There are so many wrong things in that piece it may take me a few days to get them all down.
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You may like my 40 minute presentation on why Los Angeles has the best Chinese food in the United States. Not scholarly but it meanders through 170 years of Chinese American history and my own life history. You can email me at chandavkl@chandavkl.com.
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I often wonder what inspires people to combine ingredients into dishes: fortuitousness, the spirit of exploration, hunger pangs, and empty larders that demand you make something out of that old bread or sour milk. Weâll never know what inspired some pimento cheese ur-ancestor to mix cheese, peppers, mayo, and the world in a bowl. Why someone layered it between two slices of bread, or why people like me prefer it on sesame crackers or as a sumptuous burger condiment-thatâs-more-embellishment-than-condiment.
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I âlostâ the recipe Iâd been using for pimento cheese but this sounds right.
I grew up in the South btw 
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It took me a day or so to sit down and read this article but I ended up enjoying both the prose and the content:
It reads like low stakes muckraking as the author even admitsâŠ
I suppose I donât know what I was trying to find. This wasnât Dr. Richard Kimble discovering the truth about Provasic, or Michael Clayton finding out about U/Northâs carcinogenic weed killer
âŠbut it does delve into a subject and world Iâve been curious about for some time and I learned a few things.
As someone who works in documentary I deeply, deeply sympathize with the thankless, arduous path to getting straight answers from folks (especially in such proprietary institutions like flavor houses).
A bonus was the quote from Michael Moss, the journalist and author of Salt Sugar Fat which I highly recommend. Didnât know Moss had written another book! Looking forward to reading it
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Eater has rolled out a multi-article section on diners - looks like all articles are on this page, and if you scroll down the collection is grouped by region:
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And now a third piece, from Arellano, bringing the story together:
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Rather long
Very good
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Thatâs wild.
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âŠSaunders himself remains relatively unknown. When he died in 1998, he received few obituaries, and since then his fame has receded further. Even now, itâs hard to pin down exactly who Saunders was, not least because he was so many things at once: a hippy, a capitalist, a pioneer, a property developer, a drugs advocate, a social inventor, a greengrocer, a visionary. Yet a consistent philosophy guided everything he did: he believed, above all, that information should be wrested from gatekeepers and made free for people to use. âHe didnât just make information available, but made you feel like anyone has the capacity to go and do it,â Hodgson recalls. âHe lit a fire inside people.â With this philosophy, Saundersâ dairy and coffee house have not just been influential in their own field; together they have been the two transformational businesses in the modern British food culture.
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In a large skillet, heat one tablespoon of olive oil over medium-high heat. Add the diced onion and salt and sautĂ© for two to three minutes. Next, add garlic. Cook for two minutes. Add cumin, smoked paprika, chili flakes, cayenne pepper, and tomato paste, and sautĂ© for two more minutes. Add the remaining tablespoon of olive oil. Thatâs the start.
These are the steps, the motions, that send flickering lights down a long hallway of memoriesâthe many hands that have made this family dish, the many kitchens where Amanda Arafat has seen shakshuka prepared. The bloom of spices sends the lighter parts of her consciousness to these tender moments of the past, connecting generations in the way that only this combination can.
But itâs different this time.
This time, itâs a class. A brightly lit storefront with floor-to-ceiling windows facing a darkened street. Students in matching aprons. Ingredients pre-measured and sorted on trays. Stapled recipe printouts. Flat-screen televisions mounted on both sides of the long rectangle of a store-slash-teaching kitchen. As Amanda prods the spice mixture through the sizzling oil, a camera pointed at the stovetop broadcasts the image onto the screens, and the students at that nightâs Middle Eastern breakfast class all watch, take mental notes, and wait for their chance to do the same.
Amanda effortlessly dices red bell pepper and tomato and adds them to the pan. Cranking up the gas burner, she stirs vigorously. The red mound deepens in color and releases its moisture. This posh setting in Northwest Arkansas feels worlds away from Gaza, from Cairo, from Tennessee, from Utahâplaces where she has connected with food and family. But these familiar steps and motions stir memories within her. Like how she and her siblings were often roused from their dreams on weekend mornings by the sound of garlic being pummeled in a mortar and pestle, or the whine of chickpeas passing through a meat grinder to become falafel. Or how nestling eggs in the sauce conjures her grandfather chastising his grandchildren âgently enoughâ for breaking etiquette and eating from the middle of the pan, rather than the sides. Gradually, these other kitchens take shape; the intimacy and warmth of past meals settles over the moment. In tonightâs class, however, thereâs no talk about the present, and of all the people Amanda loves who populate her stories.
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