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It’s always Chablis weather

It is very hot here in New England at the end of July. It was hot a week or two ago in old England, too. I arrived in London via the Eurostar after a week clambering over rotting German gun emplacements and gazing out at the D-Day beaches in Normandy. Sobering. In London, I had taken a small house in a quiet mews in Kensington. After a quick shower, my first act was to nip down to the local Oddbins and collar a couple of bottles of the 2022 Maison Dousset Chablis. It is about £20 (you can get it in the States for around $20-$25), and it was the perfect entry wine. Chilled, it was tartish, citrusy, refreshing: a confident but undemanding tipple.

Raj Tawney

Flour power: a single ingredient can be life-changing

Growing up in a “mixed” American household, of Indian, Puerto Rican and Italian descent, was deeply confusing during my formative years. I came of age in a mostly white suburb just outside New York City. In addition to my foreign-sounding name, I looked nothing like any of my classmates or the kids around the neighborhood. My olive skin, bushy eyebrows and curly hair were more reminiscent of children you’d find in the more ethnically diverse neighborhoods of Queens or the Bronx. My family spent most of our weekends visiting family and doing our grocery shopping in such areas. The array of ingredients that my Puerto Rican and Italian-American mother, Loretta, was searching for didn’t exist in our local Pathmark.

Eric Hanson

You seriously expect me to pick one favorite bar?

I was born in Wisconsin and I’ve learned a curious thing traversing it. There appears to be a state law requiring at least one bar at every intersection of its rural roads. I’ve noticed this most often driving at night: there’ll be a neon sign advertising Old Style or Leinenkugel’s hung in the front window of what looks like a farmhouse living room, and several cars nestled up against the house like sucking pigs. There is something homey about a rural bar. The knotty pine, the “first dollar” framed above the cash register, neighbors ironing out local prejudices and asserting the superiority of the Packers despite any evidence — if anyone’s brave enough to produce some.

Mary Kate Skehan

Girlbossing with the Ambitious Kitchen

I occasionally come across a social media account — usually run by a conservative male — claiming to great fanfare that young women these days don’t know how to cook. They’ve been too busy girlbossing to learn. In my experience, this is wrong. The ambitious women I know are ambitious in every part of their lives. They get the promotion while moving up the Peloton leaderboard, planning their dream wedding and creating flavorful, photogenic meals that Betty Crocker hadn’t dreamed of. For these women, there’s the Ambitious Kitchen. The Ambitious Kitchen was created in 2011 by a Chicago woman named Monique Volz. It has since amassed more than 700,000 followers on Instagram and a cookbook deal for 2024.

Food & Drink