As the restaurant’s chef de cuisine, the Eater 2019 Young Gun was nominated for a James Beard Award for Rising Star Chef

Help restaurants and save yourself time in the kitchen for what’s bound to be a weird holiday anyway

Thanksgiving, the traditional start of the holiday season, is getting a COVID-19 makeover. With the Centers for Disease Control advising against holiday travel, many individuals across the United States are finally surrendering to the grim reality of the pandemic by making last-minute calls canceling family dinner plans. In fact, only 29 percent of consumers are expected to host or attend a meal with extended family who does not live with them in 2020, down almost 20 percent from the 2019 holiday, according to market research firm IRI. Restaurants and food suppliers are also adjusting to the altered vision of a holiday with more people dining separately.

Chef James Rigato of Mabel Gray in Hazel Park, Michigan, made a last-minute decision to open up orders for to-go Thanksgiving meals on Wednesday, November 18, just hours after the state’s new restrictions on indoor dining took effect. The kits, which are designed as dinner for two, were already sold out by Thursday. In the past, Mabel Gray had taken pre-orders for hundreds of pies going into Thanksgiving, but this year, Rigato decided it made sense to offer a full meal. Rigato says he usually hosts a family meal with 50 people on Thanksgiving, but this year, due to concerns about the wide community spread of novel coronavirus, he and his girlfriend are staying home. “A lot of two person Thanksgivings are going to happen [this year],” he says, of the decision to keep meal kits small.

Rigato also consulted his staff before making the decision to open during the week of Thanksgiving, a time when Mabel Gray traditionally closes to give employees a break. The majority of employees, he says, asked him to offer a holiday meal. “Obviously, we’re looking for revenue streams wherever we can find them,” he says. “So, I got nudged by my team to do it. We’re also encouraging smaller gatherings, so we’re doing our part to be smart and say, ‘Hey, dinner for two, let’s all take it easy. Let’s hunker down and get through this safely.’”

While it was common in past years for some restaurants to offer Thanksgiving to-go options for folks who lacked the skills or desire to prepare their own turkey, in 2020 the number of establishments offering kits has exploded. There are several factors playing into that trend: Families choosing to stay home may want to make their experience a little more special with a restaurant meal instead of something home-cooked. At the same time, many restaurants are struggling to get by with limited seating and severe restrictions or bans on indoor dining as cases surge across the country.

For some customers, the experience of dining at home over Thanksgiving might even be freeing, as they’re not forced to conform to the traditional roast turkey and mashed potato crowd pleasers or commit to long hours in the kitchen. This year, it seems easier than ever before to find a vegan meal option, a solo dinner, and global takes on the holiday feast. At Nai Tapas in New York, the Thanksgiving menu is Spanish, with Catalan-style toasted paella, while Lebanese Taverna in Arlington, Virginia, is offering customers the choice of a roast turkey or a garlic-thyme lamb shoulder for the main event.

Farmers and meat suppliers are also trying to adjust to meet the changing demands of people celebrating apart. Whereas, big, bulky birds work for a mass family gathering, smaller meals call for smaller turkeys. “Nine out of 10 people want the small birds,” Los Angeles-based Standing’s Butchery owner Jered Standing tells the LA Times. “I tried to get more — people are calling every day. They’re just not available.” The paper reports that some farms responded by butchering birds several weeks early this year to avoid turkeys becoming too plump. In a way, the smaller gatherings could turn into a boon for the turkey industry, because more poultry is needed to supply the more fractured holiday parties; but farmers also fear that the more subdued holiday could result in fewer turkeys being sold. One turkey farmer told Vox that the impact of COVID-19 on labor and processing has made it even more difficult to predict how this year’s sales. Meanwhile, some families are opting for a small cut, like turkey breast or a whole duck or roast chicken.

Some spring holidays like Mother’s Day and Easter celebrations occurred when restaurants were still gaining their footing with takeout and delivery, but by now, chef James Rigato says that establishments that embraced the changes have become more familiar with the work required to prepare a to-go feast. “Now we have all the proper software, we have all the packaging tricks down,” he says. “We basically put this together on Tock, and then list it, and it just sells itself.”

While prices for some things like latex gloves, disposable masks, and to-go containers are beginning to go up, Rigato looks on the bright side: “This is a good year to be a customer looking for a Thanksgiving meal.”

Where to Order Thanksgiving Dinner in Cities Across the U.S.

Atlanta

Where to Order a Thanksgiving Feast This Year in Atlanta

Austin

Where to Order Thanksgiving Takeout From Austin Restaurants

Where to Order Thanksgiving Pies in Austin Right Now

Boston

Where to Order Thanksgiving 2020 Takeout Around Boston

Carolinas

10 Last-Minute Restaurant Meals for Thanksgiving Takeout in the Triangle

Thanksgiving in Charleston: 9 Great Choices for Dining Out or Takeout

Chicago

Where to Order Thanksgiving Takeout in Chicago

Dallas

Dallas’s 19 Best Thanksgiving Day Dinner Options

Where to Find the Best Pies in DFW

Detroit

The Essential Guide to Thanksgiving 2020 in Southeast Michigan

Houston

20 Excellent Options For Thanksgiving Day Dining in Houston

Where to Score the Best Pies for the Holiday Season

Las Vegas

Gobble Down 13 Casual Thanksgiving Dishes in Las Vegas

97 Options for Thanksgiving Dinner in Las Vegas and Henderson — 2020 Edition

Los Angeles

19 Feast-Worthy Los Angeles Restaurants for Thanksgiving

Miami

15 Feast-Worthy Thanksgiving Dinners in Miami

Nashville

The Ultimate 2020 Nashville Thanksgiving Takeout Guide

New Orleans

Four Thanksgiving Sandwiches to Satisfy a Holiday Craving in New Orleans

Where to Order Thanksgiving Dinner in New Orleans

New York

21 Stellar Restaurants for Thanksgiving Day Feasts in NYC

Where to Order a Multicultural Thanksgiving Feast in NYC

Philadelphia

Where to Order Thanksgiving Dinner Around Philly

Portland, OR

Where to Order Thanksgiving Dinner in Portland

San Diego

Thanksgiving Options for Dine-In or Takeout in San Diego

San Francisco

The Ultimate Bay Area Guide to Thanksgiving, 2020

Seattle

Seattle Takeout Options for Those Having a Solo Thanksgiving This Year

Where to Order Delectable Pies in Seattle This Fall

Twin Cities

Last-Minute Thanksgiving Take Out Options That Are Still Available

Thanksgiving Takeout Tailored to Every Holiday Mood

10 Outstanding Pies in the Twin Cities

Washington DC

13 Global Takeout Options to Spice Up a Stuck-at-Home Thanksgiving

Where to Order Thanksgiving Dinner Around D.C.

• All Thanksgiving Dining Coverage [E]

It sounds counterintuitive, but during quarantine, instant coffee became part of my morning routine

Instant coffee has seemingly eluded the coffee canon, repelling coffee purists for decades. It has been relegated as worthy of consumption while only in the wilderness; considered a launchpad for “the good stuff.” But instant coffee is magical. Just add water and within nanoseconds, chestnut-colored crystals metamorphose into a sippable double rainbow; it’s delightfully satisfying and thus completely misunderstood. Brewed coffee and espresso — whether from a coffee shop or made at home — have been part of my daily routine for years. But nowadays, instant coffee is my morning cup of choice.

Instant, or soluble, coffee has earned its bad rap. Early iterations were like carpet in a bathroom, gross and perplexing — the result of inferior beans and faulty processing methods which left the end product tasteless and susceptible to rancidity. But the entire genre has matured over the years as a new breed of enthusiasts and small-batch roasters approach instant coffee with revere. They’ve developed innovative freeze-drying techniques that preserve the coffee’s integrity, and now there’s even a fine dining of instant coffee — a flash-frozen puck — from the start-up Cometeer.

I’ve dabbled in instant coffee over the years, usually a Starbucks VIA thanks to its convenience, but I didn’t become a loyal instant coffee drinker until this year (blame it on 2020). At the start of the U.S. coronavirus shutdowns, like many, I went grocery shopping, and the coffee aisle was the last leg of my trip. Scanning floor-to-ceiling shelves of K-cups and vacuum-sealed roasted goodness was too daunting with my head already buzzing with pandemic-induced angst. I wanted something good but simple, and I found it once I kneeled down and peered at the bottom shelf, where the instant coffee lived. Questionable product placement aside, I reached for a row of Mount Hagen glass jars that already had a few missing (a positive indicator according to my parochial rating system), grabbed two jars, threw them into the cart, and headed to the checkout.

At first glance, preparing coffee instantaneously as the world is slowing down may seem counterintuitive. Gathering for coffee is no longer part of our social construct, and coffee-making, much like cooking, has largely become an at-home affair. The upheaval of our daily routines means each of us has had to redefine what joy and nourishment looks like in this moment. And for me, instant coffee and its nonexistent gadgetry checks the pertinent boxes.

Perhaps it’s time to collectively expand our definition of “instant coffee,” in the way that the devastating impact of COVID-19 has forced us to expand our definition of “restaurant” to encompass non-traditional spaces like pop-ups and ghost kitchens. A proper Dalgona coffee would cease to exist were it not for instant coffee. The whipped beverage, considered a welcomed distraction by many at the start of the pandemic, deftly calls attention to instant coffee’s standout feature: versatility. After all, what is a pod or a capsule if not just liquified instant coffee?

There’s beauty in my morning ritual of preparing a cup of instant coffee. It begins with the harmonious clinks made by the tiny coffee granules as they tumble into my mug; the sound is softer than cereal hitting a bowl and soothes me like the perfect wind chime. Pouring over hot water prompts that familiar aroma that sashays side to side as I blow before sipping until I’m content. Afterwards, there’s little waste and exactly one dish to clean. Instant coffee is a happy ending.

Like any coffee, you may have to sample a few brands and varieties before discovering the instant coffee that honors your palate. But rest assured, the days of coffee-shaming are finally over, so everyone should feel free to proudly drink their coffee as they please (cream and sugar, anyone?).

Angela Burke is a Chicago-based food writer and the creator of the site Black Food & Beverage.

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

This post originally appeared on November 21, 2020 in Amanda Kludt’s newsletter “From the Editor,” a roundup of the most vital news and stories in the food world each week. Read the archives and subscribe now.

We had an internal debate last week about whether or not we needed to publish a piece saying the government needs to support restaurant owners and workers. It seems needed in this moment, when many American cities re-enter some form of lockdown or face added restrictions as winter looms and COVID-19 cases rise. Meanwhile there is no extended or supplemental unemployment for people on the brink nor assistance for business owners.

But we’ve also been saying it again and again all year. Why continue to yell into the void? Ultimately, it’s better than doing nothing at all.

While we’re repeating ourselves, I would like to revisit the proposal from chef José Andrés in March, which I believe to be the best path forward (though I’m sure the bureaucratic and political hurdles are insurmountable). The government, via FEMA or a newly formed arm, should pay restaurants in communities around the country to cook food for people in need.

Keep restaurants and their workers in business, keep the supply chain going, feed people who are spending hours in line at centralized food banks via meals and groceries from their local restaurants. Tap into those thriving delivery platforms to distribute to people who are isolated at home. A number of ad hoc initiatives currently do this work, but it’s a patchwork and insufficient system.

Or we can just continue the nine-month-long story of a decentralized, chaotic, and controversial approach to tackling this pandemic, letting it ravage our communities and businesses.

Earnest, Heartfelt Promo

If you have a Hulu account, I highly recommend you check out Eater’s new, long-in-the-works project, Eater’s Guide to the World. It’s a food and travel show jam-packed with interesting characters, delicious food, and compelling destinations, and it makes me miss restaurants and traveling and the people you meet while eating at restaurants while traveling. Also it’s narrated by Maya Rudolph (!) so it’s very fun.

Big kudos to our showrunner Lauren Cynamon and the whole Eater team who translated what we do online to the wild world of television (during a pandemic no less). Read more about the show here!

And while I’m plugging Eater projects, may I point you to a wonderful holiday gift idea? It’s our new wine club, a monthly subscription box of either two or four (small producer, mostly natural) wines selected by cool sommeliers and wine experts around the country. You learn about great wine, you learn about talented sommeliers, you get cute tasting notes. Sign on for the ongoing subscription or just gift a one-off box. Or be like me and do both.

On Eater

— We’re seeing indoor and sometimes outdoor dining restrictions in many regions across the country, including California, Washington State, Oregon, Minnesota, Michigan, and parts of Pennsylvania, much to the chagrin of restaurant owners who invested in their current dining set-ups. Notably, in New York, indoor dining is currently allowed but doesn’t seem like it will last much longer.

— Closures: Meme’s Diner in New York (more on that here); Oval Room in D.C.; Ledo Restaurant, an iconic Maryland pizza shop; Houston’s whisky destination Public Services Wine and Whisky; Fuku in Boston; and 44-year-old Pamplemousse in Vegas.

— Openings: in LA, Mazal, an exciting new Israeli vegetarian restaurant, Fellow Traveler, a natural wine bar from the former sommelier of Auburn, a West Coast location of New York’s Prince Street Pizza, and Madres, a Oaxacan restaurant with the country’s largest mezcal collection; in Dallas, Oak’d BBQ, a Hill Country-style barbecue joint; and in New York, Yumpling, the brick and mortar spot from a beloved Taiwanese food truck, and Angelina, an outpost of famous Parisian tea room.

— It’s boom times for ghost kitchens and virtual restaurants. This piece explores where the industry is moving, and why you shouldn’t assume virtual brands are (all) half-assed, cynical plays for scale above quality and creativity.

Sahid Limon/Double Chicken Please [Official]

— Say hello to Eater At Home For the Holidays, your guide to surviving and thriving during this season. We have Thanksgiving tips from Elazar and Sohla, tips for mailing baked goods, a look at the best pies to buy online, and so much more.

— And on the gifting front, we have gift guides on the national level and guides focused on retailers and restaurants in New York, San Francisco, and Vegas. I’ll do a personal one in this space in the weeks to come.

— To watch: How soy sauce has been made in Japan for over 220 years.

— New York has a very delicious new fried chicken sandwich.

— Overwhelmed by how to help the restaurant industry? Make a list.

— San Francisco chef and restaurateur Pim Techamuanvivit breaks down the numbers of COVID-19’s effects on her business and the difficult decisions she’s had to make.

— DoorDash is exploring an IPO while Lyft considers getting into the food delivery game.

Off Eater

• Curfews will do nothing to stop the spread of COVID.[Curbed]
• Vermont kept its cases down by targeting vulnerable populations and should be a model for the nation. [Vox.com]
• A decline in restaurants in urban centers will mean a decline in innovation. [NYT]
• The pandemic has led to a tennis boom in Brooklyn. [USTA]
• The publisher who is helping small restaurants create cookbooks for a profit share. [Vice]
• Texas Monthly’s Tacopedia is fantastic. [TM]
• On Denmark’s prenatal testing program and what it means about the power ordinary people have to decide what kind of life is worth bringing into the world. [The Atlantic]
• Why so many cities and states have closed schools while leaving bars and restaurants open. [Vox.com]

Plus, a food giveaway by Tyler Perry drew thousands, and more news to start your day

Lawyer who represented families of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and more joins legal team for Black McDonald’s franchisees

Daryl Parks, an attorney who served as legal counsel for the families of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, and other high-profile victims of racial injustice, is joining the legal team at Ferraro Law Firm representing Black McDonald’s franchisees in two racial-discrimination lawsuits against the fast-food chain.

“The case against McDonald’s is historic, and it is a privilege to be representing the Black men and women who were — and continue to be — treated like second-class citizens by the company,” said Parks, according to Business Insider, which first reported the news.

In both lawsuits — one filed by former franchisees, the other by current franchisees — the plaintiffs accuse McDonald’s of denying Black franchisees the same growth opportunities and treatment as white franchisees. Business Insider found in an investigation last December that there’s a cash-flow gap between Black and white franchisees, with white franchisees earning, on average, about $60,600 more each month, as of 2017.

McDonald’s last month asked a federal judge to dismiss the suit filed by Black former franchisees, countering that “success is promised to no one,” and it didn’t make sense for the company to deliberately set up franchisees to fail.

“McDonald’s has an obvious interest in franchisees maintaining successful and profitable restaurants, which is why McDonald’s supports all franchisees, including those facing economic hardships,” the company told Business Insider in a statement.

And in other news…

• Some food recalls just in time for the start of the holiday season: chicken and beef samosas from Tee Yih Jia Food Manufacturing, chicken and pork tamales from Tucson Tamale Wholesale Co., beef stock from Wegmans, and spaghetti and meatballs from Kwik Trips, Inc. [CNN]
• Pabst Brewing Company is getting into pretzel making. [Food Business News]
• Colorado’s Breckenridge Brewery is going full stunt promo with a contest to win free beer delivered by a reindeer. [Delish
• A Thanksgiving food giveaway held by Tyler Perry in Atlanta drew thousands of families and lines several miles long. [Deadline]
• The faces of fast-food workers during the pandemic. [New Yorker]

• All AM Intel Coverage [E]

No weenies on toothpicks this year is truly something to be grateful for

Welcome to Ask Elazar, a column in which Eater staff writer Elazar Sontag answers your highly specific and pressing cooking questions.

I would love some ideas for pre-Thanksgiving snacks that feel fun and indulgent, but won’t make me too full for the actual meal. I always make spiced nuts and a cheese platter but I have no willpower and then am too full for the actual feast! What snacks should I make this year?

An upside of not having guests for the holidays this year — albeit a small one — is that snack selection can be tailored to our own tastes. For me, that means no super-rich dips, no fussily layered toasts, and definitely nothing involving puff pastry or muffin tins or toothpicks. Making some really simple, light(ish) snacks to munch throughout the day should be fun and relaxing, not another cooking project you have to tackle on your own.

Instead of those classic holiday starters, the ones that take hours to prepare and leave me wanting a long nap, I’m going to pull out a big jug of olive oil and some pretty glass jars, and make olive oil-marinated olives, rich with garlic, fresh rosemary, and zesty orange peel. The olives are great on their own, and you can dip bits of warm, crusty bread into the oil marinade. If the olives are gone before you’re finished cooking (it’s likely!) you can use that same flavorful oil to toss vegetables before roasting, or mix a couple tablespoons of it into mashed potatoes or gravy. While the olive oil is pouring freely, toast some raw marcona almonds in a generous glug, along with more rosemary. My favorite of the oil-marinated snacking foods is goat cheese, which takes well to pretty much any flavor combination, and slowly soaks up the aromatic garlic-herb oil as it sits. Drizzle the creamy, soft cheese with a bit of warm honey when you serve it, and eat it with that same crusty bread you’ve been snacking on since breakfast. At most, it’ll take you half an hour to get this spread on the table.

Anna_Pustynnikova/Shutterstock

In the spirit of not-so-normal holidays, this might be the year you do away with prepared snacks altogether, if even the thought of marinating nuts and goat cheese exhausts you. Instead, you could just serve a really good bowl of fruit. Depending on where you are in the world, options may be more varied or limited at the farmers market or in the produce aisle. In California, I’ll set out a big plate with slices of persimmon, a handful of pineapple guavas if I can find them, and big chunks of pomegranate. I’ll also throw a few sticky-sweet medjool dates in the mix. If, wherever you are, produce options are a little more limited, a fruit “platter” could just be a handful of apple slices drizzled with honey and some nice flakey salt. Alongside the almonds, the olives and goat cheese, and my fruit platter-for-one, I’ll probably put out a little bowl of chestnuts, which feel festive and holiday-appropriate, even though I eat them year-round and buy them pre-baked and shelled in bulk at Costco — I highly recommend incorporating chestnuts into your snacking rotation, they rock.

All of these dishes are a good fit for the sorts of celebrations most of us will be having this year: They can easily be scaled down if you’re feeding fewer mouths, and unlike individually plated toasts or tiny savory pastries, these recipes can be made in advance and will be excellent in tomorrow’s salad, or jarred with a pretty label and a note to drop off to the family you couldn’t spend the holidays with. I can’t promise they’ll make you feel light and rejuvenated — truly, what could in 2020 — but they will be bright and delicious and seasonal, and won’t leave you with a kitchen counter covered in puff pastry, bacon grease, and a weird pumpkin-shaped cheese ball that no one wants to eat. That feels like a small victory, well worth celebrating.

No on-site dining is allowed for at least three weeks

You can find lion’s mane, royal trumpets, and blue oysters at NYC’s only mushroom farm

“There are so many reasons why I love mushrooms,” says Andrew Carter, co-founder and CEO of Smallhold farms in Brooklyn. “At its base level, they grow off of waste streams. It’s not very common to find a product that’s as ecologically sustainable that can also feed so many people,” says Carter. “Mushrooms, I think, are going to feed the world.”

This urban macro farm specializes in creating artificial environments for growing rare and unique mushrooms for local restaurants and grocers. Each environment gets strategic temperature, humidity, and lighting adjustments throughout the day. The team cultivates unique varieties like lion’s mane, pink oysters, and royal trumpets in their macrofarm, while also using mini farms in buildings all across the city.

With their unique growing methods, sustainable packaging, and supply chain to many of New York City’s best restaurants and grocers, Smallhold’s goal is to open people’s minds to using mushrooms in more cooking, while creating sustainable farms in multiple cities nationwide. “We want this to be the center of the plate,” says Carter as he packs a box with different varieties. “We believe by giving people more mushrooms, people will eat more mushrooms, and they might replace that hamburger or steak with a bunch of different mushrooms.”

You can find lion’s mane, royal trumpets, and blue oysters at NYC’s only mushroom farm

“There are so many reasons why I love mushrooms,” says Andrew Carter, co-founder and CEO of Smallhold farms in Brooklyn. “At its base level, they grow off of waste streams. It’s not very common to find a product that’s as ecologically sustainable that can also feed so many people,” says Carter. “Mushrooms, I think, are going to feed the world.”

This urban macro farm specializes in creating artificial environments for growing rare and unique mushrooms for local restaurants and grocers. Each environment gets strategic temperature, humidity, and lighting adjustments throughout the day. The team cultivates unique varieties like lion’s mane, pink oysters, and royal trumpets in their macrofarm, while also using mini farms in buildings all across the city.

With their unique growing methods, sustainable packaging, and supply chain to many of New York City’s best restaurants and grocers, Smallhold’s goal is to open people’s minds to using mushrooms in more cooking, while creating sustainable farms in multiple cities nationwide. “We want this to be the center of the plate,” says Carter as he packs a box with different varieties. “We believe by giving people more mushrooms, people will eat more mushrooms, and they might replace that hamburger or steak with a bunch of different mushrooms.”

Think of all the places you want to survive and start ordering

Supporting restaurants, if you have the financial means, feels more important now than ever before. As a second (or third) wave of shutdowns rolls out throughout the country, many businesses are closing yet again, this time with the added financial burden of a year’s worth of frantic pivots and the emotional burnout it’s caused. That feeling of helplessness we as restaurant lovers all feel is likely a mix of frustration that the federal government is still failing to provide any meaningful aid to small business owners, coupled with the nagging knowledge that our weekly $25 take-out order of khao soi and pad see ew is likely a drop in the bucket in terms of what that restaurant really needs to survive.

We’re all trying to support restaurants in our own ways, and honestly, the love we have for the industry as a whole is making the effort to “support restaurants” seem like a vague and unending battle. During the first wave, I mostly mobilized to support the spots in my immediate neighborhood — the places I walk by with the dog daily, the ones whose patios I’m mostly likely to populate once this is all over. As the months passed, a few to-go and delivery spots were added to the mix, and now, when dinner time rolls around, I’ll usually hit up the same three or four restaurants over and over. The reflex is a shortcut, a way to avoid thinking long and hard about patronizing a restaurant in terms of “who to show support to tonight” when the options are overwhelming and the need particularly pressing.

That said, I felt a minor tinge of actual agency earlier this week by sitting down and doing what a lot of people do when they’re overwhelmed: I wrote out a list. The list of restaurants (more than 20, all over town) represents the hypothetical closures that would leave me the most bereft, and I’m committing my support to them these next few months. I think of it as a personal Eater 38 of sorts, a reminder of what exactly about my city’s local restaurant scene feels most necessary, or comforting, or essential to me. In a time when our social media feeds are full of new menus, new pivots, new appeals for support, my new to-do list is a way to concentrate all that energy into something that feels slightly less paralyzing to me as a consumer. And it’s a way to break free from the delivery and takeout rut I’m currently in by literally reminding me of what else is out there.

Because now that the next wave of closures is here — and after months and months of heartbreaking closures, both permanent and temporary — it’s time to be more strategic, and less reliant on our “defaults” when it comes to showing financial support. Writing a physical list was a good exercise to consider the places that I’ve missed, or that I fervently want around when out-of-town guests come back, or that feel like such a part of the fabric of the community that I can’t imagine what the neighborhood would be like without them. My list of restaurants still includes some of my regular go-tos, plus places that I haven’t been to since the pandemic hit due to sheer laziness or lack of social occasions that would bring me there normally; some are in neighborhoods I haven’t even visited in the past eight months. Unfortunately no one without an unlimited bucket of cash (or, cough, actual political power) can save all the restaurants. But it feels like doing something, at least, to commit on paper to patronizing some, for as long as I can.

Shooting a TV show is never simple — especially when it involves multiple cities, multiple characters, and the year 2020

What if you could turn a map... into a TV show? That was one of the big ideas with Eater’s Guide to the World: taking the many, many maps published on Eater and bringing them to life — to see the food up close, go inside the kitchens, meet the people making it all, and explore the neighborhood and city that make each dish unique to that place.

The result was a colorful, mouth-watering journey that took a ton of behind-the-scenes work to make. Now that the show’s live on Hulu (you can stream all seven episodes here), we brought a few members of the production team together to tell us how the sausage (and soba and pastilla and Hawaiian fried chicken) got made, for the latest edition of Eater Talks. Below are lightly edited excerpts, as well as a full video recording of the conversation.

It took nearly two years to make.

Maureen Giannone Fitzgerald, production executive, Vox Media Studios: “The show was two years in the making — Eater pitched the series in late 2018 and was thrilled to eventually get the green-light from Hulu. We began production a year later... and soon after we began to build out our show team.”

It was essential that the diverse food and “characters” drive the show, not a host.

Lauren Cynamon, executive producer: “When we approached this, we actually watched a lot of narratives and talked about how it would be fun to do a narrative food show.”

Alex Craig, director: “The fact that there was no host and instead it was character-driven was really appealing to me.”

Giannone Fitzgerald: “That was one of the biggest luxuries of working on this kind of un-hosted series: The characters and the places truly became our guiding light and we were able to really diversify the show wherever we went.”

Nicola Linge, supervising producer: “We really wanted stories that hadn’t been told or locations that hadn’t been highlighted in food television. Like when we talking about Morocco — Marrakech, Fez, Sahara desert had all been covered, but no one had really touched upon Casablanca. And Casablanca is such a diverse and mixed city of different cultures, so we really wanted to dive into that different perspective, of it being a place we have seen before but a different story and different take.”

Some of the filming was... pretty intense.

Giannone Fitzgerald: “Think back to the the coldest and rainiest week in December. That was our first shoot, in New York, and it was a pretty untraditional one because the team just jumped right in — no pilots, no practice shoots — and filmed from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m.”

Craig: “The weather was freezing and I was just trying to get acclimatized to New York and the whole reality that we’d be shooting just nights for the week... but I actually really enjoyed it. I think shooting at nights was a lot better than expected. Big cities in the middle of the night, in that four- or five-hour timeframe, is such a weird vibe anyway. So I thought it was a great concept, focusing on what you can eat at that time.”

Cynamon: “I think you’d get to the first location at 3:00 in the morning, so by the time you were setting up for another one, it was 5:30 a.m. or 6 a.m.... But I thought it was really fun. When else do you get to hang out for five days straight and document those hours of the day? It felt like a really New York experience that now I long for so much.”

The onset of COVID-19 forced many plans to change.

Giannone Fitzgerald: “In March 2020, when our world literally came to a halt, we’d shot seven episodes at that point.”

Craig: “There were three more episodes planned that got cancelled, right?”

Linge: “And we were in the middle of filming one, and the crew got sent home.”

Cynamon: “We had a shoot in Budapest that had to be cancelled. We were doing stuff in Toronto, New Mexico; and we were going to go to Singapore and Tokyo that we had to move because of COVID, even before it hit in NYC...

When we first closed down production, we all had a debrief: What did this mean for the world? What did this mean for restaurants? We took a decent chunk of time off to wrap our heads around how are we going to tell this really celebratory story on these places, when COVID just happened? What does the voice need to be? And then also, how do you [remotely] spread out seven edit stations and keep the creative juices flowing?”

Sydney Mondry, narration producer: “When editing the show, we didn't mention [COVID-19] outright, but it was top of our minds the entire time — especially with the ‘taking off’ airports episode, which was such a doozy as you can imagine. We were trying to sort of allude to how much [coronavirus had changed things], like saying, ‘Traveling is even more difficult right now...’ and using some of that language without saying ‘It’s COVID time,’ because we wanted the show to be sort of timeless. It was definitely a challenge.”

Maya Rudolph’s narration came from a carefully crafted script.

Giannone Fitzgerald: “When Maya signed on to be our narrator, it was a get we didn’t see coming.”

Mondry: “I cowrote her script with a bunch of very talented people. We were all very big Maya fans before we came to the show, so I think we had a pretty good idea of what she sounded like and her mannerisms. But she also plays a lot of characters, so we had to decide: What does this Maya character sound like? Lauren [Cynamon] had said early on that she was going for this all-seeing, cheeky storyteller [for the narration], and she kept referencing the cartoon rooster from the beginning of the Robin Hood movie — which luckily, I found on YouTube and could reference. So I think that really helped us begin to shape it.

Then we actually started recording with Maya before we had finished writing all the episodes, so we were able to hear how she was reading and tweak the scripts to accommodate the narrator that she had created separately.”

Cynamon: “We couldn’t have envisioned a better person to narrate. She’s just the funniest, the nicest, great to work with, and just feels like a true friend bringing you along the way. She’s also just as food-obsessed as we are and wants to talk about it.

Also, she would be talking about all this amazing food all day [when narrating] and she’d be like, ‘I am starving.’”

Giannone Fitzgerald: “Yeah, we had to food-ferry Maya a little bit and give her some of the treats along the way.”

Watch the entire panel conversation:

Plus, Tyson suspends managers over COVID-19 betting pool accusations, and more news to start your day

“It’s ok to be sad your favourite person didn’t go through, but please remember it’s not my fault.”

[Spoilers for Season 8, Episode 9, which is available in the U.S. as of Friday, November 20]

This season of the Great British Bake Off (or, as it’s known stateside, The Great British Baking Show) has left many frustrated, underwhelmed, and questioning whether anyone on the series knows what Japan is. But as ever, fans have formed strong opinions about who they think is worthy of making it to the finals. This week, Hermine, the last person of color competing this season, was eliminated in the semi-finals, but fans say baker Laura’s performance has not been adequate enough to make it to the finals. The backlash to the judge’s decision has unfortunately led to people trolling and bullying Laura on social media, which the contestant commented on, tweeting, “It’s okay to be sad your favorite person didn’t go through, but please remember it’s not my fault. I don’t make the decisions. GBBO is all about kindness and I haven’t seen much of that on here.”

“It’s easy to sit there on your sofa and judge,” she continued. “But I am a real person with feelings. Please take a moment to consider your words before you judge someone you’ve never met and whose food you’ve never tasted.”

Hermine has also spoken out against the bullying, posting on her Instagram, “Please don’t be unkind in my name...Honor my time on GBBO with love and kindness.”

Judge Paul Hollywood has also commented in support of Laura, calling the bullying “disgusting behavior” and reminding fans that when it comes to judging, each week stands on its own!!”

It’s not the first time fans have directed their ire over the judges’ decisions onto the contestants. Last year, contestant Sophie Faldo told Radio Times, “The trolling on Bake Off had a horrible impact. I experienced some dark times after the show.”

And while it is extraordinarily fun to have opinions about GBBO (like, they wanted contestants to make brownies with extra mix-ins and frosting, but did not want them too sweet? What on earth did they think they were asking for??), when it comes to eliminations, the blame is on the judges, not the contestants. As ever, be furious about Paul Hollywood.

And in other news...

• Postmates tracked what everyone was ordering during the pandemic, which was a lot of pet supplies, “family meals,” and alcohol. [RB]
• Tyson has suspended a number of managers of a Waterloo, Iowa meatpacking plant without pay, following allegations that they placed bets on how many workers would contract COVID-19. “If these claims are confirmed, we’ll take all measures necessary to root out and remove this disturbing behavior from our company,” said Tyson’s CEO Dean Banks. [Fooddive]
• It’s always a good sign when you have to specify whether eating your meat counts as cannibalism. [Design Museum]
• Get in, loser, we’re making charcuterie chalets. [GMA]
• Any business which got a PPP loan won’t be able to deduct expenses associated with that loan, according to the IRS. [NRN]
• Teen TikTok star Charli D’Amelio lost a million followers after acting uncharitably toward her family’s personal chef. [NYPost]

Life is short. Order in the pie.

Let’s be honest: Thanksgiving is all about the pie. Pecan, sweet potato, pumpkin, apple — every bite of turkey, stuffing, and green-bean casserole is just a means to an end, and by end, we mean your favorite seasonal dessert. So we reached out to food editors and pastry chefs across the U.S. to find out the best pies that can be ordered (and consumed) from the comfort of your couch. From classic bourbon pecan to ooey-gooey salty honey, here are the pros’ picks for delivery favorites.

The Overall Best Pies to Order Online

The Best Apple Pie to Order Online

The Best Classic Pies to Order Online

The Best Pie Variety Pack to Order Online

The Best Citrus Pie to Order Online

The Best Gluten-Free Pie to Order Online

The Best Unorthodox Pie to Order Online

• The Best Pies to Buy Online, According to Experts [Strategist]

It’s absurd and infuriating that eight months into this pandemic, we’re still exactly where we started

Coronavirus infections are spiking uncontrollably. Hospitals are over capacity. The public doesn’t understand which activities are safe, and city and state officials vaguely warn that worse is yet to come. Is this November 2020 or March? The brutal, live-wire uncertainty of the pandemic’s first wave was a shock, but it spurred millions to adopt restrictions, driven by a sense of solidarity and fear. That shock has passed, and in its place creeps a nihilistic dread. Now, everyday people and essential healthcare workers alike are in the same place: overwhelmed, emotionally deadened, and burnt out.

In restaurants, the consequences of the death spiral of pandemic mismanagement are glaringly obvious, and speak to a larger breakdown in public life. Independent restaurant owners across America have been asked to take on unimaginable financial and health risks to keep their businesses open, and now, eight months into the pandemic, another shutdown could render those months of struggle moot. During the first round of reopening, restaurant owners bled cash and limped along: sinking PPP loans into hiring back staff; installing new ventilation systems for indoor dining that never returned; investing in elaborate outdoor dining setups; and even generating entirely different menus in hopes of drawing in customers. Now, in much of the country, the winter weather is cutting off outdoor dining just as rising case counts make indoor dining dangerous; even in warm Los Angeles, the city just cut outdoor dining capacity by 50 percent. For restaurant owners, their money is gone, their will is sapped, and there are no options left.

For restaurant workers, the situation is even worse. Those still going to work face a daily threat of sickness, and watch firsthand as their workplaces teeter on the brink of collapse because many people, rightfully, don’t want to dine out during a pandemic. Those out of work who are eligible for benefits saw their relief checks disappear on July 31; unemployment benefits will completely run out for many Americans the day after Christmas. Restaurant workers without documents never received benefits at all and have been getting by through patchwork charity and mutual aid operations.

The worst part is? None of this is a surprise, all of this was avoidable, and since March, the solution has been abundantly clear: Restaurants and the people who work in them need a bailout. There is no solution that’s not a bailout. Landlords won’t offer rent relief. Outdoor dining doesn’t work in the winter. Diners will not put on their masks between bites. And who are we even reopening for? Bill Clark, the co-owner of Meme’s, a Brooklyn restaurant so beloved there were lines around the block after it announced its closure, put it succinctly: “There should have been help. There should have been pay for people to stay home, there should have been pay for business to survive and stay closed until it was safe to [open] again.”

So where is the help? Why are the restaurants open, and the schools closed? Across the world, from Australia to Taiwan to Norway, countries have used tighter border controls, aggressive contact-tracing, and targeted lockdowns to drive down their infection rates. In European countries struggling with outbreaks like France and Germany, the government is still paying businesses, largely restaurants, forced to close. The stalled-out HEROES Act contains provisions for grants for small businesses, but no one knows how they will work, or when the bill might be passed. Restaurants most in need of help get by on the tightest of margins; many are immigrant-owned. The United States of America is a rich country. Is all the money going to fighter jets? Even if you are a fan of fighter jets, even if Top Gun is your favorite movie, is it really worth having the jets and not the dive bar where Maverick and Goose bang out “Great Balls of Fire”? Don’t politicians want small-town diners to campaign in? The diners have done so much for them — why won’t they save them now?

What’s most frustrating about the endless delay of aid is that the measures designed to save the diners will also save lives. Business owners won’t want to close if it means losing their business. But with the numbers where they are and Thanksgiving on the way, the risks of keeping restaurants open grow great. Indoor dining works only under highly controlled circumstances; when cases are spiking, outdoor dining isn’t necessarily safe; working in these establishments is the most dangerous of all. With two working vaccines and likely more on the way, the end of the pandemic is in sight. Once everyone is vaccinated, the first thing people are going to want to do is eat at a restaurant. It’s time to save the lives, and the shreds of American public life, while we still can. So, let’s try this again: Bail out restaurants, and pay people to stay home. It’s already months too late, and we can’t afford to wait any longer.

Join a discussion with the producers of Eater’s new show, now streaming on Hulu, on how it was made

Four restaurants get their first Michelin star

Today, Michelin continues its international dining guide rollout with Seoul, South Korea. There’s little new on the list from the French tire company. In fact, the number of featured restaurants is exactly the same as it was last year (178 restaurants including the Michelin Plate and Bib Gourmand restaurants) with slight movement between the categories.

Just one spot gets the Michelin treatment for the first time: Modern Korean restaurant 7th Door, run by chef Kim Byong-jin, appears in the guide with one star. Three other restaurants were promoted from the Michelin Plate level to earn one star: Japanese restaurant Muni, omakase restaurant Mitou, and L’Escape Hotel restaurant L’Amant Secret. Seoul’s two three-star restaurants Gaon and La Yeon maintain their status for the fifth year running, while the city’s two-star restaurant count holds steady at seven.

As it did with Beijing earlier this week, Michelin introduced the new Green Star distinction to Seoul. Two restaurants are recognized for their sustainability efforts: Hwanggeum Kongbat, which prioritizes local ingredients and engages in practices like sending back its leftover pureed soybean from its house-made tofu to farms for feed; and A Flower Blossom on the Rice, which sources almost all its ingredients from organic farms. Both restaurants appear in the guide in the Bib Gourmand category.

Check out the full list of Michelin stars below.

Three stars

Gaon

La Yeon

Two stars

Mosu

Mingles

Kojima

Jungsik

Kwonsooksoo

L’Impression

Alla Prima

One star

Terreno

Hansikgonggan

Myomi

Onjium

Yu Yuan

Pierre Gagnaire

L’Amant Secret

Zero Complex

Joo Ok

Poom

L’Amitié

STAY

Bicena

7th Door

Muni

Votre Maison

Exquisine

Muoki

Mitou

Evett

Soigné

Table for Four

Auprès

• These Are The New Star Restaurants In The MICHELIN Guide Seoul 2021 [Michelin]