This summer, that vision becomes reality as Soul & Smoke, the beloved casual BBQ joint from Evanston, Illinois, expands its flagship location—turning a once-humble smoke shack into a destination for refined, fire-driven dining.

“The current form of Smoke was the result of a pandemic pivot” says co-owner and sommelier Heather Bublick who runs the business with her husband Chef D’Andre Carter. “This [expansion] is our full vision of Soul & Smoke.”

Their journey hasn’t followed the usual path. They bought the building in February 2020, just weeks before lockdowns shuttered the world. What was meant to be a fine dining concept celebrating seafood, vegetables and meats fresh from the fire morphed into a laid-back pick-up spot with four picnic tables. But that pivot didn’t stop them. Soul & Smoke grew into three brick-and-mortar locations in Chicago, became a staple vendor at Soldier Field and Northwestern’s stadium, and launched a line of condiments.

At the helm are two chefs who met at Moto, the Michelin-starred pioneer of haute cuisine. Their expertise shows in every detail. Soul & Smoke’s centerpiece: rare A.N. Bewley smokers imported from Texas, a true rarity in the Midwest. Fan favorites like smoked duroc rib tips, pound-cut brisket, and stacked sandwiches with soul-soothing sides—mac and cheese, cornbread, collard greens—will stay on the menu.

But after dark, the space transforms. Chef Carter’s culinary artistry shines in dishes like smoked Harrison farm chicken and seafood platters, featuring a standout smoked octopus that he’s especially proud of. There’s even the legendary Moto brisket cigar — once exclusive to their catering menu — now available to the public. Foodies in Chicago know the story: Carter’s mentor, Homaro Cantu, hailed by The Guardian as “the most inventive chef in history,” inspired this iconic dish.

“We’ve been doing [the Moto brisket cigar] for a long time,” says Bublick. “Keeping the memory of Moto alive, keeping the memory of Homaru alive after a tragic ending, to have this still be in Chicago, was important to both of us.”

Bublick curates an exceptional wine list featuring BIPOC and women-owned wineries, adding another layer of thoughtful intention. Diners choose their own adventure—whether self-serving via QR codes or enjoying the attentive guidance of servers—reflecting a flexible, modern approach that also honors Soul & Smoke’s no-tipping policy.

Every choice at Soul & Smoke is intentional, including where they call home.

“We’re in the historic Fifth Ward,” says Bublick. “It’s formerly a red line neighborhood in Evanston that suffered from disinvestment. Evanston was the first city in the U.S. to launch a reparations program directly addressing the harm that was caused in this neighborhood and it was a factor on why we picked it.”

Their building — a century-old barn once owned by the Robinson Bus Company — carries deep history. Founded by Leon G. Robinson Jr., who began by driving Head Start kids to school, it eventually became the largest Black-owned transportation company in the country. Purchasing the building from the Robinson family felt like an opportunity to honor and extend that legacy of service.

“When we looked at where we were going to open this restaurant it certainly would have been easier, faster to find a second generation spot in downtown Evanston or downtown Chicago,” says Bublick. “But it seems so disingenuous to pick up and move to another neighborhood when our roots are here. D’Andre has always been really passionate about being an example to the kids in this neighborhood. We want to show them that success can happen here too.”

Their drive for excellence and the ambition to challenge what fine dining and BBQ mean comes with a deeply personal motivation: their two young daughters.

“We’re in Soldier Field, we’re in these environments but we don’t ever know how long that’s going to last,” says Bublick. “Making sure that they are able to come along for the ride and see Soul and Smoke at every stage is really important to us.”

The post Barbecue, but make it fine dining appeared first on Salon.com.

I spent a week in the city while attending SEMA, the massive automotive trade show that takes over the Strip each year. Between work obligations, I made it my mission to explore some of the restaurants, hotels and experiences that make Vegas such a playground for indulgence — from perfectly cooked steaks and inventive contemporary Indian dishes to standout sushi counters, lavish brunches and a few well-earned spa escapes along the way.

Where to stay

The Cosmopolitan — One of the few hotels on the Las Vegas Strip with balconies, The Cosmopolitan was positively buzzing when I arrived. Body-themed art hangs throughout the property, some far more risqué than I expected, much to my surprise and delight. Customer service felt a touch cold and impersonal — not entirely unexpected at a hotel this busy.

My room was large, with a sectional sofa, two TVs and a balcony overlooking the pool with partial views of the Strip. The bed was wonderfully comfortable, though the shower in the spacious bathroom had a faint moldy smell. Like most hotels on the Strip, you have to walk through the casino to reach the rooms, but here rideshares and taxis share the same pickup location, which makes coming and going much easier.

Pro tip: Stock up on water before checking in; Fuji bottles in the room cost $18 each.

Four Seasons — Of all the hotels I’ve stayed at in Las Vegas (at least six by my last count), the Four Seasons is easily my favorite. There are plenty of reasons why — excellent service, comfortable beds and convenient pickup and drop-off right out front — but the real draw is the tranquility. There’s no casino floor to walk through and no lingering cigarette smoke. Instead, it feels like the calm eye of the storm, a peaceful retreat amid the chaos of the Strip.

This was my second stay, and somehow it was even better than the first. The hotel sits within Mandalay Bay, so if you want to gamble or explore the larger resort, everything is just a short walk away. Inside, you’ll find a lively lobby, two restaurants — including Michael Mina’s Bourbon Steak — an onsite spa and a pool, more than enough to keep you occupied.

Breakfast at the Veranda restaurant was a highlight: fluffy eggs topped with caviar and bacon that was shatteringly crisp (make sure to ask for it that way). On weekends, the restaurant also offers an impressive all-you-can-eat brunch that’s well worth checking out.

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Dinner

(Chaya Milchtein ) Tawa charred octopus at Tamba

Tamba — Walking into Tamba, you’re immediately struck by the opulent decor and warm welcome from the host. High ceilings and plush seating make the space feel dramatic yet comfortable, but despite all that visual spectacle, the food ultimately steals the show. Every bite was so memorable that I’m still thinking about the meal months later.

The cuisine is described as contemporary Indian, though that label hardly captures the range on the menu. There’s an abundance of seafood — from oysters and sashimi to caviar and zambazushi, the restaurant’s playful take on nigiri (the only dish I wasn’t completely sold on). The depth and complexity of the cooking shine throughout. I started with hamachi topped with Asian pear and serrano, finished tableside with a tamarind ponzu. My favorite dish of the night followed: tawa-charred octopus served with cauliflower purée, fennel and crunchy rice for texture, all brightened with yuzu-lime chaat aioli and an orange glaze.

For the main course, I enjoyed a classic — butter chicken — alongside a poached lobster tail in a green coconut masala with Mexican chili and coriander-mint purée. Fragrant basmati rice and a generous basket of naan rounded out the meal. The naan selection alone is worth exploring, ranging from classic plain and garlic cilantro to more adventurous versions like goat cheese with togarashi and black truffle with fleur de sel. If you somehow have leftovers, don’t worry. They warm up beautifully.

PRIME Steakhouse — Tucked behind the fountains at the Bellagio, PRIME Steakhouse is an old-school, white-tablecloth restaurant with polished service and a perpetually packed dining room. If you’re lucky, your table will overlook the famous fountain show — a spectacle that somehow makes an already indulgent steak dinner feel even more special.

We started with the seafood plateau royale, piled high with oysters, sashimi, lobster claws, shrimp and tartare, all incredibly fresh. Then came thick-cut, tableside-smoked bacon glazed with maple and peppercorn alongside a fig-topped heirloom tomato salad. For the main course, the steak was the clear star — perfectly cooked and served with classic sides like mashed potatoes and broccoli. If you’re debating between steak and seafood entrees here, go for the steak and don’t look back.

Pro tip: Not far from PRIME is a “secretive” speakeasy called the Vault. I didn’t make it this time, but it’s on my list for the next visit — a place where the atmosphere and watching bartenders craft elaborate (and very expensive) cocktails are part of the draw.

Komodo — There are restaurants you visit for unforgettable food, and others you go to for the atmosphere. Komodo leans more toward the latter, though the menu still offers plenty to enjoy.

Guests enter past rows of hanging Peking ducks and through velvet ropes into a dark, buzzing dining room. The menu skews Asian fusion, with sushi, dim sum, wagyu and — unsurprisingly — Peking duck as the centerpiece, served with pancakes, hoisin and scallions. The duck isn’t carved tableside, but it’s flavorful and still makes for a dramatic centerpiece.

Be sure to end the meal with the banana pagoda, a playful dessert presented in a chocolate box that’s smashed tableside for a bit of theatrical flair. Cocktails arrive in equally fun glassware and pack a serious punch.

Standout sushi

Mizumi — I first dined at Mizumi a few years ago, and the meal was so memorable that I had to return. While this visit didn’t quite reach the same heights, it was still a wonderful experience.

This is unmistakably a fine-dining restaurant, with the price tag to match. The dimly lit dining room centers around a dramatic waterfall feature that adds to the romantic atmosphere. Several dishes leaned heavily on truffle, so keep that in mind if you’re not a fan.

Nigiri is where Mizumi truly shines. A specialty soy sauce is poured tableside before the sushi arrives. Some pieces are classic — simply fish and seasoned rice — while others are dressed with gold, caviar and flowers for an extra touch of luxury. I especially enjoyed the sweet shrimp and Hokkaido uni served over cold somen noodles. Hokkaido uni has a deeper, more briny umami flavor than the Santa Barbara variety often served when the type isn’t specified.

Another standout was the braised wagyu short-rib skewer from the robatayaki menu, a melt-in-your-mouth bite. Mizumi also offers a surprisingly extensive vegetarian menu, something you don’t often see at restaurants of this caliber.

(Chaya Milchtein) Fish of the day at Omakase Kyara

Omakase Kyara — Head off the Strip for a relaxed but flavor-packed omakase experience at Omakase Kyara, which also happens to cost less than many of the Strip’s high-end sushi counters. If possible, grab a seat at the sushi counter. The chef is hilarious and does a great job explaining each course, which makes the experience both educational and entertaining.

From the moment you’re greeted with a warm finger towel, the service is attentive without feeling overly formal. Diners can choose between two omakase menus, with optional nigiri add-ons, late-night alternatives and à la carte selections.

The meal begins with seasonal vegetables dressed with dashi and soy, followed by a presentation of the whole fish you’ll soon be eating. What follows is a steady stream of beautifully plated courses, served at a comfortable pace. Freshly grated wasabi is prepared tableside, a small touch that makes each bite even more memorable.

Shows and experiences

“O” by Cirque du Soleil — Named for the French word eau (water), “O” is a breathtaking production built around acrobatics, swimming and diving. The performance unfolds in the air, on stage and in a massive pool, meaning there’s something happening everywhere you look.

I enjoyed the La Grande Expérience, which includes a behind-the-scenes introduction to the show where guests can meet performers and ask questions before the performance begins. The package also includes comfortable box seating and light snacks like popcorn and macarons, plus the welcome perk of skipping the long entry lines.

The show itself is spectacular. The stage doubles as a pool, and some of the performers — particularly the divers — are Olympic medalists, utilizing their skills to pull off stunning feats throughout the production. While the show loosely follows a story, I didn’t always find it easy to follow, though that didn’t detract from the experience.

(Chaya Milchtein) A scene at “O” by Cirque du Soleil

The Awakening at Wynn Las Vegas — There’s dancing, illusions, puppetry and acrobatics on full display in “The Awakening,” a visually striking production at Wynn Las Vegas. Despite the scale of the show, it wasn’t as full as I expected, making the ticket price feel like a bit of a steal.

The story itself is relatively easy to follow: a heroine travels through different realms in an effort to restore balance, all while audiences are treated to impressive choreography, elaborate costumes and inventive stage effects.

The round stage is surrounded by comfortable theater seating, creating strong sightlines from nearly every angle. If you’re booking tickets, aim for seats near the bottom of the center section for the best views — though the theater’s layout means there really aren’t any bad seats in the house.

SEMA Fest — I was in Las Vegas for another reason besides this article: SEMA, one of the largest automotive industry trade shows in the world. While the main show is strictly limited to industry professionals, it opens to the public on its final day and wraps with SEMA Fest, a lively festival that’s well worth attending if you’re in town.

The event features live concerts, food vendors and an incredible display of custom-built cars. Expect to do a lot of walking — comfortable shoes are a must — but the sheer variety of vehicles and exhibits makes it easy to spend hours exploring.

It’s a dream destination for car enthusiasts, builders and DIYers, though even casual visitors will find plenty to enjoy. Bring a roomy bag for all the swag being handed out, and keep an eye out for deals: many companies sell products at steep discounts rather than ship them home. You might find everything from tires to dash cams at surprisingly low prices.

Spa escapes

Four-Hands Massage at The Spa at Wynn — The Spa at Wynn has an old-school glamour that feels slightly dated, but it’s still a lovely place to unwind. There’s plenty of space to relax, along with a whirlpool, showers and small snacks and beverages (try the chocolate-covered cranberries).

The real draw here is the four-hands massage. Instead of one therapist, two work on you simultaneously, moving in synchronized rhythms for a 50-minute treatment that gives you 100-minutes worth of massage. It’s deeply relaxing — and notably thorough, with attention paid to areas like the glutes that many massages skip. I left feeling completely pampered and ready for a nap.

Red Flower Hammam Experience at Sahra Spa, Salon & Hammam at The Cosmopolitan — Sahra Spa features bright, modern facilities that guests can (but aren’t required to) enjoy fully nude, including a large whirlpool, steam rooms and a cold misting room (which was unfortunately closed during my visit). Arrive early if you can — the relaxation areas are well worth spending time in before your treatment.

I opted for the Red Flower Hammam Experience, a luxurious take on the traditional bathhouse ritual. The treatment takes place on a heated marble table inside the hammam and begins with a thorough cleansing before moving into an invigorating exfoliating scrub. Clouds of soap bubbles and cascading buckets of water follow, along with a coffee scrub and deeply moisturizing mask before a short sauna session to let everything absorb.

The result is both intense and deeply relaxing — a perfect reset after the constant energy and bustle of Las Vegas.

Facial at the Four Seasons Spa — Much like the hotel itself, the spa at the Four Seasons is a tranquil escape from the noise of Las Vegas. I’d previously enjoyed a pedicure here, but this visit called for a facial.

When I book a facial while traveling, I’m not looking for heavy extractions or intensive treatments — just hydration and relaxation. The Four Seasons spa delivered exactly that. By the end, my skin was glowing, and the treatment felt like the perfect reset after indulging in everything Las Vegas has to offer.

Cannabis lounges

Dazed Consumption Lounge — Inside the Planet 13 complex is a playground for cannabis enthusiasts, complete with a tattoo shop, pizza counter, dispensary and (alcohol) bar. Walk through a telephone booth at the back and you’ll enter the Dazed Consumption Lounge, a psychedelic space with LED lights, music and plenty of seating that feels more like a social club than a typical lounge.

Guests can indulge in several ways, whether with a joint, an infused beverage or by renting one of the lounge’s devices, like the Stündenglass Gravity Infuser (my favorite). It’s a fun way to try some of the pricier gadgets without committing to buying — or cleaning — one yourself.

Skip the dispensary beforehand if you’re headed to Dazed: outside products aren’t allowed even when they come from the onsite dispensary. And don’t over-order — Nevada’s consumption lounge rules mean you can’t take anything home, though you can stop at the dispensary in the same building on your way out.

Pro tip: Smoking elsewhere in Vegas often means sneaking a quick puff or relying on a vape. Edibles are a low-stress alternative. If that’s your plan, grab some KANHA edibles from the Planet 13 dispensary on your way out. The rosin belts were a favorite; at 25 milligrams, I only needed one to be comfortably elevated.

Cookies Flamingo Dispensary — If you’re looking to pick up flower, edibles or other cannabis products without long lines or overwhelming menus, check out Cookies on Flamingo Road. The shop stays open late, the budtenders are friendly and the selection strikes a nice balance between variety and simplicity.

Cookies carries popular brands like STIIIZY and Wyld alongside its own house offerings. It’s an easy stop to grab what you need and get back to the rest of your Vegas plans. Online ordering is also available for a faster pickup.

The post Steaks, sushi and the softer side of Vegas appeared first on Salon.com.

Oulu sits at the edge of the Bothnian Gulf, where ground and sea wear the same coat of snow. In 2026 the city holds the title European Capital of Culture, though culture has been working the night shift here for centuries. In winter the city feels borderless. Frozen waterways blur into land, and only a bridge or half-buried boat hints that water still moves beneath the white. The cold is not decorative. It is structural.

I step into Ravintola Toripolliisi with ears burning and fingers stiff from the air. Inside there is ritual. Coats come off slowly. Hats. Gloves. Scarves unwound with patience. The room reclaims you. I order lohikeitto, salmon soup, and a glass of Portuguese red to remind my toes they are still alive. The bowl arrives pale and steaming. Salmon silky. Potatoes sturdy then soft. Dill lifting through cream. I break grilled sourdough, dip a bit then a lot, doing a side dance with the spoon. The broth does not attack the cold. It absorbs it. Around me candles hold steady light and conversations stay low.

This is how you begin here. You let winter into the bowl and tame it.

Morning comes crunchy, which is what Finns call a very cold day. Each step over refrozen snow snaps like thin sugar crust. Commuters and dog walkers move across frozen water below as if it were a park. Steam rises from chimneys, from warm patches of river, from mouths. I retreat into Jaanan Puoti café and repeat the door ritual. The world softens.

Heli greets me warmly and without flourish. “What should I have?” I ask. “Coffee,” she says. “Hot chocolate, lemonade, but it’s not summer.” She laughs. “Beer is always popular. The cold isn’t the problem.” The dark is. In December daylight shrinks to a handful of hours. Coffee solves that not because it heats you but because it sparks you. Finns drink staggering amounts of it. Hands wrap around ceramic. Steam meets faces just in from the blue. You sit. You talk. You fill the dark. Warmth here is social before it is thermal.

I order a latte and a whole grain pastry twisted with ham and cheese. Nutty, sturdy grain that carries the field into February.

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After more strolls along the tundra, I dine at Grill It restaurant, where winter appears plated rather than resisted. Jerusalem artichoke soup arrives earthy and thick, built for thawing. Pike perch tartare from Lake Oulujärvi rests on malt bread with capers and dill oil and a whisper of pine tar. Tar-tartare. Just enough to evoke boats and long coasts. A barley risotto studded with dried autumn mushrooms follows, Finland’s breadbasket turned into comfort. Torched dessert cracks like ice, crème brûlée with salted caramel mousse and cloudberry compote, fire and frost in one spoonful. Winter is not hidden. It is arranged.

A morning of museums, Sámi tribal art and intellectual warmth. I can’t shake the image of a woman in traditional dress sharing forest coffee with a bear, an art scene reaching for myth and landing, briefly, in sitcom. I head to the beach. As beach as Oulu winter permits. I walk a frozen Bothnian Gulf at Nallikari, an obscured lighthouse, a delinquent lifeguard stand, and makeshift saunas stand on white expanse like archaeology. With each step a faint echo and a reminder that the sea sleeps but does not disappear.

The sun just barely awake sets in a blaze sandwiched between vast grey sky and vast grey sea.

That evening at Oula Restaurant, a gem inside the Lapland Hotel, I sit for an Arctic Food Lab dinner led by program coordinator Matti Moller, who speaks about northern food with the calm confidence of someone describing architecture rather than cuisine. Northern food is not novelty, he explains. It is system. Rye and oats for endurance. Cold water fish from lakes and sea. Fungi from spruce forests. Berries dried, brined, or frozen against winter. Roots that wait patiently in cellars.

The meal begins with scallop brightened with currant and rye-seasoned buttermilk, then slow-cooked reindeer, sirloin and tongue, finished over wood, mushroom purée beneath and fermented cabbage cutting richness. Preservation refined into elegance. Dessert revives malt bread as French toast alongside sea buckthorn and pumpkin held through autumn and sharpened into sorbet. Even sweetness carries the logic of storage.

Over coffee I ask Matti what winter food means here. “It’s more like soul food from your cellar,” he says. “Preserved berries. Fermented ingredients. You heat up your house with a burning stove, and at the same time you put root vegetables or a meat pot inside. You share the warmth in that way.” Food and fire in the same motion. Winter is not a crisis. It is a system.

Before sunrise I drive north to the country and Tornio. Snowshoeing across a frozen river with Sweden mere feet away and drilling a fishing hole through thick crust, I discover I am better at casting through air than dropping a line through ice. The day remains crunchy and humbling.

Strangers gather in a riverside fire shelter and brew coffee the old way. Snow packed into a pot and melted. Grounds tossed in. A spruce branch threaded through the spout as a filter. Steam rises into white sky as enamel mugs are passed and sweet bread tears open near flame. This practice predates borders. Sámi reindeer herders carried leather coffee pouches into forests for generations. Start fire. Melt snow. Brew. Share. Snow becomes water. Water becomes coffee. Coffee becomes ceremony.

That night I test myself in a public sauna above the frozen river. Sit in heat. Step into biting air. Climb down and plunge through a carved opening in the ice. The shock empties the lungs. I return pink and laughing. Someone hands me a chilled sauna beer, ironic and perfect. Later karaoke. Finnish licorice liquor loosens the room. Some singers cool it down, others heat. My “Copacabana” is electric.

I return to Oulu by lunch and duck into Särkkä pub as snow drifts sideways against the windows. Candlelight, wood, hot oil, coats hanging heavy near the door. From my seat by the glass, the world outside remains white and distant, framed for observation rather than endured. Oulu does this well. It warms the inside and lets you study the cold without mittens. I order fried vendace rolled in rye flour, mashed potatoes beside it, and a local IPA. The fish is small and northern, crisp at the edges and tender within. Rye grows in stubborn soil and stores well. The beer is not for heat. It is for rhythm. It keeps you seated. It keeps you talking while winter performs behind the pane.

Later back at Lapland Hotel I meet Chef Satu Tilus, steady hands behind my Artic Food Lab feast. “In winter nothing grows here,” she says plainly. So you plan. “We preserve and we eat root vegetables, and of course slow-cooked food.” When I ask what winter cooking means personally, she answers simply. “It’s always cooking that brings the people together.” Not plating. Not serving. Cooking. A pot on the stove unites while the world outside freezes.

She returns to the kitchen and I order her Lapland Delicacies platter, a kind of northern greatest hits presented on a slice of tree. Potato flatbread with spruce sprout pesto and pickled white currant. Sugar salted whitefish with horseradish. A profiterole filled with trout roe cream. Reindeer tartare with red cabbage and fermented garlic mayonnaise. Sweet cheese with gooseberry jam.

Cellar vegetables. Preserves. Smoke and salt where nothing grows. Acid to wake the tongue. Fermentation doing quiet work in the background. Berries held for months. Grain that survives poor soil. It is not showy. It is deliberate. The platter does not fight winter. It leans into it.

On my final morning Puistokahvila Makia glows gold against a blue commute. I order a korvapuusti. Sticky buns feel immature once you have said korvapuusti. Laminated with cinnamon-cardamom butter, it promises a fragrant sauna when torn apart. I wrap both hands around my latte and watch the cold press pale against the windows.

Back in my room at Lapland Hotel I turn on the private sauna. Heat gathers slowly. Wood releases its scent. I wait. Outside, winter shows its envy and its poise. Oulu may hold a European Capital of Culture title for the year, but nothing here feels temporary. The culture lives in repetition. In ritual. In the way a bowl of soup absorbs the cold and a room of steam loosens it.

When the sauna is hot, I ladle water and splash the stones. Steam rises fast, strikes the ceiling, then settles over my shoulders. And here I sit with no sauna beer. I just hum “Copacabana” and smile.

The post In Finland, winter is a way of eating appeared first on Salon.com.

What do we mean when we say “brownie”?

Coffee instead of water

(Ashlie Stevens ) Coffee pot

Whether you’re working from a box or from scratch, swap cold coffee for water.

Coffee doesn’t make the brownie taste like coffee. It acts as a kind of bass note — amplifying the darker frequencies of cocoa, intensifying its bitterness and pulling it into focus. The chocolate tastes more like chocolate, less like sugar.

It’s not about adding a flavor. It’s about clarifying one.

Whip the eggs first

That shiny, crinkly top? It isn’t an ingredient. It’s physics.

Beat the eggs and sugar together before adding anything else. You’re dissolving sugar and suspending air — building structure before flour ever enters the room. In the oven, that aerated layer rises and sets into a thin, lacquered shell, delicate but intentional.

Texture isn’t accidental. It’s engineered.

Chunks > chips

I’m a chunks-over-chips person here.

Chocolate chips are designed for stability; they resist melting, cling to their shape. Chopped chocolate — especially a high-quality dark bar — behaves differently. It melts unevenly, creating pockets and streaks that shift from bite to bite.

Uniformity is tidy. Irregularity is interesting.

For brownies, I’ll take interesting every time.

Upgrade the vanilla

(Ashlie Stevens) Vanilla

Vanilla is often treated as background noise. It shouldn’t be. It rounds. It softens the harsher edges of coffee and bittersweet chocolate, adding warmth without sweetness. It’s structural in its own quiet way.

Which is why it’s worth upgrading the vanilla you use. I wouldn’t recommend this if I hand’t done this myself. Recently, I used up my supply of supermarket staple vanilla and splurged a bit on a bottle of Nielsen-Massey Madagascar Pure Vanilla, a favorite of pastry chefs everywhere (and The Barefoot Contessa herself). For reference, a 2-ounce bottle of Great Value vanilla is about $6; this stuff comes in at $10.99 for two ounces.

It’s deep and complex and almost toasty. Is it essential? No.

But when you’re building something precise, even the quiet ingredients matter.

Two salts

Two words: two salts.

Fine salt in the batter for internal balance.
Flaky salt on top for external contrast.

The fine salt integrates; the flaky salt disrupts. That sharp crystalline hit against the fudgy crumb makes the chocolate taste deeper. Not sweeter, but more dimensional. I’ve heard flavor described as tension between ingredients; this is the tension.

None of these moves are flashy. Together, they create a brownie with edges — and intention.

Here’s the recipe:

Brownies, made better

Yields

16 servings

Prep Time

20 minutes, plus cooling

Cook Time

26 minutes

Ingredients

For the batter:

• 10 tablespoons (140g) unsalted butter

• 6 ounces (170g) high-quality dark chocolate (70–78%), chopped

• 3 ounces (85g) additional chopped dark chocolate

• ¾ cup (150g) granulated sugar

• ¼ cup (50g) light brown sugar

• 2 large eggs, room temperature

• 2 tablespoons cold brewed coffee

• 1 teaspoon high-quality vanilla extract

• ⅔ cup (80g) all-purpose flour

• ¼ cup (25g) Dutch-process cocoa powder

• ½ teaspoon fine sea salt

For the finish:

• Flaky sea salt

 

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Line an 8×8-inch metal baking pan with parchment, leaving an overhang for lifting.
2. In a heatproof bowl set over barely simmering water — or in short bursts in the microwave — melt the butter and 6 ounces chopped chocolate together. Stir until smooth and glossy. Let cool slightly. Warm is fine. Hot is not.
3. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs, granulated sugar, and brown sugar with a hand mixer for 3–4 minutes, until the mixture thickens and lightens slightly in color. This step dissolves the sugar and incorporates air — the foundation of that shiny, crackly top.
4. Whisk the coffee and vanilla into the slightly cooled chocolate mixture. Slowly pour the chocolate into the whipped egg mixture, folding gently but thoroughly. Sift in the flour, cocoa powder, and fine salt. Fold just until combined — no streaks, but do not overmix. Fold in the remaining 3 ounces chopped chocolate.
5. Spread evenly into the prepared pan and smooth the top. Bake for 22–26 minutes, until the top is shiny and crackled, the edges are set, and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with moist crumbs (not wet batter).
6. Immediately sprinkle flaky salt over the warm surface. Cool completely in the pan before lifting out and slicing for clean, structured squares.

This story originally appeared in The Bite, my weekly food newsletter for Salon. If you enjoyed it and would like more essays, recipes, technique explainers and interviews sent straight to your inbox, subscribe here.

Read more

about this topic

• Meals that help when life gets hard
• How to be a neighbor, one dish at a time
• You deserve better than a slop bowl

 

The post Brownies, made better appeared first on Salon.com.

The big-box retailer’s decision underscores standards established when it launched its flagship-owned Good & Gather private brand in 2019, according to a February press release. Its house label’s products are formulated without artificial flavors and sweeteners, synthetic colors, or high-fructose corn syrup.

In its statement, Target specified that its guest insights and sales-trend data “show a long-term shift toward foods made without artificial additives,” especially for products that are purchased by families for their children.

“We know consumers are increasingly prioritizing healthier lifestyles, and we’re moving quickly to evolve our offerings to meet their needs,” said Cara Sylvester, Target’s chief merchandising officer, in the release. “Our new cereal assortment made without certified synthetic colors makes it easier for busy families to make choices they feel good about, and shows what it means to curate a great assortment and lead with merchandising authority.”

Several other retailers have also parted ways with products using synthetic colors and other artificial ingredients. In October, Walmart announced that it would remove synthetic dyes and 30 additional ingredients — including certain preservatives, artificial sweeteners and fat substitutes — from its private-label products by January 2027. Earlier this year, discount supermarket chain Save A Lot began working with suppliers to remove seven artificial dyes from all private label offerings by the end of 2027.

Major Big Food companies, including General Mills, Kraft Heinz and Conagra Brands, have also committed to removing artificial colors from their products following pressure from the Trump administration. In April, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that it would phase out petroleum-based synthetic dyes by the end of 2026 as part of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “Make America Healthy Again” campaign. The agency also approved three new color additives made from natural sources back in May.

“For too long, our food system has relied on synthetic, petroleum-based dyes that offer no nutritional value and pose unnecessary health risks,” Kennedy said at the time. “We’re removing these dyes and approving safe, natural alternatives — to protect families and support healthier choices.”

The post Target is fading out breakfast cereals with synthetic dyes appeared first on Salon.com.

After hours of staring at my laptop screen, the glow of my microwave clock providing an extra bit of light in an otherwise dimly-lit apartment, I finally gather the motivation to step into my kitchen. My refrigerator is stocked with a few ingredients (kumato tomatoes, lemons, mini pears, apples, a box of arugula and a carton of eggs) and my pantry holds the usual (pasta, rice, beans). I’m hungry but can’t decide what to eat. And because I waited until the very last moment to feed myself, I’m running low on energy to actually cook. Instinctively, I grab my phone, open Uber Eats and order food from my go-to neighborhood restaurant. I’m relieved, yet hit with a pang of guilt.

For years, I’ve been stuck in a love-hate relationship with third-party food delivery apps, including DoorDash and Grubhub. They’re always available when I need nourishment and comfort. They’re enticing, luring me in with the promise that my strongest cravings (perhaps, even, the best meal I’ve ever eaten) are just a few clicks away. But the apps have also become a default setting I struggled to override. They’re habit-forming. Takeout for dinner leads to takeout for breakfast the following morning, then takeout for lunch, and maybe more takeout for dinner again. They’re expensive and unsustainable. Soulless and unfulfilling. It’s gotten to the point where I’ve finally asked myself, “Should I delete my food delivery apps for good?”

Food delivery, which saw a significant surge in usage during the pandemic, remains high in demand, especially among younger consumers. In 2024, nearly three of every four restaurant orders were not eaten in a restaurant, according to data from the National Restaurant Association. In a survey conducted by the group last year, 37 percent of adults said they order delivery once a week. That statistic was higher among Gen Zs and millennials, with 41 percent saying they rely heavily on food delivery.

As dining and social habits shift, more restaurant operators are being encouraged to offer delivery services via mobile apps.

“The surge in usage among these younger adults is largely attributed to the increased availability and use of mobile apps,” says Dr. Chad Moutray, the National Restaurant Association’s Senior Vice President and Chief Economist. “We all know that smartphones are as essential as food and oxygen to younger customers, and the convenience those restaurant apps provide integrate into their lifestyles. So, if operators want to tap into that market, they must be available through mobile apps.”

But emotions surrounding food delivery services remain mixed. In a January report, The New York Times surveyed almost 900 readers on how they use the apps. Many were cognizant of both the benefits and drawbacks of regular food delivery. Perks include more freedom, more time, an abundance of choices, more socialization, and even less socialization for those who only want to stay at home. On the flip side, there’s impulsive spending (some readers said they’ve ordered a single item for delivery), more food waste, guilt and costly credit card bills.

Food delivery apps aren’t inherently bad, per se. For those with chronic disabilities or mobility issues, the apps are necessary. But they can certainly be overused by casual consumers — so much so that the apps become a bad habit.

In navigating my own relationship with food delivery apps, I’ve realized that ditching the apps was the best thing I could do for my health, wallet and home kitchen. It was after tallying my December spending that I finally deleted them cold turkey in January.

Here are the factors that ultimately influenced my decision:

The hyper-convenience

In an age of widespread digitization and innovation, where technology permeates nearly every aspect of daily life, food delivery apps flourish because they provide convenience.

The convenience of modern life is “seductive,” writes Dr. Alex Curmi, a psychiatrist and trainee psychotherapist, for The Guardian. However, that doesn’t mean it’s beneficial in the long term.

“Modern hyper-convenience is a kind of deal with the devil. It is seductive because it appeals to our instincts, but it surreptitiously depletes us,” Curmi states. “It has made it easier to get by, but in many ways harder to truly succeed. Human flourishing and happiness is not just about subsistence, but also depends on growth, dynamic problem-solving, and solidarity through hardship.”

Indeed, food delivery gives us instant gratification. Yet, it prevents us from connecting with the foods we eat. Increased use of food delivery apps means less time in grocery stores, choosing and understanding specific ingredients. It also results in less time spent cooking. According to a 2025 study by Yash Babar, a professor at the Wisconsin School of Business, people living in counties where food delivery platforms were introduced spent an average of nine percent less time cooking daily than before.

I felt that nine percent in my own kitchen — in the dust gathering on my Dutch oven. After a week of ordering health bowls for lunch, I had forgotten what it felt like to truly know the food on my plate. What variety of tomatoes was used in my bowl? What was used to marinate the chicken? How long did it take to cook the rice? What individual ingredients made up this dressing? And how long did it even take to put everything together?

The high cost

The biggest consequence of using the apps was the financial strain. Service fees, delivery fees, tax and tips, combined with the astronomically high cost of food in New York City, made regular food delivery unfeasible.

As I review receipts from past orders, I’m haunted by several. There’s an order from my local taqueria: a small bag of chips, a small plastic cup of guacamole, and two medium-sized burritos totaled $52.18. I don’t even remember if the burritos were good. There’s another from my favorite bagel shop: a lox sandwich came to $26. And there’s the time I was craving Italian food: two orders of rigatoni ragu totaled $63.18.

Food delivery persists even as food inflation remains high and many families nationwide struggle to afford groceries. While overall food prices continue to climb, groceries rose even faster than restaurant food in early 2026, according to data from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). The Consumer Price Index (CPI) for food-away-from-home (which includes restaurant foods and other food service purchases) increased 0.1 percent during that same period, while food-at-home (which includes groceries) increased 0.6 percent.

It’s no secret that food delivery prices are outrageously high. “Up to 91% More Expensive: How Delivery Apps Eat Up Your Budget,” reads a 2020 headline from The New York Times. “The Year Food-Delivery Prices Went Insane,” reads a 2023 headline from Intelligencer. “Food deliveries are getting more expensive — but we can’t stop ordering,” reads a 2024 headline from Business Insider.

The National Restaurant Association’s 2025 survey also found that a majority of consumers would take advantage of off-premise dining options, including delivery, takeout and drive-thru ordering, more often if they could better afford it.

The ethics

Unbeknownst to most consumers, high commission fees, delivery fees and payment processing fees enforced by food delivery apps are hurting restaurant profit margins, forcing some to shut down.

“These platforms do not only connect consumers to restaurants — they fundamentally alter the nature of competition in the marketplace,” says Manav Raj, a Professor of Management at The Wharton School, who is an author of a 2025 study looking into how food delivery apps affect the national restaurant industry.

According to NYU Stern Dean J.P. Eggers, who co-authored the study, their research found that “digital delivery platforms disproportionately impact younger, less established restaurants.”

“This poses a long-term risk to industry dynamism, potentially stifling innovation and leading to stagnation,” Eggers continues, adding that “in high-cost urban areas, the intensified competition and margin pressures from these platforms could result in a proliferation of vacant storefronts in once-vibrant, high-traffic neighborhoods.”

Food delivery drivers are struggling too. Many face dangerous work conditions, especially in major cities, often working long hours without proper access to public restrooms, the New York Times reported in 2020. Because delivery drivers are independent contractors, they aren’t guaranteed minimum wage nationwide or additional benefits. In New York City — where there are around 60,000 restaurant and grocery delivery workers, according to the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection — a landmark minimum pay law requires third-party food delivery apps to pay workers a minimum of $21.44 an hour, not including tips. The legislation also requires apps to offer an option to give at least a 10 percent tip before or during checkout.

Before the new rules went into effect on Jan. 26, Uber and DoorDash filed a joint federal lawsuit in the Southern District of New York, alleging that the laws on how they display tipping options violate the First Amendment. A recent report from the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection found that since Uber and DoorDash changed their tip options to appear after customers place their orders, their delivery drivers have lost over $550 million in tips.

In the end, there’s no clear “winner” within the food delivery ecosystem. And it also doesn’t seem like food delivery apps are retiring anytime soon. For those who are attempting to quit the apps for good, our biggest act of rebellion, now, is returning to our home kitchens. Cooking. Revelling in the labor. And savoring our hard work.

Tonight, at 8 p.m., I’m roasting those kumato tomatoes and scrambling the eggs. It’s not revolutionary. But it’s mine.

The post Yes, you should delete your food delivery apps appeared first on Salon.com.

There are other tells. The patch of bus-stop snow that’s turned the color of weak coffee, shared democratically with a pack of teenage boys wearing basketball shorts under their puffer coats. The sweet, slightly feral smell of soil shrugging off ice. The persistent plunk, plunk, plunk of icicles dripping into an aluminum gutter — a sound that is less birdsong than plumbing.

And then, of course, there’s the food.

Late spring gets the romance: tender asparagus, first peas, market bouquets staged like still lifes. Here, the grapes that tangled themselves around corner-bar trellises all summer fall frozen to the sidewalk, shattering softly underfoot. You find yourself in your kitchen holding a pint of strawberries that look airbrushed, but taste like wet air. Or standing at a farmers’ market where only three tables have braved the wind — and one of them is selling storage onions, steadfast and unapologetic.

The Thaw is easy to overlook, in part because we have trained ourselves not to see it. The grocery store offers blackberries in January, cherries in October, tomatoes that arrive with the bland composure of year-round availability. Under fluorescent abundance, time flattens. The seasons blur into one long aisle.

Outside, the ground is doing something slower and more precarious. A 70-degree afternoon buckles into sleet. Buds hesitate. Farmers revise their plans in pencil.

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When we talk about eating seasonally, we tend to mean abundance. We mean strawberries at their blushing peak. Ramps that vanish in two weeks. The operatic entrance of the first tomato. The season as crescendo.

We do not tend to mean the in-between — the weeks when the carrots pulled from cold storage bend instead of snap, when the last onions sprout pale green shoots from their crowns, when gardeners study the sky with the wary patience of gamblers. In Chicago, spinach goes into the ground in staggered rows, insurance against frost. Some of it will make it. Some of it will not.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about the Japanese micro-seasons, kō: brief, named passages of time with titles like “fish emerge from the ice.” The phrasing is so concrete it feels almost documentary: something hidden becomes visible; something held still begins to move. To name a moment so precisely is to insist it exists.

And perhaps The Thaw — this slack, uncertain hinge between spectacle and bloom — deserves the same treatment. Not as prelude. Not as waiting. But as its own condition of being.

While this stretch can feel gray and suspended, the cookbooks tell a different story. When I consulted some favorites like “A Taste of Spring,” Angela Clutton’s “Seasoning” and the gently tide-marked pages of “First, Catch,” I realized early March is less a void than a handoff. Winter loosens its grip, but does not disappear. Spring enters tentatively, leaf by leaf.

Artichokes arrive looking like small medieval weapons. Asparagus, too, still slender and tight-fisted. Broccoli and spinach, dark and mineral. Kale and bok choy with their cool, lacquered leaves. Citrus lingers — oranges, grapefruit, tangerines — holding onto the last of their brightness like a lantern carried through fog. Radishes snap. Carrots, if you’re lucky, still taste faintly of earth and sugar.

It is not a season of excess. It is a season of overlap. These are the days that smell faintly of iron and wet bark. They ask you to cook with what remains rather than what dazzles.

If I were to name it more plainly, I might call it Beatrix Potter weather: damp cuffs, garden gates, the feeling that something is pushing up just beneath the soil. The sort of days that make you want to raid Mr. McGregor’s garden not out of greed, but out of hunger for green.

Perhaps I realized, fittingly, this is the only time of year I truly crave carrot soup.

Not the silken, restaurant version piped into porcelain. The simple, stovetop kind: winter onions, softening in butter; carrots — either sweet from cold storage or newly pulled and still a little tender — sliced into coins. Stock, poured without ceremony. A swipe of miso, if you have it. A glug of cream.

Let it simmer until the edges blur. Blend. Taste.

Then tip it toward spring. A fistful of chopped dill or thyme. A grate of orange zest — carrot and citrus are conspirators this time of year. Maybe a squeeze of lemon if the day demands brightness. The result is neither winter nor spring, but something that holds both: earthy, sweet, quietly radiant.

The Thaw in a bowl.

The post The tiny season we forget to eat appeared first on Salon.com.

This season of “The Traitors” has been, from a food perspective, deeply strange.

There was Michael Rapaport whose “primitive” eating habits were compared to those of Dorinda Medley’s cavapoo. The image of a man who lost all sense of ceremony in a show that is almost completely about leaning into the avant garde and fantastical pomp of a Scottish castle. Rob Rausch being borderline pornographic with the boiled eggs. Stephen Colletti innocently slicing turkey and unintentionally sparking one of the most wild crashouts in “Traitors” history.

Meals feel less like a relaxing reprieve after long, arduous missions and more like a tension-filled calm before a storm you’re 100% certain is coming — and may very well take you with it. If I had the threat of murder looming over my head, I wouldn’t have an appetite either.

But by far, the most interesting food moment of this season hasn’t been the eggs, the turkey or the cold, unspreadable butter. It’s the smoked salmon.

Though, on a show where even “Top Chef” winner Kristen Kish reportedly had to intervene about food quality, that bar is not especially high. “I’ve offered to consult on culinary needs for future seasons. The question is, will the budget for culinary consultant come out of the smoked salmon budget?” Kish wrote in an Instagram post lamenting about the general struggle of eating and cooking while on the show.

The sea-sourced shining star doesn’t just look good, it has become a fixation. A recurring joke. A source of stress. A marker of status. Something cast members continue to talk about in interviews, podcasts, and social media long after they’ve left the Highlands.

In this castle of constant anxiety, the salmon has quietly emerged as the most coveted resource of all.

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This is not entirely new. Longtime viewers will remember that during the first celebrity season, Phaedra Parks — an all-star Traitor and an early adopter of self-preservation tactics — frequently prioritized securing salmon at breakfast, sometimes while other contestants were still mourning the freshly murdered. In retrospect, Phaedra may not have been cold. She may have just been hungry.

In a recent interview, Eric Nam said Kish was “fearless” in her mission to get better food on set. Nam said there were a few times he secretly delivered packets of miso soup to Kish during filming. “I needed some umami and some salt,” she added. 

“I am grateful to be fed and I understand what a hard job it is to do catering and crafting all of this stuff, I get it. I’m not saying anything about those individuals,” said Kish, “All I’m saying is that I had so many different ideas that could have been more… flavored.” She also noted that at one point she shared a McFlurry with Rob Rausch (jealous). 

Season 4, however, has turned the salmon from a background indulgence into a full-blown subplot. Multiple cast members have confirmed some version of the same thing: if you were late to breakfast, you were out of luck. 

“It was a struggle to get the salmon,” said Real Housewife and former Miss United States Candiace Dillard Bassett to People,  “It was only like two pieces for all 20 of us. If you were last at breakfast, you got no salmon.” 

Maura Higgins has openly complained about missing out, venting about the injustice of arriving to find — once again — that the salmon was gone. Dorinda Medley has described the unspoken rule bluntly: you had to get there early, because once the salmon disappeared, what remained was… less compelling. Monét X Change has admitted that when she did get to the salmon first, she took as much as she could, because you didn’t know when you’d get another chance. 

Mark Ballas posted a TikTok breaking out into dance for “when you get the last piece of smoked salmon at breakfast.” Stephen Colletti made his love for the fish clear, posting a video longingly staring at a full case of salmon in a supermarket. Even Ron Funches joked on Instagram that he wanted some salmon “to go” after he was banished. 

The salmon went fast. People noticed. People cared. Fans have taken it upon themselves to exploit this inner-castle joke even further, posting recipe videos for when you’re craving “‘Traitors’ salmon” and frequently referencing the breakfast dish in their spoofs and satirical content. 

Taken together, these comments paint a picture that feels almost more stressful than the roundtable: a high-stakes morning ritual where timing, luck, and social awareness determine whether you get the one thing on the table that actually feels nourishing.

Unfortunately, I was not able to get an answer from Peacock about whether or not the amount of salmon available and the placement on the table was strategic. However, let me whip out my beige trench coat and magnifying glass as I tell you: My investigation did uncover some interesting questions about the origins of this salmon.

We want what the Traitors are having

Peacock representatives confirmed in an email that the fish at breakfast was “locally sourced Scottish smoked salmon, from various local providers.” They also noted that “it was arranged on platters with a small wedge of lemon and some garnish.” Maybe those were some of the aromatics Kish convinced the team to add to the contestants diet.

“[Kristin] was leading the charge early on and was like, ‘What can we do to get some aromatics introduced to our meals here,’” said Stephen Colletti on a podcast, “We’re just getting like sad chicken over here. Lunchtime would just be like a boiled chicken and it was like, ‘Can we do something?'”

But this is where it gets interesting. When I reached out to Salmon Scotland, the voice of the salmon sector that represents “every company involved in salmon farming in Scotland, as well as other key players along the Scottish salmon supply chain,” its representative could not confirm which farm was providing the salmon. I was left wondering: Is the salmon on “Traitors” really from Scotland? 

After a week of emailing tourism boards, industry groups and award-winning salmon farms, I ended up right back where I started: Salmon Scotland, just to triple-check they didn’t represent the maker. They did not. But on the course of my long international, interweb journey, I did end up with a new name in my back pocket: Acme Smoked Fish.

There’s just one problem. Acme Smoked Fish is based in Brooklyn. Although the company offers many varieties of “Scottish-style” smoked salmon, Brooklyn, New York is notably not Scotland. So I sent an email and waited with bated breath to see if I had finally found the smoked salmon. The next day, I received a response: “Acme Smoked Fish is not the supplier of the salmon featured on The Traitors.”

Sigh.

I hit another wall in my search to find this infamous and supposedly life-changing salmon. A salmon so consistently coral, so perfectly sliced that it melts in your mouth, glistening with so much naturally rich Omega-3s that it’s like a fatty halo shining on the plate. A luxurious, silken bite that may even be worth murdering for… Can you blame me for continuing to search?

We want what the traitors are having.

That said, a spokesperson for Acme Smoked Fish noted that since the show is filmed in Scotland, it is probably sourced locally. They also said they’ve been loving the buzz around smoked salmon on this season of the show. “It’s been so fun to see contestants enjoying smoked salmon on a daily basis… Anytime smoked salmon becomes part of the cultural conversation, it’s a win for the category.”

Salmon as strategy

Of course Peacock won’t confirm my theories about production using the salmon as strategy. But if I know anything about this cast after watching them consistently for the past two months, I can almost guarantee at least one of those divas asked to be in an earlier group to secure a salmon breakfast (I’m looking at you, Johnny and Tara).

Monét X Change said that even though she “loves the UK” it’s not a region known for its food.

“The food in the United Kingdom is not one to be admired, uh, a cuisine that a people like to eat. So when you find something that works, baby, all of us were like, ‘The salmon!’,” she said on a podcast, “We can’t eat these hard ass boiled eggs. We don’t want this mushy salad thing. The salmon. The salmon looked clean… It’s like nice, delicious smoked salmon. So, that’s why the salmon was all the rage — because it was the most edible thing there.”

If everything else on the table was, by consensus, borderline inedible, securing salmon in the morning wasn’t just sustenance. It was a power move. This is where breakfast turns into strategy.

“The Traitors” is exhausting. Filming days are long. Nights run late. Traitors are often awake until the wee hours filming turret scenes. Faithfuls are slowly unraveling as they realize they trust no one. The Scottish weather is cold, gray and relentless. People are being “murdered” before breakfast. I’m shocked that Season 2’s Kate Chastain is the only person who’s begged to be banished.

Under those conditions, food stops being decorative. It becomes functional.

Smoked salmon is high in protein, rich in fat, filling without being heavy — the kind of food that actually stabilizes you. It’s not flashy, but it’s grounding. In a game designed to erode your sense of reality, the salmon becomes something solid. Reliable. A way to start the day feeling like a human being instead of a chess piece.

Which may explain why cast members keep talking about it like it was a lifeline, not a luxury.

A good smoked salmon can change your life

There’s also a geographical logic here. The show is filmed in Scotland, a country far better known for its landscapes than its comfort cuisine. Haggis has its defenders, but it is not, for most Americans, a food you crave under emotional duress.

Scottish smoked salmon, on the other hand, is genuinely excellent. The cold waters, traditional curing methods, and long-standing fishing culture make it one of the country’s most respected exports.

“American consumers have long had an affinity with Scotland and its produce,” said a spokesperson for Salmon Scotland, “The cold, clear waters and strong tidal flows around Scotland’s coast allow salmon to grow steadily, developing the distinctive flavor and texture that has made it a global favorite.”

If you’re going to serve one food well in a castle in the Highlands, salmon is a smart bet. It’s the UK’s top food export, and Scottish salmon exports to the United States were valued at £301 million in 2025 — up 34%  from the previous year. In other words: Americans are already obsessed.

There’s also a clear difference between Scottish salmon and fish of other regions. The most obvious being its vibrant orange color. This salmon definitely stands out on a plate (and on a screen); to the point where I initially thought it might be fake, stage-salmon. But no, Scottish salmon gets its color largely from its diet of shrimp and krill. Some say that the strong currents and cool temperatures of Scottish waters slow the growth of the fish which helps create a more flavorful, buttery texture. In 1992, Scottish salmon was awarded the Label Rouge, a prestigious mark of quality from French authorities indicating a superior food product. It was the first fish and the first non-French product to receive this designation.

“Produced in the west coast, Highlands, and islands of Scotland, the sector provides around 850 million healthy, nutritious meals every year and supports jobs in rural and coastal communities,” said Salmon Scotland, “We are confident demand in the United States will continue to grow.”

By this point in the season, the salmon has become something else entirely: an inside joke between the cast and the audience.

Fans on Reddit joke that the salmon gets more screen time than certain contestants. Viewers half-seriously speculate that hoarding it should be a legitimate reason for murder. “I wonder if they’re intentionally not giving them enough salmon to so create discord and chaos,” said one viewer, “It’s gotta be such good salmon. A good smoked salmon can change your life.”

The breakfast table, once a neutral space, now feels charged with meaning — who arrived first, who looks relaxed, who’s chewing contentedly while others watch. The quest for where the salmon actually comes from — my sole reporting focus for an entire week.

It’s funny because it’s small. And because it’s human.

For all its dramatic speeches and elaborate challenges, The Traitors works best when it reminds us that everyone involved is just tired and hungry. Does it really matter where the salmon comes from? The salmon obsession isn’t really about luxury. It’s about survival. About finding one small, reliable pleasure in a game designed to strip everything else away.

In a castle full of lies, the salmon is a point of camaraderie. And honestly, at this point, we’re all rooting for it.

The post Salmon is the real “Traitors” power player appeared first on Salon.com.

Such quick meals, often categorized under the umbrella term “lazy cooking,” have taken social media by storm, with several food content creators sharing their go-to lazy recipes. But as for what lazy cooking actually entails, it’s not super clear-cut. The hack itself refers to meals that are prepared with minimal effort, minimal clean up and convenient ingredients that are often readily available in one’s refrigerator and pantry. That definition, however, seems to vary from home cook to home cook. Does it require cutting an onion? Or, is it simply opening a box of mac & cheese and zhuzh-ing it up with a few spices?

Regardless of what your preferred definition of lazy cooking is, there’s no denying that chopping an onion, or two, requires effort. And sometimes, that extra bit of effort just seems too laborious. Sure, onions add plenty of perks to a dish: texture, a hint of sweetness and plenty of umami. But contrary to popular belief, you don’t need onions to enjoy a really good meal.

Salon Food spoke with Chef Stephen Chavez, Senior Chef-Instructor at the Institute of Culinary Education’s Los Angeles campus, who offered his go-to tips on how to cook sans any chopped onions. Before diving into specific recipes, it’s important to familiarize yourself with ingredients that can be used in lieu of onions, Chavez says. His top substitutes include:

Roasted Peppers: Make them homemade or buy them canned or jarred, roasted peppers are filled with flavor that mimics the savory-sweetness of onions. As for specific peppers, Chavez recommends piquillo peppers, a variety of red chili peppers traditionally grown in Northern Spain.

Herbs: Specifically, thyme, tarragon and rosemary — aromatic herbs that go well in almost any savory dish.

Lemon Zest: Chavez calls it his “secret ingredient” and likens it to “a magic powder.” It’s readily available (as lemons are typically a kitchen essential) and easy to prepare. A little lemon zest can perk up even the simplest of dishes, like scrambled eggs. If you think your dish is lacking in flavor, don’t try to remedy it with more salt. Simply add a pinch of lemon zest, Chavez says.

Tomato Paste: This is great if you’re already making a tomato-based dish that calls for onions. Simply use a bit more tomato paste than the recipe calls for to amp up the flavor. Tomato paste is essentially cooked-down and concentrated tomatoes. It’s sweet and rich in umami — everything you’d get out of an onion.

Spices: Sumac is a great option because it’s acidic yet earthy, tart and slightly lemony, Chavez explains. Same with za’atar, another bright spice. For the more adventurous home cook, Chavez suggests experimenting with asafoetida (hing), a pungent, umami-filled spice that’s a staple in Indian cuisine. It has a sulfurous smell that takes on a similar flavor to both onion and garlic.

And now, for the recipes. Here are five things to cook on days you don’t feel like chopping an onion:

The post What to cook when you don’t feel like chopping an onion appeared first on Salon.com.

Despite the chicken’s widespread popularity, it has landed the big-box warehouse club in hot water with not one, but two recently filed class-action lawsuits claiming that the retailer’s ready-to-eat chicken isn’t as healthy as advertised or safe to consume.

The first, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California on Jan. 22, alleges that the rotisserie chicken contains two added preservatives — sodium phosphate and carrageenan — despite being marketed as having no preservatives, no artificial flavors or colors, no MSG and no gluten, according to a photo included in the complaint.

A second lawsuit, filed on Feb. 12 in the U.S. District Court in Seattle, argues that Costco knowingly sells chickens contaminated with Salmonella after inspection records found that the retailer’s poultry processing plant in Fremont, Nebraska, failed every monthly Salmonella test from late 2023 through mid-2025. Indeed, the facility, Lincoln Premium Poultry, earned the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) lowest food safety rating, a category three, in 92% of reporting periods since opening in 2019.

The two California-based plaintiffs named in the first complaint claim Costco “has systemically cheated customers out of tens — if not hundreds — of millions of dollars by falsely advertising its Kirkland Signature Seasoned Rotisserie Chicken as containing ‘no preservatives.’” They further accuse Costco of violating several consumer protection laws, including one in Washington state, where the retailer is headquartered.

Costco said that it has since removed any statements about preservatives from signs and online presentations for the rotisserie chicken. In a statement to USA Today, Costco explained that it uses carrageenan and sodium phosphate “to support moisture retention, texture, and product consistency during cooking,” adding that both ingredients are “approved by food safety authorities.”

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“These sustained failures present an elevated risk profile that would be material to consumers purchasing Costco’s chicken products,” the Feb. suit states.

The statement adds, “Costco has prioritized keeping its chickens at $4.99 over ensuring those chickens are safe to eat, all while holding out its poultry to consumers as top-quality and wholesome.” The plaintiff in the second suit is seeking compensatory, treble and restitution damages for herself and other Costco customers.

No trial dates have been set in either case.

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How did this polar change happen? Two words: Guy Fieri. That’s right, the so-called rock-n-roll comfort food king — but more accurately the extremely unhealthy-looking, ear-splitting maniac who thinks he’s fronting a college garage band circa 1995.

Let’s break this down. One of my biggest pet peeves is the way local news reporters talk. They deliver news to viewers like we’re all 5-year-olds, with their excessive use of alliteration and disproportionate pauses between words. Guy Fieri has adopted this local-news-reporter intonation and cadence, except Guy is also shouting for some reason. He is incessantly screaming at us to eat concoctions such as beer-battered meatball sandwiches, wrapped in a pizza and deep-fried in lard. What’s for dessert? A sheet cake dipped in pancake batter, dunked in butter frosting and sprinkled with Pop-Tarts. In short, Guy’s trying to kill us. While Michelle Obama campaigns for Americans to make healthier food choices, the Food Network relentlessly promotes Guy Fieri – a guy who wants us to combust via consumption of highly processed inedibles.

Yet, despite being a grown man with a penchant for Billabong clothing, Guy shouldn’t incur all the blame. The real fault should be assigned to the people who gave this madman a platform from which to spout his nutso rants.

The Food Network’s programming schedule should be populated with the pacifying voices of Ina, Martha, Nigella, even Mario Batali. Instead we get Guy Fieri screaming at us to adopt a diet that will at best yield diabetes. I get it – Guy won your first “Food Network Star” competition so you had to give him his own show. Yet, unless I’m mistaken, you only had to give him one show. Instead he is all over Food Network’s primetime programming. Guy not only hosts “Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives,” very loudly referred to as “TRIPLE D!” — which seems to run repeatedly from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. — but also now appears on at least six other shows on the Food Network. In addition to “Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives,” Guy can also annoy you while hosting “Guy’s Grocery Games,” “Guy’s Big Bite,” “Rachel vs. Guy: Celebrity Cook-Off,” “Rachael vs. Guy: Kids Cook-Off,” and “Food Network Star.”

And please note how Guy isn’t actually cooking on any of those shows. Considering the slop he tries to pass off as palatable, this is actually a blessing. However, he’s still there, in our face, gorging himself and ranting like an imbecile on fire. Perhaps this is why there has been a mass exodus of genuinely talented chefs, such Jacques Pépin, Sara Moulton, Ming Tsai, Lidia Bastianich and others, to more esteemed networks like PBS. They just couldn’t compromise their brand integrity and personal dignity for the sake of those lucrative Food Network tie-ins.

Just look at the “personalities” that now populate The Food Network – Guy, Rachael Ray, Sandra Lee, Bobby Flay. Did the head of their programming issue a mandate to seek out the most supremely irritating people who may or may not be able to cook decent food to host gimmicky competition shows interspersed with confessional interviews à la “Real Housewives”? And the little “cooking” there is left on the Food Network consists of soul-terrorists such as Sandra Lee bursting with pride because she came up with the ingenious idea of sprinkling some oregano on a can of Dinty Moore Beef Stew and calling it “a quick way to make dinner.” The last bastion of your former self, Ina Garten, might ask, “How bad can that be?” And the answer, Food Network, is: very.

Farsh Askari currently lives in Boston, where he is a research and staff associate at Harvard Business School. He received his bachelor’s from UC Santa Barbara and his master’s from Harvard. He writes a blog about his past struggles with severe OCD, http://ocdmemoirist.blogspot.com/.

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Perhaps I’m revealing my millennial tendencies here, but one of my preferred weekend formats — and I have several — goes like this: iced coffee in hand (the ice miraculously slow to melt, the straw sturdy enough to survive the afternoon), weather warm enough to ditch the bulky coat but cool enough that neither I nor my to-go cup are sweating, and a slow, looping pilgrimage from thrift store to bookstore to stationery shop and back to thrift store again.

And then I texted my dad.

(Ashlie Stevens ) “In the Kitchen with Rosie,” illustrated

Now, here’s something you should know about my dad: I love him. He’s great. We call. We Facebook message. We do not text.

In fact, I checked my 2025 text history from him. There are about a dozen messages total — typically clustered around holidays, birthdays, breaking celebrity-chef news or the rare occasions when the Cubs or Bears are playing exceptionally well.

So this chicken? It was special. It warranted a missive.

Looking at the recipe for Rosie’s “Unfried Chicken” now, as someone who develops her own, I can admit it’s not revolutionary. It’s an oven-baked, yogurt-dipped, breadcrumb-coated situation designed to deliver crunch without deep-frying — very 1994, very earnest, very effective.

But the seasoning list for the breading? Oh.

An almost aggressively spiced medley: Italian breadcrumbs, Old Bay, thyme, oregano, garlic powder; a pantry symphony that bordered on excessive in the way only a ’90s “healthy” recipe could. My dad made it often when I was a kid — along with a white chicken chili that still feels mythic in my memory — and standing there in that thrift store aisle, fluorescent lights humming overhead, I felt something like a culinary lightning strike: I want to make a weeknight chicken that makes me feel this excited again.

A chicken worth texting your dad about.

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As I do whenever I’m trying to develop something new, I put pen to paper. What, exactly, had lodged itself in my brain all these years later?

A few things surfaced. First — and this is embarrassingly practical — I was a child. I did no prep. The chicken simply materialized at dinner time, fully seasoned and deeply golden. So: noted. Whatever I made now needed to be weeknight-friendly. Preferably one pan. Minimal dishes. No theatrics. Second: dark meat. Thighs. Which meant tenderness, forgiveness, no dry-breast anxiety. This was not a fussy chicken. It was generous.

But when I really pressed on the memory — when I tried to locate the most sensory detail — it wasn’t the yogurt dip or the crumb coating or even the spice blend.

It was the parts no one plated.

The breadcrumb shards that blackened and caramelized at the edges of the sheet pan. The almost overly seasoned bits that clung stubbornly to the metal. I would pry them off with my fingers and eat them standing at the stove, like a tiny kitchen thief. Crunchy. Slightly bitter. Salty. Borderline too dark in the way that makes something irresistible.

They were, unquestionably, the best part.

Which is funny, because in the online forums where other people still remember this recipe (which delights me to no end), one of the most common complaints is that the crumbs stuck unless you used an aggressive amount of nonstick spray. They were never meant to stick around.

And yet.

Somewhere between page 39 and the fluorescent lights of that thrift store, I realized what I actually wanted to make wasn’t a better “unfried chicken.” I wanted to engineer a chicken dish breadcrumb-first.

Here’s how we do it now.

A better weeknight chicken, breadcrumb-first

(Ashlie Stevens ) Old Bay and Tony’s Creole Seasoning

Marinate chicken thighs in whole-milk yogurt — the kind that coats thickly and carries salt and spice deep into the meat. (Bone-in, skin-on if you want the full effect; boneless if you need speed.) Yogurt doesn’t just tenderize; it creates a thin lactic crust that browns beautifully in a hot pan.

Sear the thighs skin-side down in a wide skillet until the fat renders and the skin turns deeply golden, verging on bronze. You’re not chasing “lightly browned.” You want real color — the kind that smells savory and faintly nutty. Remove the chicken and leave the rendered fat behind. That’s your foundation.

Into that fat, add sliced shallots and garlic with a pinch of thyme and oregano. Let them soften slowly, blooming until fragrant and slightly sweet, their edges translucent and relaxed. The dried herbs toast just enough to release their oils, turning the air warm and aromatic.

Add two cans of white beans and a splash of stock. Simmer until the liquid reduces and the starches thicken into something spoonable and lush. Fold in winter greens — kale, escarole, spinach — and let them wilt just until tender but still verdant. A splash of white wine or rice vinegar sharpens the whole skillet, lifting the richness without thinning it.

Nestle the chicken back on top so the juices mingle with the beans.

Meanwhile — and this is where my favorite engineering happens — toast the breadcrumbs.

Use panko for its craggy architecture. In a separate pan, warm olive oil with a small knob of butter, then bloom Old Bay and Tony Chachere’s. The latter is a nod to my dad, who, in an act of seasoning maximalism I now deeply respect, added it to Rosie’s chicken in addition to Old Bay, effectively doubling (if not tripling) down on spice. Which, honestly, is about the right amount.

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You could, of course, build this blend from individual jars — thyme, oregano, paprika, cayenne — but these pantry workhorses are weeknight shortcuts to complexity. Let them sizzle lightly in the fat before the crumbs go in; that’s how the spices bloom.

Add the panko and let it sit undisturbed in places so it develops real color. You want freckles and edges that lean just shy of too dark. Stir occasionally, but not obsessively. Off heat, fold in lemon zest — the volatile oils hit the warm crumbs and bloom instantly, perfuming them. Scatter the crumbs generously over the skillet. Not as just garnish, but as structure.

If you want to chase that childhood sheet-pan magic, slide the whole thing under the broiler for a few minutes. The edges will crisp further; the crumbs will toast again; the top layer will take on that barely bitter, deeply savory edge that makes you reach back into the pan for one more bite.

Finish with fresh herbs and a quick yogurt sauce: lemon juice, chopped herbs and enough Old Bay to tint it faintly coral.

It’s rich, yes. But it’s also sharp and bright and layered — winter comfort with architectural crunch.

Maybe I wasn’t just chasing a better chicken.

I was chasing the edges, too.

Here’s the recipe.

Breadcrumb-First Chicken with Creamy White Beans & Winter Greens

Yields

4 servings

Prep Time

15 minutes, plus marinating

Cook Time

35 minutes

Ingredients

For the chicken

• 6 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs (about 2½–3 pounds, or 1½–2 pounds boneless, skinless thighs)
• 1 cup whole-milk Greek yogurt
• 2 garlic cloves, grated
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon Old Bay seasoning
• ½ teaspoon dried thyme
• ½ teaspoon dried oregano
• Zest of ½ lemon

For the beans & greens

• 1 tablespoon olive oil (if needed)
• 1 large shallot, thinly sliced
• 2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
• ½ teaspoon dried thyme
  ½ teaspoon dried oregano
• 2 (15-ounce) cans white beans (cannellini or butter beans), drained and rinsed
• ½ cup chicken stock (plus more if needed)
• 4 cups chopped winter greens (kale, escarole, or spinach)
• 1–2 teaspoons white wine vinegar, rice vinegar, or white balsamic
• Kosher salt, to taste

For the breadcrumbs

• 1 cup panko breadcrumbs
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 teaspoon Old Bay seasoning
• 1 teaspoon Tony Chachere’s Creole seasoning
• ½ teaspoon dried thyme
• ½ teaspoon dried oregano
• ½ teaspoon dried dill
• ½ teaspoon garlic powder
• ½ teaspoon onion powder
• ¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• ¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes (optional)
• Zest of 1 lemon
• Flaky salt, to taste

Quick yogurt sauce

• ½ cup whole-milk yogurt
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1–2 teaspoons Old Bay (enough to tint faintly pink)
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh herbs (parsley, dill, chives)
• Pinch salt

Directions

1. Marinate the chicken. In a large bowl, combine yogurt, garlic, salt, pepper, Old Bay, thyme, oregano, and lemon zest. Add the chicken and toss to coat thoroughly. Cover and refrigerate at least 30 minutes (or up to overnight).
2. Sear the chicken. Heat a wide, oven-safe skillet over medium heat. Place the chicken skin-side down (no need to oil the pan). Cook undisturbed for 8–12 minutes, until the skin is deeply golden and much of the fat has rendered. Flip and cook 3–4 minutes more.
3. Transfer chicken to a plate. Leave the rendered fat in the pan. (If using boneless thighs, reduce cook time slightly; you want good color but not overcooking.)
4. Build the beans. If the pan looks dry, add a drizzle of olive oil. Add shallot, garlic, thyme, and oregano. Cook over medium heat until softened and fragrant, about 3–4 minutes. Add beans and stock. Bring to a simmer and cook 5–7 minutes, stirring occasionally, until slightly thickened and stewy. If needed, add a splash more stock.
5. Fold in greens and cook just until wilted but still vibrant. Season with salt and brighten with 1–2 teaspoons vinegar.
6. Nestle the chicken back on top of the beans.
7. Toast the breadcrumbs. In a separate skillet over medium heat, warm olive oil and butter. Add Old Bay, Tony Chachere’s, thyme, oregano, dill, garlic powder, onion powder, black pepper, and red pepper flakes. Let the spices sizzle gently for 20–30 seconds.
8. Add panko and toss to coat. Cook, stirring occasionally but allowing some areas to sit undisturbed, until golden brown with a few darker freckles, 4–6 minutes. Remove from heat and immediately fold in lemon zest and a pinch of flaky salt.
9. Assemble & broil (optional but recommended). Scatter breadcrumbs generously over the chicken and beans — not lightly, but decisively. For extra crunch, transfer the skillet to the oven and broil 3–5 minutes, watching carefully, until the crumbs deepen slightly in color.
10. Make the yogurt sauce. Stir together yogurt, lemon juice, Old Bay, herbs, and salt. Adjust seasoning. The sauce should be tangy and faintly coral in color.
11. Finish & serve. Top the skillet with fresh herbs and an extra squeeze of lemon. Serve warm with yogurt sauce spooned over or alongside.

This story originally appeared in The Bite, my weekly food newsletter for Salon. If you enjoyed it and would like more essays, recipes, technique explainers and interviews sent straight to your inbox, subscribe here.

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Every few seasons or so, a commonplace produce item, be it a fruit or vegetable, is granted “It Girl” status. Back in 2023, that prestige was bestowed upon tomatoes, which moved beyond the grocery store aisles to become an aesthetic and a way of life with the so-called “Tomato Girl Summer” micro trend. This year, the baton is being handed to a vegetable: the leafy and cruciferous cabbage.

That’s according to Vogue, which declared in January that cabbage is the chicest vegetable of 2026. Why, you may ask? Cabbages, namely their undulating cross-section patterns, have appeared as designs in outerwear and accessories. Cabbages have inspired bags (like the Sandy Liang cabbage bag), designer kitchenware, gaudy decor and high-fashion advertisements. They’ve shown up on restaurant menus across New York. And just this past November, NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani held a whole cabbage in a campaign video made alongside food content creators and real-life couple Anna Archibald and Kevin Serai, who are cheekily known by their online handle Cabagges.

Cabbagecore, as The Guardian so fittingly describes cabbage’s newfound popularity, is “undeniable.” According to the “Pinterest Predicts” trend report, cabbages are “the new kitchen MVP” in 2026, and there’s data to prove it. Searches for “cabbage dumpling” were up by 110%, while “cabbage alfredo” was up 45% and “fermented cabbage” was up 35%. Folks are simply craving more crunch in their lives.

Although cabbage’s relevance as a cultural icon — and a sexy produce star, as The New York Times deemed it — is worth celebrating, the humble vegetable’s existence is more than a mere hot new trend. 2026 being the official year of the cabbage just makes sense. It’s both timely and necessary, especially in an era of rising grocery prices and heightened awareness of what and how we eat.

“I think one of the really important aspects of cabbages is that they resonate with a lot of people,” says Celine Beitchman, Director of Nutrition at the Institute of Culinary Education (ICE) in New York. “Certainly, they are an economical option, but they are also a comfort food for just about every culture worldwide. That, coupled with their versatility, makes cabbage an easy choice for a lot of people to get with.”

Indeed, Beitchman is right — to an extent. Stuffed cabbages, for example, are a hearty delicacy that transcends geographical borders. In Polish cuisine, it’s known as Gołąbki, often served for Christmas Eve dinner, weddings, or on dining tables year-round, depending on the region. In Ukraine, tender boiled cabbage rolls, generously filled with seasoned ground meat, rice and onions, are better known as holubtsi. And in Germany, blanched white or savoy cabbage leaves stuffed with ground beef and cooked in a cream sauce are called kohlrouladen. There’s also mille-feuille nabe, a Japanese hot pot dish that’s layered with napa cabbage and thin slices of pork belly simmered in dashi broth.

But cabbage consumption, at least in the United States, remains low. Since 2000, per capita consumption of fresh cabbage has declined from nearly nine pounds to an astounding 5.51 pounds in 2023, according to Statista. Per recent data, consumption has been on the rise, albeit at an incredibly slow rate. In 2024, per capita consumption increased by 0.03 pounds to a total of 5.54 pounds. The Packer’s Fresh Trends 2024 survey also found that 37.3% of consumers reported buying cabbage in the past year, compared to 31% in the 2023 survey.

Interest in cabbage-focused recipes, however, is growing. Earlier this month, The New York Times’ Tanya Sichynsky dedicated an entire newsletter to the vegetable after a reader reached out, asking how they could use up all the cabbage they received from their local farmers’ market. Sichynsky suggested making cabbage parm, winter minestrone with cabbage pesto and tofu and cabbage stir-fry with basil, just to name a few recipes.

Cabbage is one of the world’s oldest cultivated vegetables, dating back over 4,000 years. Part of the Brassicaceae family, cabbage has a historical reputation for being an economical choice of food. According to the “Journal d’un bourgeois de Paris” (The Diary of a Parisian Bourgeois), an anonymous account of everyday life in Paris during the 15th century, “poor people ate no bread, nothing but cabbages and turnips and such dishes, without any bread or salt.” Today, cabbage is still revered for its low price, with cheaper heads of green cabbage currently available for $2.13 to $2.70, making it a go-to vegetable for budget-conscious shoppers.

“You can do a lot with one head of cabbage,” says Beitchman. “It takes maybe a quarter of a wedge to make enough for four or five people to have as a side dish. The fact that you can use it in a lot of ways is pretty cool.”

One of cabbage’s greatest assets is its nutrition profile. Cabbage is rich in Vitamin C and folate, “which is important for DNA synthesis, for your cells to reproduce themselves,” Beitchman explains. Cabbage is also high in water, a vital yet often overlooked nutrient in our foods.

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Purple, savoy and green cabbage are also high in insoluble fiber, which Beitchman says is “the broom of the digestive system,” allowing waste to pass through more easily. Fiber, it seems, has become the latest buzzword in the dietary space as fibermaxxing, the food trend of loading up on fiber, is predicted to take over 2025’s trend of protein-maxxing. That’s partly due to a fiber gap — not enough people are eating enough daily fiber. The American Society for Nutrition reported in 2021 that only five percent of men and nine percent of women were eating the recommended daily amount of dietary fiber.

As of 2025, sales of fermented products, such as sauerkraut and kimchi, have increased as more Americans seek to improve their overall gut health, The Wall Street Journal reported in November. Sales of fermented foods and ingredients reached $61.17 billion between 2024 and 2025, according to market research firm NielsenIQ.

It’s about time that cabbage deserves its rightful spotlight. Cabbage’s moment is inevitable, per Beitchman. She points to the increase in accessibility of at-home fermentation, fermentation programs at culinary school and cabbage varieties available at the local farmer’s markets in New York City.

Cabbage is everything we need in food right now: affordable, abundant, nourishing. It’s maximalist in a quiet yet practical way, all while providing us comfort and immunity throughout the seasons. Its chicness is familiar yet attainable. Cabbage has long been forgotten among its cruciferous counterparts — broccoli, cauliflower and kohlrabi. This year, let’s enjoy the vegetable wholeheartedly.

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Last week, I made a case for eating more salads this winter. And while I still believe that enjoying this season’s most prized produce items — raw and uncooked — is a great way to beat cabin fever, that doesn’t diminish the importance of indulgent, comfort meals. Soups, stews, cheesy casseroles and creamy mashed potatoes are just a few popular options that come to mind.

If you’re suffering from the persevering cold and in need of some cooking inspiration, fret not. Here to help us overcome the winter drear, one meal at a time, is Shawn Matijevich, lead chef-instructor of online culinary arts & food operations at the Institute of Culinary Education (ICE).

Here are five chef-approved meals to eat when it’s freezing outside.

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To help answer that burning question, Consumer Reports and the Strategic Resource Group, a New York-based consumer goods and retail consulting firm, compared food prices at over 30 retailers across six metro areas to determine the most and least expensive supermarket chains in the United States. Walmart, the largest grocery chain in the country, was used as the baseline retailer, meaning all supermarkets in the study were determined to be either more or less expensive than Walmart.

Their findings? Costco Wholesale, BJ’s Wholesale Club, Lidl, Aldi, WinCo and H-E-B were the least expensive grocery stores, with each averaging lower prices than Walmart. Among that group, warehouse club chains were determined to be the cheapest: Costco’s average prices were 21.4% less than Walmart’s and BJ’s were 21% lower. Costco also reigned supreme across major cities, according to metro-level data. In Boston, the price margin was especially wide, with Costco prices averaging an astounding 37% lower than Walmart.

As for the most expensive grocery chain, Whole Foods Market took the top prize. (That’s not much of a surprise, given its disparaging nickname of “Whole Paycheck.”)  According to national data, Whole Foods’ prices were a whopping 39.7% higher on average than Walmart’s. That statistic varied across several metro regions. In Chicago, Whole Foods was bested by regional supermarket chain Jewel-Osco by 1.3%. And in Denver, it lost to Trader Joe’s by 0.4% on average prices.

But TJ’s may not be the bargain destination that its devotees think it is. On a national scale, the California-based retailer had average prices that were 24.6% higher than Walmart’s. It was also ranked the second-most expensive grocery store in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

In addition to Boston, Chicago and Dallas-Fort Worth, Consumer Reports evaluated grocery prices in Denver, Virginia Beach, and the greater Los Angeles and Southern California area.

“The comparisons were based on the total price of grocery baskets that included packaged goods, produce, and meat, but differed in size depending on which items were available in each store,” according to a Consumer Reports article.

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The Strategic Resource Group also collected price data in person from stores in late summer 2025. Prices for individual metro areas were collected within 48 hours, while final prices “reflect sale prices and discounts available to shoppers using free store loyalty cards but don’t reflect manufacturer coupons or savings available only through smartphone apps.”

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To that end, my own ambition was, frankly, modest: I would eat a proper midday meal. Not a handful of almonds hoovered over the sink. Not yogurt eaten in a fugue state between Slack pings. A lunch with edges. A lunch that required a plate and, ideally, a chair.

The irony is that my life required absolutely no restructuring to accommodate this transformation. I was already working from home. Had been for years. My boss was lovely. No one was clocking my keystrokes. No one was peering over a cubicle wall. I was writing about food — professionally! — which would seem to position me as uniquely qualified to feed myself at 12:30 p.m.

And yet.

When I worked in an office, I ate lunch more reliably than I ever did at home. I would run down to a little Middle Eastern spot for lemony chicken and lentil stew, or duck into a jewel-box café where the barista would see me through the window and start pouring two cold brews — one for now, one for later — while I ordered a chilled scoop of something creamy and deli-ish to swipe up with a bagel I’d toast back at the newsroom. (The café, charming in nearly every respect, maintained a baffling “no toasting” policy; for a brief, golden period, a communal toaster appeared beside the sugar packets, only to vanish without explanation.)

It was ritual. A small walk. A small purchase. A small book cracked open at a corner table. The meal had a perimeter.

At home, somehow, that perimeter dissolved. The commute shrank to a dozen steps. The afternoon bled into itself. There was no reason I couldn’t close the laptop for forty minutes. No structural impediment. And yet I remained, daily, mysteriously incapable of doing so. Lockdown did not change this dynamic in the slightest. It merely intensified the lighting.

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This year, when I began to feel the sharper consequences of letting my blood sugar dip — the fog, the irritability, the faintly Victorian sense of personal decline — it became clear that discipline was not going to save me. I was not going to will myself into better boundaries. I was going to have to lure myself.

Which is how I fell, slightly obsessively, into the surprisingly vivid world of lunch cookbooks — and from there into an even more specific niche: studio cookbooks.

The kind that document the midday meals of artists and designers who stop work, deliberately, to eat something composed and beautiful. Books like “Lunch at the Shop,” In August Company’s “Studio Cookbook” and this offering from Hato Press.

While beautiful artifacts, these books are not glossy lifestyle manifestos. They are records of practice. In workshops and design studios — places where people use their brains and their hands in equal measure — lunch is positioned not as an interruption. It is maintenance. It is continuation. It is, quietly, policy. The meals are easily prepared (no one is laminating pastry at 12:15 p.m.) but they are unmistakably deliberate. Gochujang puttanesca. Japanese omelets folded over rice. Lentils dressed like they mean it. Tartines with architectural ambition.

What struck me most was the assumption beneath it all: that stopping to eat is not indulgent or inefficient, but necessary. That flavor matters. That nourishment matters. That the quality of the break shapes the quality of the work that follows.

Lunch, in this framing, is not a reward for productivity. It is a condition of it.

And so I began building lunches that were easy enough to make on a Tuesday but compelling enough to interrupt the day: salty-bright pastas, herb-laced grains, sheet-pan chickpeas bronzed at the edges and folded into something glossy. Meals designed not just to be eaten, but to be worth eating.

What I needed, it turned out, was not a stricter schedule. It was a lunch with gravitational pull.

That intention — to make something worth stopping for — collided with a sudden, almost animalistic craving for brine and my enduring devotion to the mini sheet pan (the most romantic kitchen tool, in my opinion; small, efficient, unpretentious, incapable of excess). The result is a pasta I have begun making on repeat: olive-forward, lemon-lit, threaded with crisped chickpeas and slumped feta. It comes together in just over thirty minutes, which leaves you the radical luxury of eating it slowly.

Start by turning your oven up to 425°F and treating your mini sheet pan like a tiny stage: everything you put on it should have a job. Dry the chickpeas like you mean it—roll them in a towel, let them sit a minute, roll again—because moisture is the enemy of blistering.

Toss them on the pan with a small-diced shallot (small enough to caramelize, not so big it stays raw) and the simple, loud trio of lemon zest, oregano and red pepper flakes, plus oil, salt, and black pepper. Then add the feta as a single slab, not crumbles. A block roasts into something different: the edges bronze and go a little chewy; the center caters into creamy pockets you can smear through the pasta later. Slide the pan into the oven and roast until the chickpeas are crisping at the edges, the shallots have gone sweet and golden, and the feta looks glossy and a little collapsed — 20 to 25 minutes, depending on how wet your chickpeas were and how brave your oven runs.

While the sheet pan does its thing, put a pot of water on and salt it generously. Choose a short shape that catches little bits: orecchiette, gemelli, fusilli. Before you drain, save the pasta water — that cloudy starch is what turns chopped olives and warm oil into a sauce that clings instead of puddles.

Now make the briny engine: chop green olives very finely, almost relish-like, and do the same with artichoke hearts: small, but not paste. Warm olive oil just enough to bloom (you’re not frying; you’re waking it up), add lemon zest, oregano, and red pepper flakes, and let the olives and artichokes sit in that fragrant oil while the chickpeas crisp. When everything’s ready, build it in a big bowl: pasta first, then the olive-artichoke mixture (oil and all), then a splash of pasta water and a hard toss until it turns glossy and loose.

Break the roasted feta into big creamy crumbles, fold in the chickpeas and shallots, and keep adjusting — more pasta water for silk, more zest for lift, a crack of pepper for bite — until it tastes salty-bright and looks like something you’d actually step away from your laptop to eat.

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In visual mediums, food is often shorthand for sex. A cheeky, not-so-sly metaphor. Romance in particular loves edible innuendo. It’s easy to use a juicy, dripping peach or artful dollops of whipped cream as a stand-in for what you really want your audience to be thinking about.

“Heated Rivalry” is different.

In what is arguably the year’s hottest television show, both in popularity and sensuality, food is everywhere. But it isn’t erotic. It isn’t teasing. In a show defined by sex, food becomes the language of vulnerability.

“Heated Rivalry” is a relatively low-budget Canadian television show — based on the “Game Changers” romance novel series by Rachel Reid — that streamed on HBO Max earlier this year. The steamy, enemies-to-lovers show follows two closeted hockey players, Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams) and Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie) as they navigate their turbulent situationship on top of their budding professional hockey careers.

Against all odds, “Heated Rivalry” became a breakout hit, reaching 324 million streaming minutes in its first week — that’s ten times the viewership of “Bridgerton” season 4 in the same time frame — shooting its stars and creators to a level of fame that feels unprecedented.

Less than a year ago, Hudson Williams and Connor Storie were waiting tables, now they’re hosting “SNL,” presenting Golden Globes, and carrying the Olympic torch. Hansel wishes he was as hot as these two right now.

In “Heated Rivalry,” the sex is nearly immediate. Physical intimacy is not the obstacle, emotional intimacy is. And food bridges that gap. Even in the early days of this nearly decades-long situationship, the boys are using food (if you can count water as food) to show their interest in each other.

In episode one, we see Shane and Ilya on Major League Hockey draft day — where they’re the second and first overall picks, respectively. After a suit-and-tie celebration, which neither seems too celebratory about, Shane leaves his hotel room in a huff and escapes to the hotel gym for a late night stationary bike ride. Ilya soon appears on the bike next to him. What ensues next can only be described as the most tantalizing, sexually tense stationary bike race ever recorded on video.

After this first charged encounter, the initial gesture between them is not seduction. It’s nourishment, hydration.

They sit toe to toe on the gym floor, and Ilya offers a red-faced, panting Shane his water bottle. Ilya shakes the bottle a few times, almost daring Shane to take it. He finally gives in, their fingertips graze, Ilya holds the contact just a second too long when accepting the bottle back, and that’s how it begins.

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On this day, they cemented not only their professional rivalry, but also their prolonged and (at the moment) unexplainable connection to each other. In a genre that often codes food as indulgence, this is maintenance. Care, not consumption.

Shane and Ilya continue sporadically meeting in hotel rooms. They text regularly (under the aliases “Jane” and “Lily”). Even after Shane wins the MLH championship, he’s not thinking about this major career accomplishment. While his teammates are enjoying frenzied, champagne-spraying locker room celebration, Shane’s face is buried in his phone and visibly smirking while texting Ilya.

The tuna melt

Their emotional tip-toeing reaches a breaking point in episode 4 with the tuna melt scene, arguably the emotional hinge of the series. By the time Shane ends up at Ilya’s apartment for the day, the sexual tension is long established. What’s new is the kitchen.

Ilya passes Shane his signature ginger ale across the counter and says, “You like tuna melt?”

“You want to make me a tuna melt?” Shane replies with a slight quirk of his lip.

The scene is quiet, domestic, almost disarmingly ordinary. They eat on the couch. They talk — not about bodies or strategy or rivalry — but about family. About the shape of their lives outside hotel rooms and hockey rinks.

And it’s here, over melted cheese and toasted bread, that Ilya admits something far riskier than desire: that he likes Shane. The sandwich doesn’t escalate lust. It transforms the energy of the room, of the relationship, from erotic heat to a loving warmth. Then they say each other’s first names, a quiet “Shane” and “Ilya” just for each other.

You would think that for two people who’ve known each other for years and have seen and experienced every inch of each other’s bodies this wouldn’t be a big deal, but the first name crosses the line. It takes their relationship out of “two guys who are intrigued by each other and hook up occasionally” into “two guys who know all of each other’s quirks and idiosyncrasies and may just be starting to fall in love, or (even more terrifying) they’re already there.”

Without the tuna melt, I don’t know that Shane and Ilya would’ve had this emotional breakthrough. Using each other’s first names, especially in such an intimate moment, completely changes the nature of their relationships. It breaks down all the walls (no matter how flimsy) the two had tried to set up to deny their feelings for each other. In most romantic media, food heightens sensuality. Here, it marks the moment when desire softens into emotional risk.

Being as dysfunctional as they are and seeing that neither are ready to admit what this relationship is (an actual relationship) and what it means to them, this moment naturally leads Shane into a full on panic, and they don’t talk or see each other for months.

The smoothie

While Shane and Ilya are having their turbulent back and forth of will-they-won’t-they-admit-they-have-feelings-for-each-other, there’s another love story going on: Scott Hunter and Kip Grady.

Their relationship starts with a smoothie. Not champagne, not whipped cream, not a strategically placed strawberry. A smoothie.

After a run through the streets of New York City, Scott Hunter (pro hockey all-star and captain of the New York Admirals) stops in health food store Straw+Berry for a post run drink. That’s where he meets struggling grad student Kip Grady. Kip makes him a special version of the store’s blueberry smoothie (he just adds banana). It’s awkward. Slightly stilted. They’re testing the waters.

Scott starts to linger longer than he needs to. The conversations stretch a little further. Scott keeps coming back — not because he’s suddenly developed a deep passion for (in my opinion) way too watery fruit-based beverages, but because Kip is there.

Food here isn’t flirtation. It’s repetition, ritual, a reason to return back to the person you can’t stop thinking about.

Kip gifts Scott a pair of blue socks with bananas on them, a physical manifestation of the smoothie for when Scott’s not in New York, and he wears them during every game. A small, almost comical callback to the smoothie that started it all. It’s romantic in the way inside jokes are romantic. It’s not sexy. It’s not a metaphor. It’s memory.

When Kip stays over in Scott’s apartment, Kip still makes the smoothie in the morning. The gesture continues and evolves as their relationship gets stronger. It becomes less about the drink itself and more about what it represents: “I see you. I remember how we started.”

Even though, objectively speaking, that smoothie looks like something I would not be able to keep down, it means something to them. And that’s the point.

In romance media, food often escalates toward seduction. In “Heated Rivalry,” food settles into consistency. It’s how relationships grow roots.

The show refuses the glossy aesthetic of “food porn.” The tuna melt looks like a tuna melt. The ginger ale is flatly branded Canada Dry. The lighting is not indulgent. Nothing drips in slow motion. Nothing is consumed theatrically.

Because this isn’t about appetite. It’s about offering something you made and waiting to see if it will be accepted. That dynamic deepens when viewed through Shane’s characterization.

Shane Hollander is branded by the media and hockey world as the “boring” and “serious” hockey prodigy, especially in comparison to the ladies-man-bad-boy Ilya Rozanov.

He’s rarely without his Canada Dry. He’s on a so-called macrobiotic diet. His teammates tease him for eating what they call “bird food.” He orders the same salmon and brown rice at restaurants. His routines are meticulous. His preferences? Predictable.

Rachel Reid addressed this in an “Ask Me Anything” on Reddit, explaining that while she didn’t initially write Shane as neurodivergent, after her own experience parenting a neurodivergent child, she came to see him differently. By the time she wrote the “Heated Rivalry” sequel, “The Long Game,” Reid noted that she “had a better understanding of Shane” and “realized that, yeah, he’s probably autistic.”

That context reframes everything. The always perfectly folded clothes before sex. The seeming rigidity. The public perception of him as boring or robotic. The fact that people who actually know him always describe him as funny.

Hudson Williams’ quiet portrayal of this character has resonated so well with fans and viewers who also have autism. Anni Malter, a German journalist based in Japan, called Williams’ portrayal of Shane, “one of the most honest and recognizable depictions of an autistic character I’ve seen in a long time.”

“His autism is not framed as a reveal, a problem or a lesson. There is no diagnostic scene, no moment of narrative reassurance. Shane doesn’t even know it himself. And yet, within the first ten minutes of the first episode, it was unmistakable,” Malter wrote in a Substack after interviewing Rachel Reid about the book series and show.

“What ‘Heated Rivalry’ understands – quietly, confidently – is that autism does not announce itself. It reveals itself in patterns, in pressure points, in the way a body moves through the world. And once you know what you’re looking for, you don’t need it explained.”

One obvious pattern for Shane is the food.

Safe foods are common in autistic individuals: predictable textures, reliable flavors, minimal sensory disruption. So when Ilya offers him a tuna melt in episode four — something warm, messy, unfamiliar — and Shane accepts without hesitation, it’s not small.

It’s trust. It’s vulnerability. It’s: “I am letting you disrupt my routine.”

You could argue that the tuna melt is the most intimate thing that happens in that apartment.

A comically large pot of pasta

The most quietly devastating food scene in the show doesn’t happen in a bedroom. It happens at a kitchen table.

After Shane’s father accidentally walks in on him and Ilya at the cottage, everything implodes. Shane spirals. Panic sets in. The secret he’s been carrying for years is suddenly inches from exposure. Shane’s father wordlessly speeds away from the cottage. Shane and Ilya follow right behind. Shane is essentially forced to tell his parents not only that he’s gay but he’s also been in a relationship with who they thought was his arch-enemy for the better part of a decade.

And what does his mother do?

She makes pasta. A massive, almost comically large pot of pasta.

They all sit at the table — Shane, Ilya, Shane’s parents — and the conversation unfolds over noodles.

There’s something deeply maternal about it. Something grounding. A silent message of: We are still a family. You are still my son.

Cooking has been shown to mitigate psychological distress and reduce stress levels. Research has shown that engaging in cooking activities can improve emotional wellbeing and decrease anxiety. Preparing food becomes a regulatory act — a way to channel overwhelming emotion into something tactile and nourishing.

Maybe Yuna Hollander didn’t consciously think, Let me deploy culinary therapy in this moment of crisis. Maybe she just did what mothers do.

But the effect is the same.

The pasta becomes a stabilizer. A unifier. The physical act of twirling noodles while discussing something as monumental as coming out diffuses the tension just enough for honesty to survive.

There’s no metaphor here. No erotic coding. No wink at the audience. Just four people eating dinner. And you can feel, watching it, that everything is going to be okay.

We are conditioned to see food in media as sensual. Food is frequently eroticized — aestheticized into spectacle and coded as appetite. “Heated Rivalry” refuses that framework. The tuna melt is… a tuna melt. The smoothie is slightly watery. The pasta is just pasta.

Critics, casual viewers, and obsessive “reheaters” (the nickname fans have dubbed re-watches of the show) have noted how grounded and character-driven the storytelling feels despite the explicit content. The sex is explicit. The food is ordinary. And maybe that’s why it hits so hard.

Because the show doesn’t need food to heighten desire. The desire is already there — loud, obvious, borderline operatic. Food, instead, marks the moments where desire softens into care.

Shane and Ilya are elite athletes. They can take hits. They can endure overtime. They can perform in front of tens of thousands of people. But they cannot, for the life of them, articulate how they feel.

So they cook. They pass water bottles. They make tuna melts. They sit at kitchen tables and eat pasta. They drink Russian vodka.

In a show driven by sex, it would be easy — almost expected — to use food as one more layer of innuendo.  But food has no place here as metaphor. Food is the place where they risk being known, seen. It’s how they test the possibility of letting their walls down, of staying.

And when the words “I love you” feel too destabilizing — too irreversible — there is always another, softer confession available: “You like tuna melt?”

The post “Heated Rivalry” doesn’t need food to be sexual appeared first on Salon.com.

There are a handful of interviews I’ve done over the years that rearranged the furniture in my brain.

That’s what the next 12 ideas are about. Not transformation. Not sainthood. Just lowering the barrier between you and something green.

Let vegetables be comfort food

(Ashlie Stevens ) Large pizza, extra veggies

When you’re first trying to get more vegetables in, it helps to notice where you already adore them in the wild.

For me, it’s rarely in a virtuous bowl. It’s at restaurants — when vegetables arrive glossy, salted, unapologetic.

Think of your own mental scrapbook. The steakhouse creamed spinach, perfumed with nutmeg and unapologetically rich. Brown-butter–glazed squash collapsing at the edges. Maple-slicked Brussels sprouts with charred leaves that shatter under your fork. The South Carolina crab shack fried green tomatoes with a ramekin of remoulade. The Italian joint with a killer veggie supreme and breadcrumb-and-cheese–stuffed mushroom caps. The diner with stewy green beans flecked with bacon, sliding up next to a square of cornbread. The French brasserie with paper-thin radishes, good cultured butter and a pinch of flaky salt.

That counts.

Getting in more vegetables isn’t a purity test. You don’t have to swing from cacio e pepe to iceberg spritzed with lemon juice overnight. There is an in-between — and no rule that says you can’t travel there with a little cream, a little cheese, a little butter pooling at the bottom of the pan.

If vegetables feel like deprivation, you’re less likely to reach for them. If they feel like dinner, you might.

Let the grocery store show you the way

You do not have to generate vegetable inspiration from scratch.

Beyond restaurants, supermarket salad bars, deli cases, freezer aisles and prepared-food counters are full of ideas you can borrow shamelessly. Creamy cucumber salads flecked with dill. Sesame green beans. Roasted carrots with harissa. Brussels sprouts with bacon and balsamic glaze. Someone has already done the flavor math.

Take a slow lap sometime — even if you have no intention of buying anything that day. Just notice what makes you pause. What you lean toward. What you think, Oh, I’d eat that.

No pressure to purchase. No pressure to recreate it at home immediately. We’re not assigning homework.

We’re just noticing.

If a lemony kale salad keeps catching your eye, maybe that’s a clue. If the elote corn disappears fastest from the hot bar, maybe that’s another. Let curiosity guide you before discipline does.

The grocery store is a test kitchen you don’t have to pay for.

Add one indulgent thing

(Ashlie Stevens ) Cheese, please

Once you’ve clocked where vegetables thrill you in the wild, steal the formula.

Most beloved vegetable dishes have a little flourish — one element that tips them from virtuous to irresistible. A drizzle of cheesy Mornay. Toasted Panko breadcrumbs. Shards of crisp bacon. A handful of toasted nuts. Even just a glossy pad of butter melting into something green and ribbed and tender.

It’s a time-honored equation. Broccoli in cheddar cheese sauce. Cabbage sautéed with olive oil and bacon (a favorite of my grandmother’s). Thanksgiving yams under a pecan crumble. Anything — truly anything — labeled “au gratin.”

This isn’t about drowning vegetables in dairy until they forget who they are. It’s about adding one point of richness, one spark of crunch, one salty edge that makes you want another bite.

If you’re trying to get excited about vegetables, give yourself permission to make them delicious on purpose.

Take the shortcuts. Lose the guilt

A couple summers ago, I realized I could walk to the Trader Joe’s in the next neighborhood over and haul the bags home without it feeling like a CrossFit challenge. That little discovery led to a dinner formula that carried my small family through the season:

1 pre-made protein.
1 frozen side.
1 salad kit.

This resulted in combinations like:

Pulled smoked chicken + frozen mac and cheese + cabbage slaw.
Frozen meatballs + fiocchetti in pink sauce (plus a bag of peas) + Caesar salad.
Chicken mole + frozen roasted corn with cotija + elote chopped salad kit.

It was not aspirational. It was not artisanal. It was dinner.

At first, I felt vaguely conspiratorial — like I was getting away with something. Like this wasn’t “real cooking.” But that was the summer I realized shortcuts weren’t a moral failure. They were a strategy.

Earlier this year, I wrote about my breakthrough with frozen, pre-chopped onions — the $2 bag at Jewel-Osco I had avoided for years because of a faint, inherited resistance to paying someone else to do something I could technically do myself. I could practically hear my female ancestors whispering, Just go chop the onions.

But here’s the thing: there are nights when you don’t have the spoons to deal with a knife. Or a cutting board. Or washing either.

And if the choice is between chopping onions from scratch and ordering takeout, or opening a bag and making soup, the bag wins.

When you’re trying to add more vegetables to your life, embrace the shortcuts that get them onto your plate. Frozen. Pre-chopped. Salad kits. Deli sides. Vegetable trays.

If it gets eaten, it’s working.

Master one bag of frozen mixed vegetables

(Ashlie Stevens ) Frozen peas and carrots

You know the one. The humble bag with peas, carrots, corn, and those tiny, anonymous green bean chunks. The vegetable mélange of childhood pot pies and plastic school cafeteria trays.

Keep one in your freezer.

That single bag can be the backbone of more dinners than you think: stirred into fried rice with a scrambled egg and a splash of soy sauce. Folded into shepherd’s pie under a blanket of mashed potatoes. Tucked into beef and barley soup. Tossed into a quick stir-fry with whatever protein you’ve got. Added to a pantry pasta when you realize the crisper drawer is a lost cause.

The beauty of the mixed bag is logistical, not aspirational. You’re not chopping four different vegetables. You’re not buying four different vegetables and watching half of them wilt. You’re opening one bag and pouring.

If you’re in a season where prep feels like the barrier, let the factory do the knife work. Your job is just heat and seasoning.

There is something deeply comforting about building a meal around a bag that costs less than a latte.

Let dip do the heavy lifting

If the phrase “eat more vegetables” conjures a supermarket tray with glommy ranch and sweating baby carrots, I’d like to gently update that image.

The vegetable isn’t the star here. The dip is.

Make finding a new favorite dip your hobby. Store-bought absolutely counts. Tribe’s red pepper and feta. Plucky Pickle dip. Trader Joe’s Everything but the Bagel dip. There has never been a better time to outsource your flavor.

Or go homemade and make it a little ritual. Chris Morocco’s Tahini-Ranch Dressing has not left my kitchen since I first tried it. Alyse Whitney’s “Big Dip Energy: 88 Parties in a Bowl for Snacking, Dinner, Dessert, and Beyond!” is basically a manifesto on the subject.

At home, I default to a simple formula: creamy + hot or herby + acidic.

This has led to some winning combinations, like:

Cream cheese + spicy giardiniera + lemon zest.
Labneh + minced hot dill pickles + a spoonful of brine.
Greek yogurt + salsa macha + lime juice.

Once you have something cold and punchy waiting in the fridge, vegetables stop feeling like a task and start feeling like a vehicle.

Become a spoon salad person

Like dip, this tip is about working with vegetables instead of against them.

If the idea of attacking a giant leaf with a fork makes you feel like an omnivorous dinosaur waiting for extinction, consider changing the format. A spoon salad doesn’t ask you to wrestle anything. It invites you to scoop.

The rule is simple: chop (or blitz) everything small enough to fit comfortably on a spoon, and sturdy enough not to slump into mush. Think less towering Caesar, more distinct pieces of confetti.

Grain and bean salads are an ideal starting point. Farro with chopped cucumber, red onion and herbs. Lentils with diced carrots, celery and parsley. Chickpeas with bell pepper, feta and olives. The key is proportion: if your base is the size of a lentil or a grain of rice, aim to chop your vegetables to roughly match. No oversized tomato wedges lurking like boulders.

Dress generously. Acid helps. So does salt. So does a little olive oil catching the light.

When everything is bite-sized and cohesive, vegetables stop feeling like a side project and start feeling like the main event. Plus, there is something deeply satisfying about eating dinner with a spoon. It feels efficient. A little smug. Entirely manageable.

Break out the blender 

(Ashlie Stevens ) Blender

Hiding vegetables in food is usually framed as a parenting tactic — a way to smuggle spinach past a suspicious toddler. But the blender deserves a rebrand. It’s not deceit. It’s transformation.

Some of my favorite soups begin as a loose armful of aromatics and whatever vegetables are lingering in the fridge. Olive oil. Salt. Red pepper flakes. Oregano. A spoonful of bouillon paste. A swipe of miso. Too much lemon zest. I roast the vegetables until they slump and caramelize. I blend them until they’re silky. I return them to the pot with a glug of coconut milk.

Suddenly, what was once a pile of odds and ends is a velvety, spoon-coating soup.

The same magic works for pasta. A little pasta water and a shower of Parmesan will turn blended squash, stewed greens, roasted red peppers — even broccoli — into something glossy and luxurious. You don’t need cream. You need friction and starch.

Veggie cream cheese? Peak form. Whipped carrots folded into ricotta? Absolutely.

Vegetables you don’t have to look at still count.

Roast, marinate, repeat

This one changed my weeknight life.

At the beginning of the summer, I started roasting trays of vegetables — squash, eggplant, red onions, bell peppers — with nothing more than olive oil, salt and pepper. I’d let them blister and slump just slightly at the edges.

Then, while they were still warm, I’d do something crucial: ladle over more golden olive oil, a shake of oregano, red pepper flakes, and a splash of red wine vinegar. Not enough to drown them. Just enough to let them marinate as they cooled.

Into the fridge they went.

For days afterward, I had a jar of deeply savory, softly tangy vegetables ready to scatter over everything. Sandwiches. Frittatas. Grain bowls. Flatbreads. Scrambled eggs. Even straight from the container, standing in front of the fridge like a person with excellent taste.

Roasting gives you sweetness. Marinating gives you punch. Together, they turn vegetables into infrastructure.

If you’ve ever wished your meals had “a little something,” this is it — already waiting.

Make dinner out of just sides and salads

Every November, we all quietly admit the truth: the sides are the real reason to show up for Thanksgiving. The creamed spinach. The honeyed yams with pecans. The stuffing with crisped edges. The zippy slaw. The turkey, meanwhile, looms — well-meaning and faintly ceremonial.

So why not skip to the good part?

As I wrote about last week, all-sides dinner — regardless of the season — isn’t a cop-out. It’s a template. One that’s generous, flexible, and quietly solves a lot of weeknight problems, including how to get in more produce.

If you’re feeding picky eaters, let everyone choose one thing they love. If vegetables feel like an obligation, tuck them into lemony beans, dense spoon salads, roasted carrots with yogurt or a produce-packed pasta that eats like comfort food. Variety does the heavy lifting. A plate composed of several small things feels abundant, even when it’s low-lift.

If you want a simple formula: one hot side, one cold, one green, one beige.

Think in color, not rules

If “eat more vegetables” starts to sound like homework, try reframing the assignment.

Don’t think in nutrients. Think in color.

Eating the rainbow only becomes moralizing if you treat it like a compliance chart. But as a creative constraint? It’s electric. Suddenly, dinner is less about virtue and more about composition.

Picture a burrito bowl layered in reds and greens: cabbage slaw, sweet corn, charred bell peppers, red onion, shredded lettuce, jalapeños. Or a Mediterranean-ish sheet pan of squash, eggplant, and onions, finished with thin-sliced cucumbers and a fistful of herbs. Or a stir-fry streaked with carrots, peas, more red cabbage and glossy peppers catching the light.

When you build around color, abundance does most of the work. A plate with five shades of something feels generous, even celebratory.

And if the only goal for tonight is: can I add one more color? — that’s enough.

Go sweet when it makes sense

Vegetables don’t only belong on the savory side of the plate. Think: Carrot cake oatmeal. Zucchini bread still warm from the oven. Honeyed roasted squash spooned over thick yogurt with a drizzle of maple syrup. We accept bananas in pancakes without blinking. We fold pumpkin into pie and call it tradition. There’s no reason carrots, squash, or zucchini can’t pull similar double duty.

Sometimes adding more vegetables isn’t about forcing them into dinner. It’s about noticing where they already want to be. If a vegetable tastes good with sugar and spice, let it. If it feels cozy in breakfast or snack territory, invite it there.More vegetables doesn’t have to mean more discipline.

Sometimes it just means more cake-adjacent situations.

And that counts.

This story originally appeared in The Bite, my weekly food newsletter for Salon. If you enjoyed it and would like more essays, recipes, technique explainers and interviews sent straight to your inbox, subscribe here.

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The now-iconic scene, notably from Walt Disney’s 1955 animated classic “Lady and the Tramp,” remains one of the most timeless cinematic moments of romance, often referenced like clockwork every Valentine’s Day. But most importantly — or, rather, interestingly — is its impact on food, transforming the humble spaghetti and meatballs into a grand act of intimacy.

In a 2015 interview with Yahoo, former Disney studio archivist Steven Vagnini shared that Disney himself scrapped the pasta scene from the film’s first storyboards before directing animator Frank Thomas changed his mind: “Walt wasn’t convinced that that would be a very clean-cut scene. As you can imagine, if you have two pets and they eat a plate of spaghetti, it’s hard to envision that being too graceful.”

Spaghetti is the kind of dish you’d be extra cautious of eating when wearing all white — or the kind of dish that parents may think twice about before giving it to their little kiddies. From the 17th to 19th centuries, spaghetti was a popular street food in Naples, typically enjoyed with one’s bare hands in large fistfuls. Munching on long strands of noodles (whether with or without any utensils), with bright red sauce dribbling down one’s chin, isn’t really the ideal vision of budding romance.

Disney’s initial skepticism and the scene’s sheer impact on food both beg the question: How did one of the messiest foods imaginable become shorthand for romance?

Ian MacAllen, author of “Red Sauce: How Italian Food Became American,” points to history. Prior to “Lady and the Tramp,” spaghetti appeared in entertainment as plain, white pasta and was utilized as a comedic prop. In Charlie Chaplin’s 1931 comedy-drama film “City Lights,” a forkful of spaghetti gets tangled with and mistakenly eaten alongside a long party streamer. And in a 1949 short film starring The Three Stooges, a bowl of spaghetti falls on a restaurant patron’s head. The spaghetti is then cut with a pair of scissors, making it seem as though the patron is wearing a wig made out of pasta.

“By the 1950’s, everyone in America was eating spaghetti with meatballs — and before that too,” MacAllen says.

Its romantic connotations, however, were believed to have been influenced by the dining culture of the early 1900s. A wave of Italian immigrants brought with them a new cuisine. Those who settled in populous cities, like New York and Chicago, even opened up their living rooms to serve home-cooked pasta and meals to support their local community.

Such living room restaurants also attracted an unlikely crowd: young people. “I would call them the hipsters of their time,” MacAllen says. “Young people were excited about the idea of having what was, at the time, seen as ‘ethnic’ food. There’s an element of adventure to it, kind of in the same way people chase down the hottest, trendiest restaurants today.”

“It also helps that Italian-American restaurants, from that time well into the 1950’s, were seen as an economical luxury,” MacAllen adds. Many of these restaurants had prix fixe menus that typically offered spaghetti, “because it was the primary shape that people were eating most of the time,” he explains.

“Spaghetti was at the forefront of adoption by America,” MacAllen continues. Compared to the shorter and more delicate shapes (trofie, orecchiette and campanelle) or stuffed variations (tortellini and ravioli), spaghetti was easy to produce and easy for people to make in their homes.

There’s also the imagery of the idyllic Italian-American restaurant, MacAllen says. That look and feel was created by Italian immigrants as a “false idea of nostalgia” when they were establishing their businesses, he states.

“I think that’s part of the romantic element of [these restaurants]. The intimate space, candlelight — the fact that we can all picture what that looks like in our heads really speaks to the penetration of that element into culture.”

Salon Food’s Francesca Giangiulio, who has covered Italian cuisine and culture extensively, echoes similar sentiments, saying that the overall romanticization of spaghetti and meatballs “comes from the general romantic nature of Italians and Italian-Americans.”

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“We’re known for being very romantic, affectionate people,” she explains. “Dark restaurants, candlelight, tablecloth restaurants, Sinatra music, that whole vibe of the ‘Italian restaurant’ lends itself well to romance, and spaghetti and meatballs just happen to be the most iconic ‘Italian’ dish.”

Katie Vine of Dinners Done Quick touches on the beautiful vulnerability of eating spaghetti with your lover — and loved ones. “The red sauce makes you think of romance, the messiness is perfect for letting your guard down just a little, and it just makes you feel pure love and simple, genuine affection with no pretenses,” she writes via email.

Take a look at the menus of Italian-American restaurants nationwide, and you’re guaranteed that spaghetti and meatballs will be on them. In anticipation of Valentine’s Day, the dish appears as a staple main — spaghetti sans any meatballs may even appear as a standalone primo piatto (or first plate). Romano’s Macaroni Grill is offering Spaghetti & Meatballs w/ Pomodoro Sauce on its Feb. 14th menu. New York City’s La Pecora Bianca has both spaghetti and meatballs, albeit as separate courses. And Bar Primi on Bowery is offering a Lady & the Tramp Dinner that includes “the best spaghetti in town” and a complimentary Prosecco toast, according to the event’s Resy page.

Maybe spaghetti isn’t romantic because it’s graceful. Maybe it’s romantic because it isn’t. It’s a dish that demands you loosen up — lean in, risk the stain, share the strand.

The post Spaghetti is a mess. So, why is it so romantic? appeared first on Salon.com.

Food & Wine recently interviewed the content creator, who explained she started giving away free made-from-scratch bread after she picked up a baking hobby. “I live with my sister, and she couldn’t keep up with the amount of bread I was producing,” Chilcott told the outlet. “I was testing new recipes, new inclusions, new techniques . . . basically pumping out loaves left, right and center with nowhere for them to go.”

Since Chilcott was also going on what she described as “a fair number of Hinge dates,” she decided to use her fresh bakes as an icebreaker.

“Giving away sourdough became this super chill, five-minute interaction where I could meet someone, hand them a loaf, and just feel out the vibe without committing to a whole date,” she said.

In a February video posted on Instagram, Chilcott shared Hinge messages and exchanges of her offering a free loaf of sourdough, along with footage of her delivering them in person.

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“So a guy that I matched with two months ago just messaged me asking if I’m still making sourdough bread,” Chilcott said in the intro. “And then he mentioned that he’s bringing his two single friends with him to pick up the bread.”

“Honestly, offering sourdough on Hinge has become such a fun, low-pressure way to meet people,” she added. “. . .I’m not overthinking anything. We just meet for a few minutes, I say, ‘Hey,’ give the bread and whatever comes from it comes from it.”

Many commenters were amused by the effort.

“If they don’t rock up like this for baked goods, what’s the point?” one person wrote, while another said, “I would say go get that bread, but it looks like you’re providing the bread.”

“Can I sign up to get some sour dough?” wrote another.

The post Looking for loaves? This home baker may be a perfect Hinge match appeared first on Salon.com.

The instinct for an all-sides dinner, it turns out, is not seasonal. It’s perennial. It shows up across the echelons of dining, from white tablecloths to vinyl booths. Steakhouse sides, for instance, routinely outshine the steak itself. (If I may suggest a small, attainable luxury: take a seat at the bar, order a martini, and request only the creamed spinach, the lobster mac, the austere wedge salad with its cold crunch. Leave the ribeye to someone else.)

I’ve long adored the old-school deli “salad plate,” a combination platter that arrives like a mosaic: pasta salad, potato salad, three-bean, maybe tuna or chicken, each scoop glossy and self-contained. Even Cracker Barrel understands the assignment. Its “Country Vegetable Plate” — a choose-your-own adventure of classic sides with biscuits or corn muffins — is proof that pleasure need not center a protein.

Across class, region and era, sides have carried the texture, the color, the delight. Perhaps it’s time to remember that when planning dinner this week. Sometimes the best dinner is one without a main dish.

My case for all-sides

You might, at this point, be tempted to give this idea the Miranda Priestly treatment. An all-sides dinner? Groundbreaking. Haven’t vegetarians been doing this quietly for decades? Haven’t we all, at one point or another, assembled a plate of bits and called it a night?

Fair enough. But stay with me.

Because after years of talking to home cooks — fielding emails, listening to grocery-store confessions, hearing the low-grade anxiety threaded through weeknight meal planning — I’ve come to understand that for a lot of us, dinner can sometimes be less about appetite and more about expectation. What and how we feed our people (or just ourselves) is tangled up in a thicket of shoulds.

I should cook more from scratch.
I should vary the menu.
I should spend less.
I should make a “real” dinner — meaning a visible protein anchoring the plate.

It’s a lot to carry into 6 p.m.

Sometimes what’s needed isn’t a new cuisine or a better strategy. It’s permission. Permission to feed everyone in a way that simply gets them fed. An all-sides meal isn’t a cop-out; it’s a template. A generous one.

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We already know, from the rise of charcuterie boards, snack plates and the much-debated “girl dinner,” that mix-and-match formats are inherently pleasurable. Variety feels abundant. A plate composed of several small, distinct things feels thoughtful even when it’s low-lift.

It also quietly solves problems. If the idea of preparing a protein feels like the final straw, skip it. Creamed spinach and mac and cheese will not stage a revolt. If you’re cooking for picky eaters, let everyone choose at least one thing they love. If vegetables feel like an obligation, tuck them into dense spoon salads, lemony beans and produce-packed pastas that eat like a treat rather than a directive.

Sides, in other words, remove the moral drama from dinner.

How to make it work in your kitchen

I now present three distinct paths to a deeply satisfying Side Night, plus a few gentle formulas to ensure you don’t end up staring down a plate of unrelieved beige. (Unless beige is your love language — which, candidly, it often is mine.)

Path 1: The Make-Ahead Week

For the planners, the batch-cookers, the Sunday-afternoon optimists: make a few big, sturdy sides once and let them earn their keep all week. Choose dishes that improve with a little time and chill — herby potato salad slicked with olive oil and dill, a lemon-bright bean salad, a vegetable-packed pasta salad studded with crunch.

Come dinner, spoon them onto a plate in the grand tradition of the old-school deli “salad plate.” Add good bread with real butter. Maybe some peak fruit. Something pickled. Suddenly, what began as leftovers reads as intentional abundance.

Path 2: The Local Deli Assist

I am helpless before a well-appointed salad case. Italian deli with its vinegary pasta salads tangled with artichokes and sun-dried tomatoes? Yes. German counter with mustard-slicked potatoes and ruby cabbage slaw? Absolutely. Southern spread with pimento cheese glowing like a beacon? Obviously. The fancy shoppy-shop with quinoa and bulgur in matte, tasteful tubs? I’m there.

The trick to turning one deli run into multiple dinners is simple and nearly foolproof: one creamy, one crunchy, one briny or fresh.

Texture does most of the heavy lifting. By night two, you will feel less like someone reheating sides and more like a person who understands composition.

Path 3: The Frozen Aisle Free-for-All

Treat the Trader Joe’s freezer aisle — or your local equivalent — as infrastructure, not a guilty pleasure. Gather your mac and cheese, your spanakopita triangles, your dumplings, your roasted vegetables in tidy bags.

Then, and this is key, add what I privately call a “freshness anchor.” Drift toward the salad kits, the deli-tub greens, the cucumbers and citrus. Slice, scatter, squeeze. The cold crunch of something raw against something molten is what makes the plate feel complete.

Another formula towards which I gravitate: one hot side, one cold, one green, one beige.

Frozen food, in this context, isn’t just a shortcut. It’s smart architecture. It holds up the roof so you don’t have to.

Which is why, in the end, side night is a form of permission. Permission to value pleasure over performance, ease over expectation. Dinner doesn’t need a star; it needs to satisfy. And sometimes the most complete meal is the one that stops trying to prove it deserves the spotlight.

The post Why sides make the best dinner appeared first on Salon.com.

But alas, Minute Maid is saying goodbye to all that, and thanks for the memories.

The beverage brand is discontinuing its lineup of frozen juice concentrates, according to a Feb. 3 announcement made by its parent company, Coca-Cola. Specific flavors include orange juice, lemonade, limeade, pink lemonade and raspberry lemonade.

In response to the recent announcement, many longtime fans took to the Internet to grieve the impending loss.

“NOOOOOO! This is my literal childhood,” commented one Instagram user under a post made by food blogger Markie Devo about the news.

“My Mom made pies using the lemonade,” wrote another. “They are getting rid of so many childhood memories! Thank you for posting.”

Another mourner cited the product’s affordability, lamenting that Minute Maid’s frozen juice concentrates were “a must” for households that relied on WIC/SNAP benefits. Many others praised them as effective mixers for alcoholic drinks.

Based on the company’s official statement, the passion in these reactions is disproportionate to the enthusiasm reflected in our grocery choices.

“We are discontinuing our frozen products and exiting the frozen can category in response to shifting consumer preferences,” a Coca-Cola Company spokesperson told PEOPLE, who went on to add, “With the juice category growing strongly, we’re focusing on products that better match what our consumers want.

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According to Minute Maid’s website, its classic orange freeze was first introduced in 1946, when it was shipped in the U.S. by Florida Foods, Inc, which was then renamed Vacuum Foods Corporation. Florida Foods had previously won a government contract to produce and sell 500,000 pounds of powdered orange juice to the U.S. Army amid World War II. That contract was ultimately cancelled since the war had ended before the product shipped.

By 1980, Minute Maid expanded its offerings to include lemonade and fruit punch.

The frozen products will be phased out in the first quarter of 2026, according to the company, with “in-store inventory available while supplies last.”

The post Minute Maid is canning its frozen juice line appeared first on Salon.com.

As January bled into February, a reader sent me a question that landed somewhere between practical and existential: “My husband and I cook most of our meals at home, for a variety of reasons surrounding cost and health. That will be the case this year for Valentine’s Day, too, because of our work schedules. How can we make Valentine’s Day, or any date night at home, feel different when we already cook at home so much?”

First: Make a plan

(Ashlie Stevens ) You’re a Big Dill to Me

Before we dive into those three ways to stretch a weeknight meal into something that actually feels like an occasion, let’s pause for a quick, radical truth: the smallest, most reliable step toward orchestrating romance is simply taking the time to plan it.

There’s a persistent myth that romance has to be effortless to count. Ignore it. If you’re with the right person, the spontaneous magic shows up anyway—from the first conversation where you realize he has duck prosciutto in his fridge and you have duck eggs in yours, and clearly they belong together, to the quiet morning years later when you know you never want anyone else to make your first cup of coffee. Crafted romance? Just as genuine.

So, don’t feel guilty — or unromantic — about taking pen to paper a few days ahead. Jot down the grocery list, check whether Trader Joe’s still has those flowers he likes or plot a small flourish that feels delightful. These little gestures are not a chore; they are the backstage work that lets the night shine. Planning does not reduce romance; it enables it.

Stretch, stretch, stretch

(Ashlie Stevens ) Hot Stuff

And now, some ways to stretch:

Stretch the scope of the meal

One of the simplest ways to make an at-home dinner feel special is to expand the scope of the meal. I don’t know about you, but most of my weeknight dinners are one-course affairs (a burrito bowl) or, on a particularly ambitious evening, two courses (salad and pasta).

When the goal is lingering, it’s worth thinking bigger — or at least wider. Not necessarily more cooking, but more moments. Think about the choreography of a good restaurant meal or a well-paced dinner party: maybe there’s bread on the table before anything else arrives, or a small amuse-bouche, or a bowl of warmed nuts and marinated olives. Soup and salad. A plate of fresh fruit and cheese instead of dessert. Really good decaf coffee. Sparkling water that feels intentional.

You don’t need to do all of this — honestly, I’d recommend reaching in just one or two directions so you don’t spend the evening in the kitchen instead of at the table. But even a small expansion can stretch both the meal and the night in a way that feels generous and unrushed.

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Stretch the ingredients

Another way to make an at-home night feel like an occasion is to splurge, just a little, on the ingredients you bring into the house. This doesn’t have to be an appetizer-to-dessert extravaganza. Instead, ask yourself: What would make the biggest difference for this one meal?

Maybe it’s really good cheese, paired with sturdy crackers and a favorite jam. Maybe it’s fresh oysters — something you’d never casually eat at home. Maybe it’s better-than-usual wine. Or maybe the splurge is reserved for the morning after: flaky pastries from the good bakery, eaten slowly with nice coffee when there’s nowhere in particular you need to be.

If spending extra on a home-cooked meal ever gives you pause, it can be surprisingly freeing to look up the price of a Valentine’s Day prix fixe menu nearby. Suddenly, the good sparkling water—or the fancy cheese—feels like a thoughtful, intentional choice.

Stretch the presentation

Finally, there’s presentation — the part where you signal, unmistakably, that this night is different. This is when you break out the real plates. The flowers. The candles. The record player and the good vinyl (so your evening isn’t punctuated by the seemingly incessant ads for toilet paper on Spotify these days).

If handwritten menus or place cards delight you, this is your moment. Yes, even just for two. I leave little notes and handwritten things for my partner all the time, and while I’ve occasionally been made to feel silly for that kind of effort in past relationships, I’ve learned something useful: the people who make you feel small for caring aren’t the people you want at the table.

So, use the good pen. Arrange the flowers. Let the table look like you planned to be here. Then sit down and enjoy what you’ve made.

Special is something you can practice

(Ashlie Stevens ) Olive U so, so much

Again, it can be tempting to believe that magical moments simply happen — that romance arrives unannounced, like a good mood or a perfect sunset. And sometimes, it does. But there’s something quietly liberating about realizing that making moments is a skill, one you can practice and refine over time.

By thinking in just these three categories — scope of the meal, scope of the ingredients, and scope of the presentation — you’re giving yourself a repeatable framework. You don’t need to do all three. In fact, you probably shouldn’t. Focusing on just one or two at a time is often more than enough to make an evening feel intentional, whether it’s Valentine’s Day, an anniversary, or a random Thursday that could use a little lift.

Take a night when expanding the scope of the meal simply isn’t possible. It’s late. The weather is terrible. You and your partner are racing each other home, and neither of you wants to cook—let alone more of anything. That’s when you look to the other categories. Maybe you splurge just a bit: a stop at the wine shop for something crisp and bubbly, Thai takeout ordered on the train ride home. Presentation is still well within reach. When you get home, you decant the spring rolls, curry, rice and noodles onto real plates, turn the lights down low, light a few candles and put on music you actually want to listen to. Suddenly, the night has a shape.

Or maybe a splurge is out of the question. That’s when you can get creative with scope instead. I’m a big fan of the “taste-test” date: set a budget (even twenty-five dollars can go surprisingly far) and pick a category. Cheese from the Murray’s discount basket. Instant noodle packets. Farmers’ market fruit. Try, taste, rank, debate. You’re still stretching the night — you’re just doing it sideways.

The point isn’t extravagance. It’s intention. Once you see “special” as something you can make on purpose, it stops feeling rare or fragile. It becomes something you can return to, again and again, whenever you want an ordinary night at home to feel like something more.

This story originally appeared in The Bite, my weekly food newsletter for Salon. If you enjoyed it and would like more essays, recipes, technique explainers and interviews sent straight to your inbox, subscribe here.

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The post A low-stress guide to date night dinner appeared first on Salon.com.

Don’t get me wrong, all of these recipes sound delicious — and I’d try them in a heartbeat. But their abundance, often limited to certain months here in the Northeast, points to a larger flaw within the greater salad discourse: there’s very little hype for salads in the winter. Indeed, winter foods seem to be limited to comfort meals. They’re hearty, warm, cheesy, creamy and indulgent — just a few words that are part of the season’s culinary vernacular. That includes mashed potatoes, chicken pot pie and casserole, or big pots of soup, chowder, gumbo and jambalaya. Salad is merely an afterthought.

Wintertime salads may be an oxymoron for some, but to me, they’re a necessity. Growing up, my mother would make a simple salad of sliced cucumbers, tomatoes, red onions, and lemons, drizzled with salt, served alongside homemade curries, spiced rice and steamed fish fillets wrapped in banana leaf parcels. The salad transcended seasons and temperatures. During the warmer months, it offered a bit of reprieve from the outdoor heat and celebrated the season’s most prized produce. During the winter, it offered some much-needed freshness — and a sense of equilibrium between the cooked and uncooked. Eating raw salads year-round was commonplace in my family’s household. Unbeknownst to us, we were also partaking in a sort of quiet rebellion, indulging in something that’s not neatly defined as cold-weather cuisine.

That’s all to say that I’m a huge fan of eating salads in the winter. It’s good for the soul and palate. Depriving yourself of that joy — especially during a time when there’s already less daylight and more gloom — is simply a disservice to your overall well-being. It’s also a disservice to the beautiful, rich produce items that winter has to offer. There’s kale, collard greens, Swiss chard, spinach and mustard greens — a medley of leafy green vegetables that are best enjoyed massaged in olive oil, slow-cooked or sautéed. There’s cabbage and brussels sprouts — cruciferous veggies that are divine pickled. There’s winter squash (butternut, acorn, spaghetti, kabocha and delicata…just to name a few), sweet potatoes and yams, which are exceptional roasted. And fruits, which range from varieties of pear to bright citruses like orange and grapefruit. The list is plentiful.

In the aftermath of a January snowstorm that brought over a foot of snow across New York City, there’s nothing more that I want than bowls upon bowls of fresh salad. To cope with the relentless cold, I’ve been living off frozen meals, namely Trader Joe’s cheese-filled eggplant pasta, and home-cooked slow-cooker chili, baked gnocchi and chicken noodle soup. It’s already quite hot inside my shoebox apartment as the radiators clank away, drowning out my upstairs neighbor’s heavy footsteps with their cacophonous symphony. I’m overstimulated and overheated. And yet, I’m too lazy to step outside to seek relief in the cold yet unusually quiet streets of my neighborhood. Instead, I find solace in food. My body needs something fresh yet dense and nourishing. I crave a salad.

I recently came across food writer and food stylist Susan Spungen’s Substack post, “Winter salads are the best salads.” It’s a defense of winter salads and includes several recipes, like one for a celery and radish salad with fig vinaigrette and another for a citrus salad with green olives, burrata and honey-roasted pistachios. They’re inspiring and tantalizing, each salad photo a beautiful showcase of visual media at its finest. The salads brim with color and vibrancy, inviting us to rethink how we nourish our bodies when we’re hit with cold weather.

“But Susan, it’s not really peak produce season, you might say,” Spungen writes. “And to that I say: think about winter produce in a different way. There are so many vegetables (and fruits) in the grocery store that are perfect for sturdier winter salads; ones that last a few days even, and work well as a side dish to brighten up your plate or with a protein plopped on top for lunch.”

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I’ve adopted a similar philosophy when making my go-to recipe for a winter salad. There’s not much of a formula to my assembly. I start by preparing my warm ingredients, which are roasted sweet potatoes. I then add my leafy greens (kale and arugula) and layer with a medley of toppings that are simple and readily available. They are a mix of fresh and preserved items along with seasonal and evergreen staples.

There’s a lot that goes into this salad. So much so that I was struggling to come up with an adequate name for my recipe. At its core, this salad is abundant, which feels apt for a winter salad.

As Salon’s Ashlie D. Stevens writes in her own guide for putting together the ultimate winter salad, “Winter salads demand a little more finesse than their warm-weather counterparts, but the effort is worth it. They are not just bowls of food; they are architecture, contrast, and comfort all in one. And if you build them with a few simple steps, they can be hearty, balanced, and endlessly satisfying.”

The post We should be eating more salads this winter appeared first on Salon.com.

If we linger here with a pen and paper — just for fun — and begin to take these soups apart, something interesting happens. Patterns emerge. Every good soup, no matter how humble or ornate, seems to rely on at least a few of the same quiet categories: something aromatic to begin, something hearty to anchor it, something savory for depth. There’s often softness, too, ingredients that relax into the pot, and finally, a finishing touch, the small flourish that makes the whole thing feel complete. Maybe oil, herbs, cream, acid. The soup equivalent of putting on lipstick before leaving the house.

This isn’t just my fondness for lists revealing itself. Learning to recognize these elements — and how they work together — offers a simple, forgiving framework for making soup at home. It turns scraps, leftovers, and good instincts into something cohesive and deeply satisfying. Once you know what you’re looking for, the question stops being What recipe should I follow? and becomes: What do I already have? 

So let’s pause our imaginary walk and actually name what we’re seeing. This is the part where soup stops feeling mysterious and starts feeling friendly. Most soups are built from a handful of elements that show up again and again, no matter the cuisine or the weather. Think of them less as rules than as roles, ingredients stepping in to do a particular job.

Aromatics are where things begin: ginger, garlic, onions and their cousins; the soft clatter of mirepoix or soffritto; a bloom of spices warming in fat.

Hearty elements give the soup its backbone—potatoes, rice, dumplings, lentils, beans, even torn bread—ingredients that make a bowl feel like a meal.

Savory components provide depth and resonance: broth or stock, meat, mushrooms, tomato paste, miso, soy.

Soft elements are the vegetables and greens that relax into the pot, yielding sweetness, color and ease. And then there are the finishing touches: cream, fresh herbs, a slick of oil, a splash of vinegar—the small, deliberate choices that make a soup feel finished rather than merely done.

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Of course, ingredients are flexible. A pea might be hearty or soft, depending on how you use it, and that’s part of the pleasure. Most satisfying soups combine two to four of these elements, overlapping just enough to feel generous without becoming crowded.

Take beef chili with beans: it’s aromatic with onions, garlic, and spices; hearty thanks to the beans; savory with beef, stock, and tomato paste; soft with tomatoes. A creamy roasted red pepper soup, by contrast, might rely on aromatics and stock, lean heavily into soft vegetables, and finish with a swirl of cream. Different soups, same underlying logic.

How this works in your kitchen

Back home, the exercise becomes even more useful. Before you reach for a recipe — or a grocery app — take a minute to assess what you already have. I like to keep a small notebook in the kitchen for this sort of thing, a place to jot down ideas while the kettle boils or something softens on the stove. Think of it as reverse shopping: instead of asking what you need, you’re noticing what’s already there.

Start by scanning your pantry, fridge and freezer for ingredients that fit each category. Don’t forget to pop open your leftovers containers, too. Aromatics first, then hearty elements, savory ones, soft vegetables, finishing touches. You don’t need one from every group; you’re just looking for promising overlaps. Italian sausage, sun-dried tomatoes, kale and half a portion of leftover restaurant tortellini? That’s a soup waiting to happen. The pieces already know each other.

If nothing immediately announces itself, let your aromatics—or whatever protein you have on hand—do the decision-making for you. Ginger and chickpeas might nudge you toward a warmly spiced, curry-leaning soup. Onion and bacon tend to point elsewhere: perhaps a baked potato soup, or a congee-style porridge finished with a fried egg. Again, the logic is less What should I make? and more What wants to be made from what I have?

Seeing soup this way also makes it easier to diagnose what’s missing.

If you’re light on fresh aromatics, you can layer that flavor in later with garlic or onion powder, or finish with chopped chives or scallions. If your pot feels thin or underpowered, it may be craving something savory — a spoonful of bouillon, a splash of soy sauce, a handful of mushrooms. Many a pot of chicken noodle soup or beef stew has been quietly improved by a generous smear of white miso stirred in at the end.

From there, the path from countertop to soup is usually a simple one. Begin with heat and fat, then add your aromatics, giving them time to soften and bloom. This is not the moment to rush; most good soups start quietly, with onions turning translucent or spices warming until they smell like themselves. Add your hearty elements next, along with enough liquid to cover them, and let the pot settle into a gentle simmer. Time does a surprising amount of work here, coaxing starches to tenderness and flavors to meet each other halfway.

Savory elements can come early or late, depending on what they are — meat and tomato paste benefit from time, while miso, soy and other delicate sources of umami are often better stirred in toward the end. Soft vegetables and greens usually follow once the soup is nearly there, wilting and yielding without losing their shape. Throughout, taste and season as you go. Salt is not a final act but an ingredient in its own right, added gradually, adjusted patiently. When everything feels cohesive, finish with whatever bright or creamy flourish you’ve set aside. Then let the soup rest for a moment.

Like most good things, it gets better once it’s had time to settle.

This is how soup becomes less of a dish and more of a method. Once you know the order of operations, once you trust time and salt to do their quiet work, almost anything can be coaxed into a satisfying bowl. Not every soup will be transcendent — but most will be good, and many will be better than you expected.

The post Make a soup out of (almost) anything appeared first on Salon.com.

I called Barcelona home for a spell, and I feel the draw to cap this visit by seeing an old doughy friend. I stand outside Boldú’s flagship shop in Eixample to take it all in. One window houses all manner of ads for what they’re trying to push. The barbecue chicken sandwich notwithstanding, behind the next window is the object of my affection. A phalanx of Boldúmen, lined up ready to sacrifice themselves for the good. Boldúman was born to make people happy. Stay Sweet is the motto. The sight of the full battalion brings grins to every passerby.

Boldú Bakery opened in Barcelona in 1939. It was a good year for bread, and a bad year for everything else. Spain had just finished beating itself in civil war. Franco was consolidating power. Rationing made food scarce. But in the neighborhood of Gràcia, the Boldú family kept baking.

At first, it was the basics: crusty rounds, lean baguettes, rustic grainy loaves, the kind of bread that made a meal stretch. Later, the counter began to crowd with flaky croissants, sticky pastry, brioches with amber sheen. They made flatbreads in spring and almond cookies in fall. You could tell the season by the craft. But donuts? Those came later.

Fried dough has scratched guilty pleasure for millennia. The ancient Greeks did it with honey and wine. Romans fried theirs in pork fat. In Spain, fritter-like buñuelos showed up with the Moors, and by some reports, churros were a Chinese idea that was later dragged through molten chocolate by hungry Madrileños or wandering shepherds or both. But the donut –the real donut– has more than one lineage.

In Germany, the berliner was a round, jam-filled ball with no hole — fluffy, sweet, capped in sugar. Austrian cousins called it Krapfen. In France, booule de Berlin. They crept across the border and Spain met them as berlinas by the mid-20th century, mostly in quiet corners of Catalonia and the Basque country. Then beyond. They landed like stowaways. Never known enough to replace buñuelos or churros, but too good to ignore.

In America, some say the round one with the hole was born aboard a ship. In 1847, a sailor named Hanson Gregory had a genius of a mother. She punched out a hole in the traditional berliner and yes, it cooked more evenly, but notably, young Hanson could store them on the helm spokes. Just keep a steady course, Captain! Donut destiny and by the 1970s, Spain saw the hole-y truth.

Boldú took these seriously and blended the two pastry technologies. Their dough, slow-fermented, eggy, kissed with citrus, closer to brioche than sponge. Then ring-cut, fried, and glazed. And those donut holes? They got a little candy star and a dollop of filling, plump and honest like their German ancestor. But in 2012, something changed.

They cut the dough into people. Think gingerbread men, only soft, chubby, and less fearful.

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Nobody quite knows who decided to give them icing eyes and smirks. The family is tight-lipped, the bakers even more so. The story goes quiet in the telling, which only adds to the magic. But suddenly, there they were. Men of dough. Some smiling, some drowsy, some lopsided. All irresistible. Their visceral cream of pistachio, hazelnut, dark or white chocolate, lemon, raspberry, cinnamon apple, caramel, or speculous. The occasional candy and nut coating to match the goop hidden inside. Their holiday attire celebrating Pride month or Saint George’s dragon kill, or Jesus’s birthday. Their custom lettering, expression in sugar, or giant-sized for parties. Indeed, there is also a Boldúgirl.

There are shining temples to baking in this city, to be sure. Places where glazes gleam like car paint, espumas suspend among dough sheets, croissants of a million layers. But Boldú feels lived-in. Human-scale. No Boldúman is perfect. Coating cools while dripping from an arm, smiles askew send mixed signals, smeared eyes like they’d been up late partying with the tarts, blemishes, cracked sugary skin. We all relate. And that appeals.

There’s always a place to rest your angst here and a staffer who pours a coffee better than the barrista nextdoor. I belly up to the counter and call for my usual. One classic glazed, or “naked” Boldúman. The name makes me giggle like a kid. One original capped with white chocolate and footed with dark. Both unfilled. The truest to buttery brioche in flavor and texture, and through its lightness, one could almost convince oneself this is breakfast. I appease the meal gods by adding a ham and cheese bocadillo to my order, a little salty with my sweet. And a café con leche.

(Howie Southworth) Boldúman, with a view

My donut dealer for the morning, Karla, places my Boldúmen in a box with a kind of reverence. “Buen provecho,” she says, and I nod, thanking her for being my enabler. I carry my fix to a street side table facing Carrer de Provença and sit quietly, sip my café con leche and nibble my bocadillo, and watch more passersby point and smile. Go ahead. Buy donuts. I could grab another espresso to cruelly dunk my Boldúmen, but I have a better idea.

To my increasingly normal perch atop an NH Collection hotel, this time the Calderón high above Rambla de Catalunya, I take Boldúman on a journey. Not for a glass of Rioja with a view. Not to mingle with the Gen Z crowd making this skybar their personal VIP section. But to snap a portrait of one delicious little donut dude with a backdrop of the city that embraces him. Then I bite his head off.

Food ties you to place. Marks a moment. Tells a story without subtitles. Boldúman –a German doughboy with Catalan flair, ridiculous and adorable– is one of Barcelona’s best stories, seldom heard beyond its borders. Food gives shape to memory. And sometimes, if you’re lucky, it gives that memory crooked eyes and a weird smile.

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In my family, birthdays arrive in a cheerful pileup. From August through November, we move from my mom’s to mine to my siblings’, with only a brief intermission before my dad’s rolls around in April. The result is that I grew up something of an at-home birthday party enthusiast. Our immediate family alone was large enough to create a built-in sense of occasion; add a handful of friends you actually like enough to invite into your living room, and suddenly there’s cake on the counter, ice cream sweating gently in its carton, and a feeling I’ve never quite been able to replicate elsewhere. Being surrounded by people you enjoy, eating something sweet, feels like its own small alchemy. These gatherings — casual, imperfect, warmly familiar — have always registered in my body as real celebrations.

That’s the renaissance I’m interested in: birthdays that feel intimate without being precious, special without being stressful. Parties where food does what it has always done best — lower the stakes, soften the edges and remind us that joy doesn’t have to be optimized to be real. With a few thoughtful updates (and a wholehearted embrace of the sheet cake), the at-home birthday party still has everything it needs to feel meaningful again.

The snacks

(Ashlie Stevens ) Birthday sandwich

An adult birthday party does not need a theme — but it is nice when the food speaks the same language. A taco-and-nacho bar. A tinned fish and olive spread. An all-dessert situation if cake feels like too much pressure. Coherence, not choreography, is the goal.

If I could offer one enduring piece of hosting advice, though, it’s this: a sandwich party is party gold.

You can go maximalist — an Alison Roman–style ham party, complete with pickled vegetables, fancy mustard and crusty bread — or you can go blissfully minimal with a giant sub sliced into generous hunks. Either way, sandwiches hit that rare sweet spot: filling but unfussy, communal without being precious, and universally understood.

A few years ago, I argued that giant focaccia sandwiches are the new party subs, and I stand by it.

Focaccia, with its airy, spongy interior and crisp, olive-oil–slicked crust, is equal parts hearty and delicate, an ideal sandwich bread if there ever was one. During the early days of the pandemic, it became a perennial favorite of the viral-baking set, in part because it’s deeply satisfying without being especially finicky (a relief, compared to sourdough or brioche). The payoff is high, the vibes are generous, and it feeds a crowd beautifully.

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Here’s the basic setup: Make your focaccia and let it cool slightly. I really love Claire Saffitz’s focaccia recipe from “Dessert Person,” which bakes in a standard half-sheet pan and gets gorgeously golden around the edges. Once it’s cool to the touch, use a serrated knife to slice it horizontally, creating a top and bottom layer for your sandwich.

Then comes the fun part. I tend to go Italian-ish — thin slices of prosciutto, a thicker layer of finocchiona, mortadella, sliced tomatoes, provolone, and a swipe of homemade broccoli rabe pesto — but this is an open invitation to follow your own cravings.

Return the assembled sandwich to the oven just long enough for the cheese to melt. That’s it.

Then, slice and serve. One half-sheet pan easily yields a dozen small sandwiches (or six more substantial ones), and the whole operation scales up effortlessly. You can even assemble everything the day before and simply warm the sandwiches right as guests arrive — a hosting gift to your future self.

And if you want something even lighter, or more mix-and-match friendly: enter the tartine.

Tartines are the unsung heroes of party food. They’re elegant without being fussy, easy to assemble, easy to eat without utensils (true party gold), and — if you care about such things — extremely photogenic.

A few top-tier combinations:

• Whipped ricotta + roasted tomatoes + olive oil + flaky salt
• Smoked salmon + crème fraîche + dill + lemon zest
• Avocado + pickled onion + chili flakes
• Prosciutto + fig jam + arugula + a drizzle of balsamic

Put a few of these out, slice a big sandwich, and suddenly you’ve created abundance without overwhelm — which, in many ways, is the whole point.

The punch bowl 

In an era of increasingly coy, event-specific signature cocktails — and the quiet pressure of an open bar — there’s something deeply charming about a punch bowl. It’s communal by design, a little retro and refreshingly unbothered by trends. Whether you take this as an excuse to finally break out your grandmother’s crystal (a birthday is absolutely reason enough), or opt for one of the sturdy plastic versions from the party store, the punch bowl signals abundance without fuss.

Of course, you can make it boozy. A generously fruit-dotted sangria — red or white — is hard to beat, especially when it’s meant to be ladled rather than poured. Punch, after all, is about generosity, not precision.

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But I’m especially fond of using the punch bowl as a way to elevate a non-alcoholic drink into something that feels genuinely celebratory. The liquid itself can stay simple. One of my go-tos: excellent sparkling water (I have opinions—message me if you want my ranked list, with notes), plus a splash of seasonal citrus juice. Blood orange in winter. Meyer lemon in early spring. Lime when things start to feel summery.

Then comes the real magic: the ice.

Freeze citrus peels, berries, fresh herbs or edible flowers into ice cubes and let them do the heavy lifting. Suddenly, what could have been “just sparkling water” becomes a showstopper — floating jewel-toned, botanical, quietly elegant. People will comment on it. They’ll ask how you did it. You’ll get full credit for something that took very little effort.

It’s a reminder that not everything special needs to be complicated. Sometimes the difference between everyday and celebratory is just a ladle, a bowl and the good ice cubes.

The cake

(Ashlie Stevens ) Sheet cake

When I casually mentioned this at-home birthday renaissance to a few friends while working on this guide, their reactions were nearly unanimous: excitement, relief — and then, almost immediately, anxiety about the cake.

Cake, it turns out, carries a lot of psychic weight. Choosing it. Baking it. Icing it. Storing it. Transporting it intact. Serving it without incident. The traditional layer cake, especially when it’s for someone else, can feel like a high-stakes performance. On the other end of the spectrum, professionally designed cakes are undeniably beautiful — but they can also cost a pretty penny, and rightly so. Not everyone wants their celebration to hinge on a single, expensive dessert.

So first, permission to opt out entirely.

If cake isn’t your thing, or the idea fills you with dread, skip it. One of my favorite birthday parties I’ve ever attended featured a pie bar instead — four or five of the guest of honor’s favorite varieties, plus bowls of whipped cream, cinnamon and strong coffee. Doughnuts work. Cheesecake works. Cupcakes work. A birthday is not a test; it’s an occasion.

But if a birthday doesn’t quite feel like a birthday without cake — and you want to make it yourself — I have one strong recommendation: embrace the sheet cake.

The sheet cake is generous. It’s forgiving. It doesn’t require architectural ambition or a steady hand with a piping bag. It wants to be shared. Frost it however you like, even if that means uneven swoops and visible crumbs. Let it be joyful rather than stressful. This is not a wedding cake; it’s a celebration among friends.

And let’s be honest: the best pieces are the corners. Everyone knows this.

The decor (and games)

One of the more challenging birthday parties I’ve attended as an adult unfolded like this: an icebreaker game, followed immediately by a game of “Risk,” followed by “The Settlers of Catan.” By the time everyone’s settlers were dutifully collecting wool and ore, the room had taken on the quiet, dazed feeling of a long-haul flight. Revelers were ready to call it a night.

Which is to say: not every gathering needs structure. And very few birthday parties benefit from too much of it.

My advice is simple, and I mean that sincerely. A good playlist goes a long way. Balloons and streamers are old-school cool for a reason. A few candles or string lights can do more for the mood than any elaborate setup. The goal is atmosphere, not agenda.

If you do want to have games on hand — for yourself or your guests — I stand by the advice I gave around Thanksgiving: think of them less as activities and more as gentle invitations.

For the socially anxious mingler (and there is almost always at least one), it’s a kindness to offer a soft landing somewhere outside the kitchen. A sprawling 1,000-piece puzzle with a painterly scene. Elegant adult coloring sheets. A beautiful Audubon matching game with delicately illustrated birds. A handful of old-school metal brainteasers that encourage people to hum thoughtfully to themselves. It helps create a place to land with a drink and a snack, without feeling adrift.

These are not games that demand participation. They’re there to be picked up and put down, joined and abandoned, returned to later. Often, that’s all someone really needs to feel at ease. Unless, of course, the point of the party is the game — which is an entirely different and equally valid proposition. (Hosting a board game night, after all, might deserve its own “Bite” guide.)

For birthdays, though, the truest success metric is simple: people linger. They drift. They stay longer than they meant to. The decor and games should quietly support that — never insist upon it.

Read more

from The Bite

• How to be a neighbor, one dish at a time
• Meals that help when life gets hard
• In defense of jarred garlic

 

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Miami, where a friend of mine is based, seemed like the obvious choice.

The city delivered on spectacle. I celebrated my birthday at a gold-flecked restaurant where bananas were fried and layered with horseradish cream, topped with loads of caviar, and served alongside plantain waffles — an indulgence that (despite not being my cup of tea) certainly was celebratory in every way.

I’d passed through the Miami area before — briefly, on the way to or from cruises — enjoying the food and warmth without ever settling in. This time, I had a whole week to spend with two of my favorite humans. We stayed in Miami Beach but ventured into the city and the greater Miami area. Miami is bursting with things to do, from nature escapades to lazy days spent poolside, with a wide range of restaurants offering indulgence after indulgence to spendthrift patrons, plus some of the best customer service you’ll experience.

There were oceanfront balconies, endless rain, and spectacular adventures with my wife and our friend, which will provide lasting memories. Even when the weather didn’t cooperate, Miami did.

What follows is a guide to where we stayed, ate and wandered — and why Miami, even when it rains, is a place that knows how to celebrate.

Where to stay

Maison Felix – Tucked into quieter North Beach, this recently opened 29-room boutique hotel feels like a private oasis. Lush trees, flowering plants, and shaded courtyards frame the two-story property, whose centerpiece is a sparkling walk-in pool with direct access from lower-floor rooms and balconies overlooking the courtyard.

Our bed was comfortable, bathroom spacious, with double sinks and a rainshower, and the room spacious. Interiors are moody yet playful: turquoise accents, burnt-orange walls, and curated furnishings and art. The beach is just a few blocks away, and the hotel can arrange umbrellas and chairs if you prefer a day in the sun.

(Maison Felix ) Pool at Maison Felix

Loews Miami Beach – At the heart of bustling South Beach, Loews recently completed a major renovation, redesigning its 790 rooms across two towers and introducing new dining concepts. Our rooms were outfitted in calm, airy colors, with a super comfortable bed and a unique standout: an oceanfront balcony that feels secure even if you’re afraid of heights like I am, offering expansive views of the pool and Atlantic beyond.

Rao’s Miami Beach is the most famous on-site option — reserve early if you want a table — but The Sushi Bar, Bistro Collins, and Preston’s Market for breakfast round out the dining offerings.

For some much-needed downtime with friends, book an adults-only SOAK cabana: a private air-conditioned indoor space with your own personal bathroom and shower, a semi-private hot tub, rooftop sun lounge, and on-demand drinks delivered straight to you. We loved the whole coconut, spiked with rum, and the beautiful burger we quickly demolished.

(Loews) Balcony room Loews Miami Beach

Le Particulier Miami – This newly opened Mid-Beach gem embraces Art Deco whimsy with pastel pinks and purples, brass accents and flamingo-covered wallpaper. Rooms are modest but comfortable, offering a quiet base for days spent on the water or wandering the city. The hotel is still ironing out minor kinks—sticky door codes, a slippery entrance in the rain, an unfinished on-site restaurant—but its location and attentive service make it a practical, stylish and affordable alternative to the flashier options.

Where to eat

Barra Vieja – Barra Vieja is a coastal Mexican restaurant in the heart of Doral, just outside of Miami. A seafood-forward menu is served in a beautiful dining room that continues the coastal theme, with blue walls, light-colored wood and an airy atmosphere. The drinks are excellent, whether you opt for a frozen margarita with a Tajin rim in an assortment of flavors or any of the other fruit-forward options on the menu.

It’s an excellent restaurant to enjoy with friends, allowing you to sample more of the extensive menu. We especially enjoyed the chunky guacamole served with crispy pork belly, the yellowfin tuna tostados served with a pepita salsa matcha, and the butterflied bronzino served with a tomato avocado salsa and house-made tortillas. Though the meal took a while, the service was excellent — and the wait was spent thoroughly enjoying the little bit of warmth we could and wonderful company.

Ikigai Sushi Bar -Ikigai Sushi Bar sits on a small, man-made island just off downtown Miami. No boat required — just a short walk or ride across a bridge, and you’re there. The restaurant is the latest from Grupo Ikigai, which operates 12 restaurants in Mexico City and is led by chef and partner Ignacio Carmona, who trained in Japan.

Inside, the dining room is light, modern, and airy—an easy place to settle in and feast. The nigiri is where Ikigai really shines, but start with the freshly grated wasabi, especially if you’ve never tried it before. It’s magical. Splurge on the ikura, marinated and served in half a lemon, which you squeeze into the roe for a bright, decadent bite. Other standouts included flamed A5 wagyu topped with foie gras and melt-in-your-mouth hamachi in yuzu and soy, finished with serrano and a dollop of sriracha.

Skip the maki and hand rolls and opt instead for the mixed tempura, featuring shrimp (no heads), fish and peppers. The batter is delightfully airy, everything perfectly cooked, and a delicious addition to the meal.

(Jodyann Morgan) Mixed tempura at Ikigai Sushi Bar

La Cañita Beach – Right across from the beach with a lovely outdoor seating area, the vibe and service at La Cañita Beach are immaculate. It’s open for lunch, which we enjoyed, but I do wish we had gone for dinner, when live music fills the restaurant. The menu takes inspiration from the Caribbean and South America, but really leans into the Cuban cuisine for which Miami is known.

We especially enjoyed the empanadas criollas, beef with olives and raisins and deboned whole-fried yellowtail, served with Haitian pikliz, a pickled vegetable condiment, and Guasacaca, a Venezuelan avocado salsa. We sat outside under a roof, enjoying the weather while being protected from the rain that followed us throughout our trip.

(Jodyann Morgan) Fried yellow tail at La Cañita

Uchiko Miami Beach – There’s nothing traditional about Uchiko Miami Beach. The Japanese-inspired restaurant offers an extensive sushi menu and much more, all set inside a striking space with ample seating, a green-tiled bar, layered textures, an open-concept kitchen, and plenty of greenery and warm wood.

Nigiri arrives already dressed, accompanied by specific instructions on how to enjoy it, and the fish truly melts in your mouth. The selection is impressive, too, including Tasmanian trout—something I haven’t seen elsewhere. The maki rolls are flavorful, the crudo bright and refreshing, and there are plenty of vegetable-forward dishes as well, like tempura eggplant and kombu carrots.

Don’t skip the hearth-charred steaks, even if the portions lean smaller. We loved the coulotte, served with roasted kale purée and bok choy, which felt positively decadent. Dessert rarely steals my heart, but the brûléed banana sundae—made with coconut banana sorbet and crisp plantain chips—was incredible, and the perfect way to end the meal.

ORO – I celebrated my birthday at ORO, where the experience—particularly the service—was as memorable as the setting itself. The restaurant is unapologetically gilded, from the walls to the Japanese kintsugi–inspired plates, which reference the tradition of repairing broken pottery with gold. There’s a rooftop terrace, as well as a sprawling second-floor dining room, where we soaked up one of the rare warm, dry evenings we had in Miami.

ORO delights in doing things a little differently. Its bananas-and-caviar service is a case in point: fried bananas layered with horseradish cream and topped with two ounces of ossetra caviar, served alongside plantain waffles and a fermented banana-peel butter. It was theatrical and unexpected—more successful for some at the table than others—but undeniably memorable.

The rest of the meal leaned indulgent and playful. Birria gyoza arrived swimming in bone marrow consommé, delivering a concentrated hit of richness. Ora King salmon crudo was dressed in passionfruit aguachile with Tabasco oil, while a uni carbonara used creamy sea urchin in place of guanciale, finished with smoked trout roe.

We ended the night with ORO’s dessert omakase, a sweeping sampling from the restaurant’s extensive pastry menu, complete with a candle. Desserts, sauces, fruit, and ice cream arrived arranged on a custom gold tray—equal parts presentation and practicality, holding each component neatly in place.

(Jodyann Morgan) Caviar service at ORO

Apocalypse BBQ – What began as a side hustle at the start of the pandemic, Apocalypse BBQ brings Caribbean and South American flavors to the world of barbecue. The restaurant doesn’t take reservations, and the internet will warn you that weekend seating is nearly impossible. But at noon on a Wednesday, tables were open and diners were ushered right in.

The menu feels comfortingly familiar—smoked brisket, wings, pulled pork, sausage, and all the sides you’d expect—but it’s the sauces that really deliver the flavors Apocalypse is celebrating. We all loved the pork ribs, rubbed with cafecito, smoked to perfection, and finished with a sticky oro negro barbecue sauce. And I don’t usually like ribs.

Cornbread arrives shaped like the restaurant’s skull logo, studded with whole corn kernels and drizzled with honey (a step I’d personally skip). I’m a mac-and-cheese loyalist, and Apocalypse’s version—loaded with scallions and bacon bits—did not disappoint.

(Jodyann Morgan) BBQ Tray at Apocalypse BBQ

STK Steakhouse – STK Steakhouse is a dimly lit, high-glam space dressed in cherry blossoms and a black-and-white palette, anchored by white leather round booths. Located inside the 1 Hotel on South Beach, it’s a popular destination serving a classic steakhouse menu. While starters include salads, a raw bar, and more, it was the crab cake that truly delighted me—and it was excellent.

Steaks are the centerpiece here, arranged by size on the menu, with Australian and Japanese wagyu also on offer. We went with a ribeye, paired with macaroni and cheese, Brussels sprouts, and another standout: creamy mashed potatoes.

What really set STK apart, though, was the service. We laughed, joked, and genuinely enjoyed ourselves, but in a way that elevated the experience rather than distracting from it. Dessert was the Cloud, a cotton candy-based treat arriving with a flambéed, Instagram-worthy presentation—and it was just as tasty as it was shareable.

What to do

Unrivaled – Unrivaled in a relatively new women’s basketball league in its second season, primarily based in the Miami Metro area. All games are played at the newly minted “Sephora Arena” in a three-by-three configuration, resulting in high-energy, fast-paced games. If you love women’s sports, basketball — or can never get through a more traditional basketball game — you need to get tickets if you’re in the area. Frankly, I’ve never been much into basketball, but this was a blast.

Boat Charter – When in Miami, getting on the water is simply a non-negotiable. And if you’re traveling with friends, a private boat charter from GetYourGuide is in order (just pay close attention to the extra fees in the listing). The 27′ Crownline has enough seating for 10 people, both in the front and the back of the boat, along with a few seats under an awning, perfect for rain or hiding from the midday sun.

A cooler with ice is provided, so bring all the snacks and beverages your heart desires for a few hours on the water. Now, it was pouring rain when we went out, but that didn’t stop us, and we had a hell of a time.  We were determined to make it to Raccoon Island, and along the way spotted dolphins, iguanas, carnivorous birds and more, both coming and going.

Angel Nail Salon –  A spa day is always a good day, especially when you’re spending time with friends—and it doesn’t have to break the bank. Angel Nail Salon, just 10 minutes from Apocalypse BBQ, offers hair and nail services at a great price point, making it an ideal stop for manicures, pedicures, or even a blowout before a night out.

I rarely straighten my mop of thick, curly hair, and when I do, it’s not always a great experience. That wasn’t the case here. My hair was washed, blown out, and flat-ironed—and it lasted more than five days. My wife and friend both got manicures and left with perfectly polished nails. The pedicure was fine, though it was the one service I wasn’t completely thrilled with—but at such a reasonable price point, there wasn’t much to complain about. Bonus: they offer an impressive nail polish selection that’s easy to browse online, so you can choose your exact shade before you even arrive.

J’Adore Miami Beach – J’Adore serves dinner, but that’s not where the restaurant truly shines. It’s the music, the curated productions, the cocktails, and the standout service that make J’Adore a can’t-miss South Beach destination.

From Thursday through Sunday, J’Adore hosts themed, cabaret-style performances staged right on the bar at the center of the dining room. Each night brings a different vibe — Thursdays feature burlesque, Fridays transform into Havana Night with Latin music and dance, and the themes continue throughout the weekend. Sip on a cocktail, enjoy a bite (the perfectly seared scallops are a standout), and settle in as performers sing, twirl, and shimmy just inches from your seat.

The showmanship, glamour, costumes, and live vocals are genuinely breathtaking, and before long, you may find yourself invited to join the fun on the dance floor. Before you leave, don’t forget to look up — the ceiling is a masterpiece in its own right.

(Jodyann Morgan) Scallops at J’Adore Miami Beach

Everglades Airboat Ride – The Everglades are just 45 minutes from Miami Beach and absolutely worth the trip. On a previous visit, we booked seats on a public airboat and had a blast—but saw zero alligators, much to our disappointment. This time, we went with a private airboat through Viator, and wow—the experience was incredible. We spotted four alligators and a flurry of birds, including Great Blue Herons, Sandhill Cranes, and even Purple Gallinules. It was breezy, relaxing, and the perfect way to spend a morning immersed in nature.

(Jodyann Morgan) On the airboat after our tour

Flamingo Gardens – If you don’t get a chance to see flamingos in the wild (and even if you do), Flamingo Gardens is a must. This 60-acre wildlife sanctuary and botanical garden is beautiful to wander, and you could easily spend a full day exploring. If time is tight, take the free narrated tram ride and stroll through the 25,000-square-foot open-air aviary, home to over 250 injured birds—including pelicans—that can’t be returned to the wild. Flamingo Gardens is just 20 minutes from Fort Lauderdale Airport, making it an excellent pit stop before heading home.

The post Miami Beach still knows how to celebrate appeared first on Salon.com.

Vowing to a period of sobriety isn’t a new concept — nor is it only reserved for the beginning of the year. But the concept of Dry January, as a global campaign, was introduced in 2013 by the independent organization Alcohol Change UK, which aims to reduce harm caused by alcohol consumption. Last year, 47 percent of individuals who drink alcohol at least once a month reported that they’ve participated in the initiative before, per a report from Oar Health. Millennials ages 29 to 44 were determined to be the highest demographic to attempt Dry January, with 51 percent of individuals saying they’ve tried it.

Alcohol consumption, as a whole, has been on the decline in recent years. According to Gallup’s annual Consumption Habits survey, conducted in July 2025, the percentage of U.S. adults who say they consume alcohol has gone down to 54%, which is the lowest statistic in nearly 90 years. This trend is especially prevalent amongst young adults, ages 18 to 34, who have been drinking less alcohol over the past two decades. A 2023 survey from Gallup found that the percentage of young adults who say they never drink has dropped 10 points over that same time period, from 72% in 2001-2003 to 62% in 2021-2023.

Perhaps a common misconception about non-alcoholic beverages, also known as mocktails, is that they are inherently boring, lacking the flavor complexities found in cocktails. Or, they are too juvenile, limited to sugary sodas, fruit juices and syrups. But that’s far from the truth. Salon Food recently spoke with Anthony Caporale, Director of Spirits Education at the Institute of Culinary Education, who shared his favorite ways to turn popular cocktails into elevated mocktails.

“If you want to master how to remove something from a drink, master how to use it first,” Caporale says. “You’ve got to understand cocktail chemistry before you can successfully remove the alcohol and make mocktails.”

Here are eight cocktails-turned-mocktails to enjoy this month:

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You pause, briefly, taking stock of the remaining contents of the fridge. The clamshell of greens that didn’t quite make it. The half-used block of cheese. A subtle wave of shame rises — small but persistent — cresting as you imagine your child saying, or your partner thinking, “We’re having this again?”

But of course, that doesn’t actually happen.

Your third-grader happily plows through a plate of rigatoni with meat sauce, one of the few meals he will eat without protest, blissfully unaware that extra vegetables have been blended in for structural support. He chatters about field day. When your partner gets home late — after a long run, a bad day, or both — they spot the leftovers in the fridge and visibly relax. They mouth thank you as they spear a noodle one-handed, already fielding another call from the office.

Importantly, you enjoy it, too. It’s the kind of meal you could eat three nights a week — not forever, but for now, while winter still feels long. It’s warm and hearty and immediately satisfying, the thing you want the moment you shrug off your coat and kick your boots into a corner. That it comes together in a single pot feels less like a compromise than a weeknight gift.

If the shame feels oddly familiar, that’s because it didn’t come from nowhere. Somewhere along the way, dinner became a quiet referendum on effort, creativity, even care. To cook the same thing repeatedly — to rely on a short list of meals that work — can begin to feel like a failure of imagination, or worse, a failure of love. We are surrounded by the suggestion, rarely stated outright but hard to miss, that dinnertime should be an ongoing exercise in novelty.

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Food culture, after all, is built on the promise of the new: new recipes, new flavors, new condiments, new versions of ourselves. This is not, for the most part, a sinister enterprise. Many of the recipe developers, writers and cooks driving this cycle are motivated by genuine enthusiasm and a sincere desire to help people feed themselves better (I know I am); their care is real, and often deeply felt. But the pace is ultimately set by food corporations and consumer brands, whose business depends on persuading us that what we already eat is due for an upgrade. It is, after all, difficult to sell people new things if they are content with what they already make for dinner.

And so we learn, almost accidentally, to confuse repetition with stagnation, when in fact, for many of us, it is repetition that makes eating feel possible at all.

What the churn obscures is that appetite — for food, for novelty, for decision-making itself — is not constant. It moves in seasons. There are stretches of life that invite experimentation, when the kitchen feels like a place to play: new recipes, unfamiliar flavors, the pleasant friction of learning something from scratch. And then there are seasons for holding steady.

Repetition often arrives quietly during periods of grief, or intense work, or winter or caretaking — times when energy is being spent elsewhere, often invisibly. It shows up during anxiety, when too many choices feel like noise, and during creative periods, when the day’s decisions have already been spoken for. These are the meals you might later look back on and realize were doing more than feeding you. These were the meals that asked very little of you, so that you could give more of yourself somewhere else.

The first step is recognizing — and really believing — that repetition is often what allows people to stay nourished when energy, money, time or curiosity are in short supply. This is not laziness. It’s a form of practical intelligence, the kind that prioritizes getting fed over performing effort.

The next step is naming the season you’re in. Or admitting that you’re already deep in it. Based on external demands or internal cravings, you might decide that this is a stretch where you’re going to lean on repetition, on purpose. What that looks like will vary from kitchen to kitchen. You’re allowed to eat the same breakfast for months (or, in the case of my grandfather, for years: peanut butter toast, a banana and a cup of coffee). You’re allowed to make one pot of soup and ride it all week. You can cook two large things on the weekend — a pan of baked ziti, a pot of curry — and alternate between them until takeout night rolls around on Friday.

Naming the season does a few useful things. It helps you be more intentional about what you buy and what you cook: which meals are worth extending your energy on, and which ones just need to be reliably good. It also helps set expectations with the people you eat with most often, opening the door for feedback rather than resentment — this is what we’re doing right now, and here’s why.

One way to think about this is as the food equivalent of a capsule wardrobe. You don’t wear the exact same thing every day, but you take comfort in knowing there’s a small rotation of combinations that work. A capsule wardrobe doesn’t have to be beige or boring; it can include sequins and feathers if that’s your thing. You just get to decide whether those belong in your daily rotation, or are saved for special occasions.

The same can be true of how you eat.

And when the people in your household have different appetites for novelty, modular meals can help bridge the gap. Anything with toppings is a quiet triumph: baked potatoes, tacos, rice bowls, chili. The base stays the same; the sense of choice remains intact. Everyone gets fed, and no one has to reinvent dinner from scratch.

And when your appetite for novelty returns—as it tends to, eventually—you won’t have to force it. It will announce itself plainly: a recipe you bookmark without effort, a flavor you can’t stop thinking about, a night when cooking feels like curiosity instead of obligation. You’ll reach for something new because you want to, not because you think you should. That, too, is a kind of knowing.

So the next time you reach past the clinking crowd of condiments for the same familiar jar, you might try not to flinch. You might even feel a small sense of relief. This is not a failure of imagination, or care, or ambition. It is evidence that you have learned something about yourself and the people you feed. You know what works. You know what you need right now. And for tonight, at least, that is enough.

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