OAKLAND, Calif. — The food writer Nik Sharma was 8 when he made his first pot of rice. It was a disaster. He found a bottle of Rooh Afza, a rose-flavored concentrated syrup popular throughout South Asia, in the studio apartment in the Bandra neighborhood of Mumbai, India, where he grew up in the late…
Headliner The Woo SoHo Is this the name of a new bridal shop? Hardly. But those who have followed the Korean restaurant scene over the years will recognize the update of one of its pioneers, the elegant Woo Lae Oak, which opened in SoHo in 1999 and closed seven years ago. It was founded by…
For atmosphere, Village Cafe is roundly beaten by my second-favorite Azerbaijani restaurant in Brooklyn, Old Baku in Kensington. Walk past the awning that says “private club,” past the curtained booths in the front dining room, past the open kitchen where chefs scoop burning coals to keep the fire under the kebabs going strong, and you…
Cookbook covers can be like optical illusions. Take “Microwave Cooking for One,” which features the author, Marie T. Smith, alone with some platters of color-saturated food. Some readers may see desolation and gloom behind her smile. Some, a dusty meme. But others see a triumphant model of practicality and self-care. The chef Anita Lo was…
The James Beard Foundation is changing its rules and regulations in an effort to make its coveted awards more inclusive and to counter critics who say the organization has not done enough to fight race and gender imbalances in the restaurant industry. The changes were announced Tuesday and go into effect immediately, in time for…
After a 2002 cyclone devastated Tonga, an archipelago in the South Pacific, some New Zealanders started a vanilla farm there to help the get the country back on its feet. Despite a setback from a vanilla bean shortage this year, it has grown into a thriving enterprise, mostly run by women. The Heilala Vanilla Foundation,…
The origin of the whoopie pie, that sandwich of chocolate cake with a cream filling, is open to debate. Maine? Massachusetts? Pennsylvania? Tico’s, a bakery in Lancaster County, Pa., that has been baking them from a family recipe on and off since the 1930s, is now selling them online. In addition to the original chocolate,…
In 2011, Patrick Martins had the idea to promote the use of meat from male goats on dairy farms during the month of October. Mr. Martins, a co-founder of the online meat and poultry market Heritage Foods, called it Goatober. By 2016, he had teamed up with a goat meat company in England, and goat…
Steve Jenkins, a former partner in the Fairway grocery chain who made his name selling fine cheeses and quality olive oils at reasonable prices, has emerged from a few years of retirement with his own olive oil and vinegar company, Olive Oil Jones. He imports his oils in barrels directly from producers in Italy, Portugal…
In just a few years, burrata — a ball of mozzarella wrapped around creamy, shredded stracciatella cheese — has gone from being a rare import to a ubiquitous item in shops and restaurants. But there’s a burrata from Puglia, in southern Italy, with a delightful difference: The exterior is smoked. Unmold the small cup of…