Plus, some light shoplifting discourse, the Wagyu scam, and the fate of lab-grown meat in restaurants
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 president's DoorDash order.
If you read Open Tab last week, you'll be pleased to know that we're starting this week's edition by tying up some loose ends. First, the Philz coffee Pride flag drama—which I promise to never bring up again—is finally over. A statement from Philz Coffee emailed to me last week reads, in part, “every Pride flag that is up stays up, and any Pride flag that was previously removed can be put back up. ” Complaining works!
The rotisserie chicken affordability discourse continues—this time in the halls of government. A bipartisan bill called the Hot Rotisserie Chicken Act is being introduced in the US Senate. The bill would allow SNAP recipients to buy hot rotisserie chicken—currently they can only buy cooked but cooled rotisserie chickens. And finally, Nara Smith, the OG trad wife, has announced she's releasing a cookbook in October.
Finally, you will all learn what I, the child of a granola mom, have always known: The homemade versions of junk food don't taste as good. They just don't—unless you're Claire Saffitz, I guess. Also this week: Prego wants to record your dinner conversations, and Jia Tolentino indulged in some light shoplifting. Chaos ensued.
Plus, Wagyu simply isn't what it used to be, and lab-grown meat faces growing pains. Prego would like to record you please Prego, who you may know for its pasta sauce, is releasing an Alexa-like device called The Connection Keeper, that will record your conversations around the dinner table. It's meant to be a screen-free way to “capture the laughter, stories, and check-ins that happen naturally over a meal,” but it feels distinctly surveillance state coded.
It's not Wi-Fi enabled, and there's no cloud connection, but users are encouraged to upload the conversations to a StoryCorps’ website. Personally, I'd feel uncomfortable recording my personal conversations and uploading them anywhere—websites can get hacked, and data is often leaked or sold. Wait, sorry, let me adjust my tinfoil hat.
Who hasn't shoplifted from Whole Foods a little? New Yorker staff writer Jia Tolentino was a guest on the New York Times podcast The Opinions this week, and, in an episode literally entitled “The Rich Don't Play by the Rules. So Why Should I? ” she admitted to occasionally shoplifting one or two items from Whole Foods.
The mega-corporation , as Tolentino argues, budgets for this kind of light shoplifting anyway. The New York Post disagreed, characterizing it as a “shocking admission” that Tolentino had stolen a few lemons. Yes, stealing is wrong. But Tolentino is hardly the only person to ever dip a toe into shoplifting at Whole Foods.
Why else would they have created Whole Food jail? Plus, as Bon Appétit reported in 2023, some employees are on board with your shoplifting. You've never eaten a grape in the produce aisle? You've never accidentally bagged a banana before scanning it at self checkout?
Go ahead! Live a little! Ed. note: For legal reasons, this is a joke. Big Wagyu is making a fool of you If you've been eating out recently, chances are you've seen Wagyu crop up everywhere.
It might have appeared as a pricey supplement to a luxe tasting experience, or perhaps you tried it when it was on the menu at Arby's. It's the protein du jour, but as it has enjoyed its turn in the spotlight, non-Japanese Wagyu has taken hold of the market. The name Wagyu refers to a few breeds of Japanese cattle that typically have an exceptionally high fat content.
Now many of those cattle have been bred with non-Wagyu breeds, and that beef is being sold as “American Wagyu. ” The fact is, that beef is not necessarily the same as authentic Japanese Wagyu, though it's often sold at similar prices. If this is news to you, as it was to me, I think that means we've been played. Would you eat lab-grown meat?
Cell-cultured meat could be our future—are you ready to try it? If it sounds like science fiction, that's because it sort of is; these companies are growing meat in labs, and the result is protein that is essentially identical to the beef, fish, and chicken we're used to buying in the store. It's an industry that's incredibly well-funded, and it has profound implications for our foodways.
Now some chefs are beginning to serve these cell-cultivated proteins on their restaurant menus. Read on to discover what that looks like.
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