Innehållsförteckning för October 2021 från Bon Appetit

BULGUR IS THE canned margarita of grains—she’s ready to party, fast. “It’s one of the original convenience foods,” says Abra Berens, author of the wonderful new grain-and-bean-focused cookbook Grist, coming out October 26. This isn’t brown rice you have to cook for 45 agonizing minutes. To cook bulgur, the name for parboiled and dried wheat berries, just rehydrate the grain by covering it in boiling water and letting it sit for about 10 minutes. In Berens’s recipe on page 14, bulgur gets dressed up with a few herbs and served with fish and fennel for a simple dinner. Crispy Salmon With Bulgur Plan ahead: Make a double batch of the mustard dressing to use as a sauce to serve with proteins or brighten up sturdy greens 4 SERVINGS 1 cup…

Here’s a breakfast topper that you can make long after berry season: Bring a 10-oz. bag frozen blueberries, 1 Tbsp. pure maple syrup, a wide strip of lemon zest, a shake of ground cardamom, and ¼ cup water to a boil in a small saucepan. Reduce heat to low and simmer until berries have burst, 8–10 minutes. Stir 1 tsp. cornstarch and 1 Tbsp. water in a small bowl to dissolve cornstarch, then whisk into blueberry mixture. Simmer until compote is nicely thickened, another minute or two. Remove from heat and stir in 1 tsp. fresh lemon juice. Use compote to jazz up a week’s worth of oats, yogurt, or toast.…

“I started Angry Egret Dinette during the pandemic because I was restless and bored sitting at home, dealing with the same pandemic depression most of the world was experiencing. We started as a pop-up. It gave me purpose and a place to work for me and six other people. The gamble paid off, because we’ve been able to grow: Now we have dinner service and even off-site catering!” Fried Zucchini and Butternut Squash Torta 4 SERVINGS This torta at Angry Egret Dinette was riffed from a squash blossom taco Wes Avila served up from his street cart. Feel free to substitute the zucchini here with seasonal vegetables like broccolini or a variety of mushrooms. Keep the beer batter on ice and don’t overcrowd the pan while frying to get the crispiest…

“I almost hate to say how fortunate I was, but I got a favorable lease because of the pandemic, and got to build the restaurant from the ground up without the pressure of business churning around me. My pain has come after. It’s hard to find employees now. And business hasn’t gotten back to where it should be. But this experience taught me a lot about perseverance. Just keep going.” Lamb Meatballs With Pecan Romesco 4 SERVINGS When chef Trae Wilson opened Laurel, he knew juicy and comforting meatballs would be a smash hit—and he was right. Using pecans in the romesco sauce is not traditional but adds a subtle nuttiness and creaminess that pairs wonderfully with the smoked Gouda. The meatballs can be made with ground beef, veal, chicken, or…

It’s Tuesday afternoon and Paloma Gonzales, a single mom, has spent the day taking care of her four-year-old daughter. They had breakfast, they played, they took their dog to the park, they ate lunch, they wiggled through the early afternoon. Now the little girl is watching a movie while Paloma panics. Her shift starts in two hours and her babysitter just flaked. Paloma works at a family-friendly Mexican restaurant in Portland, Oregon, that her parents have owned for nearly two decades. She’s held every position over the past seven years—from cook to hostess to server, depending on what needs to get done. At the moment she’s the bartender on a pandemic-reduced four-hour shift four nights a week. The restaurant is operating with a skeleton staff, and if she doesn’t come…

Once I was visibly pregnant, many assumed I was leaving my restaurant to stay home with my kids. It felt like I had two choices: abandon my family to pursue my career or stay at home to be a baby maker. Our industry deserves more flexible thinking than that. It turns out many of my team members were struggling to balance work and parenting too. So I helped create an employer-subsidized childcare program tailored to my team’s needs. Parents could drop their kids off at Vivvi—a local childcare and early learning center—from 7 a.m. to 1 a.m. Given what I experienced at west~bourne, I know employer-subsidized programs work if there are government incentives. Childcare needs to function like health care: with tax rebates to make the economics tenable. There are,…

“Venice is probably the area in L.A. that I stay in the most to be closer to the beach. Main Street has lots of different dining options, and you can walk along and do your own tasting menu, like I do with my wife and son. Start with omusubi at Sunny Blue–it’s the perfect snack, and who doesn’t like perfectly cooked rice wrapped with some nori?” Omusubi With Soy-Butter Mushrooms MAKES 9 Earthy shiitakes and milder enoki and shimeji mushrooms are all easy to find in any Asian supermarket, but any mushrooms will work. Just make sure they’re cut small enough to fit inside these little rice packages from Sunny Blue. 2 cups short-grain sushi rice, rinsed until water is almost clear2 Tbsp. unsalted butter5 oz. shimeji mushrooms, finely chopped3½ oz.…

Chef Edward Lee and Lindsey Ofcacek, the wine director at Lee’s 610 Magnolia in Louisville, Kentucky, had a clear focus when they started the LEE Initiative in November 2017: to connect Kentucky women early in their restaurant careers with established chefs, with the hope of elevating them to future leadership positions. But when the pandemic hit, they immediately expanded its scope. “Chef and I realized that we had all of these people who work here at 610 Magnolia and all of this food,” Ofcacek said. So they began to support those in need (out-of-work restaurant workers, restaurants, and local farms) while continuing to build future culinary leaders (young cooks of color and women in the industry). Here’s a snapshot of how they grew—and changed the industry for the better. March…

Tell you what business nobody’s getting into these days: farming. Yet something about sustainability and permanent soil stuck in fingernails drew Nic Theisen to it. He and his wife, Sara, own Loma Farm with restaurateurs Gary and Allison Jonas, and together they opened Farm Club last year (yes, that year) in Traverse City, Michigan. What makes Farm Club so special is that it takes an arguably pretty bougie genre of dining—farm to table—and makes it approachable, low-key, and familial. That means no tasting menu, no waiting list, no ingredients revealed from under a smoking cloche. Instead, every inch of Farm Club is thoughtfully designed to invite you into nature (and have a beer). Here’s how they did it. The Restaurant Local architects Designsmiths’ goal with the barnlike space was to…

Reem’s California has always been about the people, from employees to neighbors to the local ecosystem (farmers and vendors). It’s inspired by bakeries I visited in Syria and Lebanon; they were places of refuge for those experiencing political disruption. After I opened two locations of my restaurant, I realized I had become a “boss.” I was essentially the middle person between the forces of capitalism and workers who are struggling to survive. I had been dreaming about transforming Reem’s into a worker-owned co-op restaurant. In many ways the pandemic was divine intervention. It disrupted my business, so we had to change quickly to keep my employees working and the kitchen open. Now was the time. So I created Sumoud, a one-year apprentice program for workers at Reem’s, through a fellowship…

“Master of her craft and fearless entrepreneur.” That’s how chef Chris Williams describes his great-grandmother Lucille B. Smith, who was famed for her biscuits and her generosity. Williams shares how the desire to be like her powers his Houston restaurant, Lucille’s, and his nonprofit, Lucille’s 1913. You were running a popular restaurant when the pandemic hit. What did you do? We knew many restaurants were going to furlough their team. We kept 99 percent of our staff, but they didn’t want to sit there and get paid. So we started feeding first responders. The first 20 days we did close to 3,000 meals. Then we got the bug. You got the bug to serve others, like your great-grandmother, which caught the eye of José Andrés and his nonprofit, World Central…

When Terence Rogers started his catering company TBD Foods in 2014, his focus was more on sourcing quality local ingredients than on using them up. But after learning more about sustainability through cooks from all over the world at Blue Hill at Stone Barns in Pocantico Hills, New York, his outlook changed. He started a sandwich pop-up using TBD Food’s leftovers, and he got such rave reviews that he opened Sullivan Scrap Kitchen in Denver last summer with co-owner (and wife) Holly Adinoff. Here he breaks down the leave-no-ingredient-behind ethos in his seasonal gnocchi. The Gnocchi Rogers sources russet potatoes from Strohauer Farms, frying the skins for nachos and scooping the fluffy insides for gnocchi. He folds bruised herbs, like fall sage, into the dough for extra flavor. The Mushrooms…

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There’s great seafood at Marcus Samuelsson’s new spot at Baha Mar resort in the Bahamas. The sweetness of local tomatoes was the perfect foil to prawns, dressed in a watermelon and cane vinaigrette. This deconstructed Key lime pie has all the goodies: strawberries topped with fresh mint, graham cracker crumbs, strawberry sorbet, dehydrated meringue shards, and little meringue peaks.…

IT WASN’T LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT when Mireia Taribó and Tara Gomez met 15 years ago in California. “Kind of the opposite,” Taribó says with a laugh. They worked at J. Lohr Vineyard & Wines in Paso Robles, Gomez as the enologist and lab manager and Taribó as a cellar and barrel intern. After finishing her work in the barrel room, “she would come and disrupt the lab,” Gomez says of Taribó. Then one day, Gomez said to her, “Hey, you want to learn something? Follow me.” Unsure, Taribó followed Gomez around the back of the winery to a small space where Gomez was making wine under her own label, Kalawashaq’ Wine Cellars. Named for the village where her ancestors from the Chumash tribe once lived, this was Gomez’s small,…

FOR DECADES Ed “Edmar” Marszewski has been a key player in the Chicago DIY arts scene. His zine, Lumpen, has blossomed into a universe of interdisciplinary projects: a gallery, a radio show, and art fairs as well as hospitality businesses in the city (Marz Community Brewing Co., Maria’s Packaged Goods and Community Bar, Pizza Fried Chicken Ice Cream, Kimski, and a food relief program that started in the pandemic and continues today). His latest venture is Life on Marz Community Club, a nanobrewery (an industry term for a brewery with a very small-scale production) that’s about good beer, of course, but also a place to highlight artists he’s developed connections with over the years. He tapped Adi Goodrich, a set designer and longtime collaborator, to do the interiors, and together…

“We were supposed to open in April 2020. By October, there were a few signs that life was going to get back to relative normality, so I used some gut instinct and opened with a small team and strict protocols. It was weird at first, but on Valentine’s Day we did big numbers. Then in May we got a Michelin star. The thing about human nature is we don’t give up, regardless of challenges. That’s the beauty of being human.” COOK THE COVER Chicken With Mushroom Purée and Swiss Chard 2 SERVINGS Chef Shaun Hergatt of Vestry showcases simple, clean flavors in this dish. The chicken breasts have a crispy, golden skin and are served atop a silky mushroom purée leveled up with truffle oil for extra umami. Brussels sprouts or…

“We fundamentally believe in the power of a neighborhood restaurant to bring great people, food, and vibes together to help ease the losses of the last year, or at least distract us for a brief period. Restaurants can seem frivolous in the context of the past 18 months. But at the end of the day, where are we going to let loose and take a break? Where are we going to reconnect with each other? And when has this industry ever been easy anyway?” Creamy Braised Beans With Charred Pickles and Croutons 6 SERVINGS Bean love runs deep at Tiny Champions and pastry chef Julia Doran recommends using the best-quality beans you can find (like Rancho Gordo) here. You can skip the toppings and serve these beans with toasted crusty bread…

People say the restaurant world is very hard. It is hard, but I love it too. When my daughters were little, we took care of them in shifts. Mama worked during the day and I worked at night. For a while I was working two jobs (at a hotel and a restaurant). During the pandemic my youngest daughter got diagnosed with leukemia. We had insurance and got a lot of help from family and friends. I was laid off and could travel with her while she got treatment. Now I have one job with eight-hour shifts. I have Sundays and Mondays off, and I can spend time with my family, especially my youngest while she gets better.…

“I really love the seasonal pasta at the Lantern Inn in Wassaic, NY, a hamlet on the Connecticut border where a lot of our city friends decamp during the weekends. The last time I had the pasta was in the spring, so it was filled with peas, and I could feel that happiness in the food. The Lantern is making delicious food, buying from farmers, and treating everyone well–if this place were in Brooklyn, it would be mobbed.” Winter Squash and Kale Pasta With Pecan Breadcrumbs 4 SERVINGS There’s an entire butternut squash and a whole bunch of kale in this cozy fall pasta from the Lantern Inn, making it healthy and indulgent all at once. ½ cup finely chopped pecans½ cup panko2 tsp. finely grated lemon zest1 tsp. plus 3…

“One of my best friends recently moved to Alabama and for months she would send me photos of stunning pastries from Bandit Patisserie in Birmingham. The bakery was closed for my first two visits, but the third time was a charm. I fell hard for the delicate pastries—like this incredible pear and chocolate tart. I want to come back every season to get the full range of fruit offerings (is it strawberry season yet?).” Chocolate-Almond Pear Tart MAKES ONE 9" TART Pastry chef Kristen Hall of Bandit Patisserie swears by fraisage, a classic French technique in which you use the heel of your hand to smear the tart dough across your work surface for a crust that rolls out with minimal cracking. TART SHELL 1 Tbsp. Dutch-process unsweetened cocoa powder¼ tsp.…

Down North Pizza is about dope food: Detroit-style pizza that’s nostalgic and reminds people of Pizza Fridays as a kid. But it’s also about training, hiring, and housing people like me, guys who have spent time in prison. No one gives you a crash course in returning to society. It’s hard to find a job, because of your track record, and housing, since landlords want to know your previous residence, and it’s not good if that was the state. But Down North Pizza is helping people like me move on and become productive citizens. It starts with hiring; a lot of guys come in through word of mouth. We help them find housing and we also have apartments above the restaurant, one of which I’m currently living in. I train…

4 SERVINGS Chris Williams loves to use berbere, a hot and complex Ethiopian spice blend, at his restaurant, Lucille’s. “It’s one of my favorite tools for bringing excitement to humble ingredients,” he says. Williams employs it here to create a bold one-dish meal that welcomes whatever seasonal veg you might have on hand. 5 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil, divided, plus more6 garlic cloves, coarsely chopped½ cup berbere2 lemons, halved2½ tsp. Diamond Crystal or 1¼ tsp. Morton kosher salt, plus more6 radishes, trimmed, halved2 cups fingerling or other small potatoes (about 14 oz.)1 cup brussels sprouts (about 5 oz.), halved1 cup baby carrots (about 6 oz.)Freshly ground black pepper1 3½–4-lb. whole chicken1 small onion, quartered⅓ cup parsley leaves with tender stems Preheat oven to 400°. Heat 4 Tbsp. oil in a small…

For Heads of the Table, we wanted to acknowledge people who have started new organizations, opened restaurants, or rejiggered what they were doing to help their community and the industry at large during the pandemic. But we still wanted to give a small shout-out to someone who has been doing relief work for the past decade: chef José Andrés. Through his nonprofit, World Central Kitchen, he laid a blueprint for what it means to work with communities in crisis, supplying meals to people in need (oftentimes partnering with restaurants) and helping build stronger food systems. Andrés is the prime example of giving back, and you can hear more from him on page 88.…

Apple-Hazelnut Rye Cake 8–10 SERVINGS Big chunks of apple, toasted hazelnuts, currants, a little rye flour, and ground coriander (Wyatt’s favorite warm spice for sweets) come together to make a rich, deeply decadent cake that gets dressed up with a tangy buttercream. You can swap the hazelnuts for walnuts or pecans, the rye flour for whole grain flour, and add or subtract any spice you like. Just make sure you’re using tart baking apples or the flavor might get lost. Lastly, you really want to bake this cake until it’s a deep, burnished copper color. If you’re short on time, you can omit the buttercream and serve the cake warm with ice cream or crème fraîche. CAKE Nonstick vegetable oil spray¾ cup (108 g) blanched hazelnuts1¼ cups (156 g) all-purpose flour¼…

I’M NOT TALKING ABOUT 2020, the year that nearly broke the restaurant industry (and all of us) as the pandemic shut down restaurants and exposed just how punishing the industry’s margins are, and as reckonings on race, labor, gender, and power crystallized just how toxic these workplaces can be. I’m talking about 2021, the Not-Yet-New-Normal. I still don’t leave my apartment without a mask or sanitizer, and restaurants still haven’t recovered from the shutdowns. And yet it has also been a year of rebuilding, of hard work, of tough conversations. So for this weird year’s Restaurant Issue, we wanted to highlight the glimmers of hope that have turned into crucial change and pure joy for the industry. We’re celebrating the chefs and owners who risked it all to open in…

I’m grateful they do, of course; for those of us lucky enough to eat out, restaurants are where we celebrate birthdays and nurse breakups and feed ourselves when we can cook no more. They’re the keepers of our culture and our borrowed homes. But with the ever-increasing rent, the utilities, the cost of food that quickly expires, the endless labor—all for an average net profit margin of just 3 to 5 percent—the prospect of running one has always seemed, to me, dubious. So when COVID hit and I found myself taking my Stupid Little Walks™ through a ghost town of shuttered ramen shops and once-bustling pizzerias, hopelessness overwhelmed me. With survival so precarious in normal times, how could any of these places make it through…this? “It takes bravery to open…

“This restaurant is very personal. The food is an ode to Greg’s baby sister, Leah, and his grandmother Louise, both of whom have passed. The feel is a modern-day version of a 1920s Memphis juke joint: a place where Black people found fellowship and congregation (and drank prohibited liquor!) amidst the discrimination of the Deep South. And because we’re in a Black neighborhood that’s gentrifying, we wanted to create a place where longtime Black residents feel welcome, with a pay-what-you-can dish that’s always on the menu. All of this was too important to just walk away from.” Smothered Cabbage With Sausage and Hot Honey 6 SERVINGS This fresh take on classic smothered cabbage from Leah & Louise is an ode to chef Greg Collier’s late sister, Leah, who loved to experiment…

I had my first son in 2008. I wanted to be there for him and have a career, which was super difficult. I was working 14-hour days six days a week. I missed his first steps, birthdays, and I sure as hell missed holidays because I was serving other people. When I got married, my wife, Sophia, told me I needed to prioritize family time. I didn’t listen. I still answered the phone if somebody called. But after my daughter was born, I took a month off and realized the restaurant wouldn’t burn down without me. I said no to certain opportunities. I had to make decisions based on what was best for my family—especially once COVID hit. I used to believe you had to peel, cut, steam, mash, salt,…

“The dining options in San Francisco are too many to count. I often let my bookseller friend Paul Yamazaki take me to whatever new restaurant in North Beach, near his shop City Lights, has caught his imagination. But here’s one stop I insist on: the Slanted Door. Its appetizers will make your mouth water, but the grilled lamb is not to be missed.” Grilled Lemongrass Lamb Chops 4 SERVINGS Lamb chops have plenty of fat, which make them prone to flare-ups on the grill. When making this recipe from the Slanted Door, turn and move the chops around often so they brown without taking on an acrid charred flavor. 4 shallots, coarsely chopped4 lemongrass stalks, bottom third only, tough outer layers removed, coarsely chopped4 Thai chiles, coarsely chopped½ cup plus ½…

“When I was filming a series in New Orleans, the crew insisted we go to Bacchanal Wine. This outdoor oasis had live music, shareable small plates, and a feeling of celebration. The charred broccoli salad has bright notes of lemon, and the tahini creates this smooth texture alongside the crunchy broccoli. They really gave broccoli a facelift, not that she needed one.” Charred Broccoli Salad With Figs 4 SERVINGS A high-speed blender will give you the smoothest consistency for the broccoli-tahini purée in this bright salad from Bacchanal Wine, but you can also use a food processor—it will just have more texture. This recipe makes more purée than you need, but you can use the hummus-like condiment as a dip for warm pita or raw vegetables, or as a sandwich schmear.…

In the beginning of the pandemic, all the restaurant GoFundMes were focused on helping front-of-house workers, but no one was helping workers in back-of-house, especially those who were undocumented, who receive no help from the government. They’ve given their lives to the industry, and we felt that we had a social responsibility to help them. We’re going on our 19th month in operation. We’ve been feeding over 1,600 families in Los Angeles, primarily back-of-house workers. We move 160,000 pounds of food every week, which are paid for by individual donors and grants from foundations or are donated by partners we’ve previously been in business with through our bar consulting company. We’re going to keep doing this as long as we can. We’re nothing without our people.…

Back in mid-March, when there were mandated shutdowns across New York City, Chinatown was hit the hardest, not only because of xenophobia but also due to its off-the-grid nature. I posted on Instagram, asking friends if they were interested in helping these businesses. Over 50 people showed up for our first meeting, and Send Chinatown Love was formed. We reached out to merchants to figure out what they needed, then created fundraisers, gift card vouchers, and a gift-a-meal program, which put $1 million back into their pockets. Now we’re looking to the future. What can we do to make Chinatown businesses more resilient? How can we diversify their revenue streams? We’re leaning into pro bono consulting and business development, which includes helping merchants rebrand, get on to delivery apps, and…

Whenever I was in the dish pit, filling in as a line cook, and working as a sous-chef, there was always a helping hand pulling me up. Madison’s restaurant industry has taught me the value of being there for others, especially if you’re barely making it yourself. My time working in restaurants now informs the legislation I’m working on as a state representative for the 76th district of the Wisconsin State Assembly. With other state representatives I’ve worked on eliminating tipped minimum wage (a paltry $2.33 per hour in Wisconsin) and proposed a fair $15 per hour living wage, and introduced a bill that would help locals apply for grant funding to cover down payments on homes. The policies we are fighting for—to build economic agency and security—will make the…

STEP-BY-STEPS TIPS & TRICKS 1 What Is an Air Fryer, Anyway? Let’s get this out of the way: Air frying is a rebrand of the stodgy old term convection—they’re essentially the same thing. Air frying just sounds so much lighter, doesn’t it? An air fryer is a mini countertop convection oven, fitted with a fan that helps heat circulate around food more efficiently. It preheats in minutes and makes weeknight cooking convenient, mostly hands-off, and so, so crispy. 2 How Do I Know If I Need One? Like shearling-lined Birkenstocks and children, an air fryer is something you want, not something you need. The only person who needs an air fryer is someone who has no other oven and craves a corn dog. If you answer “yes” to two or…