Welcome to Open Tab, a weekly roundup of the news, gossip, and stories that have stayed open in my tabs all week. Last time we covered the cyclospora outbreak and other product recalls.
Another Friday, another delicious edition of Open Tab. This week I found myself thinking about really good butter. I stopped in at the newly refurbished Capitaine and also at Penny here in New York—both of which offer a bread service with swoops of butter so buttercup yellow, so tangy, so deeply flavorful that I’ve been thinking of them longingly ever since.
One recent tidbit that gave me a giggle: Bobby Flay is partly responsible for the opening of viral grocery store Meadow Lane. In a profile with the Times this week, founder Sammy Nussdorf revealed it was a pep talk from Flay—a neighbor to the store—that pushed him to keep going at one of his lowest points.
Have any of you guys been haunted by the frankly upsetting scene in Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey in which Circe cooks what can only be described as a very messed up stew? I got curious and polled food historians on what those guys might have actually been eating.
This week several personal items of Colonel Sanders of KFC fame were auctioned. His little bowtie and suspenders went for a whopping $8,000, and a collection of his hand-typed recipes went for just under $4,000. The colonel’s datebook sold for $30K. I too am nosy, but I don’t know if I’d pay five figures to snoop through what Colonel Sanders was up to day after day.
Also in this week’s Open Tab: at long last Gen Z is drinking alcohol, RFK Jr. is debuting a cooking show, France’s Bordeaux region is ablaze, and I take you all inside A24’s Tony afterparty for light light party reporting and reflection.
A new study released by beverage insights company IWSR shows that alcohol consumption rates among legal-aged Gen Zers is growing. According to the study, it stands at 74%, up from 66% in 2023. This change is a big deal. Americans have been drinking less alcohol in recent years, and headlines have pegged Gen Z as leading the charge. We’re more concerned with wellness, some say. Others link it to the loneliness epidemic.
This increase is good news for wine and spirits companies who have seen vast declines in sales and consumption over the past few years. They’ve adapted, launching non-alcoholic, wellness-focused products which you’ve likely seen on retail shelves. Still, Gen Z will need to get a whole lot thirstier these next few years if the industry is going to stay afloat.
Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human ServicesRobert F Kennedy Jr. debuted a cooking show on his Youtube channel this week. The show is built around Kennedy’s redesigned dietary guidance, and focuses on meals that cost less than $5 per serving whenever possible.
In the first episode, which features chef Andrew Gruel (who also appears to have political aspirations), and is shot in Gruel’s kitchen, the pair make crispy salmon cakes with apple white bean and green salad. According to their math, this works out to $4.91 per serving, though that tally also accounts just $8.99 for enough salmon fillets to feed four—realistic, perhaps, if you substitute canned salmon, as they suggest, but otherwise dubious. The pair discuss seed oil addictions, the microbiome, and ultra-processed foods as they mix together the ingredients for the salmon cakes. At time of publication, the video has twenty four thousand views.
