I Took Real Chefs to a ‘Kitchen Nightmare’ Escape Room

October 31, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Complete with grimy pans, bloodstains, and the ambient buzz of chainsaws

On a dark and rainy night two days before Halloween, I entered a small, square waiting room in the basement of a nondescript commercial building in Long Island City, Queens, alongside three professional chefs. We were stripped of our phones and personal belongings. The door was locked behind us, leaving no choice but to continue onward, eventually finding ourselves trapped in what looked like the apocalyptic remains of a restaurant kitchen — complete with sticky surfaces and carefully arranged disarray that would make a rookie dishwasher faint.

The culinary-themed venue, dubbed “Esscape Room: The Real Kitchen Nightmare” and unveiled on Friday, September 13, by owners and operators Melanie Lemieux and Kyle Radzyminski of Ess Hospitality Group, seemed an appropriate challenge for the three actual chef-restaurateurs I had invited along: Trigg Brown of Win Son, Richard Ho of Ho Foods, and Eric Sze of Eight Eight Six, all of whom have seen their own fair share of real-life kitchen nightmares. So how did they feel about tackling a fictional one?

“I will probably freak the fuck out,” Sze promised in response to the invitation. “But sure.”

Escape rooms typically have a backstory, some mythology to prop up the oddly popular recreational activity that is paying to trap yourself in a room of puzzles and horrors for an hour. In Esscape Room’s narrative, concocted by Lemieux and Radzymnski, you are a group of sous chefs reporting for an open call at Le Countess, a previously closed “speakeasy bistro” owned by chef Francois “Le Boucher” (that’s “The Butcher,” for those of you who don’t speak French or use Google Translate) Hellerstein. The chef, notorious for his temper and a checkered past, was under investigation after several of his staff members had simply “vanished” — or so the story goes.

At first glance, Le Countess’s den of terror looks like a real restaurant kitchen, from the fryer bubbling with ominously greasy liquid, to the order tickets lining the rail above the cluttered, grimy grill. The set and props are sourced largely from Lemieux’s and Radzymnski’s storage unit; the couple, who own the Baroness and the Huntress bars in Long Island City, have accumulated heaps of broken kitchen equipment in their decade-plus of restaurant experience.

But despite the relative familiarity of a back-of-house setting, this horror puzzle of a kitchen nightmare was not made easier in the slightest by the presence of three working chefs. “I thought we were going to have to expedite tickets,” Brown later said jokingly. “I was looking forward to hopping on the pass.”

Instead, the chefs gamely flipped through stained recipe pages, shone flashlights into dark crannies, and stuck their hands into unknown receptacles — decoding ciphers in search of the chef’s knives that would hopefully lead to salvation (or at least an exit sign). All the while, increasingly heavy fog filled the hot room with a suffocating haze. From somewhere beyond the room, the sporadic buzz of what sounded like chainsaws revving was frankly terrifying, and intermittent bursts of pounding on the locked door were sudden and frantic enough that my lifespan was certainly shortened by several years.

Photos courtesy of Esscape Room

As the minutes wore down, the continuously looping background track of Tom Jones’s “What’s New Pussycat” (used often to wreak havoc) dropped in both speed and octaves until it was nearly unrecognizable, sounding more like a sinister carnival tune than a jaunty 1960s pop song. Clues from the tattooed bartender in the previous room (later revealed to be Radzyminski) arrived with greater frequency via an intercom, as we scrambled to unlock the next door before the clock ran out.

With less than 10 minutes remaining, the final padlock came off — but the nightmare wasn’t over yet. We passed through a walk-in freezer with sterile white walls to another room, this one decidedly more gory than the last. Electric drills hanging from the ceiling came to life with random fits of whirring, what looked like a body bag dripping with blood dangled in a corner. The door was sealed shut with several padlocks; there were about as many minutes left in the game. Still, Brown, Ho, and Sze (with little of my help, as I continued doing what I was best at: standing uselessly to the side and flinching at every scary sound) went to work, immediately searching for clues despite the clear fruitlessness of the task ahead of them.

As the deadline drew nearer, the light began to flicker; another chainsaw noise, this one decidedly more menacing-sounding than the suspended drills, began revving up in the distance. Time ran out, the room went black, and … I won’t spoil the final jump scare, but I will share that all three chefs screamed. We had failed the mission and surrendered our fates, presumably to an unhinged boucher.

Radzyminski, no longer in character, was there to congratulate us on making it this far. As he’d tell me later, “The success rate is pretty low.” He says about 60 percent of groups advance to the second-to-last room; 30 percent don’t even make it out of the kitchen. The number of groups who successfully escape the set of rooms entirely: just two.

Too bad. The next part, according to Radzyminski, would’ve been where things really got weird, but he refused to disclose any additional spoilers about what lay ahead. Instead, he offered a consolation prize: “You guys definitely screamed the loudest at the end.” Fine, we’ll take it.

Following the escape room, the chefs and I gathered at the Ess Hospitality-owned Huntress, located around the corner, to debrief over beer, wings, and poutine.

“I was stressed,” Sze admitted.

“I screamed really loudly, but everyone else did, too!” Ho shrugged.

From there, the conversation moved into the swapping of real-life kitchen nightmares, the chefs more than happy to unload their back-of-house horror stories. “Friday night, middle of service, gas goes down … becomes super minimal,” Sze described. “We couldn’t boil water for noodles or dumplings, couldn’t really stir fry. We stopped kitchen production.” The gas came back, eventually, but Sze said his restaurant lost a lot of business that night because tables weren’t turning. “That was a kitchen nightmare.”

For Ho, the worst he had ever experienced involved an overflowing grease trap that flooded a thousand-square-foot hotel restaurant with “six inches of shit water”: the baby wipes, tampons, condoms, paper towels, food waste, and literal shit that make up the nauseating contents of a shared, septic tank-like grease trap, which (when functioning) traps all the oils and solids in a building’s waste from entering the sewage system.

Now that, Ho pointed out, would’ve been a real challenge in Esscape Room. “It would be really gross if they had a grease trap, and if you didn’t solve it, it would just slowly rise up,” he said, laughing.

“I think the scariest thing is feeling like people are unhappy,” said Brown. Even worse, he said, are the factors outside his control: an Ansul inspection of the kitchen hood fire suppression system that knocks the restaurant out of business for three days; losing electricity or gas; a busy fast-food chain moving in next door, causing the rent to skyrocket. Those are the things Brown worries about, not some grimy, worn-down kitchen like the one we had just spent an hour trying to escape.

“My kitchen will never look like that — there’s no worries because it would never be like that. It’s not a nightmare,” he said.

“Outside of the restaurant, I’m scared of a lot of things,” added Ho. “But at least within these four walls…” He trailed off. In between overflowing grease traps, gas shutdowns, and jacked-up rents, a murderous, ill-tempered chef almost seemed preferable. The real kitchen nightmare, it turns out, is just the realities of working in a restaurant.

All I Want Is to Re-Enact the Midnight Margaritas Scene From ‘Practical Magic’

October 31, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Malevolent male spirit not required

Welcome to The Reheat, a space for Eater writers to explore landmark (and lukewarm) culinary moments of the recent and not-so-recent past.

I want to be a part of a witches coven, but only if we get to eat chocolate cake for breakfast and dance around the kitchen drinking margaritas at midnight like the Owens women do in Practical Magic. (Dying husband curse, I could take or leave.) While memories of the exact twists and turns of this excellent movie fade with time, what seems to stand out for most fans of this 1998 film is the singular midnight margaritas scene.

Set to Harry Nilsson’s “Coconut,” this iconic ‘90s movie moment feels like a spontaneous eruption of multi-generational joy that’s less magical for the supernatural qualities of its participants, but because it’s so unrestrictedly matriarchal. Now, 21 years after the film released (the movie’s old enough to legally order margaritas of its own), this scene remains the most talked-about. Midnight margaritas is a favorite clip shared by networks and streaming services before fresh airings of the movie, but those cuts generally divorce the sequence from Practical Magic’s sinister undertones, contributing to fans’ selective memories.

In the movie, sisters Sally Owens (Sandra Bullock) and Gillian Owens (Nicole Kidman) go to stay with their witchy aunts Bridget ‘Jet’ Owens (Dianne Wiest) and Frances Owens (Stockard Channing) in a big, beautiful Victorian mansion on a Massachusetts island (scenes were actually shot on San Juan Island in Washington state) after their mother dies from “a broken heart.” Despite the grim circumstances, it’s not too bad of a trade-off: Jet and Frances encourage eating chocolate cake for breakfast and never brushing ones’ teeth. (Witches apparently don’t fear tooth decay.)

The film opens with Channing’s matter-of-fact voice recounting the family’s curse over the aforementioned cake and a mid-day glasses of red wine on the patio. For 300 years, the Owens women have lived under the curse as outcasts in their communities, bullied by locals. Thanks to their witch ancestor Maria who was banished barefoot and pregnant to the island waiting for a lover who never came, whenever an Owens woman loves a man, he’s doomed to die.

Sally and Gillian later witness a scene in which the aunts help a townswoman conjure a questionable love spell by killing a bird. The girls take away different lessons from the transaction. Gillian can’t wait to fall literally madly in love. Sally tries to banish romance by conjuring a perfect man who couldn’t possibly exist.

As they get older, free-spirited Gillian runs off with a boyfriend, while Sally stays home. One day, deciding Sally deserves happiness, the aunts cast a spell causing her to fall for a produce guy in town — thinking because it won’t be real love she’ll avoid the curse. Sally and her husband have two daughters, and then (shockingly) he dies in a truck accident. Sally is devastated and moves back in with the aunts, but vows never to do magic.

Meanwhile, Gillian hasn’t been home in years, but is traveling the country with a “intense” boyfriend Jimmy Angelov played by Goran Visnjic (AKA that guy from ER). Angelov is sort of a Dracula cowboy from Bulgaria, who’s constantly sipping off a bottle of Diablo de Flores tequila (a brand invented for the movie). Gillian tells Sally that she occasionally drugs Jimmy with belladonna, so she can get some sleep. However, in time Angelov becomes abusive and frightening and Gillian calls for her sister Sally to come and help her.

The pair try to escape, but Jimmy abducts them at gunpoint and makes Sally drive into the desert. Elvis singing “Always on My Mind,” plays eerily on the car radio, mirroring Angelov’s dangerous obsession with Gillian. In a panic, Sally overdoses Angelov’s bottle of tequila with belladonna and he dies. The sisters then decide to drive him back to the aunt’s house and attempt to raise him from the dead on the kitchen counter. Jimmy comes to life unexpectedly mid-spell (seems like this magic isn’t so practical, after all) and immediately starts strangling Gillian, so Sally smacks him over the head with a cast iron pan. They opt, instead, to bury him in the yard.

When the aunts return, everything seems normal for a time and the episode with Angelov stays a secret — at least until the midnight margaritas. It’s easy to ignore the foreshadowing as the women party. The camera pans over the dark corner of the Owens family’s yard near the rose bushes where Jimmy is buried and toads slither around the site, but the aunt’s voices are overheard conjuring with a rhyme that riffs off Macbeth’s “Double, double, toil and trouble.” The cauldron here is a blender with lime, tequila, and salt. Gillian giddily wakes Sally up to the sound of the blender and the pair scream, “Midnight margaritas!” while kicking off the sheets to seamlessly fall into boozy uninhibited celebration, elatedly dancing and conga lining around the kitchen island.

In that moment, you want to be those women, freely communing without male interference. Then the party devolves into a more deranged drunken scene where the witches do shots around the dinner table and call each other increasingly mean and nasty names. As the aunts start to lean together and casually sing, “You were always on my mind,” Sally and Gillian turn the bottle of tequila around to reveal the gold Diablo de Flores label — Jimmy’s favorite. When Sally demands to know where the bottle came from, the aunts giggle and sing, “Someone left it on the porch!” to the tune. Sally smashes the bottle into the sink and all the women sober suddenly, as if their bacchanal was the result of possession.

In a way, this casts the midnight margaritas as one of the darkest moments of Practical Magic, with an evil, abusive male spirit invading an otherwise matriarchal sanctuary. But all is thankfully restored when the Owens’s find power in the women in the community who previously treated them as outsiders, but came together to help exercise Jimmy’s invasive spirit from Gillian’s body.

Though it is a harbinger of bad times to come for the Owens family, viewers can’t help but admire this midnight margaritas scene, which feels so real — perhaps in part because the actors were a little drunk for portions of the shoot. Replace margaritas with wine and these women could be my own family, the women staying up late after all the kids and partners have gone to bed, communing raucously over a bottle until someone inevitably ruins the vibe by raising an evil spirit or, more likely, spilling wine on the couch. Women can be guarded, especially when it comes to familial relationships. But if you’re lucky, there are moments when these barriers fall away and we get to comfortably co-exist. If that happens to be over late night/early morning margaritas and some minor spell-casting, so be it.

These Beautiful Cups Are Only Upstaged by the Restaurant That Uses Them

October 31, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Attica’s resin cups are worth every Australian dollar

There are a lot of things competing for a diner’s attention at Attica, Melbourne’s experimental, incredible, and hard-to-get-into restaurant that has found its way onto such rankings as the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list. Ants served with their honey sac. Kangaroo tartare and crocodile ribs. A veggie burger served under the stars in a cheeky facsimile of a fallout shelter.

Meanwhile, I couldn’t stop staring at the water glasses.

Attica’s glasses are an eclectic mix of handmade designs, all from a fancy Australian company called Dinosaur Designs, specifically the brand’s resin line. The one I received was the forest pattern and reminded my of my favorite rock when I was a kid (nerd alert: I was a collector), malachite.

According to wine director Jane Lopes, Attica chef and owner Ben Shewry had been taken with the line of homewares for awhile, and the restaurant finally decided to make the leap this summer. “It was a bit of an adjustment to our service, as you can’t see people’s water levels from across the room,” she said via email. “But we’ve adjusted, and we’ve been very happy with how the glasses look and feel in the dining room.”

Not unlike a meal at Attica, which costs 295 Australian dollars (around $200), the glassware is an investment: one cup is priced at 95 Australian dollars (around $65). So, not cheap! Note that the cups can only be used to hold cold liquids. But they are memorable — not quite as memorable as an epic meal at the restaurant, but that would be a tall order.

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Emilia Clarke Says ‘Game of Thrones’ Coffee Cup Was Varys’s Fault

October 31, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Plus, MillerCoors is changing its name and slashing jobs, and more news to start your day

Of course the Master of Whisperers wouldn’t immediately tell on himself.

As Game of Thrones came to its end, there were a lot of problems, and among the most visible were the multiple instances of modern drinking paraphernalia that kept making it into shots. The first was a paper coffee cup that could be clearly seen in front of actress Emilia Clarke, who played Daenerys Targaryen, as she and other characters were supposed to be toasting their success in Winterfell. Another example of showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss’s inexperience? Maybe. But according to Clarke, it was a different Game of Thrones actor who left the cup on the feasting table.

On the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, Clarke said the real culprit came to her before the Emmys. “We had like a party before the Emmys recently, and Conleth Hill, who plays Varys, who’s sitting next to me in that scene, he pulls me aside and he’s like, ‘Emilia, I’ve got to tell you something. I’ve got to tell you something, love. The coffee cup was mine!,’” she said. That solves that! Now, about the water bottles...

And in other news...

• Domino’s is serving a dessert pizza in Taiwan made with brown sugar, honey, and bubble tea. [CNN]
• A new report ranks fast food restaurants on their beef antibiotic policies, as “drug-resistant bacteria in animals used in the food supply can affect humans.” Chipotle and Panera bread ranked well. Basically everyone else didn’t. [NBC News]
• MillerCoors is being renamed Molson Coors and slashing 500 jobs, because young people aren’t drinking as much beer as they used to. Is that why they allegedly tried to steal the Bud Light recipe? [BI]
• Belgian nuns are selling a shampoo made with Trappist beer. [Forbes]
• Why on earth would anyone give their expensive drug-laced candy to strange kids? A history of Halloween candy panics. [CNN]
• A couple was kicked out of a restaurant in Idaho for dressing up as Native Americans, shouting “war cries,” and making offensive comments to Native American staff and customers. [Vice]
• A spooky tale for Halloween: A woman thought her ex had been murdered, only to find him working in a local restaurant two years later. [NY Post]
• Happy Halloween, here is a dog dressed as a Wawa sub.

• All AM Intel Coverage [E]

Life After the Line-Cook Boys’ Club

October 31, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

How does the next generation of line cooks see the future of restaurant kitchens?

Consider April Bloomfield. In December 2017, a the New York Times report detailed a culture of sexual misconduct at the Spotted Pig, the Michelin-starred gastropub in New York City where the chef became a star, and the Breslin, which further cemented her place in the city’s dining ecosystem. Her business partner, the restaurateur Ken Friedman, was accused of sexual harassment, and some employees referred to the Spotted Pig’s third-floor private dining room as the “rape room,” where employees reported being groped by Friedman’s guests as well. And punctuating the horrible allegations from the employees: reports that Bloomfield had known about Friedman’s behavior and, through inaction and silence, was complicit in its continuation. Nearly a year later, she tried to explain why she had tolerated the behavior for so long, saying to the New York Times: “He had so much control, and he was so dominant and powerful, that I didn’t feel like if I stepped away that I would survive.”

This wasn’t coming from a server nor a line cook, but a trailblazing chef who donned a dead pig like a mink stole for the cover of her best-selling book. If silence was an ingredient in her epochal success, then what of all the hopeful cooks toiling behind the swinging kitchen doors at so many fine restaurants? Was acquiescing to a misogynistic “boys’ club” a secret handshake, as chef Naomi Pomeroy confessed to feeling — and regretting — in a 2018 essay? Now that revelations of sexual misconduct by some of the biggest chefs have come to light, often revealing a harrowing portrait of toxic, male-dominated environments where abuse, sexism, and inequity went unchecked, are young line cooks bringing a different attitude to the kitchen? Do they see any difference in the social dynamics of restaurant work?

“Seventeen years ago, it was the height of Kitchen Confidential era,” says Ronny Miranda, 37, who has been a line cook in the Bay Area for that long. “Hell’s Kitchen just started, Rocco’s show just started... All these networks were trying to profit off that toxic environment.”

He says that for cooks of his generation, speaking out against abusive, hostile working environments often resulted in stiff retaliation: “We endured it because we had to; we didn’t have an option. If you went against it, you didn’t have a job.” But he says that’s been changing gradually over the last several years, because chefs and line cooks alike are finally owning up to their own abusive behavior and rejecting the self-destructive lifestyles that were once so glorified — which he believes helped breed abuse. “I hate the term ‘bro-y culture,’” he says. “It’s sexual harassment and it’s just abusive.”

Amethyst Ganaway, 29, has worked as a line cook for the last seven years in Texas, Georgia, and South Carolina and runs the Geechee Gordita food blog. She says that when she first started working in kitchens, especially those of big, corporate restaurants, the atmosphere was still “very bro, very masculine.” There were always one or two creepy guys who’d take advantage of the tight corners to brush too closely against her, or in one case, fondle her braid.

“I’ve always been very vocal about what’s not appropriate,” she says. In the past, that has meant confronting the offender on her own to establish boundaries, but now, she isn’t afraid to walk out of a job if her management doesn’t support her. She also encourages other cooks who are women, particularly younger ones, to speak up. “No matter how many Michelin stars or James Beard awards [the restaurant has], it’s not worth you coming to work every day feeling uncomfortable or feeling unsafe.”

Women have to speak up for themselves in other ways on the job, too. When Hannalei Souza, 22, began working as a line cook in Lake Tahoe, she had to convince restaurant management that she wanted to work the hot line, which was dominated by male peers.

“Most of [the women] are put straight on the salad kitchen or prep kitchen. It’s like, ‘Oh, we got another woman, let’s put her on that,’” says Souza. She has not encountered sexual harassment on the job, but wouldn’t hesitate to speak up or to leave if it came down to it. “In my area, everyone is always hiring, so probably I’d just find another job,” she says. “I never once had the mindset of ‘maybe I shouldn’t work my way up because I’m a woman.’”

Shi Lin Wong, 22, also doesn’t see herself ever tolerating bad behavior in order to achieve her dreams of becoming a chef. She has been working the line at New York City’s Gramercy Tavern for a little over a year, ever since graduating from culinary school. She hasn’t experienced sexual harassment, but if she had, she would report it immediately for the sake of herself and her colleagues. “It’s a sense of pride,” she says. “I don’t want to let that down, and it’s just wrong to begin with.”

Wong says that her employer gave out booklets and organized mandatory sexual harassment training for the whole staff, which she appreciated. And she doesn’t feel alone, as she works with plenty of other women.

“I love it when I see a lot of females on the line,” she says. “It’s really cool because it’s such a male-dominated industry.”

According to the United States Department of Labor, 41.8 percent of cooks in the U.S. were women in 2018. Also in 2018, in another study, it was shown that 71.1 percent of chefs and “head cooks” in the U.S. were reportedly male. That suggests that the lower ranks of cooking positions are filled by plenty of women nowadays. And the rise of celebrity chefs like Bloomfield, Christina Tosi, and Alex Guarnaschelli, and other women may have helped increase the number of women in the kitchen over the last couple decades.

Ray Delucci, 22, is a line cook from Buffalo, New York. But he’s also become something of an advocate for line cooks all from over as the creator of the podcast Line Cook Thoughts and its associated Instagram account, @linecookthoughts, sharing interviews with line cooks.

“I always ask, ‘What you do want to see change?’” says Delucci. “And a lot of times that [answer] is more recognition for female chefs.”

Delucci says he’s had friends who dealt with the stress of working in the restaurant industry in unhealthy ways, and felt he should try to give back to the community that he works in by sharing the stories of what line cooks are going through.

“I had no idea that if I’d message cooks every day, they’d sent me paragraphs of why they love their jobs. Just the other day, someone sent me pages,” says Delucci. “It shows that cooks have so much to say, it’s like, why are we not talking about it more?”

Just sharing the thoughts of line cooks has become therapeutic for Delucci, and he hopes for many others. He says it’s part of a growing awareness that chefs need to open up more and talk through their feelings in order to get to the heart of issues such as workaholism, substance abuse, and abusive behavior. He feels that there has been a hole since the passing of Anthony Bourdain, who was seen as a leader of and champion for line cooks. The need is palpable for a profession where the median pay in 2018 was $12.12 per hour, or $25,200 per year. “There’s so much behind a cook at Chipotle, or someone working two jobs to support their family... there’s so much they have to say and so much they want out of their industry,” says Delucci.

Taking a hard look at the lifestyles and stresses of line cooks may be a corrective from “the Kitchen Confidential era.” It’s also necessary in moving away from the hostile workplace ethos that characterized restaurant kitchens before. Several of the cooks featured on Delucci’s platform have echoed a need to take care of oneself better.

It’s been nearly 20 years since Bourdain helped glamorize not only unhealthy work schedules, but also a toxic, male-driven culture of restaurants’ back of house in Kitchen Confidential — a legacy that he later apologized and tried to make up for. And it’s been almost 15 years since the publication of Bill Buford’s best-selling memoir about trailing the now-disgraced chef Mario Batali, Heat, which Shane Mitchell reviewed at the time as “less a studied exploration of the influence of Italian cuisine than a steamy romance about big men and their equally large appetites.”

The next generation of young cooks might look to books such as Kwame Onwuachi’s Notes From a Young Black Chef, which describes the pervasive emotional abuse and mind-numbing experiences inside fine dining kitchens. And instead of saucy exposes, they might read more stories from women and marginalized people in the industry, like this account of what it’s like to be a trans line cook.

The gender dynamics in restaurant kitchens are already beginning to change, according to many of the cooks I spoke with. Amethyst Ganaway says that now, it’s not unusual to see men, particularly young ones, say something to their older colleagues, like “Hey man, that’s not cool, respect a woman’s boundaries.” But, she adds, “I hope the change isn’t just because it’s becoming something that’s hashtaggable.”

Bringing these conversations out of individual restaurant kitchens to start a broader discussion about what changes are needed within the profession might be a good start. Says Delucci: “I think young people have a lot of power, and we should have a lot of responsibility to try to change the industry.”

Cathy Erway is the author of the The Food of Taiwan: Recipes from the Beautiful Island, and The Art of Eating In: How I Learned to Stop Spending and Love the Stove. She hosts the podcast Self Evident, exploring Asian America’s stories.
Zoë van Dijk is a Los Angeles-based freelance illustrator.

How to Host a Ton of People at a Dinner Party — Even Thanksgiving

October 31, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Eater Young Gun Maya Lovelace (’16) reveals her strategies for cooking for large groups

Maya Lovelace is queen of the pop-up. For the past four years, she’s been running Mae, a deeply personal, deeply delicious prix-fixe dinner event that reflects both her Southern Appalachian roots and Mae’s Portland setting. Named for Lovelace’s grandmother, Mae won a fan base with dishes like buttermilk-brined fried chicken and roasted zucchini with tomato cornmeal gravy — and earned Lovelace the title of Eater Young Gun in 2016. Mae also made Lovelace an expert at hosting large groups. That’s why we’ve tapped her to share her best tips for Thanksgiving, the biggest family-style dinner of all, for this as-told-to guide.

When we started Mae in 2015, we didn’t really know what we were getting into. It was supposed to be a one-off thing, but people really liked it, so we kept doing it more and more frequently. Six months ago, we opened a brick-and-mortar restaurant called Yonder, where we re-opened Mae in a back room for three nights per week. Over the years, running the pop-up has given me a lot of practice hosting large-scale dinners. I’ve learned tricks that ensure a smooth execution when cooking for a big group, all of which can be seriously helpful for Thanksgiving.

Organization Is Key

The most important part of hosting a big dinner, like Thanksgiving, is being really organized. Making lists can be boring, but they’re crucial. Make a shopping list, an equipment list, and a prep list just as you would in a restaurant so that you know what needs to happen and when.

Opt for Multiple Make-Ahead Casseroles

The best dishes to make for big groups are things that you can make ahead, which is why casseroles are such a Thanksgiving icon. Mac and cheese, green bean casserole, stuffing or dressing (whichever name you call it), and baked yams can all be finished in advance and put into the oven while your turkey is resting.

Distract With Snacks

Putting out some snacks is helpful because people tend to poke into the kitchen and get in your way. I like dips like pimento cheese or baked chipped beef with cream cheese and scallions, along with celery sticks and Ritz crackers for dipping. Or you can go really Southern and do a cheese ball. The cool thing about Thanksgiving is that it doesn’t have to be fancy — it should be homey.

Ask Guests to Bring Their Own Wine

You could provide drinks that you know will go well with your food, but you can also let people do their own thing. BYOB is a great idea for Thanksgiving because people always ask what they can bring. Having each person bring a fun bottle of wine to share is really smart.

Make Punch

Punch is super easy to make ahead of time, especially if you keep a punch bowl at home for special occasions. I love the old-school method of freezing a bunch of fruit and using it as ice cubes, like a totally grandma-style punch. Mix one that’s on the light and bright side and another that’s a little bit richer.

Dina Avila

Bake Desserts Two Days Early

Thanksgiving desserts can be done two days in advance. A cake is not going to be any worse for wear two days later; neither are pies that you keep in the fridge. For more of a showstopper, I like a big, family-style cobbler. Apple dumplings are another good option; they’re easy to serve individually, but also beautiful, and they can be prepared ahead of time.

Attitude Is Everything

Remember to breathe. The most important things when you’re hosting an event are confidence and grace. If you’re having a good time, the people around you are going to be having a good time, too. They’re not going to care if you burn something or if it’s not quite like what they had growing up.

Talk About the Food

Talking about the food [how you cooked it, the recipe’s history] builds the conversation; people feel more comfortable sharing what’s going on with them. It’s a safe topic. Trying to keep the peace in these trying times is smart.

Let People Help You Clean

It’s really normal for people to ask to help with the dishes, and for the host to say, “Oh, no, I got it. Thanks.” Don’t do that. Let people help you, because you’re continuing the party in the kitchen — especially if everybody has a drink in hand while they clean.

Provide Containers and Force Guests to Take Leftovers

One of the worst parts of hosting Thanksgiving is being left with too much. So buy a pack of Tupperware and hand it out when you’re near the end of the meal. You have to be a little bit pushy sometimes, which is fine, because people try to be all cute and pretend they don’t want to take anything, but they do; you just need to convince them to do it.

What to Wear to a Restaurant for Any Occasion

October 31, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Take the stress out of figuring out how to dress, so you can focus on important things — like what to order

The world of dining and drinking is an obstacle course wrapped in a labyrinth wrapped in a logic puzzle — it’s full of pitfalls, gray areas, and bewildering questions that really shouldn’t even be questions (How do I find the bathroom?) and yet, somehow, are. Fortunately, your friends at Eater are here to help: Life Coach is a series of simple guides to the arcane rituals of modern dining. Have a question or a quandary you’d like us to tackle? Drop Life Coach a line.

“No shirt, no shoes, no service” is pithy, but it doesn’t really say much about what the shirt and shoes should actually be. And if you’ve never been to a particular restaurant, deciding how to dress is even harder: Without knowing firsthand what the vibe is, it can be difficult to gauge what’s appropriate. Clothing has tremendous power. It helps give us a sense of belonging and the confidence to be ourselves, and when the items don’t quite fit (either in mood or in the literal sense), it can distract us from and even ruin what could have been a fun, meaningful night out.

So, what should we be wearing to restaurants to help us harness the power of clothes for good? Eater is here to help.

But before we dive in, let’s just lay bare some of the assumptions that float beneath something as seemingly innocuous as a dress code, whether formalized or unspoken. Dress codes, and perceptions of what constitutes “appropriate” attire are subjective at best, and racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, fatphobic, and classist at worst. I want to take a moment here to acknowledge my privilege here as a cis white woman with the financial means to have a full wardrobe. And with that, let’s get into it.

1) Do some research

If you know literally zero things about the restaurant you’re going to, and want to know how the other folks going there generally dress, head to its Instagram place page. You should be able to glean a partial view of the clientele’s attire from the inevitable bathroom selfies and group photos at tables. Instagram photos arguably give a slightly dressier or vibe-y-er look at what the crowd will be wearing. After all, most people don’t take selfies if they don’t think their outfit is on point or if they’re just having a regular lunch.

Another good, but not always decisive, measure is to look at the cost when determining how formal a space is. If you’re heading out to a tasting menu temple, chances are there might be a dress code listed on the website, even if it’s as simple as “come as you are.” It’s worth looking at, especially for men, since some places like steakhouses and other white-tablecloth restaurants are still jacket-required.

2) There’s no such thing as overdressed

I’m not sure I believe in overdressed at all. The most important person you’re getting dressed for is yourself. If you want to wear your favorite cocktail dress to the local diner, or put on your new suit to crush some tacos, do you. You are the one deciding what the meal means to you, and you have every right to dress the way you want to experience it, even if it’s different from the table sitting next to you.

Personally, I tend to worry more about feeling underdressed than overdressed, in no small part because the very act of worrying about whether I’m underdressed means I’m participating in thinking I know to be exclusionary. (Shakes fist at the system.) And yet, I don’t relish the feeling of walking into a room and finding myself the odd one out for being in sneakers, as I recently experienced on a Saturday night at a great restaurant in New Orleans. After a few years of living in California, where dressing more casually is the norm, it didn’t occur to me that in New Orleans, the dining crowd tends to dress up a little more to go out.

So here’s what I’ll say on how to avoid being underdressed: As mentioned above, if you’re going to a tasting menu or super expensive restaurant, do a little social media investigating before putting together your outfit. If it’s unclear, slacks and collared shirt for men is a safe bet, and a jumpsuit, a dress, or pants (maybe even denim) and a blouse for women still ought to do it. Nobody is ever required to wear heels. They’re uncomfortable and bad for your body (I do wear heels sometimes, but no restaurant has the right to demand I slowly destroy my back and feet). An expensive meal is inherently an occasion, at least for me, and I like to celebrate things by dressing up. I enjoy it. I also think that my dressing up is a way of paying respect to the folks who are putting in so much work into my evening.

So much of not feeling or looking underdressed to me has to do with intent: Did I put effort into making myself look nice? Even with sneakers, it’s a different thing to wear a clean pair than one I wore to the gym a few hours before.

3) Anticipate spillage

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from years of dining out professionally, it’s that getting food on your shirt or pants is, ultimately, inevitable. More inevitable for some (me!) than others. With that in mind, do think in advance about what the food you’re having might mean for your clothes. For example, when I’m going to a restaurant with food I think is highly likely to end up on my shirt (saucey noodles come to mind here), I’ll reach for something dark, or highly patterned, and, ideally, machine washable. (And if a stain happens, I’ll get some sparkling water to blot it. I’m convinced that helps.)

4) Choose your outfit ahead of time

Since I’m a stickler about punctuality, I urge you to choose your outfit well in advance of your outing. Consider wearing it to work, if you’re going to dinner after a day at the office. Last minute dithering when it comes to choosing what to wear or how to style yourself is a leading cause of lateness, according to field studies of my friends and coworkers.

5) What not to wear — seriously

A recent controversy on a United Airlines flight where a white man wore a shirt suggesting that journalists should be lynched is a reminder that people need to carefully consider how messages on their clothing make others feel. As someone who dines out a lot, here’s what I hope for from my fellow dining companions:

Please don’t wear anything to a restaurant that makes someone — especially the people working there — feel unsafe. Your definition may vary from the establishment’s on the subject, and ultimately, they get to make the call, not you. If you’re wearing clothing with messages of hate, you do so at the risk of being kicked out of the place. And even if you’re not kicked out, know that your t-shirt or cap might have just made someone’s day — someone who’s simply trying to get their work done and go home — a little bit harder and a little bit worse. Don’t be that person.

6) Pick something that will make you feel comfortable

Comfort is key. Are you heading to a taco stand in LA? You may well have to stand, so wear shoes with support. Are you going to a multi-hour meal? Skip that pair of pants that digs in. I generally avoid tight clothing while dining out entirely, because who needs to be pulling or tugging when there’s pizza to be eaten?

If you tend to run hot or cold, go for layers. Some restaurants blast the A/C while others have open-fire hearths with heat that creeps into the dining room.

The ideal restaurant outfit is, above all else, an outfit you feel great in. Often restaurants are spaces where we come together with people we love to celebrate, to catch up, and yes, to share a meal. It’s more fun to do that when you feel good in your clothes.

P.S. If you’re more worried about where to eat, start with our 2019 Best New Restaurants.

• All Life Coach Coverage [E]

NYC City Council Has Officially Voted to Ban Foie Gras

October 30, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

But the legislation won’t take effect for three years

Grubhub’s New Strategy Is to Be an Even Worse Partner to Restaurants

October 30, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

It wants to “expand its restaurant network without officially partnering with eateries,” which is to say without the restaurants’ permission

The food delivery website and app Grubhub has been getting on restaurateurs’ nerves for a while. In a class action lawsuit filed in January, multiple restaurants alleged that the site was sneakily charging restaurants for phone calls that weren’t orders, since the calls were placed through proxy phone numbers Grubhub set up. In July, New Food Economy reported that Grubhub was buying restaurant web domains without restaurants’ knowledge or consent, and though Grubhub argued it’s technically allowed to do that in the contract, it was still a bad look. So what is the company doing to endear itself to restaurants that increasingly rely on third-party services to offer delivery? Become even worse partners.

Grubhub CEO Matt Maloney said in a letter to shareholders that “promiscuous” diners are partially to blame for the company’s recent 43 percent stock fall, and in an earnings call yesterday said, “It’s very hard to trick a consumer to pay more than they want to pay,” which is sure to make consumers feel great about the honesty and transparency around their burrito orders. So in the face of increased competition and politicians looking to regulate the business, Maloney, as the New York Post writes, “has been piloting an initiative in recent months to expand its restaurant network without officially partnering with eateries.” That is, listing businesses without their agreement or permission.

In a statement to Eater, Grubhub said they’re adding non-partnered restaurants “so we will not be at a restaurant disadvantage compared to any other food delivery platform.” It says this is an opportunity for those restaurants to get more business, “but we’ll without hesitation remove any restaurant who reaches out to us and doesn’t want to be listed on our marketplace,” putting the onus on restaurants to either proactively check the site, or to be surprised when it starts getting Grubhub orders. Grubhub also admits “the non-partnered model is no doubt a bad experience for diners, drivers and restaurants. But our peers have shown growth – although not profits – using the tactic, and we believe there is a benefit to having a larger restaurant network: from finding new diners and not giving diners any reason to go elsewhere.”

Katie Norris, Grubhub’s Senior Manager of Corporate Communications, elaborated over the phone that Grubhub is simply following the industry trends, and that to compete, the publicly-owned company essentially has to add non-partnered restaurants. “We want customers to find the most restaurants when they land on Grubhub. When others in the space are doing this it’s creating a gap, and we’re closing the gap,” she said. Norris stressed again that this is a bad experience, and that Grubhub’s primary way of operating is through explicit partnerships. However, the company believes restaurants that are listed under the non-partnered model will be convinced. “We believe there’s a benefit to partnering with restaurants and we’re deploying a sales team to try to convert these restaurants to partners, because it’s a better experience for anyone involved,” said Norris. “We think when we add restaurants they’ll see orders, and see the benefit of the Grubhub platform.”

It’s true that this practice has become more common in the delivery industry over the past few years. But DoorDash and Postmates have also faced backlash for similar actions. In 2015, Doordash got in trouble for delivering In-N-Out without the restaurant’s permission. In Canada, DoorDash has added restaurants for a “trial” period if they note a particular spot is popular, and hope to lure it into a partnership essentially because, now that people see there’s an ordering option, the restaurant has no other choice. Postmates, too, has not asked permission from restaurants before adding them to the app. This tends to cause problems for restaurants, who may not want to offer delivery, and who are then forced to deal with third-party deliverers showing up for “take out” and then delivering their food elsewhere. If things go wrong, the restaurant has to deal with complaints about cold food or slow orders, when it may have explicitly not offered delivery for those same reasons.

Grubhub publicly released the letter they sent to shareholders, in which they estimate delivery is a $200 billion industry in the U.S. The company writes that “listing restaurants on platforms without any partnership allowed other players to expand restaurant inventory rapidly.” There’s been a boom in online ordering, and while Grubhub is already profitable, it’s fighting for market share with sites like Uber Eats, Postmates and more, as well as customers who are fine with using multiple sites in order to pay the least. Listing restaurants that have not partnered with the site “is expensive for everyone, a suboptimal diner experience and rife with operational challenges,” the company wrote to shareholders. “With that said, it is extremely efficient and cheap to add non-partnered inventory to our platform and it can at least ensure that all of our current and potential new diners have the option to order from any of their favorite restaurants now, even if it’s not the best solution.”

Nobody is happy when restaurants haven’t given permission for their business to be listed, but it’s the price delivery companies seem to be willing to pay at everyone else’s expense.

• Grubhub Stock Drops 43 Percent After Terrible Earnings Report [NY Post]
• New York City Council Member Takes Aim at Grubhub’s Iron Grip on Food Delivery [E]
• Delivery Apps Aren’t Getting Any Better [E]

Who Ordered the Appletini?

October 30, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

The origin story of an essential ’90s cocktail reveals a simpler, sickly-sweeter time in American drinking culture

The apple martini was born in Los Angeles over Fourth of July weekend in 1997, and no one drink could have better captured that specific moment in American culture. This was pre-9/11, pre-Recession, and it was fun, eye-catching, and boozy as hell — pure West Hollywood hedonism, a liquid equivalent to the Spice Girls, Backstreet Boys, and Hanson songs on the radio.

The principal ingredients of the appletini, as it came to be known, are vodka and Sour Apple Pucker, a radiant, possibly radioactive green schnapps that gives the drink its signature hue and melted Jolly Rancher taste. Sometimes bartenders add a dash of triple sec or sweet-and-sour mix, which acts as a push-up bra for a flavor that’s already the opposite of subtle. The appletini is unrepentantly sugary, reminiscent less of an actual apple than of the tangy artificial flavor known as “green.” It’s originally, and one might argue best, served in a martini glass the size of an Olympic swimming pool.

America wasn’t as attuned to the evils of sugar as it is now, and as someone told me about drinking culture at the time, “Those were the years when everybody threw up.” It’s trite and usually inaccurate to say that it was a simpler time, but when it comes to the appletini, you almost have to believe it.

It was created during what cocktail historian and Imbibe! author David Wondrich calls “the death throes of the artificial drinks” of the 1990s, before the craft cocktail revolution that brought back the Old Fashioned and its ilk gained momentum. More than 20 years later, the drink has fully fallen out of fashion. To get a good apple martini these days, you first have to find a bar that has the necessary ingredients. Vodka is easy, but not every establishment stocks Sour Apple Pucker, which is made by the Dutch brand DeKuyper, which is owned in the U.S. by Jim Beam. Then you need to find the bartender at that bar who knows what to do with it.

After a few failed attempts to track down an appletini this fall, I hit gold at a spot in downtown Milwaukee. The bartender who made my drink wasn’t the same one who took the order — that task was quickly handed off — and when he arrived carrying a coupe filled with a dazzling neon liquid, he bellowed, “Who ordered the appletini?” He was grinning, but I’m pretty sure I was being publicly shamed.

It tasted like the Otter Pops I used to get during the summer as a kid, and like those plastic tubes of syrupy ice, it was absolutely delicious and strangely refreshing. After a few sips, my brain started screaming, all at once, Put this thing down! and GIVE ME MORE! If there was any vodka in it, I’ll never know, because that night I followed my better instincts. This is 2019, after all.

Unlike iconic drinks like the martini and the cosmopolitan, the true origins of which are either lost to time or muddled, so to speak, there’s little doubt in the bartending community as to who invented the apple martini. Everyone points to Lola’s, the LA restaurant and club that closed in 2013 after a 17-year run.

When Loren Dunsworth opened Lola’s on Fairfax Avenue in 1996, she wanted to recreate the experience of entertaining at home, dialed way up. The menu was comfort food served until 2 a.m. — mac and cheese, bread pudding — and the space was full of nooks and crannies: a dining room, a small lounge up front, a side room with a pool table, and, later on, a larger bar out back. Dunsworth instituted a special martini menu, which grew into a long list of inventive cocktails. This was the era of ’tinis for every occasion — espresso martinis, lychee martinis, none of them technically martinis — and Lola’s took the trend as far as it could go with chocolate martinis, melon martinis, banana martinis, pumpkin martinis in October, and martinis made with edible glitter for Christmas.

A year after Lola’s opened, during the calm before the service storm on that fateful July Fourth weekend, Dunsworth asked one of the bartenders, Adam Karsten, to mix up a drink from a bottle of Sour Apple Pucker schnapps “that had been sitting collecting dust on the shelf” — though not for long, since DeKuyper only launched the neon-hued Pucker line in 1996 and sour apple wasn’t even in the first lineup — and Ketel One vodka, for which a sales rep had been hoping Lola’s could find a use. “We put this martini together and thought, it tastes pretty good, like an apple Jolly Rancher,” Dunsworth says. “I said, ‘Get a slice of Granny Smith apple, soak it in lemon juice, and float it on top.’ That’s how it started.”

They named it the Adam’s Apple, after its maker, though over time, the “Adam” dropped off, and it became simply the apple martini. Equal parts vodka and schnapps, with a splash of simple syrup, it was a hit almost immediately, particularly with young women. “It was very easy to drink,” says Dunsworth. “It was a little sour, a little sweet, it was pretty. It was mostly popular with girls, and guys worried about looking soft, but we served plenty of men.”

Dunsworth credits the early success of Lola’s to a review in the Los Angeles Times by restaurant critic S. Irene Virbila that dinged the food but praised its warm atmosphere (“Occasionally I’ll find a place that’s so congenial, I’ll go back whether the cooking is my heart’s desire or not”), and to the apple martini. The popularity of the drink, which Dunsworth says easily represented 30 percent of bar sales, refocused the attention paid to Lola’s: It was no longer a restaurant with a bar. It was a bar with a restaurant, one with celebrities in every corner and a line wrapped around the block.

The apple martini also achieved a degree of notoriety early on. The martini glasses at Lola’s were huge, and bartenders filled them up. One afternoon the West Hollywood sheriff’s department came by the restaurant to tell Dunsworth and her team that they were pulling over a lot of people, mainly drunk women, who said they’d been at Lola’s drinking apple martinis. Dunsworth decided to pull it from the menu (“I said, we’re not going to serve it if people won’t drink it responsibly”), but relented after her public mutinied. “We had people calling and saying, ‘We’re canceling our party of 10,’” Dunsworth says. “People were so outraged, so we did quietly put it back on the menu. It had a time-out for about a month.”

Within months, the apple martini had started making its way into other establishments around LA. The appletini was huge (though only 4.5 ounces) at Chaya Brasserie, a trendy Asian-fusion restaurant in Beverly Hills that was regularly filled with agents, athletes, and actors (Seinfeld, Clooney, Pacino). This crowd would come in for their power lunches, return at 5 p.m., and drink until 2 a.m., says Lawrence Moore, who worked at Chaya for 14 years, including as general manager.

But the appletini was equally suited to a younger, less sophisticated audience. Eric “ET” Tecosky was bartending at Lush, a nightclub that hosted ’70s and ’80s cover bands on the weekend and attracted people in their early 20s, when he first heard of the drink. “Someone ordered it, and some girl who worked with us had heard of it and showed us how to make it from the Lola’s recipe,” he recalls. “Overnight it took off.”

Brent Hofacker / Shutterstock

Every bar had its own version of the drink. At Lush, the bartenders tweaked the recipe to include a maraschino cherry — “Remember, we only used neon red, indigestible cherries” — and a bit of grenadine, which sank to the bottom and created a nice colorblocked look. “That’s how we made it a fancy apple martini,” Tecosky says, sarcastically.

Having taken over LA, the appletini might have exploded out of California because of customer interest alone, but it didn’t. Instead, an important factor in its spread across the nation was a group that had been watching its ascent closely: liquor reps.

It’s common for salespeople at liquor brands to recommend ways to use a particular product when they’re pitching to bar and restaurant owners or distributors, and when the appletini started getting big in LA, companies like Ketel One, the chosen brand for the Lola’s apple martini, began pushing it hard nationwide. (DeKuyper, maker of Sour Apple Pucker, did not respond to requests for comment, though multiple interviewees recall that it too was talking up the appletini.)

“I flipping loved it, are you kidding me?” says Kirk Gaither, who started working as a sales manager for Ketel One during the appletini’s heyday and covered the brand’s California accounts. “First off, from a business standpoint it was fantastic. From a cocktail standpoint, it was tremendous just because it was a nice, refreshing martini, and it was a nice, big martini that Loren always served.”

Rich Nestro started working with Ketel One in October 1997 as a sales rep in New York, and he heard about the apple martini from Gaither, who’d worked closely with Dunsworth and her team at Lola’s. Nestro says that the drink became one of four cocktails that Ketel One reps promoted with clients, along with a classic martini; the lemon drop, another candy-like drink that was very popular at the time; and the trendy cosmopolitan, which predates the appletini but became the iconic drink of the late ’90s thanks to Sex and the City. To bar and restaurant owners, Nestro stressed the appletini’s profitability, suggesting that a $10 to $12 cocktail was a better pour than a glass of wine or a beer.

In the same way that Sex and the City made the cosmo seem like a fashionable accessory, Gaither recalls that bar patrons gravitated toward the appletini because they loved the elegance of a martini glass. But he also noticed bartenders cutting corners — using maraschino cherries instead of fresh apple slices, for instance — in such a way that the appletini, already a sweet drink, became a “really sticky-sweet cocktail.” The appletini’s bid for sophistication and candy-like flavor gave it a reputation for being an inexperienced drinker’s cocktail, a go-to for people who wanted to look chic and a trap that showed just how much they were failing at that. To Tecosky, the appletini said: “I’m not a kid anymore, even though I’m drinking a drink made specifically for kids.”

Like the cosmo, the appletini has become part of TV and film history — though it often serves the function of undercutting, rather than glamorizing, its drinker. The appletini is portrayed as the stuff of college-age girls, men deemed to be overly effeminate, and uncultured types. In 2010’s The Social Network, Napster founder Sean Parker (an extremely swaggy Justin Timberlake) buys rounds of appletinis for the young Facebook crew after asking Christy Ling (Brenda Song) what she wants to drink. On Scrubs, which ran from 2001 to 2010, appletinis are a favorite drink of J.D. (Zach Braff) and a recurring punchline, often about his sexuality. (“Does that come in hetero?” he’s asked in one episode.) In Molly’s Game — written, like The Social Network, by Aaron Sorkin — a mobster orders an appletini at an upscale bar in an ill-advised effort to fit in. You can’t drink an apple martini, it seems, without giving the world a reason to judge you.

In fairness to everyone involved, the apple martini emerged out of a wider craze for super-sugary drinks and shots. Bartending hadn’t evolved into the high art it is now — it was a side gig, not a career — and drinks weren’t exactly nuanced at the time. If you wanted to create a drink that tasted like watermelon, you’d just use Watermelon Pucker.

“The way people came up with exciting drinks was by matching them to some sort of candy or dessert,” says Portland’s Jeffrey Morgenthaler, who started bartending in 1996. “You’d come up with new drinks by messing around with Baileys, something that tasted like caramel, and a tiny dash of Frangelico, and be like, ‘It tastes like a Snickers bar!’”

So when DeKuyper started selling Sour Apple Pucker, it was a slam dunk. “The green Jolly Ranchers were fucking huge at the time,” Morgenthaler says. “They sold 10 billion bottles. It was a no-brainer.” Even more so when it arrived in a stylish, nearly 10-ounce martini glass.

Even as the apple martini was enacting its fluorescent takeover of the country, bartenders’ approaches to cocktails were starting to change, Wondrich says. Here and there, they were bringing back classic cocktails made with fresh, quality ingredients. These were cocktail experts like Sasha Petraske at Milk & Honey in New York, opened in 1999, and Murray Stenson in Seattle. “It was sort of the end of what we call the Dark Ages,” Wondrich says. “People were like, ‘We’ve got to do this stuff right.’ They were getting recognized, and it was starting to coalesce into a movement.”

To a certain extent, the forces that brought about the appletini’s eventual decline were apparent from its birth. The fresh garnish on the Lola’s apple martini gestured at the coming movement away from preserved, artificial ingredients, Wondrich says, though it floated on “all this green yuck.” When the cocktail revolution ramped up in the early to mid-2000s, it truly broke the hold that chemical flavors had on the drinks business.

Dunsworth contends that the apple martini never went out of style — that the drink survived the cocktail revolution and the Recession and had its loyalists long after the press declared it passé. And that’s true enough: I did get my appletini fix in Milwaukee without a terrible amount of trouble. But plenty of bars gave it up as customers moved on to other, more bitter flavors. Tecosky says that appletinis were still immensely popular when he went to run the bar at Jones in West Hollywood in 2001, but by the time he left, 15 years later, they didn’t carry the ingredients to make one. Nobody was ordering them anymore.

Customers today want to taste the flavor of the alcohol in their drinks, says Ivy Mix, co-owner of Leyenda in Brooklyn, and they want to know where the ingredients are sourced, from the herbs to the spirits. It’s the exact opposite of what the appletini was: an alcohol-cloaking device of unknown provenance.

When I asked Mix how she’d make an apple martini today, she paused to think. It would be vodka based, she says, maybe with some Massenez apple liqueur and one of the apple brandies she’s into now, with some verjus for acid and some kind of sweetener — maybe chamomile? But, Mix says, “It would be white, not green.”

In recent years, bartenders have made a habit of trying to improve upon the most unfortunate cocktails of decades past, and they’ve been attempting to make less artificial versions of the apple martini for ages. Julie Reiner, Mix’s business partner at Leyenda, was doing that at the appletini’s peak: The New York Times reported in 2000 that Reiner, then bartending at C3, made hers with apple-infused Skyy vodka, “no more than a rinse of Pucker,” and a bit of Martinelli’s sparkling cider. Morgenthaler, who has a reputation for taking “bad” retro cocktails and making them good, has tried making a fresh-juice version of the appletini, too, but he says that isn’t the same.

“It’s just not possible,” he says. “You can’t get that flavor without chemicals. Nothing tastes like that.”

This is the strange allure of the appletini. You might not want it, but you don’t want it any other way.

Eliza Brooke is a freelance writer. Bárbara Malagoli is a multidisciplinary artist based in London.

Proposed Bill Wants All Plant-Based Beef Labeled ‘Imitation’

October 30, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Plus, New York City is likely to ban foie gras, and more news to start your day

Real MEAT Act calls plant-based meat phony imitations

A new bipartisan bill requiring beef that’s not derived from cows (i.e., plant-based beef like Impossible Burgers) to be labeled “imitation” was proposed in Congress on Monday, Food Dive reports. The legislation, called the Real Marketing Edible Artificials Truthfully Act (or the Real MEAT Act), was introduced by Rep. Anthony Brindisi, a Democrat whose district covers a rural part of New York, and Rep. Roger Marshall, a Republican from Kansas.

The proposed bill, as currently written, suggests that slapping a prominent “imitation” label on plant-based beef would prevent “confusion” and “ensure that consumers can make informed decisions in choosing between meat products such as beef and imitation meat products.” Brindisi, in a statement by the United States Cattlemen’s Association obtained by Food Dive, emphasized this line of thinking: “American families have a right to know what’s in their food … Accurate labeling helps consumers make informed decisions and helps ensure families have access to a safe, abundant, affordable food supply.”

However, there’s little evidence that consumers are actually confused about the difference between plant-based and animal-based meat. In the dairy world, where the use of the word “milk” has similarly been a source of contention, the majority of consumers know that plant-based milk doesn’t contain dairy, per a survey from the International Food Information Council.

“This bill is a bald-faced attempt to get the government to police food labels to benefit the conventional meat industry, not consumers,” the Good Food Institute, a nonprofit that advocates for plant-based alternatives to animal products, told Food Dive. “Rather than let consumers decide the winners and losers in a free marketplace, this bill attempts to stigmatize plant-based foods.”

Currently, meat labeling laws vary state by state. With the rising mainstream popularity of plant-based “meat” products from companies like Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat, the battle over what is allowed to be called meat has escalated, with several lawsuits this summer challenging state laws that ban plant-based and cell-cultured meat producers from using the word “meat,” “beef,” “chicken,” and “sausages.”

And in other news…

• The New York City Council is expected to pass a bill that bans the sale of foie gras — a win for animal-rights groups, and a loss for local restaurants, vendors, and farmers who produce foie gras. [Bloomberg]
• Forget soy and pea “burgers” — say hello to plant-based “steaks” made from fungi. [New Food Economy]
• Mars Inc. promised to make its chocolate greener, but deforestation has only gotten worse. [Washington Post]
• Vineyards — with their well-manicured and well-watered vegetation, as well as uniform layout — could play greater roles as small fire breaks as wildfires worsen in California. [SF Chronicle]
• Jennifer Aniston reveals on Stephen Colbert’s Late Show that she was once a “terrible waitress,” just like her Friends character Rachel. [Insider]
• Donald and Melania Trump’’ White House Halloween was as weird as you might think! [The Cut]
• Expectation: A cute little pizza Jack-o’-lantern from Papa John’s. Reality:

• All AM Intel Coverage [E]

The 18 Essential Tulum Restaurants

October 30, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Where to find incredible mole, tropical Turkish cuisine, and grilled avocado toast in Mexico’s seaside jungle paradise

A decade ago, Tulum became famous as a wellness-centered, eco-chic destination. The scenic paradise was easily accessible, just an hour and a half drive south from Cancún along the coast of the Yucatán Peninsula. Bohemian hotels and restaurants along the palm tree-lined hotel zone ran on generators and solar power. And ingredient-driven, wood-fired cooking, along with fresh juices, fueled yoga sessions and tanning sessions.

In the last couple of years, Tulum has changed. The sandy roads now boast paved sidewalks, and global tourism is at its peak. Mexico City restaurant groups are beginning to move in with concepts of their own. Meanwhile, local operators are enjoying increased income from the tourism boom, allowing them to pursue new projects, including expansions beyond the hotel zone into town.

Tulum’s culinary competition is as fierce as ever, with chefs cooking at the top of their game. Indigenous ingredients, pib (in-ground pit) cooking, and new ancestral spirits like pox (which joins small-production mezcals behind the bar) make this once-sleepy beach town Mexico’s hottest trend-setting destination.

Here, Eater contributor Kat Odell offers an overview of dining in the epicenter of hipster tourism, where chefs in the hotel zone and in town are cooking some of the best food the area has ever seen.

Price per person, excluding alcohol:

$ = Less than 200 pesos (less than USD $10)

$$ = 200 - 380 pesos (USD $10 to USD $20)

$$$ = 380 - 570 pesos (USD $20 to USD $30)

$$$$ = More than 570 pesos (more than USD $30)

What It Takes to Be the Chef de Cuisine at One of Brooklyn’s Buzziest Restaurants

October 30, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Calvin Eng is tasked with designing dishes for Win Son, a restaurant with an existing vision and menu

Calvin Eng used to hate rice. But growing up in a three-family Cantonese household in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, with many of his relatives, he had no choice but to eat it. Rice was a staple of the dinner table, appearing each night alongside a whole fish, a meat dish, at least one vegetable, and a couple of preserved sides, like salted eggs.

Sharp, briny eggs with fatty yolks, which Eng recalls took on the texture of fresh mozzarella, were his saving grace. Adding flavor to the rice helped him get it down. “My mom would tell me if I didn’t eat every grain of rice in my bowl I was going to have an ugly wife one day. I would be licking the whole plate every night,” he remembers. Eng looked forward to the occasional days his mother strayed from Chinese cuisine, trying her hand at chicken Parmesan or chicken cordon bleu. “I was so sick of Chinese food,” he says. “It’s crazy that I’m now into it and trying to pursue it.”

Eng is the 25-year-old at the helm of Win Son, a casual Taiwanese-American restaurant in East Williamsburg that has become an industry haunt for New York City chefs and visiting restaurant folk alike (Nicole Rucker, Maya Lovelace, and Eddie Huang are among the diners of late). As chef de cuisine, Eng isn’t exactly cooking his heritage cuisine, but it’s close. His family is from the Guangdong province in Southern China, where Cantonese is the local fare. For the young chef, making modern Cantonese food is a recent goal — even when he decided to attend culinary school, cooking Chinese food wasn’t the plan.

Throughout his culinary arts and food service management program at Johnson & Wales University and his first gig at Dig Inn as sous chef and recipe developer, he was focused on cooking for a big operation. It was during his two years as chef of Nom Wah Nolita, the fast-casual offshoot of the storied Chinatown dim sum establishment, that he started to change his tune.

“Working there, hanging out with Wilson [Tang, the owner of Nom Wah] and the people he introduced me to, and being right near Chinatown definitely pushed me to pursue Chinese food more.” Eng says.

He contacted Eater Young Gun Trigg Brown (’17), the chef-owner of Win Son, in search of a job. Brown, who is not of Taiwanese descent, said he wasn’t hiring a line cook, but allowed Eng to trail anyway. “I loved the food and I loved the space,” Eng says. “I love a high-energy kitchen with a small, tight team where you’re constantly grinding, moving, and pushing food out, which is exactly what Win Son was.”

During the trail, Brown and Eng clicked. Brown, along with his business partner, fellow Eater Young Gun Joshua Ku, decided to offer Eng a role as chef de cuisine, allowing Brown to step away from the kitchen to develop another project with Ku, which is now the buzzy Win Son Bakery.

Since May 2018, Eng has been leading Win Son’s kitchen, cooking the Taiwanese-American menu he inherited from Brown. While the dishes retain their skeletons, Eng has the authority to constantly tweak the recipes, altering ingredients seasonally and changing techniques. “I have professional cooking techniques and I also have homey, Asian-auntie cooking techniques, so it’s a good mix to bring to the table,” Eng explains.

Brown encourages Eng to add his own specials to the menu — as long as the front of house is educated about the dishes. “He wants the servers to explain that I’m Cantonese and Win Son is a Taiwanese restaurant, while pointing out how my influences show on the menu,” Eng says. “It’s about telling the right story.”

Recently, Eng added a large-format poached chicken special, a classic Chinese dish that he spun with Win Son flavors. He tapped into the traditional food he resented as a child, reengineering his uncle’s poaching method to accommodate a larger scale. The result is a juicy half bird poached in ginger, garlic, scallions, and other aromatics, served with rice, chile vinegar sauce, and a teacup of broth per person. Shared family-style for just $21, the plate embodies the restaurant’s key tenet.

“The intersection of flavor and value is a line Trigg talks about, and it’s embedded into my head now,” Eng says. “It’s the intersection of how good it is and how affordable it is for the guest to have it.” He considers this sweet spot when he’s designing dishes for Win Son, as well as when he eats out himself.

He plans to instill this belief at the core of the future restaurant he’s dreaming up. “No one is taking Cantonese and changing it up,” Eng says. “All the Cantonese restaurants in Chinatown are very good, but they’re traditional, old school. No one in New York is doing anything new and exciting. That’s what I want to do.” He is inspired by the new Cantonese cuisine at Mister Jiu’s in San Francisco and Happy Paradise in Hong Kong, but envisions New York influences, a more casual space, and an affordable menu.

Though his own restaurant is Eng’s ultimate target, he’s working on a cannabis-infused chile oil business on the side. Modeled after Lao Gan Ma, a chile oil with a cult following, Eng’s Loud Gan Ma is a combination of his own chile oil recipe and a weed oil he created. With a high demand from friends already, he believes there will be a lucrative revenue stream as soon as New York legalizes marijuana. “You could have a restaurant in New York that’s successful and packed every night and still live paycheck to paycheck,” says Eng. “You need to have other sources of income to have a decent life.”

For the time being, Eng is happy to be in a role with room to grow. Now that he’s properly trained his sous chefs, Brown wants him to concentrate on creating new plates for the permanent menu. That means applying his creativity to his extensive knowledge of Taiwanese and Cantonese cuisine, and always minding the intersection of flavor and value.

Morgan Goldberg is a freelance writer based in Los Angeles, California.
Clay Williams is a Brooklyn-based photographer.