Photo by LA Times
If you start seeing lemons where you expect to see limes, the reason for the swapping of citrus fruits is a lime shortage that has resulted from bad weather, a bad harvest, and a bacterial disease spread by a tiny flying insect and only affecting limes in Mexico, where most of the limes we eat in the U.S. come from. In one case, the price of limes has gone up from $14 to $100 which has prompted many to use their limes more sparingly and in the dishes that need them most, like guacamole and beer. Others are just accepting the inflation, like Christian Plotczyk of Rosa Mexicano in NYC who is going to take the financial risk in order to keep serving the fresh lime juice margaritas that customers have come to expect.
Photo by First We Feast
Now we here at NYU have a pretty spectacular Nutrition and Food Studies program that started in 1989. But it seems the rest of higher education is finally catching on to the fact that food can actually play an integral role in understanding economics, politics, culture, and society. Collages are beginning to offer courses like Gastrodiplomacy at American University, Food Writing at Columbia University, Design of Coffee and Introduction to Winemaking at UC Davis, and you can check out the rest of them here. If our classes were taught by David Chang (at Harvard), perhaps we wouldn’t mind going to class so much anymore.
Photo by Chicago Tribune
Connecticut fast food workers will be the first in the country to start receiving a minimum wage of $10.10 starting in 2017. The law will apply to the 70,000 to 90,000 fast food workers in Connecticut. However Connecticut’s 27,000 waiters, who by law were receiving 69% of the minimum wage, had their wages cut to 63.2% last legislative session and will have to rely more than before on the generosity of customer’s tips.
Photo by Serious Eats
Is toast the new black? Fancy toasts are on the rise in New York City, so save the classic butter and jam for home. Particularly tasty looking is the 2 inch thick japanese toast topped with red bean and option in house-made green tea ice cream at Cha-an Japanese Tea House. Toast may never be the same again.