food writing Pete Wells style

I Went Looking for One Pot and Found a Personality

There is probably a medical term for whatever happens to people who become emotionally attached to cookware, but I am not interested in receiving a diagnosis at this time.

My relationship with Le Creuset started vaguely, almost accidentally. I grew up French Canadian and remember seeing those heavy colourful pots somewhere in the orbit of family life, although I honestly could not tell you whose kitchen they belonged to. We certainly did not own one. They were far too expensive for that. But I knew someone in the family, or maybe extended family, had one sitting on a stove with something simmering inside it. One of those objects you notice as a kid without really understanding why it seems important.

Then I discovered Julia Child.

Or more specifically, I became deeply obsessed with The French Chef on PBS, which is essentially how many food people accidentally ruin their financial future.

There she was, towering over a stove, aggressively flinging onions into a Dutch oven while making boeuf bourguignon look both impossible and completely achievable. I remember staring at that pot almost as much as the food itself. And the strange thing was that the dish already felt familiar to me because my mother made it regularly. Julia wasn’t introducing me to French cooking so much as turning it into theatre.

Years later I bought my own Dutch oven in Licorice. I told myself it was an investment piece, which is adult code for “I spent too much money on a pot but would prefer not to discuss it.”

Then came the Blueberry skillet.

Then the Cerise braiser. (more…)

The Cult of Trader Joe’s, Membership: Me

There are people who travel for art, for architecture, for the vague promise of self-improvement. And then there are those of us who cross borders for a bag of frozen orange chicken and a seasoning blend that tastes like it was engineered in a lab designed to make restraint impossible.

I fall into the latter camp. Not casually, not ironically. I am, for better or worse, a food person in the fullest sense. I cook the way some people scroll, constantly and a little compulsively, chasing flavours, tinkering, adjusting, tasting again. The kitchen is where I spend my time and attention, which is probably why a grocery store managed to get this far under my skin.

For the past few years, any trip south has followed a familiar rhythm. Land, check in, and then, with a kind of low-grade urgency, locate the nearest Trader Joe’s. Boston, New York, a quiet stretch of Vermont, even Syracuse in the summer, it didn’t matter. The store was the destination, everything else a supporting act. I would go in with a list and leave with something closer to a haul: Mandarin Orange Chicken, a block of Unexpected Cheddar, a sunscreen that whispers luxury while costing less than lunch, dark chocolate peanut butter cups that make a convincing case against moderation, and at least two jars of Crunchy Chili Onion because one is never enough.

It’s the seasonings, though, that first pulled me in. Onion salt that somehow tastes fuller than the sum of its parts. A salmon rub that makes you feel like you know what you’re doing. These are not pantry staples so much as quiet little victories, the kind that make a weeknight dinner feel like you meant it.

I haven’t been back in a while. Call it a principled absence, or just fatigue with You Know Who. Either way, the distance has done nothing to dull the appetite. If anything, it’s sharpened it into something closer to ritual. In the absence of the real thing, I’ve taken to following Trader Joe’s Talia, who posts a steady stream of new and returning products with the calm authority of someone who understands exactly what’s at stake. I don’t know her, she doesn’t know me, and yet there I am, watching updates about freezer aisle arrivals as if they were breaking news. (more…)