A mutual friend introduced me to David Bacon; though our paths have crossed many times, we’d never met. David is a California-based writer and photographer, who was a factory worker and union organizer for two decades with the ​United Farm Workers​ and other unions. Today he documents the changing conditions in the workforce, the impact of the global economy, war and migration, and the struggle for human rights. This work has led to the publication of several books about migration. One of them, ​​​​In the Fields of the North / En los Campos del Norte​​​​, documents the lives of farm workers in photographs and oral histories like the photo essay we ran in April, ​”Consider the Broccolini—And the Farmworkers Who Harvest It​." That essay resonated with so many of you—yay—that we reached out to David to see if we could run another. And here it is.

We are making this piece free for everyone, because we love how much many of you have expressed interest in farming and labor. If you’d like to support our work, we’d love it if you’d become a paid subscriber, either through our site (which has a full recipe database; use code 100DAYS40 for 40% off an annual membership) or here on Substack. – Mark

On a cold November day, a crew of Mexican migrant workers were picking Brussels sprouts on a ranch outside of Watsonville. One picker would embrace the top of each long stem, pulling it close to his chest, while his hands ran down the stalk, pulling the sprouts loose where they'd land neatly into his bucket. Others used different techniques. Often a worker would grab the plant at the bottom, where its leaves were as big as faces, and then simply yank the sprouts off.

Much of farm work is paid by the piece, ensuring that workers produce at an often demonic pace. Workers in this field, however, were paid by the hour. As arduous as their labor was, they could work with a certain dignity.

Once each bucket was full, the picker carried it to a trailer, handing it off to the loader, who'd toss the small green heads into big white bins. Much of farm work is paid by the piece, ensuring that workers produce at an often demonic pace. Workers in this field, however, were paid by the hour. As arduous as their labor was, they could work with a certain dignity. They walked to the truck to empty their buckets, instead of running.

In the Ohlone Elementary School across the road from the field, Jenny Dowd, a bilingual teacher, led her unruly class of 8 and 9 year olds in a song to help them learn to read. Her kids were the children of farmworkers, some perhaps of the men cutting the Brussels sprouts nearby.

Al Roker and Courtney Roker Laga are this week’s guests on Food with Mark Bittman. Listen here!

Teacher Jenny Dowd helps students, many of them from Mixtec families, learn the words to a song at Ohlone Elementary School.

The California coast, from Davenport south through Santa Cruz, Watsonville, and Castroville, is Brussels sprouts country. Most of this vegetable in North America comes from these fields, although a growing harvest now takes place in Baja California, in northern Mexico. In California the vast majority of the people who harvest Brussels sprouts, like those who pick other crops, are Mexican. Most are migrants from the states of southern Mexico—immigrant workers who’ve crossed the border to labor in these fields.

Indigenous migrants have created communities all along the northern road from Mexico to the US and Canada. Their experience defies common preconceptions about immigrants. US policy treats migrants as individuals, ignoring the social pressures forcing whole communities to move, and the networks of families and hometowns that sustain them on their journeys.

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In the current wave of deportations, parents without papers often have to leave behind their children born in the US, like the children in the Ohlone Elementary School. Sometimes this arbitrary Alice-in-Wonderland world does just the opposite, deporting undocumented young people who have no memory of the place they were born, but to which they find themselves forcibly relocated.

"The seasonal nature of farm work, the racism justifying exploitation, and the lack of social investment in in rural communities conspire to built obstacles almost impossible to overcome."

Without the labor of these families, there would be no Brussels sprouts on the table, but it is not labor that guarantees a good life. Gaspar Rivera-Salgado, a Mixtec professor at UCLA, points out, "A job in the fields in California, Oregon, or Washington is not a guarantee for escape from a precarious life. Migrating north is no longer a means to achieve economic mobility, if it ever was. At least for this generation, it is hard to imagine any exit. The seasonal nature of farm work, the racism justifying exploitation, and the lack of social investment in in rural communities conspire to built obstacles almost impossible to overcome."

Today the people picking in this field may be immigrants to the U.S., but in a longer historical view, they are the descendants of Indigenous people whose presence in north America predated Columbus and the arrival of the Brussels sprouts by thousands of years. Now they cross the border between Mexico and the U.S. as migrant workers, many speaking Indigenous languages as old, or even older, than those of the colonizers—Mixtec, Triqui, or Nahuatl. In the soft conversations among the workers of this picking crew, you can hear those languages mixed with that of the Spaniards.

Many people love Brussels sprouts, and serve it for dinner on the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday. Native people in the U.S. point out that Thanksgiving celebrates the beginning of the European colonization of north America, which drove them from the lands where they lived historically. The Brussels sprouts came with the colonizers. While the Romans probably grew and ate them, the first plants came to this continent with the French to the colonies of Quebec and the Atlantic seaboard.

Brussels sprouts may be a colonizers’ vegetable, but it has many healthy properties. It contains sulforaphane and indole-3-carbinol, both of which are believed to play a role in blocking the growth of cancer. In yet another irony, in non-organic fields, picking crews often get exposed to the agricultural chemicals that are one important cause of the explosion of cancer in the U.S. Farm workers get much higher doses than the supermarket patrons who buy the produce they pick.

Putting the food on the table is really one of the most important jobs people do, and one that gets the least acknowledgement and respect.

But it’s a job. Putting the food on the table is really one of the most important jobs people do, and one that gets the least acknowledgement and respect. So the next time you decide on Brussels sprouts for dinner, first, don’t boil them. It removes those healthy anti-cancer chemicals. And don’t overcook them either—that’s what produces the sulfur taste many people don’t like. But then, when they’re out there on the table, remember who got them there.

Sometimes a special occasion rolls around and the thought of shopping for a gift feels entirely overwhelming. I know that because I’ve been there, and there are many people I love in my life with very particular tastes. I often turn toward a budget-friendly, reliably delicious, and homemade solution: Dukkah. A mix of toasted nuts, seeds, and spices that’s customizable to anyone’s preferences (and takes up minimal pantry space)—it’s a real treat. It’s also something that you can and should make to have in your own pantry for, well, frankly, every occasion.

As I see it, when you’re cooking for one—whether that’s for yourself, a family member, or a friend—it counts as an occasion, and there’s no reason not to make something so good that anyone would wish they could have it for themselves.

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A dish that’s delightfully bright, creamy-crunchy, and highly satisfying—dukkah-crusted feta with fennel salad—will come together quite quickly when you’re able to make its components in advance. In this case, you could make a big batch of dukkah on a slow weekend morning and store it in the pantry for 2-3 weeks. Crust the feta and transfer it to a parchment-lined tray (covered with plastic wrap) that will fit in the freezer until you’re ready for shallow frying. Prepare tahini vinaigrette ahead and store it in the fridge—whenever you’re ready to eat, give it a quick shake or stir before tossing your salad together.

REGENT SEVEN SEAS CRUISES

Cruise with me!

In the last couple of years, I’ve traveled from Hong Kong to Tokyo, from Buenos Aires to Antarctica, and from Barcelona to Madrid—all on a cruise ship. A Regent Seven Seas cruise ship, to be precise. Regent makes cruising effortless: beautiful rooms, all with balconies; spectacular service; plentiful and fresh food and drink. I’ll be on a ​Mediterranean voyage in November​ that I’d love for you to join me on—email us at members@bittmanproject.com​ to get on the list for details. View the itinerary ​here​. – Mark

These ingredients will make all of your meals more exciting throughout the rest of the week, too. Sprinkle toasted slivered almonds over greek yogurt with fruit and honey for breakfast. Drizzle tahini over a loaded sweet potato for lunch.

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When I was a kid, we never got to eat sugary breakfast cereals — with one exception: family vacations. These cereals were dubbed “vacation cereals,” a term I’ve since passed on to my son Holden.

My childhood favorite was Froot Loops. As an adult, it’s Cinnamon Toast Crunch, still reserved for special occasions.

Which is why the Father’s Day box we put together for Bittman’s feels right. Our friends at Burlap & Barrel, the best place for beautifully sourced spices, created Cinnamon Sugar Crunch: inspired by the childhood classic, but made with single-origin spices and sugars (including their Cloud Forest Cardamom from a single-estate regenerative farm in the high-altitude cloud forests of Guatemala). Familiar, yet elevated — the best version of a thing you already love.

Order your Father's Day box

Warm any of our breads, slather with salted butter, finish with Cinnamon Sugar Crunch. Breakfast in bed. (I also recommend the Cinnamon Sugar Crunch as an accoutrement to your apples and peanut butter.)

Maybe the most exciting thing about the box, though? You’ll be among the first to try our croissants — 50% whole wheat and, I swear I’m not just saying this, the best you’ve ever had.

The full Father’s Day box is:

• 2-pack croissants (50% whole wheat flour, 50% white flour)

• 2-pack demi baguette (30% whole wheat flour, 70% white flour)

• 4-pack ciabatta flats (100% whole wheat flour)

• Rye boule (50% whole grain rye, 30% whole wheat flour, 20% white flour)

• Bittman’s salted butter

• Burlap & Barrel Cinnamon Sugar Crunch

• Bittman’s dad cap (as seen on Mark, above)

• A small note from us

Place your order by June 16th, and it’ll ship in time for Father’s Day.

XX, Kate (and Mark)

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What are cookbooks for? To teach you how to make things to eat, sure. But also to draw you into a particular point of view. In some cases, that view is grounded in realistic, specific practicality—vegan air-fryer recipes, say, or chocolate desserts, or weeknight suppers for families. The proposition is clear, and those cookbooks offer ideas, techniques, and recipes that promise utility. They are instruction books.

In other cases, cookbooks aren’t just about cooking, but instead are avatars for an entire way of living. They are created to express imagined ideals, to indulge fantasies, or to converse with a particular identifiable identity. They are a lot like fashion magazines, or home design television shows. Look here, they say. Don’t you want your dinner, and your life, to look more like this? Editors call this “aspirational” in sales meetings.

Laurie Woolever is this week’s guest on Food with Mark Bittman. Listen here!

The 1960s and 1970s are an especially rich era for these kinds of lifestyle cookbooks, and it’s no surprise that many of the most successful weren’t launched by famous cooks or nutrition experts or specific culinary traditions (themes which dominate cookbook shelves today). Instead, these midcentury cookbooks were launched by magazines. And I don’t mean just the food or homemaking magazines—your Gourmets, your Good Housekeepings. I’m talking about magazines hardly known for their culinary exploits, if at all—your Cosmopolitans, your Playboys.

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Take, for instance, Helen Gurley Brown’s Single Girl’s Cookbook (1969) by the legendary editor of Cosmopolitan. Gurley Brown’s Cosmo, which she ran for over thirty years starting in the mid-1960s, was never about food. Cosmo was about hot new swimsuits, hot new Hollywood hunks, and hot new tips on how to drive your man wild in bed—bolstered by the occasional (and incongruous) essay by Norman Mailer or Margaret Mead. If Cosmo addressed food, it was almost always about how to eat less, not more. Just read the magazine coverlines, if you can see past Christie Brinkley’s cleavage in a Norma Kamali maillot: “Thin Celebrities Tell Their Most Effective Crash Diets,” “Get Thin, Stay Thin,” and “Legs are Back—and Gaining on Bosoms!”

If Cosmo’s planet is Venus, Playboy’s is Mars, and Playboy’s Gourmet (1971) is the cookbook of record. Its credited author is Thomas Mario, the magazine’s food editor, but the project bears the distinct imprint of the pajama-clad louche in charge, Hugh Hefner. Hefner’s vision—grounded of course in lavish photographs of “playmates” (oy) but extending also to nightclubs, books, music, and more—was 007-esque fantasies of luxury, connoisseurship, and sexual magnetism. Cartoonish? In many ways, yes. But slipped in amongst bare-breasted bombshells were Serious Contributors like Margaret Atwood and Haruki Marukami, and food coverage meant to help readers developed a Sophisticated Palate.

The common thread in these two cookbooks, sometimes overt and sometimes implied, is sex. Cooking for seduction, cooking for posturing, cooking for endurance, cooking for sensual pleasure. But only one is smart enough to treat the sex-and-food trope with the kind of humor that it deserves: Cosmo’s.

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Call it a party, a pit stop, a prolonged lunch, or a preoccupation with eating outdoors as long as weather permits—nothing beats a good picnic. No bench? No problem. A blanket or towel will do the trick. What’s more important is who you’re with and what you’re bringing.

Chips and dips are always guaranteed crowd-pleasers, and they’re even better when they’re made at home with simple ingredients and special spice blends. Sandwiches remain a picnic menu nonnegotiable, especially when they’re structurally sound, thoroughly slathered with garlic labneh, and layered with pickled spring vegetables. A shareable rice salad isn’t something to skip out on, either—with loads of herbs, mushrooms, and peas tossed with good quality olive oil and vinegar, it might seem a little outside-of-the-box in terms of “salads,” but it’s not going to get soggy, and it will be delicious.

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Pack a cooler, some cutlery, and napkins; charge your speakers and make a playlist for relaxing under the sun (or sitting comfortably in the shade); assign each of your friends an item to bring, or prepare to eat solo with whatever sounds best to you at the moment. Don’t forget to stay hydrated. Above all, don’t miss out on picnic season. Celebrate it with back-to-back planned pleasures.

Picnic-Ready Plantain Chips with Black Bean Dip

Makes: 6 to 8 servings
Time: 30 minutes, plus cooling time

We all know there’s no picnic without chips and dip, and when you make plantain and black bean varieties, you can expect expectations to be exceeded. Plantain chips will hold their crunch (be sure they’re well-cooked, drained, and entirely cooled before packing them up), and creamy black bean dip (add chipotle peppers if you’re picnicking with friends who appreciate a kick) will be an exciting alternative to store-bought hummus or salsa. There’s also room to play around with your plantain seasonings—if making your own spice mix sounds tedious and you’ve got suya spice or your personal favorite salt blend on hand, you’ll be all set.

Ingredients

For the dip:

• 2 cans black beans, rinsed

• 1 cup fresh cilantro leaves, plus more for garnish

• 2 cloves garlic, grated

• Juice of 3 limes

• 1 cup sour cream, plus a dollop more for garnish

• 2 chipotle peppers in adobo sauce (optional)

• 2 teaspoons ground cumin

• 2–3 big pinches of salt, plus more to taste

For the chips:

• 1 tablespoon smoked paprika

• 1 tablespoon onion powder

• 1 tablespoon garlic powder

• 2 teaspoons salt

• 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper

• 3–4 cups neutral oil, for frying (or enough to fully submerge the plantains)

• 6 firm-ripe plantains, peeled and very thinly sliced (mandolined)

Instructions

1. Add black beans, cilantro, garlic, lime juice, sour cream, chipotle peppers (if using), cumin, and salt to a blender or food processor. Blend until thoroughly combined and smooth. Taste, and, if needed, add more salt. Cover and store in a sealed container in the refrigerator until ready to use.

2. In a small mixing bowl, whisk together smoked paprika, onion powder, garlic powder, salt, and cayenne pepper and set aside. Add neutral oil to a pot or pan over medium heat. Once shimmering, add plantains and cook in batches to avoid overcrowding or the plantains sticking together. Once crispy and deeply golden brown on both sides, use a slotted spoon to transfer plantains to a rack. Season immediately with the spice mixture. Once completely cooled, transfer to a towel-lined bowl or sealed container.

link to printable version

Picnic-Ready Rice Salad with Mushrooms, Peas, and Herbs

Makes: 6 to 8 servings
Time: 45 minutes, plus cooling

While rice might not be the first thing that comes to mind when picnics are mentioned, when herbs, mushrooms, and peas are added to the equation, it rounds out an outdoor meal with fresh flavors and zero sogginess.

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1. The simplest candy to make at home

We’ve got an important correction to a fantastic recipe.

Turns out that the simplest candy to make at home is a fruity, chocolaty, and perfectly sweetened bonbon. This version—and its coconut or peanut butter variations—is easy enough to call “child’s play.” You’ll find the recipe in How to Cook Everything Kids and now here, just in time for a Father’s Day treat.

There was an error in the original recipe, which fortunately is simple to adjust. Eating raw flour is now considered a potential food safety risk. If you have the book, all you have to do is replace the flour in the ingredient list with more powdered sugar. The corrected version of the recipe appears below and lives in the Bittman Project recipe library. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the comments section or drop us an email: members@bittmanproject.com. – Kerri

Makes: about 2 dozen small balls
Time: 45 minutes, plus time to chill

Proof that yes, you can make candy! The only reason this recipe is marked “Intermediate” is for the food processor. Other than that, you won’t believe how easy these are.

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons butter

• 3 ounces milk, dark, or white chocolate, chopped, or chips (about 1/2 cup)

• 1 1/4 cups unsweetened dried bing (dark) cherries (about 8 ounces)

• 2 1/2 cups powdered sugar, plus more as needed

• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

• 1/8 teaspoon salt

• Water as needed

Instructions

1. Put the butter and chocolate in a small microwave-safe bowl and melt the mixture on high heat for 30 seconds. Check and stir and repeat once or twice until the butter and chocolate melt without bubbling or burning. (You can also do this step in a 1-quart pot over medium-low heat.) Stir with a soft spatula until the mixture is cool enough to touch.

2. Put the cherries and the chocolate mixture into a food processor fitted with a metal blade. Add 2 cups of the powdered sugar along with the vanilla, and salt. Let the machine run until the paste-like mixture is smooth and forms a ball. If a ball doesn’t form after a minute, add 1 tablespoon water through the feed tube. After that, add water 1 teaspoon at a time until you get a ball shape, careful not to add too much. You want the paste to be stiff enough to pinch with your fingers into a damp glob. Carefully take the blade out, scrape the paste into a large bowl, cover, and refrigerate for at least 1 hour or up to a day.

3. When you’re ready to roll the bonbons, put a sheet of parchment paper in a large rimmed baking sheet. Sprinkle the last 1/2 cup powdered sugar onto a plate and smash any clumps with a fork. Use your hands to grab and roll big pinches of the cold paste into 1-inch balls. Then roll them in the sugar so they’re coated all over and put them on the prepared pan. Use more as needed until all the paste is turned into bonbons. Enjoy your candy! Keep the leftovers in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to a few days or in the freezer for several weeks.

— Corrected version of the recipe from ​How to Cook Everything Kids

link to printable version

2. How to get my books for (really) cheap

For those of you who like to peruse your cookbooks digitally, I’m happy to report that a variety of my books are now available on Open Road Media, and for a limited time, you can get each (e)book for just $2.99 each. Here is a link to all the available titles—including The Best Recipes in the World, one of my favorites—on the Open Road online catalog. (And if you click “Follow This Author,” you’ll get an email whenever there’s a deal on one of my books.) – Mark

3. Two words: tinned vegetables

We all know that tinned fish is the best, but lately, I can’t get enough of Row 7’s tinned vegetables—sweet garleek, sweet prince tomatoes, and badger flame beets. I’ve tried the tomatoes and the beets, and have eaten both right from their tins. I’ll experiment with actually cooking with them at some point, I’m sure—Row 7 offers good suggestions for each of the three types of veggies—but the fact that they can be eaten and enjoyed straight from the tin is such a testament to the flavor of these organic bad boys. Give me 100 more varieties! – Kate

4. What to do with not-frozen-on-purpose vegetables

A subscriber wrote in last week about frozen vegetables, but not the type that are frozen on purpose. “For reasons known only to itself,” Martha wrote, “my refrigerator has decided to periodically freeze stuff in the ‘fresh’ compartment. This is not a huge problem with veg I plan to or can cook, but I don’t know how best to use the ones I always eat raw—like the three cucumbers now wilting on the counter. I hate to just throw them out, so would appreciate any recipes/ideas/whatever anyone might have.”

I think many of us have been there—no? And here’s the answer: Stir-fry! After

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I first met Hannah Goldfield when we worked together at the New Yorker more than ten years ago, but we were both raised in New Haven, and she’d taken the school bus with my sister, so we quickly bonded over that. We’ve stayed in touch periodically, and then she ended up writing a really nice article about my dad and Community Kitchen a few months back.

Listen to the podcast

My dad and I were both happy to see that Hannah had written about “intentional drinking” for the New Yorker in May, because it meant that we had a good reason to have someone we like so much on the podcast, but also because we like talking about drinking and not drinking.

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I put together a bunch of questions for the interview, as I always do, but ahead of time, I said to my dad, ‘I doubt we’ll even use much of this, it’s Hannah and it’s going to be super organic. We’ll just chat.’ He agreed, and that is, indeed, what happened. What a lovely lady! You’ll enjoy this no matter where you land on the drinking spectrum.

Follow ​​​Food with Mark Bittman​​​ on: ​​​Apple Podcasts​​​ | ​​​Spotify​​​ | ​​​Overcast​​​ | ​​​Pocket Casts​​​ | ​​​Amazon Music

When Mark first suggested, a full year ago, that we do a piece on cooking with scissors, I grabbed my everyday pair, held them in front of me like a divining rod, and set out on our quest. Cooks around the world cut up food with scissors; there’s so much to learn. In the year since, I’ve amassed quite a collection of kitchen shears, researched intermittently, and expanded my usage. In other words, I dawdled.

That is not my usual habit, but in this case I think it has benefitted the story. I’ve now had plenty of time to work with all the scissors shown above. (Full disclosure: most I purchased; some were sent to us as much appreciated free samples.) From the photo, you can tell how much they vary in size and blade type. And everyone will have a different way of holding and snipping, especially if you’re left-handed or have anything other than “average” size hands. This will have a definite effect on which pair you prefer.

Hannah Goldfield is this week’s guest on Food with Mark Bittman. Listen here!

Since my palm is broad but my fingers are relatively short, I can cram all four into one finger bow—the name for the round or oval slots that serve as the handles—and my thumb in the other. Some cooks work with one or more fingers on the outside of the bow for comfort and stability. Ideally, you should try scissors with different sized bows before buying, to be sure they are comfortable for the way you use them. The choice of short versus long is a matter of control and individual usage.

Surprisingly, the length doesn’t necessarily indicate power or sharpness, so you should feel free to choose whichever length seems right to you without worrying about those factors. Finally, you might appreciate the ability to separate the blades for easy cleaning—we do, providing they don’t come apart pre-squeeze—or you might find that too finicky.

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So instead of recommending any one pair, I’ve demonstrated and described seven different techniques and scissors in photos and captions below. You can click on the links for each to check out other details and models in the same brand. As an added bonus at the end of the piece, there are several links to videos of people cooking with scissors. Here’s how the tutorial unfolds:

• Mark’s pot chop.

• The taming of the goo.

• Drain, trim, and squeeze (or not).

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Ask a home cook how they prepare arroz con pollo (rice with chicken). Then ask another, and then a third. All three will have a different answer. All three will be correct.

I didn’t grow up with arroz con pollo as a child. But when I first moved to New York after college, it quickly became my favorite dish from my favorite local takeout places: La Taza d’Oro and Nueva Rampa. A container of arroz con pollo, a side of tostones, a cold beer or two, a cigarette afterwards—truly happy memories.

Eat this for supper tonight, and tomorrow’s gonna be a good day. That’s the vibe.

These days, when I make chicken and rice at home, I try my best to recreate the feeling of those takeout nights. Not the exact recipes (I’d never be able to figure that out), but the feeling—a soul-warming mix of comfort, restoration, satisfaction, optimism. Eat this for supper tonight, and tomorrow’s gonna be a good day. That’s the vibe.

This recipe really isn’t a heavy lift. Making chicken and rice for one takes about forty-five minutes, start to finish, though much of that is time spent waiting, which for me involves pacing impatiently in the kitchen. The only annoying part is hauling out the food processor, which really isn’t that annoying.

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Sofrito, a flavor base that’s a cornerstone of many cuisines in the Americas, Spain, and elsewhere, is a mix of very finely chopped vegetables that provides a familiar and comforting je ne sais quoi to recipes like this one, an undergirding of flavor that gives the dish a two-fer boost of depth and freshness. The specifics of sofrito change from region to region, even household to household—sometimes tomato, sometimes not; sometimes olives, sometimes not. Some cooks use a bell pepper, I prefer a sweeter cubanelle. Sofrito doesn’t always include heat, but I add a small jalapeño to mine. I ditch the seeds and most of the pith, to contain its capsaicin to a muted, distant prickle. In this recipe, you’ll use your sofrito twice: One portion you’ll cook into the rice, and one you’ll stir into the finishing sauce.

If you've never started a chicken thigh skin-side down in a cold, dry pan, let this be your introduction to this technique, which virtually guarantees beautifully crisp, golden skin.

If you’ve never started a chicken thigh skin-side down in a cold, dry pan, let this be your introduction to this technique, which virtually guarantees beautifully crisp, golden skin. What’s more, this method means plenty of chicken fat will render out to cook the onion in, and I can’t think of a more mesmerizing aroma than onions cooking in chicken fat.

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Hi! A bit about today’s post before we get started. Fridays have, for a while now, been reserved for either your questions/our answers or for our recommendations. But we weren’t feeling inspired by either as a standalone—it all felt too prescriptive. Another truth is that we don’t love enough products to come up with a handful every other week, so we were really struggling with that part. We’re a picky bunch, and we’re really only going to recommend what we actually like and use.

In case you’re not aware, our “template”—for lack of a better word—is recipes on Mondays, something more substantial (a personal essay, a book excerpt, Mark chatting about his travels) on Wednesdays, and then—the Friday recs or Q&A. Our initial goal was to make Friday more of a community day, but it hasn’t been feeling enough like that, so we’re switching it up.

Fridays will now be

• your questions/our answers;

• notes on what we’ve (or you! What are you making?) been cooking lately, sometimes with recipes;

• restaurants we’ve enjoyed;

• things we’ve read that have felt thought-provoking;

• products we’ve been using and loving;

• and more.

Less prescriptive, more community. We’d welcome anything you’d like to chat about—share it with us and we may feature it in an upcoming Friday newsletter. I had a good time doing today’s and am excited about creating these Friday posts moving forward.

Love to you, and hope you have a great weekend, Kate (and Mark)

1. How to Cook Everything Vegan

It’s happening, and here’s the cover. How to Cook Everything Vegan is coming out October 6; you can preorder it ​here​. I’m not exaggerating when I say, “Exciting plant-based eating for all.” My latest book turns two decades of vegetable-driven cooking into hundreds of recipes and variations for the many ways we eat. And the gorgeous images in the book will inspire you to try many, many delicious things with beans and tofu, unbelievable breads and desserts, etc. etc. etc. Start with the basics or build on what you already know. And since there’s not an animal product in sight, you’ll be the one to decide how flexible you want your diet to be. – Mark

Preorder How to Cook Everything Vegan

2. How the f to substitute in baking…

… No, I personally can’t help you here. It’s not my strong suit. But Holly and I had a joyful conversation with baker Paola Velez for this week’s podcast, which I hope you’ll listen to, and I wanted to point out a bit from it that I keep thinking about, about baking substitutions. This is Paola, in response to Holly asking her if Paola has seen any wild takes on her (Paola’s) recipes, specifically the recipes featured in her Substack, Steal This Recipe​:

No! Everybody is verbatim stealing the recipe. And this is what I want; I want people to really learn how to make what I make, but also I want to demystify the baking process and the ideation behind it, and just why it works. But sometimes people are like, ‘I just made xyz,’ and I’m like, ‘what else,’ and they’re like, ‘no, you told me to make this.’

My favorite is, for example, if I make something with guava, and they’re like, ‘oh no, I only have membrillo.’ Perfect. Sub it in! I think I need to help people graduate to that feeling, because I do think that ad libbing, if you don’t really understand the texture—texture to texture works, viscosity to viscosity works, but some people don’t think like that. They just think about flavor and flavor. But tamarind jam—that I make from tamarind seeds and paste—can be an almost 1 to 1 sub for corn syrup. But people don’t think like that, so I have to usher that in. – Kate

Paola Velez on Food with Mark Bittman

3. Tea and skincare

My dad and I met Michael Ham in March at Expo West, where my dad was doing a keynote with Jason Buechel, the CEO of Whole Foods. Michael’s company is Wild Orchard, and he makes some of the best tea I’ve had (to be honest, I don’t generally enjoy tea). Then, a few weeks back, Jannette Shin, who does product development for Michael, (cold) brewed some Wild Orchard Sunday Brunch for a group, and everyone loved it. The flavor is subtly fruity and refreshing and doesn’t taste like a typical tea. I joked (not joked) with her that I was going to use it for cocktails.

For those of you who are in the NY area and are interested: Wild Orchard is doing a popup with Kiehl’s. Stop by the Kiehl’s flagship location in the East Village (109 3rd Ave) this Saturday (tomorrow) and Sunday, 10am-6pm. The team will be selling some new specialty drinks Jannette has been working on, and there will be many tea samples, too. – Kate

Wild Orchard Sunday Brunch

4. Weekend duck​

Our next recipe request! My friend Nikki asked if we’d be able to get the recipe for the ​Duck Ragù at Leon’s​ in New York. Nick Anderer, the chef/owner of Leon’s, could not have been more accommodating and even adjusted the recipe to make it more “home” friendly. It’s still time consuming, definitely not a weeknight party trick, but would be such a fun project for a dinner with friends. – Kate

Leon's Duck Ragù

5. Literal cheese omelet (decidedly not vegan)

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From Puerto Madryn, hugging the green, hilly coast more closely, we sailed something like a thousand miles south to Punta Arenas. Somewhere in there was New Year’s Eve, which seemed even more artificial than usual, what with the different hemisphere, different time zone, and seagoing-ness of it all.

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Punta Arenas is an isolated port city in the Strait of Magellan, in Patagonia (Chile); it’s at 53 degrees south, which is not Antarctic Circle territory (66 degrees), but it’s getting there. More impressive than its southern-ness, however, is its remoteness: It’s not just in the middle of nowhere, it is the middle of nowhere. Nevertheless, it’s a real city, in fact the largest city in the southernmost part of the world. (Nearby Ushuaia, Argentina, is further south, but smaller.) The Splendor docked right in town, and, after passing the usual souvenir-sellers, I went for a little run along the bustling waterfront, which is also the hub of the town’s businesses, and then to a crafts center that had been recommended by, of all things, the Internet.

That was small but legitimate, with local food (lots of seafood, mostly crab and salmon), and crafts, especially wool clothing, and in particular alpaca. I bought a couple of ponchos which I will never wear but will admire periodically and turn into throws, I suppose. Trash me if you like, but I do enjoy souvenirs that were made in the place I bought them, and these were.

We had set up an evening kayak trip, so I went back to the ship for lunch and rest. It’s a special kind of port day when the ship is docked in or near the center of town, because you can get off and on with ease, and use the ship as a base of operations, avoiding the kind of nonstop 10-hour day that leaves me exhausted.

I thought it was odd that our kayak trip was scheduled for 8pm, but was reminded that the sun didn’t set until “at least 10,” and that it would be fine. What was not fine was the weather, which was cloudy, quite breezy, a little stormy; we’d have to hope that it would clear up.

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For today’s interview with baker Paola Velez, I enlisted my colleague, Holly Haines, to join me as co-host. Paola and Holly are both extremely experienced, extremely experimental, and extremely talented bakers, and they already knew each other, so I was pretty sure it would be a good time.

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And it was. I’m sure that when I listen back to this interview, I’ll seem like the dorky kid who’s not in on the joke, because these two ladies know baking like I know my bed at 9pm on a weeknight.

Paola got her start working with both Jacques Torres and Christina Tosi, but it was only a matter of time before she became a success in her own right. When she started baking, she began trusting her instincts almost immediately, adjusting classic recipes to make them her own, like a sticky bun with ripe plantains, Chocolate Malta Cake, and Mango and Brown Butter Blondies. You’ll find all those recipes in her cookbook, Bodega Bakes, a 2025 James Beard Award winner.

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Paola is also the founder of Bakers Against Racism, which I trust most of you have heard about, an organization that’s raised almost $3m for social justice causes worldwide. We talked about that, and about baking, of course, and about Paola’s husband, Hector, who indirectly gave her her start as a baker. Get a few of Paola’s recipes here (Chocolate Malta Cake), here (PB&J Pots de Crème, and here (The Lemon Cookie).

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Also, remember that we’re seeking out recipes that you’re hoping to find. Is there a squash dish you had at a hole in the wall in Cincinnati that you’re dying to recreate at home? Pasta in Pittsburgh? Let us know, and we’ll do the digging.

Q: I’d love to hear your thoughts on the changes we (individuals) can make today to support farmers. – Jane

A: You support farmers by buying directly or shortening that supply chain as much as you can. “Know your farmer know your food” is a sensible slogan. For most of us, buying directly from farmers means joining a CSA, which is a great way to support farmers, force-feed yourself veggies (most CSA shares are huge), and try things you wouldn’t ordinarily try. Real farmers markets—where the producers are the sellers—make sense as well. – Mark

Q: Is soaking a pan right after using it (while it’s still hot) bad for the pan? – Jordan

A: “This is on the Mount Rushmore of cookware not-to-dos, as it’s one of the best ways to warp your pan,” says Jake Kalick, President and Co-Founder of Made In Cookware. Jake urges us to wait a few minutes for our pans to cool before cleaning; that will keep them in the best possible shape.

“Heat causes metal to expand. By letting it cool down at a natural rate it should settle back into its original position. If you dump it into cold water you essentially shock the pan and it can set in the expanded position. That’s what leads to warping. Investing in well-made pans made with good materials may produce less expansion, but there will still be some.”

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Our talented colleague, Kerri Conan, says that Jake’s advice is solid overall, since many people have thin pans, especially flimsy cookie/baking sheets—and you definitely can’t do swift temperature changes with ceramic pans and baking dishes or they’ll crack. “But in my experience,” says Kerri, “heavy duty, high-quality stainless pans like those from Made In and All Clad—and my Nordicware baking sheets—do not warp when soaking straight from the stove or oven with hot tap water.” Just don’t tell Jake! – Kate

Q: Someone gave me a bunch of buckwheat and I don’t know what to do with it. Looking for ideas! – Toni

A: Buckwheat is a grass-like pseudograin—akin to quinoa and amaranth—which makes it a fine gluten-free substitute for steel cut oats, millet, brown rice, or cracked wheat. Ground into flour for noodles or pancakes, the flavor is mocha-meets-mushrooms, with a depth that can stand up to hearty stews or bold sauces. Let it be said just once that buckwheat’s taste and texture are unique in the land of fiber and kernels—but it’s one of my favorites.

Here are a few recipes that’ll give you a chance to enjoy what I love most about buckwheat’s versatile, quick-cooking goodness:

• Scissor-Cut Buckwheat Noodles with Miso Butter: This is a favorite of multiple members of the Bittman team.

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One of the most maddening things about the government’s new Dietary Guidelines— which the physician David Katz unpacked for us ​earlier this year​—is the increased emphasis on animal proteins. The confusion and fallout about this extreme recommendation brought me back to the following discussion from my 2013 book, ​VB6: Eat Vegan Before 6:00​. Dubbed “The Protein Myth,” the section compares plant-based versus animal-based protein, and uses nutritional and consumption data to make a case for replacing at least some of the latter with the former.

Today we’re eating even more animal protein than we did then, when I advocated that we tip our diets more towards fruits and vegetables and away from meats, poultry, fish, dairy, and eggs: Americans eat an average of 226 pounds of red meat and poultry and about 22 dozen eggs a year. Fruit and vegetable consumption is already down a bit over the last few years; projections for 2026 add another pound of meat and a dozen more eggs.

The new Dietary Guidelines have nearly doubled the serving goals from when I wrote the book to “1.2–1.6 grams protein per kilogram of body weight per day, adjusting as needed based on your individual caloric requirements.” By my math, calculating how that would translate into lean chicken or beef (these cuts generally contain about 20% protein by weight), a 160-pound person should eat between 15.5 and 20.5 ounces of animal foods a day. That’s 1 to 1 1/4 pounds or two-to-three large boneless, skinless chicken breasts or trimmed sirloin steaks, with encouragement for larger people to eat even more. Every day. The trend toward pumping even more protein to the American diet is disheartening to say the least and simply unsustainable. – MB

Like carbohydrates and fats, protein is found in almost every part of your body. It’s used for maintenance and repair, particularly in muscles, bones, skin, and hair, but also in blood and organ tissue. It’s also needed to keep many chemical reactions running smoothly, including the all-important part of your blood that carries oxygen around. But unlike carbohydrates and fats, you don’t consume whole protein directly and it isn’t stored in the body in any form.

Instead, the body manufactures protein—more than 10,000 different types—by stringing together amino acids. Your body manufactures some amino acids, but around twenty are called “essential” because your body cannot produce them; you must get these from food. So you’ve got to eat protein almost daily in order to live. That’s undeniable.

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That doesn’t mean you need as much as most Americans get, and I call this section “The Protein Myth” because for decades we’ve been encouraged to eat way more protein than we need—and we’re eating more every year.

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There you are, staring at the perfectly white dish of sugar. Your teaspoon hovers over it, ready to scoop out a measure for your coffee cup. It’ll add some reliable, uncomplicated sweetness to your coffee. But you wonder, as you stir, is reliable and uncomplicated really enough? Can I do better?

Sure, you could reach for demarara or brown sugar to add a deeper molasses note. Or you could splash in a glug of maple syrup for a woodsy flavor.

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Or … you could use toasted sugar, which brings a beautiful caramel flavor, sweet and complex with just a wink of bitterness for contrast.

Usually, when you think of caramel, you think of sugar that’s been heated in a saucepan or skillet past the point of liquification, then cooked to a sticky, deep amber goo. This is the starting point for a creamy sauce or buttery candy. But by cooking granulated sugar in the oven instead, at a more measured temperature over several hours, your granules stay solid, taking on a golden hue and developing a subtle, mesmerizing caramel flavor and aroma—someplace between butterscotch and campfire marshmallow. It’s different from demerara, which has bigger granules and a more pronounced molasses flavor. Toasted sugar has the same sandy granules as white sugar, and a flavor that’s subtle, rounded, and really, really good.

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My dad and I have both been admirers of Alicia Kennedy’s writing for a long time. She’s a talented cook and loves cooking and eating, but also cares deeply about food policy and politics, and the majority of her writing is devoted to that. I’m going to make this sound simpler than it is, but food can basically fall into two categories: the pleasurable: like eating, and for some of us, cooking—and, second, the politics of it all: how it’s grown, fair labor and wages for farmers and other people who ensure that food makes it to our tables, better practices for raising animals. And for some reason that continues to remain sort of a mystery, connecting the dots between the two remains a niche issue, one that many people don’t think about much.

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Alicia has valiantly chosen to take on the task of connecting the two—something, I should say, that my dad has done over the years, as well. Much of what’s written about food policy, though, can come across as academic and is difficult to process for many of us, including me. Alicia’s writing, though, is welcoming and accessible, not to mention elegant. Last month, she released On Eating: The Making and Unmaking of My Appetites, in which she shares her journey “from eater to cook,” exploring how we can eat for both joy and justice. It reads like a memoir, but as you’re reading it, you realize that you’re actually learning important lessons about food along the way. I would recommend it to anyone. And so here’s our chat with Alicia. It was such a pleasure.

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On a snowy weeknight early this past winter, after the plows cleared the roads, I drove carefully downhill to our family-friendly neighborhood bar with my wife and two boys. We were supposed to meet another family of four there. The old triangular brick bar would have been charming in the snow—full of merry townies in damp sweaters, I imagined—but after parking and trudging through the slush, I looked through the windows and realized it was closed. I gave two futile yanks to the door handle and then checked my phone. There was a text from the other dad. He had just been through the same thing. We got back in the car and headed to their house for homemade pretzels and beer, instead.

Alicia Kennedy is this week’s guest on Food with Mark Bittman. Listen here!

During the COVID pandemic we had isolated with this family, and on this night, around their dinner table, while the kids played in the next room, we shared the myriad ways we’ve noticed people isolating today: the community at our local bar dispersed after the place was purchased and scrubbed of personality by a developer; my coworker had told me that morning that people are leaving her historic Harlem church for virtual megachurch; and our friends had just read about a strange new way men online were proudly bonding over, and even basing their identity around, their inability to get laid. “Did you read the “gooning” article in Harper’s?” they began before explaining its horrors. “Call me old fashioned,” I thought to myself in my internal Sylvester Stallone voice. (I resist the urge to do voices in company, but does anyone remember Stallone’s line in Demolition Man, when he rejects the VR headset?)

Anyway, people should do what they want, but considering our national state of doom, I find it grim that people are giving up on fulfilling the second strongest human urge (in person, at least). As for our strongest urge—to eat—well, we’re doing that alone, too. I found data: According to the World Happiness Report, in 2023, one out of four Americans surveyed reported eating all of their meals alone the previous day, an increase of 53% since 2003. Again, people should live how they want, but this lonely eating metric turns out to be among the worst individual and public health predictors; its impact on life satisfaction is about half as large as employment. The trend points to a broader loneliness. According to the report, more than half of Americans feel divided and lonely, today. That absence of social ties is linked to disease, crime, and—anteannaes all the way up for this, please—greater support for authoritarianism.

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The data continues, but I’ll shift here to let you know that I’ve found hope, not at all the book readings, social saunas, and other third spaces that are popping up—though those are splendid—but at small neighborhood bars across Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Jersey. Over the past year, I visited or reported on bars that have been operating as de facto social clubs for fifty years or more, where people, young and old, cool and uncool, still come together to eat and drink, jovially, under ancient, well-preserved rules of engagement.

The small but mighty Caribbean Social Club in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, is owned by Maria Antonia Cay (“Toñita”), a sub-5’-tall diva, with flowing blond hair, painted lips, and hands full of ornate bedazzled rings.

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Often, cooking for one means something quick and simple. A big salad, maybe, or a simple stir-fry of vegetables and rice. Something bright, energizing, non-taxing. But sometimes, even when it’s just me, I want a supper that satisfies in a deeper way—and by deep, I mean sinking deep into my easy chair as I click “Next Episode” on whatever series I’m watching at the time. A supper like cottage pie.

But when I think of cottage pie (or shepherd’s pie; what you call it depends mostly on how and where you first encountered it), I think of a heavy concoction in a deep baking dish, flavorful meat filling on the bottom topped by a layer of buttery mashed potatoes. The compellingly browned casserole bubbles on the edges as it comes out of its oven. And then at the table, a big reveal—the first scoop of mashed potatoes gives way to the savory treasure inside and everyone sighs in anticipation. This is a dish for a crowded table of hungry souls.

Or is it?

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When a particularly cool evening came around not long ago, one with misty raindrops and temperatures that should have tolerable but actually cut right through to my bones, I decided to make cottage pie for the only hungry soul in this apartment: Me. And what with the inclemency, I decided to do it just with what I had on hand. No shopping.

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We’re interrupting our regular Friday programming to share a Q&A that Kate and I did with the writer and chef ​Aliza J. Sokolow​, who has been ​a guest on Food with Mark Bittman​ a couple of times and has become a pal of Kate’s. She’s an early supporter of ​Bittman’s​ (take 20% off with code ALIZA20) and generously offered to interview us about it for ​her newsletter​. (A fresh Question Mark will be in your inbox next Friday.) – Mark

Aliza: First and most importantly—everyone names their sourdough starter. What’s yours called?

Kate: My dad refuses. His starter is always perfect, always smells good, is always a mess, and never gets a name. It’s almost like he doesn’t love it the way it deserves to be loved. When he goes away on extended trips, I babysit his starter, and I haven’t killed it so far. Next time I’m going to give it a secret name and not tell him. I’ll keep you posted.

Our colleague Holly names her starters—her favorite so far is ​Dough’sephine Baker​. She’s very good at coming up with names, and my dad loves her, so if anyone will eventually convince him to name his starter, it’ll probably be Holly.

Aliza: What propelled you to take your love of fermented bread into the [consumer packaged goods] world? Was this something you’d been thinking about for years?

The business feels like a natural extension—making great bread like ours doesn’t fit into most people’s schedules, and there aren’t many people doing this commercially.

Mark: I’ve been baking bread since 1970, with a variety of cookbooks and mentors. It evolved into this wholegrain sourdough which was good enough to talk about a few years ago. ​The business​ feels like a natural extension—making great bread like ours doesn’t fit into most people’s schedules, and there aren’t many people doing this commercially.

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Aliza: What is your go-to morning ritual—and where does bread fit into it?

Mark: I tend to eat toast in the middle of the night! Bread before or during dinner, not so much at breakfast. Though the occasional egg sandwich on our ciabatta is pretty great.

Aliza: How often do you feed your starter, and what was the loaf that made you fall in love with the craft?

Mark: I try to feed it daily, but fail. Despite the mistreatment, it works. Our commercial bread is better than what I make at home, so that’s being slowly left behind. I can’t point to one loaf—learning baguettes was a milestone, ​the no-knead phase​ too. But getting into whole grain sourdough in Berkeley around 2015 was the real turning point.

Aliza: What is one thing your dad makes for you that instantly brings you back to childhood?

Kate: Lobster on Cape Cod. Everyone gets their own bowl of melted butter—I’m adamant about not sharing. Sometimes we eat them whole like we did on my birthdays growing up, and sometimes he makes ​pasta with lobster and mint​, which has become a family favorite.

Aliza: What is your favorite thing Kate makes for you?

Mark: She makes my life hopeful every day. She only cooks for me about once every three years.

Aliza: The world feels a bit insane right now—what’s something that gives you hope?

Mark: I can’t be flippant about this. I see people struggling, but I also see them organizing and pushing back against what can only be called oppression. That gives me hope that we’ll have the strength to rebuild something better.

Aliza: Three kitchen tools you can’t live without?

Mark: The stove, the refrigerator, and the sink. Second tier: ​a pressure cooker​, ​a food processor​, and a bread slicer—that’s the one I use most.

Kate: My ​OXO One Stop Chop​—I haven’t chopped an onion in forever. I cry every time otherwise, I’ve even worn sunglasses. This saved me. My ​Made In bread knife​ is perfect for our bread, and my ​Breville Joule​ might be the best kitchen purchase I’ve ever made. Even Nick loves it, and he’s a total contrarian.

Aliza: What place in the world most inspires your cooking?

Mark: My kitchen. Never fails.

Aliza: Is there anything you wish people would ask you that they never do?

Mark: How I keep my good looks at such an advanced age. Why I gave up being a world-class runner for food. Why I don’t sing in public more.

Lightning round!

Aliza: A piece of advice you’re glad you ignored?

Kate: I like to think i’m a good judge of character, but recently I’ve been very wrong—in a good way.

Aliza: Advice for young cooks who admire you?

Mark: Keep cooking. Don’t become a chef unless you’re sure. Make cooking a centerpiece of your life, something you’ll do forever no matter what happens.

Aliza: How do you stay grounded amidst global admiration?

Mark: There’s no such thing. Everyone who wants to find me can, and there really aren’t that many trying.

Aliza: What’s your favorite thing to make for your grandsons?

Mark: Bread, actually.

When we imagine the ways that cooking is (or has the potential to become) a meaningful part of our lives, we aren’t considering energy use or comparative costs. Cooking, whether we’re new to it or not, is about bringing people together. Pick your cliché: gather round the table, break bread together, the hearth is the center of the house, the party’s always in the kitchen, whatever. Sitting down to a meal in the comfort of your home builds bonds; acquaintances become friends become family.

Of course, all families are different; no one thing defines them. But it’s true that when families sit down and eat together, good things happen. According to one Columbia University study, the more often teenagers have dinner with their parents, the less likely they are to smoke, drink, or use drugs. Similar studies have linked higher grade point averages and lower rates of depression and suicide to the frequency of family meals. Additionally, an American Medical Association study found that “eating family dinner was associated with healthful dietary intake patterns, including more fruits and vegetables, less fried food and soda, less saturated and trans fat, lower glycemic load, more fiber and micro nutrients from food.” Physically and psychologically healthy kids make for healthier families, and healthy families strengthen communities. No surprises there, really.

Alton Brown is this week’s guest on Food with Mark Bittman. Listen here!

Eating as a family doesn’t require cooking. We can do it at a fancy restaurant, at a Wendy’s, or with a delivery pizza, but it’s more likely to happen—and happen in a meaningful way—when we cook. One reason families eat together less often than they did a generation ago is that the rise of convenience foods and their culture have turned food into something that doesn’t need our consideration, our time, our effort, or our care. Routinely eating meals in our cars is a pretty good example of this, I think. If food has been tailored to become just another thing that we’re able to squeeze into our busy lives, then why would we associate it with our family—in theory, the thing that we value the most? Cooking forces us to spend more time with food, to learn about it, work with it, to treat it as something of value, something important. And if it’s important, then it’s worth sharing and doing with our families, no?

Trying to make the case that food is something that should be prepared and eaten with your family is a relatively recent endeavor.

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