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New York City, deliciously off-script

I ate lamb ribs sticky with tamarind and dates, watched fairy tales transformed into extravagant burlesque, learned to make stained glass and watched people take shots of alcohol poured directly from the head of a bluefin tuna during my latest…
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The strange new math behind the price of your groceries

Walmart recently published a list of things it promises not to do to its customers. “We price the product, not the person,” Walmart CEO John Furner announced in a September letter to customers. “Your income, shopping history, urgency or what…
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I can’t stop making this cabbage

I have a very specific fantasy about the restaurant I would open, should someone ever hand me a set of keys and an unlimited supply of funds and optimism. It would be a little neighborhood bistro, the sort of place…
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Airbnb sold us the comforts of home. Then came the chores

Schadenfreude isn’t listed among Airbnb’s amenities — but this week, it’s practically complimentary. Some Airbnb hosts are threatening to quit the platform, raise their housekeeping fees or pare their rental properties down to the bare essentials rather than accept new…
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Americans hate tipping. So why haven’t they stopped?

I am a recovering people-pleaser, though I admit most of the recovering still takes place in private. I rehearse difficult conversations for weeks — on walks by the lake, in the shower, in the mirror — before actually having them.…
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Why women dread male Instacart shoppers

When I began using Instacart about five years ago, grocery delivery struck me as an almost preposterous luxury. I hadn’t grown up in a household where paying someone else to do the grocery shopping was a particularly imaginable expense. I’ve…
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You should throw a soup party

When I was a kid, I used to read “The Joy of Cooking” and imagine the elaborate parties I would someday throw for the friends I was certain adulthood would bring me. One friend would debut a play, naturally, and…
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Food safety fears are bipartisan. Trust in oversight isn’t

A Crunchwrap Supreme and a bag of supermarket salad generally appeal to rather different notions of a good lunch. One offers the architectural pleasure of a crunchy tostada tucked inside a warm tortilla; the other, the satisfaction of having arranged…
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I miss the restaurant pager

At 16, I was entrusted with one of the most important pieces of technology at a suburban Chili’s: a wire rack full of restaurant pagers. The restaurant occupied a sprawling shopping center alongside an Olive Garden, a Cabela’s and a…
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James Talarico isn’t vegan. So why is the GOP so fixated?

President Donald Trump has lately been telling a story about James Talarico that comes with its own setting, action and reliable third-act catastrophe. The Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in Texas, Trump says, goes to barbecues, forces down meat and…
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