Have dinner with Harold McGee, the academic-turned-cookbook author who paved the way for Alton Brown and a whole generation of culinary scientists.
Aaron Gilbreath
Posted inEditor's Pick
Arab Past, American Present: My Family’s Invisible History
America is a nation of immigrants, yet the country treats immigrants with increasing hostility. Recounting her Syrian family’s move to the US, writer Lauren Alwan wrestles with her own Arab identity, and she explores the ways immigrants shed their culture in order to assimilate, and the generational effects of invisibility.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
How the Blues Conquered Tokyo
I couldn’t quite figure out why Japanese listeners had come to appreciate and savor the blues in the way that they seemed to—lavishly, devotedly. Blues is still an outlier genre in Japan, but it’s revered, topical, present. I’d spent my first couple of days in Tokyo hungrily trawling the city’s many excellent record stores, marveling […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
An Imam’s Jihad Against Ignorance and Radicalization
At The Walrus, Nadim Roberts profiles a Canadian imam who is working to counter radicalization with knowledge.
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Feels of Love
Yes, kids are cruel and adolescence is challenging, but when we equate sexual assault with the standard teasing of adolescence, we normalize rape culture, and that is not normal. Madden’s story of rape and redemption is still too familiar to the many young woman who men routinely victimize. If America is going to progress as […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
The Many Meanings of Fruitcake
In Food52, Mayukh Sen explores the ways fruitcake became a homophobic slur, queerness, and his own personal attachment to the namesake food.
Posted inEditor's Pick
My Dinners with Harold
How a reserved literature grad student named Harold McGee used a scientific approach to cooking that changed the way the culinary world speaks and thinks about food.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Breaking Cycling’s Boy’s Club
Bike mechanics have historically been a mostly male group, but a group of Canadian women is changing that and increasing access for female cyclists.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
In Defense of Facts: What Is the Essay?
When does fact become fiction? William Deresiewicz on essays, embellishment, and the slippery slope of “truthiness.”
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Lost in Japan
Sarah Miller travels to Japan to learn more about sochu, and ends up learning more about her own limitations as a traveler.