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Welcome back to Insider Pix, where we uncover what entertainment and culture insiders are watching, reading, and listening to! Next up:
Molly Sterrs
After more than two decades working in food and hospitality, Molly Sterrs now brings an industry insider’s eye to her writing about food, beverage, and the people shaping the region’s dining culture for Edible Manhattan's group of publications. Based in the Hudson Valley, she is particularly interested in food media, local history, and the strange, specific stories hiding behind menus, restaurants, and the things people love to eat.
Food Pix
Co-created by Edible Manhattan, and written by Molly Sterrs, our latest free Pix Media newsletter is serving up the culinary moments across books, shows, and podcasts shaping what we eat right now. The next Food Pix arrives in inboxes Monday AM and we’re covering espresso lemonade, the next foodie Netflix show, and *NSYNC’s surprising new gig—subscribe for free so you don’t miss it.
Molly’s 5 Picks
A hidden gem you wish more people knew about?
Good Eats with Alton Brown. It was integral to my childhood/adolescence because it taught me not only how to cook, but why certain cooking methods worked. Food TV used to trust viewers to be curious; now, so much of it has been gamified and cartoonified into something I find incredibly boring. Alton Brown made people care enough about their food to want to understand it, cook it well, and enjoy it properly. I miss shows like that.
Best TV show you’ve watched recently?
Anne Rice’s The Vampire Lestat (season three of Interview with the Vampire). It’s trashy, wildly campy, and the acting is far better than anything this gloriously over the top show has a right to be.
Best movie you watched recently?
The Devil’s Rain. Ernest Borgnine is a perfect little satanic freak in it, the cast is bizarrely stacked, and the whole movie is exactly the kind of strange, gooey 1970s horror I love.
A 5-star-worthy book you’d recommend to anyone?
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving. At its center is a lifelong friendship between the narrator and Owen, a tiny boy with a permanently damaged voice who believes he knows exactly how and when he’ll die. It’s a funny, infuriating, heartbreaking novel about faith, fate, and the people who permanently rearrange your life. I find myself returning to it every few years, and I get something new out of it with each revisit.
Go-to weekly podcast?
Woo Woo with Rachel Dratch. It hits the perfect sweet spot between paranormal storytelling and comedy, with celebrity guests sharing their strangest encounters. As a host, Rachel is curious without being credulous and skeptical without ruining the fun, which is exactly how I like my woo-woo.
Pix: What cookbook has earned a permanent spot on your shelf?
MS: It’s a tie between Every Day Is Saturday by Sarah Copeland and The Food Lab by J. Kenji López-Alt. Copeland’s recipes are incredibly accessible but still beautiful and impressive, whether you’re feeding a crowd or just your family on a random Tuesday. Nothing is particularly flashy or mind-blowing, which is exactly what I like about it. The Food Lab feeds my endless curiosity about the hows and whys of cooking, much like Good Eats did when I was growing up.
Pix: If logistics were no obstacle, what dishes are you including in your hypothetical final meal?
MS: I want chicken Francese from literally anywhere because I’ve never had a bad version, New England clam chowder from the dearly departed Cappy’s Chowder House in Camden, ME, a Cali carnitas burrito from And Breakfast Burritos in San Diego, and ribs from Jack’s Bar-B-Que in Nashville. I’d also need my mom’s pot roast with red cabbage, schnitzel from Mountain Brauhaus in Gardiner, NY, banoffee ice cream from Fortunes in Tivoli, NY, and whatever is being served at the monthly Persian feast at Brushland Eating House in Bovina, NY—my favorite restaurant in the entire world.
Pix: Is there a restaurant dish you've had this year that you can't stop thinking about?
MS: The biscuits and gravy at Jax Diner in Portsmouth, RI. I stopped there on the way home from a wedding in Providence after plans to visit a nearby IHOP fell through, which now feels like divine intervention. The place is tiny, the menu is exactly as expansive as a diner menu should be, and everything is made in-house. I would love nothing more than to drown myself in their perfectly peppered sausage gravy.