If you had told me as a kid that I'd grow up to like spicy food, I wouldn't have believed you.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I’m often asked to add a cultural slant even when one does not exist.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

from Eater - All https://ift.tt/39Jaxcc https://ift.tt/3ffOn2G

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I’m often asked to add a cultural slant even when one does not exist.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

from Eater - All https://ift.tt/39Jaxcc via Blogger https://ift.tt/3jV5hXH

Mum’s Jamaican Restaurant

“Have you tried Mum’s? Its the only place I go to” 

“But what about...” 

“Trash, go to Mum’s” 

Sometime last year my Jamaican co-worker, Nev, found out I was into food and he was ready to share his opinions about the scene, or lack there of, in the Triangle. Mum’s on Capital Boulevard was not only the first place he mentioned but also the only place he’d endorse. His opinion wasn’t just limited to the Oak City, it applied to the entire Triangle. Mum’s is tucked in the corner of an Capital Boulevard international strip mall, home of an old school Indian joint, a Vietnamese market, and Mexican ice cream parlor.

When I asked Nev what to order, he assured me that anything I’d order would be good. So while the more familiar Jamaican dishes like oxtail stew or jerk chicken sounded tempting, ackee and codfish struck me immediately as something I never tried before. I didn't even know what ackee was.

Little did I know that ackee and salt (cod) fish was a beloved dish. Although ackee is a fruit (the national fruit of Jamaica actually) it did not make the dish sweet, it actually provided more of a scramble egg element. Maybe thats why Usain Bolt eats the dish for breakfast. 

Combining the combo with rice and fried plantains, the whole meal hit all the notes of the flavor spectrum. 

Mum’s codfish fritter is something that’s too cheap and too yummy to pass up. Its may be more dough than fish but its crunchy and big enough to serve as a small lunch. 

I always felt that the Jamaican patty is something completely unique despite their similarities to other cuisines’ hand pies. The way that is crumbles and the yellow tint is something different than what you’d get from an English pastry or a Latin empanada. Sara is particularly a fan of Mum’s version of these handheld treats, with the curry chicken patty being her favorite. 

After my first visit to Mum’s, I excitedly told Nev about the trip. He replied by just nodding his head as if to tell me, “now you understand what I was talking about.” And he was right, I did understand how good Mum’s was. And I hope other people get to understand that too. 

Mum's Jamaican Food http://www.mumsjamaicanfood.com/ 3901 Capital Blvd #101, Raleigh, NC 27604

10 Essential Episodes of Anthony Bourdain’s ‘Parts Unknown’

Over the last five years, Anthony Bourdain brought TV viewers to the most interesting places around the world on his award-winning, game-changing CNN show Parts Unknown. And now, following Bourdain’s death last June, the show is sadly coming to a close. The final season of Parts Unknown will wrap up at Bourdain’s old stomping grounds — the Lower East Side of New York City — this Sunday, November 11, in an episode that will explore the people and places that shaped Bourdain as a young adult.

Parts Unknown had a monumental impact on food and travel TV, most notably because it eschewed coverage of tourist attractions, and focused, instead, on artists, thinkers, and doers around the world, with special attention paid to disenfranchised communities and their hopes for the future. Some episodes were intense, others lighthearted, but the show was always essential viewing.

Here’s a look back at 10 episodes that defined the series, in chronological order:

“Peru”

(Season 1, Episode 7; original air date June 2, 2013): Anthony Bourdain and Eric Ripert let their bromance blossom on camera throughout the filming of Parts Unknown, and, tragically, they were actually shooting a new episode together when the Kitchen Confidential author died in France over the summer.

The Peru episode from Season 1 sets the tone for future adventures to come: The friends eat amazing meals while discussing the great mysteries of the human experience, all the while pushing each other outside of their respective comfort zones. In this case, Bourdain brings his gentlemanly pal to an ancient erotica museum, while the chef coaxes his sarcastic friend into participating in a ceremonial blessing from a local shaman. Along the way, the friends eat Amazon-inspired cuisine at Amaz, sizzling beef hearts on the streets of Lima, and a rustic hen soup at a market in the mountains.

Bourdain and Ripert actually have a bit of business to accomplish on this trip: They hike up to the Andes to meet farmers who are harvesting the cocoa that’s used in the duo’s gourmet chocolate bars. The friends are clearly inspired by working with the farmers, but this experience only leads to more questions. “Do I wanna be in the chocolate business?” Bourdain remarks at the end. “That’s something I’m gonna have to figure out.”

“Lyon”

(Season 3, Episode 3; original air date April 27, 2014): While visiting France’s second largest city, Bourdain and his pal, New York City chef Daniel Boulud, eat their way through tiny bistros, learn the art of sausage-making from a charcuterie expert, and spend a weekend in the company of a proper culinary legend.

The duo’s visit to Paul Bocuse’s eponymous restaurant, where Bourdain, Boulud, and the late Bocuse dine on the legendary French chef’s greatest creations, is arguably the best food sequence in the entire series. Tony refers to this feast as “the meal of my life,” emphasized by his reactions on camera. Later, Bourdain and his chef friends go duck hunting and enjoy a hearty lunch in Bocuse’s lodge out in the country. The episode ends with another rustic family meal, this time with Boulud’s parents at their home just south of the city.

The Lyon episode shows Tony fully enjoying himself in the company of a great friend, while also offering a concise history of the last century of French cuisine.

Read Eater’s full recap here.

“Iran”

(Season 4, Episode 6; original air date November 2, 2014): Throughout its 12 seasons, Parts Unknown often showed audiences what life was like in places that aren’t often featured on Western television: The Iran episode is arguably the most important one in that regard. “All I can tell you is, the Iran I’ve seen on TV and read about in the papers, it’s a much bigger picture,” Bourdain remarks. “Let’s put it this way: It’s complicated.”

Bourdain is immediately surprised by the warm welcome he receives everywhere he goes, and he’s delighted by the hospitality that his hosts extend toward him, especially in their homes. He visits bustling markets, centuries-old places of worship, and parts of Tehran where the locals unwind. Tony also memorably chats with married journalists Jason Rezaian and Yeganeh Salehi about the local way of life. As noted at the end of the show, Rezaian and Yeganeh were both imprisoned shortly after filming this episode in 2014; Salehi was released after a few months, but Rezaian was kept in an Iranian prison until 2016. Bourdain remained a vocal advocate for Rezaian until his release.

After the TV host died, Rezaian told CNN: “The show actually had nothing to do with us being arrested, and if anything I think our appearance there — with really one of the most beloved television personalities, and people, of our generation — raised awareness in a different kind of way that nothing else could have.”

Read Eater’s full recap here.

“Massachusetts”

(Season 4, Episode 7; original air date November 9, 2014): A large chunk of this episode features Bourdain visiting his old haunts from when he was a young, aimless chef bumming around Provincetown. “[I] pretty much had my first everything on the beach,” he says while standing outside of a boarded-up seaside apartment in P-Town. But the real heart of this episode is its second half, when Tony heads west to learn about the opioid epidemic devastating small towns throughout the state.

Tony meets with an undercover narcotics division cop and one of his anonymous sources, as well as a young woman who has stepped back from the brink of heroin addiction and is constantly looking out for addicts in need of help. Tony knows these struggles all too well: One of the episode’s last scenes shows Bourdain talking to a group of recovering addicts about his own past drug use. “I’ll tell you something really shameful about myself,” Bourdain remarks. “The first time I shot up I looked at myself in the mirror with a big grin.”

Read Eater’s full recap here.

“Hanoi”

(Season 8, Episode 1; original air date September 25, 2016): Bourdain clearly loves the capitol of Vietnam, a city he says “grabs you and doesn’t let you go.”

On this very special episode, Tony gets to introduce President Barack Obama to one of his favorite Hanoi activities: eating the pork and noodle dish bun cha and drinking local beer from the bottle. During their convivial meal at a small noodle shop outfitted with stools and tiny tables, Bourdain and Obama discuss the sensory elements of travel, the dining habits of their children, and whether or not it’s ever acceptable to put ketchup on hot dogs (Obama deems that it’s “not acceptable past the age of eight”).

Elsewhere in the episode, Bourdain eats streetside snails in the Old Quarter, and freshly caught squid aboard a steamer ship. The host also chats with a family in a floating fishing village about how the culture and economy in Vietnam are always changing.

Read Eater’s full recap here.

“Houston”

(Season 8, Episode 5; original air date October 30, 2016): Bourdain enters Houston with a goal of ripping up the white-washed image of the city that often finds its way on TV — the one that leans into cowboy hats, the oil industry, NASA, and football. “Close minded, prejudicial, quick to make assumptions about places different than where we grew up,” Bourdain says in the episode’s intro. “I’m talking about me and people like me who are way too comfortable thinking of Texas as a big space filled with intolerant and variably right-wing white people waddling between the fast-food outlet and the gun store.”

During his stay, Bourdain meets with the owners of the Acapulco Ballroom, a popular quinceañera venue for the local Mexican-American community. He visits high school principal and Vietnamese refugee Jonathan N. Trinh, who oversees a student body that hails from 70 different countries. He hangs out with local hip-hop star Slim Thug and learns about local “slab” car culture. And he ends his trip by visiting the Houston Indian Cricket Club, where the game day snacks involve tandoori chicken and “some spicy, tender, and totally delicious curried goat, and made-to-order potato masala dosas.”

Read Eater’s full recap here.

“Rome”

(Season 8, episode 9; original air date December 4, 2016): In a clear homage to filmmaker Pier Pasolini, the Rome episode showcases the working-class neighborhoods of the Eternal City. “This is about people, often extraordinary ones, living their lives in the Rome you don’t see much in the travel guides or TV shows,” Bourdain says at the start of the show.

It’s here, on camera, that Bourdain meets his future girlfriend, filmmaker/actress/activist Asia Argento. They go to a boxing arena where spaghetti is served to attendees during the match. Argento brings him to her home, where they enjoy a rustic meal with her family. And later, they go ambling among the Brutalist ruins of the Mussolini area. Like many of the best episodes of Parts Unknown, Bourdain seems creatively charged by the people and places he meets along the way.

“Rome is a city where you find the most extraordinary pleasures in the most ordinary things,” Bourdain says while dining in a trattoria, “like this place which I’m not ever going to tell you the name of.”

Read Eater’s full recap here.

“Los Angeles”

(Season 9, Episode 1; original air date April 30, 2017): The first Parts Unknown episode to air during the Trump administration is a passionate celebration of LA’s Latinx community, and the immigrant workers who drive so many of the city’s industries. “Los Angeles, like much of California, used to be part of Mexico,” Bourdain says in the intro. “Now Mexico, or a whole lot of Mexicans, are a vital part of us.”

Bourdain meets with community activist Elisa Sol Garcia, tattoo artist Mister Cartoon, actor Danny Trejo, and MMA fighters Nick and Nate Diaz. Throughout his LA sojourn, the host samples some of the city’s myriad Mexican specialties, from tongue tacos to traditional Oaxacan moles to Ray Garcia’s modern cuisine at Broken Spanish, all the while emphasizing the importance of Latinx chefs in the American food scene.

“I worked in French and Italian restaurants my whole career, but really, if I think about it, they were Mexican restaurants and Ecuadorian restaurants, because the majority of the cooks and the people working with me were from those countries,” Bourdain remarks. “That’s who, you know, picked me up when I fell down; who showed me what to do when I walked in and didn’t know anything and nobody knew my name.”

Read Eater’s full recap here.

“Laos”

(Season 9, Episode 4; original air date May 14, 2017): Although he eats some terrific local delicacies in this episode — including steaming bowls of khao soi and charcoal-grilled squid skewers — the majority of Bourdain’s visit focuses on the tragic story of how Laos became “the most heavily bombed country per capita in the history of the world.”

Tony spends a lot of time in Hmong villages discussing the bomb clean-up from the war, and sees, first-hand, why it’s so difficult to remove the unexploded ordnances. Bourdain also explores the country’s complicated relationship with the United States, and meets the aid workers trying to help the country bounce back. “Here, on one hand, we have Americans dropping bombs that at the time blow this child up, and then there are American doctors to put them back together,” Bourdain says.

Read Eater’s full recap here.

“Kenya”

(Season 12, Episode 1; original air date September 23, 2018): A big part of Bourdain’s appeal on Parts Unknown is that he seemingly lived an enviable life, bouncing around the world, surrounded by fascinating people and delectable things to eat. And the joy of this episode is seeing a bona fide Bourdain fan — fellow CNN host W. Kamau Bell — join him on one of his adventures for the very first time.

Tony is a benevolent traveling companion, imparting various bits of wisdom to Bell on his first trip to Africa, and the United Shades of America host seems thrilled to be rolling with Bourdain and experiencing the local culture for the first time. While sitting atop a mountain on safari, with a drink in hand, Bell turns to Bourdain and says, “The idea that I’m sitting here with you doing this now, knowing where my life and career have come, it’s pretty cool.”

The Kenya episode was the first to air since Bourdain’s death, and the last to feature his full participation. It’s a great way to remember this TV legend, particularly because Bell’s commentary highlights the reason why audiences loved Bourdain so much throughout his career: He kept exploring, never talked down to anyone, and always brought us along for the ride.

Read Eater’s Full recap here.

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Source: https://www.eater.com/2018/11/10/18079924/anthony-bourdain-parts-unknown-cnn-best-episodes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I’m often asked to add a cultural slant even when one does not exist.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

via Eater - All https://www.eater.com/21347367/food-media-flattens-ethnicity-into-identity-bipoc-creators-bon-appetit-rick-martinez-alison-roman

Created July 31, 2020 at 01:26AM /huong sen View Google Doc Nhà hàng Hương Sen chuyên buffet hải sản cao cấp✅ Tổ chức tiệc cưới✅ Hội nghị, hội thảo✅ Tiệc lưu động✅ Sự kiện mang tầm cỡ quốc gia 52 Phố Miếu Đầm, Mễ Trì, Nam Từ Liêm, Hà Nội http://huongsen.vn/ 0904988999 http://huongsen.vn/to-chuc-tiec-hoi-nghi/ https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1xa6sRugRZk4MDSyctcqusGYBv1lXYkrF

Travelmag – All aboard for a vegetarian cruise

When 1 thinks of vegetarian delicacies, visuals of bland tofu, pasta, and kale may often happen to thoughts. However for individuals who need to consist of various and resourceful plant-based largely dishes of their food plan regime though cruising, lifetime simply obtained slightly improved.

Earlier thirty day interval, Regent 7 Seas Cruises debuted an appreciable array of plant-primarily based mostly delicacies on menus all through its fleet, along with above 200 gourmand plant-centered merchandise. And I used to be established to contemplate all of them!

Just lately, I set sail on a New England/Canada/Bermuda cruise departing NYC, on a crisp, autumnal Oct night time.

I had a plan: I used to be prone to function on my novel-in-development, relaxation, absorb clear up balanced meals, rest, eat some far more. Appeared like a worthwhile formulation for a pressured-out, burnt-out Main Apple writer in lookup of solace, relaxed and more healthy connoisseur meals objects.

I’ve to confess, I used to be slightly skeptical concerning the luxurious cruise line’s new plant-based largely menu. As a person who favors vegetarian meals, I’m usually underwhelmed when it arrives to menu choices though eating at non-vegetarian locations to eat. However I used to be pleasantly stunned and amazed by the inspiring and imaginative plant-based largely menu choices, superbly introduced, a number of dishes rivaled vegan fare of my beloved NYC locations to eat.

Sitting down within the beautifully appointed Compass Rose Consuming Space, I felt transported once more to Angelika’s Kitchen space, a most well-liked NYC vegetarian cafe that not too long ago closed following 40 a long time. And I used to be reminded that plant-centered consuming may be thrilling, colourful, spectacular, flavorful and healthful.

The brand new plant-based largely dishes, developed by Regent’s culinary administration crew beneath the way in which of Bernhard Klotz, Regent’s vp of Meals objects and Beverage, have been produced in partnership with globe-renowned chef, culinary trainer, and author Christophe Berg, a 15-12 months vegan.

“For luxurious vacationers who’re progressively introducing way more plant-primarily based mostly delicacies to their meals, we’re supplying even extra imaginative decisions of daring, flavorful appetizers, entrees and desserts with craveable preferences and mouth-watering reveals,” mentioned Jason Montague, Regent 7 Seas Cruises president and chief govt officer.

Menu choices will spotlight a wide range of my most well-liked cuisines corresponding to Italian, Greek, Center Japanese, Thai, Mexican, to level out just a few.

Pattern menu in the course of my 10 day cruise:

•Breakfast: Banana-Oatmeal Pancakes with Berries and Maple Syrup/Avocado Toast on Rustic Farmers Bread

• Lunch: Mazza Platter with Grape Leaves and Hummus/Falafel Means Bowl with Roasted Carrots, Cucumber, Cherry Tomatoes, Assorted Greens, Olives, Capers, Mint, Parsley, Lemon-Tahini dressing, Candy Potato Fries

• Dinner: Mushroom & Spinach Crepes with Béchamel and Tomato Sauce/Vegetable Tian Tomato & Bell Pepper Coulis

So I didn’t get significantly writing carried out on my retreat. However I rested, ate healthful and returned with a renewed notion of goal and motivation to taking in completely clear, plant-centered meals stuff.

I can’t say that I’ve gotten lots creating accomplished contemplating the truth that I’ve returned both.

I’ve been slightly busy planning my following cruise.

Regent Plant-Based Menu

Breakfast • Chia Cashew Yogurt with Carrot-Hazelnut Granola, Mixed Berries and Tropical Fruits • Chickpea Pancake with Spinach, Cherry Tomatoes, Mushrooms and Harissa Sauce, Simply Like Feta • Banana-Oatmeal Pancakes with Berries and Maple Syrup • Avocado Toast on Rustic Farmers Bread

Lunch • Candy Potato Soup with Miso & Ginger • Tomato Bisque with Dill • Roasted Almond and Vegetable Soup • Vietnamese Summer season Rolls with Veggies, Grapefruit, Coconut, Boston Lettuce, Rice Paper, Roasted Peanut Dip • Tajin Spiced Hummus & Avocado Wrap with Boston Lettuce, Carrots, Cherry Tomatoes, Cucumber, Fruit Skewer • Osaka Means Bowl with Soba Noodles, Eggplant, Tofu, Candy Potatoes, Edamame, Wakame Salad, Nori, Miso Sesame Dressing • Mediterranean Bowl with Brown Rice, Beluga Lentils, Inexperienced Peas, Cauliflower, Tomato, Handmade Tzatziki, Kalamata Olives, Pita Bread, Roasted Almond-Orange Dressing • Falafel Electrical energy Bowl with Roasted Carrots, Cucumber, Cherry Tomatoes, Assorted Greens, Olives, Capers, Mint, Parsley, Lemon-Tahini dressing • Environmentally pleasant Lentil Penne Pasta, Wild Mushroom Bolognese with Cashew Nuts • “Inconceivable Burger” Sesame Bun, Simply Like Cheddar, Lettuce, Tomato, Onion, Skinny Fries

Meal • Caramelized Apple Tart with Recent new Feta-Cashew Cheese, Balsamic Caramel • Wild Mushroom Tart with Brittle Pie Crust, Mushroom Duxelles, Pink Pepper Coulis • Mulligatawny, Widespread Indian Pink Lentil & Coconut Soup • Spiced Potato & Inexperienced Pea Samosas with Tamarind Chutney • Baked Porcini & Spinach Cannelloni, with Toasted Hazelnuts, Tomato Sauce, Béchamel • Mushroom & Spinach Crepes, with Béchamel and Tomato Sauce • Roasted Mushroom Stuffed Zucchini with Quinoa-Olive Salad, Pine Nut Dressing, Yellow Pepper Coulis • Singapore Noodles, with Stir Fried Greens, Turmeric, Ginger, Garlic, Soy Sauce, Rice Vermicelli • Environmentally pleasant Curry Vegetable Stir Fry, with Eggplant, Oyster Mushrooms, Cauliflower, Eco-friendly Peas, Jasmine Rice • Crispy Candy & Bitter Greens with Tofu, Cashew and Sesame Seeds

Desserts • Summer season season Berry Pudding Chantilly • Basil Scented Fruit Minestrone, Lemon Sorbet • Peach and Blueberry Cobbler with Cornmeal-Almond Topping • Pear Williams & Rosemary Sorbet • Lime-Vodka Sorbet • Champagne Sorbet

Copyright © 2019 Jill Rachel Jacobs

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Texas’s Favorite Grocery Store Is a Way of Life<p class="p-dropcap has-dropcap p-large-text" id="vavTjJ"><strong>The story of H-E-B seems</strong> unoriginal, as far as cult grocers go: A family launches a store in a small town a long time ago (in this case, the Butt family, in Kerrville, Texas, in 1905). That store earns a loyal following and expands throughout the region (Texas). It becomes known among its fans for its wildly dedicated employees (many have worked there for 30-plus years), top-notch customer service (only at H-E-B will someone hand you a freshly baked tortilla to snack on while you shop), and unique food products (hatch chile cookies!). Adoring <a href="https://www.epicurious.com/expert-advice/the-best-grocery-store-in-america-is-heb-article">public odes</a> are published about it across the Internet. <a href="https://www.itemonline.com/news/local_news/customers-flock-to-new-h-e-b-store-on-opening/article_1f9c3d27-617c-597d-9ab9-b9eeb81673bc.html">Long lines form</a> whenever a new location touches down. </p> <p id="D5oF9v">This tale could be told of any beloved regional grocery store — your Publixes, your Wegmans, your Harris Teeters — except that San Antonio-based H-E-B exists in a single U.S. state (with 52 stores across the border in Mexico) and is the 12th-largest private company in the country, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/largest-private-companies/list/#tab:rank">according to <em>Forbes</em></a>. What’s the difference between H-E-B and everyone else? Sure, it’s <a href="https://www.glassdoor.com/Award/Best-Places-to-Work-2018-LST_KQ0,24.htm">ranked among the top places to work</a> and is pretty ahead-of-the-curve with its mobile checkout (maybe that’s <a href="https://www.mysanantonio.com/business/local/article/Amazon-looked-at-H-E-B-Whole-Foods-to-break-into-11303341.php">why employees at Amazon suggested that the tech giant acquire H-E-B</a> before it settled on that <a href="https://www.eater.com/2017/6/16/15816202/amazon-buys-whole-foods">other Texas grocer</a>). </p> <p id="SciLGZ">But, really, H-E-B has just tapped into one of the most powerful cultural forces in existence: Texas pride. H-E-B’s corporate campus — where many of the buildings are made of Texas limestone, and the neoclassical design is quintessential Texas architecture — runs along the San Antonio River Walk, and is built on an old military compound called the <a href="https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/qbs02">San Antonio Arsenal</a>. A Texas landmark, known for being a major supply depot during both world wars, it now supplies Texas to Texans, from Whataburger Fancy Ketchup to Takis rolled tortilla chips to Franklin Barbecue sauce. </p> <p id="AJRBzf">The H-E-B <a href="https://careers.heb.com/about-heb/">website</a> prominently declares that H-E-B has “proudly served Texans since 1905,” and that its stores are all about “outfitting Texas families with all they need for Texas lifestyles.” In 2016, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/us/what-makes-texas-texas.html">Manny Fernandez succinctly described</a> what that means in the<em> New York Times:</em> “You don’t just move to Texas. It moves into you ... We tattoo Texas on our arms, buy Texas-built trucks and climb fire escapes with Texas dirt in our pockets. Place, we are unsubtly suggesting, matters.” Being from most states is just part of your bio; being from Texas is a lifelong commitment. </p> <p id="2F2SFv">I know this is true because I am from Texas. My parents moved the family to Dallas from New Hampshire when I was around a year old. My dad shades his face from the Texas sun with a cowboy hat on his daily walks, and has long identified as more Texan than Indian; as kids, my sister and I posed for photos off the highway amid the Texas bluebonnets every spring; I know all the lyrics to the de facto state song, “Deep in the Heart of Texas”; and though I live in Brooklyn now, I still wear shorts emblazoned with the Texas flag to the gym. </p> <p id="50sbXJ">If you’re not from Texas, the state might seem like one giant stereotype of cowboys, conservatism, and brashness. But Texan identity is more complex than that: There’s rural Texas, Silicon Prairie Texas, honky-tonk Texas, hipster Texas, Latinx Texas, oil-soaked Texas, Vietnamese Texas, and yes, gun-slinging Texas — just to name a few. A grocery store can be a prism for identity, refracting and focusing it; Whole Foods famously does this for an entire group of people held together by little more than social class and a vague sense of taste. What’s unique about H-E-B fandom is that its customers are ultimately loyal to H-E-B <em>in so far </em>as they are loyal to Texas. This is perhaps one of the most distinguishing factors between H-E-B and the other cult grocers: People love Publix subs, crave Trader Joe’s snacks, and revere Wegmans’ customer service, but H-E-B is a way of life. </p> <hr class="p-entry-hr" id="sR5Xpr"/><p class="p-large-text" id="uEuADT"><strong>Have you ever wanted</strong> a cast-iron skillet in the shape of the Lone Star state? Party tray? Burger-shaper? Cutting board? Pecan cake? Cheese? You can find them all in the aisles of H-E-B. Texas’s unique outline, with its right angles and craggly edges, is probably <a href="https://www.texasmonthly.com/the-culture/the-shape-were-in/">one of the most recognizable</a> in the country. There are hundreds — literally hundreds — of Texas-shaped items at H-E-B. An employee at a San Antonio location tried to convince me that the Texas-shaped tortilla chips are superior because the unique silhouette, with its handle and curved ridges, was practically made for scooping up salsa. A shopper from Schulenburg, who regularly drives 25 miles to visit her nearest H-E-B, told me that she fills her grandchildren’s Christmas stockings exclusively with Texas-shaped novelty items purchased at H-E-B stores.</p> <p id="zXt6A1">It turns out that, after oil, Texas pride may be the state’s single most lucrative natural resource — in part because it can take so many different forms, each of which can be sold to a distinct audience. Against the backdrop of a <a href="https://go.redirectingat.com?id=66960X1516589&xs=1&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.newyorker.com%2Fmagazine%2F2017%2F07%2F10%2Famericas-future-is-texas" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">broader conversation about the future of Texas</a> and Texan identity, H-E-B is unabashedly embracing the longer, wider, more diverse view of <a href="https://www.texasmonthly.com/the-culture/the-native-texan/">what it means to be a proud Texan</a>, and reaping the financial rewards of doing so; H-E-B’s more than 340 stores span several concepts, each of which appeals to a specific Lone Star State community or sensibility.</p> <p id="uHKAEn">Most notably, in 2006, H-E-B launched Mi Tienda, a grocery chain that caters to the needs of the state’s vast Latinx population, with a masa factory and tortilla presses in each store, products like dulce de leche and Mexican wedding cookies, and <a href="http://mitiendatx.com/">a default Spanish-language website</a>. Additionally, there’s Central Market, H-E-B’s specialty-foods store, which was launched in 1994 to appeal to a more globalized audience by offering a cross section of the cuisines that comprise an increasingly multicultural Texas, and now competes with Whole Foods; Joe V’s Smart Shop, a budget grocery brand; and Oaks Crossing, a family-friendly restaurant in one San Antonio store serving chicken-fried carne asada and brisket nachos. </p> <p id="ZMpoyY">Four years ago, H-E-B ventured into the barbecue business — the category of food that Texans are the <em>most</em> particular about (even if <a href="https://www.eater.com/2018/3/7/17081968/best-food-texas-tex-mex-barbecue">Tex-Mex is what more Texans actually eat</a>). “What is the most Texan food we can put out there?” Kristin Irvin, who is in charge of development for H-E-B’s True Texas Barbecue, asked me. “It’s barbecue.” She added that her team tasted barbecue from more than 25 different iconic Texas spots — Black’s,<strong> </strong>Franklin, and the like — to make sure that their version would pass muster. To Irvin and her team’s credit, the food I tried at a True Texas Barbecue inside a San Antonio H-E-B was pretty good — the sausage was appropriately snappy and well-spiced, the char on the brisket was just right, and even the turkey tasted impressively juicy. There are now 10 True Texas Barbecue locations spread across the state. </p> <p id="O44eMa">True Texas Barbecue was followed by another True Texas business, True Texas Tacos, which opened earlier this year in San Antonio. The restaurant, which focuses on breakfast tacos, is housed in another spin-off concept, the H-E-B Convenience Store, because eating gas station breakfast tacos is, to some, a Texas rite of passage. At True Texas Tacos, the tortillas are flour (anything else would be blasphemous) and freshly made on site. The fillings come in <em>barbacoa</em> (stewed cow’s head), <em>picadillo</em> (ground beef), and my personal favorite, a crisp slab of bacon with refried beans and cheese. </p> <p id="azF1Yn">You can also grab a Big Red, the bubble gum-flavored soda that was invented in Waco and is taken as a matter of fact to be the ideal counterpart to a smoky barbacoa taco. When an H-E-B employee found out that I had never even heard of Big Red, despite growing up less than 100 miles away from its birthplace, they immediately filled a large cup with the frighteningly red soda, and made me try it with the barbacoa taco — the combo was at first cloying, then pleasantly salty. (I probably could have done without the Big Red.) Still, I couldn’t believe that I had missed out on this allegedly quintessential Texas experience. It made me wonder: If H-E-B doesn’t do it, is it really Texan?</p> <p id="C78439">In Dallas, where I’m from, there’s no vanilla H-E-B location, a source of <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/texas/comments/8nw1fa/rant_why_is_there_no_heb_in_dallas/">extreme annoyance</a> among locals. But my family has long been devoted to Central Market, where we could buy whole spices, ghee, <em>masoor dal</em> (red lentils), and whole-wheat tortillas, which are (still) the closest approximation my mom has found to roti in any mainstream grocery store. Central Market also introduced my family to English double cream, arborio rice, and miso, broadening our palates with tastes from other cuisines. There are still sizable communities that H-E-B could do a better job of showcasing — the state’s robust immigrant populations from China and Vietnam come to mind — but it’s hard to think of another brand that’s as expansive in its vision of who and what gets to be Texan, or that comes as close to its aspirations to represent all of Texas. Whatever the future of Texas looks like, there’s a good chance it’ll show up in H-E-B.</p> <hr class="p-entry-hr" id="cqZ2Ua"/><p class="p-large-text" id="MY2nZ2"><strong>We may </strong><a href="https://www.curbed.com/a/texas-california"><strong>live in</strong> the United States of California and Texas</a>, but H-E-B has no plans to expand beyond Texas, at least in the U.S. Julie Bedingfield, an H-E-B public affairs manager, says that the company gets requests to open stores outside of Texas, mainly from Texas natives living elsewhere, “every single day.” You’d think that, in the same way that Popeyes has exported its Louisiana fried chicken across the country, H-E-B would <em>want </em>to sell its brand of Texas to people outside of the state. But H-E-B just wants to dig into its native soil even harder: Shortly after Amazon acquired Austin-based Whole Foods, H-E-B announced the creation of a tech and innovation lab in Austin, which will house its latest acquisition, a Texas-based delivery app called Favor. </p> <p id="8Ypp10">The strategy seems to be working. “I don’t really like Whole Foods after they got bought by Amazon,” an H-E-B customer in San Antonio told me. “I don’t like seeing the Amazon stuff everywhere.” With H-E-B, on the other hand, “I feel like they do things to support the community,” she added. “Many people I know, their kids work there ... I think H-E-B has earned the monopoly.” </p> <p id="ceD2Rr">The dedicated barbecue sauce aisles and the chicken-fried steak may sometimes seem a bit like Texas caricature — but whether or not every H-E-B customer connects with every Texas-adjacent item isn’t the point. It’s all just a way for H-E-B to communicate its message, loud and clear: <em>We get it. You love Texas, and so do we. </em></p> <p class="c-end-para" id="fO5SdF">I’ve noticed, living in New York, that people tend to write off Texas as a Wild West of conservatism and unruliness. Similarly, when my parents moved to Dallas from Nashua, New Hampshire in the ’90s, everyone told them they would face intense racism. Instead, we’ve all found the opposite to be true, at least where we’ve lived — Texans, on the whole, are open, honest, dedicated, and friendly. Maybe that’s why H-E-B resonates so strongly in Texas. The stores represent Texans as they<em> </em>see themselves. There is no attempt to construct a monolithic image of Texas — or even to help people outside of Texas understand Texas. H-E-B is the secret that only Texans are in on. It’s a retailer whose ethos is very clear: This is Texas — where the food is better, the people are more loyal, and the shape of our state is actually quite remarkable. <em>Y’all got any questions? </em></p> <p id="J8iole"><a href="https://twitter.com/PKgourmet"><small><em>Priya Krishna</em></small></a><small><em> is a food writer who contributes regularly to the </em></small><small>New York Times</small><small><em>, </em></small><small>Bon Appétit</small><small><em>, and other publications. Her cookbook, </em></small><a href="https://go.redirectingat.com?id=66960X1516589&xs=1&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FIndian-ish-Recipes-Antics-Modern-American%2Fdp%2F1328482472%2Fref%3Dsr_1_1%3Fie%3DUTF8%26qid%3D1536589970%26sr%3D8-1%26keywords%3Dindianish" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"><small>Indian-ish</small></a><small><em>, is out April 2019. </em></small><br/><a href="https://www.instagram.com/laurakraaydesign/"><small><em>Laura Kraay</em></small></a><small><em> is a freelance illustrator living in Austin, Texas. </em></small><br/><small><em>Fact checked by </em></small><a href="https://twitter.com/emgrill_o?lang=en"><small><em>Emma Grillo</em></small></a><br/><small><em>Copy edited by Rachel P. Kreiter</em></small></p> <aside id="YtlPqm"><div class="c-newsletter_signup_box" id="newsletter-signup-short-form" data-newsletter-slug="eater" readability="7.8834196891192"> <div class="c-newsletter_signup_box__main" readability="33"> <span class="c-newsletter_signup_box__icon"> <svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" version="1.1" id="Layer_1" x="0px" y="0px" viewbox="0 0 38 54.231" xml:space="preserve"><g><path d="M1,20.304v9.981v6.393c0,9.046,7.332,16.375,16.375,16.375H33.75v-11.09H17.375 c-2.914,0-5.285-2.369-5.285-5.285v-6.393h18.383v-9.981H12.09V11.09h21.66V0H1V20.304z"/></g></svg></span> <h3 class="c-newsletter_signup_box__title"> Eater.com </h3> <p class="c-newsletter_signup_box__blurb">The freshest news from the food world every day</p> </div> <div class="c-newsletter_signup_box__disclaimer" readability="8.6"> By signing up, you agree to our <a href="https://www.voxmedia.com/pages/privacy-policy">Privacy Policy</a> and European users agree to the data transfer policy. </div> </div> </aside><br/><br/>Source: https://www.eater.com/2018/12/11/18133776/heb-texas-origin-cult-following<br/><img src="https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/chef-cooking-kitchen-stove-flame-frying-pan-31742315.jpg"/><br/>

White food writers are often allowed to be generalists, while BIPOC creators are limited to their personal histories, their cultures, and the foods their grandmothers made In this age of the cook-turned-influencer, Bon Appétit’s video content found astonishing success by capitalizing on the colorful world of the quirky characters featured in its test kitchen. In many cases, the employees’ personalities were turned into their personal brands. This strategy, actively pursued by now-former editor-in-chief Adam Rapoport, piggybacked off an evolving relationship between audiences and celebrity chefs like Alison Roman, whose “authentic” lazy-girl cooking hacks jolted her into almost instant fame. Branding oneself as the creator of a viral dish (“the stew,” “the pasta”) or crafting an identity around a quirk or personality trait, all but eliminates the need for bona fide experts, allowing the internet-friendly celebrity chef to take their place. But as the casual viewer noticed — and as stories about Bon Appétit’s corporate culture have revealed in recent weeks — it is almost always only white food writers, chefs, and recipe developers who get to adopt personas that go beyond their ethnicity. For every Brad Leone, who gets to be goofy and charming, for every Claire Saffitz, who becomes a sensation for being hyper-competitive and neurotically orderly, you have a Priya Krishna or a Rick Martinez, whose ethnicity, and the “expertise” in a certain cuisine that comes with it, is often framed as their most useful contribution to the team. Martinez, former senior food editor and current BA contributor, was branded the “resident taco maestro” in the pages of the magazine, yet, as he recounted to Business Insider, then-deputy editor Andrew Knowlton asked if he was “a one-trick pony” for focusing on Mexican cuisine. Argentinian test kitchen manager Gaby Melian’s only solo video on YouTube is of her making her family’s empanada recipe. Fan favorite Sohla El-Waylly, who managed to veer out into more generalist territory with beloved recipes for dumplings, cinnamon buns, and even a carbonara dessert, started her career at BA talking about her riff on a family biryani recipe on the Bon Appétit Foodcast podcast and made an “updated” version of a Bengali snack, piyaju, for her first solo video. Even after expanding out of her “niche” and producing some of the channel’s most creative recipes, El-Waylly’s expertise was considered external to her identity, and — as she revealed in an Instagram story on June 8 — she was compensated as such. Other BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color) at BA, including contributing editor Priya Krishna and research director Joseph Hernandez, also spoke out against BA’s pay disparities and its pervasive racist culture that, as Business Insider wrote, “does not provide nonwhite employees the same opportunities on the brand’s video side that white employees enjoy.” The feeling of being slotted into a niche is all too familiar for Martinez. “There’s this idea in food media that it’s somehow easier to cook the food of your culture because you grew up with it or that it’s a part of you,” Martinez tells me. “It completely discounts the skills that it takes to build a recipe for an American audience. To recreate or even create an homage to the original dish requires a lot of creativity, skill, and work.” The recent changes at BA — Rapoport’s resignation, white BA staffers’ refusal to put out content until their BIPOC colleagues are paid fairly — are a start. Yet the simultaneous compartmentalizing and marginalization of BIPOC in food media goes far beyond one organization or one editor-in-chief. Allowing BIPOC to have more agency within the food media system will require reimagining the relationship white America has both to “other cuisines” and to the people who grew up on them. There’s this perception in food media, which publications like Bon Appétit subscribe to and perpetuate, that all that nonwhite writers really want is to have their cultures represented “authentically.” But the premise of authenticity is rooted in a white gaze that selectively acquires aspects of nonwhite cultures to package as just exotic enough to remain accessible. In late June, the New York Times published a story about “Thai fruit” that frames common fruit in Thailand as foreign and difficult to understand. The week before, tofu was labeled “white, chewy, and bland” in a since-deleted tweet by Bloomberg Asia. And who can forget the infamous Bon Appétit pho fiasco, which called the Vietnamese dish “the new ramen” and enlisted a white chef to give a “PSA: This Is How You Should Be Eating Pho”? Stories like these serve as reminders that foods outside of whiteness are at odds with an imagined “American” readership, for whom these foods remain distant and other. “Our white colleagues think that we are speaking out about representation or appropriation because we want to be seen as experts on the subject,” says travel and food writer Dan Q. Dao. “[But] what we are [really] fighting is a long battle for inclusivity and equity in our workplaces.” “I’m often asked to add a cultural slant even when one does not exist.” Those workplaces, it should be noted, are overwhelmingly white. In June, Leah Bhabha noted in a Grubstreet piece, citing a 2019 Diversity Baseline study, that 76 percent of all publishing industry professionals are white. “In my own experience, as a biracial Indian writer, I’ve never had more than one coworker of color on my team,” she wrote, “and frequently it’s just been me.” The social media age — and the branding pressures inherent within — exacerbates that experience. Social media allows for real-time feedback that makes creators accountable to an audience that often acts as ad hoc sensitivity readers for people writing about their own cultural backgrounds. Writer and chef Samin Nosrat recently tweeted her frustrations with that pressure: “Instead of criticizing the systems that refuse to allow for greater diversity and inclusion, desis, Iranians, whoever, just pile on individual cooks for our perceived failure to represent their ideal versions of their entire cuisines. (Or even more frustratingly, for failing to cook something *exactly* like maman did it back home. I am not your maman!)” But as media writer Allegra Hobbs pointed out in October 2019, “in the age of Twitter and Instagram, an online presence, which is necessarily public and necessarily consumable, seems all but mandatory for a writer who reaches (or hopes to reach) a certain level of renown.” In curating this online presence, writers and other creators are often pushed to flatten themselves into an easily legible extension of their identity. Like many, food writer and chef Lesley Téllez has struggled with the expectations that come with being Mexican in food media. “There’s more pressure on BIPOC to find a niche that makes us stand out,” she says. “Over and over, the faces who look like us are people who specialize in food from their particular countries or backgrounds. It sends an overt message that stepping out as a generalist is hard, and that you will not be hired as such. I have definitely felt pressure to keep non-Mexican-cooking stuff off of my social media, and my old blog.” For all the claims organizations in food media have made of diversifying their rosters and cleaning up the more egregious offenses in their treatment of nonwhite writers, there is still an association between nonwhite writers and their ethnicity, which is treated as tantamount to other aspects of their identities. BIPOC in food media are routinely not considered for assignments about things that don’t directly relate to their ethnicity or race. “I became a food writer 20 years ago when it was not really a profession,” says Ramin Ganeshram. “Yet, despite my qualifications as a reporter, editor, and chef, it was a losing fight to write anything that wasn’t ‘ethnic.’... I was discouraged and prevented from writing about generalized food technique or profiles, despite French culinary training.” These assignments are often handed off to white writers, who are seen as “generalists” with the ability to stick their hands into any cuisine and turn it into something palatable (or, more importantly, into pageviews). Ganeshram says, “I was directly told regarding a job I didn’t receive at a New England-based national cooking magazine that they thought of me as more of an ‘ethnic’ writer.” Instead, BIPOC get stuck with work directly related to their ethnicities. “I’m often asked to add a cultural slant even when one does not exist,” says food writer Su-Jit Lin, “or frame things from a point of greater expertise than I actually have. It’s assumed I’m fully indoctrinated into the culture and more Chinese than American (not true — my lane is actually Southern, Italian, and kind of Irish food).” Even when chefs push back against this compartmentalization, they are turned into caricatured ambassadors for their backgrounds. Chef (and Eater contributor) Jenny Dorsey wrote on Twitter that even though she demonstrated a dish on video that had nothing to do with her heritage, the result was ultimately titled “Jenny Dorsey talks about how her Chinese-American heritage influences her cooking.” Often, the addition of a “cultural slant” to stories leads to one of the more egregious ways that nonwhite food is pigeonholed and othered — through what writer Isabel Quintero calls a lust for “Abuelita longing.” The term speaks to the way immigrant and diasporic writers (both within and outside food media) are frequently expected to add a dash of trauma or ancestral belonging to anything they write. As a Trinidadian-Iranian chef, Ganeshram finds this association particularly limiting. “When I’ve tried to write stories about my Iranian heritage, not being a recent Iranian immigrant or the child of a post-revolution immigrant has been an issue,” she says. “The editors I dealt with only wanted a refugee/escaping the Islamic Republic story. They decided what constituted an ‘authentic’ Iranian story, and that story was based in strife and hardship only.” These markers of authenticity can only come from the wholesome domesticity presumed of the ethnic other. The extreme whiteness of the food industry, and of food media, places undue pressure on nonwhite writers and chefs. As food writer and founder of Whetstone Magazine, Stephen Satterfield wrote for Chefsfeed in 2017: “In mostly-white communities, you become an ambassador for your race. The stakes are high, and you try hard not to screw it up for the ones behind you…. Black chefs know this well: we must validate our presence, where others exist unquestioned. And what does it mean to be a black food writer? It means that you’ll never just be a food writer, you’ll be a black food writer.” In other words, being designated as “ethnic” chefs put far too many BIPOC working in food media in a bind. Either they work against being pigeonholed by pitching stories that mark them as generalists, but lose out on assignments as a consequence, or they double down and tell stories of their culture and cuisine, but risk being limited both career- and compensation-wise. Martinez was aware of this predicament while signing on to write a regional Mexican cookbook. “Writing a love letter to Mexico is so important in these times, but I had to seriously consider whether it would be a career-limiting move,” he says. He chose to write the book, but others, like Caroline Shin, food journalist and founder of the Cooking with Granny video and workshop series, have had to push against the expectation that anything they publish will be about their ethnic cuisine. “Last year, literary agents told me that I couldn’t sell diversity,” she says. “[I]f I wanted a cookbook, I should focus on my Korean culture.” While Shin chose to start her own program as what she calls an “‘I’ll show you’ to white-dominated institutions,” it raises the question of whether BIPOC in food media can taste mainstream success without operating as spokespeople for their ethnic cuisines. But if you continue to pigeonhole and tokenize your BIPOC employees, seeing them primarily as products of trauma or perpetuating their marginalization by refusing them fair pay and workplace equity, then your calls to diversify the workplace mean very little, if anything at all. Mallika Khanna is a graduate student in media who writes about film and digital culture, diaspora and immigrant experiences and the environment through a feminist, anti-capitalist lens. Nicole Medina is a Philly based illustrator who loves capturing adventure through her art using bold colors and patterns. from Eater - All https://ift.tt/39Jaxcc

http://easyfoodnetwork.blogspot.com/2020/07/it-was-losing-fight-to-write-anything.html

Travelmag – All aboard for a vegetarian cruise

When 1 thinks of vegetarian delicacies, visuals of bland tofu, pasta, and kale may often happen to thoughts. However for individuals who need to consist of various and resourceful plant-based largely dishes of their food plan regime though cruising, lifetime simply obtained slightly improved.

Earlier thirty day interval, Regent 7 Seas Cruises debuted an appreciable array of plant-primarily based mostly delicacies on menus all through its fleet, along with above 200 gourmand plant-centered merchandise. And I used to be established to contemplate all of them!

Just lately, I set sail on a New England/Canada/Bermuda cruise departing NYC, on a crisp, autumnal Oct night time.

I had a plan: I used to be prone to function on my novel-in-development, relaxation, absorb clear up balanced meals, rest, eat some far more. Appeared like a worthwhile formulation for a pressured-out, burnt-out Main Apple writer in lookup of solace, relaxed and more healthy connoisseur meals objects.

I’ve to confess, I used to be slightly skeptical concerning the luxurious cruise line’s new plant-based largely menu. As a person who favors vegetarian meals, I’m usually underwhelmed when it arrives to menu choices though eating at non-vegetarian locations to eat. However I used to be pleasantly stunned and amazed by the inspiring and imaginative plant-based largely menu choices, superbly introduced, a number of dishes rivaled vegan fare of my beloved NYC locations to eat.

Sitting down within the beautifully appointed Compass Rose Consuming Space, I felt transported once more to Angelika’s Kitchen space, a most well-liked NYC vegetarian cafe that not too long ago closed following 40 a long time. And I used to be reminded that plant-centered consuming may be thrilling, colourful, spectacular, flavorful and healthful.

The brand new plant-based largely dishes, developed by Regent’s culinary administration crew beneath the way in which of Bernhard Klotz, Regent’s vp of Meals objects and Beverage, have been produced in partnership with globe-renowned chef, culinary trainer, and author Christophe Berg, a 15-12 months vegan.

“For luxurious vacationers who’re progressively introducing way more plant-primarily based mostly delicacies to their meals, we’re supplying even extra imaginative decisions of daring, flavorful appetizers, entrees and desserts with craveable preferences and mouth-watering reveals,” mentioned Jason Montague, Regent 7 Seas Cruises president and chief govt officer.

Menu choices will spotlight a wide range of my most well-liked cuisines corresponding to Italian, Greek, Center Japanese, Thai, Mexican, to level out just a few.

Pattern menu in the course of my 10 day cruise:

•Breakfast: Banana-Oatmeal Pancakes with Berries and Maple Syrup/Avocado Toast on Rustic Farmers Bread

• Lunch: Mazza Platter with Grape Leaves and Hummus/Falafel Means Bowl with Roasted Carrots, Cucumber, Cherry Tomatoes, Assorted Greens, Olives, Capers, Mint, Parsley, Lemon-Tahini dressing, Candy Potato Fries

• Dinner: Mushroom & Spinach Crepes with Béchamel and Tomato Sauce/Vegetable Tian Tomato & Bell Pepper Coulis

So I didn’t get significantly writing carried out on my retreat. However I rested, ate healthful and returned with a renewed notion of goal and motivation to taking in completely clear, plant-centered meals stuff.

I can’t say that I’ve gotten lots creating accomplished contemplating the truth that I’ve returned both.

I’ve been slightly busy planning my following cruise.

Regent Plant-Based Menu

Breakfast • Chia Cashew Yogurt with Carrot-Hazelnut Granola, Mixed Berries and Tropical Fruits • Chickpea Pancake with Spinach, Cherry Tomatoes, Mushrooms and Harissa Sauce, Simply Like Feta • Banana-Oatmeal Pancakes with Berries and Maple Syrup • Avocado Toast on Rustic Farmers Bread

Lunch • Candy Potato Soup with Miso & Ginger • Tomato Bisque with Dill • Roasted Almond and Vegetable Soup • Vietnamese Summer season Rolls with Veggies, Grapefruit, Coconut, Boston Lettuce, Rice Paper, Roasted Peanut Dip • Tajin Spiced Hummus & Avocado Wrap with Boston Lettuce, Carrots, Cherry Tomatoes, Cucumber, Fruit Skewer • Osaka Means Bowl with Soba Noodles, Eggplant, Tofu, Candy Potatoes, Edamame, Wakame Salad, Nori, Miso Sesame Dressing • Mediterranean Bowl with Brown Rice, Beluga Lentils, Inexperienced Peas, Cauliflower, Tomato, Handmade Tzatziki, Kalamata Olives, Pita Bread, Roasted Almond-Orange Dressing • Falafel Electrical energy Bowl with Roasted Carrots, Cucumber, Cherry Tomatoes, Assorted Greens, Olives, Capers, Mint, Parsley, Lemon-Tahini dressing • Environmentally pleasant Lentil Penne Pasta, Wild Mushroom Bolognese with Cashew Nuts • “Inconceivable Burger” Sesame Bun, Simply Like Cheddar, Lettuce, Tomato, Onion, Skinny Fries

Meal • Caramelized Apple Tart with Recent new Feta-Cashew Cheese, Balsamic Caramel • Wild Mushroom Tart with Brittle Pie Crust, Mushroom Duxelles, Pink Pepper Coulis • Mulligatawny, Widespread Indian Pink Lentil & Coconut Soup • Spiced Potato & Inexperienced Pea Samosas with Tamarind Chutney • Baked Porcini & Spinach Cannelloni, with Toasted Hazelnuts, Tomato Sauce, Béchamel • Mushroom & Spinach Crepes, with Béchamel and Tomato Sauce • Roasted Mushroom Stuffed Zucchini with Quinoa-Olive Salad, Pine Nut Dressing, Yellow Pepper Coulis • Singapore Noodles, with Stir Fried Greens, Turmeric, Ginger, Garlic, Soy Sauce, Rice Vermicelli • Environmentally pleasant Curry Vegetable Stir Fry, with Eggplant, Oyster Mushrooms, Cauliflower, Eco-friendly Peas, Jasmine Rice • Crispy Candy & Bitter Greens with Tofu, Cashew and Sesame Seeds

Desserts • Summer season season Berry Pudding Chantilly • Basil Scented Fruit Minestrone, Lemon Sorbet • Peach and Blueberry Cobbler with Cornmeal-Almond Topping • Pear Williams & Rosemary Sorbet • Lime-Vodka Sorbet • Champagne Sorbet

Copyright © 2019 Jill Rachel Jacobs

from Cheapr Travels https://ift.tt/38e0L0Q via https://ift.tt/2NIqXKN

Travelmag – All aboard for a vegetarian cruise

When 1 thinks of vegetarian delicacies, visuals of bland tofu, pasta, and kale may often happen to thoughts. However for individuals who need to consist of various and resourceful plant-based largely dishes of their food plan regime though cruising, lifetime simply obtained slightly improved.

Earlier thirty day interval, Regent 7 Seas Cruises debuted an appreciable array of plant-primarily based mostly delicacies on menus all through its fleet, along with above 200 gourmand plant-centered merchandise. And I used to be established to contemplate all of them!

Just lately, I set sail on a New England/Canada/Bermuda cruise departing NYC, on a crisp, autumnal Oct night time.

I had a plan: I used to be prone to function on my novel-in-development, relaxation, absorb clear up balanced meals, rest, eat some far more. Appeared like a worthwhile formulation for a pressured-out, burnt-out Main Apple writer in lookup of solace, relaxed and more healthy connoisseur meals objects.

I’ve to confess, I used to be slightly skeptical concerning the luxurious cruise line’s new plant-based largely menu. As a person who favors vegetarian meals, I’m usually underwhelmed when it arrives to menu choices though eating at non-vegetarian locations to eat. However I used to be pleasantly stunned and amazed by the inspiring and imaginative plant-based largely menu choices, superbly introduced, a number of dishes rivaled vegan fare of my beloved NYC locations to eat.

Sitting down within the beautifully appointed Compass Rose Consuming Space, I felt transported once more to Angelika’s Kitchen space, a most well-liked NYC vegetarian cafe that not too long ago closed following 40 a long time. And I used to be reminded that plant-centered consuming may be thrilling, colourful, spectacular, flavorful and healthful.

The brand new plant-based largely dishes, developed by Regent’s culinary administration crew beneath the way in which of Bernhard Klotz, Regent’s vp of Meals objects and Beverage, have been produced in partnership with globe-renowned chef, culinary trainer, and author Christophe Berg, a 15-12 months vegan.

“For luxurious vacationers who’re progressively introducing way more plant-primarily based mostly delicacies to their meals, we’re supplying even extra imaginative decisions of daring, flavorful appetizers, entrees and desserts with craveable preferences and mouth-watering reveals,” mentioned Jason Montague, Regent 7 Seas Cruises president and chief govt officer.

Menu choices will spotlight a wide range of my most well-liked cuisines corresponding to Italian, Greek, Center Japanese, Thai, Mexican, to level out just a few.

Pattern menu in the course of my 10 day cruise:

•Breakfast: Banana-Oatmeal Pancakes with Berries and Maple Syrup/Avocado Toast on Rustic Farmers Bread

• Lunch: Mazza Platter with Grape Leaves and Hummus/Falafel Means Bowl with Roasted Carrots, Cucumber, Cherry Tomatoes, Assorted Greens, Olives, Capers, Mint, Parsley, Lemon-Tahini dressing, Candy Potato Fries

• Dinner: Mushroom & Spinach Crepes with Béchamel and Tomato Sauce/Vegetable Tian Tomato & Bell Pepper Coulis

So I didn’t get significantly writing carried out on my retreat. However I rested, ate healthful and returned with a renewed notion of goal and motivation to taking in completely clear, plant-centered meals stuff.

I can’t say that I’ve gotten lots creating accomplished contemplating the truth that I’ve returned both.

I’ve been slightly busy planning my following cruise.

Regent Plant-Based Menu

Breakfast • Chia Cashew Yogurt with Carrot-Hazelnut Granola, Mixed Berries and Tropical Fruits • Chickpea Pancake with Spinach, Cherry Tomatoes, Mushrooms and Harissa Sauce, Simply Like Feta • Banana-Oatmeal Pancakes with Berries and Maple Syrup • Avocado Toast on Rustic Farmers Bread

Lunch • Candy Potato Soup with Miso & Ginger • Tomato Bisque with Dill • Roasted Almond and Vegetable Soup • Vietnamese Summer season Rolls with Veggies, Grapefruit, Coconut, Boston Lettuce, Rice Paper, Roasted Peanut Dip • Tajin Spiced Hummus & Avocado Wrap with Boston Lettuce, Carrots, Cherry Tomatoes, Cucumber, Fruit Skewer • Osaka Means Bowl with Soba Noodles, Eggplant, Tofu, Candy Potatoes, Edamame, Wakame Salad, Nori, Miso Sesame Dressing • Mediterranean Bowl with Brown Rice, Beluga Lentils, Inexperienced Peas, Cauliflower, Tomato, Handmade Tzatziki, Kalamata Olives, Pita Bread, Roasted Almond-Orange Dressing • Falafel Electrical energy Bowl with Roasted Carrots, Cucumber, Cherry Tomatoes, Assorted Greens, Olives, Capers, Mint, Parsley, Lemon-Tahini dressing • Environmentally pleasant Lentil Penne Pasta, Wild Mushroom Bolognese with Cashew Nuts • “Inconceivable Burger” Sesame Bun, Simply Like Cheddar, Lettuce, Tomato, Onion, Skinny Fries

Meal • Caramelized Apple Tart with Recent new Feta-Cashew Cheese, Balsamic Caramel • Wild Mushroom Tart with Brittle Pie Crust, Mushroom Duxelles, Pink Pepper Coulis • Mulligatawny, Widespread Indian Pink Lentil & Coconut Soup • Spiced Potato & Inexperienced Pea Samosas with Tamarind Chutney • Baked Porcini & Spinach Cannelloni, with Toasted Hazelnuts, Tomato Sauce, Béchamel • Mushroom & Spinach Crepes, with Béchamel and Tomato Sauce • Roasted Mushroom Stuffed Zucchini with Quinoa-Olive Salad, Pine Nut Dressing, Yellow Pepper Coulis • Singapore Noodles, with Stir Fried Greens, Turmeric, Ginger, Garlic, Soy Sauce, Rice Vermicelli • Environmentally pleasant Curry Vegetable Stir Fry, with Eggplant, Oyster Mushrooms, Cauliflower, Eco-friendly Peas, Jasmine Rice • Crispy Candy & Bitter Greens with Tofu, Cashew and Sesame Seeds

Desserts • Summer season season Berry Pudding Chantilly • Basil Scented Fruit Minestrone, Lemon Sorbet • Peach and Blueberry Cobbler with Cornmeal-Almond Topping • Pear Williams & Rosemary Sorbet • Lime-Vodka Sorbet • Champagne Sorbet

Copyright © 2019 Jill Rachel Jacobs

source http://cheaprtravels.com/travelmag-all-aboard-for-a-vegetarian-cruise/