Anna Mindess

I've traveled the world visiting Deaf-owned restaurants from Paris to Taipei. Some of my favorites offer wood-fired Neapolitan pizza in San Francisco, Moroccan tagines in Paris, a cornucopia of crêpes in Austin and artistically foamed coffee drinks in Taipei. Each one has a story to tell...

When baristas hand over your low-fat latte, you probably don’t consider the paths that brought them to stand across the counter from you. But at 1951 Coffee Company, the Berkeley café that is staffed entirely by refugees, the baristas’ life journeys are actually the point...

We are all born with a remarkable set of eating utensils. They are versatile, impossible to misplace, and relatively unbreakable. Millions of diners around the globe swear that neither slender sticks nor pointy metal objects are better designed to ferry food to our faces than our hands. If you’ve eaten pizza, a burger, or...

On a recent trip to China, I entered a modest Beijing noodle shop, but saw no English translations in evidence. Since my Chinese vocabulary consists only of ni hao (hello) and xie xie (thank you), I realized that spoken words would get me nowhere. Instead, I pointed to a picture of noodle soup on the wall and, noticing two prices, gestured to outline the shape ...

As a kid growing up in Malmö, Sweden, Birgitta Durell took knäckebröd (crispbread) for granted. These mostly rye-based crackers are eaten there daily, paired with everything from pickled herring to lingonberry jam...

Mounds of fragrant green parsley, cilantro, dill, and chives sit atop ten colorful placemats in front of ten children. The six-to-12 year olds chop the herbs just like professional chefs do—their fingers holding the herbs are carefully tucked back out of harm’s way. The insistent tap, tap, tap of their chopping supplies background percussion to the musical lilt of their cooking teacher’s voice...

I MUST LOOK LIKE A LUNATIC to the well-dressed people striding down a busy Taipei street at lunchtime. Brandishing a sweet potato in each hand, I approach passersby, look them in the eye, and loudly declare, “hao-chi-de di-gua”—undoubtedly butchering the phrase I just learned an hour ago, which means “delicious sweet potatoes.” ...

Place an eggplant on a plate and the shiny purple globe freely rolls from side to side. You may have never considered the vegetable in this light, but for Hindi speakers, the phrase “thali ka baingan” (eggplant on a plate) is a disparaging put-down for someone who likewise flip-flops, shifting loyalties so easily that they cannot be trusted.

Culinary education thrives at
the California School for the Deaf. High school students dressed in chef’s whites scurry around the kitchen preparing an ambitious Modernist Caprese Salad. Whenever they struggle with the exacting techniques required, culinary arts instructor Vernon McNece patiently clarifies, demonstrates, and corrects in American Sign Language.

While growing up in Brazil, Delvira Rodrigues didn’t give much thought to the traditional puffy, cheesy rolls called pão de queijo. “I ate them everyday at breakfast and lunch with my family,” she said. “My mom and grandma are from the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, which is famous for its cheese, and that’s the most important ingredient.”

Some people create art by applying oil paint to canvas. Kristen Rasmussen fashions edible artwork by applying pomegranate-cured carrots, shaved icicle radishes and foraged fennel flowers to a canvas of dense rye bread.

My grandmother swore the secret to her moist Rosh Hashanah honey cake was the black cherry soda she added to the batter. Although I never discovered the origin of her quirky recipe, I have often recreated it to feel close to her memory.

This year, if I don’t have time to bake, no worries, as there’s a bevy of bakeries preparing classic treats...

Farid Rafaty dreams of opening a restaurant where he will cook dishes from his native Afghanistan. One of these would be the luscious mantu dumplings he recently made for a pop-up dinner sponsored by Oakland Bloom, an organization that wants to help him in his quest. It’s been a long journey...

Can tiny pictures of tamales, empanadas, ceviche and flan really make an impact on the heated national debate about immigrants? In our boiling political pot of travel ban battles and deportations, one government agency, the U.S. Postal Service, has taken a bold (and possibly subversive) step...

Walk into any museum, and one of the first items you are likely to spot is a posted warning, a stern reminder not to consume any foods or beverages within its hallowed halls. Last Thursday night, however, visitors to the marble galleries of the San Francisco Asian Art Museum were met with welcoming signs promising savory tastings ahead..