Annaliese Griffin

Being a parent means living in a state of total responsibility. When you gaze upon your beautiful baby, you do so with the understanding that for the next decade-and-a-half, at minimum, it will be your job to know where this small, wondrous person you’ve made is, every minute of every day, without exception. There are moments when this overwhelms me, where I long to just sit in a café and sip a cup of coffee, or go see a movie without asking anyone, without making arrangements.

The World’s 50 Best Restaurants, which is basically a rundown of 50 of the most expensive dinners on the planet, has been announced for 2018 and it’s a predictable mix of familiar names.

The urge to devour cute things, whether or not they’re actually edible, is so universal that there’s a name for it—cute aggression. Now there’s a movie based on the impulse.

When the internet first heard that Netflix was poised to reboot Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, the makeover show in which five effusive gay men transform the appearance, and life, of a hapless straight, it collectively rolled its eyes and sighed. It seemed not just boring, but even a little backward in a post-DACA, trans-aware, gender fluid world. The whole project just seemed very basic—like your dad’s idea of what gay identity is like in 2018—wrapped in a materialistic package promising that buying the right things can be truly transformative.

Netflix announced today that although Parts Unknown, Anthony Bourdain’s travel show on CNN had been scheduled to leave the streaming service on June 16, in the wake of his death last week, they would keep the episodes indefinitely.

The checkout line at the grocery store helped form Carmen Sobczak’s world view. Her mother, Connie Sobczak, used the magazines on display to address the sexist messages that surrounded them. “There’d be like, ‘Lose 10 pounds in 10 days’ on the magazine covers and she would talk to me about it,” says Carmen. “About how these are Photoshopped and how these standards aren’t realistic.”

Last week for about five minutes, it seemed the entire internet was dreaming of packing up and moving to Vermont. The New England state announced a program designed to lure newcomers to the Green Mountains with up to $10,000 in incentives. Michael Schirling, Vermont’s secretary of commerce, told Vermont Public Radio that the state has since received more than 800 direct inquiries about the program, which is not set to begin until January of 2019.

In a food world filled with self-proclaimed mavericks and bad boys, what set Anthony Bourdain apart was his abiding interest in other people, what they eat, and why.

Anthony Bourdain, the American chef and culinary globetrotter who died today, will be remembered for creating the food travel show as we know it, and for his memoir, Kitchen Confidential, which fundamentally changed food media. He helped to usher in an era in which diners, readers, and viewers were as interested in the kitchen as the menu—call it the age of the chef auteur.

As we near the solstice and half the planet sails into summer, farmer’s markets are starting to fill with fresh greens, peas, and berries. It’s tempting, when beautiful produce is plentiful, to buy too much of it—only to have ruby red radishes soften and turn to slime in the back of the refrigerator. That’s not just a bummer, it’s actively bad for the planet.

Miss America is no longer a beauty pageant. The organization said June 5 that it would scrap the swimsuit competition, as well as the evening gown portion of the program.

Jamie Oliver, the British chef and healthy eating advocate, recently delivered a letter, signed by several members of parliament, to British Prime Minister Theresa May calling for a war on childhood obesity. Some nutritionists, however, are actually calling his efforts a war on children’s bodies.

There are two basic types of veggie burger—the kind that would like you to believe that you are actually eating meat and the kind that DGAF. The former has been dominating headlines lately with the “bleeding” Impossible Burger and the Beyond Burger, which some vegetarians have described as too meaty to enjoy. Burgers made from grains, beans, or veggies and don’t even pretend to moo or bleed are about to have a new moment, though thanks to Superiority Burger Cookbook, by Brooks Headley, out on June 5.

When was the last time you ate a Butterfinger? Disappointing, right? They’re just overwhelmingly sweet, without a strong chocolate or peanut butter element—even though they’re supposed to taste like peanut butter. The texture registers less as “crispety, crunchety” and more like very sugary and slightly stale.

Walking through my favorite local vintage shop the other day I spotted a thrifting Holy Grail—deadstock. Specifically two thick, cottony sleeveless mens undershirts with exactly the shorter length and thicker rib that I like for $1 each. Not quite sure what I’m trying to describe? They’re commonly called “wife beaters,” a term that came into heavy use about the same time my new-old-undershirts were likely made.

The Le Creuset enameled Dutch oven is a culty piece of kitchen gear. It weighs more than 10 pounds, costs more than $300, and when you see one on the stove, it announces the presence of someone who takes braises and stews seriously, and can afford to indulge that obsession.

If you wanted an iced Starbucks cold-foam cappuccino, or perhaps a triple mocha frappuccino on Tuesday afternoon in America, you were out of luck. Some 8,000 US Starbucks locations shut down on May 29 for a four-hour cultural bias training for the company’s more than 175,000 employees across the country.

How was your weekend? Are you super stoked to be back at work this morning? Personally, I can’t wait to pour a second cup of coffee and dial into an editorial video conference in a few minutes. This is actually true, and not just because as the parent of small children, work is my weekend. It also may have something to do with the coffee I started sipping as soon I got vertical.

Breakfast in America doesn’t look like it used to. Among other big changes in the American diet, consumption of breakfast cereal, orange juice, and dairy milk are all the decline, thanks to on-the-go options like breakfast bars and the Greek yogurt explosion. But there’s one morning staple that hasn’t just held its ground, but has steadily become even more popular over the past decade, and that’s coffee.

Yogurt is a bit of a miracle in the kitchen. It’s high in protein, probiotic, and incredibly versatile—and it’s a serious workhorse as an ingredient. The tub of full-fat Greek yogurt that is always in my fridge isn’t just the base for a quick breakfast or lunch, it’s my secret weapon for grilling.

There’s a school of thought among kitchen nerds that single use gear items—like an avocado slicer or an egg separator—are a waste of space. There are a few exceptions to that rule, though, like the $7 burger press that goes into heavy rotation in my house come summer grilling time.

Come summer, even the most dedicated urbanists occasionally seek out the cool breezes and green trees of the less populated countryside. Whether you’re headed out on a day-trip for a hike, visiting a friend’s house in the country, or planning an intensive backpacking adventure, there are apps that can help you connect more fully with nature—by staring at your phone.

Harvey Milk would have been 88 today, and in California his spirit of radical change and grassroots politics is more alive than ever.

Elderflower is the flavor of the season, thanks to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and their boundary pushing wedding cake. The flavor, often in the form of a syrup or cordial, comes from the flowers of the elderberry bush—which is common is Europe and North America, and in season in late spring, generally mid-May through June. In the US, elderberry syrup, made from berries of the same bush, has become a popular alternative remedy for colds and flus, but elderflower cordial remains a mostly European summer refresher. That seems poised to change, with royal wedding-inspired sodas and syrups on the market. Here’s how to drink—and eat—elderflowers this summer.