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The team from Chicago’s only Michelin-starred Indian restaurant, Indienne, is opening a cafe where customers can sip fresh-brewed masala chai. Swadesi Cafe should open next week in the West Loop with unique pastries like samosa chaat croissants stuffed with spicy potatoes and a pleasant hint of tart tamarind. The menu also includes chicken tikka toasties with chicken, cheddar, cilantro, and mint.
Indienne chef Sujan Sarkar worked on the food alongside chef Sahil Sethi, his collaborator who oversees Sifr (ownership’s Middle Eastern restaurant in West Loop). But the man in charge of day-to-day operations at Swadesi is Yash Kishinchand. He’s a recent graduate of the Culinary Institute of America in Napa where students run a cafe. That’s where Kishinchand received his only barista training.
Sarkar has toyed with the idea for a cafe for years. Kishinchand moved from Columbus, Ohio to Chicago to open St. Regis Chicago — the luxury downtown hotel that now houses Tre Dita and Miru. After he left the hotel, Sarkar offered him a chance to open Swadesi inside the former Ruin Daily at 328 S. Jefferson Street.
Kishinchand who enjoys brandishing a chef’s torch — he keeps a shiny gold-colored one handy for the finishing touches on treats like jaggery chocolate chip cookies — is trained in French cooking, and says he wasn’t as familiar with Indian ingredients and he received an education from chefs Sarkar and Sethi when creating Swadesi menu. The cafe’s name is derived from “desi,” a term that often refers to Indian Americans. The menu intends to reflect their tastes in combining cultures. How else would you explain the cheesy potato tikki tots? And it’s not just South Asian, a carrot halwa cake gives a taste of the Middle East.
This bakery approach isn’t that different from Kasama’s where pastry chef and co-owner Genie Kwon combines her husband’s Filipino culture and her Korean heritage with French pastry. In Lincoln Park, Indian native Arshiya Farheen has slipped in subcontinental influences in her pastries at Verzenay Patisserie.
There’s been a wave of interest in Indian egg sandwiches. Mini chain Eggoholic helped popularize them locally, and places like Superkhana International have taken them to another level. Swadesi will offer its own with avocado on a spiced potato rosti — yes, the Swiss get a say. There’s also a butter chicken croissant with burrata.
Finding the literal sweet spot for masala chai in Chicago has been a challenge. Swadesi will allow customers to customize the sweetness levels with sugar, and down the line, alternate sweeteners may be offered. For now, the masala chai is made to order whole milk, but an oat milk ready-to-go version is available. These drinks fundamentally differ from the chai lattes most coffee shops serve made from concentrate. Masala chai specialists, ones who brew black tea with South Asian spices (Swadesi uses ginger, rose, and cardamom), aren’t frequent in Chicago. Chiya Chai and Superkhana in Logan Square are locals’ best bets. Along Devon, Sukhadia’s Sweets and Snacks is a popular and quick option. Some Indian restaurants don’t offer the beverage. In Avondale, Thattu, which specializes in cuisine from the southern state of Kerala, serves South Indian filter coffee. Brewing masala chai takes time, but so does preparing pour-over coffee, so there’s a labor precedent if a demand emerges.
But it’s not just about tradition. Swadesi also plans to serve a cold nitro masala chai.
Eventually, Swadesi will extend hours and Kishinchand says they’re hoping to sell beer and liquor. The focus is on morning and evening service, but dinner pop-ups are a possibility.
Swadesi, 328 S. Jefferson Street, opening Monday, March 26.
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Ashok Selvam
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Since the unexpected closure of Cultivate Coffee and Taphouse in February 2022, Ypsilanti residents have been eagerly hoping for some sort of comeback for the beloved cafe. Finally, Vertex Coffee Roasters is breathing new life into the space at 307 N. River St., with an opening set for March 23.
This will mark the second location for Vertex, whose home base is at 1355 S. University Ave. in Ann Arbor. The women- and queer-owned space was opened in 2019 by Kara Soto and her wife Mackenzie.
The cafe serves coffee and tea crafted with housemade syrups, as well as 12-ounce and 16-ounce bags of beans straight from the company’s roastery in Milan. Plus, Vertex prides itself on a commitment to sustainability, helping produce less waste by recycling, using all compostable materials, and more.
Vertex first announced its Ypsilanti location through an Instagram post in late January with a photo of the building captioned “New location unlocked.”
People were immediately excited.
No one was sure when the space would re-open though, but earlier this week, another Instagram update announced a soft opening will take place on Saturday, March 23 from 7 a.m.-5 p.m.
“We will be introducing new menu items slowly over the next few weeks, but we are so excited to open up the space!” the post reads. “This weekend we will have coffee and toasts/sandwiches! Our zero-proof bar is in the works and opening soon.”
While Cultivate served both coffee and alcohol, Vertex currently has no plans to get a liquor license.
The hours for the new coffee shop will be Monday through Sunday from 7 a.m.-5 p.m.
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Layla McMurtrie
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*Kitchen Nostalgia is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.
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dieTTaste
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After years of trial and error, my coffee setup is nicely streamlined. I have an Oxo 8-Cup for a full pot or quick single cup, an AeroPress for a higher-end mugful, and a French press for when I’m feeling nostalgic. Thanks to a tiny, bare-bones new machine, though, I’m considering changing up my countertop lineup.
The Bonavita 5-Cup One-Touch Thermal Carafe is tiny, and like many of the company’s brewers, wholly ungimmicky. In an exciting twist, my first cup was perfect, something that almost never happens with a new brewer. Using my coffee of the moment, French Sumatra from Seattle’s Lighthouse Roasters, the first sip immediately made me think of Christmas and was followed by a delicious wave of chocolate flavor. I get just a couple of cups this good in a year if I’m lucky. It was such an unexpected performance that I forgot to take notes.
The 5-Cup has the stripped-down appearance of an old-school coffee maker, with a water tank, filter basket, smaller-than-normal five-cup carafe, and just one button. Its size and simplicity were immediately appealing for someone like me, who slams two cups first thing in the morning, then slow-sips for the rest of the day. Since I’m the only coffee drinker in my house, this means I can brew a full pot, which is only about 2.5 mugfuls.
I was happy to learn that, at this scale, a half carafe is essentially a single-cup option that’s surprisingly good. For folks like me, this is preferable to using a larger brewer, as most of them make their best coffee only when making a full pot; by the time I hit the bottom of a pot that size, it’s well past its prime.
Much of the Bonavita’s abilities are under the hood, like a generously sized showerhead, high water temperature, and regulated brewing time, all of which make for a better cup. At a time when brewers can have sprawling control panels and complicated apps to match, I love how this machine steals the show with generic looks and a single button. As a sort of secret weapon, press and hold that button for five seconds, and subsequent batches get a pre-brew soak known as a bloom, which dampens the grounds before the full brew cycle so they release carbon dioxide, which can create a sour flavor in the cup.
It all reminded me a bit of the way Bryan Cranston souped-up a near-invisible getaway vehicle for Ryan Gosling in the opening scene of Drive. “Plain Jane boring, just like you asked for, but I dropped in 300 horses on the inside. She is gonna fly,” he says, as the two walk past muscle machine after muscle machine in the garage before arriving in front of a nondescript gray Chevy Impala. “[This is] the most popular car in the state of California. No one will be looking at you.”
Taking advantage of the strong performance under Bonavita’s Plain Jane hood allowed me to confidently tinker with the basics and consistently get a quality cup. I puttered with ratios of water to coffee and adjusted grind size and was always in the ballpark. It worked so well, I went from testing to just using it as my regular coffee machine without really noticing. Having just reviewed a countertop behemoth, this was a city-dweller’s dream, with a footprint a little more than 6 by 12 inches and just a hair over 10 inches high.
My happiness with it was no surprise to award-winning barista Sam Schroeder, co-owner of Washington state’s Olympia Coffee Roasters. Sam had a Bonavita at home for seven years, so he was immediately comfortable with it. At Olympia’s lab in Seattle, we put it through its paces surprisingly quickly. Since the fill lines on the water tank are in number of cups, not volume, Sam did some quick and clever work, setting the empty machine on a scale, taring it (zeroing it out) then filling the tank with water, at which point we learned “five cups” is about 750 milliliters. Then he used a standard brewer-friendly ratio of one part beans to 16 parts water, rounded down a bit, and started a batch with 45 grams of Olympia’s Little Buddy grounds.
Immediately, the machine hit its marks, making coffee with a total dissolved solids score of 1.4, meaning it was the right strength. It had an extraction percentage of 20.98, which meant the balance was what he called “straight up good.” The coffee tasted great. It was so good, in fact, that Sam immediately broke out the good stuff, opening a six-ounce bag of Panama Bambito Gesha Peaberry from Oliver’s Custom Coffee, where he’s also a co-owner. Soon, we were marveling at the coffee’s bonkers umami notes. I was quite impressed with both Sam’s confidence in the machine and its one-button ability to make great coffee.
Watching Sam work was also a good reminder of how even on a simple brewer like this, you can still control several variables, such as the amount of coffee and water used (by weighing it instead of using the fill lines on the tank), along with grind size, and doing so can make notable changes to the quality of the coffee.
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Joe Ray
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Phil Drapeau, senior vice president of Future Coffee Systems at Keurig, says partnering with Delica was a way to accelerate the timeline on research Keurig has been doing for years. “I think at this point it’s been for four to five years that we’ve been working on this process,” Drapeau says. “Working with Delica really allowed us to focus on adapting the technology for the North American consumer, to accelerate and drive development.”
Photograph: Keurig
Standard, non-compostable K-Cups are tossed out, which creates an environmental problem. But the benefits of the K-Round aren’t just in removing a potential pollutant from the environment, or the carbon footprint of plastic manufacturing. There are some real benefits from cultivating the seaweed or algae needed to make the new K-Rounds, according to Eleftheria Roumeli, assistant professor at the University of Washington’s Molecular Engineering and Sciences Institute.
“The algae is photosynthetic, so it’s uptaking CO2,” Roumeli says. “That’s why there’s so much incentive right now. The US government alone has given I don’t know how many millions of dollars for algae cultivation, because it’s such a great carbon sequestration mechanism.” The natural process of cultivating algae for purposes like the K-Round increases the amount of carbon captured from the atmosphere. “It’s a really great option, because the algae is a natural carbohydrate that when it decomposes in the environment, there is no problem. Scientifically, it’s not novel, but practically, it’s kind of important that we do it.”
There could be problems down the road if people end up dumping too many K-Rounds or coffee grounds into a specific area, like a backyard. Roumeli says that just like using too much fertilizer or bio char, accumulating too much in one area could disturb ecosystems. But this would still be better than the current situation.
“Definitely the benefits are absolutely outweighing the negatives,” Roumeli says. “One of the best things is that you have something that is now renewable in your lifetime.” However, she warns that companies need to do studies before deciding where they will cultivate algae, as it needs to be in harmony with the local environment.
Keurig says it will be releasing both products to broader audiences after fine-tuning them with some customer feedback. The Keurig Alta and the K-Rounds will enter into a beta test this fall, which you can sign up for here.
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Jaina Grey
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When Ukrainian couple Artur and Iryna Yuzvik opened their first U.S. coffee shop in late January in Lincoln Park, they tried to moderate their expectations. Their brand, Soloway Coffee, was a new entrant in Chicago’s dense and competitive coffee scene, and they weren’t sure if local caffeine aficionados would embrace their approach.
Whatever fears the couple — also behind roastery and cafe chain Karma Kava in their hometown of Ternopil, Ukraine — harbored were put to rest almost immediately after the doors swung open at 2275 N. Lincoln Avenue. “We learned about long lines in Ukraine, but that’s nothing like here,” says Artur Yuzvik. “It was crazy, six or seven hours of a nonstop line.”
Chicagoans aren’t the only ones beating a path to Soloway. One woman drove to Lincoln Park from Pennsylvania to get her hands on a Dotyk dripper, a sculptural ceramic brewing device sold at the cafe that’s made with clay from the city of Slovyansk in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, an area decimated by Russian military actions over the past two years. Ukrainian Americans are visiting the cafe from states like Wisconsin, Connecticut, and New York, with some “driving for five or six hours to refresh their memories of home [in Ukraine],” Artur Yuzvik says.
The Chicago area is home to the second-largest Ukrainian American population in the U.S., with 54,000 people identifying as having Ukrainian ancestry. The community has dwelled in Chicago for more than a century, and recently, a fresh crop of Ukrainian American chefs has brought new attention to the country’s cuisine at spots like Anelya in Avondale and Pierogi Kitchen in Bucktown. On the East Coast, another Ukrainian coffee entrepreneur is putting down roots. Maks Isakov owned a coffee company in Vinnytsya, Ukraine, but was forced to abandon his business and flee the country when the Russian military invaded. He’s since founded Kavka Coffee in Camden, Maine.
In Chicago, the enormity of the response from customers has prompted the Yuzviks to accelerate their expansion. They plan to soon sign a lease for a second location but aren’t yet ready to announce the address or neighborhood, divulging only that it will be “nearby” the original. They also say that it will be an all-day affair that transitions from morning to evening and will feature a large selection of sweets.
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At the original cafe, the couple has partnered with Chicago carb whiz Dan “the Baker” Koester on a menu of pastries like chewy cinnamon knots, flakey croissants (strawberry, lemon, and almond), and impossibly creamy burnt Basque cheesecake (“ugly outside but pretty inside,” Artur Yuzvik says). There’s also a selection of savory items including sandwiches and avocado burrata toast, though they plan to expand that lineup significantly and add more fresh produce. An outdoor patio, which the owners call “summer seating,” will open in May or June with more than two dozen seats. It’ll kick off with a borscht pop-up that aims to evoke memories of the traditional Ukrainian soup with a contemporary culinary flair. They’ve held numerous pop-ups in Ukraine and hope to continue that practice in Chicago.
The first few months have been instructive for the Yuzviks, who say they were surprised to discover that their American customers tend to avoid sugary treats in the morning, instead ordering croissants and cheesecake around 2 p.m. They also hadn’t expected demand for iced drinks in the winter, but say they’ve seen entire families order cold brew on some of the chilliest days of the year.
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The most significant lesson since the cafe’s debut, however, emerged from a conversation the couple overheard among customers waiting in line. The group mentioned that employees at Chicago’s lauded Metric Coffee had praised Soloway and encouraged them to visit. The Yuzviks are friendly with Metric founders Xavier Alexander and Darko Arandjelovic and leaned on them for beans when they unexpectedly sold out weeks before the next shipment was due to arrive. Still, the idea of a coffee shop directing their customers elsewhere was entirely unexpected.
“We were shocked and surprised,” Iryna Yuzvik says in Ukrainian, which her husband translates into English. “In Ukraine, it’s a bit different. In the U.S., it’s more about good relations and more friendly business.”
Soloway Coffee, 2275 N. Lincoln Avenue, Open 7 a.m. to 5 p.m daily.
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Soloway Coffee
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Soloway Coffee
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Naomi Waxman
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Coffee is one of the most widely consumed psychoactive beverages on the planet. Nearly every country, region, and culture has its own unique way of preparing and consuming coffee. There’s nothing simple about coffee. Those beans in your kitchen are the sum total of a complex series of interactions between international corporations, roasters, shippers, marketers, wholesalers, and even the growers who put the seeds in the ground. It’s complicated.
Below we bust some of the most common coffee myths and misconceptions, to help you become a more informed consumer of this deliciously bitter elixir.
We’re seriously wired here at WIRED. Be sure to check out our guide on How to Make Better Coffee at Home, or take a look at our coffee-related buying guides to the Best Espresso Machines, the Best Coffee Subscriptions, and the Best Coffee Grinders.
Updated March 2024: Added a couple new myths, updated links and copy throughout.
1. Coffee Is Not a Bean
Coffee isn’t a bean, or a legume like many other foods we call beans. It’s a seed! Technically, it’s the endosperm (pit) of a berry. Initially, it’s wrapped in a thin red fruit that’s peeled off during the cleaning process. Then it’s a light silvery green color until it’s roasted.
That doesn’t mean you can plant your beans and grow your own coffee trees. The beans we grind up and brew are not plantable anymore, due to the roasting. Even if they were, it can take years before a coffee plant is mature enough to produce the berries that contain the coffee bean. Not to mention, Coffea arabica (the most popular cultivar) grows and thrives only in a few places in the world. It’s a demanding little plant with very particular climate needs—which brings us to our next point.
2. European Coffee Isn’t From Europe
Coffee beans don’t grow in Europe. They grow in Central and South America, East and West Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, parts of Asia, and the Pacific. So if you’re buying expensive imported coffee from Italy, France, or anywhere outside of these regions, you’re likely getting pretty bad coffee (unless you live in Italy or France, that is). That’s because the best-tasting coffee is always roasted shortly before it’s consumed.
If your coffee beans say they’re from Ethiopia, that’s where they were grown. But if the bag says they’re from somewhere in Europe, it likely means the coffee was roasted there, and that’s bad. Roasting brings out the flavors in coffee, but those flavor compounds start to break down shortly after they’re roasted. Coffee roasted outside your locale has likely sat in a shipping container or cargo plane for a long time. So when it arrives, all those flavors that make the coffee so tasty in a Parisian café have greatly degraded.
That’s why my advice is to always buy locally roasted coffee beans and grind them at home (with a burr grinder).
3. Dark Roasts Don’t Have More Caffeine
We often hear that darker coffee is “stronger,” meaning it contains more caffeine, and that’s not exactly true. When green coffee goes into a roaster, it’s literally just roasted to different levels of doneness—just like your morning toast.
Blonde roasts are among the lightest-roasted beans, and because they don’t spend as much time cooking, they actually contain more intact caffeine compounds than medium- or dark-roasted beans. Heat accelerates chemical interactions, which means it also breaks down caffeine compounds. So it stands to reason that the longer a coffee bean is roasted, the less caffeine it’s going to contain when it’s ground up and brewed.
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Jaina Grey
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When an espresso machine costs over $1,500, it can be trickier to test than cheaper models. It’s sort of like testing a high-end camera. At the very least, it should shoot good photos, maybe even great photos. The rest of the evaluation is less on its performance of basic functions than how well it performs those functions over time, how well it responds to you as a photographer, and how good it looks. I spent about 90 days with the Diletta Bello, and during that time I’d have to say it nailed three out of three.
Any espresso machine in this price range should pull near-perfect shots right out of the box, and the Bello did not disappoint on that front. Within an hour of unboxing it, running water through it, and finding a good place on my counter for it, I was watching golden-brown espresso pour into a demitasse cup. The crema built up in a smooth, swirly layer and before I even brought it to my lips, I knew the Bello and I would get along during our time together.
Crème de la Crema
I’m a sucker for a bottomless portafilter, and machines like the Bello are the reason why. As soon as you flip the hefty, mechanical-feeling lever to begin pulling the shot, the machine begins to produce a rich, aerated, amber and earth-colored shot that builds up beneath a layer of crema. With a shot glass, you can really see it build up; it looks like someone pouring a Guinness. Tiny bubbles roiling beneath the surface, only to rise and become a part of the foamy cloud bank resting on top of a dense, bittersweet elixir.
I actually got lucky with those first shots, because if your grind is off by even a bit the Bello will misfire. If your grind is too fine, it’ll whirr and struggle to push out a trickle of too-bitter coffee into your cup. If your grind is too coarse, water will shoot through the portafilter like it didn’t touch the coffee at all, filling your cup with an undrinkably weak coffee-adjacent water product that tastes like someone poured the drip tray into your cup.
To be fair, this isn’t an entirely uncommon result when you’re using a high-end espresso machine. They can be finicky. The Bello even has an analog pressure gauge, which is super helpful for diagnosing issues with your shots: Low pressure and a fast pour means your coffee is too coarse; high pressure but a slow pour means your coffee is too fine or packed too tight.
But the Bello’s favorite grind size was easy enough to find because it is so persnickety. If your grind is wrong, it will tell you. I like to err on the side of too fine, with a firm tamp, and then step up the coarseness over the course of a couple rounds of shots to get it dialed in just right. For me, I found that the machine does well with a grind that’s a little finer than the consistency of granulated white sugar, and a firm (but not heavy) tamp. We’re not trying to crush this thing under a hydraulic press, just press it down slow till it feels like there’s not any give left.
Knobs and Levers
Photograph: Diletta Espresso
This is an espresso machine for tinkerers, and it looks the part. The front panel features a solid metal off-on switch that clicks with a satisfying chunk sound. There are also two articulated metal wands, one for steam and one for hot water. Their range of motion never felt restrictive, and they’re easy to move into place or out of the way, depending on what you’re doing. The steam wand’s maneuverability makes it easy to get it into just the right position to swirl your milk into a creamy microfoam.
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Jaina Grey
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Whether you’re living alone, or with roommates who don’t drink coffee, or with a whole house of coffee-lovers, everyone should have at least one single-serve coffee maker in their culinary arsenal. For those of us who are the sole coffee drinkers in the house, that’s self explanatory — but even if everyone you live with is on the java hard, it still behooves you to keep a one-cup coffee machine of some sort in arm’s reach. Maybe you woke up late one day and everyone else killed the pot, or you need an afternoon pick-me-up and nobody else is home, or maybe you’ve gone full coffee nerd (nice) and don’t want anyone else sucking down cups of your freshly roasted Ethiopian Yirgacheffe. (You get my point.) That’s why we put together this short list of some of the best single-serve coffee makers for every budget, starting at just under 20 bucks.
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Ian Burke
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If you’re the type of person who has three beverages on their desk at all times, listen up: A new meta-analysis compared how six different types of popular drinks impact cardiovascular health and mortality risk. The findings could influence your go-to bev lineup, so let’s dive in.
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This tiny coffee shop, across the street from Amundsen High School, is cozy and features drinks find nowhere else in the city, many flavors are Filipino. Purple chai comes with ube syrup. The Pandan Paradise combines pandan, vanilla, and macadamia nuts. Furthermore, if you become a regular, the barista will get to know you and craft drink based on your preferences.
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Naomi Waxman
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Coffee and tea have been seen as villains for the body. An entire industry has popped up around alternatives to just good coffee or a piping hot cuppa tea. There is a rough estimate the world drinks three cups of tea for every cup of coffee. And tea is the second most popular beverage in the world (behind water). Now science is indicate Coffee, tea and good health may go together.
The study, published in PLOS Medicine, surveyed data on 360,000 people between the ages of 50 and 74, looking for their coffee and tea drinking habits and incidents of dementia and strokes over the years. After the initial survey was conducted, these same participants were followed up with 11 years later, allowing researchers to compare and contrast.
RELATED: Coffee Protects You From This Disease According To New Research
The study concluded participants who drank two to three cups of any of these two drinks a day fared better than those who didn’t drink them at all. The sweet spot was found when people consumed the amount of each beverage daily (4 to 6 cups total), resulting in a 28% lower risk of dementia and 32% lower risk of a stroke.
In an email exchange with CNN, Dr. Lee H. Schwamm, chair of the American Stroke Association Advisory Committee and chair in Vascular Neurology at Massachusetts General Hospital, explained while the study was intriguing there was no way of establishing causation from this initial data.
RELATED: This Type Of Coffee Is Best For Your Heart Health
“We cannot impute causality, and say ‘drinking more coffee or tea is good for your brain.’ What we can only say in this study, people who reported moderate coffee/tea drinking were less likely to have a stroke or dementia occur in the 10 years of follow-up,” he said.
RELATED: Here’s When You Should Drink Coffee For Maximum Productivity
Coffee has long been associated with preventing a wide range of diseases and improving heart health. Still, it’s always important to approach caffeine in moderation, managing your coffee intake without keeping too much of a stern hold on it. When it comes to tea, studies have found links suggest lower odds of cardiovascular disease, better teeth, and even protection against cancer.
In short, go for the warm drink in the morning, and don’t overthink it if you get the urge to have more later on in the day.
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Maria Loreto
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Earlier this winter, we found out that Hamtramck’s Kitab Cafe would be opening a second location in Detroit’s former Avalon Bakery space. Now, the spot has announced it will hold a soft opening this Friday, Feb. 16.
An Instagram post from Feb. 14 showcasing he inside of the new Midtown location says hours will be 6:30 a.m.-10 p.m. daily. Plus, all Hamtramck favorites will be available, including La Colombe Coffee, Zingerman’s pastries, and made-to-order sandwiches.
The original Kitab Cafe was opened in January 2023 by married co-owners Asma Almulaiki and Ahmed Alwhysee with the goal of creating a welcoming and diverse space, great for remote workers or people just taking a drink to-go.
The pair initially thought the cafe would be more of a bookstore, as “kitab” means “book” in Arabic, but its coffee and food have become popular. The spot offers baked goods, baguettes, and soups from Ann Arbor-based Zingerman’s, plus a variety of coffee items, with a few Arabic drinks including Adeni chai and Yemeni coffee.
The cafe’s book collection at its Hamtramck location includes many titles by Arabic authors, with some self-help books, many children’s books, and some other options. We’ll see what the new spot’s literature will contain.
There’s not much information on any new offerings at the new location or a date for a grand opening, so you’ll just have to go in and check it out.
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Layla McMurtrie
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Season 3 of The Bear, the critically acclaimed TV series that has showcased many of Chicago’s most popular restaurants, should release in June, according to FX. The network’s chairman, John Landgraf, confirmed the time frame during the Television Critics Association winter press tour last week.
Season 2 and its 10 episodes were released all at once on June 22, 2023 on Hulu. Season 3’s news follows that template. Since then, the series has garnered 10 Emmys and three Golden Globes. After enduring the ire of some Chicagoans for its depiction of the city in Season 1, where some natives railed about inaccuracies, creator and suburban native Christopher Storer and his team began Season 2 as a love letter to the city with plenty of pretty shots of the city and cameos from chefs and restaurant owners.
The show moved away from Italian beef in Season 2 and focused on the opening of an upscale neighborhood restaurant. A handful of local chefs told Eater Chicago that TV reps approached them to see if they were interested in cameos in Season 2; there’s no shortage of possibilities in terms of filming locations. Eater Chicago has some opinions on where the show should go in Season 3. Perhaps they’ll also include a certain rodent-shaped crevice.
In more TV news, a pair of local chefs will appear on Season 21 of Top Chef, set in Chicago’s mostly pleasant neighbors to the north, Wisconsin. Get ready for national writers to parachute in and Columbus supper clubs as the TV show heads to Madison and Milwaukee. The season premieres on March 20 and Bravo with Alisha Elenz (last seen at Bambola in Fulton Market) and Kaleena Bliss. Elenz won a local Jean Banchet Award for her work at Mfk in Lakeview. Bliss recently moved to Chicago from Seattle where she worked as executive chef at the Thompson Seattle hotel and its flagship food and beverage offering, Conversation. Bliss also won Chopped Casino Royale. She’s now the executive chef at Chicago Athletic Association. Like the Thompson, it’s a Hyatt property.
Yes, the world of He-Man is set in Eternia (which perhaps is as fictional a realm as River North was to viewers as Season 1 of The Bear). But the ‘80s cartoon, a series created as a way to sell toys to kids, has made a comeback via Netflix. The latest installment, titled Masters of the Universe: Revolution, dropped in late January, and Chicago’s very own Dark Matter Coffee has released a coffee with toy maker Mattel. “Skeletor Blood” features gorgeous art from Dark Matter’s Jourdon Gullett. Beer fans may recognize his work on bottles for Solemn Oath Brewery. Dark Matter is also selling coffee mugs with the art: “This caffeinated concoction permeates dark chocolate and luscious fruit, fueling the evil lord of destruction to accomplish universal domination.” The mug, canned cold coffee, and 12-ounce bags of beans are available online and at stores.
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Ashok Selvam
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If you’ve read anything I’ve written for The Kitchn, you’ll already know that I’m a huge coffee fan. I’ve worked pulling espresso and making coffee in a cafe, and in my time here at The Kitchn, I’ve also tested just about every kind of coffee machine out there, from pour-overs and drippers to French presses, infusers, and more. And, while I think the splurgy coffee machines (like my personal favorite machine from OXO) are absolutely worth it, most people are just looking for a dependable way to get a high-quality cup of coffee each morning — that won’t break the bank.
That’s why we put together this short list of the best coffee makers under $100 — there’s something for every budget and coffee drinker here, so take a look at the picks below and get ready to start your journey to a better (and much more affordable) morning coffee routine.
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Ian Burke
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While I love indulging in an overpriced coffee shop drink a couple times a week, I can’t justify shelling out $10 for it every day. So, I’ve tried a variety of methods to make barista-worthy brews at home so I can save money in the long run. Thankfully, as a shopping editor, I get to try out the best of the best. I’m definitely a creature of habit and don’t typically stray too far from my Clevr Blends, Keurig, or handy pour-over method. But I recently discovered a super fast, indulgent way to elevate black coffee in just seconds at home. After all, it’s about the little things!
Here at The Kitchn, we’ve become regulars at Uncommon Goods. From online classes to a DIY butter candle, they’ve got some seriously unique options in store. So, it comes as no surprise that these gourmet coffee creamer bombs caught my eye — but before we could write about them, they were naturally sold out. But now, they’re back in stock, so you’ll want to add them to your cart before it’s too late (snag for yourself or a gift). If you were a fan of hot cocoa bombs, you’ll want to test these out ASAP.
This set of six ridiculously pretty coffee creamer bombs is handmade in Georgia and is the ultimate treat for the coffee lover in your life. The set includes a variety of indulgent coffee-shop inspired flavors: vanilla, pumpkin spice, coconut, mocha, caramel, and bourbon. Now, these are definitely not an every day kind of thing, but if you need a pick-me-up and want to take your boring black coffee to another level, they’re perfect to have in your pantry. Or, if you’re someone who likes to keep gifts on hand at all times for those last-minute gifting needs, these are a must-have.
I’m obsessed with these little delicacies because they’re not only gorgeous (hello, golden flakes), but they’re easy to use too. Simply unwrap them from the packaging, carefully place them in your cup of java, and watch them melt into your cup. (Trust me: It’s so satisfying to watch!) Then, you’ll want to stir it into your coffee. Now, if you love the sugary drinks at your favorite coffee shop, you’ll fall for these. I’m not super into rich, sweet coffee drinks, so this is something I won’t be doing regularly, but it’s a nice sweet treat every now and then.
The mix of cafe-quality flavors are sure to delight, and the packaging makes them ready to gift. You could even split up the coffee creamer bombs and gift them to multiple people to get more bang for your buck! Pair them with a coffee mug and some other java tools and you’ve got a foolproof gift anyone will love.
Buy: Coffee Creamer Bomb Collection, $34
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Tamara Kraus
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Does eating every other day prevent the metabolic slowing that accompanies weight loss, or does it improve compliance over constant, day-to-day caloric restriction?
Rather than cutting calories day in and day out, what if you instead ate as much as you wanted every other day or for only a few hours a day? Or, what if you fasted two days a week or five days a month? These are all examples of intermittent fasting regimens, as you can see below and at 0:10 in my video Alternate-Day Intermittent Fasting Put to the Test, and that may even be how we were built. Three meals a day may be a relatively novel behavior for our species. For millennia, “our ancestors could not eat three meals every day. They consumed meals much less frequently, and often consumed one large meal per day or went for several days without food.”
Intermittent fasting is often presented as a means of stressing your body—in a good way. There is a concept in biology called hormesis, which can be thought of as the “that which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” principle. Exercise is the classic example: You put stress on your heart and muscles, and as long as there is sufficient recovery time, you are all the healthier for it. Is that the case with intermittent fasting? Mark Twain thought so: “A little starvation can really do more for the average sick man than can the best medicines and the best doctors. I do not mean a restricted diet, I mean total abstention from food for one or two days.”
But, Twain also said, “Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.” Is the craze over intermittent fasting just hype? Many diet fads have their roots “in legitimate science,” but over time, facts can get distorted, benefits exaggerated, and risks downplayed. In other words, “science takes a back seat to marketing.” At the same time, you don’t want to lose out on any potential benefit by dismissing something out of hand based on the absurdist claims of overzealous promoters. You don’t want to throw the baby out with the baby fat.
Religious fasting is the most studied form of intermittent fasting, specifically Ramadan, a month-long period in which “Muslims abstain from food and drink from sunrise until sunset.” The effects are complicated by a change in sleeping patterns and also thirst. The same dehydration issue arises with Yom Kippur when observant Jews stop eating and drinking for about 25 hours. The most studied form of intermittent fasting that deals only with food restriction is alternate-day fasting, which involves eating every other day, alternating with days consuming little or no calories.
At rest, we burn about a 50:50 mix of carbohydrates and fat, but we usually run out of glycogen—our carbohydrate stores—within 12 to 36 hours of stopping eating. At that point, our body has to shift to rely more on our fat stores. This metabolic switch may help explain why the greatest rate of breakdown and burning of fat over a three-day fast happens between hours 18 and 24 of the 72 hours. The hope is to reap some of the benefits of taking a break from eating without the risks of prolonged fasting.
One of the potential benefits of alternate-day fasting over chronic calorie restriction is that you get regular breaks from feeling constant hunger. But might people become so famished on their fasting day that they turn the next into a feasting day? After your fasting day, if you ate more than twice as much as you normally would, that presumably would defeat the whole point of alternate-day fasting. Mice fed every other day don’t lose weight. They just eat roughly twice as much food in one day as non-fasted mice would regularly eat in two days. That is not, however, what happens in people.
Study participants were randomized to fast for a day and a half—from 8:00 p.m. to 8:00 a.m. the second morning after beginning. Fasting for 36 hours only led to people eating an average of 20 percent more the day after they broke the fast, compared to a control group who didn’t fast at all. That would leave the fasters with a large calorie deficit, equivalent to a daily caloric restriction of nearly a thousand calories a day. This particular study involved lean men and women, but similar results have been found amongst overweight or obese subjects. Researchers typically found only about a 10 to 25 percent compensatory increase in calorie intake over baseline on non-fasting days, and this seems to be the case whether the fasting day was a true zero-calorie fast or a modified fast day of a few hundred calories, which may lead to better compliance.
Some studies have found that participants appeared to eat no more, or even eat less, on days after a day-long mini-fast. Even within studies, great variability is reported. In a 24-hour fasting study where individuals ate an early dinner and then had a late dinner the next day after skipping breakfast and lunch, the degree of compensation at the second dinner ranged from 7 percent to 110 percent, as you can see in the graph below and at 4:40 in my video. This means that some of the participants got so hungry by the time supper rolled around that they ate more than 24 hours’ worth of calories in a single meal. The researchers suggested that perhaps people first try “test fasts” to see how much their hunger and subsequent intake ramp up before considering an intermittent fasting regimen. Hunger levels can change over time, though, dissipating as your body habituates to the new normal.
In an eight-week study in which obese subjects were restricted to about 500 calories every other day, after approximately two weeks, they reportedly started feeling very little hunger on their slashed calorie days. This no doubt helped them lose about a dozen pounds on average over the duration of the study, but there was no control group with whom to compare. A similar study that did have a control group found a similar amount of weight loss—about ten pounds—over 12 weeks in a group of “normal weight” individuals, which means overweight on average. For these modified regimens where people are prescribed 500 calories on their “fasting” days, researchers found that, from a weight-loss perspective, it did not appear to matter whether those calories are divided up throughout the day or eaten in a single meal.
Instead of prescribing a set number of calories on “fasting” days, which many people find difficult to calculate outside of a study setting, a pair of Iranian researchers came upon a brilliant idea of unlimited above-ground vegetables. Starchy root vegetables are relatively calorie-dense compared to other vegetables. Veggies that grow above the ground include stem vegetables (like celery and rhubarb), flowering vegetables (like cauliflower), leafy vegetables (like, well, leafy vegetables), and all of the fruits we tend to think of as vegetables (like tomatoes, peppers, okra, eggplant, string beans, summer squash, and zucchini). So, instead of prescribing a certain number of calories for “fasting” days, researchers had subjects alternate between their regular diet and helping themselves to an all-you-can-eat, above-ground vegetable feast (along with naturally non-caloric beverages, like green tea or black coffee) every other day. After eight weeks, the subjects lost an average of 13 pounds and two inches off their waist, as you can see below and at 6:59 in my video.
The same variability discovered for calorie compensation has also been found for weight loss, as seen in the graph below and at 7:10 in my video. In a 12-month trial in which subjects were instructed to eat only one-quarter of their caloric needs every other day, weight changes varied from a loss of about 37 pounds to a gain of about 8 pounds. The biggest factor differentiating the low-weight-loss group from the high-weight-loss group appeared to be not how much they feasted on their regular diet days, but how much they were able to comply with the calorie restriction on their fast days.
Overall, ten out of ten alternate-day fasting studies showed significant reductions in body fat. Small short-term studies show about a 4 to 8 percent drop in body weight after 3 to 12 weeks. How does that compare with continuous calorie restriction? Researchers compared zero-calorie, alternate-day fasting head-to-head to a daily 400-calorie restriction for eight weeks. Both groups lost the same amount of weight, about 17 pounds, and, in the follow-up check-in six months later after the trial had ended, both groups had maintained a similar degree of weight loss; both were still down about a dozen pounds, as you can see below and at 8:10 in my video.
The hope that intermittent fasting would somehow avoid the metabolic adaptations that slow weight loss or improve compliance doesn’t seem to have materialized. The same compensatory reactions in terms of increased appetite and a slower metabolism plague both continuous and intermittent caloric restriction. The longest trial of alternate-day fasting found that “alternate-day fasting may be less sustainable” than more traditional approaches. By the end of the year, the drop-out rate of the alternate-day fasting group was 38 percent, compared to 29 percent in the continuous calorie-restriction group.
Although alternate-day fasting regimens haven’t been shown to produce superior weight loss to date, for individuals who may prefer this pattern of calorie restriction, are there any downsides? Find out in my video Is Alternate-Day Intermittent Fasting Safe?.
I packed a lot into this one. Bottom line: Fasting doesn’t appear to provide an edge over traditional calorie cutting, but if you prefer it, why not give fasting a try? Before you do, first check out Is Alternate-Day Intermittent Fasting Safe?.
What about total fasting? For that and even more, check out the related videos below.
I have a whole chapter on intermittent fasting in my book How Not to Diet—order now! (All proceeds I receive from my books are donated to charity.)
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Michael Greger M.D. FACLM
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