we're as disappointed as you are
First, an announcement.
I’ll be doing a popup at The Tasting Counter in Somerville, MA, on Tuesday August 20th. I’ll be making Peranakan food, and my friend Merrick will be pouring some delicious natural wines. A la carte menu, no reservations, doors open at 5pm. Come eat.
Now, some disappointment.
It’s been a pretty hectic week, I had 2 job interviews, and my body has been out of true, so unfortunately, there isn’t an essay this week, but I do have some links I’ve been saving up. They’re not even connected to this week’s clutch of trashfires in our food system.
I’m a commis in a Chinese restaurant kitchen, this is what I do. Chinese restaurants explained in English. A must read.
Matt Stoller writes a Substack newsletter called BIG, about monopolies and politics. It’s brilliant but fairly grim reading. A few weeks back he wrote about how Walmart came to be a monopoly retailer of groceries in many markets.
On the subject of weird Singaporean pastry, kuih bika ambon originated in Indonesia but is also found in Singapore. It’s much less well known than pandan chiffon, and also much more finicky — to the point where people make ovens specifically for making this one cake. Offhand, I can’t think of any other baked good that demands a single-use oven.
After I wrote about robotized restaurants, y’all sent me a bunch of great examples of the genre of which I was previously unaware. The one farthest along seems to be Cafe X in the Bay Area. Since San Francisco exists in the future, you can also buy a baguette from a robot to go with your coffee. The SF Gate writers clearly stacked the deck in the robot’s favor during their baguette taste test, though. Finally, someone in Boston has sort of built a robot that can stir-fry.
Literally every time I have dinner with my family, there comes a point in the meal when my mum starts gnawing on bones.
Thank you for reading let them eat cake, a weekly newsletter about food systems and food. And as always, a super-special thank you to my pre-release readers, Jen Thompson and Diana Kudayarova.
This newsletter is free and a labor of love. I’m doing this to develop a platform as a writer, and if you like it, the best way to show your support is to send this along to someone who might enjoy it, or give it a shout out on social media, or simply click that little heart at the top of this email to like this post. You can find me @briocheactually on both twitter and instagram.
best,
tw
p.s. I’d love to buy you a coffee. Drop me a line!