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☆ A Trillion Cicadas, They’re What’s for Dinner
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-06 | by ( Tejal Rao | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Over the next six weeks or so, a trillion cicadas will emerge across the Midwest and Southeast for a brief, raucous, once-in-a-lifetime bender. “What an incredible time,” said Joseph Yoon, a particularly exuberant bug enthusiast who will hit the road and forage for the insects as they tunnel up in a mass emergence of two regional broods not seen since 1803. The synchronicity that this is all occurring in my lifetime!”Mr. Yoon is a chef who promotes an appreciation of edible insects through his business Brooklyn Bugs. For his ramp and cicada kimchi, he leaves the insects whole and intact in their crackling shells so they’re slowly permeated with a spicy fermenting juice, and serves it with a wobble of soft tofu and warm rice. He fries cicadas to make tempura, folds sautéed cicadas into Spanish tortillas with potato and onion, and bakes cheesy casseroles with cicada-stuffed pasta shells.

Persons: bender, ”, Joseph Yoon, Yoon Locations: Midwest, Brooklyn

☆ The Condiment Wars Come for Chile Crisp (or Crunch)
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-05 | by ( Tejal Rao | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when we reached peak chile crisp in the United States, but if you were to inspect my kitchen today you’d see, alongside an old jar of Lao Gan Ma — years ago, the only chile crisp I could easily find in the food shops nearby — at least a half-dozen others. While each jar contains a spicy crimson sediment under oil, some have the sweetness of star anise, while others are deepened with tiny dried shrimp or fried shallots. Some have the delicate crunch of fried sesame seeds, garlic or crushed peanuts, or the mouth-numbing tingle of Sichuan peppercorns. Some of these preparations are rooted in regional Chinese or diasporic traditions, family customs or someone’s idiosyncratic taste, and each is different from the others. You might call these condiments chile oil or chile crisp or chile crunch, and the truth is that I didn’t give the precise language of the category too much thought until Thursday.

Persons: Lao Gan Ma, tingle Locations: United States, Lao, —, Sichuan

A puff of pan de sal pulls apart effortlessly, filling the air with a sweet, buttery perfume. Burning pine needles and the rich, muscly scent of shrimp paste waft over from the open kitchen. You could easily get lost in the deliciousness of the modern Filipino food, but Aaron Verzosa and Amber Manuguid do more than send out excellent food. They tell complicated, expansive stories about the Pacific Northwest and the many ways that Filipino immigrants have shaped it, using words, pictures and even some unexpected dance moves behind the pass. TEJAL RAO5607 Rainier Avenue South, Seattle; no phone; archipelagoseattle.com

Persons: Aaron Verzosa, Amber Manuguid, TEJAL RAO Locations: Pacific Northwest, Rainier, South, Seattle

☆ Crispy Rice, Spicy Tuna, Easy Dinner
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-16 | by ( Mia Leimkuhler | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Speaking of smashing things (and having rough days) — here’s Hetty Lui McKinnon’s recipe for crispy potato tacos. Also comforting — in that it’s built on a pantry staple and comes together in a half-hour — is Kay Chun’s linguine and clams with fresh red sauce. It’s the base for all sorts of easy desserts and beverages, like blueberry cream Popsicles and no-churn olive oil ice cream, Brazilian lemonade and Thai iced tea. And if I’ve sold you on the virtues of a rice cooker, here’s Wirecutter’s guide to the best rice cookers out there. My Zojirushi model has been going strong for over a decade; it sings “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” when it’s done doing its thing.

Persons: —, Hetty Lui McKinnon’s, Kay Chun’s, Dee, they’ll, Melissa, I’ve, it’s Organizations: New York Times

☆ ‘The Bear’ Season 2 Puts a Little Optimism on the Menu
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-23 | by ( Tejal Rao | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

There were flashbacks, in the first season of “The Bear,” of a toxic chef who trashed cooks on the line, telling them they’d be better off dead. But here the show seems keen to remind us that fine dining can work differently, and that wonderful people are still scattered throughout it. “The Bear” always blurred the lines between family and workplace in ways that felt both tender and menacing, and the most nightmarish kitchen scene takes place not in a professional kitchen, but at a Berzatto family Christmas at home a few years back, when Carmy’s brother Michael was still alive. Jamie Lee Curtis is devastating as their alcoholic mother who can’t get through cooking and serving a beautiful holiday dinner — an elaborate Feast of the Seven Fishes — without wringing guilt and shame from her children. Her inability to host offers a glimpse at what shaped the siblings and warped their relationships to cooking, but it’s also a razor-edged contrast to the cooks’ growing sense of hospitality as instinctual and deeply fulfilling.

Persons: Michael, Jamie Lee Curtis, can’t, it’s

☆ The Truth About Hot Cheetos Is Not in ‘Flamin’ Hot’
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-09 | by ( Tejal Rao | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Like Oscar Isaac, I occasionally use chopsticks to eat hot Cheetos, a technique that keeps their red dust from sticking to my fingers. It’s the neatest way to keep pace with a perfectly engineered snack, designed both to satisfy the desire for its prickly heat and violent crunch, its convincing tang and mellow sweetness, and to fuel an immediate need to revisit it. There are films this year celebrating (and satirizing) the invention of all kinds of consumer products, including the BlackBerry, Air Jordans and Tetris, but I never imagined that this spicy little snack produced by a multinational corporation could be the hero of a late-capitalist uplift saga. “Flamin’ Hot,” directed by Eva Longoria and streaming now on Hulu and Disney Plus, is a frothy, optimistic, very American film about Richard Montañez, a Mexican American kid from San Bernardino County who grows up to work at a Frito-Lay plant and dreams up a billion-dollar idea: Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. Through Montañez, the rise of the fingertip-staining, habit-forming, spicy corn-based snack becomes a story of the American dream — a ’90s-style janitor-to-executive tale fueled by pure grit and guts.

Persons: Oscar Isaac, “, ”, Eva Longoria, Richard Montañez Organizations: Hulu, Disney Locations: Mexican American, San Bernardino County

☆ Imagining a New Filipino American Neighborhood Into Being, Starting With Food
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-02 | by ( Tejal Rao | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

In the past decade, both Andrew Zimmern and Anthony Bourdain called Filipino food the next big thing for the United States. Locally, the restaurant critic Jonathan Gold wrote that 2017 was a pivotal moment for Filipino dining in Los Angeles. He started his pop-up business Regi’s Turo Turo at the end of last year, setting up outside coffee shops to grill skewers and sell bundles of vegan pastil, made from mushrooms, wrapped in banana leaves. Follow New York Times Cooking on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok and Pinterest. Get regular updates from New York Times Cooking, with recipe suggestions, cooking tips and shopping advice.

Persons: Andrew Zimmern, Anthony Bourdain, Jonathan Gold, Turo, —, Esquejo, Delgado Organizations: Pew Research, California State University, New York Times, Facebook, YouTube Locations: United States, Los Angeles, Long Beach, Chinatown, Millennials, Manila

☆ On ‘Succession,’ if You’re Eating, You’re Losing
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-16 | by ( Tejal Rao | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Autumn light filters through the treetops of Central Park West, streaming into Jean-Georges, giving the gray banquettes a matte, silver gleam. Each table, though in clear view of the others, is luxuriously cocooned by space, almost private. It’s the ideal place, really, for the Roy children — the scions of the Waystar Royco media empire on HBO’s “Succession” — to discuss their father’s funeral arrangements. The conversation is brisk, and though they chose Jean-Georges as their meeting spot, they don’t eat the food. They leave the pastries — the dark, oversize canelés and fruit-studded buns — along with the platter of fanned, cut fruit, completely untouched.

☆ Los Angeles Is a Doughnut Town
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-24 | by ( Tejal Rao | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The Donut Hole, in La Puente, doesn’t sell the very best doughnuts in the Los Angeles area, but I love going there. Driving through its absurd, gigantic fiberglass doughnut — a pristine example of mimetic architecture — is a brief, giddy and almost spiritual experience. An edge, architectural or otherwise, is practically required in the unusually saturated, competitive doughnut market of Southern California. It might be a glamorous seasonal doughnut, like the strawberry-stuffed beasts you can find at the Donut Man, in Glendora, from February to September. I am consistently pleased by the simple chocolate glazed at Colorado Donuts — though if I’m with my nephews, the chewy, pull-apart, rainbow-colored mochi doughnuts from Mochi Dochi are always the stronger choice.

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