What New Government Relief Proposals Mean for Restaurant Workers

July 31, 2020 Admin 0 Comments

This week on Eater’s Digest, Ryan Sutton talks PPP

The extra $600/week unemployment checks for many Americans are running out as politicians hit a stalemate in their negotiations over future relief packages. This week on Eater’s Digest we talk to Eater NY critic and in-house policy wonk Ryan Sutton about what the proposals from both the Democrats and Republicans could mean for restaurant industry workers and business owners.

Afterwards, we talk to Eater Chicago editor Ashok Selvam about a flashy restaurant opening from the unnervingly confident chef Curtis Duffy. Then Daniel and I talk disruptive emus, Cryovaced oysters, dining in parking garages, and more.

Listen and subscribe to Eater’s Digest on Apple Podcasts.

This Puerto Rican Chef Vows to Never Use Goya Products in Her Cooking After Its CEO Praised Trump

July 31, 2020 Admin 0 Comments

Will a Cafeteria Tray Solve All My Problems?

July 31, 2020 Admin 0 Comments

Four months into quarantine, a regression back to the safety of middle school dining

“Do you have kids that hate when their food touches?” reads the first line of an email that popped up in my inbox this morning, advertising corrals that separate foods on a plate. I am, in fact, childless, and slightly too old to be child myself, but for some reason I couldn’t bring myself to delete the pitch for these bright orange plastic dividers, one holding back a small mountain of peas, the other containing a soupy plop of mixed fruit salad that will haunt me. (Like Kool-Aid jar and Kool-Aid liquid, fruit salad and plastic peel-top container should never be separated.)

I’m not a particularly picky eater, and at some point in most meals I mix my food into an unrecognizable — but delicious — pile of intermingling flavors and textures. Yet I find something about these weird plastic dividers deeply soothing. They’re a reminder that while I am neither child nor parent, I can do whatever the hell I want during this global crisis, and what I want is to eat like a baby. Suddenly, I find myself longing for the OG food-separating device, which has been putting in the work for decades: the cafeteria tray. There’s the little circular compartment for the cup of fruit (never poured out of the container, please!!), a slightly larger rectangular trough to house mashed potatoes, and another that I’d always ask the lunch cook to fill with a double portion of fish sticks — truly the greatest gastronomic invention of our time.

I can’t stop looking at cafeteria trays online. I think I’ll skip the cute vintage ones geared toward Millennials Who Picnic, and buy a couple bright red plastic trays, probably from the same supplier my middle school used. Those school lunches weren’t great, but I remember looking forward to them. I’d check the menu posted on the gym wall every morning, and when 12 o’clock came around, I walked my way down the cafeteria line, filling the tray with an intentionally mismatched hodgepodge of foods. A hamburger, canned peaches, pretzels, and a little tub of yogurt wouldn’t have ended up on the same plate at home, but on my tray they formed a (sorta) perfect meal. I knew my lunch was composed when the last outlined section was filled with a cookie or a small carton of chocolate milk.

I don’t miss school lunches, but I crave the variety and simplicity that these trays created. In my own kitchen, the two contradict: If I want variety it means more cooking, and my desire for simple dinners usually sees me making two dishes at most. I can’t remember the last time I fixed up a salad to accompany dinner, the washing of lettuce and the making of dressing feeling like entirely too much work. In the before times, shaking up a jar of oil and mustard was effortless. Now, boiling a pot of rice sometimes feels like a commitment I can not make.

Like any good internet purchase made on a whim, I’m fairly certain this one will change my life. A plastic tray, one that could drop from a rooftop and ricochet back, doesn’t leave much room for pretension. It lowers expectations that a meal will be perfect, that it’ll be complete, that one element will complement the next. Each little corral will be filled with something — even if it’s just a handful of nuts or a cup of granola. In place of chocolate milk, a gin and tonic will sit in the Drink Circle. I’ll do away with the pressure to make a “real” meal, and I’ll eat in front of the TV with my dinner balanced on my knees.

There will be no Instagram photos of my little pre-portioned scoops of tuna salad with crackers on the side, or my baked chicken with a handful of raisins and a spoonful of peanut butter. Months ago, I couldn’t snap a photo fast enough, broadcasting my pancakes, my burgers, my bread to the people of the internet. Now, I’d rather assemble my tray of mismatched snacks and leftovers, and eat my mini tray buffet in peace.

Texas Bars Look to Reclassify as Restaurants in Order to Reopen for Dine-In Services

July 31, 2020 Admin 0 Comments

Eulogy for My Neglected Windowsill Herb Garden

July 31, 2020 Admin 0 Comments

Honoring the lives — and deaths — of the forgotten quarantine scallions

Cherished friends,

Thank you for being here to honor the lives of those whose journeys meant so much to us all, and whose stories are, fondly and inevitably, coming to an end. I’m speaking of course of the herbs I planted on my windowsill at the beginning of the pandemic. What remarkable lives they have led. However, due to my negligence and realization that I’m just not that good at growing windowsill herbs and sort of did it just as a thing to do, the time has come to say goodbye.

We first took the herbs, Scallions and Sage and of course baby Celery, home from City Fresh grocery store in March. How fresh and green they all looked that first day, each filled with promise, despite my knowledge that I have managed to kill many an “indestructible” succulent. Still, I tended to these lives with care, watching roots spread in shot glasses full of water, and planting Sage in an old mug while dreaming of the brown butter sauces I’d spoon over future ravioli. My months inside would not end in depression and perhaps scurvy, I thought. Here, my saviors of novel frugality! Here, my hopes.

As the months went on, the garden thrived. Well, not Celery. While I planted her base in shallow water and she grew some leaves, all that really happened was she got a slimy bottom with not much growth. But Sage and Scallions seemed happy. I soon transported Scallions out of their shot glass full of water and into a coffee can full of soil, in hopes that they’d grow bigger and stronger than before. Sage sprouted new leaves from its mug. As go the plants, so goes the nation, I told myself. By the time Scallions grew tall and thick, I’d be congregating maskless with old friends in bars again, subjecting them to my unshielded Scallion breath.

But my garden faced struggle, such as when a bird absolutely plucked one of the Scallion siblings from its coffee can home after I moved it onto the balcony, or when I realized that it’s Summer and I don’t really put Sage in anything except around Thanksgiving. There was the great storm of early July, which nearly drowned Scallions. There were the droughts of mid-April, May, June, and July during which I was just sort of distracted and depressed and forgot to water everything, from which Sage has never quite recovered. And there was the mild panic of late July, in which I realized a recipe called for Scallions, and even though using them in recipes is precisely what I grew them for, I worried by picking one I’d be undoing months of work and somehow jinxing the entire country’s epidemiological progress.

Scallions only really yielded flavorless, hollow greens as I attempted to preserve the white roots, even though that’s the part I wanted, and Sage’s leaves were never big enough to impressively adorn any dish. And so, we bid them farewell. Perhaps on another plane they will find a new destiny. But we can all take heart in knowing they will be reunited with their siblings from around the world: Celery base, Sourdough Starter, and DIY Embroidery Kit. May your memories be a blessing.

The Ultimate Guide to Fruity, Milky, and Other Specialty Soft Drinks

July 31, 2020 Admin 0 Comments

Unsure what to get in the drinks aisle of an international grocery store? Consider these.

I’ve always found joy in the little things in life — the smell of a new book, blank stationery, and a small soft drink carton waiting for me in the fridge. I never outgrew these joys, and I invested in my soft drink passion especially. I know, I know, there is a common trope about millennials who infantilize themselves because society won’t let them buy houses and save money, and I agree! But the quest for gourmet soda is particularly exciting. The reward? A salve at the end of the day.

As my journey in life takes me to more and more international grocery stores, I’ve ventured farther into the beverage aisles, and when the cool air of the fridge hits my face, I edge closer to the fluorescent light and reach toward the cold carton, bottle, or can of a new or familiar joy. Sure, you can always get something alcoholic, but for those of us who don’t want to exacerbate our GERD (hello, 30s), are addicted to sugar, or don’t want to spend more than $5, there is the wonderful world of speciality soft drinks. First, some general tips:

1) Find an international grocery store or immigrant-owned bodega

Chances are you won’t find specialty sodas and juices at Target or Walmart unless they’re manufactured by an American brand. Look up Japanese, Korean, South Asian, Middle Eastern, Mexican, and Chinese grocery stores (or any other kind!) in your area. While you’re there, pick up some pantry staples and make sure you’re respectful of the other shoppers. If you live by an immigrant-owned bodega, take a closer look at their shelves.

2) Don’t be a coward

Just because you can’t read the language on the packaging of a drink, and just because you’ve never had it before, doesn’t mean it’s a mystery of the vast unknown. Be brave! You could end up discovering your holy grail drink! And if you hate it, that’s also okay. It’s not going to cost you much to find out. If you’re really curious, though, there’s sometimes an import sticker that states what it is in English.

3) Look for the beverages in the fridge and on the shelves

There are instances when those working the stores haven’t had the time to fill up the fridge. Be mindful of stacked cartons or bottles around the store, where potential new favorites could be hiding out. Other kinds of drinks will be placed not in the fridges but on dry shelves in the interior of the store.

4) Once you find a favorite, take a picture of the packaging

Be sure to take a picture of something you really liked for future visits and file it into a folder on your phone — it’ll help you repurchase your favorites and also prevent any mix-ups between similarly shaped or designed bottles.

The ones to know:

Here are very few of my personal favorites, split into the categories of “fruity” and “milky.” Fruity drinks are evergreen, but especially appropriate for the times when you want the feeling of summer. Milky drinks are a little more substantial, better suited for the days when you’re craving something closer to a dessert.

Fruity

Suntory honey lemon

My holy grail of fruity drinks. I have only had the luck of having this once in my life, and I have been searching for it ever since. Achieving the perfect balance of sweet and sour, it feels familiar (because it’s honey and lemon) but also completely new because it doesn’t remind you of that familiar cold/flu combo. Like all excellent soft drinks, it has a sophistication from the first to the last sip.

Taisun winter melon drink

Winter melon (aka white gourd) is popular in Taiwan and has got to be the best double agent of all time. In its raw form, it tastes pretty neutral, which makes it well-suited as a savory vegetable dish. Once you add sugar to its juices, though, it transforms, giving off burnt caramel notes that makes it the most dessert-like fruit drink maybe ever. It’s in my top five of all time. I have consumed plenty of Taisun cans, and I hereby encourage everyone to try my regular boba order (winter melon tea with salty foam) if it’s your first time.

Suntory Gokuri grapefruit

Again with another heavyweight, Suntory offers us Gokuri. As well as having the sexiest packaging (aluminum tinned bottles, generous girth, amazing colors and design), it also is the best citrus soda. Its grapefruit and cassis an orange flavors are clear winners, and the peach flavor is also good (though I usually prefer a non-carbonated peach).

Rubicon

Sing it with me now: lychee, mango, guava, passionfruit. If my childhood were a table, these four would be its legs. Though these drinks are common in the U.K., they’re a little harder to come by in NYC, where I’m located now. Somewhere in between juice and lassi, Rubicon’s drinks are sweet, thick in consistency, and truly a delight to all those who have an affinity for — yes — lychee, mango, guava, and passionfruit. Get them anywhere you can, most likely at a South Asian grocery store, and for the love of god, don’t buy the sparkling versions.

San Pellegrino prickly pear and orange

The blood orange flavor of these foil-wrapped cans gets a lot of airtime with soft drink enthusiasts, but o-ho! Let me tell you about the rare and best flavor of San Pellegrino. Prickly pear, also known as nopal, is a cactus that can be used in savory cooking but also eaten as a fruit. This flavor sets itself apart from other San Pellegrino varieties in that it doesn’t taste as artificial, which is hard to achieve with carbonated sodas.

Bruce Cost jasmine green tea ginger ale

I never really understood the love for ginger ale until I tried Bruce Cost’s. With other ginger ales, the ginger is too strong, or the sugar too sweet to counteract the ginger, but the beauty of Bruce Cost’s ginger ale is that it’s infused with flavors that you wouldn’t think would work — and yet they do. Jasmine green tea is amazing all by itself, but with the ginger ale flavor, it’s a perfect union.

Ikea elderflower drink/Belvoir elderflower presse or cordial

Elderflower is popular around northwestern and central Europe, and has a distinctly elegant taste that is a heavy-hitter by itself and with cocktails. If your store has a specialty shelf dedicated to the friends across the pond, you may have some luck in finding Belvoir, an elderflower cordial popular with us Brits. If not, perhaps you can scoop a carton or bottle of “Dryk Flader” next time you’re at Ikea trying to satisfy your meatball craving.

Suanmeitang (Chinese sour plum juice)

If, like me, your only experience of plum juice is to fix some… uh… bowel issues, then I understand the hesitation with trying suanmeitang. But this is an all-around winner: a sweet, sour, and very slightly salty plum juice, in an adorable bottle, that, yes, helps with digestion — because bowel movement is important! Grow up! You can likely find suanmeitang at most Chinese grocery stores.

Milky

Vitasoy black sesame

If you’ve ever been to HMart or an East Asian supermarket, you might have seen these cartons in a variety of colors to denote different flavors. But nothing reigns more supreme than the black sesame flavor: A milky backdrop complements the nuttiness of the black sesame and makes for a great drinkable dessert.

Marusan Hojicha milk tea

Milk tea is tea leaves steeped in milk in various combinations. You have oolong, darjeeling, and other forms (which I encourage you to try if you haven’t), but hojicha is my personal favorite. Hojicha is the more elegant sister of matcha: Whereas matcha leans more fresh and grassy, hojicha is the roasted version, and provides a deeper and earthier flavor. I recommend finding hojicha leaves and having them for hot tea (or finding sachets for a hojicha instant latte), but if you want a soothing cold version, hojicha milk tea in the carton is unbeatable. Marusan’s uses soy milk, which helps with any lactose intolerance.

Yakult probiotic drink

A legend, an icon. Nothing can replace the tangy sweetness of this watery liquid. She mainstreamed and we still love her. Does she actually help with good gut bacteria? Do we care either way?

T.Grand Assam milk tea

Assam tea is produced in Assam, India, and it’s a pretty singular black tea flavor. It tastes a little bit like fragrant burnt sugar or earthy caramel. Adding milk nestles that flavor into your palate and imparts an astounding flavor somewhere between creamy and fruity, floral and nutty. It has crisp notes, much like oolong, but the taste itself is rounded out. I prefer T.Grand’s version, partly because of its “My Way My Life My Milk Tea” caption on the cartons (damn straight!), but UCC has Assam milk tea too.

Bikkle yogurt drink

For those who need a little more of Yakult, and the tiny bottles simply don’t hit, we have Bikkle’s yogurt drink. Much like Calpis, it’s a yogurt drink that tastes less like lactose and more like a kind of sugar that does something to the pleasure center of the brain. It has a better taste and consistency than Calpis, and does not give me a tummy ache, so it’s a win all-around.

• Get Yourself a Specialty Soda, as a Treat [E]

These Pantry Labels Made by a Blogger in Minnesota Are Taking Over TikTok

July 31, 2020 Admin 0 Comments

How simple, streamlined white stickers ended up in pantries across America

Before the pandemic, I never spent much time in my apartment’s tiny galley-style kitchen, preferring to dine out (or take out). Stay-at-home orders changed all of that. My refrigerator has never been more full, and while I’ve actually come to enjoy cooking, I found that recipes were taking twice as long as they should because of my overflowing spice cabinet. I’d sift through jars of turmeric and Everything But the Bagel blends, pushing past pumpkin-pie spice and paprika to search for garlic powder, only to realize I was out.

In the midst of my frustration, TikTok’s For You page, which seems to have an algorithm that knows me better than I do, surfaced an organizational video by Brooklyn-based blogger Teresa Caruso that details how she turned her “hot mess” of a spice cabinet into a pristine display. (Lest you think TikTok is just dancing teens, the #diy hashtag has nearly 40 billion views.) Caruso’s project seemed entirely doable, if a little time consuming. But the real sell for me was the streamlined white stickers she placed on each of her spice jars. Something clearly resonated with other people too: Her how-to has since been viewed over 3.4 million times.

Caruso first got the idea to revamp her cabinet after seeing a similar project by carpenter and blogger Jen Woodhouse on Pinterest. “My bottles were just multiplying — I’d buy things, forget them in the back of the cabinet, and all of a sudden was left with three huge bottles of crushed red pepper,” Woodhouse told me. She came across custom spice labels by Kim Negaard, a Minnesota graphic designer and blogger who runs Paper & Pear on Etsy. Woodhouse appreciated the stickers’ “clean, modern look,” as did her followers — after she posted about the undertaking on Instagram, she was inundated with requests for where she bought them.

While Etsy offers plenty of similarly spare spice labels by a host of sellers, Negaard’s designs are among the most popular — her minimalist and modern labels have over 2,300 reviews. When I got in touch with Negaard to learn more about her brand, she said the business was inspired by a personal need: A few years ago, in an effort to “reduce packaging waste and the environmental impact” of cooking, she and her husband started buying bulk spices at their local food co-op and storing them in old jars. But the upcycled containers lacked labels, and when she couldn’t find any options she liked, she decided to make her own. An Etsy shop soon followed.

And while TikTok has certainly boosted her fan base, she says she began noticing an uptick in business in February, just before the country went into lockdown. Suddenly, “there was this unique combination of people with extra time on their hands to tackle home projects who also couldn’t eat out,” she explains. Negaard says she and her husband are now operating at ten times the amount of sales compared to the end of 2019; from January to March 2020, sales were 3.5 times what they were during the same period last year.

The labels have experienced notoriety on other social-media platforms. Earlier this year, Domino highlighted organizer Shira Gill’s overhaul of a kitchen belonging to Identité Collective founder Anastasia Casey, and the resulting spice cabinet — featuring Negaard’s signature labels — has been regrammed and pinned hundreds of times. Negaard believes the design is so popular because “it’s something that photographs well and can easily create a visually satisfying before-and-after effect that both TikTok and Instagram thrive on,” she says.

Casey told me that, though she loves her kitchen’s Paper & Pear labels, she believes the appeal of pantry overhauls on social media extends beyond some thoughtfully designed spice jars. “Those little moments of organization bring some calm to the storm and are a welcome mental break,” providing people with a small sense of accomplishment and control, Casey says. Adds professional organizer and Pinch of Help founder Brittani Allen, “The uniformity of the bottles and stickers eliminates just about all of the visual clutter of different spice bottles,” she says. “Our brain has less to process without all of the different packaging, which provides a calming effect every time you open your spice cabinet.” And these days, many of us welcome a little bit of calm anywhere we can find it.

Everything you need for your own TikTok-worthy spice cabinet

Paper & Pear Modern Spice Labels

Negaard’s popular design even includes a label for my beloved Everything But the Bagel seasoning. But you can even fully customize the labels to fit your own spice collection.

Container Store 6 oz. Glass Spice Bottle

Gill likes these 6-ounce bottles, which are larger than the average spice container, so they’ll fit an oversize jar of oregano or rosemary without causing you to throw away the extra.

Acrylic Spice Rack Wall Mount Organizer

Caruso loves these acrylic shelves, which she installed onto her pantry wall. Another tip? “If you’re going to switch to uniform bottles, consider adding a small sticker to the bottom of the bottle with the expiration date,” she says.

The Home Edit 9-Inch Lazy Susan

This lazy Susan, which both Allen and Gill recommend, allows you to see everything in your cabinet without sticking your arm all the way into the back corner.

Trim-to-Fit Wooden Spice Drawer Storage Organizer Insert

Allen is a big fan of spice drawers, particularly if you can repurpose a junk drawer into a more functional space.

America Will Run Slightly Slower as Dunkin’ Expects to Close 800 Stores

July 31, 2020 Admin 0 Comments

Plus, Domino’s in New Zealand got in trouble for offering a “Karen” special, and more news to start your day

The closures amount to 8% of U.S. locations

A slightly longer walk to get your large iced coffee in the dead of winter might be in the future, as the Dunkin’ announced it expects to close 800 locations by the end of the year. More than half of those closures are “450 limited-menu Speedway locations” that were rolled out earlier this year. Dunkin’ also says the proposed closures represent only two percent of its 2019 sales.

The company also plans on closing about 350 international locations. Many fast-food restaurants have seen dips in sales during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, sales have recently bounced back due in part to the drive-thru. Whatever happens, let’s hope Ben Affleck still has access to his order.

And in other news...

• Domino’s New Zealand was offering free pizzas for “mask wearing, law abiding Karens... that aren’t, well, ‘Karens.’” Are you shocked they had to apologize for it? [CNN]
• Impossible Foods will now be selling its burger at Walmart. [CNBC]
• Shake Shack will add drive-thrus next year, as it attempts to diversify its locations. [NRN]
• Over 10,000 Tyson employees test positive for COVID-19 since the pandemic began. [Forbes]
• Instacart hired 300,000 independent contractors in April, as grocery delivery business was booming. However, they’re now letting part-time employees go. [CNN]
• Coca-Cola, which bought seltzer darling Topo Chico, is now launching a Topo Chico hard seltzer in Latin America. [CNN]
• Kraft Heinz is thrilled everyone is staying at home and eating nothing but mac & cheese. [CNN]
• If you wanted a Grimaldi’s pizza but can’t get to New York, good news! Now you can just buy potato chips that taste like it. [EBT]
• A look into the minds of Celestial Seasonings stans:

• All AM Intel Coverage [E]

California Pizza Kitchen Files for Bankruptcy Because of Coronavirus

July 30, 2020 Admin 0 Comments

José Andrés Among the Latest Chefs to Sue For Insurance Coverage

July 30, 2020 Admin 0 Comments

Four D.C. restaurant groups took legal action against Travelers for denying claims during the pandemic

These Ikea Serving Trays Give My Pandemic Meals Some Much-Needed Variety

July 30, 2020 Admin 0 Comments

Who needs a dining table?

When I moved in with my boyfriend this June, I knew we would be spending a lot of time not just together, but together at home. Our one-bedroom apartment suddenly became an office, a yoga studio, and a coffee shop. It’s also where we eat pretty much all of our meals. But sitting at the same table all day, everyday for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and everything else quickly gets stale. Enter: Ikea trays.

An impulse buy after trying every couch on the floor, the four trays we picked up at Ikea last fall have become crucial vessels for our life during the pandemic. When we eat dinner while watching 90 Day Fiancé, we’ll each grab a tray. Now that our apartment is also an office, we use them to eat lunch in the bedroom if one of us has a call; there are few to no crumbs as a result. Essentially, these trays let us create micro spaces in the same two rooms: cheese plates on the couch, a hangover breakfast in bed, and an elaborate condiment tray for tacos at the table.

There are many places that sell serving trays, sometimes in heavy decorative versions made of wood, glass, or marble. But Ikea’s trays are cheaper and less precious than the ones you’ll find in more upscale home goods stores. My favorite is a black-and-white checkered version that’s just $5.99. It’s a shiny melamine plastic with a slight lip, and it’s the perfect size for a big plate, a cup, and some utensils. It doubles as our office essentials tray, currently holding a Mrs. Meyers candle, two sets of headphones, a receipt, the cork from the sparkling wine we drank our first night in the new place, a box of Maldon salt, and several pens.

Ikea’s trays are also durable. They’re made out of plastic that doesn’t break and can be easily wiped clean when they get messy, and some of the trays are designed to keep spills from happening altogether: This non-slip one is perfect for the clumsy person in your household (it’s me).

If the past few months have taught me anything, it’s the value of finding joy in the smallest moments, and these trays carry some of that weight. I particularly like this chic, smaller tray for keeping coffee, water, and a little bowl of snacks lined up next to a workspace. This tropical-patterned option would be perfect for a bottle of rosé, two wine glasses, and a bowl of olives that you can then take with you out to the yard, up to the roof, or onto the fire escape. Plus, if you’re compelled to photograph your food like I am, Ikea trays make very cute Instagram backdrops.

Since the pandemic began, we’ve all been spending much more time in spaces that are likely equipped for different circumstances, so surely you need something from Ikea (a tiny desk, a laundry rack, a cheerful shower curtain). Add these under $10 trays to your cart and instantly expand the variety of dining experiences you can have inside the same four walls.

‘It Was a Losing Fight to Write Anything That Wasn’t “Ethnic”’

July 30, 2020 Admin 0 Comments

White food writers are often allowed to be generalists, while BIPOC creators are limited to their personal histories, their cultures, and the foods their grandmothers made

In this age of the cook-turned-influencer, Bon Appétit’s video content found astonishing success by capitalizing on the colorful world of the quirky characters featured in its test kitchen. In many cases, the employees’ personalities were turned into their personal brands. This strategy, actively pursued by now-former editor-in-chief Adam Rapoport, piggybacked off an evolving relationship between audiences and celebrity chefs like Alison Roman, whose “authentic” lazy-girl cooking hacks jolted her into almost instant fame. Branding oneself as the creator of a viral dish (“the stew,” “the pasta”) or crafting an identity around a quirk or personality trait, all but eliminates the need for bona fide experts, allowing the internet-friendly celebrity chef to take their place.

But as the casual viewer noticed — and as stories about Bon Appétit’s corporate culture have revealed in recent weeks — it is almost always only white food writers, chefs, and recipe developers who get to adopt personas that go beyond their ethnicity. For every Brad Leone, who gets to be goofy and charming, for every Claire Saffitz, who becomes a sensation for being hyper-competitive and neurotically orderly, you have a Priya Krishna or a Rick Martinez, whose ethnicity, and the “expertise” in a certain cuisine that comes with it, is often framed as their most useful contribution to the team.

Martinez, former senior food editor and current BA contributor, was branded the “resident taco maestro” in the pages of the magazine, yet, as he recounted to Business Insider, then-deputy editor Andrew Knowlton asked if he was “a one-trick pony” for focusing on Mexican cuisine. Argentinian test kitchen manager Gaby Melian’s only solo video on YouTube is of her making her family’s empanada recipe. Fan favorite Sohla El-Waylly, who managed to veer out into more generalist territory with beloved recipes for dumplings, cinnamon buns, and even a carbonara dessert, started her career at BA talking about her riff on a family biryani recipe on the Bon Appétit Foodcast podcast and made an “updated” version of a Bengali snack, piyaju, for her first solo video. Even after expanding out of her “niche” and producing some of the channel’s most creative recipes, El-Waylly’s expertise was considered external to her identity, and — as she revealed in an Instagram story on June 8 — she was compensated as such. Other BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color) at BA, including contributing editor Priya Krishna and research director Joseph Hernandez, also spoke out against BA’s pay disparities and its pervasive racist culture that, as Business Insider wrote, “does not provide nonwhite employees the same opportunities on the brand’s video side that white employees enjoy.”

The feeling of being slotted into a niche is all too familiar for Martinez. “There’s this idea in food media that it’s somehow easier to cook the food of your culture because you grew up with it or that it’s a part of you,” Martinez tells me. “It completely discounts the skills that it takes to build a recipe for an American audience. To recreate or even create an homage to the original dish requires a lot of creativity, skill, and work.”

The recent changes at BA — Rapoport’s resignation, white BA staffers’ refusal to put out content until their BIPOC colleagues are paid fairly — are a start. Yet the simultaneous compartmentalizing and marginalization of BIPOC in food media goes far beyond one organization or one editor-in-chief. Allowing BIPOC to have more agency within the food media system will require reimagining the relationship white America has both to “other cuisines” and to the people who grew up on them.

There’s this perception in food media, which publications like Bon Appétit subscribe to and perpetuate, that all that nonwhite writers really want is to have their cultures represented “authentically.” But the premise of authenticity is rooted in a white gaze that selectively acquires aspects of nonwhite cultures to package as just exotic enough to remain accessible. In late June, the New York Times published a story about “Thai fruit” that frames common fruit in Thailand as foreign and difficult to understand. The week before, tofu was labeled “white, chewy, and bland” in a since-deleted tweet by Bloomberg Asia. And who can forget the infamous Bon Appétit pho fiasco, which called the Vietnamese dish “the new ramen” and enlisted a white chef to give a “PSA: This Is How You Should Be Eating Pho”? Stories like these serve as reminders that foods outside of whiteness are at odds with an imagined “American” readership, for whom these foods remain distant and other.

“Our white colleagues think that we are speaking out about representation or appropriation because we want to be seen as experts on the subject,” says travel and food writer Dan Q. Dao. “[But] what we are [really] fighting is a long battle for inclusivity and equity in our workplaces.”

Those workplaces, it should be noted, are overwhelmingly white. In June, Leah Bhabha noted in a Grubstreet piece, citing a 2019 Diversity Baseline study, that 76 percent of all publishing industry professionals are white. “In my own experience, as a biracial Indian writer, I’ve never had more than one coworker of color on my team,” she wrote, “and frequently it’s just been me.” The social media age — and the branding pressures inherent within — exacerbates that experience. Social media allows for real-time feedback that makes creators accountable to an audience that often acts as ad hoc sensitivity readers for people writing about their own cultural backgrounds. Writer and chef Samin Nosrat recently tweeted her frustrations with that pressure: “Instead of criticizing the systems that refuse to allow for greater diversity and inclusion, desis, Iranians, whoever, just pile on individual cooks for our perceived failure to represent their ideal versions of their entire cuisines. (Or even more frustratingly, for failing to cook something *exactly* like maman did it back home. I am not your maman!)”

But as media writer Allegra Hobbs pointed out in October 2019, “in the age of Twitter and Instagram, an online presence, which is necessarily public and necessarily consumable, seems all but mandatory for a writer who reaches (or hopes to reach) a certain level of renown.” In curating this online presence, writers and other creators are often pushed to flatten themselves into an easily legible extension of their identity.

Like many, food writer and chef Lesley Téllez has struggled with the expectations that come with being Mexican in food media. “There’s more pressure on BIPOC to find a niche that makes us stand out,” she says. “Over and over, the faces who look like us are people who specialize in food from their particular countries or backgrounds. It sends an overt message that stepping out as a generalist is hard, and that you will not be hired as such. I have definitely felt pressure to keep non-Mexican-cooking stuff off of my social media, and my old blog.”

For all the claims organizations in food media have made of diversifying their rosters and cleaning up the more egregious offenses in their treatment of nonwhite writers, there is still an association between nonwhite writers and their ethnicity, which is treated as tantamount to other aspects of their identities. BIPOC in food media are routinely not considered for assignments about things that don’t directly relate to their ethnicity or race. “I became a food writer 20 years ago when it was not really a profession,” says Ramin Ganeshram. “Yet, despite my qualifications as a reporter, editor, and chef, it was a losing fight to write anything that wasn’t ‘ethnic.’... I was discouraged and prevented from writing about generalized food technique or profiles, despite French culinary training.”

These assignments are often handed off to white writers, who are seen as “generalists” with the ability to stick their hands into any cuisine and turn it into something palatable (or, more importantly, into pageviews). Ganeshram says, “I was directly told regarding a job I didn’t receive at a New England-based national cooking magazine that they thought of me as more of an ‘ethnic’ writer.”

Instead, BIPOC get stuck with work directly related to their ethnicities. “I’m often asked to add a cultural slant even when one does not exist,” says food writer Su-Jit Lin, “or frame things from a point of greater expertise than I actually have. It’s assumed I’m fully indoctrinated into the culture and more Chinese than American (not true — my lane is actually Southern, Italian, and kind of Irish food).” Even when chefs push back against this compartmentalization, they are turned into caricatured ambassadors for their backgrounds. Chef (and Eater contributor) Jenny Dorsey wrote on Twitter that even though she demonstrated a dish on video that had nothing to do with her heritage, the result was ultimately titled “Jenny Dorsey talks about how her Chinese-American heritage influences her cooking.”

Often, the addition of a “cultural slant” to stories leads to one of the more egregious ways that nonwhite food is pigeonholed and othered — through what writer Isabel Quintero calls a lust for “Abuelita longing.” The term speaks to the way immigrant and diasporic writers (both within and outside food media) are frequently expected to add a dash of trauma or ancestral belonging to anything they write. As a Trinidadian-Iranian chef, Ganeshram finds this association particularly limiting. “When I’ve tried to write stories about my Iranian heritage, not being a recent Iranian immigrant or the child of a post-revolution immigrant has been an issue,” she says. “The editors I dealt with only wanted a refugee/escaping the Islamic Republic story. They decided what constituted an ‘authentic’ Iranian story, and that story was based in strife and hardship only.” These markers of authenticity can only come from the wholesome domesticity presumed of the ethnic other.

The extreme whiteness of the food industry, and of food media, places undue pressure on nonwhite writers and chefs. As food writer and founder of Whetstone Magazine, Stephen Satterfield wrote for Chefsfeed in 2017: “In mostly-white communities, you become an ambassador for your race. The stakes are high, and you try hard not to screw it up for the ones behind you…. Black chefs know this well: we must validate our presence, where others exist unquestioned. And what does it mean to be a black food writer? It means that you’ll never just be a food writer, you’ll be a black food writer.”

In other words, being designated as “ethnic” chefs put far too many BIPOC working in food media in a bind. Either they work against being pigeonholed by pitching stories that mark them as generalists, but lose out on assignments as a consequence, or they double down and tell stories of their culture and cuisine, but risk being limited both career- and compensation-wise.

Martinez was aware of this predicament while signing on to write a regional Mexican cookbook. “Writing a love letter to Mexico is so important in these times, but I had to seriously consider whether it would be a career-limiting move,” he says. He chose to write the book, but others, like Caroline Shin, food journalist and founder of the Cooking with Granny video and workshop series, have had to push against the expectation that anything they publish will be about their ethnic cuisine. “Last year, literary agents told me that I couldn’t sell diversity,” she says. “[I]f I wanted a cookbook, I should focus on my Korean culture.” While Shin chose to start her own program as what she calls an “‘I’ll show you’ to white-dominated institutions,” it raises the question of whether BIPOC in food media can taste mainstream success without operating as spokespeople for their ethnic cuisines.

But if you continue to pigeonhole and tokenize your BIPOC employees, seeing them primarily as products of trauma or perpetuating their marginalization by refusing them fair pay and workplace equity, then your calls to diversify the workplace mean very little, if anything at all.

Mallika Khanna is a graduate student in media who writes about film and digital culture, diaspora and immigrant experiences and the environment through a feminist, anti-capitalist lens. Nicole Medina is a Philly based illustrator who loves capturing adventure through her art using bold colors and patterns.

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In an excerpt from her memoir “Our Lady of Perpetual Hunger,” pastry chef Lisa Dononvan attempts to find some work-life balance at her first intense restaurant job

feIn 2018 Nashville pastry chef Lisa Donovan won the James Beard Award in the personal essay category for her Food & Wine essay titled “Dear Women: Own Your Stories.” With Our Lady of Perpetual Hunger, Donovan is doing just that.

The memoir traces Donovan’s path to becoming a celebrated pastry chef, including at Sean Brock restaurant Husk in Nashville, where she developed her signature buttermilk chess pie and endured a particularly toxic working environment. Throughout, she relates her own narrative and relationship to food to those of her mother and grandmothers.

In this excerpt, Donovan recounts the career influence of another woman: Nashville chef and restaurant owner Margot McCormack. Donovan’s first job at McCormack’s Margot Café is a far cry from her time at her first steady restaurant job at TradeWinds, a “22-­seat Italian cigar den housed in a double-­wide trailer on a dirt hillside corner” in Valparaiso, Florida. But while invigorating, she realizes that her role as a restaurant server with sights set on a career in the industry might be incompatible with her other roles: spouse to John and mother of two. —Monica Burton

Schlepping pastry and bread and cakes out of an apartment on the west side of town, waiting tables at a shit-hole tavern, I was very far from Margot McCormack’s world. All the while, on the east side of town, there was a restaurant serving classic French food, simple and fresh and perfectly executed. I did not even know restaurants of that caliber existed until I walked in to apply for a job at hers. If I remember correctly, I had heard from a friend of a friend that Margot was hiring but that she was, notably, “a battle‑ax” and “a straight‑up bitch.” I would soon learn that this meant those with that opinion simply did not have what it took or were not passionate enough to deserve to stay in her orbit. She had high standards, and she did not care if you liked her. Thank god. I was immediately attracted to Margot’s focus. And completely intimidated. Gratefully, I’m not easily scared off.

Margot Café is known as the South’s Chez Panisse and Margot its Alice Waters. Born and raised in Nashville, Margot was a chef in New York City when being a chef in New York City meant something. She came up in the era of Kitchen Confidential lore. And she behaved like it. She opened Margot Café & Bar in 2001, and it is still a pillar of high standards and delicious food to this day. I wandered into that restaurant in 2005, a few months after my daughter Maggie Donovan turned one and when the restaurant itself was just four years old — which is a strange thing to realize in retrospect. Four years into a new restaurant is its mere infancy — you’re just learning to walk, just learning how it all works, just learning how to maintain your vision. It felt so established already to me, like I was walking into something that had existed for decades; that is how clear Margot’s vision was, and that was how strong a leader she was. Yet looking back, she was really just finding her feet as a chef-­owner, and that changed my perspective on so many things I felt at the time.

Standing all of maybe five foot four, Margot wore a tight, curly, black haircut and a perpetual disapproving squint, her apron high and tight and a pair of black, plastic slip-on Birkenstock kitchen shoes that she always slid off and on her white crew-­socked feet while she sat with us during lineup, her legs always spread wide and her torso hunched over them with a menu in hand and a cocksureness that I could only dream of having. When her business partner, Jay Frein, an affable guy with a lot of money (hence his perpetual good mood, I figured), hired me, Margot was not the slightest bit interested in me or my shit. Jay hired me even though I lacked so much as a drop of knowledge on classical savory French food or wine or professional service. But he thought there was something there, which Margot, it became apparent, did not.

There was a requirement to purchase and study the Food Lover’s Companion so that we knew exactly what Margot was talking about at every lineup and, of course, to actually know what the hell we were talking about table side. I could not afford it, the book (or, if I’m being honest, the time to study), and never could find my way to purchasing it during those first few crucial months. She knew it. And, even though I borrowed the book from a fellow server who had been working there since the first day and knew every possible menu variation, I simply could not learn fast enough. The menu changed every day, and every day there were new things about which I knew only the basics — I certainly could have been better prepared each and every time. She relentlessly grilled me during lineup some days, asking me, with a pretty impressive snark in her voice, to detail the ingredients and preparation of every single menu item, stopping me short and lecturing me when I would forget there was lemon juice in the aioli or for stating that the ice cream was made with both whole milk and cream, not just cream, and how could I, how dare I, mix up gribiche with escabeche, what was I? An idiot? She frequently brought me to tears over details that I now know are crucial to a decent server’s basic arsenal about a chef’s repertoire.

I do not get brought to tears easily. Yet Margot got me there at least once weekly, often thrice weekly. I was frustrated by my inability, by how professional and experienced everyone was at their jobs, by how long it was taking me to catch up. They were able to talk about wine as if they had all been fucking vintners in the vineyard while eating and studying every variety of grape at the same time, bent over an oak barrel, little wine whores who could tell you about a Uruguayan Tannat grape as if they were as common as a Concord, me never thinking about it beyond the “this is good, see if you like it” education that Tom had given me. Their whole lives seemed to be about studying food as if they themselves were going to be the ones to cook each dish.

It was fucking terrifying. And thrilling. And I was proving to be fucking terrible at it. This was a very big step from serving twenty-year-­old fornicating-­under-­the-­table Vanderbilt students who were high or drunk and just wanted to lick alfredo sauce off each other’s faces for a laugh and leave two-­dollar tips on a hundred-­dollar tab, but it was a step I cared about and tried to take as steadily and as sincerely as possible. Even in my TradeWinds experience, I had never seen this world before. No matter how much I had studied and obsessed over baking, that was a wholly private — even emotional — education. This job was a crash course in getting my shit straight and learning about a food world that was real, that was dedicated to the same things I was dedicated to without even realizing I had a place I belonged to. I had a chance to be a professional if I wanted it. And there I was, fumbling every day in front of an audience of intelligent and bright humans whom I desperately wanted to count myself among.

I had a lot to learn beyond the actual trade and technical points of the work, and that was where I may have found the most trouble. There was an entire dance of restaurant industry social protocol that I was also messing up left and right. I basically kept to myself in the way of personal information and what I was willing to give of my free time, and I tried to just focus on the work when I was there. This is a major demerit in any restaurant, but especially in a small, chef-­owned one. Margot Café was a world, an entire world, she had built for herself, and it seemed expected that everyone, every single person in that building, would share their lives and off-­duty time like a family. This seeming requirement was bizarre to me. Even with all the beauty that Tom and the TradeWinds crew brought me, we still had lives outside of that trailer that had nothing to do with our coworkers. At Margot, being pals and hanging out with everyone outside of work was not something I realistically had time or energy for, but it was something that they all did, routines they all naturally fell into. They all went to get beers and smoke cigarettes across the street at a bar called 3 Crow nearly every night, or they lingered on the patio at the restaurant to wind down after work — the most pressing things they had waiting for them at home were a few Chihuahuas whom they treated like human children. There was nothing wrong with that, but I had an actual family, with real live children to take to school in the mornings, and I knew better than to think they would understand. I would calculate my till, tip out the bartender and the back waiter, make a bit of pleasant conversation, and then go home.

I left work when it was over because I had kids to care for, kids I missed every second of the day when I was not with them. I could not attend a lot of the many (MANY) work parties, and it came off as me not being a team player, as if I were snubbing them. But my life was not that of a typical restaurant worker, and that would prove to be an obstacle for me for most of my career — trying to make my family work while I made my career work was always more of a struggle than it should have been. It’s very different now; everyone seems older and wiser, and they (finally) have families and seem to understand what it feels like to have priorities that don’t involve taking tequila shots after a long shift and waking up at two p.m. with just enough time to shower and get to work by four p.m. I did not play the industry game right and that was in part why Margot was not impressed. Trying to have a family and work in hospitality seemed to be a fool’s choice. Yet there I was, that fool, strangely dedicated and committed to making my way because I had now found the work I realized I was built for. All my past oddities actually existed in one profession and I felt I had found my people, even if they didn’t know it yet because of how elusive I appeared to be.

After I had excelled enough as a server to prove to her that I cared and deserved to keep my job, Margot sat me down at my first employee review and said, “Look, Lisa, you clearly are getting better at this job, but I need to make something really clear to you. You have just walked into MY dream and I need to know that you understand that because it’s not obvious to me that you do.” She was no‑nonsense, to put it mildly. She cared totally about her restaurant, a trait I could not fault her for. But there was still an expectation that I would fold into her life, not just do my job well. I was focused on my family’s survival and trying to keep my own dreams alive while I put food on the table at home.

Years later, after she and her wife, Heather, adopted their son, Margot and I ran into each other, and she had the frazzled, exhausted, and slightly crazed look of a new mother on her face. She hugged me, not a usual Margot move, and said, “You know, I had no IDEA what your life was like until now. Good job keeping shit together while you raised TWO kids, Donovan. I’m impressed.” It was a moment of recognition that I did not know I needed — not of being acknowledged as a good mother, I don’t need anyone’s opinion about that (they wouldn’t know anyway), but of her thinking I was a good worker. I finally had confirmation that she knew how much I cared, despite how different I was from everyone else she employed at the time.

I think that as Margot watched me grow into my career she became proud of me, and even if it took some time, I think she realized what I was working for and who I was despite her initial impression of me. Under her, I worked for someone I greatly admired, someone who earned everything she had in her life, and she worked daily, hourly, minute by minute, to make sure it was protected. She had earned the right to her dream, the one I had a walk‑on role in.

Not only was I inspired by the standards she set inside those walls and at every single table and with every single plate that left her kitchen, I was inspired by the fact that she made something come true for herself. The singular thing she had missed about me at first, but seemed to understand eventually, was that I was likely paying closer attention than anyone else. I watched and learned and was quietly writing blueprints for my own life. I started to dream again under Margot’s roof. I started thinking more permanently. And I became dedicated to quality and hard work for the sake of the work, not just for the sake of survival.

It has to be said, for those out in the world who don’t understand what financial insecurity and poverty do to a person: almost the entirety of my ability to think better, to finally focus on the beautiful work and intentions Margot had created in the world, was because I was actually, for the first time since moving to Nashville, making enough money to do more than hustle and pivot. John had gotten a tenured-­track position at Middle Tennessee State University, and all our hard work and sacrifices were beginning to pay off — it was the first time we were able to exhale as a family and think bigger. It is hard, nearly impossible, to dream and plan and dedicate energy toward successful endeavors beyond a paycheck when you are broke and hungry. It is nearly impossible to think beyond each day when you are pinching (and rolling) pennies to make it through the week. Those couple of years working for Margot and MTSU were a big shift for us. We moved to east Nashville, and my job became one I worked hard to keep. It became a job where I wanted to thrive, a job where learning and growing were given priority — and were expected, at that. Margot and I would find our way to a long, very loving relationship full of mutual respect and mentorship. I now carry her voice with me as a guide. And, when I can’t guess what she might offer, I call her to have her tell me.

From OUR LADY OF PERPETUAL HUNGER: A Memoir by Lisa Donovan, to be published on 8/4/2020 by Penguin Press, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC. Copyright (c) 2020 by Lisa Donovan.

Herman Cain, Former Presidential Candidate and Pizza Chain CEO, Dies of COVID-19

July 30, 2020 Admin 0 Comments

During the 2012 presidential campaign, Cain used his tenure as Godfather’s Pizza CEO as his main selling point

Former Republican presidential candidate and former CEO of the Godfather’s Pizza chain Herman Cain has died of COVID-19. He was 74. On July 2, Cain announced on Twitter that he had tested positive for coronavirus and was being treated in an Atlanta-area hospital; that announcement came less than two weeks after Cain attended a Tulsa rally for President Donald Trump, where he did not wear a mask and was publicly critical of mask mandates.

Best known for his 2012 run for the Republican Party presidential nomination, Cain served as the CEO of the Omaha-based Godfather’s Pizza chain from 1986 to 1996. From 1996 to 1999, Cain was president of the National Restaurant Association, the restaurant industry lobbying group known non-affectionally as “the other NRA.” It was during his tenure that at least three women came forward with allegations of sexual harassment, for which, as Politico reported in 2011, the “restaurant group gave [two women] financial payouts to leave the association.” In November 2011, the Washington Post also reported that Cain’s spending during his tenure as head of the NRA had come under scrutiny.

During the 2012 campaign, Cain used his business experience running the fast-casual Godfather’s Pizza chain as his “biggest selling point” on the trail, PolitiFact wrote in 2011. “The 620-store chain was on the brink of bankruptcy when [Cain] arrived in 1986, he says, and he ‘turned it around with common-sense business principles.’” Cain is indeed credited with stabilizing the chain by revamping its ad campaigns, streamlining the menus, and “uniting the franchisees,” PolitiFact reported. At the time, the chain would not publicly comment on Cain’s run, simply releasing a statement that “Godfather’s Pizza takes no position on political candidates, but we do make great pizza.’”

In 2019, Trump announced he has considering Cain for a seat on the Federal Reserve Board. Cain ultimately withdrew from contention, the New York Times reported just two weeks later, “under new scrutiny over his attitudes toward women.”

Godfather’s Pizza currently has more than 500 locations nationwide. As of press time, it has not commented on Cain’s death.