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For All Its Whimsy, ‘Crazy Delicious’ Can’t Escape Reality

June 30, 2020 Admin 0 Comments

Channel 4/Netflix

A fantastical setting and famous “Food Gods” Carla Hall and Heston Blumenthal only underline how conventional this Netflix effort is

Strawberry cheesecake chicken wings. Prosecco waterfalls and cheese growing on trees. Chef Heston Blumenthal descending in a thunderclap, wearing a tight white suit. It’s not a lucid dream diary: it’s the newest cooking show on Netflix, Crazy Delicious, wherein three contestants compete in three rounds, taking ingredients and inspiration from a Willy Wonka-like garden where nearly everything is edible. The first round is based on a hero ingredient like a strawberry or tomato, the second is a reinvention of a classic, and the third is a showstopper, with inspiration ranging from brunch to barbecue.

No mere panel of mortals will judge such a show. Enter the “Food Gods” — made up of Blumenthal, Top Chef legend Carla Hall, and “Michelin-starred chef” Niklas Ekstedt. Dressed in their pristine white costumes and accompanied by ominous music, the trio might be set up as transcendent, but their actual job is that of the classic food show judge: offer some opinions, throw some concerned looks, and dish out zingy one-liners. (When a contestant tells Hall, that their dish is made with love, Hall replies, “Well, [love] doesn’t have salt, unless you’re crying, honey.”) Host Jayde Adams, meanwhile, adds a decidedly dry British slant to the show’s proceedings, despite the show trying to turn her into a Lewis Carroll character.

While Crazy Delicious aims to break the food show mold — creating something more zany than Chopped and Masterchef, more bonkers than Nailed It, and cuter than The Great British Baking Off — it falls short on everything but the set. What unfolds in the short season is six episodes torn between total culinary fantasia and convention, the result of which is a basic cooking competition, but with more crafting supplies for sets and costumes. Its best efforts to bring something new to food TV only reveal just how conventional Crazy Delicious actually is.

Food TV shows, crazy or delicious, pivot on power dynamics: the relationship between the judges and the judged, mediated and molded by the hosts. While in recent years, shows like Great British Baking Off and Australian hit The Chefs’ Line have extricated themselves from boorish villain/hero tropes, Crazy Delicious wants to go as far as to extricate its judges from earth itself. They are Food Gods: remember this and do not forget it — but in case you do, production is here to remind you with thunder, lightning, and, well, that’s all.

The Food Gods, though, are also actual people with restaurant chops. While their duties rarely go beyond encouraging praise or gentle criticism, the show asks them to show off their conventional culinary credentials, rather than representing anything transcendent or wacky. Ekstedt references Michelin stars as a point of comparison when praising dishes; Hall harks back to her time as a contestant on Top Chef. When Heston Blumenthal becomes a Food God in his Edenic realm, he’s still being leaned on as a famous chef — the famous chef subject to widely reported accusations of wage theft and restaurant mismanagement, and a late-career pivot to casual sexism. The choice of name also unfortunately recalls Time Magazine’s infamous “Gods of Food” feature, whose anointing chefs as figures of worship excluded women entirely. There is no need for them to be culinary gods other than to be culinary Gods — deified shibboleths, set apart from the mortal contestants who try to please them by walking up a slightly steep hill godly mountain with their possibly crazy, possibly delicious food.

The contestants don’t quite get to realize the fantasy either. The diversity in every episode is a welcome development, and it’s interesting that contestants are neither the rank amateurs of Masterchef nor the trained chefs of Chopped. These are keen, often technically proficient cooks, and there is quality technique and great skill on display, so it’s a shame that they’re dealt kind of a raw deal. The stakes too often feel too low, and with each 45 minute episode being a self-contained story, there’s little time to develop intrigue or connections to the people on screen. The prize for winning is a golden apple, which means when crackers break and parfaits don’t set, it’s pride and self-worth that are at stake, not money or prestige. While this makes for more genuine emotion, it also puts limits on the show’s range. With neither financial reward nor — as with Great British Bake Off — the promise of access into the world of culinary celebrity, Crazy Delicious has to stand or fall between the start of each episode and its end. It falls more than it stands..

The prize golden apple is picked from the phantasmagoria of the Willy Wonka set — the most striking departure from the “faintly cool, faintly dangerous kitchen” template of its competitors; exceptions made for the GBBO tent. It could have been the ace in the hole: Everything is edible, and the contestants are instructed not just to find cheese in nooks and eggs in nests, but to “go forth and forage,” plucking tomatoes from vines and digging carrots from the earth, engaging with the agricultural systems that produce food.

Well, not quite. This bounty is artificial, because of course it is, and other ingredients like chopped meat and packets of pasta are not delved from grottos, but removed from fridges and pantries. This happens in any show with an ingredients tray, which is almost all cooking shows, but they don’t try to pretend otherwise. The creation of a fake, bountiful food system that is not entirely fictional but is entirely alienated from labor feels incongruous to the admirable, if unfulfilled ambition of other food TV in 2020 to reflect on the fact that everybody eats. Asking something as fanciful as Crazy Delicious to bear the weight of expectation around Taste the Nation or near-namesake Ugly Delicious might appear unkind, but the show wants it two ways — a magical respite from typical food TV, but with all the same prestige trappings — and ends up in some confused middle ground.

The genuinely fun elements of Crazy Delicious, like candles that burst smilingly with mango pulp or edible cherry blossoms that are sweets, unfortunately become little more than gags; the contestants never engage with them or use them in their cooking. Even Chopped, set in a kitchen and not an edible eden, does more with its introduction of comparatively conventional curveball ingredients. The Crazy Delicious set’s unchanging nature also means that the show runs out of secrets early on. A prosecco waterfall might bubble with whimsy in episode one, but it’ll go flat by episode three. There are some interstitial incursions which are funny albeit a little outdated, like a momentary send-up of the errant coffee cup in Game of Thrones, but as with the rest of the show’s elements, these jokes only further confuse the tone. Indeed, the omnipresent Big Green Egg — the favorite barbecue of chefs, sponconned across the industry — is significantly more disconcerting.

Overall, the place that Crazy Delicious is asking viewers to escape from — the world of food TV — looms so large that the show ends up reiterating familiar tropes rather than subverting them as intended. A set with ovens and blenders and barbecues surrounded by foliage is still a set with ovens and blenders and barbecues. Eurocentric restaurant discourse, standards, and techniques are so present that any fantasy never gets to genuinely establish itself; the final four-hour challenge of the series is “takeaway,” and of course, it pigeonholes Indian cuisine. Ultimately Crazy Delicious is frustrating: it could have been deeply weird, deeply fantastical; it could have been a jolly romp, contestants competing to grab the fruit candles and chocolate tree branches, the chaos of Supermarket Sweep unmanacled from the supermarket. Instead, even with its sweet burgers and activated charcoal pizza volcanoes, it feels like a waste.

It would be seemingly easy to write all these annoyances off because Crazy Delicious is, quite clearly, trying to be a bit of harmless fun. Viewers seeking a six-episode bliss-out with a few laughs and some Willy Wonka flourishes are just in it for the escapism, not the optics, right? But the titular crazy is leaning too much on the delicious, and the delicious is just normie interpretations of “good” food. Despite the ongoing insistence on the show’s wackiness, the results are a less fun, less weird, less intelligent, less crazy, and less delicious follow up to Chopped, GBBO, The Chef’s Line, and Nailed It. Try as it might, Crazy Delicious cannot unmoor itself from the fact that unlike its edible punchlines, food, and restaurants don’t just grow on trees.

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From the Strategist: The 37 Best Gifts for Every Type of Home Cook

June 30, 2020 Admin 0 Comments

Photo: Courtesy Retailer

From cookbook stands to kimchi containers, there’s literally something for everyone

When you’re trying to come up with gift ideas for someone who likes to cook, you want to find something that’s both personal and practical. But finding a gift for a home cook that strikes that balance can be hard, especially if you’re the kind of person whose fridge is filled with takeout containers. That’s why we’ve gathered 37 of the best gifts for every type of home cook in your life — from the newbie who just wants to make a good grilled cheese to the home cook who has it all.

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For the home cook who has everything

ChefSteps Joule Sous Vide, 1100 Watts, All White

They might not think they need a sous vide machine, but that’s exactly what makes it a great gift for an experienced chef, who can use it to make always-tender steaks, never-overcooked fish, and even soft-scrambled eggs.

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For the home cook who would rather use a cookbook

Photo: retailer

Yamazaki Home Tosca Cookbook Stand

A minimalist plywood cookbook-stand for those who still like reading recipes on paper — though it can also hold up a tablet.

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For the home cook who’d like to throw more dinner parties

MYDrap Cotton Cocktail Napkins

We were introduced to these tear-off linen napkins by Tonne Goodman, who discovered them at a boutique in Paris. “Instead of having a stack of napkins that needs to be spread out in an attractive fashion and then wrestled with to gingerly pick just one, you just simply tear each napkin off,” she writes.

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For the home cook who wants only one pot

Dansk Kobenstyle White Casserole

This Dutch oven from Dansk has a mid-century design that’s easy to cook with but still looks good on the dinner table. It’s made of carbon steel, so it’s lighter than cast-iron Dutch ovens but it’s still sturdy enough to sear, braise, sauté, and bake anything you want.

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For the home cook who’s not over avocados

Prepworks by Progressive Guacamole Bowl with Spoon

Let’s make avocado-ware the new lettuceware.

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For the home cook who got really into celery juice

Breville Compact Juice Fountain 700-Watt Juice Extractor

It’s still unclear if celery juice is actually good for you, but if that’s what they’re into, this juice extractor from Breville is powerful enough to make sure none of the stringy bits make it into the liquid (and can be used to make lots of other types of juices, too).

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For the home cook who watches The Great British Baking Show every Friday

Baking with Kim-Joy: Cute and Creative Bakes to Make You Smile

During her time in the tent, Kim-Joy built a reputation for making delicate pastries with adorable decorations and clever flavor combinations, and in this cookbook, she shares some of her most whimsical recipes — like “pigfiteroles” in mud.

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For the home cook who just got into bread-making

Banneton Bread Proofing Basket

Unlike contestants on The Great British Bake-Off, most of us don’t have proofing drawers in our homes. So a proofing basket — used to hold the bread during its second, pre-baking rise — is the next best thing for at-home bread-making: This three-piece set includes a linen nonstick liner for a smooth outer crust and a plastic dough scraper that conforms to the curves of your mixing bowl.

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For the home cook who loves to grill on the go

Weber Go-Anywhere Charcoal Grill

Mark Jenner, the editor-in-chief of barbecue site FoodFireFriends.com, swears by this portable grill from the folks at Weber, which includes legs that fold over the lid and a convenient rectangular form. You can even create two grilling zones for high-heat and low-heat grilling.

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For the home cook who wants to make their own sauerkraut and kimchi

E-Jen Premium Kimchi, Sauerkraut Container Earthenware Brown 1.7L

Recently, we had two chefs heartily endorse this incredibly affordable and effective container as a go-to fermentation vessel. “It’s really useful because it has an insert that essentially creates a vacuum to press down your ferments,” chef Dave Park of Jeong in Chicago told us. “It has an inner ring where you can either burp your ferments or keep it airtight. It’s definitely one of the most useful containers I’ve found.”

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For the home cook who’s also good at Instagram

Departo Large Plate

Why does professional food photography look so good? In part because of food stylists, whose job is to choose all those attractive plates and cups and tablecloths to enhance the food. If your favorite home cook loves to share their latest grain salads and roast chicken on the ’gram, give them some plates that will look great underneath.

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For the home cook trying to eat more greens

Prepworks by Progressive Collapsible Salad Spinner - 4 Quart

This collapsible salad spinner is a great gift for the recent college grad who’s got a small kitchen and big culinary ambitions.

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For the home cook who’s a salt snob

Maldon Salt Bucket

Tonne Goodman also told us about this bucket of Maldon sea salt, which, she admits, “seems a bit extreme, but then again, salt fanatics do exist. I gave it to my brother-in-law, who is a wonderful cook, and he laughed and loved it.”

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For the home cook who loves leftovers

LunchBots Large Snack Tray Steel Lunch Container

This stainless-steel lunch box is meant for children, but it’s stylish enough to bring to the office (when you return to one, that is) and has enough room for a mini-buffet of leftovers.

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For the home cook who identified with Antoni on Queer Eye

Philips Indoor Smoke-less Grill

Culinary expert Antoni Porowski gifted this smokeless, infrared indoor grill to two different guys over the course of two seasons, and you can now gift it, too.

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For the home cook who’s trying to use fewer paper towels

Nawrap Binchotan Dishcloth

These dishcloths have odor- and bacteria-absorbing charcoal infused into their fibers, so they’ll last a little longer between washes.

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For the home cook who’s trying to use less plastic

Bee’s Wrap Assorted, 3-Pack

These reusable food wraps are made by infusing cotton with beeswax, and they can be used over, and over, and over again — and once they’re finally done for good, they can be composted.

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For the home cook who’s ready to compost

Brabantia Sort & Go Waste Bin

If they know that composting is a thing they should do but have always been turned off by ugly compost bins.

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For the home cook who’s ready for fresh spaghetti

Marcato Atlas Pasta Machine

According to Linda Miller Nicholson, author of Pasta, Pretty Please and the pasta-maker behind the colorful Instagram account Salty Seattle, the Marcato Atlas is the gold standard of pasta machines. And if you need more proof that it’s a good gift: It also made an appearance on Jennifer Lawrence’s wedding registry.

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For the home cook who needs fresh herbs

Click and Grow The Smart Garden 3

This indoor vegetable-and-herb garden is self-watering and has a built-in grow light and pre-seeded plant pods to grow fresh cilantro, basil, and even chili peppers if the kitchen has no windows.

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For the home cook who loves their knives

John Boos Chop-N-Slice Maple Wood Reversible Cutting Board

Cutting boards wear out over time, so any serious home cook will appreciate a brand-new, nice-looking cutting block that’ll protect their sharpened blades.

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For the home cook who doesn’t have knives

Takiup Ceramic Knife Set

These ceramic knives aren’t perfect, or the fanciest, but according to writer Hannah Howard, they’re excellent for everyday kitchen tasks, and sometimes she prefers using these cheaper blades to her fancy Japanese chef’s knife. Plus, she notes, “I throw the set in the dishwasher with every use, and it has remained in excellent shape.”

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For the home cook who keeps accidentally slicing their fingers

Benriner BN1 Mandoline

Chef Gabriel Kreuther likes this Japanese mandoline, which comes with an assortment of blades and its own plastic safety covering to prevent slipping fingers from getting julienned, diced, or chopped.

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For the home cook who’s channeling the 1970s

Home Intuition 3-Tier Hanging Basket Heavy Duty Wire

Especially if they read the Missoni Family Cookbook and now want to create a dreamy Italian kitchen of their own.

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For the home cook who’s still using that slow cooker from the 1970s

Instant Pot 6 Qt 7-in-1 Multi-Use Programmable Pressure Cooker

You’ve heard about the Instant Pot even if you don’t cook. It steams, it pressure cooks, it makes yogurt, and it’s got over 36,000 reviews on Amazon, so it’s kind of a no-brainer.

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For the home cook who got an Instant Pot last year

OXO Good Grips Pressure Cooker Bakeware Sling

Some good Instant Pot accessories will help them make the most of their favorite kitchen gadget, like this silicone sling, which they can use for baking cakes or steaming vegetables in their multifunction pressure cooker.

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For the home cook who’s already obsessed with a Vitamix

Vitamix Personal Cup Adapter

This personal cup adapter is a great gift for those who make smoothies in their Vitamix but find the standard 64- or 72-ounce cup a little too big for everyday use, especially since this one fits on basically any legacy model.

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For the home cook who struggles to clean their cast-iron skillet

Blisstime Cast Iron Cleaner

This little square of chainmail will make removing crud and burnt bits from a cast-iron skillet or Dutch oven a relatively quick and easy task.

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For the at-home pit master who likes to grill on an open flame

Texsport Heavy-Duty Over-Fire Camp Grill - Extra Large

This extra-large over-fire camp grill is made from steel, and, according to writer Steven John, it’s got plenty of room for “racks of ribs, multiple Texas-size steaks, or a whole lot of kabob skewers.”

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For the home baker with limited counter space

KitchenAid Artisan Mini Series Tilt-Head Stand Mixer, 3.5 quart

This mini–stand mixer has all the functionality of a standard KitchenAid mixer, but, as writer Erica Murphy notes, “It’s 25 percent lighter and 20 percent smaller,” meaning it’s great for small kitchens.

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For the home cook who can taste the difference between Italian and Spanish olive oils

Nunez De Prado Extra Virgin Olive Oil Tin, 33.8 Ounce

A handsome tin of olive oil from Spain that has “hints of grassiness, almonds, and butter,” according to chef Jonathan Waxman.

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For anyone who likes to read about food as much as they like to eat it

The Best American Food Writing 2019

An anthology of the best food essays from the past 12 months, including a deep dive into Japanese KitKats and the queer history of tapas, all edited by Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat’s Samin Nosrat.

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For the ice cream enthusiast who dreams of the perfect scoop

Zeroll Original Ice Cream Easy Scoop

This ice cream scoop is “the only ice cream scoop” that Jeni Britton Bauer, the creator of Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream, will even acknowledge. It’s designed to transfer heat from your hand to the spoon, making it easy to get the perfect scoop from even frozen-solid ice cream. (For bonus points, pair this with a pint or two of ice cream.)

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For the college student looking to hack the perfect dorm-room grilled cheese

Nostalgia TCS2 Grilled Cheese Sandwich Toaster

Decidedly safer than trying to melt cheese with an iron.

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For the home cook who puts cracked pepper on everything

Atlas Copper Pepper Mill

Give a pepper mill that makes a statement. According to writer Juliet Lapidos, this copper one looks like “a tool you’d find at an archaeological dig and — for just that reason — always attracts attention at dinner parties.”

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For the 5-year-old who’s just learning their way in the kitchen

Curious Chef 3-Piece Nylon Knife Set

These nylon knives are designed for little foodies who are at least 4 years old, to help them learn basic knife skills while minimizing risk.

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For the home cook who’d rather be making cocktails

Be Your Own Bartender: A Surefire Guide to Finding (and Making) Your Perfect Cocktail

Gin or whiskey? Easy-drinking or boozy? This cocktail book starts with a comprehensive flowchart to help them figure out exactly what they want to drink and how to make it.

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Reclaiming Indian Food from the White Gaze

June 30, 2020 Admin 0 Comments

Shutterstock

The same food I was teased for as a kid has become gentrified and endorsed by Goop. Now, I’m using my cookbook to change the narrative.

This is Eater Voices, where chefs, restaurateurs, writers, and industry insiders share their perspectives about the food world, tackling a range of topics through the lens of personal experience. First-time writer? Don’t worry, we’ll pair you with an editor to make sure your piece hits the mark. If you want to write an Eater Voices essay, please send us a couple paragraphs explaining what you want to write about and why you are the person to write it to voices@eater.com.

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Once we’d been at home for three months, I finally gave in — not to sourdough, but to starting a quarantine cookbook. At first, it seemed like a fun and lighthearted activity, a way to connect with friends over what we were making. But it turned out to be more emotional than I expected. As an Indian woman working to love my culture in a world that has stolen it from me, food gets very personal.

I was never taught how to cook as a child. My parents aren’t enthusiastic cooks; their specialty is chili cheese toast, and I don’t know any passed-down family recipes. Instead, I learned the basics from Chitra Agrawal’s Vibrant India when I was 21. But even though I was brought up on Indian food, I learned about it through the white gaze.

For many people of color, food can be a source of pride and shame. Growing up, I was mocked for how Indian food affected white people’s digestion. Whenever I went to a British friend’s house for playdates, her mom proudly told me when they ordered Indian food (always curry) and how she was so relieved that this particular restaurant didn’t give her stomach problems. She wanted a pat on the back for bravely ordering ethnic food, but by othering my culture and expecting my validation, she made me uncomfortable.

Slowly, I started absorbing the stigma that others attached to my culture. In fifth grade, my mom submitted a chicken tikka masala recipe to our class cookbook even though we are vegetarians, because it’s always been easier to give the people what they want than to try to educate them. In 10th grade, eating bhindi stained my braces green. In college, my favorite snack was papad, but when my friends started to sniff the air after I made it, I learned to be self-conscious about its smell. As an adult, even my own home could make me feel judged: Whenever I made tadka in my Brooklyn kitchen, the mustard seeds tempering in ghee set off the smoke detector.

But the same recipes I was teased for eventually became chic, gentrified, and endorsed by Goop. Their popularity in the hands of white tastemakers made me realize that people didn’t want to see a brown face behind brown food. I met people who were hesitant to try my homemade nimbu pani, but would happily pay $6 for South Indian filter coffee made by a white woman at Smorgasburg. It’s never been an equal playing field: Brown chefs are expected to cook their own food, but white chefs can cook whatever they want.

I’ve also seen the effects of colonialism in how people explain my own culture back to me, with no awareness of the power dynamics. This happens a lot at restaurants. At Manhattan’s Bombay Bread Bar, a white server felt compelled to explain kulcha to me; farther downtown at Janam Tea, my Pakistani friend and I received a lecture from a white woman who proudly told us how she was bringing Indian tea to the West, without any humility around claiming expertise of a culture that is not her own.

For years, I’ve been working to address culinary imperialism and reclaim my love of Indian food from the white gaze. But while I have been enjoying teaching myself traditional recipes, I often get stuck when none of the options online are written by brown people. It’s become so trendy to remove Indian food from its cultural context — the New York Times’ masoor dal recipe includes sweet potatoes, which would alarm any auntie — that it’s hard to know what’s authentic as someone who’s still learning.

It doesn’t help that in the West, people view Indian food through the lens of takeout, which shortchanges the craft behind it. Many recipes are extremely intricate, with over 10 ingredients and hours of prep and stove time. Even a simple meal requires a quick sequence of actions, serious focus, and lots of multitasking (cue the smoke detector). And yet that effort is often erased by what is familiar: My roommates are cautious about tasting new recipes that I make, and instead keep ordering their usual garlic naan and vindaloo. For all of the parts of my culture that people love, it’s sad to see how much fear still exists.

It’s also jarring to see how the language around Indian food has changed over time, with new recipes branded as ayurvedic, vegan, and cleansing in order to seem more approachable. Ghee, which I grew up thinking was an indulgence, is now a superfood. Khichdi, one of my childhood comfort foods, has been co-opted as kitchari, the latest detox cleanse.

This kind of language belongs to modern wellness culture, which has also made me distance myself from Indian traditions. I would love to learn yoga or meditation, but don’t feel like I have access to them anymore: It’s too painful to learn about my culture from people who can’t pronounce “namaste” (nuh-mus-teh) or “mantra” (mun-tra). “Namaste” is a word that no longer even belongs to us: I cringe when I hear it used in all sorts of inappropriate situations, like as a catchphrase to “namastay in bed.” Its loss echoes the one I felt my first year in New York, when I attended a Diwali puja (prayer service) only to feel sick to my stomach when I realized that I was the only brown person in the room. It’s traumatic to see your culture taken from you.

Still, I’m working to not let my baggage stop me. Three years ago, I went to Patel Brothers, the iconic store in Jackson Heights, to start my spice collection and happily buy katoris that remind me of home. As I learned to cook, I sent my parents photos of pongal, puchka, and pakoras on WhatsApp, hoping that one day I could cook for them. I joined a dinner club, which became my testing ground for new recipes (I was the only person of color), and shared leftovers with my South Asian coworkers for the real verdict. Over Thanksgiving, I observed my aunt’s chai-making process to figure out why my chai tasted like a mouthful of ginger (crushing instead of grating was the trick). I even started improvising with spices, adding chaat masala to popcorn, cucumber, and scrambled eggs.

After going through this journey to reclaim my culture, every decision for my quarantine cookbook feels critical: Each is a chance to change the narrative, even if it’s just for myself. For weeks, I’ve been compiling global recipes from my community, finding ways to bring out personal stories and enjoying the opportunity to learn more about my friends. All of them submitted one or two recipes, mostly ones that are meaningful to them and have been passed down in their families. As the cookbook’s curator, I knew that my recipe would say something about me, and felt a familiar existential crisis coming. If I chose Indian food, I would feel a responsibility to dispel myths, provide regional nuances, and compensate for whitewashed food descriptions (I refuse to call a dosa a sourdough crepe). But if I chose a recipe from a different culture, I would feel like a sellout.

This dilemma reflected a larger one: Representing my culture always feels somewhat performative. In many ways, I’m happy to educate. It’s incredibly important to learn about food from people who come from its culture. But the pantomime required to cheerfully explain the basics and provide emotional reassurance so that other people can get over their fears and assumptions is exhausting.

For this reason, I’ve never felt fully comfortable going to Indian restaurants with non-South Asians. I know that, in some way, I will be responsible for translating the menu, affirming people’s choices, advising on spice levels, teaching them how to eat with their hands, and commenting on whether the food is authentic — a temporary tour guide. But it feels strange to be considered an authority when I don’t always recognize what’s on the menu. There are dozens of regional cuisines within India, but in the U.S., only a handful of North Indian dishes are mainstream, and many of us didn’t grow up eating them. People are always shocked when I tell them that I don’t eat curry, but they don’t understand that there’s so much more to Indian food that I’ve never felt like I was missing out.

This emotional labor is why, without realizing it, I left writing my own cookbook recipe to the last minute. I was delaying the carefully calculated decisions of how to translate ingredients, whether to pick a familiar or niche recipe, and how much to educate. Ultimately I picked chana masala, partly because it’s one of my favorite easy dishes and partly because I wanted it to serve as a wake-up call for people who don’t know the cultural roots of The Stew.

For the introduction, I wrote about how my dad calls me luchi, the Bengali word for puri, a puffy round flatbread that is served with chana masala to make one of my favorite dishes, chole bhature. I explained how, when I was young, I would get excited to order it at restaurants and poke the puri so it would deflate. Now, it’s really special to realize that I can make the chana myself. In writing about this, I found a way to speak about Indian food in a way that felt genuine to me.

Now I’m back in India, and it feels like a dream to not have to carry around the armor. I finally feel like I can learn without judgment, and have already warned various aunties that I’m coming over to cook after quarantine ends. I’m working to sink my feet into the spaces my ancestors created, to unconditionally love where I come from and give myself permission to explore it. It’s always going to be a process, but I want to decolonize my mind and take my power back.

Nayantara Dutta is a writer, strategist, and third culture kid. You can find her @nayantaradutta.

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When It Comes to Reopening Restaurants, the Customer May Not Always Be Right

June 30, 2020 Admin 0 Comments

AFP via Getty Images

3 restaurant owners share the challenges of reopening — including contending with diners who may not agree with their decisions

Navigating the coronavirus pandemic has been an unprecedented challenge for restaurant owners. Shutting down their restaurants due to government mandates and health concerns was hard — but for some, reopening is even harder.

One challenge, of course, is financial: Compounding the loss of sales from the months of closure, as well as new expenses like masks, physical partitions, and other supplies to keep everyone safe, are the reduced capacity mandates that mean restaurants can serve far fewer customers than usual.

But another challenge has to do with sentiment, on the part of both diners and staff. Some customers are eager to head back, while some are wary; and even more restaurant staffers — from owners and chefs to the servers on the “front lines” — are anxious about reopening quickly. The politicized nature of reopening doesn’t help bridge that gap, either.

“We are in Costa Mesa, California, in Orange County, which is sort of a fairly equal mix of conservative and more liberal, progressive-minded people, and what we have found is that every day is a messaging challenge,” said Carlos Salgado, chef/owner of Michelin-starred Taco María, during an Eater Talks panel held on Monday, June 29. While Orange County announced restaurant dining rooms could reopen in late May, Salgado felt it was too early and has kept Taco María closed for dine-in service, to the displeasure of certain diners.

“There is a large percentage of our community population that expects that restaurants should be fully open, that things should return back to normal, and we find ourselves having to regularly manage conflict between passersby and my staff members.” That means time spent explaining the situation to customers over the phone, physically keeping people from wandering into the restaurant, or dealing with customers who make light of the contactless pickup setup, in which staffers are masked and behind glass.

“Whereas fine dining and hospitality is often thought to be about creating a culture of yes — the customer is supposed to always be right — I think now is the time for us to be asserting ourselves,” said Salgado. “[Restaurants right now] are really better informed and better practiced than your average consumer as to how to manage this process for everyone’s safety.”

Reyna Duong, owner of Sandwich Hag in Dallas, echoed Salgado’s point. Especially in this moment, when diners and restaurant staffers may not agree, the norms of hospitality relationships could use revisiting.

“For the longest time, we’ve been conditioned: As a consumer, I’m always right. Well, unless you’re wrong. We’re servers, but we’re not your servants. So the entitlement that we all recognize — being in the restaurant industry especially — has to be unlearned and it has to be un-conditioned, if you will,” said Duong during Monday’s panel. Duong said that maintaining positive relationships with customers — and protecting staffers from those customers who are disrespectful — is crucial to create a safe workspace.

“Part of protecting the team is also protecting customers from jerks, right? So creating a safe space on every level has to come from me, where my team has to know that they they don’t have to just deal with it because their tip depends on it, their job depends on it.”

But it’s not easy, said Salgado.

“It’s difficult to know whether you’re doing the right thing by pushing back against guests. We in the restaurant industry, especially restaurants owned by people of color, we’ve been conditioned and patterned to accept that the more affluent diner and their needs and their desires are to be met, and that they’re right in all cases,” he said. “I think this has been a time where we’re really beginning to see the validity of the opposite belief, which is that our safety, our security, our standards, our practices — we need to advocate for those and uphold those and it’s okay to say no.”

Luckily, there are many diners who get what restaurant owners and their staffers are going through. Deborah VanTrece, owner of Twisted Soul Cookhouse & Pours in Atlanta, said that her customers were generally supportive of the restaurant’s conservative approach to reopening and safety protocols when she reopened Twisted Soul for outdoor and indoor dining. Those protocols include masks for all guests, placing the host stand outside, and plastic covers that shield every dish on its way from the kitchen to the table.

VanTrece said she’s seen from customers “a sense of gratitude and a sense of relief on all of the measures that have been taken.”

“To open, we wanted it to be a win-win [for customers and staffers], and it has been... So far, it’s been working well for both myself, my customers, and most importantly my staff,” she said. “We put everything we can in place, our numbers are up, they’re making money; and we’re still making sure we’re checking temperatures and doing everything we can.

But we also know there’s still that risk that we’re taking.”

Watch the entire panel conversation:

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Chicago’s Beloved Blackbird Is the Latest to Fall to COVID-19

June 30, 2020 Admin 0 Comments

The Michelin-starred restaurant was a West Loop landmark for two decades

https://chicago.eater.com/2020/6/30/21307710/blackbird-cafe-cancale-closed-chicago-one-off-hospitality-covid-19

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Arizona to Again Shut Down Bars — but Not Restaurants — Due to Rising Coronavirus Cases

June 30, 2020 Admin 0 Comments

Shutterstock

Plus, Tunde Wey responds to the New York Times, and more news to start your day

The state follows Texas, Florida, and parts of California in trying to curb the spread of coronavirus

Arizona has joined the ranks of states and counties that have reversed guidance on business openings in light of steep rises in COVID-19 cases. Last week Texas, Florida and parts of Idaho ordered bars to close to in-person service, followed by parts of California and Pennsylvania. Now, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey has ordered that bars, as well as gyms, movie theaters, and water parks, shutter for at least 30 days.

At the end of April, Ducey promised a carefully planned reopening, saying, “It would be irresponsible for me to make decisions to reopen with a chance that I would have to come back because we didn’t have the proper guidance or data and ask people to do this again.” Bars, nightclubs and restaurants in Arizona were allowed to open in mid-May, immediately allowing indoor dining. As data shows, Arizona began reporting a quick rise in COVID-19 cases at the beginning of June. On June 28, there were 3,809 new cases, a record for the state. “Our expectation is that our numbers next week will be worse,” said Ducey. Tentatively, bars will be able to re-open on July 27, though Ducey says that will depend on the numbers. As of now, restaurants are allowed to continue indoor service.

And in other news...

• Brittany Littleton, an influencer and co-owner of LA vegan restaurant Sugar Taco, refuses to give a dog back to the unhoused man that it was stolen from. [Jezebel]
• Dos Equis has made a six-foot long cooler to help you social distance. [Forbes]
• Uber makes an offer to buy Postmates for about $2.6 billion. [NYTimes]
• Descendants of Anna Short Harrington, whose image inspired the Aunt Jemima logo, are calling for reparations. In 2015, a judge dismissed their lawsuit against Quaker Oats for failing to pay royalties to the family. [The Daily Beast]
• Chef Tunde Wey, who recently called for John T. Edge of the Southern Foodways Alliance to step down, has responded to a piece in the New York Times, calling it “white face-saving masquerading as objectivity.” [Instagram]
• Shaq and Papa John’s are making a pizza. [Penn Live]
• We’re back to studies that say alcohol is good for you. [Insider]
• The Infatuation is removing ratings from its restaurant lists. [The Infatuation]
• What “fajita wife” guy reveals about how much we miss restaurants. [Mel Magazine]
• Kanye West is so proud of how much money Kim Kardashian has hoarded, in the midst of a global pandemic and a national reckoning with racism and inequality, that he took a bunch of vegetables from their kitchen bowl and put them on the driveway and took a photo:

• All AM Intel Coverage [E]

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Blend the Hell Out of Your Spices

June 30, 2020 Admin 0 Comments

Elazar Sontag/Eater

My best cooking tip: throw your seasonings in a blender

This post originally appeared in the June 29, 2020 edition of The Move, a place for Eater’s editors to reveal their recommendations and pro dining tips — sometimes thoughtful, sometimes weird, but always someone’s go-to move. Subscribe now.

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I’ve spent a lot of evenings during shelter-in-place trying to figure out what makes Bjorn Qorn so much better than the popcorn I make at home. For the uninitiated, Bjorn Qorn is a brand of popcorn with a cult following, whose most popular flavor features little more than salt and nutritional yeast. It’s very simple and extremely satisfying. But my attempts to recreate it, despite buying high-quality yeast and popcorn for my DIY version, didn’t stack up. After months of head-scratching, and many bowls of popcorn consumed, I realized what I needed to do to make the perfect popcorn: blend my seasonings.

What really sets Bjorn Qorn apart is the way the salt and yeast cling to every nook and cranny, adhering perfectly to each piece of popcorn. Mixing the seasonings in a blender, or pounding them with a mortar and pestle, gave me something much closer to that result. Popcorn’s a very good place to start, but this lesson applies nearly everywhere. Blending spices and seasonings before applying them has made pretty much all of my cooking better. I use my coffee grinder (I should really buy a proper spice grinder) to blend brown sugar, salt, paprika, and cumin to cover ribs and chicken. Dill seeds, black peppercorn, and whatever else I dig up from my spice drawer are pulverized to coat salmon. Even a simple combination of black pepper and salt can be blended before applying.

Blending spices ensures all the little seasoning particles are roughly the same size, allowing them to distribute more evenly. Big grains of salt or brown sugar don’t sink to the bottom of the bowl, getting left behind as I sprinkle my mixture over chicken thighs. The blending or pounding also opens up the spices, making their flavors more intense.

Admittedly, I don’t always follow my own advice. It’s not exactly a major undertaking, but blending spices takes more effort than I’m willing to put in some days. To avoid having to pound or blend every time I cook, I make bigger batches of seasoning mixtures to use throughout the week or month. Each glass jar gets a label, so that when I’m rummaging through the clutter of my pantry I know which seasoning is for chicken, for pork, or for vegetables.

Putting in the extra five minutes of work on a Sunday to prep some seasonings for the week is a small project, but it saves me on a Wednesday or Thursday, when my imagination is shot and I really don’t want to think about cooking. Recently, because we can’t cook and eat together during the pandemic, I’ve started making extra jars of seasoning blends to give to friends. It’s a small gesture, but it’s nice to know we’re eating the same meal in our separate bubbles, even if it’s just a bowl of popcorn with a dusting of salt and nutritional yeast.

P.S.: Looking for more spice options? Here’s where to find options from across the globe.

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Oregon Governor Threatens to Re-Shutter Restaurants As COVID-19 Cases Climb

June 29, 2020 Admin 0 Comments

“If you want your local shops and restaurants to stay open, then wear a face covering when out in public,” says Gov. Kate Brown

https://pdx.eater.com/2020/6/29/21307122/oregon-businesses-spike-cases-re-closing-potential

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Founding Director of Influential Southern Foodways Alliance Pressured to Resign

June 29, 2020 Admin 0 Comments

Jason Thrasher

Internally and externally, John T. Edge is being called on to step down after suggesting that racial equity in food media is achieved through “gradualism” during a James Beard webinar

The Southern Foodways Alliance, since its founding in 1999, has become a powerful force in food media. The institute, based at the University of Mississippi’s Center for the Study of Southern Culture, is dedicated to documenting and exploring foodways of the American south, through events, awards, documentary production, virtual tours, and its journal Gravy. Since its founding, the SFA has been helmed by John T. Edge, author of The Potlikker Papers, whom Kim Severson in the New York Times described as “part scholar and part kingmaker, a conscientious white man in a Billy Reid sport coat who makes his living wrestling with the food legacy of a region built on slavery.” And now some are calling for his resignation.

On June 29, Stephen Satterfield, co-founder of minority-owned food magazine Whetstone, published a statement on Twitter, calling for Edge to resign, and saying there have already been both “public and private” calls for him to do so. Satterfield says Edge has “spent 20 years convincing us that he is...a type [of white man] who really understands,” but that recent statements in a James Beard webinar show “disillusion or disingenuousness” on his part.

The webinar in question took place on June 17, featuring Edge, chef Tunde Wey, and Jamila Robinson in a conversation entitled “What is food writing’s role in a divided nation?” When asked about food media figures like Adam Rapoport and Alison Roman facing criticism for racist behavior, Wey said he’s “not impressed with figureheads losing their jobs,” and instead called for the whole system to change. He suggested that bastions of media power like Condé Nast should invest in things like Whetstone. “Take $10 million and invest it in this man’s company,” he said, to which Edge responds by asking, “Would you say backing Whetstone is a good business decision, too?” Wey answered that the question of “good” or “bad” is irrelevant, saying, “the question of what is necessary, that’s the one we should grasp at.”

Later in the conversation, Robinson asked Edge what organizations like SFA can do to bring about the radical change that’s needed for equity in food media. His full answer is below:

I realize my answer is going to be, in essence, gradualism. I recognize the changes that need to come but they’re going to be too gradual for this, but I’m going to spell them out, because I see the right steps taken. It’s not just writing about Black subjects, it’s Black writers writing about Black subjects, and the next step is Black writers writing reported pieces, not pieces that are merely personal. And the next step is Black writers writing anything they care to write about. And the next step is the editors are Black and the power that controls the media is Black, and people of color, and women. Those are steps along the way. They’re not turning the table over, but they’re fixing the busted wagon that we’ve got right now.

Also during the conversation, Edge said that he was asked to step back from the most recent issue of Gravy — which was edited by Deputy Editor Cynthia Greenlee, a Black woman — and that it’s the best issue of the journal yet. Wey challenged that if the journal is the best it’s ever been under a Black woman editor, then maybe Edge should resign more permanently so that she could fill his role. This, coupled with Edge’s remarks on gradualism, led multiple people to speak out and, in some cases, sever ties with Edge. Food writer Mayukh Sen, a 2019 Margie Samuels Fellow through SFA, tells Eater that as of Monday morning he was withdrawing his fellowship due to Edge’s comments. “I was disappointed with John T.’s recent statements regarding ‘gradualism’ during a recent James Beard Foundation webinar with Tunde Wey, moderated by Jamila Robinson, as a way of justifying his power,” Sen said. “With respect to the opportunities that the Southern Foodways Alliance has given me, Edge’s championing of ‘gradualism’ very much seems to be a way of preserving the white, male status quo he represents while further marginalizing female, Black, and/or brown voices. Unless the SFA’s leadership changes now (and my understanding, as of this morning, is that it will not in any substantive way), I cannot align myself with an organization that has left so many women and Black and brown folks feeling disrespected.”

On Twitter, Edge has responded to Satterfield’s statement, tweeting that he wanted to “continue the conversation” over the phone, and that he hopes positive change can come from this moment. Satterfield responded, “I absolutely will not engage in that labor again. This isn’t about us anyway. There are many more much closer to you, who you’ve harmed more directly who are calling for the same.”

“The call for his resignation (not a demand) was so that I could publicly stand with the many WOC who have been saying this behind closed doors for years,” Satterfield told Eater. “When fellow board members, friends of several decades and Black and brown POCs you purport to be in community with are all telling you that you should hang it up, then seriously, why aren’t you listening?” According to Satterfield, there have been “several” calls for Edge to resign, including a letter that was circulated among those who had worked with him last week.

Satterfield told Eater that he chose to make a second statement after speaking to Wey about the webinar, and that he felt compelled to defend Whetstone Media from Edge’s comments and tone. “If there is one Black entrepreneur in your industry, one who is making it without investment, fame or wealth, if your reflexive instinct is to question the validity of an investment in that individual or organization (on a live stream with the most high profile org in the industry, no less!), I think that is something to look at. It is a subtle, but powerful kind of racism that belittles, tokenizes and diminishes,” he said. And while he expects it on some level from white men in media, it was surprising hearing his business being questioned by Edge. “I’ve known JTE since I was a baby, in my early twenties...so it was particularly hurtful coming from someone I had a real history with and who knew how hard I had worked to build my business,” he said.

On June 1, SFA posted an article called “SFA Takes a Stand,” in which the organization attempted to address the issue of racial inequality. “SFA aims to listen. The SFA stands with our colleagues and compatriots engaged in protest,” it said. “The Southern Foodways Alliance pledges to make change by taking antiracist stances and doing work that protects and values and uplifts our Black brothers and sisters.” It also said SFA’s founders were a “purposefully diverse group of Southerners.”

However, others have complained about SFA’s tokenizing or outright ignoring of Black writers and black chefs, especially galling considering the organization’s dedication specifically to foodways of the American south, which would not exist without Black people, and is so thoroughly tied to the legacies of slavery and anti-Blackness in America. On Instagram, Chef Kimberly McNair Brock responded to Satterfield’s statement with a story about Edge and SFA. “Almost two decades ago, when SFA came to Birmingham, our family business was one of the places on their stop. They asked us to host a brunch there. As a budding chef I was excited but things fell flat as it seemed to be more of a charity of sorts,” she wrote. “I had often hoped to connect in some way throughout the years for what we were doing on the southern food scene. But I only saw it happening for many white owned restaurants and even chain restaurants.”

The Southern Foodways Alliance told Eater that a statement on the situation is forthcoming, but regardless, Satterfield echoes Wey’s point that one person stepping down isn’t going to change much. SFA’s masthead is still nearly all white. “An organization on Southern food culture that puts Black folks on stage but not on payroll? And in Mississippi? No good,” says Satterfield. “The organization has done very good and meaningful work, but if they don’t make changes now, they are courting their own irrelevance.”

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Houston’s Solution to Bars Ignoring COVID-19 Guidelines: A Wall of Shame

June 29, 2020 Admin 0 Comments

It’s unclear exactly what being on this “Wall of Shame” will actually mean for local businesses, outside of a scolding delivered by mayor Sylvester Turner during a press conference

https://houston.eater.com/2020/6/29/21307480/houston-bars-coronavirus-wall-of-shame-mayor-sylvester-turner

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The PPP Loan Deadline Is Tomorrow, With $130 Billion Still Unspent

June 29, 2020 Admin 0 Comments

Stephanie Keith/Getty Images

Will any of that money go to restaurants?

When the first round of Paycheck Protection Program loans totalling $350 billion was depleted in just two weeks, there was fear that a second wave of loans, replenished to the tune of $310 billion in late April, would also run out. But as the June 30 loan application deadline looms — and after a more recent revamping of several of the program’s initial flaws — more than $130 billion in would-be loans remains untouched. According to an official report, that’s more than three times the amount of money that’s been loaned to restaurants and others in the “accommodation and food service” category, which has been particularly impacted by COVID-19, thus far.

From inception, the loan program has faced criticism. During the first wave of loan approvals, some major chains like Shake Shack and Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse received multi-million dollar loans, while small businesses, which the program was created to support, were hung out to dry. In early June, a bill overhauled the original program as it was written, changing the loan amount restaurants would have to spend on payroll (from 75 percent to 60 percent), and extending the period of time recipients could use the funds, as well as the timeline in which they would have to hire workers back (both were extended from June to December). Those changes were designed to make the loans more reasonable for truly small businesses.

But instead of being depleted, the loan program has “stalled” since May, according to the Washington Post, so that by June 20, $128 billion was still available. Loans that were returned, along with accidental duplicate loans that were cancelled, totaled $38.5 billion by the end of the month. By no means does the current surplus mean restaurant owners have secured the funds they need to weather the COVID-19 crisis; it only points out the program’s inability to distribute loans to those who desperately need them. Among those that have struggled most to secure loans since the economic downturn are Black restaurant owners, who already faced disproportionate challenges and hurdles when attempting to secure funding for their businesses before the pandemic. Even as money was returned in May, Black and Latino restaurant owners continued to have difficulty accessing resources, and the loans they were granted were almost always lower than the ones they requested, according to a study done by the Global Strategy Group.

The loan program likely wouldn’t have stalled — or at least, not so dramatically — if more resources had been put into reaching and supporting communities that have historically been ignored and avoided by major banks and lenders. Instead, these businesses were left to fend for themselves.

So what’s next, when $130 billion is on the line? Lawmakers have expressed intent to tap into the remaining funds, and make further assistance available. On June 18, Senators Ben Cardin, Chris Coons, and Jeanne Shaheen introduced the Prioritized Paycheck Protection Program (P4) Act, which would extend the loan application deadline until December 30, and open new lending for businesses with 100 employees or less, that have exhausted their initial PPP loans. The bill would “provide eligible small businesses with as much as 250 percent of monthly payroll costs.” A portion of funding would be reserved for businesses with 10 employees or fewer, and “small businesses in underserved and rural communities.” On June 24, Coons told Yahoo Finance that he was working on getting a Republican co-sponsor on the bill. Its current status is unclear.

That bill is unrelated to the Real Economic Support That Acknowledges Unique Restaurant Assistance Needed to Survive (RESTAURANTS) Act of 2020, which would allocate $120 billion to assist independent restaurants and has bipartisan support.

With the PPP loan application cutoff tomorrow, and a plan for the remaining funds unclear, business owners are left wondering what will become of the money that hasn’t been distributed. Will another round of funding reach restaurant owners who have yet to see any support? Or will the restaurants that most need assistance continue to struggle and close, as more than $100 billion returns to the Treasury?

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