Victoria Bouloubasis

It takes an incredibly ambitious person to stick it out in the kitchen. Whether at the sink, the salad station, or the stove, the work is meticulous and tedious. And it’s work that the entire restaurant depends on to function, though we diners often give chefs all the glory. Many chefs, though, did prep work […]

If you keep praying, they won’t see you.” Daravanh “Donna” Sayarath was fifteen years old when her mother gave her this advice. It was 1975, during the civil war in Laos. Sayarath’s mother pulled her out of class on a sunny afternoon. They lay flat against their backs in a long wooden paddle boat—and fled. […]

There’s a popular shawarma video from Turkey that made the rounds on Facebook this summer. On his couch at his family’s apartment in Durham, Abdulmouin Mohammad Taib Almubarak pulls out his phone to show it to me. “Look at that,” he says through an Arabic interpreter. “The human beings behind it aren’t even showing.” It’s […]

During the day, the kitchen at Durham’s Mothers & Sons is a crashing cacophony of cooks. Prep cooks arrive at eight a.m. to begin chopping and slicing through the day’s menu. Line cooks and chefs stroll in by ten, stoking the fire under the rotisserie and slamming through stacks of sauté pans sullied by a […]

When I told Gabe Barker, the young chef-owner of Pizzeria Mercato, that we’d be focusing Dish on the back of the house, his reply was deadpan: “You mean the people who actually do all the work?” Many of us have had these gigs. We know what’s it’s like to ache in our shoulders for weeks. […]

At M Sushi, nothing behind the bar is out of place. The row of sushi chefs in chambray getup dotting each station. Stacks of plastic white cutting boards and handmade porcelain plates. A few $800 knives used specifically for nigiri and sashimi. A neat collection of cookbooks on a back shelf. Condiments are in their […]

If you choose to attend TerraVita Food & Drink Festivala foodie’s dream with grand buffets and heavy bacchanaliayou may find yourself surprised by how it also feeds your soul in unexpected ways. For one, you feel the ethos behind the event that sole organizer Colleen Minton has uplifted since she started the festival in 2010: […]