The Next Big Things in Food and Drink, According to a Whole Foods Exec

Grocery shopping used to be a drag. You'd troll the aisles, gathering boxes under fluorescent lights. Whole Foods, which was founded in 1980 in Austin, changed all that. It transformed the supermarket from a place of picking up staples to a destination of discovery.

Christina Minardi, a 23-year Whole Foods veteran and executive vice-president of operations, led the charge. She helped reshape the culture of grocery shopping. (Whole Foods was the first grocery-store chain to sell certified organic products.) And, as a top-of-the-food-chain buyer, she's one of the tastemakers to thank/blame for the rise of kale, quinoa, kefir, avocados, purple carrots, and cauliflower. Her secret: "We have foragers around the country," she says. "They go to local farmers markets and shops, and then Whole Foods helps with packaging and conducts taste tests at in-store kiosks. It builds loyalty from the purveyor and helps give Whole Foods the edge in new products."

Justin's nut butters started in one Whole Foods store. Sir Kensington condiments started small with the company. White Moustache yogurt is growing under its tutelage. Whole Foods racked up $16 billion in gross sales in 2016 from 458 stores worldwide, with a growth rate unmatched in the industry. Here's what's next, according to Minardi.

"Fake chicken or fake hamburgers is a big trend that isn't going away, but there are a lot of young chefs doing such good things with vegetables," she says. "We are moving away from vegan food, like fried seitan with a heavy sauce, toward great vegetable-based main dishes," such as whole roasted plantains topped with hot honey or cacio e pepe made with mushrooms instead of pasta.

"In the last two or three years, milk products have increased from a three-foot section of our stores to a fifteen-foot section," Minardi says. That's spurred by soy, almond, and cashew milks, but also by an emerging market for hemp, oat, and flax milk, she says.

"Customers are more and more daring and adventurous," she says. "Ten years ago, our customers were growing comfortable with cooking Mexican food. Now they want to cook food from Croatia." Whole Foods' new hot-bar options reflect this, expanding beyond salad bars to grain-based bowls that incorporate ingredients from foreign cuisines.

"Consumers are more adventurous in the sense of their drinking habits, too." Though rosé sales continue to stay steady, Minardi says sparkling reds are gaining traction. Seek out sparkling Shiraz or Lambrusco. Pair it with Ethiopian, Thai, Moroccan, or Israeli food.

Fast food via drone takes flight

MARON KRISTóFERSSON is looking forward to the completion of a new roof on his office in downtown Reykjavik. It is not that the old roof leaked, but rather that the new one will be heated. Mr Kristófersson is the boss of aha, which delivers on behalf of restaurants and shops in Iceland's capital. The heated roof will let his delivery drones take off from and land on the top of the building throughout the winter, without anyone having to clear away the snow.

When drones, in the form of small, electrically powered rotorcraft, came to public attention around a decade ago, various commercial uses were proposed for them. Some of these, such as surveying, aerial photography and law enforcement, have now become routine. But one, in particular, has not. This is the idea of household deliveries. In 2013 Jeff Bezos, Amazon's boss, said that the online retailer was testing just such a system. Others suggested using drones to deliver medicines and fast food. Apart from various demonstration flights, however, not much then happened.

This slowness was caused less by technological inadequacy than by caution on the part of regulators. In most countries people are not allowed to fly drones above other people, near buildings or out of sight of the operator. Commercial activities are strictly regulated and some flights need clearance from aviation authorities. This has kept drone operators on a tight leash while regulators got to grips with what is, after all, a new form of aviation. Slowly but surely, however, as operators have gained experience and demonstrate a good safety record, some regulators have begun to relax the rules.

Dinner is on its way
Iceland is a typical example. In August 2017 Mr Kristófersson teamed up with Flytrex, an Israeli drone-service company. The pair persuaded Iceland's transport authorities to let them start a drone delivery service across Viðeyjarsund, an inlet that divides Reykjavik from its eastern suburbs. Delivery drivers would load goods weighing up to 3kg into a drone on one side of the inlet and it would fly autonomously along a fixed route to land on the other side, where the goods would be collected by another team of drivers who would take them on to their final destinations.

“We learnt a lot,” said Mr Kristófersson. One thing was the impact of weather. Iceland is often wet and windy, but the drone used for this operation could not fly in rain—and for safety reasons aha avoided gusty conditions. This meant that the drone was grounded for about half of the time it might otherwise have been flying. Nevertheless, when it could fly it saved time and money because the flight took four minutes instead of the 20 or more required to drive around Viðeyjarsund.

The experience they gained in running the trans-Viðeyjarsund service allowed aha and Flytrex to obtain permission to run 12 other routes across Reykjavik, including journeys over land. And operations have just been extended again, permitting drones to deviate by up to 700 metres either side of those fixed routes. This means deliveries can now be made to the backyards of registered customers who have obtained their neighbours' permission for flights to pass overhead.

Those customers can order goods using online apps and, weather permitting, select a drone delivery. Most of the shops and restaurants taking part are close to aha's office, where they drop off goods to be delivered. These are then loaded into a drone by a company employee, who dispatches the craft after entering the destination using a hand-held device. The customer gets a message to say the drone is on its way, and can use the app to follow its progress on a map. When it arrives, the customer enters a PIN into the app to accept delivery and the drone lowers its package on a line. Should someone try to pull the line, it detaches from the drone.

With a third drone on order—this one a waterproof version that can fly in the rain—Mr Kristófersson hopes to deliver to more places more often, with the potential of as many as 100 flights a day. The drones, made by DJI, a Chinese firm, do not use cameras or radar to navigate. They rely solely on the Global Positioning System (GPS) to know where they are—though, for safety's sake, they have three, independent GPS-based systems on board. But even though the drones fly out of sight of aha's office, they are monitored constantly during their journey and can be recalled if something appears to be going wrong, or ordered to make an emergency landing by slowly fluttering down while making a loud warning noise.

Yariv Bash, Flytrex's boss, says delivery-by-drone services which, like the Icelandic example, start with fixed routes that gradually become more ambitious, are beginning to appear in other places. His company, for example, is about to help launch one that will use drones to deliver packages in Holly Springs, North Carolina. Uber, a ride-hailing service, is also planning to launch drone deliveries for food.

Next month, in Singapore, a drone made by Airbus, a European aerospace group, will begin ferrying supplies and spare parts to ships moored offshore. Airbus is working on the project with Wilhelmsen, a marine-services company. Wilhelmsen reckons that using drones will reduce delivery costs to vessels by up to 90%, and will be safer than employing launches to carry those deliveries by sea. Alibaba, China's biggest e-commerce firm, is making drone deliveries on a number of fixed routes across the vast Shanghai Jinshan Industrial Park and has plans to launch similar operations in other areas.

A common factor among these new drone services is that they are not operating in densely built-up areas. Despite the early predictions that drones would be used to deliver fast food and other goods to city dwellers, the reality is turning out to be rather different. For a start, there are flight restrictions on all aircraft in high-rise places like Manhattan and central London. There is also the difficulty of finding places for drones to land or hover outside apartment windows. Nor do the economics stack up. In cities, typical distances for delivering fast food might be under a kilometre, which makes it efficient to use mopeds or bicycles. Reykjavik, however, is a low-rise, spread-out sort of place. The average distance over which a meal is delivered is about 7km.

If regulators continue to relax requirements for line-of-sight operations, long-distance delivery by drone will become particularly appealing. In some cases, though, a different sort of drone may be needed. One such has just completed six months of test flights in Tanzania. This drone is built by Wingcopter, a German firm, and is of a type known as a “tilt-rotor”. That means it uses its rotors for vertical take-off and landing, but for horizontal flight it tilts them forward to operate like the propellers of an aeroplane. This arrangement, which is beginning to be used for manned helicopters as well, results in a big increase in speed and range. In neighbouring Rwanda, meanwhile, a firm called Zipline does not even bother with vertical take-off. Its drones are small, fixed-wing aircraft launched by catapult.

In the Tanzanian trials, DHL, an international delivery company, used a Wingcopter to fly medical supplies from Mwanza, on the shores of Lake Victoria, some 60km to a clinic on Ukerewe Island. Blood and other samples from the clinic's patients were then flown back to Mwanza for laboratory analysis. The drone journey took 40 minutes, compared with six hours by road and ferry. Zipline, though, is beyond the stage of trials. Its drones are now in regular use delivering blood for transfusion to rural clinics.

Flight-safe mode
Flying life-saving medical supplies around is, to be sure, more important than getting pizzas to customers while they are still hot. But with technology improving, and provided that operators can continue to run safe operations, more companies are likely to follow in aha's footsteps and move into the business of delivering by drone. And safety, too, is improving all the time. Drones can already be “ring-fenced” electronically to stop them straying into dangerous areas, such as airports. Small, automated collision-avoidance systems are also under development, to prevent them crashing into things. Eventually, no doubt, drones that can safely navigate the canyons of tall cities will emerge. But for the immediate future, it is the hungry folk in the 'burbs and out in the sticks who will have first call on the drone-delivery option on their fast-food apps.

This Tarzana Food Truck Delivers Some of LA's Most Compelling New Israeli Cuisine

Israeli food is trending in Los Angeles right now with high-profile, full-service restaurants like Bavel, Kismet, and Mizlala celebrating the tiny Middle Eastern country's robust flavors. Other chefs and restaurateurs have taken the movement to the streets. Tarzana-based Burekas Plus may be the best of a new wave of Israeli food trucks that also includes nearby Falafel on Wheels, Hummus Yummy, and Pickles & Peas.

Burekas Plus owner Shevi Rubinstein worked for famous Tel Aviv chef Haim Cohen in the pastry department at a restaurant called Dixie. She draws on her family's sixth-generation bureka recipe for the truck, a breakout hit after just seven months on the road, with steady crowds including many Israelis.

The flaky, savory phyllo pastry is substantial at Burekas Plus, stuffed with either cheese, spinach & cheese, cheese & olive, or potato. At noon, they were down to just one bureka ($7) filled with briny feta cheese and green olives. Edges formed crispy cheese skirts during the baking process. The top comes studded with black and white sesame seeds. Each plate comes with sliced hard-boiled egg, punchy pickles, nutty tahini, a tomato slurry folded with olive oil, and house hot sauce spiked with schug, a fierce, herbaceous Yemeni condiment.

Shaul Rubinstein, the food truck's frontman and a character in the best sense of the word, has strong opinions about food. He's dismissive of anybody who takes shortcuts or uses lesser ingredients. When asked if anybody's copied them yet, Shaul says, "Nobody can do what we do because they don't want to do the work." He singled out burekas as especially painstaking to make. Every morning, his wife gets up before dawn to shape and bake.

Hummus with falafel comes as a plate or in pita. Each plate ($10) hosts six garbanzo bean fritters with delicate crusts flecked with cilantro and garlic. They stay soft for at least 30 minutes, not that anybody in their right mind would let them sit around that long. Shaul said lesser falafel will harden quickly due to bread filler, whereas his wife's version is pure and maintains integrity.

The accompanying hummus was also a revelation, impressively creamy, made with classic chickpeas, tahini, garlic, and lemon juice. She takes the added step of using a chinois to get the hummus so smooth. Tahini lashings, an olive oil drizzle, chopped cilantro and more schug helped to fill out the floral plate.

Sabich ($8) is a signature Israeli sandwich that's particularly good at Burekas Plus. They import thick, fluffy pita from Israeli, slice open the top, and fill to bursting with hummus, tahini, fried eggplant, hard-boiled egg, crunchy cubed cucumber, tart pickles, chopped tomato, and scallions. Add amba, the pickled mango slurry, for kick.

Everybody loves a good off-menu dish, and Burekas Plus serves a secret dessert. The magic word is malabi. The milk-based custard is similar to panna cotta, and particularly creamy at this food truck, topped with crushed pistachios, fluffy shredded coconut, and a fragrant sugar syrup crafted with rose water. Mix to integrate the different flavors and textures. Shaul shuns lesser malabi, which use powdered custard and watery store-bought sauce. Apparently, this sweet secret is out, since Burekas Plus sells 30 to 40 orders per day.

Shaul Rubinstein is a longtime restaurateur who's had success in Israel and on both American coasts, including an Italian restaurant in Jacksonville. He's returned to his roots by teaming with his talented wife. The couple initially parked down Ventura Boulevard at Bank of America, but relocated to a side street next to an Office Depot, still visible to drivers in a space that lets them stay put during rush hour from 4 to 7 p.m., when parking spaces become tow zones.

Good food - fast

After a long day at work, it might seem easier to zap a frozen dinner in the microwave than to cook something on the stove.

But it doesn't have to be that way, said Leslie Cerier, an Amherst-based vegetarian chef and educator with more than 40 years of cooking experience.

"For me, it's about being creative, flexible and stocked," she said.

Cerier, 65, runs the blog "The Organic Gourmet" and has taught culinary workshops around the world, as well as locally, at Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health in Stockbridge and for the Northeast Organic Farming Association in Amherst. She has also published several cook books.

In her own cupboard, Cerier said she stocks quick-cooking grains like kasha, amaranth, roasted buckwheat, quinoa and teff, a fine grain about the size of poppy seeds. Those grains are particularly good for fast meals because they're packed with protein and carbohydrates on their own, she said. Red lentils are another good option.

Using those staples, Cerier said she can make seemingly complex dishes like coconut curry lentils and quinoa pasta with cilantro pesto in about 15 minutes.

"I'm always thinking about nutrient-dense, nutritious food," she said. And if a dish doesn't have enough protein or carbohydrates on its own, she adds in seeds, nuts or vegetables.

"If I make eggs, sometimes I'll make an omelet with veggies and cheese, and that's delicious and quick. Or if I fry up two sunny side eggs and put some dulse next to it, and have that with chai tea, I'm pretty happy."

Buy in bulk so there's always something in the cupboard, she advised. And to maximize the shelf-life of grains, which can keep for months at a time, she suggested moving uncooked grains into progressively smaller and smaller jars as they're used to minimize oxidation.

To add flavor, Cerier stocks a diverse array of spices and herbs that include parsley, rosemary, dill, thyme, dried cayenne, fennel seeds, coriander, cumin, curry powder, black pepper and high quality sea salt, to name a few. Herbs and spices can be a good way to reinvent familiar dishes, Cerier said.

"That helps me make the same meal twice if I want to, or change it," she continued.

Planning ahead and incorporating leftovers into future meals is equally important. Don't think of leftovers as another round of the same meal, Cerier said. Instead, think of them as ingredients for the next meal.

"Let's say I just made a pot of beans. One way to make a new dish with those beans is to turn those beans into a dip, a stew, or add them to a salad," she said. "I could get local organic tortillas, refry them with spices and eat them as a taco with cilantro."

Ultimately, Cerier said cooking fast requires an understanding of each individual ingredient and its cooking attributes.

"For me, I'm very sensual - I want to taste it, smell it, see it, engage with the food, and then, when I have a relationship with the food, be quick with it," Cerier said.

To that end, Cerier said it's important to experiment with flavor combinations, try new foods and learn to enjoy the process.

"So many people who come to my class have never tasted amaranth, or made a peanut sauce. (Students) will immediately leave class and go shopping. All of a sudden, they're tasting things they've never had," Cerier said. "People should always cook from their hearts. Your joy of cooking is also the nutrition."

Coconut Curried Red Lentil Soup

The red palm oil and red lentils give this soup a beautiful orange color, Cerier said. Feel free to use any greens you like - spinach, collards, kale, mustard greens or even nettles. You can also swap ghee or extra virgin coconut oil for the red palm oil.

Fun meets flavor by way of food trucks

The aroma of delicious food and sweet treats filled the air Aug. 22 as the parking lot at St Ann Catholic Church hosted several food trucks and hungry customers. Food vendors included La Bete, Slideways and Scoop's Ice Cream Truck.

Patricia Clements, the education director at St. Ann, organized the weekly event over three years ago.

“I was familiar with several of the Baptist churches in Richmond, and they were doing food courts on Wednesday nights. I knew a couple of the folks who ran them, and they said it was a real good [way to] build the community and support local businesses. It wasn't meant to be a money maker, but to be neighborly,” she said.

The event takes place every Wednesday from 6:30 to 8 p.m. during the summer months. “We always have two entree trucks and one dessert truck,” Clements said.
The community also gains from hosting the event.

“We ask the trucks when they have a really profitable night, if they could give a donation to the youth activities scholarship fund, and they usually will. Our youth wins, and the trucks do as well,” she said.

A frequenter at the St. Ann food court, La Bete grilled and fried dozens of meals last week.

La Bete means “the beast” in French, and their slogan, “Sate your Beastly Appetite.” The food truck is owned by Randy Boodram and operated by his sister, Krystal Saywak, and a friend, Akeem Hendrickson.

Boodram and his sister grew up in New York before moving into the Richmond area. Here they worked on their family-owned food truck before opening their own four months ago to service the Chesterfield area.

“We're trying to make a name for ourselves, trying to keep business local,” Boodram noted. “I am self-taught. I never went to culinary school. I had to learn all of this stuff. Growing up in New York, I got competitive and I wanted to grow. My high school was outside of a farmers market, and I enjoyed that a lot.”

La Bete's menu is mainly Caribbean, Creole and “New American” flavors. They have a wide variety on the menu that includes beer battered fried chicken, mac ‘n' cheese and chipotle steak tacos, but the crowd favorite seems to be the braised oxtails.

“Our menu changes every night [in order to] keep it interesting and seasonal,” Boodram said. “All of our dishes are inspired from traveling and trying new things.”

Another popular food truck is Scoop's Ice Cream. Scoop's is owned and operated by Sandy Farnam, who often gets help from her daughter and granddaughter. Farnam specializes in selling Hershey frozen goodies and offers more than eight flavors of ice cream for those who like sweet treats.

Similar to Boodram, Farnam started from scratch. “I bought a truck, and I did a lot of this myself,” she said. “It was a lot of hard work, but it was fun.”

Although Farnam has been in business for over two years, she wasn't originally in the food business. “I sold real estate for 30 years, and I still flip houses, but [owning a food truck] is fun. Everybody smiles. This is so rewarding,” she said.

Slideways serves sliders and gourmet french fries and is based in Richmond.

How hotels are upping their game on food and drink

F&B is an important revenue generator for hotels, with overall consumer spending in the U.S. alone rising by 5.5 percent annually since 2011, according to Technomic. The biggest driver of F&B, however, is a desire among hotels to tap into today’s experience-led economy.

“Having a memorable experience is especially important among today’s young people,” says Alexis Marcoux-Varvatsoulis, Consultant – Hotels F&B Specialist at JLL. “Instead of simply having a room to sleep in, Millennials are looking for innovative concepts that enhance their overall experience. In return, F&B provides hotels with more chances to interact with guests, thereby reinforcing their image, and when done well, generating positive reviews on social media to reach new potential guests.”

Competition among hotels and restaurants is stiff, which means it is no longer enough for hotels to simply add on an eatery as an afterthought. Standing out from the crowd is incredibly important – and this has led to some innovative concepts being introduced.

    Food a feature of hotel lobbies

Hotel lobbies are becoming much more than a simple reception and gift shop with coffee bars, grab and go stations for snacks and comfy seating that encourages people to linger. In Marriott’s Moxy hotels, the focus of the lobby is on eating, drinking and socialising from the self-service buffet at breakfast, fully-stocked food wall and coffee and full-service bars.

The big focus of a lobby needs to be on the food & beverage experiences,” George Fleck, VP of global brand management and marketing for Westin, Renaissance and Le Meridien, tells Hotel Management. “The first thing you should see when you walk in, ideally, is a really beautiful bar scene. The seating has been arranged to ensure there are communal seating opportunities and that there are intimate seating zones for more personal conversations.”

Other novel concepts include homemade snacks and pastry-making demonstrations in the lobby of the Renaissance Tuscany II Ciocco Resort & Spa, and a ceviche and tequila bar in the lobby of Marriott Puerto Vallarta Resort & Spa in Mexico.

    Flying in world-renowned names

To bring guests and locals a high-profile foodie experience, some hotels are ‘flying in’ Michelin-starred restaurants from the other side of the world. The Crown Hotel in Melbourne was home to the UK’s famous Fat Duck restaurant for six months, while the Mandarin Oriental in Tokyo provided a six-week residency to Copenhagen’s Noma. The latter had a waiting list of 65,000 guests.“This type of arrangement is a win-win for both parties,” says Marcoux-Varvatsoulis. “It offers the restaurant an opportunity to test its brand in a new city, and for the hotel it is a great way to market its rooms to a large pool of potential guests.”

    Room service via AI

New technology is increasingly on hand to satisfy guests’ needs – and appetites. At the Lowry Hotel in Manchester, guests can now order room service via Amazon’s virtual assistant Alexa. And in the U.S., residents at Choice Hotels International can get external food delivered via a mobile app, created through a partnership with delivery.com.

“Using technology not only demonstrates that the hotel is on trend, but it also makes it easier for guests to spend money. The long term benefit is convenience for guests,” explains Marcoux-Varvatsoulis.

    In-room cooking programs

The concept of in-room grocery deliveries has been taken a step further in the Hawthorn Suites by Wyndham, which has launched an in-room cooking program. Aimed at long-term travelers, the recipes have been devised by famous chefs such as Hari Nayak and James Rigato.

    Attaching a brewery

A rise in the popularity of craft beer and spirits has led some hotels to incorporate on-site breweries. The Source Hotel in Denver has a branch of New Belgium Brewing next to its lobby, while Cavalier Hotel in Virgina Beach includes a bourbon, rye and vodka distillery. BrewDog, the Scottish brewery, recently announced it was planning to open a second DogHouse hotel in Ellon, complete with in-room beer taps, after launching the concept in Ohio last year.

    F&B pop-ups

Some hotels have turned to pop-ups as a way of letting guests try the latest food and drink trends. Marriott International launched an F&B incubator project, Canvas, in 2014 which is designed to maximize space in its European hotels. The rooftop at Marriott’s Park Lane hotel has been host to the likes of Notch, offering Japanese street food and homemade cocktails in cans.

Whether it’s via technology, pop-ups or famous chefs, the focus on F&B is expected to rise over the next few years as hotels seek to tap into the demand for exciting new concepts. “In today’s competitive marketplace, where online reviews are the major driver of choice, it’s essential for hotels to create a positive buzz,” says Marcoux-Varvatsoulis. “It’s an exciting time for hotels and food-savvy travelers alike.”

Christmas in July fundraiser returns to The Food Liaison

The Food Liaison will host Christmas in July, a fundraising event running from Monday, July 23, to Friday, July 27, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. each day, with a special dinner service on Friday, July 27, from 3  to 6 p.m.

Last year, The Food Liaison hosted their first Christmas in July, a week-long fund- and awareness-raising event to benefit community organizations in Carpinteria. Nirasha and Jason Rodriguez, owners of The Food Liaison, wanted to honor and carryon the philanthropic legacy of Michael Towbes. The event raised nearly $40,000 for diverse non-profits.

This year’s Christmas in July event will raise funds and awareness for the National Disaster Search Dog Foundation, a group essential to the rescue efforts after the mudslides in Montecito. The Search Dog Foundation is located in Santa Paula and experienced severe loss to their facilities during the Thomas Fire. “In sharing all the reasons the Search Dog Foundation needs our help, it would require writing several pages to give even just a brief explanation,” wrote Jason, “as the work they do has been witnessed around the world in the aftermath of disasters of all types. Something special about the Search Dog Foundation is that they take rescued dogs and train them to be the rescuer.”

During Christmas in July, The Food Liaison will donate 50 percent of their counter sales and 100 percent of tips, raffle and donation station proceeds. For each day of the week, a different company or organization—LinkedIn, BEGA, Bottenfield Construction, CARP Growers and The Berry Man—will match the donation made by The Food Liaison in lunch counter sales, doubling the fundraising potential.

Additionally, Procore and Southern California Edison have teamed up to create the Donation Station within the restaurant that will display a photo gallery of the Search Dog Foundation and an iPad for customers to donate online. SCE will match up to $1,000 a day for money raised at the Donation Station. The individual who gives the largest online donation will win a VIP Tour and TFL BBQ for 10 at the Search Dog Foundation National Training Center. Donations can also be made online at TheFoodLiaison.com.

vent raffle prizes have been donated by Sonos, Impact Hub and Gonzo’s Cycles, among other businesses. 100 percent of raffle proceeds will be donated to the Search Dog Foundation.

Search Dog Foundation staff will be present at the event to speak about the foundation and their dogs throughout the week.

The Food Names You Need to Know About in 2018

This week, we honored our seventh annual class of Eater Young Guns, our look at up-and-coming food-world talent from across the U.S. Every year we ask our readers to nominate promising talent under the age of 30 or new to the business — they send in thousands. Then we consult our committee of esteemed industry veterans and local city editors. We ask ourselves whether and how this person will make an impact on our world.

I’m really pleased with where we (or, credit where due, our leaders on this project, Sonia Chopra and Katie Abbondanza) landed with the 2018 class. I believe it does a good job representing the diversity of talent out there, not just in terms of the types of people highlighted but the types of paths they’re following.

It feels appropriate that in addition to hyper-talented chefs and bakers and coffee nuts, this year we have someone who throws parties focused on social justice for farmers, food sovereignty, and empowerment. And a conservationist and butcher shop owner who wants you to eat less meat. And a 26-year-old owner of a group of hip Chinese restaurants in New York who exhibits enormous compassion and lack of ego.

Everyone in this year’s class seems to think beyond themselves when considering their careers. They’re considering how can we all work together to create spaces that are more inclusive, more diverse, more thoughtful, safer, smarter.

This group just feels very now to me, and I think it bodes well for the future of this industry.

As a bonus this year, we recruited some of our favorite writers from around the food world to tell you about why these people are so special.

Korsha Wilson writes about how Chelsea Gregoire uses her training as a preacher to inform her work behind the bar. Julia Turshen learns that Caitlin McMillan, the one-woman special-forces operative working under restaurateurs Michael Solomonov and Steve Cook, is focusing on the well-being of workers in the industry. Dayna Evans explains how Daniel Alvarez went from original Cronut fryer to debuting his own cult-classic pastry for Danny Meyer. Mari Uyehara covers a woman who overcame roadblocks aplenty to open her own distillery, Tien Nguyen profiles a star GM out of LA, Rachel Khong spends time with “the talk of Cambodia” in Oakland, and oh so much more. Please check out the full list of winners and keep an eye out for their names and projects over the months and years to come.

How my summer road trip turned into the Great Vanilla Slice Taste Test

I've started a summer fling with an old love of mine, and it has been utterly delicious. The relationship was rekindled during a long car journey between Canberra and the Adelaide Hills in the small town of Balranald in the Riverina district of New South Wales. My husband Tim was driving, our two small children were in the back seat – and I had in my hands the first vanilla slice I'd bought in years.

From the moment I took it out of its paper bag, I knew this vanilla slice was something special. The pastry was a glorious oven-baked brown, the custard was the sunshine yellow of fresh egg yolks, and it smelled like real vanilla. There were layers of thinly sliced almonds resting snugly between the custard and its protective pastry. This vanilla slice was one of the best I've ever had. I wondered if it could possibly be beaten, and so embarked on what has come to be known as the Great Vanilla Slice Taste Test.

The vanilla slice has changed a lot in the years since I first had one as a child during school holidays at Dad's workshop. To keep me quiet for an extra 15 minutes, Dad always got me a vanilla slice when the smoko truck rocked up with its many delights for workers. Those vanilla slices were bright yellow with pink icing, wrapped together so tightly their square edges became rounded and squished. They were amazing.

Today, just as it was for the smoko van, the vanilla slice is big business. This is especially true for many small towns, which rely on its bakeries to attract travellers to the main street. Many will go out of their way to travel through a town with a great bakery, which is how our family road trip ended up in the agricultural township of Ouyen in the Mallee region of Victoria.

Ouyen's Mallee bakery boasts a bold yellow sign which welcomes you to the “home of the vanilla slice”. The bakery itself is massive, and its range of baked goods would rival any big-city bakery. It was hard not to get distracted by the other delicious-looking treats, but I had come for the vanilla slice.

The custard was so pale it was almost white, and with its thick white icing it looked a bit anaemic. The knife wasn't able to get through the dense pastry without making the custard bulge out the sides. The slice's casing was disappointing, but the custard itself was incredible. It had a superior vanilla bean flavour, which was creamy and delicious. While the colour may have been bland, the flavour was anything but.

I disagree with Lum on that front. I love flaky pastry on a vanilla slice, and chocolate drizzles just make it even tastier. The absolute best vanilla slice of our recent road trip came from Belair in the Adelaide Hills, in a small but bustling bakery that has made it a mecca for vanilla slice pilgrims. The custard is thick and creamy, with a good vanilla taste. The pastry is crisp and has the texture of the lovely end bits of a croissant, a skill the baker learned during his apprenticeship under a French pastry maker.

Jason Spencer, the baker and owner of Banana Boogie, explains that the swirls are called feathering, and they can mean the difference between winning and losing big vanilla slice competitions.

How to make the perfect broccoli and stilton soup

So entrenched is broccoli and stilton in my canon of classic soups – well up there with the likes of tomato, minestrone and chicken broth – that I'm slightly taken aback not to find it in Lindsey Bareham's comprehensive collection A Celebration of Soup, or indeed in any of the other books I have on the subject. The vegetable section yields similarly slim pickings, with not even a passing mention in Nigel Slater's Tender, and nary a sniff in Jane Grigson's Vegetable Book, either.

Broccoli and cheddar soup is relatively common in the United States, but I wonder whether the stilton number was popularised by the New Covent Garden Soup Company, which burst on to the market in the late 80s with soup that didn't come in a tin, and certainly not in oxtail flavour. Its broccoli and stilton version made quite an impression on me as a child. Whoever's responsible, it's a stroke of creative genius – the rich, salty cheese bringing out the pleasingly bittersweet flavour of the broccoli – and the perfect final destination for any odds and ends of stilton that might be lingering after Christmas. Vegetable soup is very January.

Vegetables
Nigella Lawson uses “frozen broccoli; actually, frozen organic broccoli, if that makes you feel better. In fact, this is better when made with frozen, and more convenient for an impromptu standby.” As someone with severely limited freezer space, frozen broccoli is a new one on me, and though it does cook more quickly, I don't think the flavour's quite up to scratch. Frozen might pass muster in a supporting role, but here, I'd strongly advise sticking with fresh.

Don't discard the stalk, as chef Sally Abé of the Harwood Arms seems to, but do add it before the florets, as Caroline Hire's recipe for BBC Good Food magazine recommends, so it has the chance to soften properly. It's all going to be pureed, but overcooked florets seem to taste mushy.

Lawson's is the only recipe that doesn't read as if it's been written in a time of severe brassica shortage: you need enough of the stuff to balance the richness of the cheese, so be generous, it's not particularly expensive at this time of year.

Hire also adds celery, leek and potato to her soup, giving it a hearty texture but a more generic vegetable flavour that detracts from the broccoli itself. That said, blue cheese has a natural affinity with the sweetness of alliums, whether shallots, as Abé suggests, spring onions and garlic, as in Lawson's recipe, or plain old yellow onions, as in Hire and Brian Turner's versions, though I'd choose shallots, the sweetest of the bunch, for preference. Whatever you use, soften them slowly in butter to help bring out this quality.

The cheese
This soup would work with just about any blue cheese, though you might need to adjust the quantity to achieve the same effect with milder, creamier varieties. A thrifty friend offers a tip about freezing the ends of blue cheese as one might do with parmesan rinds, then deploying them to add extra flavour (note, she cuts off the rind before consigning them to the freezer, which seems wise), and fishes them out before serving.

The liquid
Lawson makes her soup with vegetable stock; Abé, Turner and Hire use chicken, but I'm intrigued by a leek and stilton recipe of Mary Berry's that has a white sauce base, thinned with a little stock, variety unspecified. However, because – unlike Berry – I'll be pureeing mine. I don't think it needs thickening with flour, or Hire's potato. Milk gives the dish a more neutral base than stock alone, which can, particularly if you use good stuff, be rather rich.

Abé and Turner, with cheffy disregard for waistlines, stir in a large glug of double cream, with the latter whisking in an egg yolk, too – delicious if you're intending to serve this in tiny elegant portions for a dinner party, but it does preclude consumption in the kind of quantities I like with this soup.

Aromatics and garnish
Berry infuses the milk with nutmeg and bay leaf. As with Lawson's thyme, the bay doesn't come through, but a sprinkle of nutmeg – always a good friend to blue cheese – proves an excellent idea for a garnish: better than red chilli or chives, which look prettier than they taste. This is a dish that chooses comfort over style. And sometimes, in the depths of winter, that's just what you need.

Perfect broccoli and stilton soup(Serves 4)

2 tbsp butter
2 shallots or 1 small onion, finely chopped
800ml chicken or vegetable stock
600ml milk
800g broccoli
200g stilton, crumbled
Nutmeg, to garnish

Melt the butter in a large saucepan over a medium-low heat and add the shallots. Fry gently until soft and golden.

Meanwhile, cut the broccoli stalks into smallish chunks, then add to the pan with the softened shallots, fry for a minute, then pour in the stock and milk. Bring to a simmer, then cook until the stalk is beginning to soften (how long will depend on the size). Meanwhile, cut the head into small individual florets.

Once the stalk is almost tender, add the florets to the pan along with most of the Stilton, keeping a little back for garnish. Stir well, bring to a simmer, cover then cook for about 5 minutes, until the cheese has melted and the florets are soft.

Allow to cool slightly, then puree until smooth. Taste and season if necessary, then divide between bowls and top with the remaining cheese and a good grating of nutmeg.

Your guide to a delicious vegan Christmas

To non-vegans, the idea of a plant-based Christmas dinner may smack of Scrooge crouched over a miserly candle, sucking on a single slice of tofu. There are few holidays more dedicated to tearing up the five-a-day-guidelines than this one, so if you take away not only the meat but the cream, then what's left?

Actually, this year there's a lot left, as supermarkets are increasingly wise to the idea that plenty of vegans want to stuff their faces, too. With estimates that between 2 and 12% of British people now follow a vegetarian diet, it's unsurprising that a vegetarian Christmas is well catered for by shops, but the rise of the “flexitarian” means that even non-vegans may buy and try vegan now, if it's an option. It takes a bit of supermarket-hopping and a familiarity with an online checkout to do it, but with a little effort, there's now a gluttonous array of choice.

Christmas dinner is a roast with bits added on, and the majority of a roast is vegan anyway. There are a few tweaks that may need to be made – use oil to roast the potatoes instead of fat; swap butter for olive oil in the mash, and leave honey off the parsnips and carrots (you could swap in maple or agave syrup for sweetness).

When it comes to the star of the show, the amount of effort you're willing to put in will dictate your centrepiece. The ever-reliable Linda McCartney range's new “roast beef” joint comes with a boozy-tasting red wine glaze and a remarkably beef-like flavour, which is great for vegans who like the taste of meat but not the methods, though it may be too meaty for some.

Fry's soy and quinoa Country Roast is a solid herby veggie roast, while Tofurky's turkey and stuffing is a respectable substitute for the real thing. At the more artisan end of the faux butchers – there's an emerging meat-substitute industry that reminds me of the craft brewery explosion – then Irish company Moodley Manor offers top-end luxury in its mammoth meat-free roast, with a sausage and breadcrumb stuffing inside that tastes like the real deal, while Scotland's Sgaia Meats is serving up a new and limited version of their signature “mheat” vegan roast wrapped in maple-glazed rashers and filled with orange, hazelnut and pancetta stuffing.

If you're a no-meat-substitutes kind of vegan, the hardy nut roast is a perennial stand-in and most major supermarkets have a vegetable-based centrepiece, if you don't fancy making your own. Ocado has a stuffed butternut squash made by Irish company Dee's, while Tesco is pushing the boat out with cauliflower wellington.

But the real joy of Christmas is in the trimmings, otherwise it would just be an ordinary Sunday. You can make bread sauce with a non-dairy milk, though most are likely to be too sweet – unsweetened almond milk is a good bet. For pig-free pigs in blankets, pick a fakon (fake bacon) and a brand of vegan mini sausage, and make up your own (I'd go for Moodley Manor's bacon on Linda McCartney's cocktail sausages). Ocado stocks Dee's vegan sausage stuffing; while on the sauce front, most cranberry sauces will be vegan, and for the fancier meat-avoider in your life, there's also Tideford organic vegan gravy with red miso.

It's surprisingly easy to avoid a fruit platter at dessert time, too. Asda's own-brand mince pies are vegan, as are Waitrose Essential mince pies, and today dairy-free ice creams are available in most supermarkets. Or, if you're the kind of person who pours cold Bailey's on a steaming mince pie, then there's even a vegan version of that – slosh on the gluggable Baileys Almande, available in Whole Foods, while sipping M&S's Gold Crème Brûlée Liqueur.

Zucchini and feta fritters with yoghurt dipping sauce

These fritters are a tasty snack for vegetarians and carnivores alike. They're extremely versatile too – I love them with poached eggs for a weekend brunch or paired with a herb and tomato salad for a more substantial meal.

Yoghurt dipping sauce
150g (½ cup) Greek-style yoghurt
3 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
Finely grated zest and juice of ½ lemon
1 small garlic clove, finely chopped

Stir all the ingredients in a bowl to combine. Season to taste.

Cover and refrigerate for the flavours to develop while you make the fritters.

Zucchini and feta fritters
3 zucchini (courgettes), cut into julienne or coarsely grated
1 small handful coarsely chopped flat-leaf (Italian) parsley leaves
1 small handful coarsely chopped dill
1 small handful coarsely chopped mint leaves
1 spring onion (scallion), thinly sliced diagonally
Finely grated zest of 1 lemon, plus lemon wedges to serve
100g feta cheese, coarsely crumbled
3 eggs, lightly beaten
135g (scant 1 cup) plain (all-purpose) flour
¼ tsp baking powder
Olive oil, for shallow-frying

Combine the zucchini, herbs, spring onion, lemon zest and feta in a bowl and season generously.

Stir in the eggs, flour and baking powder and season with salt and pepper.

Heat about 3cm of olive oil in a deep-sided frying pan over a medium–high heat and check the temperature by adding a little spoonful of the fritter mixture. If the mixture bubbles and rises to the surface, the oil is ready.

Add rough tablespoons of the mixture in batches to the oil and fry, turning occasionally, for 2–3 minutes until golden brown (be careful as hot oil may spit).

Remove with a slotted spoon and drain well on paper towels. Season to taste and serve hot with the yoghurt dipping sauce. Squeeze over lemon wedges to taste.