America, Pizza Hut, and Me
“Once dimly foreign, pizza had succeeded in convincing people it could be white. It was aspirational that way. I wanted to do the same thing.” Jaya Saxena reconciles her New Yorker-ness and Indian-ness with a childhood love of the doughy, pizza-like food of Pizza Hut, finding a way to hold on to her many identities simultaneously.
Behind Every Great Chef Is a Great Partner
We are deep in the era of the celebrity chef, but many successful restaurant groups have not one mastermind but two—the star chef, and a co-creator just as important to the business’ success but with a far lower profile.
Ina Garten Does It Herself
The fascinating story of Ina Garten, queen of cookbooks.
What It Really Means to Eat a Big Mac at the Arctic Circle
The technicolor fantasy of McDonald’s looms large for a girl growing up in Alaska.
How to Achieve Teenage Immortality at Perkins
Recalling teenage hijinks at a chain restaurant.
A Wild Goose Chase
Most of the foie gras consumed by diners is typically created through the process of gavage—force-feeding geese or ducks. Eater’s Wyatt Williams follows a chicken farmer in Georgia named Brandon Chonko who hopes he can produce “ethical foie gras” to support his family.
The Pros and Cons of Culinary Education
The writer investigates the financial realities of attending culinary school, and the hard life of a working chef:
“Chef Brad Spence wouldn’t go culinary school if he had to do it all over again. After graduating from the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, the chef/partner of Philadelphia’s Amis moved to New York City, where he made $8 or $9 an hour. Even though he was getting help from his dad to pay off the student loans, Spence says he “could barely live” between the low salary, high rent, and regular loan payments. And that’s the norm for New York City line cooks. Dirt Candy’s Amanda Cohen says that generally cooks can expect a raise of $1 a year, meaning one can hope to be making $20 an hour 10 years into a career. That’s still not very helpful for someone who needs to pay off tens of thousands of dollars in culinary school debt.”
I Packed My Knives & Went: Aboard the Top Chef Cruise
The author on his experience aboard the “Top Chef Cruise” and seeing former “chef’testants”:
“There were also live Quickfires. There were two of these a night, and they were always packed to the gills. Audience volunteers joined chefs onstage for challenges familiar to anyone that’s watched the show. The MC was shaky, and the whole enterprise exposed the cracks in the entire conceit of this trip; cooking on TV is compelling because of editing and human drama. The live Quickfires had neither. The closest thing to human drama was during a late-night Quickfire when Italian chef Fabio Viviani showed up a bit inebriated and swore and yelled. I thought it was charming, but I overheard guests say that his off-color language had lost him a few fans. And there was certainly no editing. During a sandwich Quickfire, a timer appeared on the screen counting down twenty minutes. These chefs don’t need twenty minutes to cook a sandwich, and I certainly don’t want to spend twenty minutes watching them make one with an arm tied behind their backs, literally, from 28 rows back. I walked out.”