food | The Smart Set

The Children of Julia Child

A.D. Amorosi — Mon, 19 Feb 2024 12:30:00 +0000

For two streaming seasons at HBO, the vividly colorful life, innovative culinary skills and cultural change-making of the late Julia Child (1912-2004) have been on display for all to enjoy as much as they would a fine bouillabaisse or cassoulet. As an American-born chef and author who taught the world an approachable way into worldly […]

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Putting My Foot In It

Elliott Eglash — Thu, 03 Aug 2023 11:30:00 +0000

How to measure up to my mother’s kitchen? That wood-paneled heart of the house, where the fridge overflowed with vegetables and juices and nourishments of all sorts, and when she heard me open it, she’d tell me not to spoil my appetite.  Dinner was as close as we got to religion. Less the meal than […]

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Make that a Double

Grace Segran — Mon, 28 Sep 2020 11:30:44 +0000

“Your gin and tonic, Chef,” Ray says as he places the glass on the industrial stainless-steel countertop by the stove. “A double with plenty of ice.” I am tossing the pakchoi in the wok, flame snarling up the sides. “Thanks, boss,” I say, without turning. Ray knows I’m very focused when cooking Chinese greens. Every second counts if they are going to be just right on this high heat. I plate the pakchoi, wiping away […]

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The French Toast Wars

Dana Robbins — Thu, 13 Aug 2020 11:30:47 +0000

Whatever I might say about my family, the food was always delicious. My father, Seymour Robbins, “Sim,” grew up in his parents’ Jewish deli in Stamford, Connecticut. They cooked all their own meats; corned beef, pastrami, and tongue, and all the side dishes; kugels, knishes, and salads. In the Army, during WWII, Sim was assigned […]

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Dine and Dash

Sean Hooks — Mon, 12 Aug 2019 11:30:24 +0000

Notional manifestations of working-class identity become evident through the recurrent appearance of diners in Cormac McCarthy’s largest and most personal novel, Suttree. Sometimes they are called lunch counters, or cafeterias, or drugstores, but the appellation is not what matters. What is essential is the subsistence repast and how McCarthy conjures these places as surrogate homes […]

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Everything Desirable

John Capista — Thu, 06 Jun 2019 11:30:16 +0000

As the years pass I find myself wondering more and more if what I remember about my childhood are the events themselves or merely a memory of those events. There is a half-awake feel about these memories, a sense of being twice-removed, as if somewhere along the way the direct chain of cause and effect […]

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Name Your God

Aaron Burch — Mon, 22 Apr 2019 11:30:32 +0000

I see the shirt from afar, like the midway full of people parted just for my sightline. BLEED THE FREAK, it says in big, blocky, bright red letters. I’m not sure what it means, but it doesn’t feel right. Something about the violence of the phrase, the awkward but hypnotic syntax. The words worm their way into […]

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Reviving the Dinner Party

Laura Leavitt — Mon, 19 Nov 2018 13:17:12 +0000

There is a lot more that goes into a dinner invitation in my home than comes out in a casual, “you should come over for dinner!” Many see dinner at a friend’s house as no big deal, but the political history behind historical and even modern dinner parties cuts to the core of what it […]

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Dinnertime and its Discontents

Paula Marantz Cohen — Thu, 13 Sep 2018 11:30:47 +0000

I grew up in the 1950s and ’60s, and my mother was a working woman who didn’t like to cook. Although she dutifully made dinner for us every night, these were perfunctory and repetitive meals: meatloaf made with Catalina salad dressing, spaghetti with tomato sauce and occasional meatballs (also made with Catalina salad dressing), roast […]

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A Dash of Peri-Peri

Grace Linden — Mon, 25 Jun 2018 11:30:03 +0000

One of the most beautiful buildings I’ve ever had the luck of dining in is a Nando’s restaurant in London. Nestled in between London and Southwark Bridges, it has views of the Thames River and St. Paul’s Cathedral. There are brick walls and arches, and incredible windows. It is like the Oyster Bar at Grand […]

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