(Photo: Denny Culbert) If someone told you that you could get paid to travel around the South, stopping along the way to pop out and eat barbecue in iconic barbecue cities, you’d probably take them up on it. I mean, let’s be real, unless you are a vegetarian, there are few things more satisfying than a hunk of meat cooked over an open flame, possibly dipped in sauce and paired with a cold beverage. Well, friends, here we are. Meet…
Let’s say you came up with an idea for a food company in January. How long do you think it would take you to launch? Maybe a year? 18 months? If you’re Aidan Altman, the answer to that question is five months. FIVE MONTHS, PEOPLE! Insanity. Aidan and his co-founder, Shannon McGlynn, dreamt up their company, Spice Foods, with a few characteristics in mind: transparency, altruism and health. It’s true that Millennials generally think we’re the bees knees [thanks mom and…
(Photo credit: Judy Kim) One went to culinary school. The other didn’t. One had a baker as a dad. The other grew up eating dry chicken and overcooked broccoli. Their culinary paths couldn’t have been more different. And yet, they both ended up working side-by-side at one of the best restaurants in New York City: Eleven Madison Park. After years of browning butter on stovetops in restaurant kitchens and serving it to their friends at dinner parties, the lightbulb went off and they decided…
When Hansen Shieh was eight years old, his obviously awesome (wait for it) mom took him out for lunch. As he bit into his first Sichuan pepper, his mouth exploded in flavor and heat. And his mom, the badass that she so clearly is, just laughed at him. Now, some 30 years later, Hansen is on a mission to bring the kick of Sichuan and other flavors, including Chinese fermented black bean, tamarind and fish sauce to the mainstream with his…
(Photo credit:Meredith Jenks) When Scott Norton and his co-founder, Mark Ramadan, were in college, they had a thought: why are American consumers totally chill about their ketchup? After all, the stuff we all grew up on is loaded with junk like high fructose corn syrup, canola oil and tomato paste. But instead of going back to bonging beers and eating take-out pizza like most college kids would do at this point, they took their concept a step further and asked themselves, “What…
What is this space? In truth, it’s a living, breathing thing, so in some ways, I’ll figure it out as I go along. But my goal here is to showcase the makers, and I’m starting with small batch food purveyors. Because yum. But also, because I believe that all (okay, most) of them have a story worth sharing. The finance dude who quit to start a za’atar business with his mom. The sisters who put aside their dad’s caution and launched…