Hudson Valley  Rib Fest

This was bound to happen. No surprise it is happening in Brooklyn. I’d be a jerk if I pretended that I wasn’t excited but the over used term for the Insta phenom of food photography is almost as ubiquitous as the selfie. Never-the-less how do you not attend this promise of the digital food you swipe past and double tap all day being layered onto a bed that you can roll around on with your friends. Short of that dream coming true there will be ALL THINGS FOOD according to the organizers. Come to Food Porn Fest with an empty stomach and leave with an STD. Satiated, Tired and Digesting. Sat, Nov 5+6, 11am – 7:00pm in Brooklyn.

The organizers say it best. Donut Fest is a celebration of the love of fried sugary dough with a competition of yeast, batter-y, deep-fried treats. The best restaurants and bakeries in each city submit their best cruller, ring or long-john and compete against each other with only one walking away with the coveted title of “Best Donut.” With that bouncing around your foodie brain jump on some tickets. January 23th @ Verboten in Brooklyn. 11:30 and 2:30 entrance.

Eat to help kids. That sounds like a win win right? With Bouley, Bubby’s, Duane Park Patisserie, Gigino Trattoria, The Odeon, Tribeca Grill, and Walker’s on the docket the decision to attend really isn’t that tough. Taste of Tribeca was founded 20+ years ago to benefit PS 150 and PS 234 and has expanded since then to benefit even more kids. If you’ve ever wanted to feel like a neighbor in the triangle below canal, this event is the perfect way to feel comfortable, full of tasty and help kids get smart. Saturday, May 21 in NYC from 11:30 AM to 3:00 PM.

The term “No time to eat” is running the hashtag circuit. A report released the other day reported 80% of millennials concede to eating meals quickly and alone. These two statistics are alarming and not the way we like to open posts on FT. So, we’ll get back to that in just a minute. Two mums in East London have started Dabba Drop, an innovative Friday night dinner service using a century-old method of delivery. If that sounds contradictory, it is, but Indian culture has plenty of those. Let’s start with Dabba, the Hindu word for box. You’ve probably seen the metal, stackable, interlockable containers Indians use for food at lease once. What you might not know is that everyday 200,000 home cooked lunches are delivered to Mumbai workplaces in these tins thanks to a service known as DabbaWallas or TiffinWallas, depending on who you ask. Aside from the incredibly complex yet 99.99% accurate operation, Indians are eating hot, homecooked meals for lunch at their place of business. Enter Anshu and Renee and their Dabba Drop service. Inspired by the Dabbawallas, they created a brilliant Friday night meal subscription that’s prepped and dropped for you like Mumbai clockwork. With curry being the unofficial national dish of Britain their mission “to change the way Britain does Indian takeaway” is brilliant. Back to those stats at the top, eating together is one of the reasons this blog exists. If it wasn’t for our upbringing and the maturity those meals provided us as kids we wouldn’t be who we are today. To have the majority of a generation saying they eat alone removes the ancillary, yet equally important, reason for eating. Socialization over meals is a critical and profound bonding moment for us all. Dabba Drop is doing it’s part to ensure that we continue that behavior which we greatly applaud. We just wish they expanded to New York sooner than later so we can stop dealing with inevitable GrubHub mistakes. All the details on the currys they deliver are here. We really don’t think it matters what you choose, they are all delicious homemade specialties that you will crave once you get a taste.