Foodies Clan

An updated list of recommendations from Eater’s shopping newsletter

Eater’s shopping newsletter, Add to Cart, spotlights the latest in cooking tools, food books, and drinks; merch for a good cause; and all the tableware and food-themed home goods that I would very much like to own (and thus, that I hope will pique your interest enough to click that “add to cart” button). But there are also times when you already know you want to buy something — housewarmings, birthdays, paydays, and days when you just feel like supporting a small business — and just need to be pointed in the right direction. For that, there’s this post: Think of it as a consistently updated gift guide and home base for the Add to Cart universe.

Here, you’ll find a collection of items mentioned in the newsletter that are still shoppable, organized into five categories: cookware and home goods, clothing and merch, food, drinks, and books. Be sure to check back — I’ll be adding new things to buy every week — and subscribe to Add to Cart to start your week with shopping inspiration sent straight to your inbox.

Cookware and Home Goods

Standout kitchen tools, tableware, and home decor that strike the right balance of form and function

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The cutest food-themed clothing, restaurant merch, and brand collabs

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From starter ingredients to complete meals, all the food that’s fit to gift

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Reading material for cooks and restaurant-goers alike

The Add to Cart Archives

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• The cookbook cover featured on a $300 T-shirt [ATC 04.18.21]
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• The cookbooks we’re cooking from this spring [ATC 03.28.21]
• The tools you’ll need to decorate frilly Instagram cakes [ATC 03.21.21]
• A new way to embrace microwave cooking [ATC 03.14.21]
• Spring is a good enough excuse as any to get something new [ATC 03.07.21]
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Chef Gabriel Rucker of Le Pigeon in Portland talks about his time on set and teaching the Hollywood legend to cook pigeon the avant-garde French way

The film Pig might be about Nicolas Cage’s quest to find his missing truffle pig, but it was Cage’s pigeon-basting technique that most concerned Gabriel Rucker. One of Portland’s most prominent chefs, Rucker was a consultant on the film, which is set in both the Oregon wilderness and Portland’s high-end restaurants and filmed largely on location. Rucker recognized his own work at the groundbreaking Le Pigeon in the script: Cage, now a truffle forager, used to be a French chef whose work was considered avant-garde, off-the-cuff, and outside of the box.

The dish Rucker created and taught Cage to cook features pigeon breast, wild chanterelles, and huckleberries. The movie isn’t out till July 16, but the trailer shows that dish — the basting, the sprigs of thyme, the final plating. Rucker taught Cage the dish and the techniques in the Le Pigeon kitchen before shooting the scene on set. “He wasn’t too cool for school,” says Rucker of his student. “It’s nice when you meet someone famous and they’re not an asshole.” Read on for more about Rucker’s experiences working on the summer’s most important film.

Eater: How did you end up as consulting chef on this movie and what does a consulting chef do?

Gabriel Rucker: I have never done anything of this sort. But it was just an opportunity to do something cool. I grew up watching National Treasure and Raising Arizona and Con Air and The Rock and Nicolas Cage movies. I got an email from the director, and when that came across my desk I was like, “Yeah, of course I want to help.” I would be bummed out if this movie was shot and I didn’t get that call. Nic Cage is such a cultural icon.

I designed dishes for the movie, and we had the opportunity to have [Cage] come through the kitchen. He came in at like 7 in the morning and he looked like shit. Little did I know that that’s what he was supposed to look like for the role. I was like, Oh geez, he hasn’t been taking care of himself.

He just jumped right in and was super respectful. He was himself: his voice and his mannerisms, I mean. He’s acting but that’s also how he was. He’s just Nicolas fucking Cage.

What were your duties for the film?

So they told me the premise of the movie, gave me the script, and I talked to the director [Michael Sarnoski] a couple times about dishes [for the film]. We settled on pigeon with foraged chanterelle mushrooms and huckleberries. It’s a very Oregon-feeling dish.

[Cage’s character is] supposed to be this avant-garde French chef, kind of like what Le Pigeon is, actually. I thought about a dish that would use some fun techniques for the camera. So searing the pigeon breast in a cast iron pan and adding garlic and thyme, and basting it with bubbling butter which is a very French technique — that can be filmed in a romantic and stylized way. He was doing very romanticized cooking movements, so I thought that would be good for that.

Also cleaning and dealing with wild mushrooms. He’s a forager in this movie and so I had great chanterelle mushrooms around for him to tear and smell. He really romanticized the movements, so I just helped it to become more realistic. I butchered the pigeons. He’s really bloody in that scene that I helped out with, and then he’s breaking down and cutting out the backbone and pulling out the hearts and the liver, so it worked out well there.

Talk to me about your time on the set.

So he came here, I took him through the movements of cooking the dish, we talked, and he spent some time in the kitchen with me. And then when it was time, it was like their final big day of shooting. On set, I helped stage the kitchen, and helped him remember the movements. I also got to consult on the movements on camera, like Do this, turn this way with the pan, and do it like that. I got to be very involved, I felt, in that final shoot of him cooking the food. It was super fun to get to be able to do something like that out of my element.

Did you get any sense of what kind of eating was happening on set? Did you guys eat the pigeon that you cooked?

No, because everything in Hollywood and film is so union. They have food catering companies that come in to feed everybody and it’s mandatory breaks. There was taco salad that everyone was eating.

So no one got to try the pigeon?

I think that they ate it in the actual shoot.

You talked a little bit about the romanticized movement that you were looking for and also the idea of creating a very Oregon dish. Were there any other ways that you approached matching the food to the themes of the movie?

Honestly, I just thought about the kind of food I was cooking at Le Pigeon in 2006 and 2007 when we were just starting. When I was looking at what they were looking for — mushrooms, a great sauce — it seemed like that. It seems like Portland in the late ’90s, early 2000s is what these people were chasing after. And so I just thought about what I would cook back in 2006 or 2007.

David Reamer

You mentioned using chanterelles, did you also work with truffles on set?

You know, it’s funny because I asked them if they wanted me to do truffles in the dish, and they said, “Oh, that would be too cliche.”

So it’s explicit that he’s not actually cooking with truffles. Interesting.

I don’t know but I just asked if they wanted me to use truffles, and the director said he felt like that would be a little bit too hitting the nail on the head. To me it makes sense, personally, because this guy, his whole life he has dedicated to finding truffles and he loves his truffle pig so much. But I’m not the director. And I said, alright, well then, how about I use a different wild mushroom, and he said, “That sounds great.”

I guess it makes sense ... if that’s how he’s making his money maybe it’s a “don’t get high on your own supply” kind of thing?

Exactly. Could be.

Is there a lot of truffle foraging happening in the Pacific Northwest? Have you ever worked with a truffle pig?

Well, they don’t use pigs for foraging truffles anymore, they use dogs. But I didn’t bother explaining that to the director because the movie is called Pig. So I think that’d be too big of a rewrite. And there’s probably already a movie called Dog. At least I know there’s All Dogs Go To Heaven.

There’s tons of foraging going on in the Pacific Northwest. Oregon truffles are very popular. I don’t use them at the restaurant as much as I used to, mainly because I can afford to use the Périgord truffle and the Australian black truffle that we get in summer. They have a longer shelf life and a little bit more of a pungent aroma, and to my tastes, are a little bit better of a truffle.

There’s a huge foraging scene in the Pacific Northwest and there’s people that make a living out foraging for, among other things, Oregon truffles. That is very real. Also the way that Nicolas Cage looked, he’s very forager-y.

I’m curious: Was the pig real and did you meet the pig?

Didn’t meet the pig, no, but it looks real in the trailer.

From the trailer, the movie seems really interested in fine dining specifically, but I’ve always found Portland to be pretty low-key. Do the themes in the movie feel true to Portland to you?

You know, I haven’t seen the movie. With Hollywood, anytime they ever make a movie about the city you live in, a thing that you’re familiar with, you’re never like, “that’s exactly how it is,” because that’s not the job of a movie. So I hope they do a good job with Portland as a backdrop, but only time will tell.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Chef Nettie Colón’s recipe combines a piri piri marinade with pineapple and onion pepper relish for a meal that just might upstage Mother Nature

The famed Italian restaurant was a training ground for many of the city’s most acclaimed chefs

Bartender Al Culliton’s take on a daiquiri brings in green tea for an ideal drink to sip around the campfire

Like its cornbread inspiration, this cake is casual and familiar. But don’t let its simplicity fool you.

Picnics, for me, have historically meant the semiannual, church-wide affairs that took place at a suburban metro park in my hometown. The entire congregation from my Korean church, young and old, would set up camp in the grass and spend the day socializing and enjoying nature. Instead of cheese, charcuterie, or sandwiches, you’d find a (mostly) Korean feast: rice, bulgogi, kimchi, fish fritters, and the like, with the occasional catered chicken tenders thrown in for good measure.

At these bountiful outdoor meals, slices of juicy watermelon served as dessert — traditional sweets were never very prevalent at all-church gatherings. While the fruit was always a welcome (and thirst-quenching) finish, memories of it recently got me thinking: what would a picnic cake look like, if it existed? While a picnic-specific cake didn’t bring up any immediate associations, it still implied a treat that was easy to transport and eat, and not laden with rich, meltable frosting. That gave me a hunch about where to start: cornbread. Though it’s normally eaten alongside savory foods, its potential as a center-stage dessert seemed promising: Among other virtues, it has a unique crumb, a touch of sweetness, the ability to hold up well to travel, and strong summertime vibes.

If cornbread were to get a glow-up, I’m convinced that this blueberry-balsamic-glazed cornbread cake would be the result. I used honey to bump up the cake’s sweetness and sour cream for a soft but not-too-moist texture, and combined yellow cornmeal with all-purpose flour to echo cornbread’s characteristic bite. Though I originally tried to incorporate whole blueberries into the cake, they just sank, regardless of whether I dusted them with flour pre-bake or sprinkled them on top halfway through baking (womp womp). Eventually, a light bulb went on: Why use whole berries when you could just mash them to make a glaze? This allowed me to keep blueberries a (visible) part of the cake while avoiding any issues with sinking fruit. Although the purple-hued glaze doesn’t contribute much intensity of flavor, it gives the cake a playful pop of color.

While I’ve always thought of cornbread as a (highly desirable) dinner side, this cake has convinced me it’s arguably even better in dessert form. Like its inspiration, it’s casual and familiar. But don’t let its simplicity fool you. Cut into squares, it’s hard to stop eating — it’s sweet and hearty but not cloying or heavy, and has a soft but structured texture. It’s also stable and easy to transport: You won’t be battling shifting layers and melting frosting. In other words, this is a picnic cake, one that captures the essence of summer and proves that dessert is sometimes only a few delicious tweaks away.

Cornbread Cake with Blueberry-Balsamic Glaze

Makes one 8-by-8-inch cake

Ingredients:

For the cake:

¾ cup (105 grams) all-purpose flour
¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons (55 grams) yellow cornmeal
1 teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon kosher salt
1 stick (113 grams) unsalted butter, softened
¾ cup (150 grams) granulated sugar
2 teaspoons honey
2 large eggs, at room temperature
½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons whole milk, at room temperature
⅓ cup (80 grams) full-fat sour cream, at room temperature

For the glaze:

¼ cup fresh blueberries
¼ teaspoon balsamic vinegar
1 cup (120 grams) powdered sugar (spooned into the measuring cup and leveled off), plus more as needed
Kosher salt

Instructions:

Step 1: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease an 8-by-8-inch square cake pan with nonstick cooking spray. Line the bottom with parchment paper, leaving a two-inch overhang on the sides (to make it easier to remove the cake after baking), and grease the parchment.

Step 2: In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cornmeal, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

Step 3: In a large bowl, beat the butter with an electric hand mixer or in a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment until smooth. Add the sugar and honey and cream the mixture until light and fluffy, 2 to 3 minutes. Scrape down the bowl with a rubber spatula.

Step 4: Beat in the eggs one at a time, scraping the bowl after each addition, then beat in the vanilla.

Step 5: Add half of the dry ingredients to the egg mixture and beat just until combined. Carefully beat in the milk and sour cream, then beat in the rest of the dry ingredients just until the batter is smooth.

Step 6: Transfer the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the surface with a small offset spatula. Bake the cake for 30 to 35 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through, until golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Step 7: Let the cake cool for 15 minutes, then gently run a small offset spatula around the edges to loosen. Using the parchment sling to assist, transfer the cake to a cooling rack.

Step 8: Make the glaze: Thoroughly mash the blueberries in a medium bowl with the back of a large spoon. Let the berries sit for a minute, allowing the juices to accumulate. Add balsamic vinegar, powdered sugar, and a few pinches of salt to the bowl and whisk until smooth; it will eventually come together. The consistency of the glaze should be pourable but not overly runny — if needed, add more powdered sugar, a tablespoon at a time.

Step 9: Line your workspace with a sheet of parchment, wax paper, or plastic wrap, or set out a rimmed baking sheet (any of these options makes for easier cleanup later). When the cake is completely cool, set the cooling rack (with the cake on it) over the parchment or baking sheet. Pour the glaze over the cake, spreading it to the edges and letting it run down the sides as desired. Allow the glaze to set completely before slicing and serving.

Joy Cho is a pastry chef and freelance writer based in Brooklyn. After losing her pastry cook job at the start of the pandemic, Joy launched Joy Cho Pastry, an Instagram business through which she sells her gem cakes to the New York City area.
Celeste Noche is a Filipino American food, travel, and portrait photographer based between Portland, Oregon, and San Francisco.
Recipe tested by Deena Prichep

The timeless serving dishes are having a renaissance and devotees are willing to pay thousands of dollars for rare patterns and sets

As pandemic restrictions that required mask-wearing and limited capacity for businesses of all kinds wound down over the past several months, I’d be lying if I said the first thing I wanted to do was go to a restaurant. Instead, I’ve been longing to spend my days safely wandering the dust-draped aisles of small-town antique stores and junk shops of all kinds in search of vintage Pyrex.

Many of us likely remember some iconic piece of Pyrex glassware in a mom or grandma’s kitchen. The avocado green casserole dishes in the “Spring Blossom” print and classic mixing bowls, sold in sets of primary colors, have held countless top-secret family recipes and decorated the dinner tables of multiple generations. Now, the timeless serving dishes are having a renaissance of sorts, thanks to a thriving secondary market powered by antique malls, intimate circles of collectors, and of course, eBay.

Whether it’s the resurgence in the mid-century modern aesthetic, a collective obsession with all things vintage, or the fact that many believe in its superior quality, there’s no denying the enduring appeal of Pyrex.

Pyrex made its debut on the consumer market in 1915, when Corning Inc. revolutionized the at-home glassware market with the introduction of borosilicate glass. Thanks to the addition of boron trioxide, borosilicate glass is described as “low-expansion,” which means it’s less likely to explode in high-heat environments like a ripping hot oven. It’s also less susceptible to thermal shock, or breakage that occurs in extreme temperature disparities. With the introduction of Pyrex, home cooks could now prep, cook, serve, and store their favorite dishes all in the same bowl.

The first Pyrex tableware to hit the market was made from clear glass. In 1936, Corning acquired the Macbeth-Evans Glass Company in Charleroi, Pennsylvania, and began producing the opaque white “opal glass” that is now coveted by collectors. Initially, though, these products weren’t intended for the home — instead, the glass was produced as a durable line of “messware,” or tableware for soldiers, for the United States military. According to the Corning Museum of Glass, this messware was so difficult to break that Harvey Littleton, an Army sergeant and son of early Pyrex developers Jesse and Becky “Bessie” Littleton, was known for betting his fellow soldiers a dollar that he could hurl the Pyrex glass at walls without it breaking.

Starting in the 1940s, during and after World War II, Corning began courting homemakers with a new line of Pyrex available in a wide range of colors. The first iconic pieces, introduced in 1943, are a set of mixing bowls in classic primary colors — red, blue, green, and yellow. Those initial colors were selected by Lilla Cortright, head of the Pyrex test kitchen. After those first bowls came a slew of new pieces — dinnerware, refrigerator containers, casserole dishes, and more — in a wide range of colors, including the iconic pink and turquoise, and pastel yellow.

According to Jennifer Ashley, author of an exhaustive Pyrex book called Shiny Happy Pyrex People, the company capitalized heavily on the post-war frugality of Americans, many of whom were buying their first homes in the midst of an economic boom. The brand’s refrigerator dishes, stackable glass dishes with lids, were touted as a way to save leftovers and reduce food waste, while the glass’s superior heat retention quality could be described as an early way to be energy efficient and use less fuel during cooking. The Pyrex dinnerware was promoted as more durable than other glass plates, so much so that sales representatives hosting live demonstrations in department stores and supermarkets would climb ladders and drop plates from the top to show potential customers that their new purchases wouldn’t break.

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Pyrex continued to produce new colors and patterns for its glass at an impressive clip. The first patterns, called Pink Daisy and Snowflake, were introduced in 1956. After that, the company began to roll out new patterns regularly. From 1956 to 1983, Pyrex produced 170 distinct patterns with fanciful names like Golden Honeysuckle, Lucky in Love, and Pineapple Party. For collectors, the Pyrex sweet spot runs from the 1950s to the late 1970s, a period of time in which the dishes were still made from borosilicate glass and produced in some of the most popular patterns.

Throughout this time, other glass producers, like Hazel Atlas and Anchor Hocking, saw their own success producing opaque tableware emblazoned with pretty patterns. Many of those items, like cups and saucers made from Fire King jadeite glass and mixing bowls decked out in cheery polka dots, are still collectible today. But Pyrex remains the dominant name on the market, largely because of the wider range of distinct, and visually striking, dishes Corning produced in comparison to its competitors.

In addition to Pyrex made in the United States, the molds used to produce best-selling pieces were also used in other countries, including the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Argentina, and France. Those pieces are especially popular among collectors today because they’re more rare and aesthetically distinct from American Pyrex.

In the mid-1980s, production of Pyrex opal glass in the United States all but ceased for reasons that remain unclear. Perhaps opal glass was no longer profitable for the Corning Glass Company, or maybe interest in the brightly colored dishes had waned. In 1986, the company began producing clear glass bowls that were painted with solid colors and patterns, and sold some U.K-produced opalware in the States. In 1998, Corning sold off its housewares division to focus on producing glass for other industries, like scientific research and technology.

What happened next is the source of some major controversy. Following the sale of the Pyrex brand to World Kitchen, Inc., now known as Corelle Brands, some Pyrex fans say the formula changed dramatically. After 1998, all Pyrex products were made with soda-lime glass, which many believe to be vastly inferior to the strength and thermal-shock-resistant properties of borosilicate Pyrex. Whether or not that is the case is up for some scientific debate. Fast forward to two decades later, and Pyrex was slapped with a class-action lawsuit in 2019, alleging that the soda-lime glass products were prone to breakage and even exploding.

According to NBC5 Chicago, more than 850 instances of this new Pyrex glass exploding or shattering were reported to the Consumer Protection Safety Board over the past decade, though Corelle Brands insists that its products have an “excellent safety record,” and that soda-lime glass was sometimes used to make Pyrex throughout the decades. Litigation over the allegedly exploding glass is still pending.

But well before the exploding Pyrex scandal, the classic opal glass was finding a resurgence among collectors and those obsessed with the midcentury modern aesthetic. And as with the rest of the rise of mid-mod, Pyrex’s rising popularity can be owed in a single pop-culture phenomenon: the television show Mad Men, which spans the ‘60s through the lens of a Madison Avenue advertising firm. According to Ashley, interest in vintage Pyrex surged following Mad Men’s 2007 premiere, and only continued to grow as fans watched watched Joan Halloway prepare dinner with her Pepto-pink casserole dish and Betty Draper set out party snacks in poppy-red bowls.

“The friends I’ve made in the Pyrex community have been collecting for 20 or 25 years, they’re long term collectors,” Ashley says. “I think I’m late to the game, because they’ve said that Mad Men definitely brought some new interest. And then came Mrs. Maisel.” Ashley’s referring to Amazon streaming series The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, about a rising comedian in the 1950s. In the show, titular character Midge Maisel serves her brisket in a Pink Daisy Pyrex casserole dish, the same favored by Joan in Mad Men, sparking renewed interest in one of the earliest Pyrex prints.

With increased interest has come seriously increased prices. According to Ashley, many early collectors were scoring rare pieces at thrift stores and garage sales for a few bucks each. “The market is definitely different,” she says. “You have more competition for each piece, especially among collectors, and thrift stores like Goodwill now have their own auction sites. They’re pulling things straight from the donation pile and sending them straight to auction instead of putting them out on the shelf for collectors to find.”

For Nate Smith, a guidance counselor at Dallas’s Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts and a relatively new — but serious — Pyrex collector, the hunt is part of the appeal. His interest in the brand began in earnest last year, as he sorted through his mother’s belongings. “It was an accidental, generational obsession,” Smith says. “My grandmother and my mother both loved Pyrex, and as I started researching and learning more about different patterns — and different patterns made in different countries — I fell hard and fast.”

Since beginning his Pyrex collection last fall, Smith estimates that he’s accumulated close to 1000 bowls, casserole dishes, storage containers (or “fridgies,” as they’re known in the Pyrex world) and other Pyrex essentials. He’s pursued rare patterns and promotional items across the world, scouring online resale groups and auction sites for the pieces he seeks. Recently, he scored one of his most coveted pieces — a large casserole dish in the “Cloverberry” print. Smith wouldn’t dish on what he paid for the dish, but directed me to eBay, where recent sales figures indicate that the same casserole sold recently for upwards of $1300.

Smith is also a seller, who frequently re-homes vintage finds of all kinds — not just Pyrex — that he doesn’t want to keep via the online shopping platform Mercari. While antique malls, thrift stores, and other resale shops are solid destinations for Pyrex hunting, most collectors eventually have to turn to online outlets like eBay, Etsy, and Facebook Marketplace to find less-common pieces. “You might get lucky going into a thrift store or an estate sale, but if you want something rare, you’re going to have to shop online,” Smith says. “If you’re not willing to do that, you’re going to be waiting around a long time.”

Prices in the Pyrex market are set by the two factors that guide most markets: demand and rarity. Throughout the decades, Pyrex produced a slew of promotional items and limited-edition patterns in small quantities, and those are seriously coveted by collectors. Right now, Smith is in search of a rare casserole dish produced by Pyrex in 1962 to commemorate the opening of New York City’s Lincoln Center. Other promotional items were produced as part of stamp redemption programs like S&H’s Green Stamps, where shoppers at grocery stores would collect stamps as they purchased their milk and bread to earn mixing bowls and other housewares.

According to Ashley, there are some prints so rare that only one or two pieces of each have ever been seen by collectors in the wild, like an ocean-inspired pattern nicknamed “Angelfish.” Other rare, coveted pieces were prototypes that never went into full production, and there are also those that seem to have been produced by creative Pyrex designers given free-reign. “I think a lot about how much autonomy the designers had, and what they were doing in their downtime,” Ashley says. “Because there’s quite a few one-offs. It’s just a matter of the person who has it, and whether or not they want to share it.”

In what may come as a surprise, many serious enthusiasts never actually use their Pyrex to cook with, including Smith. “The people who bought them originally bought them to use them, because people of that generation in that time period may not have had extra money for show pieces,” he says, emphasizing that a lot of Pyrex users still see their collections as more practical than precious. “Now, considering that so many of these pieces are passed down from generation to generation, if somebody saw their parents using them, they’re going to use them. Over time, they see that the pieces are still okay and they use them again, or if one breaks, it’s not a big deal. Things can be replaced.”

Even in the wilderness, the dishes require your attention

The iconic multipurpose soap has had a cult following for decades, and now the brand is trying to make the chocolate industry more ethical

It’s time for Dr. Bronner’s hive to rise up. This is our moment, we can now have our soap and… chocolate, too? In early August, the giant of natural soaps will release a line of chocolates that, the company hopes, will bring more equity and transparency to an industry that faces crises of both environment and labor. But how will it compare to the company’s legendary non-food products? Can it scrub my life clean?

I picked up a bottle of Dr. Bronner’s for the first time years ago to inspect the absolutely bizarre label, crammed with thousands of spiritual, religious, and political proclamations, and it has since become a staple in my life. Now, any mention of Dr. Bronner’s captures my attention — I feel a jolt of happiness every time I walk by a bodega window filled with rows of it in those tall, chaotically labeled containers. I wash my body, my dishes, and my floors with it. And in a world where hundred-million-dollar “good businesses” are near-mythical, Dr. Bronner’s seems to get pretty close. As Vox writes, employees make well above minimum wage and receive health care and childcare subsidies, and each year the company spends millions of dollars advocating for prison reform, cannabis legalization, and environmental justice. In 2012, David Bronner, the company’s CEO (that’s Cosmic Engagement Officer, in the language of Dr. B), could be found in Washington, DC, locked in a cage of hemp plants to protest the criminalization of hemp and cannabis.

It is, at first glance, surprising to see the storied natural cleaning product company nudging its way into the foodspace — they do sell coconut oil, too — but in many ways it makes perfect sense that a bar of chocolate is where Dr. Bronner’s would start. Even as a spotlight has been put on issues along the long food supply chain, the production of chocolate is still rife with exploitation, child labor, and environmental devastation. A Dr. Bronner’s press release introducing the new chocolates says that this entry into the foodspace is “a vehicle for the company to spread delicious chocolate while addressing ecological and social harm in the chocolate industry by modeling better practices in the sourcing and production of Dr. Bronner’s Magic All-One Chocolate.”

According to the press release, the chocolate has been developed in collaboration with Swiss chocolatiers and industry experts, making for “a chocolate experience like no other — from the brand that is best known for making soap like no other.” The production of cocoa for these bars will put an emphasis on regenerative agriculture, namely dynamic agroforestry, which Dr. Bronner’s describes as the “integration of complementary trees and other crops that creates biodiversity, improves yields and income streams, and avoids the use of toxic chemicals by replicating the way plant species naturally support each other in a healthy tropical forest.”

The decision to add chocolate to the Dr. Bronner’s line of products was spurred, according to the release, by the company learning that many of the farmers in Ghana who supply its Regenerative Organic Certified Serendipalm (Dr. Bronner’s soaps contain organic palm kernel oil) also grow cocoa. “It was,” David Bronner writes in the release, “a perfect opportunity to grow our partnership with fair trade farmers by developing these cocoa beans and other ingredients — all sourced to the highest standards possible — into a rich, delicious dark chocolate that elevates soil and community health, as well as quality of life for everyone in the supply chain.”

Looking at one of the company’s soon-to-be-released All-One chocolates, it’s admittedly hard to differentiate it from a bar of Dr. Bronner’s hand soap. And honestly, I kind of love that. The bars are 70% dark chocolate — not quite dark enough, but I’ll allow it — and sweetened with coconut sugar. Flavors like salted almond butter, smooth coconut praline, and roasted whole hazelnut put a very wise emphasis on the kind of salty-sweet paring that sets the best chocolate bars apart.

Though it’s hard — and yeah, okay, totally pointless — to compare soap and chocolate, the bottle of liquid gold sitting on the ledge of my shower sets a high bar for anything else the company sells. Can a company that has established itself as the standard-bearer for both quality and ethical business in the cleaning aisle capture lightning again, and demand the same kind of cultish audience it reaches with its soaps? Perhaps easier to measure (or maybe not): Is there any food in the world that can really match the burning glory of a full-to-the-top bottle of peppermint Dr. Bronner’s soap?

I’m honestly a little disappointed that the chocolate’s flavors don’t align more closely with Dr. Bronner’s soap fragrances. The brand’s citrus soap smells like the freshest fruit, and the peppermint is like something I’d inhale scooping up a bite of panna cotta. Save for eucalyptus and tea tree, every soap fragrance is something I’d definitely order at an ice cream shop. While some Swiss chocolatier reads this and gets to work on my idea of merging the best of soap and chocolate, I’ll settle for a bar of the hazelnut butter chocolate. It’s wrapped in a green label nearly identical to one hugging a bottle of soap underneath my sink.

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Throw your bruised berries into a vinegar bath, then reap the rewards

Tangy, sweet, and explosively juicy, shrubs are a delicious shortcut to making summery cocktails at home. Drinkable vinegars flavored with fruit and sugar, they welcome experimentation: Toss in your bruised berries, your overripe peaches yearning to be used. In a few days, you’ll be rewarded with the perfect mixer for seltzer, pet-nat, or your favorite booze.

“Shrubs were a very popular method of fruit preservation in the American colonial period, partially because water was very unsafe to drink at the time,” says cocktail historian Al Culliton, who operates Al’s Cocktail Club. “I am a big fan; they give a beautiful tanginess to otherwise heavy drinks, they’re stable enough to keep for longer than citrus juice, and can be easily batched.”

While their medicinal and recreational uses go way back in American culinary history, shrubs have easily made the leap to modern bars and grocery stores. You may recall the Great Drinking Vinegar Renaissance of the 2010s, when Pok Pok chef Andy Ricker riffed on Southeast Asia’s drinking vinegar tradition and American shrubs to create the Som cordial that captivated much of the food world. Today, those syrupy bottles have been rebranded from kombucha’s cousin to a cocktail-ready mixer, while new brands like Shrubbly and Drupefruit angle for the refrigerated aisle. But even with premade options clearly on the rise, it’s still worth your time to make shrubs, especially with summer’s bounty of fruit at the ready.

Don’t let the kombucha comparison fool you: Shrubs are exceptionally simple to make at home, no probiotic mushrooms or fermentation required. And the drinks you can mix up with shrubs, which pack a double-wallop of sweetness and acidity, are exceptional. It all comes down to a simple base recipe: 1½ cups fruit + 1 cup sugar + ¹⁄₄ teaspoon salt + 1 cup [any] vinegar.

First, combine the fruit, sugar, and salt in a large sealable jar or container and let it sit out at room temperature for a few hours. The salt and sugar will help draw out the fruit’s liquid via maceration. When the mixture looks properly juicy, add your vinegar and chill in the fridge for a few days to let the flavors meld. You could strain and use it immediately, but waiting those few days will draw out more of that precious fruit flavor.

This is a basic shrub formula, so consider it a jumping-off point and raid the fruit basket. I’ve made delicious shrubs with everything from early spring rhubarb to loquats pilfered from my parents’ backyard.

Brooke Marple, founder of the Salt Lake City shrub brand Drupefruit, is a wealth of flavor inspiration. She spikes honeydew and kiwi with perilla, and gilds ripe strawberries with basil and balsamic. Marple says her concoctions often aim to hit three main flavor notes: something juicy and sweet (fruit, obviously), a spicy midtone like habanero or ginger to balance out the vinegar’s punch, and a grounding, earthy bass note (beets, tomato). She lets sensational, hyper-seasonal fruit like oro blanco and mulberry stand alone in a nod to the historical significance of shrubs as a form of fruit preservation.

Whatever ingredients you plan to use, consider their natural sweetness and juiciness before adapting the recipe. Marple helps speed up maceration for harder ingredients like ginger and celery by blending, grating, or otherwise breaking them down. She also muddles or bruises herbs to express their aromatic oils, and removes the rind and pith from citrus to ward off unwanted bitterness.

Sugar and salt help draw out the juices in ingredients, so play with ratios based on the juiciness of your chosen produce. “With juicy stuff like watermelon, reduce the sugar to half of what you’d normally use and then up the salt,” says Culliton. “A savory tomato shrub will also be much better if you don’t have a ton of sugar in there.”

Next, consider the vinegar. Raw, organic, unfiltered vinegar is packed with probiotics and will make for the most active fermentation. Shrub-making is a great opportunity to experiment with some of the intensely probiotic small-batch vinegars on the market — I made an exceptional strawberry-rhubarb-chamomile shrub with Acid League’s Meyer Lemon Honey vinegar — but classic Bragg works great, too. Vinegar also develops the final shrub by melding with the fruit’s juice, allowing for some cool mix-and-match flavor opportunities. Looking for some thought starters? Culliton likes to pair pineapple with sherry vinegar, blueberries with apple cider vinegar, red fruits like strawberries and raspberries with red wine vinegar, and stone fruit with white wine vinegar.

Once your shrub is chilled and strained, it’s time to play bartender. Start by stirring a tablespoon into seltzer or iced tea for an ultra-refreshing afternoon drink ... or break out the booze. Culliton recommends swapping in shrub for citrus juice to make a simple sour: 2 ounces of an unaged spirit + ¾ ounce shrub + ½ to ¾ ounce simple syrup.

Shrubs can be great for shaken drinks because of vinegar’s body and texture, says Ned King, bar manager of Gigantic in Easthampton, Massachusetts. He makes a 19th-century-style raspberry shrub for Roosevelt Punch, a drink made with cognac, Madeira, Jamaican rum, cold brew, and raspberry shrub, inspired by a punch that Theodore Roosevelt served at a party in 1902.

At Reception Bar on New York’s Lower East Side, Korean pear shrub is shaken with Lapsang-infused soju and eucalyptus bitters for a drink called Smokes. “Alcohol and vinegar react when shaken to create a foamy texture that’s similar to egg whites, but less eggy and stiff,” says owner Katie Rue. “When it’s fresh, you can see a full half-inch of foam at the top.”

There are many ways to use shrubs beyond the bar. Splash some into a jam or fruit crisp to amp up the flavor, mix it into vinaigrettes, or drizzle it over a platter of mozzarella. Borrow a page from Marple’s book and make an ice cream float! Depending on what fruit you’ve used, there might be an opportunity to use the spent fruit “pickles” too. “I recently did a strawberry rhubarb basil shrub and once I strained it, the beautiful strawberries still had flavor and integrity,” Marple says. “I cooked them down into a chutney, because they had the sourness, fruity chunkiness, and sweetness that a chutney needs.”

As for my next shrub project, I’m looking to my own overflowing fruit bowl for inspiration. Delicate sour cherries and pudgy donut peaches have arrived at the market, and suddenly I’m researching ways to buy red wine vinegar in bulk. Even my windowsill herbs feel destined to be tossed into a jar of macerated fruit. It’s going to be a sticky, sweet summer.

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Eater video looks to add to its three New York Emmy wins

Eater received a total of six Emmy nominations for 2021, across the 48th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards and the 64th Annual New York Emmy Awards, all of which were announced late June. Four of the six nominations are for Eater’s award-winning video team, including the series Mise en Place in the category of Outstanding Culinary Series for Daytime and three nominations for the Best Long Form Informational/Instructional Content category for New York. (A full list of the nominations are below.)

Eater’s Hulu Series, Eater’s Guide to the World, earned two Daytime Emmy nominations, for Outstanding Single Camera Editing and Outstanding Directing Team for a Single Camera Daytime Non-Fiction Program. Eater’s Guide to the World premiered in November 2020, with each episode showcasing a new, food-filled side of a locale like LA, New York, and Costa Rica.

Eater already has three New York Emmys including a 2020 Best Human Interest Program or Special award for “How One Of America’s Coolest Ice Cream Brands Was Built,” part of the Queer Table series. Winners for the 2021 Daytime Emmy Awards will be announced on Saturday, July 17, and winners for the New York Emmy Awards in September.

Daytime Emmy Award Nominations

Outstanding Culinary Series: Mise en Place
Mise En Place is produced by Daniel Geneen, along with coordinating producer Stefania Orrù, senior supervising producer McGraw Wolfman, and executive producer Stephen B. Pelletteri.

Outstanding Single Camera Editing: Eater’s Guide to the World

Outstanding Directing Team for a Single Camera Daytime Non-Fiction Program: Eater’s Guide to the World

New York Emmy Awards Nominations

Informational/Instructional Long Form Content:
“How Steven Wong Moves 80,000 Pounds of Lobster a Week”
This episode of Vendors was produced by McGraw Wolfman. It was also created by Murilo Ferreira who was on camera, editor Jay Simms, coordinating producer Stefania Orrù, and executive Producer: Stephen B. Pelletteri.

“How a Former Rocket Scientist Makes the Best Copper Pots in America”
This episode of Handmade, which won a 2020 James Beard award, was produced by Carla Francescutti. It was co-created by Murilo Ferreira on camera, coordinating producer Stefania Orrù, development producer McGraw Wolfman, and executive producer Stephen B. Pelletteri.

“How a Master Sushi Chef Butchers a 250-Pound Bluefin Tuna”
This episode of Omakase was produced and directed by Pelin Keskin, along with Francesca Manto on camera, editor Connor Reid, coordinating producer Stefania Orrù, development producer McGraw Wolfman, and executive producer Stephen B. Pelletteri.

In a world of blue box powdered cheese and breadcrumb-topped versions, my family’s macaroni and cheese recipe endures

In 2015, I left my hometown of Birmingham, Alabama, to jumpstart my career, wring life of its meaning, and experience what the world had to offer outside of the Deep South. The most notable difference, excluding accents and geographically rooted slang, was the cuisine. While living in Boston, I grew to love dining on fresh catches of the day, followed by bread bowls overflowing with clam chowder, and my life-changing first encounter with broccolini. And then there were things I couldn’t fathom, like breadcrumbs on macaroni and cheese.

Macaroni and cheese, as I knew it growing up in the South, is a magical dish usually consisting of medium-sized elbow noodles that are married with fresh seasonings, milk, and grated cheeses. What emerges from the oven after a few hours of preparation is a thick, almost custard-like meal that oozes comfort. But “Southern Macaroni and Cheese” as it appears on menus outside the South looks nothing like what I had grown up preparing with my family. Disappointed with the hastily made rendition in front of me, I’d end up critiquing everything, from the thick cavatappi noodles, to the watered-down cheddar sauce, to the haphazard topping of bread crumbs, or if bacon had been randomly scattered throughout the dish. I hadn’t considered that, upon leaving home, I’d often encounter knockoffs of the Southern experience across the East Coast — a blatant misrepresentation of my culture.

The history of macaroni and cheese in America is pretty complicated and has been heavily disputed. It is believed that Thomas Jefferson, who likely encountered the Italian-originating dish during his travels to France, popularized it in the United States by serving it to his wealthy guests. Of course, that narrative erases the man who may have tweaked the recipe and prepared the dish: enslaved chef James Hemings, who was classically trained in France, and deserves credit for the macaroni and cheese that many enjoy today. James Lewis Kraft would later dilute this recipe with a patent to emulsify and process cheese, birthing what we know as Kraft macaroni and cheese. According to Smithsonian Magazine, Kraft Foods introduced its boxed macaroni in 1937, “when America was in the throes of the Great Depression.” World War II rationing systems would further popularize the blue box, turning mac and cheese, for many, into a cheap subsistence meal.

One thing that separates Southern versions of macaroni and cheese from others is the concept of intentionality. No matter where you’re from, my family’s recipe might appear fairly similar to yours — but what differentiates the final product is the purpose of our approach. To make our mac and cheese was an all-hands-on-deck process and involved first isolating ingredients, utensils, and kitchenware. Some of us were in charge of handing off ingredients; another might stir the concoction (the most coveted role); another might be in charge of seasoning, and so on and so forth.

Our macaroni and cheese involves small- to medium-sized elbow pasta (nothing larger) and carefully seasoned milk, spices like black pepper, ground yellow mustard, paprika, and salt, heated together in a pot. While the milk warms, someone begins grating blocks of cheeses (everything from Gouda, cheddar, colby jack, Monterey jack, pepper jack), bits from each block falling into assorted heaps. In another small pan, a dollop or slice of butter is melted and flour whisked in, swiftly, forming a roux. As kids, if we were old enough, one of us would take the warmed milk and slowly add it to the roux, mixing constantly until combined seamlessly. More butter is introduced along with some of the grated cheeses; the rest is folded in, slowly, with a long wooden or plastic spoon. An egg is then tempered using the sauce; eggs make terrific binders and are incorporated to hold the macaroni and cheese together.

Once the pasta is somewhere between al dente and soft, a member of our kitchen crew passes a large casserole dish to our head chef, who lines the bottom of the dish with it. One of us excitedly begins pouring the cheesy roux, making sure it covers this first layer of pasta. Another one of us, or whoever is closest, takes what’s left of the grated cheeses and crumbles them over the pasta and roux. We’d all repeat this step until there was no more room in the dish; the last layer is always grated cheese. The head chef places the dish in the oven for about 20 to 25 minutes at 350 degrees, until golden-brown on the top.

The Southern macaroni and cheese I know involves an almost-sacred dance between chef and ingredient; we bring munificence to the preparation. That preparation was born out of our need to survive, to outlast the spaces we were forced to live in and small harvests that left our pantries bare. My intent when I make mac and cheese is inseparable from the barely legible and hastily scribed generational rituals that were passed down to me. Those rituals blend a painful past with a future that I and others can now savor more freely. As simple as it seems, my family’s macaroni and cheese recipe deepens my connection to a history I can only imagine and relive in books and monuments planted in an earth that wasn’t always as forgiving as the future. In being intentional with each ingredient, with our cooking and preparation, I/we are honoring our Southern heritage, as well as those who came before us.

In the South, we heal, forge community; I grew up learning to tell stories through my family’s recipes. “Southern food is a living record of the people, places, and cultures that have contributed to the evolving landscape of our unique little corner of the world,” writes Angela Garrison Zontek in Due South. “Too complex and varied to ever achieve a conclusive origin story, the history of Southern food is best examined by considering its major influences — the integration of cultures, natural bounty, and love for the community.” Cooking meals isn’t just for the sake of cooking, it’s also for the preservation of culture. This is evident across the South, especially in Black and Indigenous communities, and has been a notable trend across centuries in movements like the Harlem Renaissance, the Black Arts Movement, the National Black Food & Justice Alliance, and many others like them.

Having lived in Boston; Manchester, New Hampshire; Takoma Park, Maryland; Washington, D.C.; and now Chicago, since departing my hometown, I’ve noticed a great deal of misrepresentation and exploitation of the South and its culture. This is to be expected, as the South has a dark past. Many still refuse to unpack the complicated history of the region, once a Confederate sanctuary and harbor for slavery, and instead trudge ahead through its more redeeming qualities, like cuisine. Instead of honoring the South’s heritage, the region is stripped for parts by outsiders and presented as a commodity elsewhere. In an interview with NPR, John T. Edge, author of The Potlikker Papers: A Food History of the Modern South, reflects on how popularizing foods from specific regions can ruin the integrity, culture, and even the intention behind a food: “If we’re going to canonize fried chicken in the roster of great American dishes, we also canonize [Georgia] Gilmore, a great fried chicken cook from Montgomery, Alabama, who leveraged the talents of the stove to drive change in our region.”

But one thing that isn’t complicated is that at its core, Southern food is an intentional art form, much like the oral traditions of our ancestors, much like the sweet and savory recipes that continue to be passed down from generation to generation. This is not to say that we cannot change what was written, reimagine our history to rewrite the future; instead, it means we remain fervent in our practice; in protecting the core of our essence, even if it means questioning those who only see our breadth in the form of cheap noodles, powdered cheese, and water.

NaBeela Washington is an Alabama-raised editor, poet, and budding art collector. Chelsea Akpan is a freelance cartoonist who brings bold colors and exaggerative shapes together to create distinct and playful work.