“Morgan Ditmars stands on a milk crate at the empty steam table inside the Preble Street kitchen, flanked by six boxes of assorted pancake mixes and two eight-quart containers of liquid eggs, milk, and slicks of vegetable oil. “I’m going to add some nuts and cranberries. I find a lot of use for canned cherry pie filling. I’m always going for anti-bland.”
Eater, 2021
“Across the harbor from the open-air Fagatogo market, where local Samoans sell breadfruit, taro, and coconuts from backyard plantations, a Starkist tuna processing plant—the single largest employer on the island—hums with activity.”
Gastro Obscura, 2018
“Skid row is largely represented in the media as the epicenter of Los Angeles County’s homelessness epidemic, because it is. But it’s also a bonafide neighborhood of around 5,000 Angelenos. Much like any other neighborhood, its denizens get up every day and go in search of a morning cup of coffee, a Cuban sandwich at lunch, or shaved ice on a hot afternoon.”
LA Taco, 2019
“I feel like I’m approaching the unmarked door of a speakeasy. The cashier gives me a wry smile and pulls heaping ladles of oxtails from a steam tray, broth slick with rendered beef fat glistening in the slot machine lights. Oxtail soup: a dish so hearty it could drown any gambling sorrows. But it’s well made, too, with hints of warm spices and perfectly braised meat that escape every nook and cranny of the bone. You know those meals that make you feel like you’ve been let in on a little secret?”