‘Burnt’ Is Quite Possibly the Worst Food Movie Ever Made

June 29, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Restaurants Accuse Grubhub of Buying Up Thousands of Websites With Their Names

June 28, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Subway Restaurant Owners Allege Franchise Agents Abused System to Close Competing Stores

June 28, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Migrant Children Describe Hunger, Thirst, and Deplorable Conditions in Border Detention Centers

June 28, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

German Airline to Give Michelin Star Meals to Fancy Babies, but Not Adults

June 28, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Watch Jimmy Fallon and Nicki Minaj Go on a Dinner Date at Red Lobster

June 28, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

The Dubious Masculinity of Grilling

June 28, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Hot Fish

June 28, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

The 10 Hottest New Restaurants in Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill

June 28, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

From flash-fried local fish to rich Zimbabwean stews to a splurgy tempura omakase, these are the buzziest bites in North Carolina’s Research Triangle

Today Eater returns to North Carolina’s Research Triangle — Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill — to focus on eight of the area’s buzziest new restaurants. Once again, food writer Andrea Weigl has kindly offered up her picks of the hottest openings of the past 12 months or so. “Restaurants are opening here that are offering something not only new to the area, but also new to the country,” says Weigl. “In the last year, we’ve seen the opening of what’s believed to be America’s only Zimbabwean restaurant (Zweli’s Kitchen), another serving a handful of pre-revolutionary Cuban dishes (Copa), and one of just a handful of dedicated tempura eateries on the East Coast (M Tempura).”

Without further ado, and in geographic order, the Eater Heatmap to the Research Triangle.

Is Cold Gravy TSA Approved? Chrissy Teigen Finds Out

June 28, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

This 2016 Brazilian Subway Ad Is Fucking Wild

June 27, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Who Was Bourdain Day For?

June 27, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Star Chef Iliana Regan to Close Her Chicago Restaurant and Bakery

June 27, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

America Needs to Stop Remaking Foreign Culinary Competitions

June 27, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Sorry, Dudes: Study Suggests Too Much Junk Food Makes You Less Fertile

June 27, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

5 Questions You May Have About Taco Bell’s Resort, Answered

June 27, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

The Must-See, Must-Eat Lineup for Eater’s Young Guns Summit Is Here

June 27, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Sir, This Is a Turkey

June 26, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Some of America’s Top Chicken Purveyors Are Under Investigation for Price Fixing 

June 26, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Investors Are Eyeing Insect Protein (and Its $8 Billion Market) as the Next Fake Meat

June 26, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

The World’s 50 Best Made Some Changes This Year. Did It Matter?

June 26, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Achieving the Impossible

June 26, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Here, Queer, and Open for Brunch

June 26, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

The Trump Administration Wants to Cut SNAP Benefits for 400,000 Households

June 25, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

A Hawaiian T-Shirt, Not-Paper Straws, and More Things to Buy This Week

June 25, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Joe Biden Just Can’t Get Enough Angel Hair Pasta

June 25, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Here’s Every Restaurant That’s Topped the World’s 50 Best List

June 25, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Maybe They SHOULD Put This Australian KFC in the Michelin Guide

June 25, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Why One of America’s Best Chocolate Makers Is Giving It All Away

June 25, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Mirazur Named ‘World’s Best Restaurant’

June 25, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

If the Instant Pot Gets a Price Hike Soon, Blame the U.S.–China Trade War

June 25, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Fans and Colleagues Remember Anthony Bourdain on His Birthday

June 25, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

The World’s 50 Best Restaurants 2019: The List So Far

June 25, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

The Classist, Sexist Reasons Critics Keep Latching Onto Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Service Background

June 25, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

For Those Who Turn to Amazon for Kitchen Gadgets and Groceries, Prime Day Is Coming

June 24, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Wendy’s Teases a Late Summer Return for Its Chance the Rapper-Approved Spicy Nuggets

June 24, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

The Meaning Changed, But DiGiorno’s Slogan Stays the Same

June 24, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

The Restaurant Owners Fighting Systems That Allow Abuse to Persist

June 24, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Why Is There a JetBlue Logo Plastered on the Stonewall Inn?

June 24, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Pizza Hut Pivots to the Past With Retro Logo in Bid for Consumer Nostalgia

June 24, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

How to Watch the World’s 50 Best — and What to Expect

June 24, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Roy Choi Takes a Deep Dive into the LA Food Scene With ‘Broken Bread’

June 22, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Watch the Adrenaline-Charged Trailer for ‘Gordon Ramsay: Uncharted’

June 21, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Bubble Tea Is So Popular, Even the Japanese Mob Is Getting in on It

June 21, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Did World’s 50 Best Change Its Ranking System to Protect Chef Egos?

June 21, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Why So Many Beers Have Retro-Looking Cans

June 21, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

How to Drink (Somewhat Responsibly) on an Airplane

June 21, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

McDonald’s Doesn’t Like to Pay Humans a Living Wage, So It’s Testing Out Robots

June 21, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Taco Bell Is Planning a New Vegetarian Menu Free of Fake Meat

June 20, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Massimo Bottura Is the Latest Famous Chef to Teach an Online MasterClass

June 20, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Kikkoman Merch, a Breakfast Cookbook, and More Things to Buy This Week

June 20, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

KFC’s Latest Junk Food Monster Is a Bright Orange Cheetos Chicken Sandwich 

June 20, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Dave Matthews Wants You to Wake Up and Crash Into His New Rosé

June 20, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

When Did Drag Brunch Get So Normie?

June 20, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Cooking in New Orleans, Levi Raines Didn’t Want to Make Another Gumbo

June 20, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

The Vietnamese Coffee Tool That Lets You Take a Breather

June 20, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

What 2020 Democratic Presidential Candidates’ Comfort Food Preferences Say About Them

June 19, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

To Understand the Tortured Souls of ‘Billions,’ Follow the Bread

June 19, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Americans Just Want Immigrants For The Food

June 19, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Psst, you’re doing “humanizing the other” wrong

In 2016, Donald Trump posed in front of a taco bowl, fresh from Trump Tower Grill, and declared “I love Hispanics!” It fooled only the very gullible. Taco bowls, while delicious, are to Mexico what unlimited salad and breadsticks are to Tuscany, and his love for one didn’t stop him from trapping hundreds of Latinx migrants at border camps. Trump can eat as many taco bowls as he wants, but he’s still racist.

Unfortunately, a new survey confirms that Americans, and people all over the world, tend to have Trump’s mindset when it comes to immigrants (or just non-white people), their contributions to culture, and their food. A YouGov survey of seven European countries and the U.S. found that the “most commonly agreed benefit of immigration has been better food.” The only country that responded differently was France, where everyone was more focused on how immigrants could make their soccer team better. And while the food may be a boon, Americans at least are still worried about providing welfare to migrants, and the (unfounded) crime risk of letting immigrants into the country. Though Americans were the most accepting of any of the countries surveyed, just “one in four Americans (30%) believe [immigration] only brings benefits.” We want your food...we just don’t want you.

This mindset that different cuisines is exciting and beneficial, of course, is quite recent, as any immigrant child or child of immigrants who had their “exotic” lunch mercilessly ridiculed in the cafeteria can tell you. Immigrant food has a long history of frightening Americans, whether it was white people fretting over Italian “dirty macaroni,” or home economics classes and school lunches being explicitly offered to wean immigrant children off pickles, or the shock of Ruth Reichl deigning to review a Chinese restaurant. It is better, certainly, that immigrants are being seen as offering something beneficial at all, but that’s quite a low bar to pass.

Every time white Americans “discover” gochujang, or rave about an Instagram-friendly stew that is essentially chana dal, or talk about taco authenticity, what they’re perhaps unintentionally saying is they prefer the products of immigration rather than the immigrants themselves. The idea that an immigrant, or even a citizen, has to provide an inherent “benefit” to their culture or country is rooted in the capitalist idea that we are only what we produce, that we only deserve to not be locked in hot, crowded rooms and subjected to abuse and malnutrition if we can prove we have something white Americans want.

Perhaps this is ungenerous. Food can bring people together, and some studies have found exposure to different cultures can make one more tolerant. Everyone has to start somewhere, and if eating a pupusa makes you realize that people from Central America deserve to be treated with basic human decency, I’d rather that than nothing. But stop pretending that immigration has to benefit you personally in order to have value.

Anthony Bourdain Scholarship Created to Help Culinary Students Study Abroad

June 19, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

RIP ‘Lindsay Lohan’s Beach Club,’ 2018-2019

June 19, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Like a Kid in a Japanese Convenience Store

June 19, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

‘Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee’ and ‘Queer Eye’ Both Return to Netflix Next Month

June 18, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

No Matter the Hack, Some Kitchen Tasks Will Always Be a Pain in the Ass

June 18, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

The latest viral video represents our hope that, one day, we won’t have to put in the work

It looks too easy, the way she slides the knife in and pops the cloves out. For anyone who has attempted to peel 40 cloves of garlic for a chicken stew, who needs to mince tablespoon upon tablespoon for a recipe, it was almost infuriating how effortlessly these hands pulled the garlic from its papery shell.

Of course, it was too good to be true. Almost immediately after the video went viral, skeptics popped up, posting videos of themselves trying the same method with mediocre or outright lousy results.

This is not the first time this has happened. A few years ago, it was the “bowl trick,” in which you shake garlic cloves between two bowls until the skins fall off. Then, it was microwaving your garlic. Or, you soak the cloves in water. Or there’s the classic smash-n-peel technique, which doesn’t work if you need the cloves whole. And don’t forget the many appliances — from silicone wraps to grinders to presses — that promise you freedom from the drudgery of peeling and chopping dozens of teeny cloves.

Garlic isn’t the only food to be subjected to “hackery,” but garlic hacks spread like wildfire in a way that, say, yogurt hacks don’t. Part of it is the ingredient’s ubiquity in multiple cuisines -- if you cook at all, you will probably need to slice up some garlic at some point, whether you’re making ragu or chicken curry. And part of it is that chopping garlic is one of the most tedious kitchen tasks. Unless you have impeccable knife skills, getting garlic into a fine mince, like so many recipes call for, takes for-fucking-ever, and that’s only after you’ve released them from their papery prisons, some of which cling to the cloves like laminate. Chopping garlic always seems like it’s going to take two minutes, and twenty later you’re still there, digging your nail into the bulb, trying to get some last stubborn skin off.

So of course, when someone particularly dexterous demonstrates how easy it really is, everyone up to and including Chrissy Teigen rushes to believe it’s not only easy, but within reach. And the thing is, it can be...WITH PRACTICE. The woman who posted the original video mentions she cooks a lot of Korean food and has perhaps developed the muscle memory and expertise to pluck those suckers right out of their bulbs. But what “hack” trends sell is the idea that anyone can be an expert immediately, and the inevitable backlash comes when we all go home and realize that our skills leave something to be desired.

When did the moderately tedious reality of peeling and mincing garlic become so unbearable? If the last decade or so of food writing and blogging has taught us anything, it’s that cooking for oneself or one’s family is supposed to be a pleasurable experience, even more so when you’re able to take your time and find a rhythm to your method. Cooking doesn’t only have to be a means to an end (stuffing one’s pie hole), it can also be a wholesome, enjoyable process.

Then again, we don’t all have the luxury of time. Sure, there are people out there who either push through the peeling and chopping of garlic to get to the more meditative parts of cooking, or who find the task satisfying in and of itself. But it’s clear from these videos’ popularity that there’s also a slew of us looking to prepare a meal while exerting very little effort. Sadly for us, though, sometimes the only true hack is literally hacking away with a knife. Garlic is garlic. It’s covered in paper and can be really sticky or dry or overgrown, and sometimes it smashes easily and sometimes it’s harder than you’d expect. Most likely, no knife or bowl or trick is going to get you around that. Which is why some grocery stores — in the ultimate life hack — sell it pre-peeled.

Of Course Taco Bell’s App and Website Crash During a Free Taco Promotion

June 18, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Food Pantries Modeled After Little Free Libraries Are Popping Up Around the World

June 18, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

World’s 50 Best Restaurants 2019: News, winners, and updates from the event in Singapore

June 18, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Everything you need to know

World’s 50 Best Season is upon us. And in a major procedural change for 2019, previous winners of the No. 1 spot will no longer be featured on the list at all.

On June 18, the organization revealed its long list, typically known as the “back 50.” This year, in celebration of sponsor San Pellegrino’s 120th anniversary, the long list stretch from 51 to 120.

Other awards that have been announced prior to the main event: the controversial Best Female Chef Award (Daniela Soto-Innes of NYC’s Cosme); the One to Watch Award (Lido 84 in Italy); and the Icon Award to José Andrés. The 2019 Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants list was announced in March, with Odette in Singapore taking No. 1.

The top 50 will be announced at an awards ceremony in Singapore on June 24th.

Everyone Congratulate the World’s 50 Best for Including Six Women on Its New, Longer Long List

June 18, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Dear God, Twitter Resurrected the Quiznos Monsters That Haunted the 2000s

June 18, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

You Probably Learned Your Chinese Zodiac Sign From a Restaurant Placemat

June 18, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

When in Doubt, Order the Quesadilla

June 18, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Why Chefs Love This Tulsa-Made Grill So Much

June 18, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

White Castle and Red Robin Reportedly Running Low on Impossible Burgers

June 17, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

The Best Food Moments of Taylor Swift’s ‘You Need to Calm Down’ Video

June 17, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Uber Eats Is Turning Into a Pyramid Scheme

June 17, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

The Trouble with Ông Ngoại’s Cooking

June 17, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Watch This Hilarious ‘Wild Wild Country’ Parody Full of Health Food Jokes

June 15, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

I Would Never Eat This Chowder Popsicle But I Will Defend It

June 14, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Quentin Johnson Is the Recipe Star the Internet Didn’t Know It Needed

June 14, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

The World Is Burning but We’re Busy Watching Energy Bar Companies Fight on Twitter

June 14, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

The Fancy Kitchen Gadgets Worth Checking Out on Amazon Prime Day

June 14, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Anthony Bourdain’s Graphic Novel ‘Hungry Ghosts’ Is Being Developed Into an Animated Series

June 14, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Watch: What Is the Best Way to Break Down and Cook a Whole Animal?

June 13, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Just Put ‘Chopped’ On

June 13, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Burger King’s New ‘Stranger Things’ Special Is Literally an Upside Down Whopper

June 13, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Starbucks Founder Howard Schultz Suspends Campaign to Become President and CEO of America

June 13, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Why You Should Skip a Colander and Buy a Chinois

June 13, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

New England Beach Pizza Is Not Very Good. Everyone Should Try It

June 13, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Betting on the (Mid-Sized) Farm

June 12, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

‘Salad Frosting’ or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Lie to My Kids

June 12, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Are You Ready For Fishless Fish?

June 12, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Doctor Reportedly Found More Than a Hundred Undigested Tapioca Pearls in Girl’s Stomach

June 12, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Rainbow Jumpsuits, an Everything Bagel Float, and More Things to Buy This Week

June 11, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Save $1 Million by Forgoing Coffee and Joy of Any Kind in This Soulless World

June 11, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Every Grocery Store Should Be Like Stew Leonard’s

June 11, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Every Grocery Store Should Be Like Stew Leonard’s

June 11, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Beyond Meat’s New Patty Is Even Faux-Beefier Than the One Before 

June 11, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Amazon Is Getting the Hell Out of the Restaurant Delivery Business

June 11, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

The $12 Essential That Gets a Chef Through a Long Day in the Kitchen

June 11, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Monster Energy Eyeing New Ways to Eff People Up With Booze, Cannabis Drinks

June 11, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Why Aren’t You People Watching ‘Sweetbitter’?

June 11, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Fake Meat Is Here to Stay, So Stop Treating It Like a Gimmick

June 10, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

The 15 Hottest New Restaurants in Paris

June 10, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

From Niçoise seafood to perfect roast chicken to profiteroles sauced tableside, these are the buzziest bites in the City of Light

Today, Eater returns to Paris to check in on the newest and buzziest dining destinations in France’s restaurant-rich capital. Once again, longtime resident and food writer Alexander Lobrano selects his picks for the unmissable openings of the past 12 months.

“This year’s most eagerly anticipated new restaurant in Paris hasn’t opened yet — Maison by Sota Atsumi, who won rave reviews for his exquisitely creative contemporary French cooking while chef at Clown Bar,” says Lobrano. “But the dining scene here is still sizzling.” He adds that Paris has never been more gastronomically cosmopolitan than it is right this minute, with menus spotlighting cuisines from around the world (Double Dragon, Ibrik Kitchen, Piero TT) like never before, while also placing renewed focus on the cooking of France’s own diverse regions, from Nice to Gascony and beyond (Baieta, Marsan).

For Paris’s essential stalwarts, head to the Paris 38, and for an even more comprehensive look at the City of Light, check out Eater’s Guide to Paris. But here now, the Eater Heatmap to Paris.

McDonald’s Is Bleeding Free Fries After Historic Toronto Raptors Run

June 10, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

We Are Organizing a Summit, and You Should Come

June 10, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Milkshakes, Eggs, and Other Throwable Protest Foods, Ranked

June 10, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

The Best Moments of Netflix’s Celebrity-Filled Cooking Series, ’The Chef Show’ 

June 08, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Hey Ladies! Here Are the Foods to Convince Your Date of Your Match Potential and Also Your Humanity

June 07, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Parisian Parents Rage After Schools Fed Kids Pre-Packaged Sandwiches For Lunch

June 07, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

‘Queen of Cake’ Maida Heatter Dies at 102

June 07, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Jon Favreau and Roy Choi Take Their Kitchen Friendship to Next Level With ‘The Chef Show’

June 07, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Thinking About Starting a Food-Related Business? Take This Advice

June 07, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

If You Didn’t Float on a Banana, Did Summer Even Happen?

June 06, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

‘The Waffle House’ Is the Name Atlanta’s Baseball Stadium Deserves

June 06, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Japan’s ‘Lunch On!’ Is the Ultimate Antidote to Sad Desk Lunch Culture

June 06, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Campaign Underway to Rename New Orleans’s Lee Circle After Chef Leah Chase

June 06, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Instead of a Food Thermometer, Consider the Cake Tester

June 06, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

The 6 Biggest Food Stories of the Week

June 06, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Watch: A Diet Cola-Infused Pig Stew at New York City’s Fish Cheeks

June 06, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Forever 21 Wants You to Dress Like Chester Cheetah This Summer

June 06, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

At ‘Oklahoma!’ the Chili Isn’t Just Dinner Theater

June 06, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

How ‘Big Little Lies’ Created the Perfect Monterey Coffee Shop

June 06, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

The 25 Essential Restaurants in Boise

June 05, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Where to find handmade tamales, jamon sandwiches, smoked trout, and finger steaks in Idaho’s woodsy wonderland

Boise was originally called Les Bois, or “wooded” in French, and Idaho’s City of Trees remains a forested oasis in the arid Northwestern mountains. While its food scene gets overshadowed by the ones in Portland and Seattle, Boise has a culinary culture all its own, with a medley of influences including American Indian, Basque, and Chinese (by the end of the gold rush, Chinese immigrants made up a full quarter of Boise’s population). Today, thanks to its low cost of living and rugged natural beauty, Boise has seen a population spike, and with it has come a wealth of new restaurants.

Stroll down the city’s unofficial Restaurant Row on Eighth Street these days and you’ll spot menus touting handmade tamales and jamon-manchego sandwiches, as well as local goodies like huckleberries, fry sauce, finger steaks, and potato croquettes. For dessert, try some local ice cream with regionally roasted coffee for a perfect Idahoan finish.

The Biggest K-Town in the Pacific Northwest Is the Best Reason to Visit Tacoma

June 05, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

The Greatest Places to Eat in Seattle’s Greatest Tourist Trap

June 05, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

The 15 Essential Foods of the Pacific Northwest

June 05, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

An Oral History of Grunge Food in Seattle

June 05, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

The Eater Guide to the Pacific Northwest

June 05, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

The Unsung Godfather of Seattle’s Teriyaki Tradition

June 05, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

The Curious History of Ivar’s, Washington’s Beloved Chowder Chain

June 05, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

The 13 Essential Restaurants in Sun Valley

June 05, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Come for the great outdoors, stay for the great pasta, prime rib, and local fish in Idaho’s glitziest getaway

Sun Valley, Idaho, has been a clutch winter travel destination since the 1930s. But with fewer than 25,000 full-time residents in the whole of Blaine County, the local restaurant industry relies almost exclusively on tourism dollars year round. Ernest Hemingway was famously a fan of the summer fishing season, and today, the appetites of vacation homeowners like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mark Zuckerberg, Warren Buffett, Tom Hanks, Oprah Winfrey, and Bill and Melinda Gates are more than enough to maintain a food scene that’s surprisingly vibrant considering the low headcount. In Sun Valley as well as the neighboring towns of Ketchum and Hailey, winter and summer visitors can fill up on mushroom poutine and Korean fried chicken, as well as plenty of local goodies like trout, salmon, beef, elk, and bison.

Whatever Happened to Portland?

June 05, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Help, Police, Taco Bell Ran Out of Tacos!

June 05, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Alcohol Brands Have Set Their Blurry Sights on the Slippery Concept of Wellness

June 05, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

From paleo- and keto-friendly wine to CBD-spiked seltzer, booze companies are trying to court wellness-obsessed millennials

Last year, Emily Suzanne Lever tweeted a succinct thesis of the millennial behavior: “everything I want to do is self care and everything I don’t want to do is emotional labor.” Life is hard. We’re burning out. It’s easy to make the ethical and moral justification come after the desire.

Food brands are quick to embrace this line of thinking. Fast food, alcohol, candy and other snacks have often been thought of as vices, and it’s the vendor’s job to convince customers that it’s okay, even good, to eat whatever unhealthy thing they happen to be peddling. And among those most willing to exploit our most selfish, and self-serving philosophies is the alcohol industry, which is now trying to brand beer, wine and liquor as “wellness” products. Some companies have advertised their booze as replenishing post-workout substances, while others have reapproached “low-calorie” marketing, or have leaned hard into natural ingredients. But why does faux concept of wellness sell alcohol? Why does it sell anything?

Business Insider reports that the alcohol industry is having a hard time capturing the millennial and Gen Z market, who, though they love their rose, are also spending less on alcohol than previous generations. There’s been an explosion in “mocktails” at high-end bars, the proliferation of Dry January, and obsession with seltzer that’s about as intense as any over craft beer. Also, the spread of legal cannabis and CBD (which has questionable effects but is extremely profitable), has made a wider variety of buzz-inducing substances available at the grocery store. Alcohol is no longer the most (sometimes) fun legal drug in town.

Though there have been “lite” beers for decades, Corona and Dogfish Head have recently launched new low-calorie beers, and Heineken is leaning heavily into marketing their non-alcoholic beer. To lure back younger customers, alcohol brands are turning to “wellness,” arguing that their products are a natural part of any healthy, balanced diet. Alcohol brands are also marketing drinks not only as something to share with friends, but as an important tool of workout recovery. “We invite you to nix those post-sweat sugary sports drinks and have a beer,” writes Sufferfest in copy for their new beer, Fastest Known Time. Beer is also becoming something to drink while you run, as Beermile races spread.

As seltzer has risen as the more virtuous version of soda, spiked seltzers are becoming the virtuous alcopop, with White Claw’s tagline “made pure,” and Bon & Viv advertising up front they’re gluten-free, sugar-free, and only 90 calories a can. There’s also Gem&Bolt, a mezcal made with damiana, an herb used in some traditional Mexican liquors that’s supposedly an “anti-depressant, mood regulator, and organ tonic,” according to the company’s founder. Wild considering if there’s one thing we know about alcohol, it’s that it’s a depressant. And natural wines have seen a boom in business, partially because they have fewer additives and “cleaner” ingredients, but also as BI points out, because they’re compatible with both the Paleo and Keto diets. FitVine, which sponsors athletes and name-drops Crossfit, calls itself “wine that champions the way you want to live a healthier life.”

This makes sense from a business perspective. “Wellness” is for financially secure people with time to spare — on their skin, on their bodies, and on their diets. Millennials with enough disposable income to douse themselves in serums will surely pay a little more for a protein-packed beer or a natural wine that’s supposed to give them the buzz they want, but leave them hangover free.

But the push toward rebranding certain types and brands of alcohol as “health” food highlights one of the biggest issues of the wellness industry — namely, that it’s meaningless at best and a scam at worst. Body positivity activists have been trying to decouple morality from food choices for decades, as labeling certain foods as “good” and others as “bad” exacerbates disordered eating. Writer Marie Southard Ospina wrote that her eating disorder was greatly affected by the language around food, which transfers to the people who eat it. “Plenty of thin people ate ‘bad’ foods. Plenty of fat ones ate ‘good’ ones. In fact, a lot of people’s body size seemed wholly irrelevant to their caloric intake.” But it didn’t matter. Eating cake was still a “guilty pleasure.”

When it comes to alcohol, it feels like we’re on a familiar side of a swinging pendulum. Red wine is supposed to be good for your heart, after all, so claims that alcohol could be good for you are not new. But beer is not necessarily a health food, and it’s not necessarily a vice. It’s just beer. It’s good that, as a society, many of us are being pushed to reconsider how and why we’re drinking, and that there are more options for people who choose not to partake, no matter the reason. But positioning alcohol as a tool to build a better, cleaner body is just the flip side of positioning it as a cool potion necessary for any adult party--either narrative makes it harder to have a healthy relationship with it.

Non-Gimmicky Tools for Making Perfect Eggs

June 05, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Grocery Store Workers Are at Their Breaking Point

June 05, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden are showing up to picket lines to support overworked and underpaid grocery store workers. When will the rest of the country care?

On April 11, over 31,000 workers at 240 Stop & Shop locations in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island went on strike. Represented by the United Food and Commercial Workers union, workers were protesting proposals from management that included increased health care costs, and reduced pension contributions for many part-time workers. Stop & Shop’s parent company Ahold Delhaize claimed the cuts were in order to stay competitive, though they made $2 billion in profits last year, so few bought the argument.

It should be obvious that better conditions for workers means better conditions for customers, but the through line isn’t always clear. If your waiter has the flu, your dining experience is going to be worse (even without the risk of spreading germs). If your Uber driver has been driving for 18 hours because that’s the only way he can make rent, he’s going to be a worse driver. But if you’re shopping at bigger, chain grocery stores, chances are you can do it with minimal employee interaction. Your meat is pre-packaged, your produce stacked, and sometimes your checkout is self-service. The toll bad conditions take on grocery employees is less obvious.

But looking at the things unions and employees are protesting reads like a page out of Ebeneezer Scrooge’s Guide to Management. Stop & Shop proposed eliminating premium pay on national holidays and eliminating raises. At Walmart, one pregnant employee had to continue heavy lifting or risk being put on unpaid leave. And organizing group Whole Worker says the store’s “order to shelf” inventory management system (the inter-store system that lets workers track what’s being bought and what needs to be replaced) is so punitive it regularly makes employees cry from stress.

Grocery workers, like workers in many industries, have reached a breaking point. Working conditions have deteriorated since the ’90s, taking a total nosedive after the recession of 2008. “The ’90s were really a period of transition for a lot of industries, and we saw a lot of consolidation in the grocery industry,” says Stephanie Luce, Chair and Professor of Labor Studies at CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies. Between 1996 and 1999 there were 385 grocery mergers, according to one USDA report. Bigger companies began crushing unions, and traditional grocers now had to compete with mega-corporations like Walmart for customers. In order to keep operating within such tight margins, grocers cut costs in labor by cutting benefits and shifting full-time jobs to part-time ones.

The shift led to a lot of employee dissatisfaction, and organizing, especially in the last few years. Unions and union-backed groups like United For Respect, and Whole Worker are fighting back against diminishing wages and benefits, and “involuntary” part-time work. And it appears to be working. During the 10-day Stop & Shop strike, the longest in the history of the company, visits to the store went down by 75 percent the first weekend, meaning that a majority of shoppers were willing to stand with employees, sacrificing their convenient shopping to join the fight for better working conditions.

Union-busting management often relies on the assumption that these sorts of disputes are internal matters that, short of a strike, won’t affect how customers shop or perceive the store. But complaints from customers prove that’s not true. When certain Key Foods locations were striking, shoppers have noted that the new employees who crossed the picket line to run the meat department weren’t as good as the regular employees. “The meat is no good,” said one local of the replacement workers at the Sunset Park Key Foods. “They leave it out too long.” On top of the reasonable opinion that people deserve to be paid fairly and treated well at work, a lack of those things directly affects customer experience.

At Whole Foods, even customers have noted a decline in quality of life for employees since the company was bought by Amazon, though the store has always had a bad reputation with labor activists. Not only have the products gotten worse, but employees appear harried, and stores are in states of disarray. “Now the employees are overworked as shifts are understaffed, and the morale plummeted as the customers get less satisfied with products and service,” writes one customer on Consumer Affairs. “But, does anyone at the top care?” Whole Foods employees are also attempting to unionize, despite Amazon being notorious for union-busting.

Among the most guilty of exploiting workers is Walmart. Antonia (last name withheld) worked in the grocery department for a decade, in stores in Iowa, Nebraska, and Texas. In 2007, they paid less than what she had earned elsewhere, but “by that time, I didn’t have another option. I have three kids, and I have to take whatever I have,” she said. In 2014, she moved to Texas, and noticed conditions were worsening. “Mostly everybody, if they pay the rent, they don’t have no money to buy groceries. If they have car problems, they have to borrow money from everybody.”

According to Antonia, these conditions directly affected how she and her associates could do their jobs. In South Sioux City, Nebraska, she said there were at least three people working the produce department at any given time. But soon, the store started cutting workers, sometimes leaving her to unload 11 pallets of produce by herself, at wages she could barely support her family on.

”I think when the associates don’t feel comfortable, they don’t feel happy, I think that that reflects in the customer, because they don’t take care of the customer very well either,” she said. “How I can smile to somebody when your kid doesn’t have enough food in the house? When you are so behind on the rent?” When she was finally invited to a OUR/United For Respect meeting, an organization that has worked to raise wages and improve parental leave policy at Walmart, she said she felt a sense of relief. “It’s like, ‘Wow, I am not the only one. We are so many, and it’s not just at this store, it’s everywhere.’”

Though grocers unions have pressured management and gone on strike over the years, the recent push in the past few months has gained more attention, partially because of political campaigning. Four presidential candidates commented on the Stop & Shop strike: Elizabeth Warren showed up to a picket line with doughnuts, saying she would fight for the “dignity of working people;” Joe Biden joined a rally and told striking workers they are “fighting for what all New Englanders want — affordable health care, a better wage, and to be treated right by the company they made successful;” both Pete Buttigeig and Amy Klobuchar visited rallies, and Bernie Sanders picketed with striking McDonald’s employees. (Republicans are seemingly avoiding photo ops at the picket lines.)

That four Democratic candidates chose to stand with striking workers confirms that public opinion about labor organizing, at least on the left, is changing for the positive, and that it’s a big enough issue on voters’ minds for politicians to comment on it. According to Luce, the uptick in organizing among grocers is part of a larger trend. “I think there’s been a lot of unhappiness for a while, a lot of frustration,” she said. “But now we’re at a moment where… people are willing to take risks that maybe they weren’t willing to take.”

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