James' World 2

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I’m not willing to admit how many years ago this was now, but when I turned 15, I became a vegetarian. Predictably, because I was a teenager, I was sanctimonious about it, chastising everyone around me for not caring about animals or the earth or whatever else I could think of that they should care about in my extremely informed opinion. Being vegetarian and caring about the world thank you very much was a very outsized part of my personality.

Back then, especially because I was 15 years old with little income and worldliness, I defaulted to what I thought were the best options for a vegetarian to eat. Namely, fake chicken nuggets and hot dogs, with the occasional chickpea dish thrown in for health. I didn’t know where to find these things — nor did I know there were any other places — besides my local Acme, a grocery chain in Philly that is basically fine. My hot dog choices back then were Smart Dogs and MorningStar Farms Veggie Dogs. And out of necessity, I loved them both.

Fast forward [redacted] number of years and the landscape for vegetarians has completely changed. The breadth and availability of products means that it feels easier than ever to forgo meat, even if the taste of meat is still your thing. Developments in mushroom-based meats, vegetarian burgers that “bleed,” and brands getting into plant-based products of all kinds means that the hot dog section of the freezer or fridge aisle is no longer a sad, lonely place where bossy teenagers get their kicks. For a number of years now, barbecues haven’t been the same.

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Nicole Miles/Eater

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If you are looking for a delicious appetizer, look no further than this delicious grilled halloumi! Quick and easy to prep and grill, this cheese has a wonderful creamy texture with just the right amount of saltiness.

What is Halloumi?

Halloumi is a non-melting cheese that is similar to Queso Para Frier, and in flavor is somewhere in between feta and mozzarella. It is made with a mixture of goat and sheep’s milk and is semi-hard and brined. It originates from Cyprus and is very popular in Lebanon, where my parents are from.

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According to its evangelists, pickleball is America’s fastest-growing sport (it depends on how you measure). According to Architectural Digest, it’s the perfect amenity for new luxury real estate development (it might be). According to your grandmother, it’s blowing up at her retirement home (it definitely is). The last few years are probably the first time you’ve ever heard of the sport if you have at all, and you may be wondering what is going on. 

Fear not, an avalanche of recent pickleball press can answer all of your questions. This year, The New York Times declared the sport “ready for prime time.” NPR bemoaned the mere 10,000 places to play across the country. Town and Country called it the “preferred sport of the one percent.” The New Yorker asked, “Can pickleball save America?”

Most of the recent articles on pickleball follow a predictable rubric, beginning by explaining how the game works: Players use composite or wooden paddles to whack a plastic ball back and forth over a short net until it bounces twice or out of bounds—like a game of ping-pong where you can stand on the table. Then, as if it follows naturally from the game’s simplicity, they trace the game’s meteoric rise in popularity, from invention in the ‘60s by a quirked-up Republican congressman to its rapid ascent to the mainstream over the last few years.

The only thing moving faster than this venture capital-backed gold rush are pickleball’s haters, of which there are many. No one wants to be told to like something, after all. To detractors like us, it’s a senior citizen’s idea of something youthful and hip—the Pete Buttigieg of sports, if you will. 

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Illustration by Michael Houtz

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Summer is America’s season of pleasure—long weekends, refreshing swims, cold drinks—and the annual coronation of grilling as the seasonal king of cooking methods. It doesn’t feel like summer has truly arrived until you’re outside and your backyard is filled with the heady smoke of a grill. While you might already know your way around a grill, there are plenty of ways to make this outdoor cooking season your best yet. We tapped lifelong griller Bill Briand, a three-time James Beard nominee and the executive chef at Playa at Sportsman Marina and Fisher’s at Orange Beach Marina, for his top grilling secrets.

Grill and grill often

Whatever your favorite kind of grill is, Briand says, cook on it as much as you can while the weather holds out. The more comfortable you are with the grill, the more possibilities you can explore with this method of cooking. “I pretty much grill every night that I’m not cooking in the restaurant,” he says. For grilling novices (or experienced grillers looking for even more delicious and consistent results), Char-Broil TRU-Infrared cooking technology creates the closest thing to no-fail grilling. The magic lies just below the grates: a steel emitter plate retains the natural infrared heat of the flames and radiates that heat back to your food, yielding tastier, juicier meat, fish, vegetables, you name it.

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Grilled chicken breasts mean it’s summertime.  Photo by Char-Broil

Grill Often

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“Grief is a force of energy that cannot be controlled or predicted,” Elizabeth Gilbert reflected in the wake of losing the love of her life. “Grief does not obey your plans or your wishes. Grief will do whatever it wants to you, whenever it wants to. In that regard, Grief has a lot in common with Love.”

Like love, grief swells into an entire inner universe that comes to color the whole of the outside world. Like love — that rapturous raw material for most of the songs and poems and paintings our species has produced — grief lives itself through the grieving and can’t but speak its truth. Unlike love,our culture meets the voice of grief with an alloy of disquiet and denial. We want to make the sadness go away, to lift the sorrowing heart out of its sorrow immediately. Often, we mistake for personal failure our inability to salve another’s grief or mistake for their failure the inability to snap out of it on the timeline of our wishes.

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Art by Valerio Vidali from The Shadow Elephant by Nadine Robert — a subtle meditation on what it actually takes to unblue our sorrows.

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