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Why “Chef’s Table” still matters

When Netflix announced the first-ever Chef’s Table Food Festival, bringing 70 internationally acclaimed chefs to Park City for four days of dinners, demonstrations and excursions, I felt something between excitement and apprehension. The series changed the way I understood food.…
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RFK Jr.’s cooking show has no appetite

At the end of the debut episode of “The Real Food Show,” Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spears a single bite of salmon cake and brings it to his lips. “Amazing,” he says, giving chef Andrew Gruel a slack thumbs-up. The…
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I was a farmers market failure

When I moved to Chicago, I assumed I would become a slightly different person. Not in the wholehearted country-song sense, where crossing the county line might allow me to outrun myself. The reinvention I had in mind was more municipal…
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The better way to make tomato toast

The mind keeps a strange little pantry of its own. It shelves a photograph you paused over, a dish you ate three summers ago, a flavor combination you praised enthusiastically in public and then apparently continued discussing with yourself in…
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The art of the beach sandwich

It’s a $16 disappointment every time. These days, the airport sandwich tends to emerge from a fluorescent-lit vending machine with a name like Farmer On-the-Go or Nutrition Inc. The machine is usually white, decorated with soothing green or blue iconography…
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The cult of New England Chinese food

Walk into any American-style Chinese restaurant in New England, and you’ll find locals sipping from umbrella-topped Scorpion Bowls and flaming Pu Pu Platters (pronounced plattah). Piled high with chicken fingers, chicken wings, spare ribs and teriyaki skewers crowded around a…
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Enough with the “-maxxing” – Salon.com

If you’re chronically online like me, you’ve probably come across a slang-suffix that’s become part of the lexicon despite not being formally added to a dictionary — yet. It’s part trend, part meme. And it’s been showing up everywhere to…
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The resilience of uchche, bitter melon

Baba was our resident gardener. He told us tales of big brinjals, bright pumpkin flowers, sprite okra that grew in the farmland in what’s now Bangladesh, where he grew up. In Delhi, in our rented place surrounded by dark, healthy…
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The big problem with those viral tiny snack tins

There’s a 2021 InStyle cover story of Jennifer Aniston that I think about more often than I’d like to. Specifically, it’s Aniston’s response to being asked what she eats when she’s stressed. “A chip. Crunch, crunch, crunch,” she says. Emphasis…
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The smoky, cheesy lentils I keep making

So much aspirational frugal cooking quietly assumes you have endless time, energy and executive function to devote to homemade bread, all-day braises and deeply involved kitchen projects. Sometimes what you actually need is a recipe that respects your exhaustion while…
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