The Unbearable Kindness of Warehouse Beef Stew

I once saw a wall of boxes bury a man in the back of a semi. This was in the truck bay of The Company’s fulfillment warehouse in Shakopee, Minnesota. I had been working there for a few weeks. The boxes were packed to the ceiling of the trailer and the …

I once saw a wall of boxes bury a man in the back of a semi. This was in the truck bay of The Company’s fulfillment warehouse in Shakopee, Minnesota. I had been working there for a few weeks. The boxes were packed to the ceiling of the trailer and the trailer was ten feet high. The man was unloading, twisting back to throw each box onto the conveyor belt behind him. Then he pulled the wrong box and, looking up, realized.

“I think I’m losing my mind,” I told my sister, spilling into the kitchen.

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5 Mexican-Americans on the Tamale-Making Party That Defines the Holidays

In Houston, Texas—what with an absence of snow, or any semblance of truly cold weather—you learn to look for other harbingers of the holiday season. Maybe it’s the crystalline wreaths that stud the palm trees in Highland Village. Or the sudden and tota…

In Houston, Texas—what with an absence of snow, or any semblance of truly cold weather—you learn to look for other harbingers of the holiday season. Maybe it’s the crystalline wreaths that stud the palm trees in Highland Village. Or the sudden and totalizing takeover of Sunny 99.1 by Christmas tunes. For some it’s the poinsettias sold with abandon at every flower shop along Westheimer or the soft clink of a red bell outside an H-E-B.

For me? It’s always been tamales.

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India’s Most Nostalgic Egg Dish Is Made on a Train

About halfway through the 2014 film, The Hundred-Foot Journey, comes a defining moment. The protagonist, young Indian cook Hassan Kadam (played by Manish Dayal), wants to prove himself to the very French Madame Mallory (Helen Mirren), a Michelin-decora…

About halfway through the 2014 film, The Hundred-Foot Journey, comes a defining moment. The protagonist, young Indian cook Hassan Kadam (played by Manish Dayal), wants to prove himself to the very French Madame Mallory (Helen Mirren), a Michelin-decorated chef who turns her nose up at the curry-making family who’ve moved in across the street. He decides to show her his skills by making an omelet. Except, because his own hands have been burned after his family's restaurant was torched by one of Mallory's employees, he will have to walk her through the recipe. She accepts his offering of an olive branch.

What follows is an awkward dance of cultural unraveling. First, she’s coaxed into gentle stirring instead of a practiced whisking. Then, as she haltingly adds pinches of spice, onion, chile, and coriander, she’s nudged by Hassan to drop it all in. The omelet is—despite her intransigence—eventually poured, cooked, folded, and served. Mallory takes a bite, gasps “Oh,” and bursts into tears.

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The Curious Pasta Dish I Found on My Solo Trip to Italy

Table for One is a column by Senior Editor Eric Kim, who loves traveling alone, and seeks to celebrate the beauty of solitude in its many forms.

This summer, I spent a week alone in Northern Italy. I wanted to go somewhere I could read and write and…

Table for One is a column by Senior Editor Eric Kim, who loves traveling alone, and seeks to celebrate the beauty of solitude in its many forms.


This summer, I spent a week alone in Northern Italy. I wanted to go somewhere I could read and write and drink amaros outside all day without having to talk to anyone. It probably helped that I didn’t speak much Italian to start with, expecting to rely on the odd smile or gesture to get around—though there is something sweet about two strangers miming at each other in order to communicate.

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Why Do We Eat Turkey on Thanksgiving?

Growing up in upstate New York, I used to wonder why we eat turkey on Thanksgiving. Throughout the year, we’d see all types of animals daily: squirrels and chipmunks scurrying; deer innocently dropping their heads into my mother’s shrubs for a nibble; …

Growing up in upstate New York, I used to wonder why we eat turkey on Thanksgiving. Throughout the year, we’d see all types of animals daily: squirrels and chipmunks scurrying; deer innocently dropping their heads into my mother’s shrubs for a nibble; even the occasional bear, clumsily sifting through our garbage in search of a late-night snack.

But turkeys, it seemed, mostly made their cameos on the cusp of fall (the worst possible time considering their signature party trick). Driving down windy roads, we’d see a cluster of the wild variety dart across the street—a hen leading a pack of small turkey chicks, aka “poults,” or the occasional male turkey, otherwise known as a “tom” or a “gobbler,” bright red waddle and fanned out tail feathers wiggling furiously as he ran to safety.

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She Invented Banana Ketchup & Saved Thousands of Lives. Why Have We Never Heard of Her?

I’ve seen the look on my friends’ faces when the words banana ketchup are uttered. Confusion, maybe even disgust. How can two things with such different flavor profiles exist in one product? Despite its seeming incongruity, banana ketchup is a pantry s…

I’ve seen the look on my friends’ faces when the words banana ketchup are uttered. Confusion, maybe even disgust. How can two things with such different flavor profiles exist in one product? Despite its seeming incongruity, banana ketchup is a pantry staple that rings nostalgic to many Filipinos all over the world.

Magdalo V. Francisco, Sr. is credited with mass-producing banana ketchup in 1942, thus making it a fixture in the Filipino household. To this day it’s used as a condiment that accompanies many popular dishes such as tortang talong (an eggplant omelet), fried chicken, hamburgers, and Filipino spaghetti (pasta with banana ketchup and sliced hot dogs).

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Why Apple Pie Isn’t So American After All

As we gather with loved ones to celebrate Thanksgiving this November, apple pie—perhaps our country’s most iconic dish—will make its annual appearance on many celebratory tables.

But despite being a symbol of patriotism eaten to celebrate everything f…

As we gather with loved ones to celebrate Thanksgiving this November, apple pie—perhaps our country’s most iconic dish—will make its annual appearance on many celebratory tables.

But despite being a symbol of patriotism eaten to celebrate everything from the Fourth of July to Turkey Day, apple pie’s origins actually aren’t all that American. A quick look at its history tells us that only through revisionism has this dish come to represent the United States; even more, in the process we may have ignored the historical and cultural influences that have shaped its place in our country's narrative. Which begs the question: Should we even consider apple pie a national symbol after all?

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When I Got Cancer, Baking Made Me Feel Powerful

When I was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 41, I was working as a “junior baker” in a hip, new Brooklyn bakery called Baked. I had pivoted professionally by about 1000 degrees a few years prior, transitioning from (unhappily) litigating in a fancy …

When I was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 41, I was working as a “junior baker” in a hip, new Brooklyn bakery called Baked. I had pivoted professionally by about 1000 degrees a few years prior, transitioning from (unhappily) litigating in a fancy boutique entertainment law firm in N.Y.C., to joyfully baking up every treat you could imagine—jumbo chewy chocolate-chunk cookies; malted blondies; moist zucchini bread, studded with toasted pecans; and flaky, mile-high, cream biscuits.

I knew nothing about the world of pastry prior to starting at Baked, but I’d always had a sweet tooth that just wouldn’t quit, and was eager to learn how to satiate it without heading to the grocery store. Luckily, my 20-something co-workers there—equal parts hilarious and cynical, warm and bitingly harsh—were patient, (relatively) supportive teachers, despite the fact that they’d been students themselves only a year or so before.

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Can Grocery Stores Survive the Age of Big Tech?

In 1978, a blizzard befell the East Coast of the United States. Schools were closed for days. Roads were impassable. On our street, in a suburb just west of Boston, children spent their afternoons building caves and carving tunnels through the drifts t…

In 1978, a blizzard befell the East Coast of the United States. Schools were closed for days. Roads were impassable. On our street, in a suburb just west of Boston, children spent their afternoons building caves and carving tunnels through the drifts that nature and plow had teamed up to create. Our go-to grocery store, Star Market, was about a mile and a half away. It hulked over the Mass Turnpike, a beacon in more clement weather, advising drivers that the capital was just down the road.

During the storm, there was no way to drive anywhere. What snow the plows failed to push to the sides of the road, they tamped down under them, packing a thick layer atop the cold, gray pavement. As our larder grew bare in the ensuing days, my parents bundled themselves up, pulled on heavy boots, and trekked off to Star Market, taking with them a slatted wooden sled on red metal riders that would ferry our groceries back home.

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Cooking in Restaurants Taught Me What Workplace Harassment Is

My name is Emma, but no one at my first kitchen job called me that. I was a stage for the summer, mid-college, which is to say: I worked for free. It was an Italian restaurant with unlimited bread, good Bolognese, BYO wine.

Instead of Emma, my coworke…

My name is Emma, but no one at my first kitchen job called me that. I was a stage for the summer, mid-college, which is to say: I worked for free. It was an Italian restaurant with unlimited bread, good Bolognese, BYO wine.

Instead of Emma, my coworkers called me: My love. My girlfriend. My wife. The mother of my children. “No, no, no!” one shouted. “She’s the mother of my children!”

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