More stories

  • in

    A New Terrace Cafe for the Boathouse in Prospect Park

    Purslane Cafe, from the group behind Rucola and more, serves sandwiches and drinks; Parcelle adds a new location; and more restaurant news.OpeningPurslane CafeThe Oberon Group, a restaurant and catering company that is serious about sustainability and zero waste, is now in charge of the terrace cafe at the Boathouse in Prospect Park. Purslane, the group’s catering division, which also produces special events in the park, is running the restaurant. The group owns Rucola, June Bar, Rhodora and Anaïs in Brooklyn, and also runs the restaurant Clara in the New-York Historical Society in Manhattan. Tapped by the Prospect Park Alliance for this seasonal oasis, it serves sandwiches, pastries and coffee and, on some evenings offers cocktail time with music.Prospect Park Boathouse Terrace, prospectpark.org/purslane-cafe. NoméThis luxuriously appointed newcomer at the edge of Union Square, is owned by the New Jersey-based Mocha Hospitality which has other kosher restaurants, including steak houses. The menu from the chef Santiago Chiuz, who is from Honduras and has been a chef in Miami, includes a 50-ounce bone-in rib-eye steak, a Goliath they’re calling Jurassic Hawk. A number of dishes incorporate Asian touches.127 Fourth Avenue (13th Street), 212-419-8889, nomenewyork.com. Parcelle Greenwich VillageJeenah Moon for The New York TimesParcelle, a wine merchant with restaurants and wine bars, has added this new location. The compact yet airy space, with vintage décor, is the setting for a menu created and executed by Mark Ladner, the group’s consulting executive chef; Kate Telfeyan, its culinary director; and Robert Kent, the executive sous chef. A 500-bottle wine list includes natural wines and Burgundian rarities. The wines are also available for purchase from the online retailer. (Opens July 16)72 MacDougal Street (West Houston Street), 917-540-0884 (texting only), parcellewine.com. Din Tai FungJason VarneyAlready established and known for xiao long bao (soup dumplings) in over 180 locations globally, the much-anticipated New York edition of the family-owned Taiwanese chain is poised to open in Paramount Plaza near Times Square. An underground space abut half the size of a football field seats 450 in several areas, one of which has a windowed kitchen where cooks fold and pleat dumplings with precision and speed. A dramatic glass-enclosed street entrance and a staircase with a shimmer of gold curtains leads down to the restaurant where various xiao long bao, wontons, steamed dumplings and buns, noodles and rice are served. (Thursday)1633 Broadway (50th Street), dintaifungusa.com. We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

  • in

    Autistic Employees Find New Ways to Navigate the Workplace

    As diagnoses of autism rise, Microsoft and other large companies are working to better support autistic workers so they can thrive without “masking.”When Chelsia Potts took her 10-year-old daughter to a psychologist to be tested for autism spectrum disorder, she decided almost as an afterthought to be tested herself. The result came as a surprise. Like her daughter, Ms. Potts was diagnosed with autism.Ms. Potts, 35, thought she might have had anxiety or some other issue. A first-generation college student, she had earned a doctor of education degree and risen through academia to become a high-level administrator at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. But after her visit to the psychologist, she had to figure out how her diagnosis would affect her work life.“Initially, I was confused, and I did keep it to myself,” Ms. Potts said. “I had a picture of what someone with autism looked like, and that did not look like me.”She considered the ways she had compensated in the past in an effort to hide her disability and come across as a model employee — a coping mechanism known as “masking.”For years, she had angled to meet with co-workers one on one, because she felt ill at ease in group settings. She reminded herself to smile and appear enthusiastic, knowing that some people found her speaking voice overly serious. She also tried to avoid bright lights and noise in the workplace.After wrestling with her diagnosis for six months, Ms. Potts met with a university official. That conversation “was one of the most difficult experiences of my life,” she said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

  • in

    Northgate González Market Has Become a Whole New Scene in Orange County

    Northgate González Market, one of the largest Mexican supermarket chains in the country, imagines the future of food as a family-friendly mercado.On a summer weekend, mid-heat wave, the promising smell of clean fryer oil drifted through a parking lot in Costa Mesa, Calif. Inside Mercado González, children were on tiptoes, squeaking hands against the glass at El Moro, watching cooks pipe and fry swirls of dough to a precise golden brown, then snip the coils into curved batons and roll them in cinnamon sugar. It was an efficient and beautiful routine.Good churros aren’t hard to find, but El Moro is both a chain and an institution, and before the mercado opened last fall, the only place you could try its famously long, thin, thoroughly crisp-edged versions was in Mexico. The thrill is still fresh. A group of teens in front of me, dazzled by a promo video for the churro ice-cream sandwich, workshopped their orders out loud while the line shuffled along.El Moro’s first location outside Mexico serves long, thin churros at a stall inside the mercado.Michelle Groskopf for The New York TimesCommunal seating for the mercado’s diners is set next to a stage where live music often plays.Michelle Groskopf for The New York TimesNorthgate González Market is one of the largest Mexican supermarket chains in the country — family-owned, with 43 locations across Southern California and more than $1 billion in annual revenue. But when the company unveiled its splashy new project last year, it didn’t lean toward a slick imitation of Erewhon or Whole Foods Market.Instead, Northgate planned a 70,000-square-foot, open-plan, emphatically Mexican mercado with a bakery, butcher, tortilleria and a strategic lineup of food vendors with regional Mexican specialties, all bundled together under one roof.If you arrive when the mercado is particularly busy and parking seems impossible, don’t worry, you can valet.Michelle Groskopf for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

  • in

    Tanglewood Opens for the Summer, With Change in the Air

    The Boston Symphony Orchestra gave its first concerts of the Tanglewood season, which is already showing signs of its new leader’s ambitions.Tanglewood, the lush summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, opened its season this past weekend, and it did so with one of the most Tanglewood programs imaginable.James Taylor was present to celebrate July 4, of course, and he was celebrating five decades of singing at the venue this year. On Friday night, the orchestra gave an evening of Beethoven under its music director, Andris Nelsons; on Sunday, Renée Fleming, no less, was on hand to cap a matinee of Strauss. In between, the Boston Pops offered a glorious review of recent Broadway musicals, with Victoria Clark bringing down the house as Lin-Manuel Miranda’s George III in “Hamilton.” Fellows attending the Tanglewood Music Center gave their first concerts, joining a lineage that stretches back to 1940.The crowds chattered amiably, the grounds were resplendent, and the music was good. What could feel more timeless than this?Sneaking through the shrubbery, however, was the light breeze of change. Chad Smith, the Boston Symphony’s ambitious new president and chief executive, plans to return this august institution to its most radical roots. Should Smith have his way, Tanglewood will see its creaking theater refurbished and put to good use, its Linde Center for Music and Learning pressed into service year-round, and Seranak, Serge Koussevitzky’s old home in the hills, restored as a meeting place for artists and the public. This will takes years, and tens of million of dollars, but for now, even one of the coloring sheets that volunteers offer eager children has heard the message: a butterfly, yet to be filled in, with the tagline “A Summer Tradition Transformed.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

  • in

    ‘Pass the Torch’ Sign at Biden Rally Costs Volunteer Role in State Campaign

    Clint Keaveny took his place in the stands behind President Biden at a rally on Friday in Madison, Wis., and held up a sign that read, “Pass the torch, Joe.” Before the rally was over, Mr. Keaveny had lost his role with a Democratic congressional campaign.The event was the first in Mr. Biden’s weekend blitz of campaign events in must-win states to rebuff critics after his halting debate performance on June 27. As the president took the stage, in full view of cameras, Mr. Keaveny unveiled his poster, made of taped-together printer paper and stuffed in his waistband. It had been written by Mr. Keaveny’s mother, he said.The moment quickly went viral. His boss noticed.Before Mr. Keaveny had even left the event, Kristin Lyerly, the Wisconsin congressional candidate for whom he was a communications volunteer, had seen the images circulating online. She called him and asked that he part ways with the campaign, to which he agreed.“He held up a sign that was inconsistent with the values and the ideals of our campaign,” Dr. Lyerly said in an interview. “I was just so profoundly disappointed that I called him right then and there.” Mr. Keaveny, 27, said that Mr. Biden has been a great president, but he does not believe that he can defeat former President Donald J. Trump in November.“It pains me to feel like a black sheep,” Mr. Keaveny said. “But I believe in following my conscience.”The episode with Mr. Keaveny comes as questions over loyalty to President Biden in the Democratic Party are breaking out into the open and some are calling for a new nominee. Mr. Biden has repeatedly pledged to stay the course.Dr. Lyerly is running for a vacant seat that represents a swath of northeast Wisconsin, including Green Bay, a competitive district that leans Republican. Representative Mike Gallagher, a Republican, resigned from the seat in April. More

  • in

    Organizer of World Economic Forum in Davos Accused of Discrimination

    A former employee sued the nonprofit, accusing it of denying professional opportunities because of her race and gender.A former employee of the World Economic Forum, the nonprofit organization behind the glittery annual gathering of business and political leaders in Davos, Switzerland, sued the group and its founder, Klaus Schwab, on Monday, accusing them of workplace discrimination.In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, Topaz Smith, who is Black, said the organization embraced a “scofflaw approach to anti-discrimination laws” and oversaw a hostile atmosphere toward women and Black workers.She added that it denied her and other Black employees opportunities to advance professionally.The accusations are the latest black eye for the nonprofit, whose conferences — particularly the one in Davos in January — have become destinations for the global elite to meet and network under the auspices of saving the world. (The theme of this year’s forum in Davos was “Rebuilding Trust,” while last year’s was “Cooperation in a Fragmented World.”)An article in The Wall Street Journal last month, citing internal complaints and interviews with current and former employees, said workers had accused the organization of sexual harassment and racism.Those behaviors extended all the way to Mr. Schwab, the outgoing executive chairman of the organization, according to the article.The report was cited in the lawsuit by Ms. Smith, who said she had directly experienced discriminatory acts in her two years working for the group’s consulting arm. One executive told her to consider her boss “her master,” she said, and the organization did not pay for her to travel to the Davos conference to participate in panels she had organized. But, according to the lawsuit, it paid for white employees to do so.Ms. Smith accused the organization of essentially firing her this year after she returned to work from federally protected maternity leave, and of replacing her with a white woman who was not pregnant.In a statement, a representative for the World Economic Forum said, “While it’s disappointing to see such false claims being made, now that these matters are in court, the falsity of these claims will become evident.” More

  • in

    Who Are the Key Players in the Alec Baldwin Manslaughter Trial?

    The actor Alec Baldwin was filming the movie “Rust” in New Mexico in 2021 when the gun that he was rehearsing with, which was not supposed to contain live ammunition, went off, firing a bullet that killed the film’s cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins. The film’s armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, who was responsible for weapons and ammunition on the set, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to 18 months in prison. Now Mr. Baldwin is going on trial for involuntary manslaughter; he has pleaded not guilty. Opening arguments begin on Wednesday. Here are some key players.The ‘Rust’ ProductionAlec BaldwinSeth Wenig/Associated PressActor and producerMr. Baldwin, who was playing a grizzled outlaw in “Rust,” has vehemently denied responsibility in the fatal shooting on Oct. 21, 2021, saying that he was told that the old-fashioned revolver he was handed on the set that day was “cold,” meaning that it was not loaded with live ammunition, and adding that it was unthinkable that any live rounds would be on the set. Mr. Baldwin has also said he did not pull the trigger when the gun discharged, but had merely pulled the hammer back and let it go; prosecutors have said that forensic examinations have suggested that he must have pulled the trigger.Hannah Gutierrez-ReedPool photo by Luis Sanchez, via Saturno/EPA, via ShutterstockArmorerAs the armorer, Ms. Gutierrez-Reed was responsible for weapons and ammunition on the “Rust” set; even though there was not supposed to be any live ammunition on the set, she loaded a live round into the revolver that day and failed to catch it when she checked the weapon. She stood trial this year, and a jury convicted her of involuntary manslaughter. Prosecutors argued that she had brought the live rounds onto the set, which she denied. She was sentenced to 18 months in prison — the same maximum sentence that Mr. Baldwin would face if he is convicted. She is appealing the conviction.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

  • in

    How Preserved Lemon Brightens Every Dish

    A staple of Moroccan cooking, preserved lemon adds zest and depth to earthy dishes like potato salad and lentil soup.As a boy in Morocco, Mourad Lahlou, the chef and owner of the restaurants Mourad and Aziza in San Francisco, was sometimes tasked with fetching a preserved lemon from a dark stairwell, where the big clay pots of fermenting citrus were stored. Frightened by the intimidating space, he would shove his arm into a pot, grab a lemon and run back down the stairs as fast as he could.Recipe: Buttermilk Potato Salad With Preserved LemonIt may have been scary, but, now 55, Mr. Lahlou waxes poetic about preserved lemons. “The taste, or rather the sensation of a preserved lemon is indescribable,” he said.A staple of Moroccan cooking, preserved lemon is used in Middle Eastern, Mediterranean, South and East Asian dishes, lending a sharp zing and depth infinitely more intriguing than fresh lemon juice.Ayesha Nurdjaja, the chef and partner at Shukette and Shuka in New York, calls preserved lemons a kind of get-out-of-jail pantry ingredient. At her restaurants, she combines them with fresh herbs, as a condiment for kebabs or crudo and, at home, as the star of a quick marinade for shrimp or chicken. She even uses the lemon in cocktails.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More