Fiction Confidential

Before he became the patron saint of every tattooed-chef-in-a-gentrifying-neighborhood, Anthony Bourdain wrote novels. What can they tell us about the man behind the bad-boy persona?

Source: Eater
Published: Jan 25, 2017
Length: 17 minutes (4,333 words)

I Work in the Restaurant Industry. Obamacare Saved My Family’s Life.

Baker Allison Robicelli on the difficulty of offering insurance (or being insured) in the service industry, and how the Affordable Care Act started to change things — and saved her and her husband’s lives.

Source: Eater
Published: Jan 12, 2017
Length: 10 minutes (2,532 words)

California Dreaming

A profile of restaurant chef Jessica Koslow, who owns Sqirl, a hip L.A. restaurant that serves “grain bowls and hashes and salads” that “scream with acid and spice and herbs and the funk of fermentation.” Bull looks at the fetishization of “California food” and the lure of living in Southern California.

Source: Eater
Published: Nov 4, 2016
Length: 25 minutes (6,277 words)

Carl’s Jr., and the Thing That Happened There

“It was 1982. We were young. There was only one urinal.”

Source: Eater
Published: Nov 2, 2016
Length: 10 minutes (2,576 words)

The 24-Year-Old Coca-Cola Virgin

“If you’re looking for evidence of mass commonality, it doesn’t come cheaper or more convenient than Coke. It’s consumed around 1.9 billion times per day, and distributed everywhere except North Korea and Cuba (for now). Through Coke we all have something in common — Liz Taylor knows it, the president knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it. I, on the other hand, can only trust and speculate. I’ve never had a Coke in my life.”

Source: Eater
Published: Sep 7, 2016
Length: 22 minutes (5,573 words)

Twilight of the Four Seasons

A legend goes down. (With cigars and tuna carpaccio.)

Source: Eater
Published: Sep 1, 2016
Length: 7 minutes (1,923 words)

“There’s nothing good in cooking, but there are no other options.”

Inside the women-owned restaurants of Yida, South Sudan’s largest — and most tenuous — refugee settlement.

Source: Eater
Published: Aug 17, 2016
Length: 13 minutes (3,385 words)

Our Fancy Foods, Ourselves

Inside the enormous, bi-coastal Fancy Food Show, small companies try out for prime time, next year’s trends begin, and the people who have invested their life savings into their business now search for distribution and vie for your attention as you walk around snacking. All. Day. Long.

Source: Eater
Published: Jul 13, 2016
Length: 18 minutes (4,676 words)

Tudor’s Biscuit World Is the Best Thing About West Virginia

“If I wanted to, I could use Tudor’s to construct some kind of positive metaphor for the state: The place is simple, friendly, and good—but perhaps another reason I don’t write much about where I’m from is that I find it a mostly futile enterprise.”

Source: Eater
Published: Jun 29, 2016
Length: 12 minutes (3,133 words)

The State of the Domestic Goddess

Adventures in preparing recipes from the cookbooks of “domestic goddesses” Gwyneth Paltrow and Chrissy Teigen.

Source: Eater
Published: Jun 22, 2016
Length: 12 minutes (3,116 words)