First of all: sorry for the lack of recent posts. Running a business is hard work, and I have managed to find myself in ten different states in the past three months. But I am making an appearance to talk a little bit about bagels.
Photo sourced from OpenSource
A friend recently forwarded me a podcast, which I will not mention, about bagels. The podcast was about the “renaissance” in bagels that was…bringing back some sort of fallen grandeur to the bagel. Think sourdough bagels, bagels made “in the old fashioned way,” by small producers. The person in question was upset that the mentions of Jews were few and far between, but also that they were not highlighting how grocery store bagels were diluting the bagel, somehow, and that the podcast did not feature bakers in New York, but rather, in California.
I find these arguments, from both the podcast and the complainer, to be somewhere between mind-numbingly boring and ridiculous. Yes, bagels may be Jewish in origin, though there seems to be a lot of muddiness around this in the research. We do know they came to North America through Jewish communities. Given everything, though, I do not blame the podcaster for wanting to not mention Jews too much. The coffeeshop and grocery store bagels are often what people realistically have access to. Sometimes it is what they like. And honestly, a lot of these ideas about bagels are more an expression of a consumer’s status rather than any real question of taste. That is the case with a lot of artisan foods nowadays.
In any case, a fancy bagel that “follows the rules” does not mean that it is a good bagel. Bakeries outside of New York and Montreal are perfectly capable of making an excellent bagel, and bakeries in those cities can make terrible bagels, and often do. (New York, especially.) And many of the best bagels are those plain bagels from very ordinary shops. Many of the fancy bagels that claim authenticity (which is bullshit) are, honestly, terrible. I would rather have a supermarket bagel (which are not always terrible!).
And what makes a good bagel is partly up to you. I have a few criteria that I will discuss in a moment. These are not objective. I like bagels that are like the bagels I grew up with in the New York area, specifically from two very ordinary bagel shops. My criteria are based on the fact that I tend to not put much cream cheese on a bagel, as well. But you do you. You can find good bagels in many places. If you like these fancy bagels, good for you! If you want a supermarket bagel, good for you!
A caraway bagel with tofu cream cheese at Goldberg’s in Silver Spring, MD. (Photo mine/February 2023)
As it happens, the two best bagels I have had in recent years are not ones I had on visits back home to New York. Instead, they are: the Black Russian rye bagels at Goldberg’s in Silver Spring, MD, and the onion bagel at Marx Bagels in Blue Ash, OH. Both make spectacular bagels that meet what I want in a New York-style bagel: a good chew, a certain moreish texture, a slight crust, and can be toasted or not to equal deliciousness. If you are in the DC or Cincinnati areas, check these places out.
Picture it: 1999, suburban New York. I am eight years old, and I am at a friend’s house for dinner. (Not as romantic as Sophia’s Sicily, but please bear with me.) Among other things on the menu that night, with the chicken and mashed potatoes, are peas.
Now, eight-year-old Jonathan loved peas, so much so that his mother used to put them on various other dishes to add joy. (Pasta and tomato sauce is still slightly incomplete for me without a helping of peas.) This friend, however, is pushing the peas to the side of their plate.
“Can I have your peas,” I asked.
“No!” their mother said. “They need to eat their peas.”
“But which kid likes peas?” the father retorted. “Give Jonathan the peas.”
As I ate the peas, I wondered if maybe being a kid who liked peas was weird. That disliking peas – or, in this friend’s case, anything green – was the norm, or natural. I shrugged it off at the time – I was an autistic kid who was already “weird” – but that “weirdness” stuck with me as a fact. Vegetable-loving child.
But what if that was not true?
Picky, by Helen Zoe Veit (
Picky
In fact, pickiness is very much a construct of marketing and the negative side of how we have industrialized and modernized our food system. This development – and of how “picky culture” became such an entrenched norm for how American children are thought to eat – is the thrust of Helen Zoe Veit’s new book, Picky. Veit, a historian at Michigan State University, wants to know “why American kids no longer eat broadly and with gusto.” The book is fantastically written and fascinating – such that I did not talk about anything else for a few days afterwards.
Veit takes us on a wonderful journey through how American kids ate – and how they were taught to eat. She starts in the 19th century, when children were widely considered voracious eaters – of fruits, vegetables, and just about everything. Fermented and pickled foods were norms, because refrigeration was unavailable – and most eating happened at meals. In fact, snacking was quite uncommon. But food industrialization, consumerism, and the availability of refrigeration and packaging changed how we eat. Kids were given “hyperpalatable” tastes earlier – and a hefty dose of marketing. Parents, meanwhile, were given cultural signals that claimed that pushing foods would go against the child’s best or natural instincts. What emerges, then, is a set of cultural assumptions that claim that a child is naturally picky – and that parents ought to accommodate it. Similarly, there were two big shifts in how we ate: more snacks, so kids came to the table with fuller stomachs, and that instead of everyone eating a “family meal,” different family members were increasingly eating different things.
She busts many myths along the way. It turns out that children’s taste buds are not actually that different from parents’, nor do expectations around food lead to eating disorders. In many cases, these are traceable not to science, but to marketing claims. The expectations of what children like are often based on science with shockingly blinkered assumptions. And a lack of pickiness in the past was not just because “nothing else was available.” Children often sought out the first new greens of spring, or strong salty, pickled, sour, and spicy flavors, or organ meat in the 19th century. Childhood adventurous eating was a cross-class phenomenon.
I really appreciate Veit’s deep attention to bridging class, race, and regional differences. Veit pays close attention to featuring members of different communities across the United States – including African-Americans, immigrant groups, and indigenous communities. Many of the examples are regionally bound – especially in New England and Appalachia. And she is keen to note that so much of pickiness was class-based – partly based on who had access to industrial food, and partly based on social norms. She charts how, in a strange rendition of the trickle-down effect, “picky culture” started in wealthier homes, before becoming more common at lower socioeconomic strata in the 1970s and 1980s.
She ends with some practical advice. Serve a single meal to everyone: parents and kids. Rather than offering an alternate meal, ask if a child is not hungry right now, and offer to heat up the meal later when the child is ready. Try to reduce snacking around meal times. And speak of what you are eating, as an adult, with gusto. In earlier generations, it was expected that kids could learn to love new foods, and she seeks to bring some of that back.
I thought about this advice, and Veit’s broader findings, recently. I was on a (lovely) cruise with my mother and husband and was walking through the buffet one day at sea. I overheard a young girl, maybe about six, telling her mother, “you don’t understand! Eating broccoli will do me irreparable harm.” Reader, it took superhuman effort to not burst out laughing. But what struck me as extraordinary was not simply a young child using “irreparable,” but that that was the only shocking part of the story to me – not the pushing back on what the mother offered the child, or the child not wanting vegetables at all. (Vegetables on a ship are themselves a modern miracle!) For what it is worth: I had a pile of broccoli on my plate, and it was irreparably delicious.
I do wish Veit gave more of a call to arms on creating better modern food. Modernist food has its time and place – and while Veit does acknowledge it, I think there is perhaps not enough emphasis on the fact that other paths were available for what got industrialized and how. A lot of the focus is on marketing and policy – but is there a way to create modernist food that does not breed “picky culture”?
Autism Implications
As a disability professional, and as an autistic person!, I think the implications for autistic folks are interesting. Many autistic communities assume that all autistic people have the same food aversions and preferences, and that there is a common set of dietary needs and wants, often around the foods marketed traditionally to children: boxed mac and cheese, chicken nuggets, and so on. I have written before about these topics, and how limiting they can be. Many claim to be upset when food manufacturers change ingredients. This is unhealthy. But what strikes me is how much of this stems from potential expectations set in the earliest parts of eating around what food should be or not be – hyperpalatable, industrially predictable, and texturally specific. I am autistic and love my routine, but I do not think these expectations lead to a healthy relationship with food.
And I wonder how much of “autism food” – just like many other assumptions around what autistic behaviors or expectations are – is less a product of some sort of innate “naturalness” and more related to cognitive rigidity meeting the discourse and narratives set forth in our highly capitalist society and in the general cultural milieu. There is plenty written on ways autistic folks can expand their diets, with or without help (including Bee Wilson’s excellent First Bite). But how can we maybe expand our idea on how autistic people’s tastes and preferences develop – especially as autistic folks? Perhaps Veit’s book offers a clue.
It might also be worth noting that, based on some anecdotal evidence I collected, a lot of autistic kids seem to really, really, really like broccoli. Perhaps we can take Veit’s suggestion and infuse broccoli with joy? (And garlic, I hope.)
I should note that some neurodivergent folks are really mad about this book. I actually disagree with a lot of those folks’ claims about how neurodivergent people do or do not eat…which you can read elsewhere on this blog. And I do not deny that aversions and pickiness are intensely felt! But it really is worth asking how certain aversions happen – and why they happen in such a way.
A Personal Note
And finally, it is nice to have the way my parents raised me with food to be so neatly affirmed. To be fair, my sister and I were pretty voracious and wide-ranging eaters. I remember my grandmother’s cabbage soup, a multitude of things with carrots and peas, pickled fish, and many peppery things quite fondly. My mother told me, when I asked about my childhood favorite vegetables, that I was a fiend for radishes and zucchini too. (Both are great!) But what I remember most was the fact that we ate the same thing as a family – and, by and large, there was not the idea that you could have “another option.” (Or that such an idea was on the table! Dinner was a shared experience.) Later in life, I would learn that this way of doing things was not as common in the United States as I had believed. But reading Veit’s recommendations, I felt “seen,” as the kids would say.
And, in case you are wondering: I am still in touch with the friend I mentioned in the beginning as an adult. They love peas now.
My friend Jamie Ding has now, as of this writing, won 24 games in a row on Jeopardy!, and has won over $660,000 in the process. This puts him in the top 5 of all contestants ever on the show.
Jamie at the buzzer (photo from Jeopardy!)
Jamie is a dear friend who I have known since I was 13. It is absolutely thrilling to watch someone so awesome become one of the greatest game show winners in American history. He is also a great person and quite a foodie. For my and my spouse’s wedding, Jamie gave us two bottles of his homemade nocino – walnut extract.
So, to celebrate, I decided to make a cake in Jamie’s honor, incorporating his nocino and two other things he loves: orange and chocolate.
The Jamie Ding cake (photo mine, April 2026)
This, readers, is the Jamie Ding Cake: an orange walnut cake with dark chocolate ganache.
Zest and juice of one large orange (1/3 cup juice)
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, sifted
1/3 cup ground walnuts or walnut flour, plus additional ground walnuts for garnish
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
Ganache
1 cup dark chocolate chips
2/3 cup sour cream
1 tsp nocino
Method
Preheat the oven to 350F/175C. Grease a 9 inch/23 cm round cake pan.
In a large bowl, whisk together the olive oil, sugar, eggs, nocino, sour cream, zest, and juice until thoroughly combined.
In another bowl, mix the flour, walnuts, baking soda, baking powder, and salt until thoroughly combined.
Fold the flour mixture into the oil mixture until combined.
Pour the batter into a pan. Bake for 35-45 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
Let the cake cool in the pan for 20 minutes, and then on a rack until cooled completely.
For the ganache, melt the chocolate by your preferred method – I use 30 second bursts in the microwave in a medium microwave-proof bowl, stirring each time.
When the chocolate is melted and still hot, stir in the sour cream and nocino until combined.
Spread the ganache over the top of the cake in an even layer.
Garnish the cake with a sprinkling of walnut pieces if desired and allow the ganache to set.
The cake keeps for 3-4 days covered at room temperature.
Thank you to David Ouziel, AJ Faust, and the congregants of Mishkan Torah in Greenbelt, MD for conducting repeat user acceptance testing on this recipe
One reason I find authenticity annoying is that some of the best cuisine out there has happened when one group takes the traditions of another and makes it their own. In fact, that is a lot of Jewish cuisine, generally, as I have written on this blog for over a decade.
Matcha (photo T. Tseng/CC)
Another example is Japanese-style baking. Though Japan has a delicious native sweets tradition, Japanese cuisine has also incorporated a baking tradition stemming from German and French baking in the 19th century and earlier Portuguese innovations. The history of Japanese baking has been well-documented elsewhere. You can find these baked goods in bakeries, Japanese convenience stores (konbini), restaurants, cafeterias, and many places in Japan – and at many Japanese shops here in the USA.
I actually enjoy the Japanese versions of these baked goods more than the Western “originals.” They are a touch less sweet and a good deal lighter, and often incorporate Japanese ingredients like matcha or red bean, which I enjoy. (The lightness comes from using lighter flours and rice flour.) I also find that these baked goods tend to have a comforting, understated nature to them. Normally, these are desserts I would buy elsewhere, but my husband asked me to try my hand at making some.
A bakery counter in Japan (photo Kawasaki Yusuke/CC)
Hence this pound cake, based on a recipe for a lemon pound cake in Brendan Liew and Caryn Ng’s Konbini,which is a cookbook of Japanese convenience store cuisine. Pound cakes are fairly popular in Japan, and the Japanese pound cake is a very relaxed treat. I have made mine with matcha rather than lemon, and a little less sweet even than the original. Feel free to adjust the sweetness to your taste.
Matcha Pound Cake
Based on a recipe by Brendan Liew and Caryn Ng in Konbini
Preheat your oven to 175 C/350 F. Grease and line a 9”x5”/22.5 centimeter loaf pan.
In a bowl, sift together the flours, starch, baking powder, salt, sugar, and matcha powder. I do so by mixing them with a whisk.
Whisk together the butter, 6 tablespoons of milk, and eggs.
Pour the egg mixture into the flour mixture and mix until combined. You should have a reasonably thick batter that is darkish green in color.
Fold in the chocolate until combined.
Pour the mixture into the prepared pan and bake for 1 hour to 1 hour 10 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.
Remove and let cool, first in the pan and then out of the pan.
While the cake cools, make the glaze by mixing together the confectioner’s sugar and remaining tablespoon of milk until you have a loose liquid.
Spoon the glaze over the cake. The cake keeps covered at room temperature for 4-5 days.
Thanks to David Ouziel and AJ Faust for repeat user acceptance testing of this recipe, and to my friends at Mishkan Torah Congregation in Greenbelt and my husband’s friends for testing the final version of this recipe.
Here is a quick recipe for an arugula basil pesto that I cobbled together from a few recipes recently. Arugula adds a peppery kick to the basil, and also, many nutrients. I also added some nutritional yeast for an umami kick, but feel free to leave that out. This is a great recipe for using up the arugula-in-baggies that you find at many supermarkets here in the US.
Eat this with pasta, fish, potatoes, vegetables, bread, or whatever else you wish. I have eaten this pesto with gnocchi – as shown in the photo – and very much enjoyed it.
Arugula basil pesto served on gnocchi – forgive the messiness of the photo please! (Photo mine, December 2025)
Arugula Basil Pesto
Makes 2 cups
½ cup pine nuts ½ cup extra-virgin olive oil ½ cup shredded Parmesan cheese 5 cloves garlic 3 cups arugula 3 tablespoons lemon juice ½ teaspoon table salt 1/3 cup basil leaves 2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar 1 teaspoon nutritional yeast (optional)
Toast the pine nuts. Here are two ways to do so:
Heat a dry skillet over medium heat, then add the pine nuts and heat, stirring constantly, for three minutes, or until they visibly change color or have a noticeable toasted-nut smell. Remove immediately from the heat.
Spread evenly on a microwave-safe plate, then microwave in 30-second spurts on high heat until golden color and fragrant.
Place the pine nuts in a food processor with the remaining ingredients.
Puree the mixture until it is consistent and well-mixed throughout.
Store in the refrigerator in a covered container for up to four days.
I have not yet reviewed a bookstore on this blog, despite a decade of writing. Today, that will change, because I want to tell you about one of my favorite bookstores in Washington DC: Bold Fork Books.
Bold Fork Books is in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood in northern Washington DC. It is an unusual bookstore in that it pretty much only sells cookbooks and food writing.
Of course, I love it. The store is small and has a tall wall shelf of cookbooks, which is quite frankly an ideal number of cookbooks. You can find cookbooks from all six continents, and food writing and history on many topics – as well as plenty of food-themed books for children. I rarely go in and leave without buying anything. It is, shall we say, dangerous for my wallet.
Photo from Bold Fork Books
Bold Fork sells – and prioritizes – books that often do not get “airtime” at larger bookstores. The store features books about cuisines from many, many more countries than one would find in a typical cookbook selection: Sierra Leone, Georgia, Barbados, Myanmar, Kenya, and Romania among them (including Irina Georgescu’s excellent Tava). I especially appreciate the hefty and growing selection of indigenous cookbooks on offer – including one of my favorites, Sean Sherman’s Sioux Chef. And while you can find your more “traditional” cuisines on the shelves as well, many of the cookbooks and other books are those that are perhaps not as renowned – and, incidentally, often easier for a cook new to a culinary tradition to follow. I first encountered Vietnamese Vegetarian – Uyen Luu’s wonderful book that I reviewed earlier this year – at Bold Fork.
The store also features many cookbooks that straddle the boundaries of cuisines and audiences. Many bookshops jettison the cookbooks that straddle cuisines or that do not have the right “authentic” sheen. I can also often tell a bookstore’s political leaning by the cookbooks on the shelf: a left-leaning shops will often have a focus on whatever cuisines are most popular at the time, and right-leaning shops often focus their cookbook selections on entertaining and baking. Bold Fork eschews this segregation and offers it all.
Bold Fork is worth a visit, and a wonderful way to support a local business that is a beloved space for the community. And if you do visit, I should note that the bookstore often hosts wonderful food events. When I go, I often see a cheese tasting or another event happening in the back of the store. I was fortunate enough to attend one such event last year – a talk on the links between opera history and food by Rita Monastero, who can best be described as the doyenne of Italian food television. (The talk included the memorable line, “Nelly Melba was very fond of the ice cream.”) Do try to attend an event – it is very cozy and you often get a lovely treat. In my case, it was Monastero’s wonderful artichoke and Parmesan pinwheel pastry.
Let me know what you think of Bold Fork and I hope to see you there.
This is a simple recipe that combines three things I deeply enjoy: garlic, rosemary, and salmon. Longtime readers have seen me post many things about rosemary. I have recently started growing my favorite herb on our rooftop terrace, and I now have a bit of an abundance.
The recipe itself was inspired, loosely, by a recipe published by Naz Deravian in the New York Times for chili crisp honey salmon. (Also worth cooking – it is delicious.) What inspired the recipe for me was not the original spicy-sweet flavor. Rather, it was what surprised me about the recipe: the surprising use of mayonnaise.
A mayonnaise selection in a Russian supermarket (photo courtesy of Alex Warburton)
In North America, it is most commonly a condiment – an application which I am personally lukewarm about. (I tend to prefer other condiments on my sandwich.) In many other countries, mayonnaise is served with fries or fried foods (an approach I do enjoy). Yet it is also a surprisingly versatile cooking ingredient. Here in the US, it has been used to make cakes and brown grilled sandwiches; in many other countries, it is used to make a complex potato salad that seems to be called a “Russian salad” nearly everywhere except Russia. But, as you likely know, mayonnaise has its detractors.
A lot of people say that mayonnaise is not very Jewish – but Jews have enjoyed mayonnaise in various ways for quite a while. Related lemon-and-egg sauces are fairly common in Sephardi traditions, and Jews from many communities in the former Soviet Union incorporate it into various ever-richer salads and other things. After all, mayonnaise is extremely popular, ubiquitous even, in Russia. Jews from the United Kingdom and South Africa enjoy a mysterious spread called “sandwich spread,” which is functionally mayonnaise with pickles inside. And we are not the only ones: different mayonnaises are popular as ingredients in Japan, the Arab World, and Latin America – though usually in lighter quantities than the thick layers found on many sandwiches in the US and Canada. (Chile’s hot dogs are a notable exception.) These are all places not usually associated with mayonnaise.
Most mayonnaise hate is simply disliking it, and honestly, it is fine to not like something without a Big Reason for it. I think some of the cultural aspects of mayonnaise aversion are a combination of some sort of strange grievance politics with an ingredient associated with dominant cultures, combined with a bit of shame that folks are using it rather than cooking “authentic cuisine” – which, I remind you, was always a sham.
The salmon – served with chili broccoli and mashed purple potatoes. (Photo David Ouziel, August 2025)
Enough about mayo, and back to the fish. I, like Deravian, find that the mayonnaise in this marinade helps keep the fish moist and binds the flavoring ingredients together more reliably than oil alone. Feel free to add more rosemary or garlic to taste – I tend to go for a bit more rosemary than most people. The honey adds some sweetness, and if you want, you can add more – but if you do so, be sure to add some more garlic or rosemary to balance it out a little. You could easily make this with another type of fish, but you will need to adjust the cooking time. (Arctic char is a good and sustainable substitute.)
Garlic Rosemary Honey Salmon
Loosely based on a recipe by Naz Deravian
Sunflower oil
2 lbs / 900 grams salmon filets, with skin on
Salt (you can use any kind – I use table salt)
Black pepper
¼ cup mayonnaise (I use light mayonnaise)
1 tbsp white wine vinegar
1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary
1 1/2 tablespoons minced garlic (about five cloves)
1 tablespoon honey
Preheat oven to 400F/200C. Lightly grease a baking tray or casserole pan with sunflower oil. The tray should be deep enough to hold the salmon and catch any fluid coming off.
Place the salmon, skin-side down, on the baking surface. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Mix the other ingredients together and spoon over the salmon.
Bake for 20 minutes, or until the fish is flaking and slightly resistant when pushed with a fork.
Remove from the oven and let sit on the tray for a few minutes before eating.
Store leftovers in a covered container in the refrigerator for up to three days.
Thanks to David Ouziel for participating in several rounds of User Acceptance Testing for this recipe. Special thanks to Jonathan Bressler, Margaret Wessel Walker, Alex Warburton, Tamara Velasquez, and Adam Sperber for mayonnaise-specific research support.
Lest I forget – Naz Deravian’s book of Iranian cooking, Bottom of the Pot, is well worth acquiring. I particularly like her recipes for kookoos – big, vegetable-filled frittatas.
This has been, by my math, the longest stretch I have gone without posting something here. And trust me, I have good reason: I have been launching a business! I am now the owner of Opossum House Accessibility, which is my vehicle for providing bespoke accessibility consulting services for public and private clients. Launching a business is hard, but has been supremely fun. Subscribe to the newsletter here – I plan to write something in the future about how food blogging gave me skills I applied for launch.
Besides that, I have also been traveling. My husband (love that word!) and I went to Japan and South Korea on our honeymoon in May and June, and we have also been traveling on the Eastern Seaboard of the United States.
Anyway, enough prattle from what I am doing. You are here to read about food!The travels and business startup process have given me a lot to “chew on,” metaphorically and literally, about modern food and what modernist food is and is not. So, I want to share three reflections on modernist cooking.
Japan and South Korea do modernist food really well.
The wondrous world of a Japanese convenience store – in this case, a SeicoMart in Sapporo. (Photo mine/May 2025)
I am very much not the first person to write about the wonders of convenience stores in Japan and Korea. In these chains, you can get simple, reasonably healthy, and traditionally-rooted dishes for very cheap. Favorites include onigiri (Japan) or samgak gimbap (Korea) – rice balls with fillings, various noodle salads, and filled buns. While we definitely had “nicer” meals too, the stores were helpful for snacks or after a long day of sightseeing.
On both this trip and a past trip to these countries in 2019, I found myself thinking about how these stores exemplify what Rachel Laudan calls for her in her seminal article about culinary modernism: that we should advocate for cheap, high-quality processed food for everyone – not to undo processing. (I have written about this at length on these pages.) While 7-Eleven is making some moves towards this in the United States, I think these Japanese and Korean stores give us in North America a lot to think about. These stores also made me wonder about how these tastes have then affected Japanese and Korean cuisine more broadly. Do the wares of konbini in Japan and pyeonuijeom in South Korea change what people seek to make when they are at home? This is something that, despite the language barrier, I want to learn more about.
Generative artificial intelligence (AI) is overrated – especially in the kitchen.
Me, reading claims about generative AI. (Image via The Noun Project)
When you start a business nowadays, people want to talk to you about generative AI. This is especially true in accessibility, where a lot of people try to apply generative AI badly. I was already a bit suspicious of claims about generative AI, but decided to give it a little bit of a shot because it seemed money was there. After talking to Generative AI enthusiasts and my own research, I am now more skeptical than before. (As a result, I chose to ignore the misguided advice from more than one person to spend an hour a day fooling around on ChatGPT or Claude.)
Because people mean lots of things when they say “AI,” I will be more specific. I am talking about predictive large language models that generate content; for example, ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini. These are prediction-based tools that use “the most likely” thing to generate something. When you state it like that, the weird claims about generative AI sound a lot less plausible.
(I acknowledge there are some limited use cases that work well. For example: the designer I hired for my logo used AI models to replicate the beautiful logo she designed across business cards and letter heads. A friend of mine used a large language model to help people find the correct lawyer for their needs. Image description AI tools, which can come from multiple forms of AI, have been helpful for my blind friends. But the first is a talented artist using a tool to save time in applying her skills, and the second has many sources and is not usually reliant on large language models.)
I will link some great AI skepticism below. Anyway, I was originally going to write about how generative AI is actually a problem when you apply it to cooking, but Joe Ray at Wired published that article last week. He did the work of talking about the problems of asking generative AI for recipes, so I do not have to. Definitely go read it! It makes many of the points I wanted to make, and more.
Grilled fish – no AI needed. (Photo mine/May 2025)
In any case, I also spent time – especially on long flights and Amtrak rides – thinking about how people use generative AI in the kitchen. Apparently, people use it to “save time” with knowing when food is going off or to use food, plan their meals and grocery shopping, look for recipes, or figure out what to cook.
I think there are tons of problems here. Ray goes in about them in the food context, and other people – especially Ed Zitron and Baldur Bjarnason – have written about these issues in other contexts. But for cooking, I see two big problems. One is that cooking is embodied. Many of the things we do when we cook, we do through physical sense and actions that we take without describing well. How we beat an egg, see that something is browning, or how my blind friend listens to hear if a sponge cake is fully cooked. Generative AI does not have a body, much less knowledge one gains through a body. So the “advice” it spits out is already suspect.
The other is that cooking is inherently unpredictable. What happens when, as occurred to me last week, you cut into a cucumber to find a worm, and you need to rejig the salad you made? Or when you accidentally spill too much salt into your soup? AI usually looks for the “most likely” thing – but sometimes, we need to take unlikely steps in cooking. I worry about what happens to someone’s ability to cook and feed themselves when they become reliant on a tool that cannot handle the unpredicted. (And as an autistic person, I know surprises are hard! But they are part of life.)
Friends have also made a point that much of the dependence on AI is a direct consequence of the parlous state – and degradation – of search platforms, something that I have seen as I have written this blog over the past decade. Google and Bing, for example, both return far less reliable results than even two years ago. People are looking for something that seems useful to them – even if, as in this case, it causes more problems than it solves.
Modernist cooking is lots of things, but this use of AI is not one of them. At best, it is gimmicky. At worst, it becomes another way to pressure people to spend more time, energy, and money cooking than they can afford. What I see most vis-a-vis AI and food is that it is papering over an unhealthy or unsustainable relationship someone has with food. The problem is not that you need to better track your produce or plan your meals – the problem is you are trying to cook or eat in such a way that is not working with the way you live your life. And there is no shame – and it is probably better for your health, the planet, your wallet, and your well-being – if you choose to eat some more processed or prepared foods, or eat that sandwich, or do something simple, because that is what you have time for. And there are many established, low-tech, and more reliable ways to do this tracking. (I use a notebook.)
And if you need recipes, why not go to the original source? Recipe writers are humans whose work deserves to be supported. The best way to get free recipes, besides food blogs, is to support your local library and check out a few cookbooks – which you can now even do online. These books’ recipes are tested with the embodied knowledge that AI can never have. Here in Greater Washington, I have immensely enjoyed the cookbook collections in both Montgomery County and Washington DC’s library systems.
The blender and food processor are modern miracles.
A spectacular vegetarian mango and tofu salad with rice crackers at Chay in Falls Church, VA (photo mine/August 2024)
My business startup period has coincided with a renewed love of Southeast Asian vegetable salads. These are magnificent, hearty creations that feature shredded vegetables and fruit, often with tangy dressings and tofu or even fish for heft. (Vietnamese mango salads are a particular favorite.) While traveling, I was also lucky enough to have many delicious things that prominently feature grated carrots – fritters, pickles, noodle dishes, and even desserts. Grating or julienning by hand is a slow, dangerous process – and I am slower with a knife than most people. And besides that, I do not always have the time to do such an intense chop – especially with all of the tasks of getting a business launched and starting business development. My workaday, mundane food processor and blender have been a lifesaver. I can satisfy my cravings, safely, and do it in a reasonable amount of time. This machine is a win for society, not a cop out.
I have also, after nearly 34 years on this planet, finally come to truly understand why people love smoothies. Not as a meal replacement, but it is nice to have something somewhat heartier than my typical coffee (normal or decaf), tea, or sparkling water to sip on. It is especially comforting while I am trying to learn QuickBooks Online. Now, hearty drinks have a long history – in Viking Age Scandinavia and pre-colonial Mesoamerica, hearty grain-based drinks were very common. But the smoothie as we understand it now, with pureed fruit, yogurt, and anything else, is completely enabled by modern cooking equipment such as a blender. The miracle of cooking in 2025 is not a predictive model that can tell you to combine tarragon and fennel to flavor your pasta (pro tip: do not do this), but the fact that I can plug a machine in that spins a knife and liquifies a mango for me. What a time to be alive. Baruch Hashem.
I found a cool history of blenders (PDF) from Purdue University’s Extension Service. Also, given I mentioned the Viking Age and Classic Mesoamerica, I have two archeology books to recommend to you. Children of Ash and Elm, by Neil Price (for the Viking Age) and Collision of Worlds, by David Carballo (Mesoamerica) are some of the best books I have ever read, and changed the way I think about certain parts of food history.
Thank you to my husband, David Ouziel, for marrying me, traveling with me, putting up with my increasingly unhinged rants about AI hysteria, and eating my green mango salad with gusto. Thanks to Emma Greenstein, Mikaela Brown, Michael Faccini, Jonathon Epstein, Dexter O’Connell, Maryam Sabbaghi, AJ Faust, Matthew Marcus, Benjamin Gammage, Joe Conrad, Rachel Ouziel, and Jad Atoui for talking through some points in number 2 with me. Thanks to longtime readers Alex Strauss, Aaron Rubin, and Adelin Travers for taking us on wonderful food adventures in Japan.
My husband loves Vietnamese food. The balance of flavors speaks to him; he loves the textures and the forward tastes; and he likes lemongrass more than anyone I know. He asked me to make more Vietnamese food recently. (Reader, I lovingly cater his meals.) I decided to buy a cookbook, and chose Vietnamese Vegetarian, by Uyen Luu, because we do not eat much meat. This quick purchase was an excellent one, which I now recommend to you.
Vietnamese Vegetarian is an incredible book for three reasons: its approach, its flexibility, and of course, the recipes.
First – this book is a perfect example of what an accessible showcase of a cuisine can be. The recipes are rooted in what Vietnamese people eat in Vietnam and the diaspora, of course. Many common favorites are in this book – pho, sour soups, noodle salads, and summer rolls among them. However, Luu does not insist that you always find the exact ingredient someone might use in Vietnam, and offers options and substitutions, especially aimed for someone not near Vietnamese or other Southeast Asian stores. For example, she offers quite a number of potential substitutions in her noodle recipes – and explains how you may need to adjust the recipe.
Secondly – this book accounts for flexibility in recipes in a way that I will seek to emulate more on this blog, now. Many of her recipes come with a dizzying array of options: be it to bake or fry the spring rolls, which herbs to include in your banh xeocrepes, or the multiple seasoning options for simple stir-fried greens. After reading this book, I will now include more “choose your own adventure” posts here.
Basil (rau húng quế), which frequently appears in the book’s recipes. (Photo VanGenius via CC/Flickr)
And, of course, the recipes are delicious. Many of these recipes are a bit complex – especially the ones involving rice flour (which is very easy to mess up!) – but well worth the time. On the simpler side, I have really enjoyed the tofu with tomato and Thai basil (called rau húng quế in Vietnamese) and the lemongrass tofu, and the cold noodle dishes are all really tasty. I also recommend the many-recipes-in-one garlicky greens close to the beginning of the book. Even with my experience in cooking, that recipe gave me many new ideas.
Vietnamese food culture is a wonderful world, and Luu’s book is a great place to start. I recommend the book and hope you enjoy it. Be sure to also explore Vietnamese eateries in your area if you are so able: this cookbook has heightened the joy of going to these businesses for me as well. I now deeply appreciate, even more, the creativity and human endeavor of this cuisine.
I laughed – of course I like Jews. My interlocutor, who was from Spain, seemed confused. She was talking about green beans.
Never mind that I was more accustomed to the deeply Mexican word, ejotes, or the less common poroto and vainita. (Every Spanish-speaking country has their own word.)What I found interesting was that in Spain, and several other countries, the word for “green bean” is literally “Jews” or “green Jews.” (PDF in Spanish) Well, “green Jewish women.”
Green beans and carrots (photo David Ouziel/March 2025)
Many fantastic green bean dishes exist across the Jewish world – especially stewed with another New World star, the tomato. That recipe, fasolyas or fasolakes, has hundreds of variations. Jewish and non-Jewish Iranians cook lubia polo, a rich dish of rice, green beans, and often, meat. Egyptian Jewish stew lamb or beef with green beans – and sometimes, tomatoes too. Indian Jews sauté green beans with mustard and cumin. They are all delicious.
I took inspiration from three sources for this dish. One is a green bean dish perfected by my husband’s late grandmother, who was from the venerable Jewish community of Thessaloniki (Salonica). She cooked her green beans in a tomato-based stew – a different recipe, but the seasoning is inspired by her. When my father-in-law makes the dish, I usually consume four helpings. The dry stew and the addition of carrots are inspired both by a recipe from Tuscany and Italian Jewish communities and the Ethiopian fasolia, in which green beans and carrots are sauteed such that the green beans’ juices become part of the stew.
Eat this dish with bread, rice, or any carbohydrate you like.
Green Beans and Carrots
Serves 4-5 as a side
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium yellow onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 tablespoon white wine or rice wine vinegar
1 pound/450g green beans, chopped into 1.5”/4cm pieces
3 medium carrots, peeled and chopped into 1.5”/4cm matchsticks (roughly 1/4”/1/2cm wide)
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 tablespoon bouillon base (or 2 bouillon cubes)
½ teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 cup water
Heat the oil in a large skillet on medium-high heat, then add the onions and garlic.
Sauté the onions and garlic for a 4-5 minutes or until the onions are quite soft and translucent.
Add the vinegar and sauté for another minute.
Add the green beans and carrots and mix in, then sauté for 30 seconds.
Add the tomato paste, bouillon base, and black pepper and mix in thoroughly. Then, add the water.
Bring to a simmer, then reduce the heat to medium-low and cook for 10-15 minutes, stirring regularly. Allow the vegetables to become soft and the sauce to reduce. If the sauce is very reduced, add a splash more water.
Once the green beans and carrots are tender and the sauce is reduced, turn off the heat.
Serve hot or warm. Keep leftovers in a sealed container in the fridge for up to five days.
Thank you to David for conducting User Acceptance Testing on this recipe!
