Food Writing
There is a Mexican bread that calls forth the souls of the dead. It’s shaped in a round, crisscrossed with bread “bones” and topped with a little round knob. Under a glittering, sugarcoated crust awaits a sweet, rich, pillowy-soft dream fragrant with star anise, orange zest and orange blossom water. Pan de muerto, bread of the dead, is the signature food of Día de los Muertos, a gift to the beloved departed, a meditation for the living. Read more…
Photo by Lori Eanes/Serious Eats
13 Burrito Styles Everyone Should Know
The way I see it, it’s as if an ancestral indigenous hand has reached out to complicate a Mexican food already complicated by colonialism, migration, and appropriation, not to erase that history or the journey of the burrito, but to remind us that Mexican cuisine isn’t a monolith, that it won’t bend to simple categorization; that it’ll do what it wants.
Photo by Alex Lau, styling by Sue Li
This Eggplant Dish Inspired My Best Vacation Decision Ever
I don’t remember why we thought driving through Rajasthan would be a good idea. I was on my first trip to India with my Bombay-raised boyfriend, who had never traveled to this part of the country, either. He took me to the Taj Mahal on Valentine’s Day morning, where we were swept up in 17th-century romance carved in luminous marble. The next day, we crashed to a hellish limbo of hot, dusty, sluggish traffic on the road from Agra to Jaipur. With the spectacularly decorated cargo trucks, Hyundais, rickshaws, and cattle, there were far too many of us for the narrow desert roads. What should have been a three-hour trip took eight.
Jason Hoffman/Thrillist
Admit It, You’ve Always Wondered What the Big Deal With Truffles Is
It all started with truffle queso. Nobody Told Me chef/owner Nick Pfannerstill’s gooey, fragrant high/low snack hooked me, and as I swirled an endive spear around the fragrant, molten pot of gold, I got to thinking: Why don’t I know more about truffles?