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Eat

Momofuku Seasoned Salt


In the decade since he’s been credited with popularizing the pork bun, igniting the ramen craze, and internationally exporting Korean-American fusion, David Chang has turned Momofuku into a name brand and an empire. This winter, the company launches three salt blends to make their umami-packed culinary style accessible to home cooks. Our favorite is “Savory,” which mixes kosher salt with garlic, tamari, kelp, and mushroom powder. The elegantly packaged salts can be used to season meat before cooking, add depth to sauces, or dress vegetables. And they are particularly handy as a popcorn topper. (pre-order; $28, shoppeachykeen.momofuku.com)

Listen

Hanukkah+


If you’re sick of the “debate” around John Legend’s version of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” but you still desire some damn good—and new—seasonal music, AIR MAIL’s Randall Poster, the Grammy Award–winning music supervisor, has just what you need: Hanukkah+, which features Haim, Yo La Tengo, Jack Black, and others singing not-so-traditional holiday songs. Personally, we’re pretty partial to “Eight Nights a Week,” by Loudon Wainwright III, as well as the Flaming Lips’ original song “Sing It Now, Sing It Somehow.” ($14, amazon.com)

The Limey - 1999Terence Stamp1999
Watch

The Limey


Between directing The Laundromat and producing The Report, Steven Soderbergh has had quite the 2019. While the coming decade will likely include a host of his strange and highly suspenseful Hollywood blockbusters, the end of this year marks the 20th anniversary of The Limey, Soderbergh’s seriously under-appreciated neo-noir revenge movie. It stars Terence Stamp as Wilson, a British ex-con, recently arrived in L.A., seeking answers about his daughter’s death. Her fate, he suspects, was sealed by a record executive, played by the late Peter Fonda. Despite its violence-begets-violence plot, the film is an oddly deep exploration of the dynamics between father and daughter, and an example of Soderbergh finding his footing within the genre movie, a step in the direction for which he is known today. (amazon.com)

Drink

Sabor Cubano


This past summer, Arley Marks—the man behind the bar menus at Manhattan’s original Mission Chinese and Dimes, and Bushwick’s beloved Honey’s—was traveling in Italy and craving a good cocktail, something different from the “ubiquitous gin-and-tonics and select bottles of wine.” Near Florence’s Central Market, beneath one of San Lorenzo’s porticoes, Marks found the “inspired selection of spirits” he craved in a micro-bar called Sabor Cubano. “Each drink is a team effort,” he says, and his favorite is made by three bartenders, “one juicing the aromatic Italian citrus to order, another measuring spiced rum infused with pineapple, and the last grating fresh cinnamon bark and slapping on bunches of mint to top it off.” (+39-331-773-1536, saborcubanofirenze.com)

Travel

Bambi Airstream


“I was born lost and take no pleasure in being found,” John Steinbeck wrote of his incurable wanderlust in Travels with Charley. For the 1960 road trip that inspired that book, he chose a boxy camper truck, but we prefer to imagine him camping out of a timeless silver Airstream, our favorite model being the Bambi, so called for its smallness and spherical shape, like a doe’s eye—and one that’s owned by one of our editors. For those who share Steinbeck’s instinctive “urge to be someplace else,” this tiny compartment is perfect for the open road. The updated 2020 version comes in four different floor plans, each offering a kitchen, dinette, lavatory, and sleeping space. A 1962 model is also for sale, a classically proportioned carrier for a poodle, a pot of beans, and a Steinbeckian dream. Bambi offers little in the way of luxury, but that’s not her point. (New models start at $48,900 at airstream.com; 1962 model, $42,700 at ebay.com)

Issue No. 23
December 21, 2019
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Issue No. 23
December 21, 2019