Cathy Erway

3 weeks ago | portside.org | Cathy Erway

The Great Pouchification of American Food Published May 12, 2025 Not just for baby food anymore, delicious and convenient pouches are everywhere in the grocery store. What does that say about adults seeking a quick meal—and the environmental impact of our great shift to plastic? Ibraheem Basir knew he had to do something about the state of his weeknight dinner routine.

1 month ago | tastecooking.com | Cathy Erway

The upscale Korean fried chicken restaurant COQODAQ is a palace of post-pandemic, eat-to-be-seen glamour. Tucked in olive-green leather booths in New York’s Flatiron District, illuminated by an archway of lights and mirrors like an oversize vanity dresser, diners dive into caviar-topped nuggets and glazed chicken pieces placed on pedestaled platters. Along with each chicken assemblage comes a quartet of sauces: avocado crema, honey Dijon, gochujang barbecue, and Parmesan peppercorn.

1 month ago | grubstreet.com | Cathy Erway

Chef Tony Inn’s version of grilled pork jowl with pickled radish. Even if most Americans recognize that tomatoes are, botanically speaking, fruit, they don’t treat them as such. This strikes chef Tony Inn as strange. “Why are tomatoes in salad — like, what is that?” he asks. In Taiwan, where Inn was born and lived until the age of 9, the sweet summer produce is found in ice-cream sundaes, tanghulu sticks, even cakes.

2 months ago | tastecooking.com | Cathy Erway

When Eric Wu was studying at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, he’d often hire a Zipcar and drive across town to the Great Wall Supermarket, where he’d load up on the least expensive dumplings he could find in the freezer aisle. “I subsisted primarily on ramen noodles and frozen dumplings,” says Wu of his undergraduate years on a recent phone call.

Feb 11, 2025 | taustralia.com.au | Cathy Erway |Victoria Pearson

The Japanese term ikigai denotes a sense of purpose or passion in life. Ikigai Fruits, an online retailer that sells specialty fruit sourced from independent Japanese farms, was founded last year to showcase the result of such dedication — and to support the future of Japanese fruit growers. In Japan, where the average farmer is over 65, many businesses are shuttering with no successor to carry on the tradition.