Why Can’t Restaurants Make It on Takeout Alone?

August 31, 2020 Admin 0 Comments

A Warming, Traditional Breakfast From a Homestyle Indian Cooking Expert

August 31, 2020 Admin 0 Comments

This upma recipe from New York chef Chintan Pandya is just like the one his mother used to make

When Chintan Pandya thinks of breakfast, he thinks of upma. But he’s not alone in that: A traditional Indian breakfast speciality, upma is a savory porridge that’s found across homes in the western and southern parts of India and increasingly all across the country, and not just as a morning food. But Pandya, a New York-based chef born in Mumbai, has a hard time separating upma from his morning memories of enjoying warming bowls of it prepared for him by his mother.

The go-to ingredient here is coarsely-ground wheat, which more often than not is semolina. (As the star of the show, the very first step is dry-roasting semolina in a pan.) From there, you’ll find traditional additions like ginger, red onion, chile, and urad lentils, which all provide layers of crunch and texture to the porridge. Then of course there’s herbs and spices, often including curry leaves, mustard seeds, and cilantro.

But the beauty of upma, Pandya says, is how much you can customize it — with more nuts, seeds, and wide variety of vegetables. Some cooks add cashews or peanuts, while some (like Pandya) add yogurt for extra creaminess; peas and carrots are a popular addition once the onion is cooked down, and for others upma is incomplete without a touch of sugar. Once it’s cooked, many are in agreement that upma should be finished with a squeeze of lime, but lemon has been known to be used in its place. All variations aside, the ultimate goal is a comforting porridge that’s delicious and nutritious.

Known for his dedication to simple homestyle cooking at his restaurant Adda, Pandya has changed very little about his mother’s upma since he started making it for his own daughter. His recipe, which you can find below, is an ideal place to start on your quest for perfecting your own bowl. After that, go crazy with colors and textures, spice and sweetness.

Upma

Serves 4

Ingredients:
1 cup semolina
2 teaspoons ghee (this dish can be vegan if you swap ghee for oil)
¹⁄₂ teaspoon mustard seeds
5 to 6 curry leaves
1 teaspoon urad lentils
2 green chilis, chopped
¹⁄₂ teaspoon ginger, chopped
¹⁄₃ cup yogurt (optional)
1 red onion, chopped
1 cup tomatoes, chopped
1 teaspoon cilantro, chopped
Half a lime
Hot water
Salt

Step 1: Heat a small pan and dry-roast the semolina. Set aside.

Step 2: Using a medium pot heat the ghee. Add mustard seeds. Once seeds begin to crackle, add in urad lentils and curry leaves. Then, add in green chili and ginger. Add chopped onion and cook until translucent. Once onions are cooked, add tomatoes.

Step 3: Add salt to taste and mix well, then add the roasted semolina and mix again. Sauté and add in hot water. Cook well over medium heat

Step 4: Once cooked, add the yogurt and mix well. Once desired consistency is achieved, add the cilantro and juice from half a lime. Enjoy immediately.

McDonald’s Lawsuit Against Former CEO Steve Easterbrook Is Getting McMESSY

August 31, 2020 Admin 0 Comments

Plus, food volunteers get arrested in Kenosha, and more news to start your day

McDonald’s doesn’t hold back in its legal battle against former CEO

McDonald’s legal fight with its former CEO Steve Easterbrook continues to escalate, with the fast-food giant calling Easterbrook’s actions “morally bankrupt” in response to his request to dismiss the lawsuit against him.

As previously reported, Easterbrook was fired last fall for engaging in an inappropriate relationship with an employee. At the time, it was believed that this consensual relationship was non-physical and the only one of its kind to occur between Easterbrook and an employee, but McDonald’s later discovered — following an anonymous tip — that Easterbrook had engaged in physical, sexual relationships with multiple employees. Consequently, the company sued Easterbrook on August 10, in an attempt to claw back a severance package estimated to be worth tens of millions of dollars.

On August 14, Easterbrook’s legal team filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing that McDonald’s should have already known about the conduct that led to Easterbrook’s firing and separation agreement.

In its filing today, McDonald’s writes, “When McDonald’s investigated, its CEO lied.” Another scorching line includes the assertion that Easterbrook’s argument amounts to “he cannot be liable because, as a matter of law, he did not hide his misconduct well enough.”

A company spokesperson provided the following statement to Eater:

When McDonald’s investigated, Steve Easterbrook lied. He violated the Company’s policies, disrespected its values, and abused the trust of his co-workers, the Board, our franchisees, and our shareholders. His argument that he should not be held responsible for even repeated bad acts is morally bankrupt and fails under the law.

Recently, McDonald’s has also said that it is investigating its former head of human resources — who was recruited into his role by Easterbrook — for possible impropriety under Easterbrook, the Wall Street Journal reports. David Fairhurst, the global chief police officer, was fired last November after allegedly making women at the company feel uncomfortable on multiple occasions, McDonald’s current head of HR told employees in a meeting last week.

And in other news…

• Police in Kenosha, Wisconsin, arrested nine volunteers there to feed protesters and activists, allegedly on the basis of being in “suspicious vehicles” with out-of-state license plates. [Eater Seattle]
• The D.C. Attorney General is suing Instacart, alleging that the grocery delivery service hasn’t paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in sales tax and has tricked customers into believing that service fees actually amounted to tips for workers. [WaPo]
• Speaking of Instacart, shoppers say they face punishing metrics — such as the amount of time within which they have to accept an incoming order — that can determine whether or not their jobs will be terminated. [LA Times]
• Temporary drinking bans have surged around the world because of the coronavirus. [CNN]
• Sales of chocolate and candy, particularly premium chocolate, have spiked since mid-March. [Food Dive]
• How Heath Ceramics, the pottery studio behind Chez Panisse’s dinnerware, is getting by in the pandemic. [Fast Company]

• All AM Intel Coverage [E]

Seattle-Based Volunteer Group That Feeds Protesters and Activists Arrested in Kenosha

August 28, 2020 Admin 0 Comments

Is the Government Just Going to Watch the Restaurant Industry Die?

August 28, 2020 Admin 0 Comments

Without a bailout, independent restaurants face a disastrous fallout

A few months ago, as restaurants suffered through the first months of a devastating pandemic, chefs and restaurant owners across the country went on social media to call for a government bailout. In their pleas, they said that without government support, their restaurants would close for good. Neighborhoods would be reshaped; beloved watering holes would dry up and disappear. It was a bleak image of the future, with an urgent call to action — one that was more or less ignored by the federal government.

At the time, it was hard for me to imagine what a world without restaurants might look like. In the past several weeks, it’s gotten much easier. Since the onset of the pandemic, each day has brought a slow trickle of restaurant closures, but now, they’re coming in waves.

In New York, where the magnitude of closures is still unclear, the much-loved Thai restaurant Uncle Boons closed permanently on August 10, citing an inability to come to an agreement with their landlord. One of the city’s last Cuban-Chinese restaurants, La Caridad 78, also shuttered. After 41 years, Los Angeles Koreatown mainstay Dong Il Jang closed its doors, too. The last of the nation’s lesbian bars might not make it to the other side of the pandemic. Already, these closures are reshaping the landscapes of our cities. It’s hard to fully process the weight of each loss as the casualties stack up at an accelerating rate.

The shuttering restaurants are in every town and city, but the message is more or less the same wherever you look: The money ran out, options have been exhausted, the government assistance never came. According to numbers provided to Bloomberg by restaurant consultancy firm Aaron Allen & Associates, one-third of restaurants in the U.S. could close permanently this year. And according to a Yelp report, 60 percent of restaurants that have already closed won’t reopen.

With each announcement of another closing I find myself wondering if I could have done more as a customer. I bought the gift cards, the tote bags, and the branded swag; I ordered takeout and left tips as substantial as I could afford. But no amount of individual action — a $50 gift card here, a 30 percent tip there — will save the restaurant industry. What restaurants need is a show of financial support only the government can provide.

In the absence of that support, restaurants scrambling to pay rent, repay vendors, or meet the forgiveness requirements of their Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans — namely, keeping a majority of staff on payroll — have gone to dystopian lengths to stay open. In San Francisco, for instance, a restaurant seats its wealthy clientele in plastic domes to insulate them from the threats of the outside world. “We’re talking about domes because our nation’s pandemic response didn’t take advantage of the lessons learned by other nations,” writes San Francisco Chronicle restaurant critic Soleil Ho. “[B]ecause our healthcare system isn’t accessible to people at all income levels; because there is no stimulus for the undocumented immigrants who feed the country … because both restaurateurs and working class people who cannot do their jobs remotely have had to choose between their health and their livelihoods.”

A chaotic and disjointed response from the federal government and a patchwork of local guidelines and ordinances have forced restaurants and their workers into an impossible position. Restaurant owners have little choice but to stay open for business, and their employees risk serious illness — or death — to collect a paycheck.

These aren’t the kinds of choices restaurateurs should be making during a deadly pandemic. This ultimatum shouldn’t be forced upon often-underpaid waiters, line cooks, and dishwashers. It’s a monumental failing that we have made restaurant owners and workers choose between their livelihoods and their lives.

As the coronavirus pandemic first spread across the country, restaurants should have been provided with the resources to remain closed, protecting both their workers and the general public. Instead, the pressure to fuel the economy and meet the requirements of loan forgiveness pushed restaurants into hastily reopening.

Among the PPP program’s many shortcomings was its failure to reach businesses owned by women and people of color, with enormous sums of money instead being directed to franchise locations of national chain restaurants. For restaurant owners who did receive funding, a majority of that money was expected to be used on payroll, and for the loan to be forgiven a majority of staff had to be rehired. This was, from the start, illogical, since restaurants in most states still haven’t been able to reopen at full capacity, and rehiring a full staff to operate a mostly empty restaurant only spells a slower demise.

Where restaurants and bars do reopen for indoor dining, COVID-19 cases tend to spike. In response to the frightening rise in cases, government officials who so recently preached the importance of getting back to businesses as usual walk back reopenings, workers are once again unemployed, and restaurateurs must adjust and try to figure out how they’ll pay another month’s rent. It is, to put it simply, a total mess.

As the weather begins to cool off and outdoor dining in chillier parts of the country loses its appeal, the situation will only become more dire, and the need for government action more urgent. Restaurants in states that have yet to reopen for indoor dining and rely on patio spaces or sidewalk tables likely won’t have the cash to last more than a single cycle of rent or payroll. Unless help comes soon, there will be an immense rush of closures this winter.

Financially propping up restaurants to make it through the end of the year won’t insulate the industry from many of the challenges ahead — particularly if the support, like PPP loans, fails to reach many of those who need it most — but it would significantly help prevent the wave of closures we’re seeing now. A bill like the Real Economic Support That Acknowledges Unique Restaurant Assistance Needed to Survive (RESTAURANTS) Act of 2020, introduced in late May by Rep. Earl Blumenauer of Oregon, would go a long way in providing this support. Tailored more specifically to small businesses than PPP funding was, the bill would make $120 billion accessible to restaurants, in the form of grants that — unlike PPP loans — would not need to be paid back.

The bill faces an uphill battle, and if it does see the light of day, it will likely do so only after hundreds — if not thousands — more restaurants have closed. Negotiations over a fifth coronavirus relief package have stalled, and with funding for a service as essential as sending a postcard or a ballot up for debate, it’s hard to imagine restaurant relief will come soon. In an email statement to Eater, Blumenauer says his office is “doing everything we can to try and pass this bipartisan bill quickly to ensure that restaurants — and their workers — get the support they need to get through this unprecedented health crisis.”

If passed, a program like the RESTAURANTS Act could incentivize an action that should have been taken months ago: a national pause on indoor dining. Restaurant workers shouldn’t have to put themselves in harm’s way to make a living, and restaurant owners should be given a choice other than to reopen hastily or to close for good. Grant money could infuse these businesses with enough cash to keep their dining rooms closed, while offering takeout and curbside pickup. In addition to a bill propping up restaurants, enhanced unemployment benefits must be strengthened and extended past the end of the year — this comes with its own challenges for struggling state governments — before what is likely to be a brutal convergence of COVID-19 and flu season this fall.

Restaurants that manage to hold on through the end of the year still won’t be out of the woods: There’s still the question of how they’ll sustain operations into 2021. In San Leandro, California, Noodles Pho Me is one of very few Bay Area restaurants serving Lao-style pho, and was on the brink of closure earlier this month when its owners negotiated a deal with the landlord. The lowering of rent will allow the restaurant to remain open through the end of the year. This news brought a sigh of relief, a relaxing of the shoulders for Noodles Pho Me’s owners and many fans. “We teetered almost to the verge of bankruptcy,” the restaurant’s co-owner Tong Sengsourith tells Eater SF. It wasn’t just a question of how the restaurant was going to pay rent month-to-month, but also how they could afford to pay what would amount to more than $30,000 in missed rent at the end of the year.

At B&H Dairy, one of New York’s last kosher lunch counters, a sign in the window welcomes customers. But on August 19, a message on the restaurant’s Instagram account warned that the struggle is far from over for the diner, which has been in business since 1938. “Anyone who is under the impression that because a restaurant [is] ‘open,’ all is ‘back to normal,’ is not grasping the reality of the pandemic and its consequences,” the post reads. The restaurant, which, according to the post, is only bringing in about 10 percent of the revenue it did before the pandemic, still has rent, payroll, and utilities to cover. To pay its bills, the restaurant launched a crowdfunding campaign. “We applied for all appropriate relief loans and grants from various city and government agencies, none of which have been granted so far, except for one tiny grant early on, which covered a fraction of one month’s rent, and has since been repaid,” the Instagram post continues. “To date, though several applications are pending, we have received no further government assistance or relief.”

For restaurants like Noodles Pho Me and B&H Dairy, which avoid being swept up in the first wave of closures, 2021 will bring more challenges. Businesses will scramble to make up for thousands of dollars in lost income, to repay debts to vendors, to pay back months of rent. They, too, will need government support.

“Restaurants don’t typically maintain enough cash flow to get through a week of closure, never mind half a year,” says Lana Porcello, co-owner of the restaurant Outerlands in San Francisco. “Many of us carry a fair amount of debt as part of our long-range model. It’s the nature of our industry, and hopefully one that will change now that so many of its fractures have been revealed through this experience.” Porcello, who opted to close her restaurant for the duration of San Francisco’s shelter-in-place, says that restaurants need “creative autonomy” to decide how to spend relief funds, and that one size won’t fit all when it comes to a solution. “Restaurants will not survive without direct relief, and the freedom to structure how that relief must be applied based on their circumstances,” she says. “Right now, the RESTAURANTS Act is our most viable potential lifeline.”

In Emeryville, California, Fernay McPherson, chef-owner of Southern restaurant Minnie Bell’s, echoes just how bad things will get if help doesn’t come soon. “Many of us are definitely at jeopardy of closing if there is no bailout,” McPherson recently told me via email. “A lot of restaurants are accumulating debt via loans or depleting whatever funds they have left, the hole is going to be too big to get out of which will result in many more restaurant doors closing.”

We’ve been so focused on an urgent return to normalcy that in the process, we’ve chipped away at any real chance we have of saving the restaurants and bars we miss so much. As Eater’s Jaya Saxena puts it: “the question is being presented not as ‘when will the pandemic be under control?’ but rather ‘when can we start making money again?’ That framing puts the wellbeing of business over the wellbeing of people, to already confounding results. It’s pretty clear that where dining rooms have reopened, safety measures often exist in direct opposition to how a restaurant is supposed to operate.”

If restaurants don’t see monetary relief soon, and restaurant workers aren’t provided with the financial support they need to safely make it through the pandemic, the suffering will needlessly continue, and there will be no normal to return to.

Summer Is Forever With This Corn-on-the-Cob Chair

August 28, 2020 Admin 0 Comments

The internet is in love with this piece of furniture that’s inspired by food art history

Like most people, I typically try to avoid thinking about the term “corn stool” as much as possible, though the funky furniture piece of my dreams is changing that. Do not underestimate this seat in the shape of a corn-on-the-cob by Third Drawer Down, an Australian home goods company. In fact, the chair, priced at a $210-250 (depending on the stockist), is constantly waitlisted, making people like myself wonder if they would do unspeakable things — such as continuing to say “corn stool” — to get their hands on one.

I love how the stool features a big bite of kernels missing, suggesting that it is almost too delicious to not purchase. With it’s 16” x 11.8” size and nub shape, the yellow stool can also function as a side table or nightstand if need be—a surprisingly versatile item.

I needed to know more about the woman behind the corn stool, so I emailed Abi Crompton, the creative director and founder of Third Drawer. She responded, saying, “I would love to chat about giant, tasty corn with you,” and I knew it was going to be a jolly good time. Though Crompton first designed the chair ten years ago, in the past year, the furniture piece has gained a new level of fanfare in the U.S., thanks to Instagram and being stocked at hip NYC design shops like Coming Soon and major chains like Urban Outfitters.

Crompton says that while corn is obviously grown in both Australia and America, the fact that it is so endemic to many parts of our food system, could contribute to its recent success here. When asked whether she knew the stool would be an instant hit, she told me, confidently, “Yes, the functionality of being a stool with the quickness of being food,” made the chair an easy sell.

The corn-shaped stool isn’t the team’s first exploration into food-themed homegoods; Third Drawer Down has turned artist Marilyn Minter’s “Food Porn” series into placements and made coasters featuring Judy Chicago’s iconic feminist “The Dinner Party,” still on display at New York City’s Brooklyn Museum.

For Crompton, this particular produce-themed product is closely entwined with art history. The oversized, cartoonish sculpture was, in part, inspired by the 1964 exhibition titled, “The American Supermarket,” held at the Upper East Side gallery, Bianchini — run by Paul Bianchini, a famed Pop Art dealer and kingmaker in the industry. It was transformed into a “mock marketplace… with everything from Andy Warhol shopping bags screen printed with Campbell’s Soup cans, to Tom Wesselman plastic turkeys to illustrate the ideals of the American consumption,” she says. Likewise, the Swedish-born American sculptor Claes Oldenburg — known for his massive, inedible soft food sculptures of items such cakes, hamburgers, or sandwiches — was a reference point. “He believed that mundane objects should receive as much attention in a physical gallery space alongside marble counterparts of ancient times. This is very much the inspiration for the food stools and why Third Drawer Down celebrates giant objects in our repertoire of products,” she tells me. “The 1960s was a strikingly food-obsessed era.”

A few years before the Bianchini Gallery show, in 1961, Oldenburg put on his own immersive installation called “The Store” on New York City’s Lower East Side, from which he sold his fake food made from painted plaster like it was a real grocery. These days, his legacy can be seen in the work of artists such as Chloe Wise and Beth Salvini, who now hold the torch as some of our epoch’s most important fake food sculpturesses. And you can acquire their humorous work — alongside Third Drawer’s corn stool for your home — to feel like you’re living in a Pop Art gallery show of your own making.

But, now, with August wrapping up, my mind swirls again to thoughts about how an ear of corn in my home could also help me savor summer for just a while longer. While corn being in season at your local farmer’s market is (unfortunately) not forever, these chairs can be an artful, humorous way to feel the sunshine at home all year long.

The Salmonella Outbreaks Among Peaches and Onions, Explained

August 28, 2020 Admin 0 Comments

Is foodborne illness everywhere this summer, or is it just us?

For anyone whose interests lie in the intersection of fresh produce and food safety — or anyone who just doesn’t want to get sick from Salmonella — the month of August may have been nerve wracking, as two major Salmonella outbreaks prompted the recall of onions and peaches across multiple states, stores, and products. The onion-linked outbreak of Salmonella Newport has, as of August 18, resulted in 869 reported cases across 47 states, and more than 230 reported cases in Canada. Meanwhile, the peach-associated outbreak of Salmonella Enteritidis has led to 78 reported cases across 12 states, per the latest update on August 27.

While investigations by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and other public health officials are still ongoing, the two outbreaks captured national media attention and concern. Eater spoke to five food safety experts, the CDC, and the FDA to find out more whether or not these back-to-back outbreaks are cause for alarm:

What is Salmonella and how can it infect people?

Salmonella is a genus of bacteria and one of the most frequently reported causes of foodborne illness. It’s transmitted through the fecal-oral route, meaning that humans consume food that has contaminated feces on it. Once it’s in the body, it can get into the gastrointestinal system and lead to infections, which can result in nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, cramps, and fever — symptoms that can be mild, but that can also lead to hospitalization or long-term health effects, according to Benjamin Chapman, a professor and food safety extension specialist at North Carolina State University.

Historically, Salmonella outbreaks have been associated with poultry, beef, and eggs, but the pathogen can be found in almost any source, including chocolate, petting zoos, pet animals, “you name it,” says Martin Wiedmann, a professor of food safety at Cornell University.

That includes fresh produce, such as onions and peaches. “Before the mid-’90s, we never really investigated foodborne illness outbreaks linked to fresh produce. Wasn’t because they weren’t happening, we just weren’t identifying them,” Chapman tells Eater. “The more we looked over the past couple of decades, the more prevalent fresh produce is as a source of foodborne illness.”

There are multiple ways that Salmonella can contaminate produce: humans (for example, harvesters), animals (both domesticated and wildlife), soil (including fertilizers and soil amendments), water (which can be contaminated from animals and then used for irrigation, or get to crops through flooding), and equipment and tools. Salmonella is “good at surviving under dry conditions as we might find on the surface of an onion or a peach,” says Donald Schaffner, a professor and extension specialist in food science at Rutgers University. The microorganism can also multiply in environments with favorable water, nutrient, and temperature conditions.

Why do the number of Salmonella-related recalls seem so prevalent recently? Are they actually prevalent, or does it just appear that way due to the attention these two cases have drawn?

Let’s get this out of the way: The two Salmonella outbreaks are not related, being genetically dissimilar, according to Peter Cassel, a press officer for the FDA. “We usually see more outbreaks of foodborne illness in the summer mainly because pathogens like Salmonella tend to do better in warmer weather/environments,” he says.

Michelle Danyluk, a professor of food science at the University of Florida, says it’s “all about perception.” Out of five multistate foodborne outbreaks so far this year, only two are linked to Salmonella; last year, there were seven. Overall, looking at the CDC’s National Outbreak Reporting System dashboard, the number of reported Salmonella outbreaks (defined as “when two or more people get the same illness from the same contaminated food or drink”) has remained relatively steady from 2009 to 2018.

The onion and peach recalls could be getting more attention because they are unusual sources. This is the first time a Salmonella outbreak has been associated with peaches, and onion recalls are not usually for whole bulb onions, according to Linda Harris, a specialist in cooperative extension and the department chair of food science and technology at the University of California, Davis.

The size and distribution of the outbreaks and recalls are also factors. While most reported outbreaks trace back to a single location — say, a restaurant in which one handler contaminated the food — multistate outbreaks suggest some source in, for instance, a farm or a packing facility before the product is shipped across the U.S. Furthermore, in addition to the produce itself, other foods were also recalled. “Onions are an ingredient in many foods and resulted in recalls of other foods containing onions, such as salsas and cheese dips,” says Matthew E. Wise, an epidemiologist and deputy branch chief for outbreak response and prevention at the CDC’s Division of Food, Water and Environmental Diseases. In the case of peaches, Wegmans bakery items containing peaches and Russ Davis Wholesale peach salsa were also recalled.

Finally, the timing of the outbreaks also likely contributed to the national story. Not only was the back-to-back emergence of these outbreaks noticeable, if not unheard of, but in the time of COVID-19, the public has a heightened awareness of infectious diseases, according to Chapman and Danyluk. “I think the way we are eating, and where we are eating, is a little bit different this year,” Danyluk says, “and we’re all a bit more sensitive to outbreaks.”

Are foodborne illnesses or outbreaks on the rise, more broadly?

There are an estimated 48 million cases of foodborne illness in the U.S. each year. While infections caused by certain pathogens may increase or decrease in any given year, overall, the number of estimated cases has remained steady, per Chapman. “That said, I think we could make the case that food is getting safer,” he says, “because at the same time that we’re not seeing an increase in outbreaks, our technology is getting better at actually finding them. What we see now, we might not have caught five years ago, and definitely not 10 to 15 years ago.”

Are foodborne illness outbreaks indicative of something unusual happening with our food supply or food safety systems?

It depends, as each outbreak is a little different, says Harris. “Sometimes the cause of an outbreak is identified, and sometimes that is a result of errors or mistakes made somewhere in the food system.” That may consist of a breakdown in a basic step like sanitation, or other protocols that people in our food supply should be following. There’s “no one place to point a finger,” per Harris.

The truth is, in most investigations, there may be a myriad of small things going wrong, and “we never find out exactly what the issue is,” Danyluk says.

One factor that drives the size of an outbreak is the speed of detection: If it takes 200 cases before public health authorities identify an outbreak, then the outbreak will be bigger. During the pandemic, it might take longer to detect an outbreak because people are simply less inclined to go to the doctor for a symptom like diarrhea, according to Wiedmann.

“It doesn’t mean a system is less safe, it’s just that things are different,” he says. “But there’s no evidence out there that the food supply is any less safe than it was eight or 12 months ago. It actually shows us that the system of detecting foodborne disease outbreaks is still working.”

Investigations of outbreaks may find gaps in the food safety system, but they are also vital for identifying areas for improvement in the future. Per Wise of the CDC: “Investigations can improve understanding of how contamination occurred at a specific point in the food supply chain, and lessons learned from investigations can help reduce or prevent future foodborne illnesses or outbreaks.”

TL;DR: Should the public be worried about these recalls?

Probably not. In the words of Wiedmann: “Life and food will never be zero risk. Driving in my car, anytime I go outside, I take a risk. Anytime I eat food, there is a risk.”

Foodborne disease cases will continue to happen because the food system is complex. But despite the risk — which Wiedmann emphasizes is “extremely small” — in general, experts say that consumers can continue to trust the safety of our food supply.

So what should consumers do with all these peaches and onions that may or may not be tainted by Salmonella?

It sucks to throw away a peach that may appear to be perfectly fine, but if public health agencies like the CDC and the FDA tell you to bin it, then bin it. (And don’t forget to clean and sanitize surfaces that have been touched by the foods in question.)

As Wiedmann says: “If there is a recall, you follow those recommendations.”

Amazon Opens Fresh, Its First Non-Whole Foods, Brick-and-Mortar Supermarket

August 28, 2020 Admin 0 Comments

Plus, Instacart is being sued by the DC attorney general, and more news to start your day

Apparently Amazon thought now was the time to pivot to “inside”

Last year, Amazon announced plans to open a line of grocery stores, and now, in the middle of a pandemic, the company has delivered on the threat/promise. Fresh, which opened in Woodland Hills, California yesterday, “is designed from the ground up to offer a seamless grocery shopping experience, whether customers are shopping in-store or online,” Jeff Helbling, VP of Amazon Fresh stores, told Progressive Grocer. But from the promotional video, it basically looks like Whole Foods, another Amazon property.

The main differences appear to be with expanded use of AI and monitoring technology. There are Alexa kiosks located around the store, a pick-up window for anyone who has made an online order, and the “Amazon Dash Cart,” which appears to automatically charge customers for whatever is in their carts when they walk through a specific lane. Fresh will also carry more conventional brands than Whole Foods.

There have been widespread complaints about the quality of Whole Foods going down since being acquired by Amazon, so shopping at Fresh is less about convenience and more about making sure customers do everything with Amazon. Gotta make sure Jeff Bezos, who added $35 billion to his net worth this year during a pandemic that has resulted in widespread unemployment and food insecurity, has more opportunities to profit!

And in other news...

• The FDA warns about hand sanitizer that’s packaged in vodka bottles, food pouches, or other food and drink packaging. [CNN]
• DC Attorney General Karl Racine is suing Instacart for allegedly deceiving customers over at 10 percent “service” fee, which many customers assumed was a tip, but which actually went to Instacart. The company also allegedly failed to collect sales tax in the District. [CNN]
• COVID-19 is affecting China’s traditions of family-style ordering and hotpot. [Washington Post]
• How chef Nina Compton is dealing with the pandemic in New Orleans. [TNY]
• Cheesecake Factory has allegedly been keeping employees from being public about positive coronavirus tests. [Bloomberg Businessweek]
• Starbucks is giving employees time off to vote, which is already mandated in most states, and election day should be a federal holiday anyway. [RBO]
• The Met’s reopening is good news for the hot dog vendors that set up outside. [NYTimes]
• The Coca-Cola Co. is restructuring its business, and offering “a voluntary separation program” to 4,000 employees. [FoodBusinessNews]
• Selena Gomez has signed on for a second season of her HBO Max show, Selena + Chef. [Vulture]

• All AM Intel Coverage [E]

The Short, Troubling Life of the Intentional Food Waste Meme

August 28, 2020 Admin 0 Comments

It’s the latest stupid thing people are doing to get attention on the internet

In a video that was posted on TikTok earlier this summer, a man is shown placing a watermelon on a chopping board. As soon as it’s in position, he begins to hack at the fruit, segmenting the entire melon before throwing the pieces into a nearby waste bin. He saves a single slice, removes a small chunk from it, then takes a bite before discarding the rest.

Like the other food waste videos posted by the same TikTok user, this one was uploaded without much context, leaving the intent behind the video open to interpretation. Despite its opacity, it was viewed over 13.5 million times; when it made its way to Twitter a couple of weeks later, it became a meme that was used as a metaphor for situations like having your heart figuratively chopped into pieces during a breakup. The memes got almost as much engagement as the original TikTok, but each time the video was tweeted with a funny caption to accompany it, it was met with the same negative reactions in the comments section: “Wasting food for clout will never not be disgusting” was a representative response.

The video was just one example of a burgeoning social media genre: the intentional food waste meme. Under captions like “proper way to eat coleslaw,” “how to eat plantains 101,” or “the best way to eat avocado” are brief videos of people throwing those foods — which are almost always in perfect condition — in the trash. They are a close cousin to the tweets that show photos of food used as a substitute for everyday objects, such as a tortilla masquerading as a painter’s palette, or the TikToks in which food is discarded in order to prank unsuspecting fast-food workers.

The origin of the intentional food waste meme is difficult to pin down, but it began to garner some attention and outrage in September 2019, when a Twitter user posted a video of someone dumping an In-N-Out burger and fries in a waste bin. The trend gained some steam earlier this year and eventually became a regular occurrence, especially during the first few weeks of COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns, when new social media fads seemed to spring up on a daily basis.

The memes recall the brand of absurdist humor popularized in the days of Vine, combining it with the strong opinions about food that people like to share on social media. They also bring to mind the broader online trend of throwing ostensibly fine stuff in the trash to emphasize a person’s dislike for it. Last year, people posted videos of themselves trashing their Juuls; this year, people are throwing away food they can’t stand. But if Juuls were being thrown away for health reasons, food is being thrown away for seemingly no reason, something that’s made these videos more susceptible to criticism; as one Twitter user wrote, “Y’all late 90s and 2000s kids love wasting food for social media likes/clout. Sad.”

That kind of feedback raises the following question: Why do trends like this gain any form of traction?

Jamie Cohen, a meme enthusiast and digital culture expert, suggests that since memes and trends are designed to create engagement, they often accelerate exponentially to extreme or absurd levels. “In the economy of attention, nearly anything that causes a reaction holds some sort of value to the creator — if one post results in engagement, they know how to use those techniques in further posts,” he says via email. “Memes are referential, so their metaphors are supposed to be nuanced, but sometimes, memes like these [the food waste memes] are very specifically made to be a type of engagement bait — some people laugh and some are super upset — but either way, it worked.” That said, he adds, “the food waste trend is unfortunate because it’s waste for waste’s sake.”

Even though these videos mostly seem to be made by teenagers who have no particular agenda beyond doing dumb things on the internet, it’s difficult not to look at them and wince at the sight of fresh food being thrown away. In the U.S., $161 billion worth of food is wasted every year, while over 37 million Americans struggle daily to get enough food. The pandemic has exacerbated food insecurity, with many people losing their jobs and consequently turning to food banks to survive. As a result, overwhelmed food banks are contending with families waiting in long lines and insufficient donations.

Against this backdrop, “throwing away perfectly good food to make a point on social media contributes to the normalization of this waste culture,” says Erin Hendrickson, a registered dietician and anti-food-waste advocate at No Waste Nutrition, “even though these videos may appear to be harmless at first glance.”

Of course, it would be unreasonable to blame the global issue of food waste and the rapid rise in food insecurity on a video of a single avocado being thrown into the trash or a plate of crab legs dumped over a balcony to the ground. But these posts portray an exploitation of a certain privilege: that of reliable access to good, healthy food — and the freedom to waste it in order to get attention on social media.

Are food waste videos worse than any other dumb thing that people do on the internet? That depends on who you ask and how you feel about the sight of someone unnecessarily throwing away food. But whether you view it as a categorically Bad Thing or something more neutral, the intentional food waste trend, like most social media trends, will likely (and hopefully) be short-lived. And in the meantime, here’s a helpful tip: Maybe don’t buy food you dislike.

How Tamales Are Made at One of New York City’s Favorite Puebla Tamal Shops  

August 27, 2020 Admin 0 Comments

Factory Tamal chef Fernando Lopez takes us through the laborious process of making traditional tamales by hand

Factory Tamal owner Fernando Lopez noticed that few if any tamale shops or stands in New York were making the traditional steamed masa dish entirely by hand. Even though it’s an extremely laborious process, Lopez wanted to bring the Mexican tradition with him to the city. “The way we make them here at Factory Tamal is the way my grandparents and their grandparents and generations after generations made them.”

Lopez uses white corn exported from Mexico for the ancient Mesoamerican process of nixtamalization, where the corn sits in a solution of hot water and the mineral lime for seven hours. This helps remove the hull from the corn, and makes it more nutritious. “During my parents’ generation, the tradition of nixtamal was lost because they didn’t have time, and would prefer buying tamales instead of making them at home. But when I arrived in New York, I decided that I wanted to bring back my culture, because in New York it did not exist.” The corn is then washed and peeled, and left to dry for 12 hours before it’s ground with stones made from volcanic rock. Next, the ground corn is hand filtered through a sieve to achieve the correct texture — a process that takes about three hours. “You have to have a lot of patience, dedication, and passion for the culture,” says Lopez. The fine and fluffy grains are then added to a bowl with lard, chicken broth, salt, and slowly hand-mixed, and left to rest.

In the meantime, Lopez makes his passed grandmother’s mole. He explains that there are many, many types of mole, and his comes from his family’s culture of Cholultecas. “The mission was to discover what my grandmother did in the kitchen,” Lopez says. “So I close my eyes and try to remember every corner of her kitchen, what she grabbed to cook her food. After trying many times, I was finally able to connect with that flavor, and see my grandmother again.”

After all of that work, it’s finally time to assemble the tamales. Lopez grabs a rinsed corn husk, layers it with masa dough, fresh mole sauce, and chicken, and wraps it up gently before placing it in a steamer.

“I always cooked because it was my job,” says Lopez. “But I never thought that food could connect you to your ancestors. I think food is key to keeping your memories alive.”

Bon Appétit Announces Dawn Davis, Publishing Heavyweight, as New Editor-in-Chief

August 27, 2020 Admin 0 Comments

Davis is currently a vice president at Simon & Schuster, where she founded 37 Ink, an imprint dedicated to publishing marginalized voices

After months of internal chaos, shake-ups, and a reckoning over racism and pay inequality at Bon Appétit, parent company Conde Nast has named Dawn Davis as the food publication’s new editor-in-chief. Davis, a prolific executive in the publishing industry, and one of few Black executives at a major publishing house, will join the publication on November 2, CNN Business reports.

Davis is a vice president at Simon & Schuster, where she founded and now leads 37 Ink, an imprint dedicated to sharing stories from marginalized communities. In her role at Simon & Schuster, Davis launched Inkwell Book Club, a national online book club celebrating Black authors. Davis was previously the publisher of HarperCollins imprint Amistad Press, which is “devoted to multicultural voices.” There she oversaw the publication of successful works including the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Known World, by Edward P. Jones.

Bon Appétit’s previous editor-in-chief, Adam Rapoport, stepped down in early June, after writer Tammie Teclemariam took to Twitter to share a 2013 photo of Rappaport and his wife (the photo was a screenshot from her Instagram) mocking Puerto Ricans at a Halloween party. (Though accused otherwise, Rapoport denies that he was in brownface in the photo.) Since Rapoport’s resignation, which many of Bon Appétit’s most prominent staff endorsed, the food publication has faced a near-constant stream of resignations and call-outs from current staff. It quickly became clear that racism, pay inequality, and varying degrees of toxicity penetrated deep into the company’s culture. Rapoport was just the tip of the iceberg.

An early allegation came from editor and beloved Bon Appétit YouTube star Sohla El-Waylly, who took to her Instagram Stories to share that she, unlike many of her white coworkers, was not compensated for her appearances in the brand’s wildly popular test kitchen videos. Since El-Waylly came forward, the everything-is-perfect facade of the famous test kitchen has crumbled. On August 12, after months of unsuccessful negotiations with Condé Nast, Priya Krishna, Rick Martinez, and El-Waylly all took to Instagram to share that they would no longer appear in the brand’s test kitchen videos. Martinez shared in his Instagram stories that while he’d hoped Rappaport’s resignation would lead to meaningful change, the five weeks of contract negotiations were “torturous and dehumanizing,” and ultimately did not result in a fair pay rate.

In total, six test kitchen stars have now announced they won’t be producing any more videos for the Bon Appétit YouTube channel, which boasts almost six million subscribers. It’s a huge loss for a brand which has built its success on these videos popularity. In recent weeks, Bon Appétit’s only two Black editorial staff resigned, citing the publication’s failure to recognize or properly value their numerous contributions.

The hiring of Davis comes two months after an apology was posted to Bon Appétit’s website, pledging the brand was “prioritizing people of color for the editor in chief candidate pool, implementing anti-racism training for our staff, and resolving any pay inequities that are found across all departments.” Davis tells CNN that in her new role as editor-in-chief, she is “hoping to tap into my particular asset, which is a Rolodex over 25 years of working with writers, some from marginalized communities, and elevating those voices and those experiences.”

Davis, whose responsibilities will include overseeing the magazine’s print and digital output, as well as its social media and video presence, didn’t tell CNN whether she intended to invite the channel’s existing stars back to the negotiating table. It’s not clear how many of the test kitchen stars would want to return to negotiations, if they were asked.

Though Davis comes to the publication with an enormous amount of experience in publishing, she has few connections to the world of food media — something Condé Nast executives may see as a strength, as they attempt to reshape the publication. Though she might not be a food media veteran, Davis isn’t entirely new to the world of cookbooks or home cooking: She’s the author of “If You Can Stand the Heat: Tales from Chefs and Restaurateurs,” a 1999 book featuring interviews with such acclaimed chefs as Anthony Bourdain.

“I want this to be a cultural magazine where the primary culture is food, but not something that’s in a vacuum, and I hope it’s fun,” Davis tells CNN. There’s no telling whether Davis, like Rappaport, will make regular appearances in test kitchen videos, but if she does, fans can expect to see her cooking up soup and fish, her two favorite types of dishes, according to her CNN interview.

A Simple Margherita Recipe From a Brooklyn Pizza Expert

August 27, 2020 Admin 0 Comments

Chef Mohamed Wahiba spent time at New York pizzerias like Speedy Romeo and Nicoletta

Make pizza at home. Trust us that it can be done with relative ease, and you may even make a pie that’s just as good as what your local pizzeria serves.

Or don’t listen to us, and listen instead to chef Mohamed Wahiba, the Brooklyn-based chef who worked alongside Justin Bazdaric at beloved shop Speedy Romeo and spent time in the kitchens at Michael White’s Nicoletta and Morini. Since he started at Nicolette, Wahiba has been teaching pizza-making classes, initially to guests of the restaurant and then eventually expanding to hosting classes under his events and catering company, Tripoli Events.

Specializing in Neapolitan-style, Wahiba will teach the art of pizza pretty much anywhere in the New York area where he can take his small, portable wood-fired oven. And from now until August 30, Wahiba and his oven are popping up at Brooklyn’s Maison Yaki, serving a menu of Italian dishes like wood-fired pizzas (there’s one topped with provolone, ricotta, and spicy honey), fresh lasagna and pastas, chicken pesto sandwiches, and heirloom tomato salads. Check out Wahiba’s recipe for a classic pizza margherita below, which the chef demonstrated on Eater’s Instagram at part of Eater at Home.

Classic Margherita Pizza

Makes 10 pizzas

For the pizza dough:
1,700 grams doppio zero (or “00”) flour
1 liter tap water
10 grams fresh yeast
20 grams olive oil
35 grams salt

For the pizza sauce:
About 800 grams ground tomato
8 to 10 fresh basil leaves
Salt

For each 10-inch pizza:
1 dough ball
~75 grams pizza sauce
100 grams fresh mozzarella
3 to 4 fresh basil leaves
Olive oil

Tools:
Medium bowl
Large bowl
Whisk
Spatula or dough scraper
Pizza peel
Kitchen scale

Step 1: Make the pizza dough. In a medium bowl, combine fresh yeast and water, stirring with whisk. Add salt and olive oil, continuing to stir with a whisk. Using a large bowl or work surface, slowly combine mixture with flour while kneading continuously. Coat inside of a large bowl with olive oil; transfer dough to bowl. Cover with a damp towel and let the dough rest for 4 hours.

Step 2: Once the 4 hours are up, use a scale to cut dough into 6-ounce pieces then roll each into a ball. To roll the dough, fold each piece of dough in on itself, joining the edges together at one point (almost as if you were creating a dough belly button). Pinch to close. Arrange dough balls on a plate or tray with the “belly button” facing down. Cover and store in a cool environment for 24 hours. (They will be ready to bake into pizzas tomorrow!)

Step 3: To make one pizza, place one dough ball on a surface lightly coated with flour. Press the dough before stretching it by pushing down with your palm to flatten the ball into a disc shape. Then, stretch the dough. Starting at the center, press down and out (toward the edges) with your fingers.

Step 4: Top your pizza as desired. For a classic margherita, drop a dollop of sauce at the center and use the back of the spoon to spread across the dough. Add pieces of fresh mozzarella, oregano flakes, basil leaves, grated Parmesan, and olive oil.

Step 5: Set the oven to its highest possible temperature and allow it to heat for at least one hour before you intend to cook — the hotter the oven, the better! (Wahiba’s wood-fired oven reaches over 1,000 degrees.) It will cook quickly, so keep a close eye on the crust and the bottom of the pizza to avoid burning it. Slide onto a cutting board and cut into slices. Enjoy!

A Mole-Rubbed Roast Chicken Recipe From a Former Barbuto Chef

August 27, 2020 Admin 0 Comments

Austin chef Jo Chan serves her flavorful chicken with a salad of plums, pine nuts, and croutons

Many chefs have taken on roast chicken as a way to flex their creativity or showcase excellence in simplicity — and some of these chicken recipes have even taken on national acclaim. There’s Zuni Cafe’s famous version served with a bread salad; and the signature JW roast chicken in salsa verde at the now-shuttered Barbuto, named after its chef and creator Jonathan Waxman, was synonymous with the New York restaurant.

Jo Chan, the executive chef of Austin’s Eberly (who spent three years in the kitchen at Barbuto), makes hers by rubbing the pre-roasted bird in smoked mole paste and roasting it in a cast-iron pan for about 30 minutes. And it’s best served, she says, with a salad of red plums, pine nuts, and sourdough croutons. Chan demonstrated how it’s all done as part of our Eater at Home series on Instagram. Check out the recipe below for yourself.

Smoked Mole-Rubbed Chicken and Summer Salad

Serves 4

Ingredients:

For the chicken:

1 whole 3 to 3.5-pound chicken
1 tablespoon fennel seeds
1 tablespoon black peppercorns
½ teaspoon Aleppo pepper
½ teaspoon celery seeds
1 lemon, sliced
¼ cup kosher salt
2 quarts water
2 tablespoons smoked mole paste

For the salad:

10 ounces mixed greens
2 small red plums, sliced into wedges
¼ cup pine nuts
1 cup sourdough croutons
¼ red onion, minced fine
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons chardonnay vinegar
¼ cup olive oil
Juice from 1 lemon

Step 1: Combine the salt and all spices together with water in a large mixing bowl. Whisk until salt is fully dissolved, then add sliced lemon. Place chicken in brine, making sure it is completely covered. (Depending on the size of your mixing bowl, you may need to add more water.) Allow to soak in brine for 1 hour.

Step 2: Using a sharp knife or kitchen shears, remove the back of the chicken and press firmly on the breastbone to properly spatchcock it. Place on a sheet tray and allow the chicken to dry in the refrigerator for a minimum of 2 hours. (Your local butcher can also spatchcock the chicken for you in advance.)

Step 3: Once rested and the chicken’s skin is fairly dry to the touch, preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Rub the smoked mole paste evenly across the entire bird.

Step 4: Heat a large cast-iron skillet over high heat. Once hot, add your chicken with the bone side down, making sure it is properly spaced in the pan. Transfer to the oven. Roast the chicken, basting occasionally, for approximately 30 minutes or until the meat is firm to the touch and cooked through. Allow the chicken to rest while you compose the salad.

Step 5: To make the dressing, combine red onion, Dijon mustard, lemon juice, and chardonnay vinegar in a large mixing bowl and whisk together. Slowly drizzle olive oil into mixture, whisking rapidly to form the dressing. Add mixed greens and toss to coat. Place mixed greens on large serving platter and scatter plums, pine nuts, and croutons over the top. Serve chicken over the salad and enjoy!

Chains Are Using the Pandemic as an Opportunity to Buy Independent Restaurants

August 27, 2020 Admin 0 Comments

Plus, you could drink beer made from toilet water, and more news to start your day

Brands like Dunkin’ and Chipotle are gobbling up real estate left vacant by independent restaurants

Though all restaurants have been hit hard during the pandemic, national chains have fared better than most. And they are using that leverage to seek out storefronts that have been left behind by independent restaurants that have been forced to shutter. Business Insider outlines how brands like Domino’s, Dunkin’ and Chipotle are “paving the way for chains to take over the American restaurant industry.” For instance, executives from Dunkin’ said that the closure of independent coffee shops provided “new development opportunities” for franchisees. And Chipotle isn’t even waiting for restaurants to close, instead reaching out to struggling restaurants and offering to buy out their leases.

Similarly, a group of fast food executives including people from Ruby Tuesday, &Pizza, and Qdoba have formed the FAST Acquisition Corp., a blank-check company whose goal is to buy into the restaurant and hospitality industry. “We believe there is a strong real estate opportunity, with many underperforming concepts shuttering units, and landlords providing flexibility on lease terms. We believe that now is the best time to apply a lifetime of learning to this opportunity,” the company writes in its SEC filing.

Because of the lack of support from the federal and local government, the door is now open for chains to take over these small businesses, leaving us with a Demolition Man-esque landscape where every restaurant is a Taco Bell. Sure, it might not end up being that dramatic, but it still sounds deeply unpleasant.

And in other news...

• Amethyst Coffee in Colorado is raising prices 50 percent in order to pay employees a living wage, proving how deflated both food costs and wages were in the first place. [BusinessDen]
• Employees say Ruby Tuesday is closing restaurants without notifying staff. [BI]
• Snoop Dogg launches a wine label, because that’s what celebrities do now. [CNN]
• Canadian brewery Village Brewery is making beer from treated municipal wastewater, in order to draw attention to and try to solve the issue of how much water is used in making beer. [Modern Farmer]
• A study from a USDA rep says the organization’s current guidelines do not prevent salmonella in poultry. [New Food Magazine]
• The Beyond Meat takeover continues with the company’s new online store. [Beyond Meat]
• A study of 2,000 Americans shows we are sick of cooking. [Fox]
• McDonald’s is investigating whether former CEO Steve Easterbrook, who was forced out after having a relationship with an employee, covered up the misconduct of other employees. [Detroit News]

• All AM Intel Coverage [E]

Texas Bars Are Still in Crisis

August 26, 2020 Admin 0 Comments

The state’s ham-fisted handling of bar shutdowns has put some of Dallas’s best watering holes in serious jeopardy

Ice Cream Expert Natasha Case Wants You to Save Your Pints to Make Tiramisu

August 26, 2020 Admin 0 Comments

The Coolhaus founder switches up the Italian dessert with ice cream and Biscoff cookies

The rise of beloved ice cream company Coolhaus is not unlike its fellow artisanal ice cream brands — one where local support and fervor in Los Angeles was so high that operations expanded from a single truck to a brick-and-mortar scoop shop, trucks in other cities like New York and Dallas, and eventually a strong retail presence, from supermarket chains like Publix to the chest freezer at your nearest bodega.

Now her second decade in the ice cream business, Coolhaus co-founder Natasha Case understands that demand for pints is ever consistent — and that there’s joy to be found in using ice cream in different ways. Case is particularly found of using ice cream to make tiramisu, which she demonstrated how to make on Instagram Live as part of Eater at Home.

The recipe includes all the necessary components to the Italian dessert: the coffee-dipped cookies, mascarpone, and cocoa powder... but in between it all is a layer of ice cream. Case calls for a simple vanilla, but she swears that anything from coffee to strawberry would work here. Check out the recipe below.

Ice Cream Tiramisu

Ingredients:

1 ¹⁄₂ cups heavy whipping cream
8-ounce container or one cup mascarpone, room temperature
¹⁄₃ cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup cold brew
3 tablespoons coffee flavored liqueur, preferably Kahlua
1 package Biscoff cookies (or Savoiardi-style ladyfingers for the traditionalists)
1 pint Coolhaus Best of Both Worlds Vanilla, softened to spreadable texture
Cocoa powder

Step 1: Add heavy whipping cream to a mixing bowl and beat on medium speed with an electric mixer or hand mixer. Slowly add sugar and vanilla and continue to beat until stiff peaks form. Add mascarpone cheese and mix just until combined. Set aside in fridge.

Step 2: Add coffee and liqueur to a shallow bowl. Dip the cookies in the coffee just enough to get them wet (don’t soak them) and lay them in a single layer on the bottom of an 8-inch baking dish or similar size pan.

Step 3: Carefully smooth the softened ice cream over the top. Add another layer of dipped cookies. Smooth the mascarpone whipped cream mixture over the top. Line the sides of the dish with any remaining cookies.

Step 4: Dust cocoa powder generously over the top — scoop the powder in a spoon and use a fine mesh strainer to set on top of the cake). Cover with plastic wrap. Freeze for at least two hours before serving. Frozen tiramisu can last for up to three months (but let’s be honest, you’ll never be able to control yourself for that long).

The Revolt Inside of the Jean-Georges Empire

August 26, 2020 Admin 0 Comments

Within Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s sprawling fine-dining machine, the pandemic has amplified lingering frustrations

No Black Winners and Rampant Allegations Led to the Cancellation of the James Beard Awards

August 26, 2020 Admin 0 Comments

The allegations range from bullying to sexual harassment, leading the foundation to reassess what constitutes award-worthy chef behavior, per the New York Times

The James Beard Awards, the most prestigious accolades in the American restaurant industry, were effectively canceled on August 20, with the foundation citing the devastating impact of COVID-19, as well as “sustained upheaval” within the restaurant community. But behind the scenes, less transparent and more harried decision making — including the realization that there were no Black winners in the various restaurant and chef categories — led to the verdict to not announce this year’s winners and to forgo next year’s awards, the New York Times reports.

As Eater’s Elazar Sontag reported previously, several award nominees withdrew themselves from consideration “for personal reasons,” in the foundation’s words. At least two — Sqirl’s Jessica Koslow and Paul Bartolotta of Milwaukee-based Bartolotta Restaurants group — asked that they be removed from consideration following allegations leveled against them. Koslow faced a highly public backlash last month for serving moldy jam, allegedly taking credit for employees’ recipes, and hiding an illegal and potentially unsafe kitchen from the health department. Bartolotta told Eater that he withdrew because of “anonymous accusations directed toward myself and the Bartolotta Restaurants organization that have been sent to the James Beard Foundation.”

But they weren’t the only nominees to face allegations against their conduct, the Times report details. In the wake of the George Floyd protests and a broader movement confronting anti-Black violence and racial injustices in the U.S., the restaurant industry — already devastated by the pandemic and its economic fallout — grappled with its own internal reckoning, as employees spoke out against practices that have long been brushed under the rug and dismissed as just a part of kitchen culture, from unequal treatment and bullying to allegations of sexual harassment. Many of the complaints have surfaced publicly on Instagram, both anonymously and not.

According to the Times, the James Beard Foundation found itself struggling to stay on top of new allegations as well as changing ideas of which chef behaviors should be considered acceptable, let alone award-worthy. While some chefs voluntarily dropped out, others were reportedly asked by the foundation to withdraw their nominations due to allegations along these lines.

Another factor contributing to the decision to cancel the awards was the lack of Black winners in any of the 23 categories. The James Beard Awards and the industry it honors has long been criticized for elevating and rewarding high-profile names who tend to be white men. This year, a handful of nominees were Black, but they ultimately didn’t emerge as winners in the voting.

The foundation’s chief strategy officer, Mitchell Davis, told the Times that they considered removing previous winners from the voting body, which also includes a 20-member restaurant committee and 200-odd regional judges. While this was presented as a way to eliminate “systemic bias,” it also would have meant actively removing votes after they had already been counted, a potentially dubious move.

A second proposal was to recast votes on a ballot that would only include nominees who hadn’t faced allegations against their behavior. But allegations kept coming, and according to the Times, restaurant committee members were troubled by a lack of transparency, standards, or ways to handle removing nominees from the list.

The foundation will be taking the next year to rework its awards and establish new rules, with the goal of removing systemic bias and making nominees more diverse.

How Grill Master Tom Ellis Uses Open Fire Cooking and a ‘Little Hell’ to Make a Feast

August 26, 2020 Admin 0 Comments

The chef prepares massive meals with local ingredients over an open flame

Swell Party grill master Tom Ellis considers himself an event planner first and a chef second. Using his skills as a trained actor and caterer, he thinks of his open fire kitchen as a stage, directing his locally sourced meat, vegetables, and fruits to roast over open fire grills for guests of large, elegant events.

When Ellis was a caterer in New York City, he learned how to prepare parts of dishes in a kitchen and then assemble on site via hot boxes, which is the standard type of catering in the city. He was then asked by a high-end event planner to work with a company that was doing fire cooking for events. “I was just blown away by the idea of cooking fresh on site,” says Ellis. “That was the real shock, like, we’re going to bring the raw ingredients, and we’re going to cook this meal for 250 people banquet-style, on site the day of the event. I mean that blew my mind, the notion of it.”

For his events, Ellis uses a set of grills called “infernios,” which are made up of a simple set of freestanding table-like pans that slide in and out over lit fires. Here he can adjust the heat by putting a pan low to the ground, higher up in the middle, or even by putting hot coals on the top pan to create a top-down heating effect. In the infernio, he crisps the sides of pork shoulders which then head to a dutch oven to roast for six hours in a braising liquid of beef and chicken stock, roasted tomatillos, apple and orange juice, and confit garlic, along with fresh apples. He and his team also set up hay-smoked black sea bass stuffed with lemon and garlic scapes, a number of roasted vegetables, and even make a dutch oven apple drop dumplings dessert.

“Fire is primal, it’s essential, and it’s truthful. It’s what we had for thousands of years. It’s the history of man and it’s cooking with wood,” says Ellis. “It’s in us, it’s in our DNA. It speaks to us in a very very honest way.”

 A Labor of Love

August 26, 2020 Admin 0 Comments

Love Letters to Black Folks provides nurturing and joy — in the form of beautiful desserts and care packages — to the Black community

Waiting in line for food in Portland, Oregon, isn’t an unusual experience. But being surrounded by Black faces that reflect your identity is absolutely out of the ordinary in the whitest city in America. It’s a phenomenon, though, that people queuing up for Love Letters to Black Folks can finally experience. Love Letters is a special event run by Black Feast, a Portland-based pop-up dinner collective that describes itself as “a creation of Black narrative and Black lineage that brings guests together to share an intimate and sensory meal.” The Love Letters also offer an entry into a much-needed Black space that prioritizes the healing and nurturing of Black folks — through the provision of complimentary desserts centered around Black joy.

Despite the masks worn for protection from COVID-19 hiding people’s smiles, the joy in the space is abundantly clear. The only prerequisite for receiving a “Love Letter” care package is to identify as Black. The package is provided in a brown paper bag printed with the Black Feast logo; a bundle of fresh flowers is attached to the dessert box, and inside the care package are miscellaneous items associated with self-care. Some people get flower essences or CBD skin care products, and others find other items provided to aid in wellness and care for Black folks; local restaurants and community members donate money, space, time, ingredients and more to help facilitate the initiative. For immunocompromised recipients, delivery is available.

The Love Letters effort, which wrapped this past weekend, was co-founded by Black Feast founder Salimatu Amabebe, who paused to identify what their role within a social justice movement would be after the uprising of protests throughout the country.

“Salimatu thought of this concept, and it was really beautiful because it was thinking about how we can show up for our people in a space that comes from a space of joy and a space of healing and being seen,” says creative director Annika Hansteen-Izora, who partnered with Amabebe on the project. “I feel like a lot of movement and conversation that we’re seeing around Black lives has stemmed from Black death. People have only started to care about Black people when it’s due to our death. In this space, we’re thinking about what it looks like if we create a space that is actually coming from Black joy, Black art, and being seen in that way.”

Amabebe started Black Feast in 2016 as a way to create visibility and space for Black folks and foods in an industry that doesn’t often pay homage to African cuisine. Amabebe, who is of Nigerian-American descent, originally started their career as a visual artist. They moved to New York City the summer after graduating college to work in various art galleries, and eventually found their way to making food professionally. “I kind of jumped into the deep end,” Amabebe says.

They worked their way from line cook to head chef, alternating between the art world and culinary culture. It was a residency overseas that finally married their passions for food and art. “I got this artist residency in Berlin which focused on food, art, and ecology, and I met at least a dozen other chefs, artists, makers, and people who were combining those worlds,” they say. “That opened up a lot of possibilities for me. When I came to Portland, I had plans to do this work and to create these events that really combine food and art together.”

Black Feast started in Portland and has since traveled to Berkeley, the Bay Area, and back to New York City. The popular pop-up has included guest chefs like Tara Thomas, who collaborated on a dinner that featured the music of Madison McFerrin, with courses like a black-tea-soaked tofu frittata, papaya uda pepper jelly, and fried cornflakes and asparagus tips (the course was called “Know You Better,” after McFerrin’s song). A dinner in May, titled “As Bright as the Living Body,” celebrated the work of Oakland-based artist and storyteller Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo — it offered free three-course meals for pickup to Black guests, featuring dishes like a black-eyed pea tomato stew, with non-Black people supporting the project with $30 donations. Each meal came tidily wrapped in a print of one of Branfman-Verissimo’s works.

The food and art event plans to continue its tradition of finding inspiration in art, identifying the themes that define an artistic work in order to identify a taste or flavor that will define the menu concept. “It’s a very vague and imprecise practice that relies a lot on intuition,” Amabebe says. “And I think that although it’s a bit different [than the usual approach], it’s a very similar idea of what feels nourishing right now and what’s exciting to me.”

Hansteen-Izora and Amabebe met in 2019 at one of the Black Feast pop-up events and launched the Love Letters effort on July 26. According to the two artists, the response to Love Letters has been “beautiful.” They light up as they describe the testimonials from Black people throughout the whitest city in America stating that they feel seen like never before, thanks to the nurturing and loving intention that defined the project.

Depending on what resources are needed for the event, the process of procuring supplies was similar to mutual aid efforts, which have flourished during the pandemic. And as at the Black Feast dinners, each menu was vegan, gluten-free, soy-free, and without cane sugar. Amabebe cooked up delicacies like a red palm fruit cheesecake, with cornflake crust and lime cashew cream, and strawberry shortcake with fig leaf cream and hazelnut truffle. After coming up with a unique concept for each week’s individual dessert, they’d spend Saturdays and Sundays prepping over 100 complimentary desserts at Sweedeedee, a Portland pie shop that offered its space for the event.

With Love Letters wrapped, the Pisces (Hansteen-Izora) and Virgo (Amabebe) duo say that their next Black Feast event may resume as early as September, but they don’t provide an exact location. “I think we will do at least one event in September, but we haven’t quite gotten that far,” Amabebe says. Those who want to keep up with Amabebe can follow @Black.Feast on Instagram or donate to their Cash App @Black Feast.

Jagger Blaec is a Portland-based journalist. She can be found writing about entertainment, wellness, intersectional feminism, sex, food, and Shia LaBeouf. Celeste Noche is a food, travel, and portrait photographer based between Portland, Oregon and San Francisco.