drank beer. My bisexual friend with the magenta lipstick and bug tattoo turned out to be a pool shark. During those Thursday afternoons, after March Madness, the crowd was small, quiet — intimate. We made conversation with a soft-spoken, middle-aged IT consultant around the billiards table, who asked my friend about her dissertation on insect figuration in 20th-century American fiction. Pitbull and Kesha’s “Timber” played on the speakers. I developed a taste for the chain’s roasted garlic mushrooms and tried a fried pickle. I learned the difference between french fries and potato wedges.

My mind thrummed off the simultaneous normalcy and secrecy, the dozen TVs oversaturated with images of macho rituals in stadiums across the country juxtaposed with the idea that furtive conversations were being held in booths on the periphery, the frat bros yelling and the twinks passing. When I wasn’t in Buffalo Wild Wings, I was hosting or attending Here Comes Honey Boo Boo and Showgirls viewing parties, blasting Rihanna, doing all the gay-male things I cherished.

I was energized by my opposing tastes — a little bro on the outside, a flamboyant queen at heart. I liked how those impulses worked along with and against each other in a place that might’ve been a locale for gay rendezvous. Strangely empowered by my performance of masculinity, I began to reintroduce the sibilance and effeminacy in my voice I’d spent years trying to hide. I understood what the gaybros didn’t: that masculinity and femininity were just styles I could try on at different times.

I never could confirm if the Ann Arbor Buffalo Wild Wings was a real Grindr meet-up place, probably because I never went there with gay men, only women. My reluctance to split a plate of beer-battered onion rings or cheddar cheese curds with a date probably reflected how alienated I still felt from my own identity, but I liked the not knowing, the perpetual speculation over the gay action that might have been transpiring before my eyes. I’d found a gay bar that existed only in my head, just for myself — a one-man party.

If Buffalo Wild Wings really was an under-the-radar hookup locale, the chain captured the residual shame and dangerous fantasy of virility shared by many millennial queer men, a shame that I was working to undo in myself even as its hold on me seemed to be tightening.

When I stopped going to Buffalo Wild Wings, it wasn’t because I suddenly gained all the pride and self-love I deserved from the beginning, or because I was ready to stop avoiding other gay men. It wasn’t because I finally grew disgusted with the displays of brodom — or the chain’s exaltation of it.

I stopped going because I had too much fun. On one of our Thursday afternoon billiards happy hours, my friend and I partied so hard that she slipped on the floor. It was alarming when no one ran up to help her, when we were left alone by ourselves. The place suddenly took on a menacing atmosphere, and we felt just how much we were outsiders, the aged twink barely performing broishness and the bisexual girl with the glittery makeup and solar system-patterned leggings. We agreed we couldn’t go back.

I never returned, but I never let Buffalo Wild Wings go. I still get excited — and even feel a little tender — every time I think about that tinted storefront. It’s the same perverted comfort I get walking the malls of my suburban hometown on Long Island, through a parade of heteronormativity that I know has no real place for me. I am grateful for the liberation of leaving the closet, yet I also cling to the sinister thrill of secrecy, the possibility of finding anonymity in plain sight.

There is one gay bar in Ann Arbor. It’s bright and fun and they have a perfectly curated Top 40 playlist that makes me giddy just thinking about it. Everyone knows when to clap in Scissor Sisters’ “I Don’t Feel Like Dancin’.” But I’ll always have a soft spot for a naughtier den of manly love, where you could be both totally plugged in and completely checked out. In the most generic place on State Street, you could, presumably, commit the biggest transgressions.

Logan Scherer’s writing has appeared in Tin House, Catapult, the Baffler, the Atlantic, the Awl, and elsewhere. He is writing a book about romantic male friendship and the impossible love gay boys have for straight men.
Carolyn Figel is a freelance artist living in Brooklyn.
Copy edited by Rachel P. Kreiter

Watch the Stars of Netflix’s ‘Wine Country’ Taste the Wines of the World

May 08, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Coca-Cola Will Fund Academic Research, So Long as It Can Kill Studies It Doesn’t Like

May 08, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

How to Plan a Truly Excellent Food Crawl

May 08, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

The Voice of the James Beard Awards

May 08, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Iced Tea Merch, a Cookbook Debut, and More Things to Buy This Week

May 07, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Five Major Takeaways From the 2019 James Beard Awards

May 07, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Watch Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel Mock the Starbucks Cup on ‘Game of Thrones’

May 07, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Michelin Announces 2019 Stars for Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo

May 07, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

This $4 Tool Is a Stealth ‘Tomato Shark’

May 07, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Katy Perry Makes a Convincing Hamburger at The Met Gala

May 07, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

How Arizona Iced Tea Became the Hypebeast’s Drink of Choice

May 07, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

When Will Americans Learn to Love Chicken Salt?

May 07, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

2019 James Beard Awards Winners: The List So Far

May 06, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

What’s Missing From Food TV in 2019?

May 06, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

A Handy Guide to Understanding Restaurant Awards

May 06, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Chance the Rapper and Twitter Convinced Wendy’s to Bring Back Spicy Chicken Nuggets

May 06, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Magnus Nilsson Will Close Fäviken Magasinet

May 06, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

A Disposable Coffee Cup Made an Accidental Cameo on ‘Game of Thrones’

May 06, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

What to Expect From the 2019 James Beard Awards

May 06, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Bake a Croissant and Laugh Your Beak Off With Netflix’s ‘Tuca & Bertie’ This Weekend

May 04, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

The Serene Pleasure of Watching People Cook in the Chinese Countryside

May 03, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Watch the Frenetic Trailer for ‘Sweetbitter’ Season 2

May 03, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Mangoes Become a Life-Saving Fruit Amid Venezuela’s Political Crisis 

May 03, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

The 14 Essential Restaurants in Chiang Mai, Thailand

May 03, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Where to find pork curries, spicy fried chicken, and bowl after bowl of the creamy regional specialty, khao soi, in the calm, creative haven of northern Thailand

The quaint northern Thai city of Chiang Mai is a popular home base for visitors looking to hike, ride elephants, zip line, and do all manner of outdoor excursions in the surrounding countryside. But Chiang Mai’s old town is an attraction all its own, with a collection of ancient Buddhist temples, aged shophouses, and a handful of wooden homes, all surrounded by a crumbling brick wall and moat. It’s devastatingly charming, largely walkable, and home to some of the best eateries and cafes in the whole of Thailand.

Even if you think you know Thai food, eating your way through Chiang Mai might have you wondering if you’re in the right country. With dishes not found elsewhere in Thailand, the cuisine here is characterized by mild but intense flavors, smoky grilled meats, and rich curry noodle soups — not to mention a decent spread of foreign food and a thriving cafe scene. Best of all, meals here cost a fraction of what they would in Bangkok, and the vibe is almost assertively casual and easy. And with influences from China, the Muslim world, Myanmar, and the region’s so-called hill tribes, Chang Mai’s eating scene is unlike anything else in the country.

Austin Bush is a Thailand-based writer and photographer. He’s the author of several books, including The Food of Northern Thailand.

Watch: How Yakitori Master Atsushi Kono Makes 13 Skewers Out of One Chicken

May 02, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

The Ideal Gift for the Knife Obsessive in Your Life

May 02, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Rep. Steve Cohen Calls William Barr a Chicken by Eating Cold KFC in the House Judiciary Committee

May 02, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Making SNAP Useable Online Could Be a Grocery Game-Changer

May 02, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Texas Lawmakers Want to Ban SNAP Recipients From Using Food Stamps for Junk Food

May 01, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

TC TEST

May 01, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Texas Lawmakers Want to Ban SNAP Recipients From Using Food Stamps for Junk Food

May 01, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

The White House Is Using Tax Dollars to Pay for Booze at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago

May 01, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Pete Davidson Turned Up to a Sold-Out ‘Avengers’ Showing With Enough McDonald’s for Everybody

May 01, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

You Can Take the Bagel Out of New York, But You Can’t Take the New York Out of the Bagel

May 01, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Burger King’s Answer to Slut-Shaming Is Like a Happy Meal, but Sad

May 01, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Uber Eats Is Uber Costly to Uber

May 01, 2019 Admin 0 Comments