694: Inside the New York Magazine Food Beat with Chris Crowley 

28:38Street vendors need permits. Mohammed Arabi appears to have made a killing off of their desperation. You wrote this piece for New York Magazine, and I don't want to summarize it because you can do a great job. But take us through this piece that was so important. It really blew up on the Internet in the best way. A lot of people read it. You know, what was the genesis of the piece? yeah I mean I was walking through Elmhurst and I got a tip from one of the higher ups I should say at the Street Vendor Project or rather I got a text from her from Karina Kaufman Gutierrez and who's someone I've known probably for most of the time I've been here I don't know seven years or something like that and I think I said to her kind of half seriously that if I ever got laid off I'd become a PI which my friend told me was a dumb idea because I haven't been a cop it's more just like oh i like scrounging around looking at things um so i told her that she was like i have a tip for you and she called me started telling me about this and you know um people you know they would have people tell them in the past oh this person ripped me off you know they sold me a permit that they never gave me um but they hadn't had an instance where they heard about the same person doing it and they had a few people come to them a few people or some of them are members and some of them weren't, and told them that, you know, hey, you know, I bought a permit and it was never provided to me and it was this person who allegedly did it, right?

30:11And so it seemed to me immediately like this is something that we should look into. Yeah, what story emerges as you start to speak with many victims of this deceit, of this crime? Yeah. So, I mean, what I started off by talking, they put me in touch with a few people that were members or not, but people would come to them. And then from there, I started looking into finding more people. And a lot of people I found were through court records. And then they would introduce me to other people. And, you know, unsurprisingly, most street vendors are immigrants, right? And so unsurprisingly, most of the people that he allegedly did this to are immigrants.

30:51And the story that started emerging was that, you know, if you read articles, like say you go to the Times, you look at the Times, like archives of stories and you read about like, you know, news reports about street vetting in New York since the 90s. what you'll find is that the city has repeatedly promised to fix this issue or address this issue of um the permit system where you what you have is you have a certain amount of permits that are that are provided by the city but then there's a black market on top of that and people are technically not supposed to lease their permit out to someone else but everyone does it and the city charges sorry i think it's four hundred dollars for a two-year term I don't know if I'm getting that wrong, but I'm pretty sure that's it.

31:40It's relatively low for the stakes at Ann. Yeah, but then people, like, what you see over the years, and the guy who's, Mohammed, who's the president of SBP, is quoted in a story from, I think, 2009, 2013, somewhere around then, where he was still a vendor. And he was talking about how much you have to pay on the black market for this. And I think, whatever it is, it was way lower than what it is now. It keeps creeping up. and so this this person is alleged who's allegedly doing this right he is taking advantage of this great pressure on people where there's more people than ever that want to do this but they're they're basically you have these twin forces that's so corny you have these twin factors that are making life more difficult for a lot of these vendors which is it's not just ice enforcement increasing Or the threat of ICE enforcement increasing.

32:32It's also that there has been, and it's documented in the numbers, like there has been a great enforcement, sorry, a great escalation in enforcement under the Adams administration. So if you go back to 2020, you know, de Blasio's administration talked about how they were going to to we're going to switch, change things up and how we police this and move it away from the cops and have like, you know, non-law enforcement officers enforce them and stuff that never happened. And then Adams takes, you know, takes over, wins the election and the escalation just increases and increases. And so these people are being ticketed more and more, which means they're going to immigrate.

33:10They're going to court more, which means they're fearing being deported more. um and you have a lot of like there's other you know you have a lot of people that have come over more recently that are you know we published another story at curbed um about the candy sellers on the on the subway right and so you have a lot of people like this that are coming over who are um you could say like you know more disenfranchised in the countries they come from and you know um and then they're coming here and they're in the and they their language skills are they don't have English language skills and they're Spanish and Spanish is a second language for them.

33:46And true vending is like one of the only ways they can make money. And so you just have these various factors collapsing to create this sort of perfect situation for someone to take advantage. Yeah, so allegedly Muhammad Arabi is reaching out to vendors and offering a permit, which, as you outlined, provides safety from ICE, safety from ticketing, and that process of going to court. I think all vendors want to avoid that. So Muhammad's like, you know, I can get you this paper, but it's going to cost you. And you really, in the piece, report very diligently about the manipulation that he allegedly uses and forces vendors to pay half up front.

34:33And we're talking in the thousands of dollars here. And then to get the permit, pay more. You have to pay more in that pressure. And many times, and this is a heartbreaking part of the piece, is that nothing arrives. I mean, these promises are empty. This is a blackmail, essentially, or a crime, allegedly. um what's your interaction like with with Muhammad Arabi the the center of this piece yeah um kind of towards the end of the main reporting process I reached out to him and called him and he picked up the phone and we talked very briefly and he said that he would he could talk to me but he'd need to have his lawyer present um and we could do it the next stay.

35:15That didn't happen. You know, he said, Oh, you know, actually we can, we can meet in person and my lawyer will have to be there. Okay. So I said, let's meet at this restaurant that I chose because it's in his home neighborhood, um, hometown, whatever, you know, it's in the neighborhood he lives in. And, you know, he was like, okay, cool. And then it was, you know, when I reached out to ask if we were still meeting, let me ask my lawyer. Oh, my lawyer can't come. my lawyers out of the country right now, these kids. And then he just stopped responding to me. And then, you know, okay, he doesn't, we don't ever, we never talked beyond a few very short phone calls.

35:56You know, we talked again on the phone later. You know, he had, you know, I told him, the fact-checking process basically began. We got back in touch. And he sort of, you know, did the same thing with the fact-checker. He didn't answer any questions. He just, you know, denied it after a certain point. And, you know, then was again trying to meet me in person. And the last text that I have from the last text I have from him is call me, which was the day the story was published. But the day before that, you know, he was trying to do this thing where he was trying to get me to meet in person. Asked me to meet him after work.

36:30So he really and then through his attorney, he denied everything. Well, there was no attorney involved in the conversation. Oh, interesting. That was just. I don't. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I guess I don't know whether the attorney exists or not, but, you know, I can tell you that he doesn't show up to court for anything. And that includes for a divorce case. I don't think there's an attorney because I don't have any reason to believe that. And I could be wrong, but I don't think there is. I mean, the last interactions we had was him telling me that he was cooperating with a federal investigation and that I would interfere with it by publishing this story.

37:08Oh, interesting. Which I would describe as something that I don't know that I wasn't able to verify that. It seems like something that you would see on like CSI or some cop show. Yeah, I mean our interactions were super limited. But, you know, like in reporting a story like this, like your interactions with the person might be limited. But it doesn't mean that you don't. It doesn't mean you're not aware of conversations you've had with other people. So I wanted to have you on mostly to talk about updates because this is published. When did you publish it? Like six months ago? Like the very end of July.

37:38Yeah. So it's been some time. I mean, a couple of updates. Like, have you have you reached out to any of the victims? Have they have they gotten any help? And like the big question is, is with the Mamdani administration coming in and, you know, you have a relationship with him going back to 2020. Do you see any hope for street vendors rights improving in New York? I talk to a few of these people somewhat regularly. A couple of them are named in the story. Three of them. I think, you know, I'll text them or we talk on the phone, depending. One of them is a guy who was a cop in Turkey. And, you know, we mostly text because of language barrier.

38:18And I'll talk to a couple other people and they'll ask me about things. Some people who have trying to recover money from him. And I'll talk to, you know, I mean, I talked to Karina from the Street Offender Project anyways but we will talk about it there are no real updates about it um beyond the fact that like this legislation that's mentioned in the story that had one part of it had passed and it was then vetoed by the eric adams administration but there's there's sort of um i think there's hope that there's some momentum especially because of the different politics of the incoming mayoral administration um that there's some momentum that uh towards changing this stuff and that could actually happen um but it requires city council to to act right and that is like you know i mean i'm not like an insider to that or anything like i don't have any special knowledge i'm sure you'll be reporting it though i mean and and with your you know your your contacts at the street vendors project i would imagine january 1 um there's a whole long list of things that the new administration are going to be tackling but this seems at least at 30 000 foot view a core value that the new administration would want to would want to fix yeah i mean look i i i understand why things should be right like regulated i'm not a libertarian no i believe regulation i i understand that like you can't have a free-for-all new york city is like we're not talking about like a small city like there's a lot of people that are going to want to there's a good economic opportunity which you could argue that certain street vending jobs are versus others right like a running a haul cart owning a haul cart in midtown is probably a better opportunity than something else um not to get too off track but anyway yeah i understand that it needs to be regulated what i would say is that like the city how does my question is how does the city benefit from some guy who lives in texas or florida or even in new york whatever like privately making twenty thousand dollars a year off of this that doesn't like this is a city permit that the city's not getting any money on and someone else is making a ton of money off of it and not only is that is that not going towards the city when we clearly like you know like our like i don't know we we have city services that need more funding um but it's economically like i would argue that it's that it that it that you know it's suppressing economic activity because it's a huge burden on the person who is paying that they don't have as much money as they should to spend in the local economy and it also means their prices have to be higher and like okay you know i i'm not saying that the i'm not saying the permit should cost more money i'm just saying like certainly not like I wouldn't know but um but I but I just don't like if you're gonna if it's gonna cost more money then it should go towards the city yeah I mean there should be more permits and there should be more um officers of the city or representatives checking the permits and but there should be more permits you know offered to these vendors to give them protection and also as a public safety measure I agree there should be permits I mean it's important to have checks and balances between the vendors and the government, which seemingly is on top of food safety concerns and all the reasons we have permits.

41:44Yeah, look, I mean, I've definitely, there are parts like, I talked to Karina about this where I'm like, you know, the little quarter in Flushing that's underneath the LIR bridge. And it's like really narrow and there's always vendors there. Yeah, like there's things like that. There should be like, maybe people should not be set up there. there's such a bottleneck of traffic right it's like they're a real like the idea that it should just be a free-for-all like i said before no yeah like the canal the canal street is overrun with people selling things there's just too many people and it's there's so many tourists right like i get it there's an economic opportunity for people but it it's you know it's annoying to walk down yeah and it's you have to think about like public safety i mean that's like yeah it's a little dramatic but like yeah yeah there's there are a ton of you go down uh you know uh rooseville avenue is the obvious place to talk about because that is you know the the the hive of of street vendor activity in new york and midtown obviously but this is different i never understood the argument i mean i understand why because they're trying to make an argument for their benefit but like the bid argument the argument that bids make and that certain brick and mortar business owners make that like oh like you know this person setting up a street card outside of my business is taking business away from me.

43:00I've never thought like, I don't ever think that I make a choice between restaurants and carts. And okay, maybe I'm not the best example, or maybe I'm not the best person to talk about this because I probably spend, no, I'll probably, I definitely spend more of my income on restaurants and other food purchases than the average person. But, you know, I don't think people are making a choice that's like a restaurant, you know, is going to cost more money because you're sitting down, you might get, you're going to buy more things yeah these are different services that are being offered and like it's an economic opportunity i mean i think i know you know jessica ramos a long time ago we wrote about her because she was the first politician that i know of in new york who brought street vendors at the time into her you know they feature them in her campaign it's like these people were like like this i think the street vendor project refers in this way it's like the small small business centers in the city And it's economic activity.

43:53And there are people that are offering a service. I mean, you wouldn't have all these people working in this way, start working these jobs, providing this food on the streets in these neighborhoods if it wasn't meeting a need. Yeah. Like they're not just there sitting around not making money. I'm going to leave it there. I can't wait for your follow-up reporting. I know you'll likely be working on something. Today's episode is brought to you by ButcherBox. As a food writer, I can be a little skeptical about subscription cooking boxes you hear about on podcasts. There's big talk about cooking simplicity, but you're usually left with disappointment after smashing that promo code.

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45:47That's butcherbox.com slash taste. Don't forget to use our link so they know we sent you. The last story I want to talk about is a good one. You want to imagine what it tastes like? Fuck you, says AI, by Georgina Voss in the terrific Vittles. I just love the opening line, quote, The first image was in the window of a subway on Bethnal Green Road, a high-rise photo of two bread rolls overstuffed with meat and cheese, raisins studded through the dough, one roll cheerfully attempting to mount the other. The accompanying text identified the buns as hot cross cheesy bacon bun toasties. More images appeared for the writer, a poster depicting a bright ocean of swirling cream dotted with glossy green and white cuboids.

46:30The text describes the dish as a Minecraft McFlurry from, of course, McDonald's. The writer was uncertain about what they were looking at. Was the photo taken by a real camera or was it AI slop? I love this line. AI-generated images are a patch of damp on the wall, annoying, spreading, and causing structural damage to the infrastructures through which they move. There's so many quotes in this piece. It's a very long piece. And I think to distill it into a couple lines is difficult and you should read it. But I think in general, the fear is that we don't really know what we're looking at. And Georgina notes that, you know, studio photography, we're talking about commercial photography for restaurants.

47:16You know, there is manipulation happening. This is not verite. And when AI takes over the manipulation and starts to actually take over all the photo shoots, you know, what are we looking at and what does it mean for food culture? She takes a hard look at the work of an AI artist. Quote, through AI images, influences boast of incantations of nostalgic warmth, editorial shadows, and ultra crisp textures to construct perfect pictures. The resulting images are flattened objects summoned from a database crammed with stolen photos. The stolen photos part is very interesting. You know, when these AI artists are using LLMs to create art, a lot of times it's fed through copyright protected imagery.

47:59So this whole debate around is it real or is it not could actually be a legal, you can make a legal claim if your copyrighted image is being used to sell a McFlurry. So there's a lot going on here. It's a very long piece. But I think the threads here are this world of AI photography and food. Chris, to you, I mean, do you guys talk about it in New York Mag about AI imagery for your photography for the food section? and I mean, are we at the top of this crest of LLM-generated art or is it just the start? It's a good question. A lot going on. It's a great piece. You know, one of the things when I was thinking about it after reading it that I remembered, and I feel like I'm going to possibly misremember this, I'm worried about getting things wrong, but I feel like at one point my longtime co-worker Adam Platt said something to me about, and maybe it was someone else, But I feel like it was Adam that talked about like the – because he really likes black licorice.

48:56And he was talking about like how our conception of the flavor is informed by artificial versions of it, right? Yeah. And at a certain point, like the reference for – the reference – the artificial thing becomes the actual reference point, right? And I thought about this because of the ending of this essay where the writer was talking about this chat – sorry, this AI image and how asking what people thought of it. Asking the person working at the restaurant what people thought about it. And I think also maybe what the worker thought about it. I think the person sort of shrugged it off or shrugged about it and said something about how the kids like it.

49:37And I'm sort of curious to see what happens with young people and, you know, if this sort of becomes like normalized. That's the wrong word. I mean, it's dramatic word, but it's like if this sort of becomes the normal reference point, right? I don't think we're at that. I mean, a lot of the time, and obviously the story does, or any story you write about this stuff right now is going to get into this. Like, we'll talk about how these LLMs or whatever else are, they always like bad at creating images. Like, you know, they have in the Vittles essay, they, you know, one of the pieces of art they have is this like funny AI generated image of someone really clumsily eating not a cheeseburger, but like a piece of cheese on top of a cheeseburger, right?

50:22Yeah, yeah. And there's this uncanniness to it and whatever. obviously these things are just going to keep getting presumably keep getting better. That's what I'm thinking too. I guess it depends on how real the bubble is and how big the bubble is and if it destroys everything. I mean, I think there's such a, there's structurally such an important industry around food photography that we have to recognize that if brands start paying AI artists versus real artists using lenses and shooting real food, there's a whole industry that may evaporate And that's really, really troubling. Yeah. I mean, I can, I don't mean to talk about a different article, but it feels related to this is my friend at work, James Walsh, wrote a recent story about the job market and young people.

51:08Right. And it includes this anecdote from somebody at an advertising firm, I think. Right. About how they're being pressured to use AI and work. And I really stuck out to me because I have a friend who told me the same thing. It's like you are you're supposed to. Yeah. Yeah. On and on. And, you know, of course, like this is going to, you know, there's going to be adoption of this stuff by companies that aren't. I don't know. I mean, is this like cafe chain particularly concerned with like the whether or not the image is real? No, they can get something for free and they want. Yeah, but it gives us as a culture used to art and imagery that is fake.

51:48And with food, that's a huge concern. I think with just advertising, and of course there's regulations about how you can advertise, and it's mentioned in the piece in the UK. There's lots of regulations about the way food can be presented. But there's just something that I feel is deeply fucked up about food being marketed to us that is not real food. no yeah i mean i i don't disagree i mean is it the word that we would use like hyper real like you continue to be divorced further and further from reality yeah and and that's sort of why i think it's like the thing that is one of the interesting things is like when when the completely artificial thing becomes your reference point um but yeah you're i mean i think that this also relates to the conversation we were earlier in the what we were talking about earlier in the conversation about like you know why you know someone might feel some stronger spark about human interaction at like a with someone at a bodega right because more and more what you're encountering in the world is sort of fake well terrific work Georgina I I really enjoyed this piece I think Vittles is is terrific and and just putting out work that is worth reading and you can subscribe on Substack um we've gotten to the part of the interview where um call him to the Graydon Carter question.

53:02The premise is in 1997, Graydon Carter was running Vanity Fair and offering, we'll call them large contracts,$200 ,000,$300 ,000,$400 ,000 to write a couple articles a year. So I've been asking all these journalists who appear on the show, if you had that contract in 1997 Vanity Fair, Chris, what would that dream story be? I don't know what the dream story is, but an immediate thought would be to either write about which other people have. Look, people writing about the scene at, what is it called, Butterworth's? The MAGA restaurant in Washington, D.C.? Yes. It's an appealing thing to me. I'd also just be, I mean, look, the whole economy of influencers is so huge right now.

53:49And that's something I really engage with in my work as much because I write about the New York City industry. but like certainly I'd want to like write like a really like a bigger story about the like relationships and rivalries and feuds and gossip amongst all these people because it's it's more because I say you know everybody in that industry and there are a lot of really scrappy people that are trying to make something yeah and establish themselves and they have to do without the backing of a media company. And so the stakes are high. I love a large reported piece about food influencers and the tribes and the rivalries, I'm sure, and also the scrappy startup nature of it.

54:39And then I think the unique element of influencer culture is then they all show up to a brand event. So you all got to have them in the same room at some point. It's always rich to write about. I'm not you know what it's not like I'm thinking of anything particular but like any instance of people having to pretend they like each other when they might not yeah you know which is like you know maybe we're interested in that as writers because that's a huge element of media yeah big feature of maybe it's more of a media desk story at the New York Mag I feel that it could be it could be interesting yeah good answer I like that Chris on this is Tase we as guests are about the discerning taste so to close this interview you here's a little rapid fire fast and furious taste check media edition are you ready okay i can do this what is the first thing you read in the morning and where do you read it i go to the new york magazine website nice on my phone but if i'm going to the gym i'm listening to odd lots or know your enemy or something like that that's not reading though also why yeah um i think we i think there's a lot of people there who are a lot smarter than me and they they edit or write really good stories yeah and i often am you know i'm just interested in the i mean i have been meaning to read andrew rice's story that went up today about um the school system and like issues in education and i haven't had a chance yet but i will probably do that you mentioned the pods you you have a rotation yeah i mean i listen to like a lot of like financial podcasts that i want to mention no but i listen to odd lots i i you know i'm biased i listen to to know your enemy i'm biased because Sam's a friend, but I think that I don't listen to every episode of anything, which is what I want, right?

56:22Like I don't want to listen to, I think the better podcasts or websites or magazines or whatever else, like aren't publishing 100 % of the stuff is not what I'm interested in. But Sam and Matt Zipman are like super smart. Obviously, so are Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Allaway. And they, you know, have guests on it who explain things that I have no idea about. And yeah, those are the two that I listen to the most lately. Do you read on actual paper? Yeah, I mean, magazines a little less right now, but I just, the last two books I read were Dan Wang's Breakneck, which is about China's technological revolution and also sort of about like how the U.S.

56:58has stagnated in technological development and why China succeeded. But the last book that I finished was called Autumn in the Heavenly Empire, which is about the Taiping Rebellion and during the decline of the Qing Dynasty, which the short of it is that it's about a failed civil servant who had a mental breakdown. Realized that he was the brother of Jesus Christ and started a civil war, which at one point was concurrent with our civil war. Right now I'm reading Jonathan Blitzer's book, Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here, which is about the migrant crisis. Did you have a favorite food publication growing up?

57:28Honestly, no. I mean, I didn't really like get super into it until I was in college. I don't know if that counts as growing up. I mean, I started reading Savor, but then I read the early era of Ed Levine's Serious Eats. And I feel like that's my best answer because I don't want to pretend that I was reading like Bon Appetit. I mean, that's great. We just had Maggie on last episode of Food Writers talking, and we talked a lot about that early Serious Eats era. It was a great website during its prime and also good people. I'm Max Falkowitz, another person. Yeah. Also like a very positive influence on my trajectory.

58:01Yeah, absolutely. I love that. What about food TV? Was there any food TV in your household growing up or into your, you know, adult life? My first interaction or when I found out food TV existed was through Emeril because my older brother, Matt, who's six years older than me and my dad would watch it. And so, you know, through that, my dad discovered the spiciest hot sauce in the world, which at the time, which was Tabasco. But that led to my older brother becoming chef, which I think led to me in some way doing what I do. You know, I've written about this. It was kind of, it was that emerald and then, you know, no reservations because my dad sort of found a, this is what I've written about, sorry.

58:42My dad found a sort of commonality with Anthony Bourdain that they were both addicts. And so he gave my brother like the book, Kitchen Confidential, but they would also watch those two shows together. and so through them i did let's talk about youtube and tiktok uh and social video in general where are you at right now with all that so because of my trip the thing that i've been watching the most is a account called on instagram and i think i'm assuming they're on tiktok but i watch on instagram because i'm a millennial um called al dente life which is just like one of those like i feel like the guys in in in the uk um started this the what are they called top job or whatever yeah top job But he's just it's just this dude talking to people about the restaurants they like people in the industry mostly.

59:27Yeah. And I think that it's like it's kind of like maybe I don't know. Like I don't watch English language versions of that. Yeah. But, you know, I watch it for a few reasons and partially because I was going to Taipei. But the food culture there is so strong that I think maybe the answers are better than what I think I would find in another city. In New York, like, you know, I think that, you know, my guy Rob Martinez does a better job at this stuff than anybody else doing these videos. I like Nicholas Nuvon. Is that his name? Yeah. The Times profiled him recently. I like his videos. He has like a really kind of funny, bouncy energy.

59:58He feels like you're watching it and he sort of seems like a ping pong ball going around. High energy, yeah. I like his stuff. You know, I've been watching less of the New York stuff because I was watching Al Dente Life all the time. So that's your algorithm was looking. Yeah, on YouTube. I mean, look, I basically just watch non-food stuff because of all I've been watching recently. Actually, that's not true. I watch the videos produced by this. language learning channel called Mandarin Corner. And sometimes that involves her going to restaurants and walking around in wet markets and stuff. Oh, cool.

1:00:27So that's the food stuff that I'm watching right now. Last question, Chris. Where do you want to be in five years with your media career? Yeah, I'm so bad at answering this question. It's a tough one. You know, I mean, it's hard to say because I'm like, what is the industry going to look like in five years? I'd like to be doing a better version of what I'm doing right now. Oh, that's a great answer. I'd like to be better at my job. I don't know. I mean, I feel pretty happy with the stories. I prefer to use we than I, but like we've published this year that I've worked on with my editor. And I would like whatever I've done then to make what I've done now look like a little more insignificant or normal.

1:01:08Chris Crawley, this has been so much fun. Thank you so much for joining This Is Taste. Thanks for having me.

1:01:17This is Taste is hosted and produced by Eliza Abarbanal and me, Matt Rodbar. The show is edited by lead producer Clayton Gumbert and supervised by Pat Stango, director of media production and development at Penguin Random House. Thanks to Shalia Harris and the production team at Penguin Random House. Theme music by Steve Rydell. Episode portraits by Louise Zergon Pomeroy. Logo design by Ellie Skirzat and Ian Dingham. Visit Taste Online at tastecooking.com and make sure to subscribe to our newsletter to keep updated on all cool things in the world of taste.