The weather gods have not been kind to the Hudson Valley this summer. Waterways flooded, roofs ripped off, trees downed, crops flattened. Radar maps splashed with streaks of red like tomato sauce stains on an apron. Some people might be tempted to quit; then again, what is it they say about farmers being the ultimate optimists? It requires a certain resilience to grow what is meaningful to a place, let alone create a prize-winning whisky that is finally about to receive a designation of origin from the U.S. Treasury Department’s Tax and Trade Bureau. It’s the kind of game-changer that might give the old guard of the brown spirits world restless nights.

On sunnier days while driving down certain winding stretches of New York State’s Taconic Parkway, the Berkshires heave into view to the east, and then a few miles farther down the road, the Catskills appear across the Hudson, where the westerly peaks turn purple in the low light of dusk. This almost absurdly romantic backdrop enraptured mid-19^th-century landscape painters like Thomas Cole and Frederic Edwin Church, and spawned an art movement known as the Hudson River School.

Since childhood, the vista has always caught my breath. The temperate valley between these two old mountain ranges certainly catches rain clouds. The region has a long history of agriculture, dating back to early Dutch settlements in the 1660s, with first crops like wheat and rye, hops and barley, grapes and apples. An obvious byproduct was booze: applejack, hard cider, brown spirits, beer. A wealthy brewer founded the college I attended in Poughkeepsie—on Founder’s Day every year, it was customary for the president of Vassar to chug a pitcher of beer, although I hear the practice has since gone out of vogue. (Shall we say the legal drinking age was lower back then?) More recently, with the passage of state liquor laws that incentivized microbrewers and distillers to launch projects here, the Hudson Valley has seen a new boom in production of small batch beverages.

“Our whiskies and beers taste like here,” said Dennis Nesel, owner of Hudson Valley Malt, based in Germantown. A retired financial adviser with a grizzled goatee, he now favors overalls and wields an old-fashioned malt rake. “We call it re-localization. There was a time when the grains were grown here and shipped downriver by sloop, but after Prohibition all that stuff moved West, so we’re bringing it back, trying to make the supply chain grown here, harvested here, distilled here.”

That aspiration has shaped a three-way collaboration. The others include a third-generation farmer, as well as one of the newest distilleries in a pocket valley near the Massachusetts border, where the family behind Tenmile Distillery is gambling on a rising demand for American single-malt whisky. Note: no “e.” We’re not talking bourbon or rye, but closer in spirit to uisge beatha, Scotland’s original water of life.

A few weeks before the valley was swamped with torrential rains, I climbed into a utility truck with farmer Ken Migliorelli to look at one of his fields planted with winter Scala barley. “We’re about a week away from harvesting,” he said, as we parked along the rural road near his crop outside the town of Tivoli. It’s a pretty grass, with a spiky seed head on a long stem that turns from emerald green to platinum blonde as it dries in the sun. Migliorelli took to farming when he was a teenager, and eventually expanded his family’s vegetable business, adding a fruit orchard, farm stands, and weekly market stalls, including Union Square Greenmarket in Manhattan. He still grows the same variety of broccoli rabe his grandparents brought over when they emigrated from the Lazio region of Italy in the 1930s. Citing the new demand for spirit grains, the 63-year-old farmer has almost 350 acres of barley and another 50 acres of rye in cultivation, despite the challenges he faces growing these crops in the Hudson Valley.

“In 2021, that was a rough July,” he said. “It just started raining and wouldn’t stop. I lost the barley that we were combining because it pre-germinated out in the field. I could only sell it for animal feed.”

The vagaries of weather are a standard risk for any farmer; however, this spring a half-acre barn went up in a blaze, and Migliorelli lost 15 tons of barley, hay, tomato stakes, and a lot of equipment. His neighbors and loyal customers launched a fundraiser to help rebuild. He gazed out at his waves of grain, undaunted. For him, it’s one crop out of dozens during a year that starts with tender greens and crescendos with apple picking season.

When harvested, Migiolrelli’s grain heads to the malt house, less than ten miles away, for the next step in the process. “It’s a pretty tight circle from here to Dennis, and then down to Tenmile,” he said.

On a good day at Hudson Valley Malt, Nesel and his wife Jeanette Spaeth load 6,000 pounds of malted barley, rye, or wheat into a kiln. By hand. That’s the last step after the raw grain has been steeped and raked in a thin layer on a smooth concrete floor to germinate and develop the sugars that will convert to alcohol. “Floor malting is a craft and an art,” he said. “We do it old school, the way it was done in the 1850s. It’s definitely not glory work.”

Nesel and Spaeth both grew up in the Hudson Valley. After retiring from corporate life, they decided to convert their horse barn instead of downsizing. In 2015, they recognized that area distillers needed a local malting operation. (They have a hopyard as well.) “It would be too easy to go south, but we’re not snowbirds,” he said. “I was looking for a way for our farm to be more sustainable.”

The turnoff for Tenmile Distillery is a shunpike called Sinpatch. An apparent allusion to the area’s checkered past, it leads to the repurposed barn complex with a tasting room and a dining patio next to a parked vintage Airstream that belongs to Westerly Canteen, a restaurant popup serving a seasonal snack menu sourced from Hudson Valley producers. While in residence, chefs Molly Levine and Alex Kaindl celebrate summer with floral infusions, delicate crudos, and heirloom vegetables. In addition, chef Eliza Glaister of Little Egg favors wild game for her popups and occasional private tasting dinners.

When the couple delivers a load of malt, Tenmile’s master distiller Shane Fraser takes over. He walked me into the darkened cask warehouse where his single malt rests in French oak barrels that once held sherry, bourbon, and California pinot noir. (Tenmile founder John Dyson, who formerly served as New York State’s agricultural commissioner, also owns Williams Selyem Winery in Healdsburg.) Born in Aberdeen, Fraser learned his trade at several marquee distilleries, including Royal Lochnagar and Oban, before taking on the lead role at Wolfburn, a startup in the far north. Almost no one who achieves the elevated title of master distiller leaves the job security of his peat-and-heather homeland, but Tenmile presented Fraser with a challenge almost unheard of back in Scotland: creating a new brand of single malt. His first batch of fresh New Make—what we call moonshine or white dog—was barreled in January 2020. He also experimented with unorthodox cask woods, including smaller Italian cherry and chestnut barrels typically used for aging balsamic vinegars, because regulations remain fluid in the States for now. Fraser patted one on a rack. “That’s the thing with the new designation,” he said. “You have to be careful to make sure that it will be defined as American single malt. Because when those rules come out, you can’t use cherry.”

Currently, single malt producers in the States number fewer than 100, which means it’s still an exclusive club, but not the stuffy kind full of tufted leather chairs and cigar smoke. Establishing a formal standard of identity, and having that recognized at the federal level, will give distilleries here a better chance to compete against the global establishment. Single malt no longer means it has to taste like a burned-over bog.

Fraser pointed out another 140 acres of Ken Migliorelli’s ripening spring barley planted beyond a formal apple orchard and beehives. Then we entered the whitewashed brick dairy, where copper stills imported from Scotland have been installed behind a glass curtain wall in the converted great room. The bar, at the opposite end, has a full cocktail program designed around the distillery’s gin, vodka, and whisky.

Fraser and I sat down in the wood-paneled tasting room, and he poured a cask strength dram of Little Rest, Tenmile’s first edition bottling, into my tumbler.

We lifted glasses to our noses.

“I get tropical fruits coming through,” he said. “Some chocolate notes, and once it sits awhile on the tongue, there’s a bit of spice, almost like cinnamon. Every time you go back to it, you smell something different, because it’s so young and still got a bit of life to it. Some of the older whiskies, when you smell them, it’s like, well, whisky.”

I took a sip.

The Little Rest was released this April, after three years and a day in barrels, the minimum to be officially characterized as whisky. Comparably light in style, more like a subtle Speyside than a peaty Islay.

“You can see what a little rest does,” said Fraser.

He told me that someone else compared the flavor to a green Jolly Rancher, and sure enough, it did have a perky apple note. 

Rain or shine, it tasted like home.

Recipe

Paper Plane

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Clover Club Cocktail

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Tuna Crudo with Chamomile Oil, Cucumber Salad, and Pea Shoots

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Braised Rabbit with Pan-Fried Radishes and Creamy Polenta

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The post Our New Favorite Single Malt Whisky Comes From … New York? appeared first on Saveur.

“I spent so much time in my grandmother’s kitchen growing up,” said Charleston, South Carolina-based chef Amethyst Ganaway. “A lot of it was out of necessity, but I was also a greedy kid. She taught me how to make the ‘for real’ shrimp-and-grits, and my great-granny Adele’s coveted banana pudding from scratch, sitting and stirring the damn custard on the stove.”

On a recent spring day during the Charleston Wine + Food Festival, Ganaway stood next to another stove, in a former rice mill overlooking the Ashley River, stirring the roux for brown oyster stew in a commercial-grade stockpot. Around her, an all-female crew of volunteers hustled to chop greens, grill shrimp, whip up cornbread batter, and season quail before a celebration dinner honoring their elders. Local suppliers deposited heritage ingredients on steel prep tables—Sea Island red peas, Peculiar Pig Farm pork chops, Carolina Gold rice, sorghum syrup, loquat jam.

As the afternoon progressed, the beats and laughter amplified, while everyone navigated between hot stations with the grace and ease afforded by old friendships. “Food is a big part of our culture,” said Ganaway. “And it hit me hard when Miss Martha Lou [Gadsden] died, and her restaurant closed down. Even before moving back home I noticed the lack of female representation in the Charleston food scene, and this dinner is about giving Black women the respect they deserve at the end of the day.”

In the Carolina Lowcountry, the conveyance of culinary traditions is particularly strong in Gullah Geechee communities, where knowledge keepers—some in their late 80s or early 90s—have preserved such canonical dishes as deviled crab, okra soup, chicken bog, and red rice. They are the living links to the foodways of enslaved ancestors, and their cooking skills are intrinsic to one of America’s oldest regional cuisines. These women are fondly considered matriarchs. They feed everyone who walks into their kitchens, bring prized pies and layer cakes to church picnics, treat thirsty neighborhood children to ice-cold chilly bears, and teach daughters and granddaughters how to season a dish without measuring spoons.

Perhaps the best known is Emily Meggett, bestselling author of Gullah Geechee Home Cooking: Recipes from the Matriarch of Edisto Island, and a beloved “other mother” to so many. “As you grow up and realize that people are getting older, you look at them differently,” said Ganaway. “These ladies are leaving a legacy for their families. And I’ve been thinking about the legacy my grandmother is leaving for ours.” For a cooking culture that has largely passed down techniques orally for most of its history, guardians of Gullah recipes bear great responsibility for passing the torch. (And the kitchen matches.) Ganaway and her young crew represent the generation who will carry it onward. 

As guests arrived, the chefs pulled yeast rolls from the oven, gave a final stir to the okra-and-shrimp purloo, and topped Emily Meggett’s recipe for sweet potato cake with a swirl of frosting. Ganaway offered last-minute tweaks on the pass. Her intention was to serve each course family-style, in hopes of sparking conversation among strangers at the long tables.

Meanwhile, artist Natalie Daise unveiled her portraits of the mothers being celebrated, including Albertha Grant, founder of Bertha’s Kitchen, chef Sara Green of Gullah Grub on St. Helena Island, and cookbook author Sallie Ann Robinson from Daufuskie Island. Embraced by dark green collard leaves, each woman is depicted wearing a brightly patterned kitchen apron and a halo of woven sweetgrass. Then, Meggett, dressed in a matching black suit and bedazzled hat, was seated at the head of one table. (No one knew that night, but it would be the Edisto matriarch’s last public appearance. Meggett passed away on April 21.) Ganaway’s own grandmother sat beside her. And just before hot platters hit the tablecloth, A$iahMae, Charleston’s poet laureate, recited her new poem “Benefaction.”

The first time I ever prayed it was at a kitchen table/God bless the
hands that prepared the food/thank you for the love in them/the love
that labors/cradles cheek and ladle/seasons & pinches with senses….

and before we partake/we give/praise be to the
chefs/and praise to the spirit of nourishment that moves through
them that my grandmother named God/and we respect it/by cleaning
our plates.

Plates were certainly cleaned that night.

Recipe

Lowcountry Brown Oyster Stew

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The post A Tribute to the Matriarchs of the Lowcountry appeared first on Saveur.

Food is more than what’s on the plate. This is Equal Portions, a series by editor-at-large Shane Mitchell, investigating bigger issues and activism in the food world, and how a few good eggs are working to make it better for everyone. ​​  

“These are vanilica, a butter cookie with jam inside,” says Mersiha Omeragic, the 47-year-old owner of Yummilicious Café & Bakery in Upstate New York, as she opens a tin filled with the sugar-dusted pastries. “These have rosehip from the Bosnian store,” referring to one of many corner grocers that supply specialty goods in her community. Every winter, Omeragic spends the last few weeks of the year ardently baking hundreds of Balkan-style cookies for her customers. Zerbo kocke, kresenti, oreshki, oblatna, mađarica. (To be inclusive, she even whips up tricolor rainbows, as some residents in her culturally diverse neighborhood are of Italian American heritage.) “Cookies were always a tradition for winter holidays,” she says about her hometown of Travnik in Bosnia and Herzegovina. “Doesn’t matter what religion, everyone will have some of these on the platter. The whole Balkans—Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia—starts baking at Advent so they can have not just for the house but to share with neighbors. That’s what I loved before the war.”

As a teenager, Omeragic fled Bosnia with her mother and younger sister in 1994, at the height of a brutal conflict that devastated her homeland. The family found sanctuary through the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service in Utica, New York, a scrappy manufacturing town with an aging population that didn’t exactly welcome newcomers. She admits struggling with the intolerance much of the region’s burgeoning immigrant population encountered at the time. (In the ensuing decades, refugees have transformed the local culture and revived the city’s arson-scorched neighborhoods.) “My grandma was still alive then,” says Omeragic, who worked factory jobs before earning a college degree and teaching English as a Second Language courses at the Boards of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES). “She survived two wars. And she was a very wise woman. I told her, ‘People here keep screaming at me to go home, saying stuff about my accent. I can’t handle it.’ And she said, ‘What? I thought you were a tougher cookie. Build your life.’” 

Recalling her grandmother’s advice, Omeragic adjusts her flour-dusted apron and holds her palm over her heart. “Once you leave your country, it’s a constant fight to prove that you’re worth something. You are a refugee and you always will be a refugee. You have that label, it doesn’t peel off, just like the sticker under the plate. And that’s something that we all deep inside deal with—trying to find your place, you know?” She gestures around the dining room, a cheerful space with walls covered in silk flowers, suede café chairs, and a mannequin wearing a festive pine bough skirt studded with glass ornaments. “But this is our place and this is representing us.”

Cookies first came to America in the late 17^th century, when Dutch settlers introduced decorative pastry molds and cutters from Holland. (The word cookie is derived from the Dutch koekje, or little cake.) The English carried jumbles and gingerbread across the Atlantic; Scots brought shortbread; Moravians came with their Nazareths, or sugar cookies; enslaved Africans baked benne (sesame) wafers and groundnut cakes. (Later waves of immigration would result in the proliferation of rugelach, mandelbrot, pizzelle, polvorónes, fortune cookies, and hojarascas.) Early Americans quickly developed the practice of exchanging cookies during holiday celebrations; in 1796, a recipe for “Another Christmas Cookey” appeared in American Cookery by Amelia Simmons. And all varieties eventually became a vehicle for supporting social change—perhaps most famously in December 1917, when the Girl Scouts’ Mistletoe Troop of Muskogee, Oklahoma first baked sugar cookies to sell in their high school cafeteria as a service project. Now, many organizations engage in nationwide cookie drives.

Throughout the year, Bakers Against Racism mobilizes a national baking force for awareness-building actions—including voting registrations and women’s rights marches—with sales of snickerdoodles, chocolate crinkles, and espresso-black pepper shortbread. During this busiest cookie season, many regional organizations also raise funds for food-based initiatives. Volunteer bakers Kabriana Kendall and Jacky McNiff-Beattie piped buttons on grinning gingerbread men for the People’s Kitchen Philly, a collaborative that distributes free meals to underserved neighborhoods in Philadelphia. Lets Make a Change held the first annual Christmas Cookie Walk in Euclid, Ohio to support its Youth Culinary program, which teaches pre-school children life skills. Goldie’s Rotisserie food truck on Martha’s Vineyard raised awareness for Friends of Family Planning with their holiday cookie boxes. And Homeboy Bakery in Los Angeles, a social enterprise that advocates for formerly incarcerated and gang-involved individuals, sold out their entire stock of almond horns and coconut macaroons.

In Utica, Yummilicious is a result of the Omeragic family’s resilience. After applying for a mortgage and maxing out multiple credit cards, Omeragic and her husband Hajrudin, a professional cook, opened the doors of their bakery one month before the pandemic hit in 2020. They survived the worst of lockdown by taking orders from customers who discovered her celebration cakes on social media. More traditional pastries and desserts, based on recipes introduced to Balkan countries during centuries of occupation by the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires, now fill the bakery’s display cases. Strudel, custardy krempita, baklava, krofne (donuts), uštipci (fried bread), poached apple tufahija. Omeragic’s favorite is the dainty walnut-stuffed hurmasica cookies soaked in syrup, a legacy of her grandmother, who passed away in 2015. “Hers were perfect,” she says. “Crunchy, but melt in the mouth.”

Omeragic always donates cookies to local chapters of Hospice, Ronald McDonald House, and the Bosnian Association of America, and also informally helps out new arrivals who might need a welcome treat during their first frosty upstate winter. “We use the word ‘halal’ for giving something without accepting anything in return,” she says, surrounded by tubs of cookies ready for cellophane wrap and ribbons. Her husband cuts the slabs of mađarica and rainbows into neat rectangles, while their four children stack dozens on overflowing trays. “My grandma used to say whatever I give in halal, it will come back ten times more.” 

For so many around the world, cookies symbolize that spirit of giving. In all shapes and flavors, they’re a bite-size emblem for generosity, solidarity, and seasonal joy.

Here is the recipe for the first recorded American Christmas cookie. The new Taste of RAICES cookbook shares recipes that keep us rooted even when far from home. Please consider donating to a food bank near you this holiday season.

The post Why Cookies Are the Ultimate Symbol of Seasonal Goodwill appeared first on Saveur.

Food is more than what’s on the plate. This is Equal Portions, a series by editor-at-large Shane Mitchell, investigating bigger issues and activism in the food world, and how a few good eggs are working to make it better for everyone. ​​  

“It’s like cooking for your grandparents and their friends,” says Helen Nguyen of Saigon Social. The Vietnamese chef is spending her Thanksgiving preparing 300 meals for food insecure New Yorkers through Heart of Dinner and Feed Forward’s More Than a Meal delivery programs. She’s also serving another 500 culturally friendly meals for a diverse population of seniors and young families in low-income housing two blocks away from her restaurant on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. “There’ll be roasted chicken marinated in five spice and lemongrass, mashed potatoes, baked sweet potatoes and Korean yams. We’re also braising salmon in tomato sauce to go with steamed Napa cabbage over rice.”

Nguyen is not alone. Both professional chefs and home cooks are working overtime this holiday to sustain hungry neighbors. “One thing that brings everyone together is food,” says chef Benjamin Tyson, founder of Patchwork Nashville, who stepped away from fine dining to focus on cooking homey, nourishing meals for the underserved in Tennessee. This week, his kitchen crew of three (and loyal volunteers) will share 1,750 regular meals, as well as host two complete Thanksgiving dinners at a homeless encampment within the city limits. “We’ve found not everyone loves turkey, but figured roast chicken with cornbread-sausage stuffing is just as nice,” he says. “We’ll be making a fruit cobbler and cookies, too.”

On the day Americans traditionally celebrate abundance with friends and family, so many lack both; a hot turkey dinner, or any hot meal at all, too often represents an elusive comfort. The following local initiatives strive to support their communities every day and, during the holiday that centers on giving thanks, are putting dignified food on as many tables as possible—through pie drives, turkey donations, meal kits, and home deliveries. Please consider sharing your bounty with one or more listed here. And since Giving Tuesday is right around the corner, we’ve included several food drives taking place then as well.

Amor Healing Kitchen

Based in Charleston, South Carolina, this non-profit promotes healthy eating as part of recovery from surgery and other life-impacting illnesses; plant-based meals are prepared by teen chefs and their kitchen mentors.

The People’s Kitchen

A collaborative of chefs and students that grows produce and cooks free meals for their Philadelphia community is hosting a pie drive with drop-offs at community fridges this week. Bake two, share one.

El Pasoans Fighting Hunger

In collaboration with West Texas pantries, soup kitchens, and shelters, this food bank provides weekly meal assistance and deliveries to El Paso residents.

SODO Community Market

This no-cost Seattle grocery store provides fresh produce, grocery staples, and a variety of healthy food options to those in need.

Miry’s List Friendsgiving

This non-profit that focuses on resettling refugees in Southern California also organizes regular supper club fundraisers.

Let’s Eat

Activist and cookbook author Grace Young is partnering with Welcome to Chinatown’s Let’s Eat Fund to support legacy neighborhood restaurants and distribute meals to members of the community. 

Hawaii Meals on Wheels

Every year, the Five-O chapter of Meals on Wheels delivers nutritious holiday dinners to Hawaiian island kūpuna (elders).

Rescue Mission of Utica

Founded in 1890, this charitable organization accepts local turkey and pie donations for the holidays, but also has an ongoing meal service for residents of Upstate New York’s Mohawk Valley region.

Brother Jeff’s Cultural Center

A free Thanksgiving dinner delivery for residents of the Five Points District in Northeast Denver has the donation slogan: “No One Should Be Hungry, Period.”

North American Traditional Indigenous Food Services

Native Americans consider Thanksgiving a day of mourning. To acknowledge ancestral foodways, chef Sean Sherman founded this non-profit to re-claim pre-colonial North American ingredients at the Indigenous Food Lab in Minneapolis.  

The post Help Fight Food Insecurity on Giving Tuesday (and Beyond) appeared first on Saveur.

I came for the cake. When Jean-Georges Vongerichten opened his eponymous dining room on the ground floor of the brassy Trump International Hotel and Tower in early 1997, it was the most desired reservation in Manhattan. The launch catapulted the Alsatian-born chef to stardom and soon after he earned a four-star rave from restaurant critic Ruth Reichl. Every night, stretch limos lined the curb outside the front door, while celebrity sightings and opulent flourishes were delivered tableside. Poached foie gras and creamed morels, rack of lamb in a green garlic crust, Muscovy duck with Chinese five spice were all tempered with Vongerichten’s signature vegetable broths and emulsions.

When I first sat in one of the sleek leather banquettes with a view of Columbus Circle, Mike Tyson and Donald Trump were in the house. (The combover was weirdly bad even back then.) I don’t remember much about the meal, although thankfully, someone else picked up the tab. But the finale? The dessert menu’s pièce de résistance had such an underwhelming name. “Warm chocolate cake.” It arrived at the table embarrassingly under-dressed for a restaurant with a no-jeans dress code. A fluted mold baked good, dusted with confectioners’ sugar. A quenelle of plain vanilla ice cream on the side. And yet, one swipe with a dessert spoon released the molten flow of bittersweet Valrhona chocolate, oozing from the soft center like lava escaping Kīlauea on a moonless night. No wonder everyone ordered it. Luxe in a Y2K fin de siècle way. I may have licked the plate.

Like any viral culinary creation, this cake came with its own disputed origin story. In 1981, French chef Michel Bras invented coulant au chocolat—cookie dough with a creamy ganache center—inspired by the après ski hot chocolate. Vongerichten also claimed ownership, after he accidentally pulled a runny chocolate sponge from the oven a little too soon in 1987, during his residency at Restaurant Lafayette in the Drake Swissôtel on Park Avenue. Eventually, variations appeared on menus all over town, and then all over the world. One bastardized version even wound up trademarked as Death By Chocolate at Bennigan’s, the fast casual Irish pub-themed chain. Still another can be microwaved in a coffee mug. Sadly, warm chocolate cake soon lost its exclusivity, and as the millennium turned, other swanky desserts sang a sweeter siren song.
Enough time has passed that I almost miss that retro cake. Not that I would ever order it again, or be caught dead in a dining room owned by a chef who admitted in a recent memoir that he lost his cool and beat up a dish washer in the walk-in. But maybe I’ll bake my own, minus the dark gooey history.

Recipe

Molten Chocolate Cakes

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The post You Don’t Have to Apologize for Loving This ’90s Dessert appeared first on Saveur.

Food is more than what’s on the plate. This is Equal Portions, a series by editor-at-large Shane Mitchell, investigating bigger issues and activism in the food world, and how a few good eggs are working to make it better for everyone. ​​  

“Until the weather cools down, we’re focusing on water bottles, and food like apples and potatoes that are more shelf-safe,” said Kyandra Noble, founder of Austin’s ATX Free Fridge Project. “We don’t want things that can be quickly spoiled in 100 degrees.” A graduate of University of Texas, Noble works as a costumer in the film industry, but when production slowed down during the pandemic, she found herself with time on her hands and began looking around for tangible ways to improve her hometown. She discovered In Our Hearts NYC, a mutual aid project with a network of fridges housing free donated food across the Tri-State area. They advised her on how to set up fridges and connected her with people doing the same in other cities. “Then I posted on Instagram, ‘Hey, anyone want to help me here in Austin?’”

Two summers ago, the first free fridge opened outside Nixta Taqueria in East Austin. Since then, three more food donation sites have opened in other neighborhoods.

Right now, the challenge of feeding people in the Texas capital is further complicated by climate change. The heat soared above 100 degrees Fahrenheit in a record-breaking streak this summer (July was the hottest on record). More than 50 migrants died of heat exhaustion when trapped in a sweltering tractor-trailer abandoned on the outskirts of San Antonio, about 80 miles south of Austin. Electronic signs on Interstate 35 warn motorists not to leave children or pets unattended in cars. Even walking a few blocks to pick up groceries can be hazardous. “There are some parts of the year where water is the most important thing people need,” said Noble. “So when it’s hard to keep the fridges cool enough for certain types of food, we buy bottled water at H-E-B and it goes at a fast pace.”

Unlike food banks and free pantries, which typically focus on dry items and canned goods, fridges are often stocked with dairy and fresh fruits and vegetables. They are also accessible any time of the day or night. Urban gardeners donate. So do food stylists, barbecue pitmasters, meal delivery services, and homeowners about to go on vacation. The idea is to provide an anonymous resource for those facing food insecurity without the added layer of socioeconomic disparity that complicates other forms of community service. The ATX Free Fridge motto is “solidarity, not charity.”

The four fridges in Austin are a plucky contribution to a global movement. Freedge is a UK-based network that connects similar initiatives in over 400 cities around the world, with locations in coffee shops, bodegas, churches, parking lots, schools, community centers, front yards, and even an auto body shop. These fridges have become particularly welcome in regions where summers are getting hotter and drought seasons are lengthening–or anywhere the climate is increasingly unpredictable. (Who could have guessed a heat wave earlier this summer would cripple the historically damp and chilly parts of Europe, let alone drain rivers like the Rhone and Seine?) Although fall approaches, the dangerously high heat index goes on and on in other cities across America: Phoenix, Sacramento, St. Petersburg, Las Vegas. 

But even with refrigerators, rising temperatures still pose hurdles for keeping food fresh. Noble quickly discovered that the original ATX Free Fridge equipment couldn’t handle the heat without physical shelters to shield them from the relentless Texas sun. “We had to get new fridges to deal with food safety in these temperatures. People offered us second hand ones, and it would be great to take donations, but now we’re focusing on garage fridges, which are better than the ones in your house.” Noble explained that the Nixta fridge is best prepared for extreme weather events. 

A friendly invitation is taped next to the stainless steel commercial unit outside the city’s popular taqueria: “Take what you need. Leave what you can.” More donation messages encouraging people to do their part are fixed to the sides of napkin holders on each of the tables on the outdoor patio. (The placement of these calls to action is pretty genius given how deliciously messy chef Edgar Ulysses Rico’s juicy duck carnitas tacos can get.) Noble reached out to Rico’s partner, Sara Mardanbigi, to help set up the pilot program, because she was already spearheading Nixta community outreach. 

“As small business owners, it’s our responsibility to think about the greater good, and how, on a micro-level, we can enact sustainable change,” Mardanbigi said, who estimated that almost 100 people drop by daily to use the fridge. “The majority are our neighbors, but we’ve seen a wide array of participants from all over the city.” Mardanbigi explained that the kitchen contributes “oopsie orders,” as she refers to the extra tacos made by accident. The restaurant also handles fridge maintenance and grocery runs underwritten by cash donations, as well as liaising with other restaurants and organizations dropping off supplies. According to Mardanbigi, prepared meals are the most popular.

On a recent Sunday afternoon, the fridge was filled with chicken pot pies donated by The Cook’s Nook via a church food bank. “It’s whatever we have left over,” said volunteer Sarah Pernell, hauling boxes from her car. “Every week, it’s something different.” Her granddaughter Brianna swiftly stocked the shelves with individual plastic containers of pre-cooked peas, carrots, meat, and gravy under a biscuit crust. “You don’t have to heat it up. You can just eat it cold.” The two women finished and shut the fridge again. “And it’s gone so fast.”

Please consider contributing to a free fridge near you. To get started, here are maps for NYC and Atlanta and Los Angeles.

The post As Temperatures Soar, Food Fridges Come to the Rescue appeared first on Saveur.

Diana Kennedy suffered no fools.

With her passing, we are almost at the end of the expat expert era. The author of nine books on Mexican cuisine, Kennedy relished her outsized reputation as a culinary anthropologist. Her gun, pickup truck, penchant for leather pants, collection of pre-Columbian ceramics, adobe house in Zitácuaro, Michoacán. Her grudges and blood feuds. Yet, she will also be remembered as a champion of rigorous research and accreditation, as well as a proponent of authenticity whose dedication bordered on obsession. She was not kind to anyone who diverged from her canon; she dismissed the food of whole regions and diasporas. Heaven forbid if you put garlic in guacamole or substituted cayenne for chile piquin in pico de gallo.

The inherent quandary of Kennedy’s expertise, as some critics point out, was choosing a cuisine not of her birth, which is why she was so often compared to Julia Child, who also had a reputation for zealous guardianship. But let’s remember that Kennedy needed a paycheck after her husband Paul, a New York Times Latin America correspondent, died in 1967; back then, career choices for single women in their mid-forties had a much lower glass ceiling. Mexico turned out to be the place she loved most, and it gave her a purpose that shaped the rest of her long life—Kennedy’s legacy will be the English-language documentation of the country’s complex and historic dishes. In her book My Mexico City Kitchen, Gabriela Cámara, owner of the restaurant Contramar, devotes an essay to Kennedy, in which the brilliant contemporary chef acknowledges the British-born author as an invaluable reference for traditional Mexican cooking. As the flavors and poetry of this food evolves and travels outward from its homeland, many cooks can thank Kennedy for sharing some of the nuances of this cuisine with a global audience. A few dishes treasured at SAVEUR include a bright salsa de albañil with tomatillos, avocado, and queso fresco; and frijoles de olla, stewed pinto beans served with crema and blistered serrano chiles.

Before she died, Diana Kennedy sold her collection of personal papers, photographs, and other reference materials to the University of Texas, San Antonio. The contents rest in the climate controlled vaults of the Mexican Cookbook Collection at John Peace Library. Most importantly to culinary historians, she gave twelve antiquarian books on Mexican cooking, including the first volume on the topic, Arte Nuevo de Cocina y Reposteria Accomodado al Uso Mexicano, published in 1828. It’s incredibly rare. Only one other copy is known to exist and that remains in private hands. But now,  everyone interested in the roots of Mexican cuisine can access the digital version, and that’s a gift for the ages. 

Vaya con dios, Diana.

The post Diana Kennedy Dies at 99 After a Lifetime Documenting Mexico’s Culinary History appeared first on Saveur.

Food is more than what’s on the plate. This is Equal Portions, a series by editor-at-large Shane Mitchell, investigating bigger issues and activism in the food world, and how a few good eggs are working to make it better for everyone. ​​ 

“There’s going to be a sugar shortage,” says Mario “Skip” DiPaolo, sitting on the front stoop of his West Taylor Street townhouse in Chicago’s Little Italy. “But I know a guy.” After a long day of picking up supplies in his truck, the 74-year-old owner of Mario’s Italian Lemonade rubs his sore knees and waves to customers waiting to place orders at the window of his family’s frozen lemonade stand. “I got lemons today, too.” During the first heat wave of summer, Chicagoans stand under a shade tree strung with plastic lemons, spooning slushy treats served in waxed paper cups.

Founded in 1954 by DiPaolo’s father, Mario Sr., who immigrated to Chicago from Italy’s Abruzzo region, the lemonade stand was a modest expansion of a hobby intended to keep his son out of trouble. The younger DiPaolo started at age six with an old-fashioned hand-crank machine on a cart outside the family’s general store, where he sold frozen lemonade for two cents. “We don’t call it ice,” DiPaolo explains. “It’s Italian lemonade. That’s just the name we’ve always stuck with.” Back then, a horse-drawn wagon delivered ice in hundred-pound blocks, and lemon juice was squeezed by hand before churning. “My grandma bought me my first electric lemon squeezer with S&H green stamps,” says DiPaolo. “[She] taught me how to make change [by] playing Monopoly with real money. And she cheated! A great lady, I loved her dearly.” According to DiPaolo, his grandfather, father, and uncle built the permanent stand out of salvaged wood. When the business took off, they bought motorized Alaska Hostess freezer machines and added more flavors (now they offer about 30). The most popular is peach, but only when the fruit is fresh. Customers regularly stop to ask DiPaolo when it will appear on the specials menu.     

Not everyone loves the tri-color stand, with its fanciful lettering by Galileo Scholastic Academy fourth graders. As the Near West Side neighborhood gentrified around the University of Illinois Circle Campus, many of the original Italian-American residents were displaced by the end of the 1960s. The family business was targeted as an eyesore and a nuisance. DiPaolo says that he spent years resisting threats of closure. Suffice to say, it got political in a specific Chicago way. He admits that he and one of his sons have been in “a little trouble.” Two police cruisers drive past, lights flashing, but shortly after, a couple of young officers line up for lemonade, too.

Street vendors across the U.S. have faced a long history of targeted harassment. In Chicago, Department of Sanitation inspectors regularly threw their products in the trash or doused them with bleach. A viral video of NYPD officers arresting a woman selling churros from an unlicensed cart in the subway sparked outrage in 2019. It happened again last month, when NYC Parks Department security threw away churros during the Mermaid Parade on the boardwalk at Coney Island. And in greater Los Angeles, where permitted sidewalk vending was legalized in 2020, food sellers still continue to be verbally abused, racially profiled, handcuffed and detained. 

Even children who set up lemonade stands in their front yards risk fines and citations, except in the 14 states where permits aren’t required. “Leave the little kids alone,” says DiPaolo. “You don’t want to take the starch out of them when they’re just getting started.” Advocacy groups have emerged to address the imbalances inherent in these micro-entrepreneurial businesses: The LA Street Vendor Campaign holds community forums, assists with permit applications, and provides funds to offset the economic impact of pandemic lockdowns. Manhattan-based Street Vendor Project offers outreach such as immigration resources, legal counseling, small business training, and loans. Asociación de Vendedores Ambulantes supports work-with-dignity causes, and continues to promote food cart regulation and health standards in Chicago.

The light is fading, and the breeze slows, so cheerful whirligigs fashioned from recycled bleach bottles dangling above the stand stop swirling. The staff is still scooping orders. “If you’re a good worker, and you can make change, you got a job here,” says DiPaolo, whose family donates to St. Ignatius College Prep High School‘s tuition assistance program. “We hire high school kids that can stay on their feet. Because I go in there and I’m too slow now. For most of these kids, though, it’s their first job. And you always remember your first job.” Offering up the citrusy treat of summer often goes hand-in-hand with serving community. Maybe it’s just a few bucks in their pockets, but it can also be a change agent, and an early way to teach budding entrepreneurs about social good. 

DiPaolo nods at the last customers lingering around the stand. A father and his three adult children pause outside the townhouse fence to greet him.

“You’re the man!”

“Hey, how you doing,” DiPaolo replies.

“I’ve been bringing my daughters here since they were about five.”

 The son chimes in.

 “My name is Mario, too.”

  “No kidding. I don’t owe you money, right?” DiPaolo jokes.   

“It’s the guy who comes every day for 20 years, he made this business successful. Not a movie star who comes once and mooches lemonade.” He sighs and gets to his feet, ready to head inside for dinner. “I should be retired. I should stop.”

Chicago will be slightly less chill when he does.

Please consider donating to Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation for Childhood Cancer.

The post How This 1950s Lemonade Stand Became an Agent for Change appeared first on Saveur.

This almondine recipe is a beloved favorite shared by editor-at-large Shane Mitchell. The dish—a study in contrasts between blanched green beans, sharp chopped shallots, and buttery, crunchy almonds—pairs nicely with summer fare, from grilled meats and fried chicken to lighter, meatless mains. Together, the ingredients work in perfect harmony.

Our 15 Best Green Bean Recipes To Upgrade Your Side-Dish Game

Reimagine the green bean casserole—and then go way beyond it.

The post Green Beans Almondine appeared first on Saveur.

Food is more than what’s on the plate. This is Equal Portions, a series by editor-at-large Shane Mitchell, investigating bigger issues and activism in the food world, and how a few good eggs are working to make it better for everyone.

“Right now, I like to use my son’s Crayola marker, because it’s like I’m a kid again,” says Nat Chanthanaluck, one of the proprietors of the family-owned Tree Top Thai restaurant in Waltham, Massachusetts. In this Boston suburb defined by modest bungalows and a low-rise main street, his storefront catches the eye with its cheerful purple awning and flower-filled sidewalk planters, on a residential block between a sub sandwich joint and an auto repair shop. To know Tree Top Thai, which opened 22 years ago, you really have to live in the immediate neighborhood. On busy nights, the restaurant seats a maximum of 30 people—but that was before the pandemic, when Chanthanaluck switched to takeout and delivery only.

To stay in touch with regulars, he pens customers’ names in cursive script on each plain brown paper bag that goes out the door. Chanthanaluck often adds messages like “stay safe” before bad weather hits or when COVID-19 cases spike. When orders are slow, he has time for more elaborate sketches, like the Statue of Liberty wearing a surgical mask. As a child in rural northern Thailand, Chanthanaluck taught himself calligraphy by studying magazines in his aunt’s seamstress shop and hand-drawn posters outside the local movie theater. (Printed ads were too expensive, he explains, so local artists made the signs for each new film.) When he graduated to secondary school, Chanthanaluck was sent to live in Bangkok with extended family, where he cut vegetables in his uncle’s restaurant. “That’s what Thai kids traditionally do,” he says. “You have to help out with the family business.” After completing a trade degree in art, Chanthanaluck immigrated to Massachusetts where his mother lived, and he eventually opened his own restaurant. Now, his family, including his wife and cousins, help with the cooking. “A lot of customers tried to save us when the lockdown happened,” he says. “They wanted to support us, and I really appreciate them. So this is how I say thank you.”

The care that Chanthanaluck shows his neighborhood goes beyond customer appreciation. He’s adding flair to a service many are increasingly taking for granted in the age of impersonal delivery apps. Giving thanks is an important way to express humanity when small businesses like his have been inordinately impacted by current events, particularly in Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities, where, according to the Stop AAPI Hate coalition, crimes ranging from verbal harassment to physical assault have reached unprecedented levels.

“Throughout the pandemic, AAPI mom-and-pops have been targeted,” says culinary historian and activist Grace Young, who has been named “Humanitarian of the Year” by the James Beard Foundation for her #LoveAAPI social media campaign and Welcome to Chinatown initiatives. “All across the country—Boston, San Francisco, New York—these eateries and shops that were all about a person-to-person experience? Shunned and shuttered. Bakeries, produce markets, grocers, five-and-dimes: the heart-and-soul places that really personify ‘small town USA.’ We lost so many legacy restaurants when the only thing you could have was takeout. It was apocalyptic.”

As New York’s Chinatown classics like Hop Shing and Lung Moon Bakery closed permanently, something more than menus featuring dim sum or pineapple buns disappeared. Young attests that downtown streets emptied after dark because people were afraid to go out—especially the elderly. That’s when Heart of Dinner came to the rescue. Founded by partners Moonlynn Tsai and Yin Chang, who started cooking informal care packages in their tiny Lower East Side apartment, the two-year-old organization now works with a local network of restaurants, farmers, and volunteers to deliver culturally appropriate hot lunches, groceries, and pantry essentials to homebound Asian American seniors struggling with isolation and food insecurity in multiple boroughs. “We’ve served over 110,000 meals so far,” says Tsai. “We focus on nutrient-dense dishes, like the ones your grandparents might have made for you. Soy-braised whitefish with rice, cabbage with goji berries, mapo tofu, tomato egg. They taste homemade, reminiscent of childhood.”

Meals are only part of their message. Chang remembers while growing up that her working mom left comforting notes around the house for her to find, and the couple took up the practice together, composing letters of endearment for each other. “So when Heart of Dinner started in 2020, we wrote in black markers on plastic containers: ‘We are thinking of you and we love you’ in Chinese characters,” she says. “We wanted our elderly to feel like they were being wrapped in a hug from our entire community.” Those quickly penned notes were the genesis for what would become Heart of Dinner’s signature—creatively decorated bags and thoughtful dispatches in the recipient’s native tongue—attached to every delivery. “We received thousands of notes, piling in from all around the world, in all these languages,” says Chang. “We now have people hosting bag drives and illustration days.”

Of course, love letters aren’t always the written kind. They can also be something extra on the plate. “Suh-bee-seu, or service, is when a restaurant sends out a free dish, maybe a little corn cheese or a nigiri,” says Eric Kim, author of Korean American: Food That Tastes Like Home. “It’s thanks for stopping by, often a note of familiarity, and happens a lot in Atlanta when my dad accompanies us to a restaurant and the owner recognizes him. Koreans like free stuff, and this service is closely tied to a notion of hospitality that’s specific and special.”

“It’s called li shang wang lai in Cantonese,” says Janet Chan, whose father owned a restaurant in Chicago’s Chinatown. Now based in San Francisco, she started posting her favorite dishes and discoveries—potstickers, mooncakes, egg custard tarts and peanut puffs, roast duck, even Hong Kong café-style baked spaghetti—on her Instagram @sfchinatown.today to show the community was still open for business. “They might give regulars an extra bao, or won’t charge for a plastic bag. But if I told my dad, ‘Put in a little note’? He would say, ‘We don’t time to do that kind of stuff.’”

Chanthanaluck explains that the Thai expression for this free treat is called thæm, or giveaway. “It means you buy one thing, but the owner wants to give you more.” And for him, that means keeping his markers, watercolors, charcoals and pencils ready when orders appear in the kitchen. “I just want to give them joy. When I started to do the calligraphy, even teenagers were excited. I hope they try themselves, instead of using the keyboard. That’s why I keep doing it.”

Please consider donating to the KK Discount Store Recovery Fund, one of New York’s multi-generational mom-and-pop businesses known for supplying many Chinese restaurants. This legacy store was recently gutted by a two-alarm fire and forced to close until the city allows the Li family to rebuild.

The post In These AAPI Communities, Meals Arrive With a Pleasant Surprise appeared first on Saveur.