Gage Klipper

Gage Klipper is a writer based in New York. Previously, he was the culture critic at the Daily Caller and an editor at Pirate Wires.

Friday

Gage Klipper

Roadside produce stands: the last enclave of social trust

From our US edition

One of the more dystopian aspects of modern life is that in nearly every major American city, you cannot simply walk into a convenience store to buy something. Instead, you often have to ring a small bell and wait for a clerk to come unlock your tube of toothpaste or bottle of shampoo from behind a glass case. This is considered normal, even sensible, in a cultural moment where social trust hovers around a record low. One place this doesn’t feel normal, however, is at America’s many local farm stands. The roadside farm stand emerged in the early 20th century as automobiles became more widespread. Traditionally, farmers would set up small tables or wagons to sell surplus produce, eggs and dairy goods to passersby.

Gage Klipper

Croquet hasn’t quite gone away

From our US edition

Growing up, I remember a set of strange colored mallets that occupied a dusty corner of the family garage. My mother had purchased them as a novelty, I learned, in an effort to take up croquet when she bought her first weekend home upstate. She had fond memories of playing croquet as a child, but to me it always rang somewhat ironic: the city slicker’s romantically anachronistic idea of, “What else is there to do in the country?” So when I got invited to this year’s Annapolis Cup – the 42nd annual croquet match between St. John’s College and the US Naval Academy – I wasn’t sure what to make of it. My first instinct was to assume it was a gag, a silly put-on for charity.

Thursday

Gage Klipper

How different is Catholic and Protestant food at Easter?

From our US edition

I’m a New York-raised Italian Catholic, and my family’s inherited religious-cultural neuroses inform our meals every bit as much as the WASPs next door. This is particularly true at Easter, where centuries of European immigration have shaped the culinary traditions in New York. The Easter feast became a religiously sanctioned opportunity to indulge For my family, the Easter feast typically includes a herb-crusted leg of lamb (American only; New Zealand lamb is far too gamey), deviled eggs, rich scalloped potatoes, honey-glazed carrots, some fresh spring vegetables and an absurdly decadent chocolate dessert – all washed down with a robust Etna Rosso, generously poured.

Gage Klipper

My barn dog is a Chow Chow

From our US edition

Even if you’re not a dog expert, you probably know enough to laugh at the breed of my resident barn dog. Chow Chows are not exactly cooperative, and while they are bred as territorial guard dogs, their cat-like laziness makes them, at best, capriciously protective of their owner. These little balls of fur are, however, pretty damn cute. My three-year-old, Winnie, embodies all of these traits – or at least she did as a puppy, with the occasional tendency to regress. But growing up around horses on an unfenced property shaped her more than any innate breed characteristics. Having owned pretty much all the conventional breeds, I can safely say she’s now more or less exactly what you look for in a farm dog.

Thursday

Gage Klipper

Missing Cowboy, our great farm manager

From our US edition

Life in the country is unforgiving. Animals die, labor is unceasing and nature fights back at every turn. We say losing a beloved horse or a loyal farm dog is like losing a member of the family. But while the pain is real, it’s certainly not the same as losing a dear friend. Our long-time farm hand died late last year. He was not an old man by any means and he had the vigor of a younger man still. By the grace of God, he passed away peacefully at home in the small cottage just down the road from the farm. I’ll call him Cowboy, because in truth, that’s what we called him most of the time. He didn’t like his real name. And he certainly lived up to the moniker. Cowboy could solve any issue, big or small.

Thursday

Gage Klipper

Loser’s: the campy and ironic bakery making made-to-order cakes

From our US edition

Going downtown in New York used to be cool. Before Soho became a glorified shopping mall, it was a haven for starving artists. Before Chelsea became family-friendly, Michael Alig was throwing Blood Feast parties at the Limelight. The rebel heart of downtown, which attracted generations of avant-garde creatives, is much harder to find today. All of Manhattan has seemingly “gone uptown.”  But Loser’s Eating House, a made-to-order bakery operating out of a tiny Soho ghost kitchen, is still serving up a little slice of downtown realness. Loser’s style is campy and ironic. The cakes rely on exaggeratedly large piping, done in a purposefully messy style Loser’s was launched in 2021 by baker Lizzy Koury, who was, until very recently, her company’s sole employee.

Friday

Gage Klipper

The chaotic thrill of a horse auction

From our US edition

The story of Harry deLeyer and his horse Snowman reads like a Disney classic. DeLeyer was a Dutch immigrant farmer who bought Snowman at auction with his last $80 in the 1950s . Snowman was an unpedigreed plowhorse, already old by competitive riding standards, and likely headed for the glue factory when deLeyer saw promise in his strength and spirit. They went on to become one of the most successful pairings in the history of showriding, taking home the Triple Crown of national titles in 1958. The horse world has changed a lot since then. Both training and breeding are highly scientific across all pursuits, from showriding to racing.

Wednesday

Gage Klipper

A herd is like a high school

From our US edition

When you own a horse farm, the same question canters repeatedly through your mind: should I buy another horse? Rationally, you know the answer is no, but you inevitably wind up doing it anyway. Because in the grand scheme of things, it’s just one more head in the herd. The day-to-day of farm management doesn’t change much between 15 horses and 16. It takes some time to acclimate a new arrival, of course. A herd is like a high school: popular kids run the show, and the new blood always faces some bullying. But once he finds his place in the hierarchy, the routine proceeds as usual. And consistency is key with horses. The herd mostly gets to roam freely through about 40 acres of pasture.

herd
Gage Klipper

A chef’s twist on the Feast of the Seven Fishes

From our US edition

My Italian-American family gathers every Christmas Eve to cook a Feast of the Seven Fishes. And every year, it’s always just a little disappointing. Sorry, Mom. While the Feast must include seven distinct seafood dishes, there’s no correct way to prepare it. It’s entirely open to personal preference or family tradition and typically relies on whatever fish is readily available in the American northeast. Still, a touch of gourmet precision can help refine some of Nonna’s age-old recipes. The Feast is a quintessentially Italian-American tradition – one rooted ostensibly in Old World Catholicism and the abstention from meat until Christmas Day. Yet there’s very little record of it ever taking place in Italy.

Tuesday

Gage Klipper

The rural reality

From our US edition

I was never a “real” rider. My parents were serious riders. My sister was too – she showed at national level. But by the time I came along, the youngest child by 20 years, no one had the energy for proper lessons, let alone the time it takes to seriously compete. Yet somehow, I’m the one who wound up with the family horse farm in New York’s Hudson Valley. My family’s involvement with horses goes back almost 80 years. My dad, a Bronx boy raised on Bonanza and Lone Ranger, grew up riding on summer vacation at a Borscht Belt resort. His love of horses shifted him from Jewish cowboy to showjumper and he eventually took over the equestrian center he learned to ride at. For more than 30 years, he bought, sold, boarded and trained horses in every discipline.

Family Business

Thursday

Gage Klipper

Should Karoline Leavitt’s family be deported? 

From our US edition

Standing at the podium in the White House, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was, instead of answering questions about the Trump administration, answering questions about her own family.  The mother of Leavitt’s nephew was detained by ICE this week. Bruna Caroline Ferreira, “a criminal illegal alien from Brazil,” allegedly overstayed a tourist visa that expired in 1999 according to the Department of Homeland Security. No doubt an embarrassing moment for the usually forthright Leavitt, it also crystallized how the shockwaves of Trump’s immigration are being felt across America.  Now, I’m an upstanding citizen, thank you very much. I can’t say I personally know anyone who’s been caught up in an ICE raid.

Deportations

Friday

Gage Klipper

Mamdani will hand New York’s restaurants to the rich

There’s no shortage of catastrophic predictions for New York under Zohran Mamdani’s leadership. While the city probably won’t see breadlines, the wildly expensive, exhaustingly derivative restaurants that dominate its food scene are likely to become more dominant. Mamdani’s big pledge on food is to ‘make halal eight bucks again’. But it’s a ‘false promise’ of street-food affordability according to Heritage Foundation economist Nicole Huyer. She says Mamdani’s economic programme, which includes higher taxes, steeper leasing regulations and a pledge to raise the minimum wage to $30 an hour by 2030, will effectively make restaurants even more expensive.

Tuesday

Gage Klipper

Democrats win New Jersey governorship with Trump scare tactics

From our US edition

The votes are in – and they’ve shattered any illusion that New Jersey is a swing state. The Democratic Party will hold onto the New Jersey governorship, with governor-elect Mikie Sherrill beating Republican Jack Ciattarelli in his third attempt at the governor’s mansion. While Sherrill was always the favorite, polls continued to narrow even in the final stretch of the race. This pushed both parties into increasingly aggressive, even desperate, tactics. In mid-October, Sherrill accused Ciattarelli of “kill[ing] tens of thousands of people in New Jersey, including children” with opiates through a “misinformation” campaign pushed by a medical company he once owned.

Mikie Sherrill

Monday

Gage Klipper

Trump refuses to take 60 Minutes bait

From our US edition

“Have some of these raids gone too far?” Norah O’Donnell asked Donald Trump of ICE immigration arrests as he sat down with 60 Minutes for the first time in five years.Trump refused to take the bait. Instead of ranting or insulting O’Donnell, as she may have hoped, he was calm – and even counterintuitive. “We have to start off with a policy, and the policy has to be, you came into the country illegally, you’re going to go out,” he said. “We’re going to work with you,” he continued, “and you’re going to come back into our country legally.”Pressed on whether he plans to use the military to crack down on anti-ICE protests, Trump declined. “I could,” he said, “but I haven’t chosen to use it. I hope you give me credit for that.

Trump

Tuesday

Gage Klipper

When did restaurants get so boring?

From our US edition

The New York Times recently released its annual list of America’s Top 50 restaurants – and the perfectly predictable honorees highlight just how beholden the restaurant industry is to the tastes of a would-be cosmopolitan class. The casually refined, vaguely ethnic-fusion cuisine that you stumble upon even in America’s most provincial places is rife. From New York to Los Angeles and everywhere in between, America’s restaurant industry has never been more diverse. Yet somewhat counterintuitively, it’s also never offered more of the same. Often, these restaurants propose some mix of French staples (think mother sauces, patisserie) or Italian comfort food (pasta, pizza) fused with Latin, Asian and/or Middle Eastern flavors.

restaurants

Sunday

Gage Klipper

Will a Republican be the next New Jersey governor?

From our US edition

The national spotlight is on New Jersey as the long-blue state’s gubernatorial race narrows, but it wouldn’t be Juh-zey without a little last minute drama. Lying, suing and a last minute showing from Donald Trump – this race has just about everything.  And the Republican may actually win.  Democrat Mikie Sherrill has been the conventional favorite throughout the race. She’s a relatively fresh face, despite being a four-term U.S. Congresswoman, and she checks all the boxes: Navy veteran, Georgetown Law, and a respectable patina of moderation to go with the Girl Boss pantsuit. Still, the VoteView database shows her holding the party lines 95 percent of the time in Congress.

Jersey

Monday

Gage Klipper

Grow a pair, Euro cry-bullies

From our US edition

After a weekend of bloodlust at Bethpage, the European team pulled off a stunning victory to take home the Ryder Cup. So why are they so sore about it?Golf is known as a gentleman’s game, with countless unwritten rules of etiquette. The Ryder Cup is a rare exception, where the 12 best golfers from Europe and America duke it out not for money, but for glory, and rowdy fans bring their national pride to bear. The American fury picked up as the Europeans sprinted ahead on Saturday, leading to an overall air of chaos. Forget the “golf clap” – heckling, shouting and four-letter cursing became the standard behavior as European players walked past the grandstands or lined up their shots.

Ryder Cup

Friday

Gage Klipper

Why is Apple hosting an assassin’s app?

From our US edition

ICEBlock is an app that uses real-time information to pinpoint the location of ICE agents in the field. Launched in April in response to Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, it now boasts more than one million users across the country. Among them, until recently, was self-styled “anti-fascist” sniper Joshua Jahn, who killed one person – a detainee – and critically injured two more at an ICE facility in Dallas. The FBI has discovered that Jahn used the app, or one like it, to track his intended victims. In a handwritten note, Jahn, who took his own life, wrote, "Hopefully this will give ICE agents real terror.”ICEBlock claims that its purpose is to help illegal immigrants evade arrest by alerting them to the presence of ICE agents.

ICEblock

Tuesday

Gage Klipper

Why Eleven Madison Park had to put meat back on the menu

From our US edition

Eleven Madison Park, perhaps the finest of New York’s fine-dining establishments, is adding select meat dishes back to its prix fixe menu after an ill-fated foray into veganism after the pandemic. Chef Daniel Humm announced the move in the New York Times, citing all the predictable reasons for ditching a plant-based menu. First and foremost: the finances. “It’s hard to get 30 people for a corporate dinner to come to a plant-based restaurant,” Humm told the Times, noting the negative feedback from diners over the years. Still, he framed the move in moral terms, explaining how he didn’t “realize that [the vegan menu] would exclude people.” To this, I can only muster an eye roll.

Eleven Madison Park

Saturday

Gage Klipper

Don’t let Serena bully you into taking the fat shot

From our US edition

Serena Williams is one of the world’s greatest living athletes, but in her retirement, she seems to have forgotten the basics of diet and exercise. You’ve likely seen Williams’ ad campaign for Ro, a telehealth provider that specializes in GLP-1 weight loss medications like Ozempic, Wegovy and Zepbound. In the now ubiquitous commercials, Williams tells how she personally used the drug to burn stubborn postpartum fat, a respectable 31 pounds over 8 months.“It’s not a short cut, it’s science,” reads the company’s tagline. Williams looks great – of course, of course. But just because scientists have discovered a cure for fatness doesn’t mean she still hasn’t taken the easy way out.

Serena Williams