Welcome to Open Tab, a weekly roundup of news, gossip, and stories that have stayed open in my tabs all week. Last week we covered the World Cup’s tourism bubble
The weather is warm in New York, and I had my first oysters of the season last night at Bar Susanne, the new spot from Jackie Carnesi, who also runs the historic Kellogg’s Diner. The oysters were perfect—briny and sweet—but the real coup was the giant, fish-shaped strawberry tart for dessert. This is all to say: Summer is here, folks! Get thee to a raw bar!
Now for the news. (Well, “news.”) One small item that tickled me this week: Los Angeles mayoral candidate, former reality TV star, and famously bad budgeter Spencer Pratt—you may remember him from The Hills—has not one but two dishes named after him at Don Antonio’s, a restaurant on the west side of LA. It’s where a few important moments from the show took place, and according to this excellent piece in Vanity Fair, Pratt is still a regular all these years later.
In other Los Angeles news: If you spend $15,000 a year at Erewhon, you can get your smoothie made before anyone else’s, Eater reported. That is just one of the perks of the reserve tier of the chain’s membership program. That’s, what, a single strawberry a month?
Also this week: There’s PFAS drama brewing in the pots-and-pans-iverse, AI is failing home cooks (and many others), we remember Slow Food pioneer Carlo Petrini, and Michelin quietly institutes some changes to its stars.
Un changement de Michelin
In 2020, the Michelin Guide introduced Green Stars as a way to honor chefs’ sustainability efforts. Previous winners include The Inn at Little Washington, Kaya in Orlando, and Dan Barbour’s Blue Hill at Stone Barns. But just six years later, the guide is retiring this designation—you won’t see a green star on any of those restaurant’s listings on the Michelin website. Sustainable chefs the world over are pretty pissed off, but as I reported a couple years ago, Michelin’s main priority these days seems to be expanding into new territories. Instead of a Green Star, Michelin will be introducing Mindful Voices, an editorial platform to “share the stories and pioneering practices of chefs, hoteliers, and wine producers.”
One interesting tidbit: Eliminating the Green Star must have been a very recent decision. I received an email from a PR person as recently as April announcing the awards in one US state, which specifically mentions Green Stars. Much to ponder!
The PFAS storm clouds on the horizon
Big Pan strikes again. Caraway, a cookware brand, is being sued by two other cookware companies—Groupe SEB USA and Meyer—because it advertises its pans as free from “toxic” chemicals (PFAS), as Wired reported. PFAS, colloquially known as “forever chemicals,” break down very slowly and are linked to health issues. The gist of the suit is that if Caraway calls its pans free of toxic chemicals, it’s implying that the chemicals other companies use are toxic—which isn’t strictly proven. Between us girls, I’d skip Caraway and go with GreenPan anyway.
Would you let AI determine what you eat?
It’s been a banner week for AI haters, e.g., yours truly. Starbucks has retired its AI inventory system after it screwed up tracking inventory, and Uber burned through its yearly AI budget in a few months—the company is saying AI spending is “harder to justify.”
But some people are still bullish on AI. And many folks, as it turns out, are turning to it for nutrition advice. In some cases, it works out well—AI can put together a plant-based menu faster than pretty much any person on earth. In others, it’s catastrophic. And isn’t that kind of how it always is in these stories? So many people have lovely anecdotal evidence that AI is helpful, but several people, following AI advice, have less happy stories. One woman, according to The New York Times report, spent a month eating only papaya, spinach, chicken, and eggs in order to relieve bloating, and her hair started falling out! I’m going to adjust my tinfoil hat as I say this: Don’t let computers tell you what to do, dear reader.
Carlo Petrini passes away at 76
Carlo Petrini, the father of the Slow Food movement, passed away last Thursday. He was 76. Petrini, once a radio journalist, began the Slow Food Movement while protesting the opening of a McDonald’s in Rome's Piazza di Spagna in 1986. When an onlooker reportedly asked what he stood for, if not fast food, he replied “Slow food!” Thus, the name was born.
That interaction blossomed into a global movement, led by Petrini, which champions eating locally, seasonally, and communally. Now, Petrini’s Slow Food philosophy and tenets have been adopted by chefs the world over, fundamentally changing the way we think about ingredients and cooking.