A Super-Simple Gray Squash Recipe for Tired Evenings at Home

March 31, 2020 Admin 0 Comments

This easy recipe, found in Hooni Kim’s new cookbook, “My Korea,” is perfect for this moment

Gray squash may be the most daunting part of the otherwise extremely simple sautéed gray squash and onion recipe found in Hooni Kim’s new cookbook, My Korea. Not everyone may be familiar with this specific squash or find its purported hue appealing — and even gray squash fans might find it hard to obtain, as the novel coronavirus has forced some grocery stores to close, while others struggle to stock their shelves (not to mention that going out to shop may not be an option at all).

Which is all the more reason why this simple recipe is a good one for this moment. According to Eater’s James Park, in-house Korean cooking expert, “The recipe is super simple, and you can taste the naturally sweet flavors of gray squash. It often plays a supporting role in many dishes, like doenjang jjigae, Korean soybean stew, and other stir-fry dishes, but gray squash is a star in this banchan. Chef Hooni Kim’s recipe for this is straightforward: no complicated instructions, just a simple sauteing technique.” (And if you don’t have gray squash, zucchini works.)

All of which is good news, considering so many of us who favor restaurant dining and takeout are stuck at home and engaging in dining culture in a different way right now: by cooking. At home. For ourselves.

So, as part of Eater at Home, Eater is bringing simple recipes to life, from cookbooks new and old, on Instagram Live. You can watch Adam Moussa and James Park cook Hooni Kim’s gray squash and onion now on Instagram, and check out the full recipe below.

Sautéed Gray Squash and Onion — 호박 볶음 (Hobak Bokkeum)

This banchan highlights the deliciousness of gray squash and gives an unassuming vegetable the center stage it deserves. Any Asian markets should carry gray squash (sometimes called Mexican gray squash), as will some large supermarkets, but you can replace it with green zucchini if it is difficult to find. Gray squash are a little fatter and shorter than zucchini. Because their flavors are similar, I sometimes use both zucchini and gray squash when making this banchan. Hobak bokkeum is best served in summer, when both squash are at their peak. This banchan works as a balance to spicier main dishes because of the natural sweetness of the squash and onion.

Serves 4

1 tablespoon grape seed or canola oil
1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
1 medium onion, cut into 1-inch dice
2 garlic cloves, minced
Salt
2 pounds gray squash or green zucchini, or a combination, cut into ¼-inch-thick rounds
Freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon soy sauce

Set a 12-inch sauté pan over medium heat and add the grape seed or canola oil and sesame oil. Once the oil begins to shimmer, add the onion and garlic to the pan, along with a small pinch of salt, and cook for 3 minutes, stirring often so they do not color. Add the squash and 2 pinches each of salt and pepper and cook for 3 more minutes, stirring constantly. Add soy sauce and cook until the squash is tender, 3 to 5 minutes. Transfer to a medium bowl or container and let cool completely.

Cover the squash and refrigerate for at least 2 hours to let the flavors bloom. (The squash will keep in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.)

Serve the squash cold with hot steamed rice.

San Francisco’s Shelter-in-Place Extension Includes Strident New Rules About Maintaining Social Distancing for Takeout and at Grocery Stores

March 31, 2020 Admin 0 Comments

The rules now require “tape or other markings at least six feet apart in customer line areas inside the store and on sidewalks”

The Community That Was Ready for California’s Coronavirus Outbreak

March 31, 2020 Admin 0 Comments

Southern California’s San Gabriel Valley has been masked up for months, and life is already getting back to normal

The Coronavirus Crisis Could Permanently Close 30 Percent of California’s Restaurants

March 31, 2020 Admin 0 Comments

The state’s top restaurant lobby wants to put a planned minimum wage increase on hold

I’m Sick of Scrolling Past Essays to Get to Recipes I’m Not Paying For

March 31, 2020 Admin 0 Comments

Memo to recipe bloggers: No one wants your life story, says me, an asshole

Dear recipe blogs,

Why the FUCK does every single one of your freely provided recipes begin with a thousand-word essay about your life story? I don’t need to read about the recent death of your beloved grandmother, whose enduring longing for the flavors of her home country informed both your entire culinary philosophy and the development of this specific freely provided recipe that I found by googling all the leftovers in my fridge followed by the words “what to make.” Come on, I didn’t click on this page while sitting on the toilet until my feet go numb just to be confronted with the “blah blah blah” wordy fruit of both your literary expression and a long tradition of women’s domestic labor being devalued and marginalized.

Oh my god, it’s so long. Never mind that I missed the “jump to recipe” link at the top that would’ve let me skip past all the text that keeps you at the top of the search rankings that led me to this freely provided recipe in the first place. In the amount of time I spent scrolling past the ads that barely allow you to break even on the hours’ worth of testing and iterating that go into developing such a freely provided recipe — not to mention the costs of ingredients, photo editing software, and web hosting — I could’ve watched another TikTok or maybe even mustered the emotional capacity to comment “queen!” on a tweet in which a bestselling author clapped back at a college student who didn’t like her book.

Just give me the freely provided recipe, god damn it! I’m trying to feed my family here while ignoring the fact that you need to feed yours! No, I will not buy a cookbook that doesn’t need lengthy headnotes because the author is supported by readers actually paying for content. Nor will I use a mass-market, corporate-owned recipe site that, by virtue of business model and scale, can show me how to cook via context-free instructions or 30-second top-down videos, no life musings required. Instead, I’m going to go with your freely provided recipe, enjoy the dish, and then bitch about your independent blog for guaranteed Twitter clout.

Next time you publish a freely provided recipe, maybe think a little harder about how to curate the experience for me, specifically. Speaking of — can you please tell me what to make with two dozen cans of beans?

Grubhub Asks Restaurants to Foot the Bill on ‘Supper for Support’ Promotions

March 31, 2020 Admin 0 Comments

At a time when margins are thinner than ever, the delivery platform wants restaurants to opt into offering customers $10 off dinner orders

A new Grubhub restaurant delivery promotion called “Supper for Support” isn’t quite so supportive as it sounds. The deal, a $10 discount to diners on Grubhub orders of $30 or more from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m daily, is advertised to customers as a way to “save while supporting the restaurants you love,” a means of financially fueling the many food businesses across the country that now rely solely on delivery and pickup orders, with their dining rooms closed by government orders related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

But Supper for Support savings don’t come from Grubhub, as fine print on the promotion clarifies. The price of the discount falls instead to the restaurants that customers are being asked to assist.

“I also understand and agree that (a) Restaurant will fund the full cost of redeemed Promotions, and (b) Grubhub commissions may be charged on the non-discounted product total rather than the amount paid by the customer,” the promotion agreement clarifies.

“Wow this is fucked up even for Grubhub,” tweeted John deBary, organizer of the Restaurant Workers Community Foundation, a service worker-focused nonprofit.

A Grubhub email to restaurants announcing the Supper for Support program makes clear that they — not Grubhub — will be paying for the discounts, should they opt-in. “We’ll take care of the marketing — you cover the cost of promotions only on the orders you receive,” the email explains. Whether customers know it or not, that’s the usual for such promotions, a Grubhub representative says.

“Grubhub is always looking for ways to increase sales for its independent restaurant partners, especially during these critical and challenging times,” a Grubhub spokesperson tells Eater. “The optional Supper and Support effort does exactly that. In fact, local restaurants that chose to participate in the optional initiative have, on average, seen a more than 20 percent increase in the number of orders they have received as well as overall sales.”

But doing some back of the delivery receipt math, restaurants could lose out on this deal, depending on the average size of the restaurant’s orders, and how much they’ve chosen to pay for their “marketing commission” (essentially the greater percentage of every order that restaurants kick back to GrubHub, the higher they appear in search results).

Assuming an average $60 order and a 20 percent marketing commission, plus 10 percent for the delivery commission — a total 30 percent commission to GrubHub — a restaurant would make roughly $42 on each order, or roughly $420 on 10 orders. Under Supper for Support, the restaurant would still pay 30 percent of $60, but would also eat the $10 promotional cost, bringing their revenue down to $32 per order; assuming a 20 percent bump in sales, the restaurant nets $384 on 12 orders, or less than they would’ve made without the promotion.

That sounds more like restaurants supporting Grubhub than the other way around.

It’s no secret that restaurants have been critical of Grubhub for some time now. In a class action lawsuit filed in January restaurants alleged that Grubhub was charging restaurants extraneous fees for phone calls placed through proxy numbers set up through Grubhub. Later, the company drew criticism for adding restaurants to its platform without their knowledge or consent — a practice that confused restaurants, customers, and delivery couriers alike.

But now that many restaurants depend on third-party delivery systems for their survival, can their relationship be healed? Grubhub has gestured toward good-faith efforts of support, but has yet to deliver substantive assistance. The company announced it would defer collection of up to $100 million in commissions amidst the COVID-19 crisis — but that only applies to marketing commission fees, while fine print terms and conditions include agreeing to keep Grubhub as a delivery service for one year after signing onto the program.

• Supper for Support [Grubhub]

‘There’s Nothing I Wouldn’t Do at This Point’

March 31, 2020 Admin 0 Comments

Grocery, delivery, and other businesses in-demand during the coronavirus pandemic are on hiring sprees, but for laid-off restaurant workers, making the switch isn’t so simple

Angel de la Torre-Miranda has thrived on a career in restaurants. For almost 13 years, he has worked the line as a cook and a sous chef across the San Diego metro area, most recently preparing cheeseburgers and huli huli chicken at the Boardwalk Beach Club in Coronado. He loved the work, and it put food on the table for himself, his girlfriend, and his almost-two-year-old child.

But with the spread of COVID-19, the Boardwalk Beach Club temporarily shuttered in mid-March, and de la Torre-Miranda lost his job. To support his family, this past week he found himself on the other side of the service industry: driving around town for Postmates, delivering bags full of Carl’s Jr. and 7-Eleven orders. “If I don’t work, we don’t eat,” de la Torre-Miranda says, noting that he earned $40 in two-and-a-half hours. “It’s not rent money but it’s the most money I’ve seen in the last two weeks.”

In the middle of what some economists have predicted to be the eve of a recession, restaurants across the country have closed or limited their dining rooms, upsetting the livelihoods of possibly millions of workers. A number of employees are hobbling along with schedule cuts or reduced salaries, but thousands of others are without jobs.

Unemployment benefits and restaurant relief funds will help keep eligible workers financially afloat in the near future, as will the recently-passed $2 trillion stimulus package, which will give unemployed restaurant workers an additional cushion of $600 a week plus one-time stimulus checks of up to $1,200. But with fallout from the coronavirus almost certainly enduring for several months, and retailers hiring en masse to keep up with the spike in customers’ panic-stricken purchases, hospitality veterans are looking beyond bars and restaurants for their next paychecks.

“There’s nothing I wouldn’t do at this point,” says de la Torre-Miranda, who’s applied for positions at grocery stores and medical equipment facilities. “It’s incredibly stressful, because I know what I’m capable of doing in the kitchen.”

The shockwaves from COVID-19 have rippled across the restaurant industry. At least 26 states have banned or restricted dine-in service, and on March 26, the total number of hourly employees going into work at local food-and-drink businesses had dropped by 64 percent compared to the median attendance on the same weekdays in January, according to data from scheduling and time tracking tool Homebase.

But for retail and delivery, business is soaring: shelves where milk, eggs, and seltzer are regularly stocked feature gaping holes; lines at grocery stores sometimes stretch out the door, with customers attempting to maintain the recommended six feet of separation; Instacart app downloads grew by more than 200 percent between February 14 and March 15.

To meet the sudden influx of customer demand, a slew of grocery stores and retailers like Trader Joe’s and Amazon have announced hiring sprees, with some companies making direct efforts to aid restaurant workers. CVS Health, which plans to add over 50,000 workers, is working with the hospitality group Estefan Enterprises in Florida to match up to 300 of its employees with temporary jobs until its hotels and restaurants reopen, a deal facilitated by personal connections between the organizations. Kroger, which has hired more than 23,500 new employees and plans to bring on an additional 20,000, has partnered with the Thunderdome Restaurant Group and Frisch’s to place restaurant workers with jobs in its plants, warehouses, and grocery stores.

Kimberly Yorio, a spokesperson for the grocery chains Kings Food Markets and Balducci’s, says that with daily demand surging exponentially, the companies began a hiring campaign to onboard over 100 full-time and part-time workers, some temporary, at their locations throughout the Northeast. The jobs range from retrieving grocery carts and working the cash registers, to slicing cold cuts at the deli counter. “The largest number of hospitality workers are being displaced right now,” Yorio says. “The grocery industry, on the flip side, has an urgent need to employ people quickly who have skills that are absolutely relevant, and the knowledge of food for all hospitality works is super helpful.”

Echoing other retailers who are recruiting short-term help for the pandemic, job postings on Kings Food Markets and Balducci’s suggest the duration of temporary COVID-19 hires could last a couple of months. However, Yorio notes the possibility for extensions and long-term employment opportunities based on the needs of customers and workers.

But despite the hiring sprees, work isn’t guaranteed for new jobseekers. These days, recently laid-off restaurant workers looking to get a toe in as a grocery bagger or in a warehouse position are potentially competing with millions of newly unemployed. Mariah R.*, a former server-bartender at a Stoney River steakhouse and grill location in Atlanta, Georgia says that after being let go from the restaurant due to the pandemic and applying for several retail positions, she has already been rejected for four different positions at Target. De la Torre-Miranda, who has prior warehouse experience, says that after hearing about companies’ hirings waves, he applied to Walmart, Costco, Target, and Amazon, along with several grocery stores, with few leads as of last week.

But some restaurant workers don’t consider switching to retail a viable option at all. Tim Oliver, who is currently working around eight hours a week as a cook at the taco bar Garage in Binghamton, New York — down from the usual 45 — is holding out for as long as he can before applying for a position at Walmart. His skills and personality, embraced in restaurants, he says, might not be so welcomed in retail. “Everybody’s drawn there for one reason — to make some food for people and they’re happy about it,” he says about working in a kitchen. “To go from the high-pressure job of cooking to stocking shelves, I’m gonna go nuts.”

Jobs like delivering meals or ringing up groceries also put workers on the front lines of the pandemic, sometimes with little protection. George F. *, a career server who lives in Honolulu’s Waikiki neighborhood, says that after being hired for an overnight stocker position at a grocery store, he learned on his first day that several of his new coworkers weren’t sharing his precautionary health measures like wearing a handkerchief or mask and gloves, and that the company wasn’t spraying down the store with cleaning products.

“Offices and break rooms are extremely small with multiple people close together,” he says of his new workplace, adding that it’s a problem “for people to not be using gloves or face masks in those situations.” Still, the former server considers himself lucky to have the job: He now has unionized healthcare and secured employment in an industry vital during the pandemic.

With the sudden jump in the labor market supply, some hospitality workers have been exiting the food and retail worlds altogether, at least temporarily. For over two years, Shawn Ryder poured beer at the beloved local hockey bar Lord Stanley’s and the Annex in DeKalb, Illinois. But when Governor J.B. Pritzker mandated that bars and restaurants across the state shutter to dampen the spread of COVID-19, a Lord Stanley’s regular threw Ryder a lifeline and messaged him about a job opportunity at the plant where he worked.

Instead of chatting with regulars about Blackhawks scores, this past week, the former bartender was learning how to operate heavy machinery to drill holes into plastics and metals as a computer numerically controlled operator. “It was kind of like when I left Ohio and went to California,” Ryder says. “The culture shock — it’s a totally different type of work, a different pace, different way of thinking.”

The total take home pay is roughly $200 less at Ryder’s new job (an amount he used to make in tips), and he hasn’t fully adjusted to the early-hour schedule. But he considers himself lucky to be gainfully employed, unlike many of his former colleagues. “There are definitely worse jobs out there,” he says.

De la Torre-Miranda, the San Diego chef, is hoping for similar fortunes. With another child on the way, the chef estimates that he’s applied to over 50 jobs online, often without reading the job descriptions. Two retail or warehouse jobs plus Postmates delivery work would be ideal for sustaining his family financially, he says.

Like other former restaurant workers, de la Torre-Miranda knows the pandemic will eventually subside, and people will leave their homes to eat out again. But whether he will be back in the kitchen to fire up their entrees when that day comes is a question he doesn’t have an answer to. “I love working with food,” de la Torre-Miranda says. “But it’s so unstable as it is, so when we have something like this happening, and this is the fallout — I don’t know.”

*To safeguard their livelihoods, Eater guaranteed anonymity to any source who requested it.
Matthew Sedacca is a writer living in Brooklyn.

Home Cooks Trapped by Coronavirus Are Flocking to Meal Kits

March 31, 2020 Admin 0 Comments

Blue Apron and HelloFresh have seen surges in demand and investor interest over the last few weeks, as home cooks avoid grocery stores

Heather Kaufman recently took over her parents’ apartment in New York while they ride out the coronavirus pandemic in New Jersey. To stock the fridge, “I had to go to the local grocery store, which has very narrow aisles. It was a little tense,” she says. “It reminded me of avoiding the ghosts in Pac-Man, but with other people.” The options at the store were limited — just some pork and “beef chuck, sirloin steak, and ribeye, which is weird but I guess people are still watching their cholesterol,” she jokes. So she signed up for an account with Blue Apron, one of a number of meal kit delivery services that predate the novel coronavirus outbreak, but which seem particularly suited to a customer base wary of grocery runs. Kaufman cooked her first meal and says she loved it.

Until recently, services like Blue Apron and HelloFresh provided guidance to novice home cooks or just simple convenience to everyone else — but the industry has historically had trouble maintaining customers. During the crisis, though, the services have taken on renewed significance for customers staying at home to follow social-distancing recommendations or shelter-in-place orders. What was once a perk of the direct-to-consumer lifestyle has become a lifeline for those avoiding grocery stores, and a chance to learn a new recipe or practice an old skill in the kitchen. “We believe home cooking is an opportunity to find some comfort and joy in this rather uncertain time,” a representative for Blue Apron tells Eater.

Bridget Halenar / Optimistic Kitchen

Blue Apron and HelloFresh both witnessed surges in demand in recent weeks, and investors took notice immediately. On March 18, while markets fell so fast they triggered circuit breakers, Blue Apron shares were up 140 percent in midday trading. Meanwhile, according to Google Finance, HelloFresh’s stock price was also on the rise, from $20 on March 16 to $26.50 two days later, before continuing on to nearly $30 by March 25. While HelloFresh’s stock price has been consistently rising since late 2019, the increased business is especially good news for Blue Apron. After a rocky IPO in 2017, Blue Apron’s stock declined from $10 per share down to under a dollar in December 2018. According to a representative, Blue Apron is capitalizing on renewed consumer interest with a bevy of social media engagement opportunities, including instructional videos on cooking with pantry staples, a Q&A with head chef John Adler, a primer on throwing a virtual pizza party for kids, and digital wine tastings.

For many, meal kits serve as part of a larger diet, accounting for just a few meals each week. Even when they don’t entirely obviate the need for groceries, they can still help reduce reliance on overburdened, overpopulated grocery stores. Curt Abercrombie, a compliance analyst in Spring Valley, Nevada, and a new customer for health-minded Sun Basket, says meal kits help him do his part to maintain social distance. “I signed up recently because of the high demand at the grocery stores. I try to eat healthy, and I was having trouble putting healthy meals together with what was left on the shelves,” he says. While he’s not too fearful personally about infection, he adds, “I figure with Sun Basket, it will save me one to two trips a week. I’m trying to help flatten the curve.”

When Saqi Mehta, a global recruiting diversity lead at Cloudera in San Francisco, signed up for Blue Apron, the novel coronavirus didn’t yet concern her, but she says she appreciates the variety of meals and fresh ingredients now more than ever. Still, she remains careful with deliveries, explaining, “I’m trying to wait an hour before taking anything out if I can, using gloves and wipes, and throwing away the box as soon as possible.”

Mehta has used Blue Apron on and off, canceling past memberships because she just “couldn’t get into it.” Extra time at home, though, has helped her stick to the routine. Meal kits now represent a quarter of meals for her and her husband.

Kaufman, who tried the service for a week in 2018 while studying for the bar exam, echoes that sentiment, adding, “What better time to try it than right now? I’m in an apartment by myself and my boyfriend is on the other side of the city. There’s only so much FaceTime you can do to occupy your time. TV is great, but at some point even TV gets old and boring.” One of her friends has taken up embroidery, she says, but she’s decided to use her time indoors to improve her cooking skills, which before this were limited to boiling water and microwaving.

Cost has long been a barrier to entry to meal kits for many customers. Blue Apron, for instance, starts at $9.99 per portion, with a minimum of four portions (two meals for two people) per week. For a family of four, the weekly cost quickly mounts to hundreds of dollars.

Mehta is accustomed to high prices for delivery in San Francisco, so pricey meal kits don’t worry her. She even feels it’s worth it to spring for Blue Apron’s premium meals, which bump up the price by $10 per portion, but give customers higher-end options, like chicken wrapped in prosciutto with sage.

Bridget Halenar / Optimistic Kitchen

The grocery math doesn’t add up for everyone, though. Bridget Halenar, food photographer, blogger, and creator of Optimistic Kitchen, lives in Chester County, Pennsylvania, where Gov. Tom Wolf has issued a stay-at-home order. While the order doesn’t prevent her from going out to buy essential goods, she signed up for HelloFresh (one of a number of meal kits she intends to try out for an ongoing project). As a regular cook, Halenar says, “The cost is quite a bit more than I’m used to paying to feed my family and still have the cooking and dishes to do. … Budget-wise it only really helps if it keeps you from eating out.” Still, she has to admit the kits have benefits. “It gives me a break from a couple of meals per week [because] I can have my husband and son make dinner ... the kit has everything they need and they can handle it on their own while I walk the dogs, or [do] yoga, or have some tub time.”

Rachel Duncan, a receptionist in the Scottish Borders, is another recent HelloFresh customer, but she doesn’t intend to remain one permanently. She lives with a partner and her two daughters, and she says she can’t afford meal kits all the time. Duncan picked up a HelloFresh discount code from a friend, which dropped the price on her first box of food, and then shared her own code on Instagram, which netted her another 80 pounds to put toward future deliveries. “I will keep using HelloFresh until my credit runs out, because at full price it does not make financial sense to us,” she says. “I also did this up until last week with a Gousto subscription.”

Other customers have complained about supply. The sudden spike in demand has caused shortfalls in supply chains for a number of companies. On the r/mealkits subreddit, customers of several companies share stories about last-minute meal switches, missing ingredients, delayed deliveries, and reduced selection.

A representative for HelloFresh tells Eater there have been “no major disruptions” to service and that the team is working with suppliers to keep it that way. A Blue Apron representative shared a similar statement, saying the company made substitutions in a small portion of boxes last week and “expects to meet increased demand by the next available weekly cycle, starting on 3/30.” The company is bringing on more help, hoping to hire workers who have lost jobs in the hospitality industry.

Mehta and Kaufman didn’t experience much supply disruption, and both appreciated Blue Apron’s transparent messaging about the situation. They both said they would consider continuing their subscriptions after the pandemic subsides, especially since social distancing helped cement their habit of cooking with meal kits.

It’s unclear whether other customers will stick with them, and the unlikely boon from the novel coronavirus may prove short lived for the meal kit industry. “I think I would pay full price these few weeks if I had to, but not when things are back to normal and I’m able to source things myself and for less money,” Duncan says. “When this is over I’ll use my HelloFresh and Gousto recipe cards, and shop myself.”

Why Even Meals?

March 31, 2020 Admin 0 Comments

You could take this time to make yourself elaborate dinners from scratch. Or you could treat every meal like after-school snack.

In 2010, The Awl asked a question that has haunted me for a decade: Are You Lunch? In it, Choire Sicha ruminated on a fundamental experience of anyone who has worked from home, rummaging through one’s fridge and cabinets to cobble together a plate that’ll tide you over without too much effort. A few things presented themselves to him as lunch: leftover Raisin Bran, a handful of Maltesers, some cornichon. It was all lunch. Because what even is lunch?

The blog was supposed to point out the often depressing reality of working from home, of the way we’ll let our lives deteriorate when there’s no one else to each lunch in front of. But there’s part of me that finds the Lunch Game incredibly freeing. You may think you need to keep up appearances, whether for your Instagram or for your own sanity. But meals are a social construct. It’s time to embrace chaos.

We already knew that, as adults, we could eat whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted. Having to commute into an office never necessitated cereal and fruit as solely a breakfast food, and ice cream for dinner without anyone yelling at you certainly makes up for having to pay rent. But something about orders to avoid human contact, to spend maybe more time than you ever have in your own home, has further broken down these mental barriers about what a meal should be. For many, meal times have shifted from whenever they are “officially” designated to whenever you start feeling hungry.

Personally, I have also begun to reject the notion of “meals” altogether. Right now, I could make myself a hearty lunch out of the eggs or frozen dumplings in my fridge. I could easily throw together Marcella Hazan’s tomato butter sauce, or another batch of dal and roti. I could consult my Instagram, or this very website, for tips on making a sourdough starter, or shaping cinnamon rolls, or making a dutch baby (why is everyone making dutch babies??). But as much as rolling out dough and watching it rise can be a balm, it is also a chore. And you know what’s not a chore? String cheese.

Let me make the case, instead, for snacks. Snacking has been co-opted by the wellness crowd, twisted into “intuitive eating” and “grazing” and bled of all joy. But getting through orders to avoid human contact means embracing all the things that working from home allows, which includes snacking with abandon. Lunch can now be a rice cake with peanut butter, a piece of chocolate, and a clementine. Breakfast is four bites of leftover fried rice eaten at 11 a.m., and dinner is the rest eaten at 4. Every meal in one day can be pasta and butter if you want. Everything is after-school snack, a pure treat instead of a meal haunted by the specter of “should.”

It’s not like mealtimes, or meals themselves, were ever uniformly rigid. In plenty of ancient cultures people ate one huge meal in the middle of the day, and in many countries, lunch is still the biggest, longest meal, and breakfast essentially a snack of a cookie and coffee. The Industrial Revolution standardized breakfast, with workers needing a meal to sustain them at work. And growing up, my Southern grandma would make Sunday supper at 4 p.m. Meals are defined by the needs of the societies they exist in. And right now, the most prevalent society you’re engaging with is in your living room, so you have some permission to chill.

Still, I understand the urge to turn to the structure of full meals at “traditional” mealtimes during a time when we can’t even know what life will look like a week from now. And I could never judge soothing one’s anxiety with elaborate recipes and baking projects, taking two days to properly laminate croissant dough or spending an entire afternoon rolling out pasta, or setting the table for dinner at 7 p.m. and having your partner pretend to be a server by pouring you a little taste of wine and repeatedly asking “and how is everything?” (yes, I’ve done this).

But there’s something to be said for not acting like these are normal times, and for allowing one’s comfort food to not look like something out of Food & Wine magazine. Perhaps maintaining a sourdough starter is what truly relaxes you. But perhaps it’s actually being released from the obligation to do anything. Doing the bare minimum of feeding yourself with baby carrots and packaged hummus is enough.

Your croissants will likely never taste like the ones at your favorite pastry shop, but a Babybel cheese and an apple will always be there for you, at any time of day. Your leftover cacio e pepe will taste as good at 9 a.m. as it does at dinner. Now, more than ever, there is nobody to impress. Free yourself and eat some crackers.

What You Need to Make Your Kitchen a Better Place to Cook

March 31, 2020 Admin 0 Comments

The tools and products that take your home cooking set-up to the next level

Now that you’re spending more time in your kitchen than you can ever remember, it’s time to set yourself up to make the most of it. It’s not just about efficient organization or acquiring the most top-of-the-line version of things, you also want to think about dependable tools to make cooking easier, and what’s worth splurging on to make being in your kitchen more physically comfortable, too. (I’ve got my eye on a kitchen mat, see below.)

You probably (probably??) already have the basics covered. A knife — or better yet, three. A saucepan, a stock pot, and a skillet. A sheet pan. A cutting board. Consider this list your guide to some subtle upgrades: aka the products that make your kitchen a way better place to be. — Hillary Dixler Canavan

A Grade-A Frying Pan

Eater recommends: All-Clad Fry Pan

“The pan achieves its purpose beautifully. Because of its heavy composition, it retains heat evenly; because it’s made of aluminum and steel, it can go straight from the stove into the oven. Its curved walls let you toss food easily, if you so choose. You can probably flip an omelet in it, though I haven’t tried, because I prefer my eggs scrambled — which it does very well, especially when you use both butter and olive oil. And I’ve been told it will last forever, or at least much longer than the lifespan of our family’s early-2000s nonstick set, which began flaking its coating around year three. It’s humble, but high-quality, something you might find in a fine dining kitchen; regular restaurants probably have something more like these.” — Emma Alpern

A Top-Notch Chef’s Knife

Eater recommends: Long Chef’s Knife

“Designed by Fumie Shibata, its ergonomic, fish-like shape is both chic and functional, making for smooth cutting in almost every instance. (My personal favorite: slicing onions, which this knife does with a strange, precise intuition.)

It’s crafted from two different types of steel, but my favorite part is really the wooden handle, which isn’t made of just any old wood. The chestnut wood is meticulously worked through a charcoaling process that ensures it’s water resistant and antibacterial. In other words, this knife isn’t just made to look pretty; it’s built to cut through anything and last through decades of repeated use.

Which, if you’re like me and exceedingly lazy, makes it a one-time purchase that’s well worth it. There are countless Japanese knives out there, and just as many divergent opinions on which is the best. But for the beginner looking for something beautiful, think of this streamlined Japanese knife as an investment — an investment in your future, living out your professional chef dreams.” — Fariha Róisín

A Comfy Foot Mat

Eater recommends: GelPro Mat

“From the moment I plunked it down on the kitchen floor, its pretty blue blossom pattern livening up the off-white tile, I’ve been itching to stand at my butcher block and chop onion after onion… then pull the mat over to the stovetop and caramelize those onions for hours. (Do I need a second mat?)

The feel of it is so satisfying that I’ll often stand on it for a few minutes even when I’m not cooking...That comfort has given me more focus and patience in the kitchen; maybe I’ll even start chopping faster.” — Rachel Leah Blumenthal

A Good-Enough Knife Sharpener

Eater recommends: Wüsthof 4-Stage Handheld Knife Sharpener

“There are hundreds (thousands?) of online guides to knife-sharpening techniques and products. There are experts who proselytize whetstones; hobbyists who are down with cheaper gadgets, like the SunrisePro or the AccuSharp; some who say electric sharpeners are the way to go, and others who eschew electric altogether. Honestly, there’s so much knife sharpening content out there (which we at Eater have contributed to!!) that when I sent my husband on an internet mission to figure out the best way to service my beloved Wüsthof, he came back empty-handed, frustrated, and resigned to take it to a professional in our neighborhood, passing the buck (literally) to someone else.

Luckily, before he did, we received a belated gift from our wedding registry: the Wüsthof 4-Stage Handheld Knife Sharpener, which I had thrown on there without much thought months ago. It turns out that it works just fine. I don’t know conclusively if it’s The Best, but with a knife that cuts like a dream again, fine feels good enough.” — Ellie Krupnick

A Reliable Rice Cooker

Eater recommends: Zojirushi Neuro Fuzzy Rice Cooker

“The fuzzy logic system, which allows the cooker to make small adjustments based on moisture and other variables, makes extremely good white rice of all kinds, especially sushi rice. The brown rice setting makes rice a bit too wet for my preferences, but this Healthyish method of cooking brown rice on the white rice setting, which better suits American tastes, works great.

What I really adore about this rice cooker, however, is the porridge setting. If I have an excess of chicken stock, I’ll make a golden, rich congee; if I’m making meatballs, I’ll make big batches of a cheater polenta. And most mornings in the winter start with a creamy oatmeal cooked on the porridge setting.” — Meghan McCarron

Bonus: A Fun Tablecloth

Eater recommends: Bloom Oilcloth Tablecloth

“So much of restaurant design doesn’t make sense outside of restaurants: No one (I would think) is going to install a booth tree, 2020’s first major design trend, in their dining room. Sure, certain design trends, like the current tendency towards maximalist walls, are meant to be aspirational — but isn’t nice when you can exactly replicate the thing that makes a restaurant dining room so inviting? Consider the oilcloth tablecloth.” — Monica Burton

Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These do not influence editorial content, though Vox Media may earn commissions for products purchased via affiliate links. For more information, see our ethics policy.

This Is What Alinea’s $35 To-Go Meal Looks Like

March 31, 2020 Admin 0 Comments

Sadly there are no edible balloons in sight from Grant Achatz’s carryout operation

This José Andrés Prayer Candle Sold Out on Etsy in Just 5 Hours

March 31, 2020 Admin 0 Comments

A local maker says she’ll donate about $1,500 in profits to World Central Kitchen

The Private Chefs Risking Their Lives to Feed the Super Rich

March 31, 2020 Admin 0 Comments

For private chefs, coronavirus has forced difficult conversations with their wealthy clients

Everyone’s a little stir-crazy these days, even inside the sprawling Southern California mansion where Catarina* works as a private chef. The family she’s exclusively cooked for during the last eight years canceled their vacation last week, and now they’re practicing social isolation — at least, as far as they’re concerned. “The only people who are coming and going are myself, the housekeeper, the house manager, the dog walker, the dog trainer, and themselves,” she says, “because they’re going to the office, supposedly with no one else there.”

Caterina’s clients have rich-people blinders on when it comes to their own staff, she says, which is putting everyone in the house at risk. She’s doing her best to mitigate it: She wears gloves when she’s cooking in their kitchen. She maintains six feet of social distance. But the family fails to realize that an offhand request for omelets for breakfast can send her to grocery store after grocery store in search of a stocked egg case. If anyone’s going to be Coronavirus Mary, it’s her.

Like Caterina, Ashok* has been working on salary for a wealthy Arizona family for years, cooking soigne meals and catering parties at their house. When the state’s stay-in-place orders first came out his employers let him stay home, and he used the time to take on side clients for people in lower-income brackets: “less fancy things for people who just need food on the table,” he describes via text. He also started picking up extra food and cooking through the night to deliver free meals to older people in his community.

But the situation blew up last week when, coronavirus be damned, the wife of the couple he usually cooks for was determined to host a party for two dozen people. Ashok had to shut it down. “I told her there was no way to prepare the menu because I just cannot get a hold of the food supplies,” he explained on a chef-oriented Reddit thread. “Also told her I would not force my helpers — bartender, sous, servers, etc. — to come in during this time. I don’t want to lose my job, but it’s stupidly irresponsible of me to be going shopping on a near daily basis right now as well.”

The family agreed. In fact, he negotiated three paid weeks off, after which time he will deliver meals to them without making personal contact. It’s a good thing — in the last few days he started feeling feverish. He hopes it’s exhaustion. Now he’s at home, waiting out the symptoms, asking friends to take over the volunteer cooking he was doing on the side for other elderly neighbors.

Like delivery drivers and grocery store clerks, personal chefs who make a living cooking in other peoples’ homes are being asked to put their bodies on the line each day. But for what greater good? Some are comfortable with the extra safety steps they’re taking. Others aren’t sure they can afford to turn down the work. Most know that, in the face of blithe ignorance, it’s up to them to keep themselves and their clients safe. Even the employers who claim to be diligent about social distancing seem to think their kitchen is some kind of immunity bubble and that their chefs conjure up ingredients in a virus-free poof of smoke.

According to the U.S. Personal Chef Association, there are an estimated 9,000 private chefs working in the U.S. today. Association president Larry Lynch says 90 percent of the group’s 1,000 registered members cook meals in clients’ homes rather than in the relative safety of a rented commercial kitchen. That doesn’t count the untold number of private chefs like Catarina, under contract to a single wealthy family, or gig workers who book home-based dinner parties through popular online services such as MyTable, TakeAChef, Cozymeal, and Table At Home.

Many of these larger booking companies are operating like it’s business as usual. According to a March 19 email sent to participating chefs, Table at Home did relax its reservation policies and told chefs that canceling jobs wouldn’t count against their ranking, but at the same time, the company reassured them, “We will continue to try to drive requests on our platform using our marketing and promotional campaigns. If you are still interested in working, please propose on as many opportunities as you can.”

Another service, MyChef, is using the epidemic as a recruiting tool. On March 25, it placed an advertisement on the Boston job boards: “Are you out of work due to COVID-19?” it begins. “Would you like to still advance your career by creating your own culinary business?” The ad specifies, in fact, that its service brings cooks to clients’ homes, with no mention of ensuring their safety. (At the time this article was published, Massachusetts had not issued a stay-in-place order.)

Restaurants, too, have been asked to take on private cooking gigs — but they’re largely turning them down, not just because state and city stay-at-home orders only allow pickup or delivery. Taking their equipment over to an apartment that might be contaminated? Cleaning clients’ uneaten food off their dishes? One infection among the staff could be the death blow for an ailing business. But the situation is a little more fraught for personal chefs, many of whom operate as independent contractors or small businesses.

While Lynch says that some of his members have seen demand for prepared meals rise, that’s not the case for Grace*, a personal chef in the Washington, D.C., area. Grace has hung on to two meal-delivery clients, but others have canceled after losing their own jobs. “I’m empathetic because I understand if all you can afford is to go to the grocery. But then I don’t have a client.” She makes a good chunk of her income cooking private meals. One dinner in mid-March paid enough to cover her bills for the month. Nothing is on the books for April. She’s looking into a Small Business Association loan to carry her over until the work picks back up again.

DeWayne*, who normally spends his evenings cooking for small parties, has taken on grocery shopping for housebound clients to make up at least some of the income he’s short. Desperate to protect his 2-year-old daughter and her immunocompromised mother, he’s staying out of other people’s homes altogether for now. But the pandemic hasn’t stopped potential customers from asking. Some people, upset they can’t go out to their favorite place, have even directed him to the restaurant’s menu and asked him to recreate it. Not wanting to burn a potential future gig, he usually saves the lecture and just tells them he’s already booked. Another chef probably said yes.

Even though most state and municipal orders only consider restaurant takeout and food delivery to be essential services, Lynch of the Personal Chef Association believes that the work of providing nutritious meals to families in this crisis time fits the definition of an essential service, too. He’s working with lawyers to draft language making the case. One personal chef Eater spoke to said his wealthy client floated the “essential services” line past him — if he stopped working, the family would be stuck ordering takeout! — but he turned them down, essentially putting himself out of work.

In webinar after webinar, Lynch is sharing the latest information about contamination from the FDA, CDC, and EPA. Their safety guidelines suggest that cooked food itself won’t transmit the virus. That said, Lynch advises personal chefs to take many extra precautions. “You have to ask the right questions of clients and make it really clear: If you decide to engage, you’ll keep social distance,” he tells them. “You’ll be sanitizing every surface, including doorknobs. They’re to stay out of the kitchen. If you’re going to serve something, put it in the fridge and move out, sanitizing on the way out.”

Bill*, who has cooked for a family of Midwestern billionaires for many years, said that these added safety measures are just an extreme form of the social distancing that he already practices with his clients, and he’s fine with it. (“It’s not a Downton Abbey kind of thing, but I respect their privacy,” he jokes.) When they’re not traveling together to one of the clients’ coastal homes, he has begun cooking meals in his own kitchen and biking or driving the food over. He now puts on gloves once he enters the house and leaves dinner in the fridge, organizing it into plastic tubs with instructions on how to heat and assemble them.

But if it’s the coming-and-going and related exposure that’s the real concern, there’s one solution that a number of rich families have proposed to their chefs: Move in. DeWayne received one offer that sounded tempting at first: Full-time work at well above his $500-a-day rate. There was a catch, though. “You can’t go home at night,” the client told him. “We need you to be here so we’re all sheltering in place together.”

Catarina’s bosses have also suggested she self-quarantine in their home. She’s been close to the family for years, but for the moment, she is holding them off, smiling away the occasional snippy comment that she doesn’t have to be there if she doesn’t want to. “I’m concerned that I might have it as an asymptomatic carrier,” is what she tells them. “You don’t want me moving in.”

*To safeguard their livelihoods, Eater guaranteed anonymity to any source who requested it.

Jonathan Kauffman is a Beard Award-winning writer based in Portland, Oregon, and the author of 2018’s Hippie Food: How Back-to-the-Landers, Longhairs and Revolutionaries Changed the Way We Eat.

Carolyn Figel is a freelance artist living in Brooklyn.

‘They Were Obviously Not Talking to Restaurants,’ U.S. Rep. Maloney Says After Owners Slam Stimulus

March 30, 2020 Admin 0 Comments

New York City restaurateurs called for more grants, fewer loans, and rent relief during the virtual town hall

Food Service Workers: Eater Wants to Know How the Coronavirus Pandemic Has Affected You

March 30, 2020 Admin 0 Comments

From line cooks to bartenders to grocery store cashiers, we want to hear how COVID-19 has impacted your job and where you work

The COVID-19 pandemic has hit the restaurant industry like a hurricane. Millions of workers have lost their jobs, while many more have been asked to work in unsafe conditions, and the federal stimulus package falls miles short of what independent restaurants need to survive. The National Restaurant Association estimates a $225 billion loss for the industry.

Food service has always been a precarious industry, between the typical lack of health care, and the reality that many servers, line cooks, and bartenders work at multiple establishments, and live paycheck to paycheck. If you’re a food service worker who’s been affected by COVID-19, we want to hear your story. Are you getting the support you need from your employer? Have you been laid off? Is the food industry in your community fighting for protective legislation? Are you keeping up with your skills at home? Whatever you’re going through, we want to hear about it.

Paying Restaurants to Feed the Needy

March 30, 2020 Admin 0 Comments

From the Editor: Everything you missed in food news last week

This post originally appeared on March 28, 2020 in Amanda Kludt’s newsletter “From the Editor,” a roundup of the most vital news and stories in the food world each week. Read the archives and subscribe now.

Last week, I mentioned a lot of the ways restaurant owners and workers were coming together to help one another and their communities. There’s one kind of story in this genre that’s worth singling out: deep (or just generous) pockets employing restaurants to feed people in need.

In Cambridge, Massachusetts, the city contracted a handful of restaurants to deliver 2,000 meals to nine homeless shelters as part of a pilot program. If the program is successful, they’ll expand it with more restaurants and more shelters. In San Francisco, Twitch CEO Emmett Shear donated $1 million to start a new nonprofit called the SF New Deal that will connect restaurants with hospitals, churches, and other organizations, paying them to serve meals to people in need. Maker’s Mark is supporting 12 community kitchens across the country through chef Ed Lee’s Lee Initiative, in order to provide hot meals and supplies to out-of-work restaurant workers.

Meanwhile, along the same lines, in an op-ed this week chef José Andrés called for a government program similar to the W.P.A. during the Great Depression’s New Deal that would commit public dollars to employ restaurants to feed the hungry: “Only those of us who work in restaurants can help revive the economy while feeding and building our communities at the same time. Restaurants were shut down by our governments; they can be revived by our governments to serve the people in their hour of greatest need.”

While the ad hoc collection of donations and delivery of meals to those in need via the myriad Venmos and GoFundMes is heartwarming to see, I love seeing the efficiency of deploying aid en masse while keeping restaurant workers employed. I’m curious to see if this spreads to other local governments and established or new charities as this crisis deepens.

Gary He/Eater

• Groundbreaking chef Floyd Cardoz died of COVID-19, and the restaurant world mourned him; the Cheesecake Factory told all of its landlords it won’t be able to make rent in April; Yelp and GoFundMe set up fundraising pages for restaurants without asking them; suppliers are jacking up egg prices; 418 Waffle Houses are closed because of the coronavirus; influencers are still asking for free food; the police had to intervene at upscale Manhattan restaurant Carbone twice because of bad crowd control in its takeout line; LA’s Sugarfish pledged to keep all 600 of its workers; restaurateurs are calling out Yelpers for writing negative reviews in a time of crisis; wholesale food distributors are going retail; restaurants are becoming wine stores; food trucks are pivoting to parking outside grocery stores and pharmacies instead of office buildings; and chefs and bartenders are livstreaming classes.
• How the stimulus bill will and won’t help restaurant workers and small-business owners.
• How COVID-19 has impacted the restaurant world, the charts. Meanwhile, here’s what unemployment looks like in Seattle.
• A photo tour of what it looks like across Austin right now.
• Here are some new cookbooks you should collect for your self-quarantine.
• What it’s like to dine right now in China, where the worst of the COVID 19 outbreak is over.
• How food scenes around the world are coping amid coronavirus.
• Fuck it, just make birthday cake whenever you want now.

This week on the podcast

Daniel and I discuss the current state of the industry, including the stimulus package, fundraising, Floyd Cardoz, and more. Then we talk to Dan Giusti of Brigade about what it’s like to provide free meals for schoolkids in this moment.

Off Eater

• Trailing a food courier as he braves the streets and germs of Manhattan. [TNY]
• A poignant and terrifying account of caring for a loved one suffering from COVID-19. [NYTMag]
• Good first-person reads: an undocumented restaurant owner and a produce trucker on their fears and anxieties in this time. [Grub Street; The Counter]
• How Bon Appetit is shifting its YouTube stars to filming and producing from home, ancilliary characters (spouses, pets, kids) and all. [Vulture]

Your Coronavirus Grocery Questions, Answered

March 30, 2020 Admin 0 Comments

Laid-Off Service Industry Pros Are Selling Nudes to Raise Cash for Their Coworkers

March 30, 2020 Admin 0 Comments

The initiative, dubbed Nudes for Industry Babes and Dudes, is set to launch this week in Dallas

Guy Fieri Heads Coronavirus Relief Fund by an Organization That Fights Paid Sick Leave for Restaurant Workers

March 30, 2020 Admin 0 Comments

The National Restaurant Association is trumpeting a $500 check program for out-of-work restaurant staff, but it has a long history of fighting pay improvements

Even Pigs Need to Eat During the Coronavirus Pandemic

March 30, 2020 Admin 0 Comments

Las Vegas Livestock relied on scraps from Strip hotels. Now it’s finding new ways to feed its 4,000 pigs.

Whole Foods Workers Call for ‘Sick Out’ on March 31

March 30, 2020 Admin 0 Comments

Workers are calling on Amazon to provide workers with better benefits, as they have “put [their] lives at risk”

Across the country, grocery stores have been deemed one of the few “essential” businesses allowed to remain open. Which means that essential grocery workers are at particular risk of being exposed to COVID-19. Some grocery chains have taken it upon themselves to change their paid sick leave policies, while workers at Trader Joe’s have petitioned for better benefits and hazard pay. But now, workers at Whole Foods are calling for a “sick out” on March 31, demanding the resources and benefits “to do [their] jobs safely.”

Whole Worker is a group of Whole Foods team members who are not officially unionized, given Amazon’s (Whole Foods’s parent company) long history of union busting. In a petition, they call on all Whole Foods employees to not go to work on March 31, and note that “Whole Foods has temporarily relaxed its strict attendance policy, which means that team members can participate in this act of protest without fear of reprisal.” They are staging the “sick out” in response to the lack of protections they feel management has given them, which put both workers and customers at risk.

Demands include guaranteed paid leave, reinstatement of health care for part-time and seasonal workers, hazard pay, and the immediate shut down of any Whole Foods location where a worker tests positive for COVID-19. “Amazon and its subsidiary Whole Foods dared to keep open an Amazon warehouse and two Whole Foods stores where employees tested positive for COVID-19,” the group writes. “We must prioritize the health of our workers over short-term financial gain.”

Whole Foods had already announced that any employees “diagnosed with COVID-19 or placed into quarantine will receive up to two weeks of pay,” and Amazon contributed $1.6 million to a Team Member Emergency Fund. Employees also have “unlimited call outs,” and are receiving extra pay through April. However, the company has also come under fire for encouraging employees to “donate” their PTO to each other when Amazon’s CEO, Jeff Bezos, is literally the richest person in the world, and could easily cover those expenses. Whole Worker says their “fundamental needs” are still not being met by the company’s new policies, which have been put in place piecemeal over the past few weeks. We’ve reached out to Whole Worker for more specifics about their goals.

Whole Foods employees are not the only food service workers who feel the need to resort to a strike to have their needs met. Today, Instacart workers have planned a nationwide strike over the lack of paid sick leave and hazard pay, and in all likelihood due to that threat, Instacart has caved to some but not all of their demands. And Amazon workers at a warehouse in Staten Island are planning a walk out, after Amazon decided to keep the warehouse open after a worker tested positive for COVID-19.

It is strange, to say the least, that a grocery store is now a place where two of our greatest needs are at odds with each other — the need to stay safe by keeping away from people, and the need to eat. A strike or sick out holds extra weight now. But the people handling food and delivering it to your door need protections, and it’s clear corporations, unless pushed, are only willing to give a minimum to keep workers and customers safe. After all, sick food workers usually didn’t have access to sick leave two months ago. It shouldn’t take a pandemic to get permission to stay home if you have a fever.

World’s 50 Best Restaurants 2020: News, winners, and updates

March 30, 2020 Admin 0 Comments

Everything you need to know

Ordinarily, the organization behind the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list would be gearing up to announce the winners of its 2020 restaurant rankings. However, in light of the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the restaurant industry worldwide, there will be no list this year.

The World’s 50 Best Restaurants awards ceremony, originally planned for June 2 in Antwerp, Belgium will be postponed until 2021, at the earliest. And although World’s 50 Best went ahead with an online announcement for Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants — with Odette in Singapore taking the No. 1 spot for the second year — it is now shifting its focus to “supporting, connecting and uniting the global gastronomic community” through other initiatives.

From the Strategist: The 8 Spices a New York City Chef Uses to Zhuzh Up Basic Meals

March 30, 2020 Admin 0 Comments

Dimes chef Alissa Wagner’s go-to pantry staples, from the Strategist

In navigating our strange, new world, many of us have taken up cooking — both as a necessity and a way to stay busy and feel productive in a moment when it’s easy to feel anxious and restless. At the very least, we’re all making ourselves a lot more food, with a lot less ingredients. We reached out to Alissa Wagner, the co-owner of beloved Chinatown restaurant Dimes (which has grown to include a deli that sells both upstate New York–made muesli and food-grade perfume, and a cookbook called Emotional Eating) to ask what spices, sauces, and pastes she uses to brighten up the blandest of meals.

Canaan Za’atar

One of Wagner’s favorite things to work with is za’atar, which she says “can be sprinkled on basically anything,” although her favorite way to use it is on roasted vegetables. Her most-used za’tar spice blend (which is stocked at Dimes Market) is from Canaan Palestine, and contains a mix of dried oregano, roasted sesame seeds, and sumac. “It gives anything you put it on a nice, citrusy, zesty flavor,” she says.

Kalustyan’s Aleppo Pepper Flakes

Chile flakes are a staple for spice connoisseurs, whether they’re being sprinkled into a chili or dumped on a cheesy slice of pizza. Alissa always opts for Aleppo chile flakes, which she says are a finer consistency and less chewy. “They melt into the food a little better,” she says, “and also give a nice heat without being overpowering.” Aleppo flakes are good for all sorts of beans and legumes, says Alissa, especially with a little lemon juice and olive oil to round it out.

Burlap and Barrel Sweet Pepper Paprika

“Paprika is a great, basic spice,” says Alissa, “my favorite way to use it is on roasted mushrooms.” It also works well with vegetables and meats, she says. As for her favorite paprika, she likes Burlap and Barrel, which sells locally grown, single-origin spices. The brand currently stocks two types of paprika — smoked pimentón and sweet pepper, the former offering a smoky sweetness, and the latter giving dishes a sweet pepper taste without the heat.

Turmeric Powder and Ginger Powder

“It’s important for people to take good care of themselves right now, so turmeric and ginger are great things to incorporate because it gives your body an extra boost of antioxidants,” she says. She likes to add both spices to soups, savory porridges and juices in particular: “I’m doing a juice right now that’s carrot, lemon, ginger, and turmeric.”

Daphnis and Chloe Fragrant Fennel Seeds

Popular in mediterranean dishes, Alissa uses fennel seeds to add flavor to sauces and grains. “I always put toasted fennel seeds into my tomato sauce,” she says, “it gives it another layer of flavor that’s kind of nutty and unexpected.” When it comes to fennel seed, toasted is the only way to go, says Alissa, noting that they taste the best dry-toasted, and are easy to mix into a sauce or grain. She’s partial to fennel seeds from Daphnis and Chloe, which have a fragrant nutty-sweet flavor, and are sourced in the northern region of central Greece.

Xilli Salsa Macha

This salsa, which Alissa uses as an oil, is made with slow-fried chipotle peppers and toasted peanuts in a smoky chili oil. “I put it on literally everything,” she says, because it elevates even the blandest dish. “If you have a simple fried rice dish, this immediately gives it another level of texture and heat,” she says. She also likes to use it on fish and meat, and even adds it to hummus.

Thai and True Pad Thai Tamari Sauce

Another must-have for Alissa is this pad thai tamari sauce, which is versatile enough to use as both a marinade and a dressing. “It’s a simple tamari but has an extra boost of saltiness to it,” says Alissa, who likes it for roasting vegetables and marinating tofu: “When you marinate tofu in it, it gives it a nice caramelization,” she says.

Mama O’s Super Spicy Kimchi Paste

Alissa is also a fan of this versatile kimchi paste which comes in three different varieties: original, vegan, and super spicy. She likes to use this as a sauce by thinning it out with water and adding it to stir fry’s.

Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These do not influence editorial content, though Vox Media may earn commissions for products purchased via affiliate links. For more information, see our ethics policy.