Sriracha Overload
You can almost hear the hipsters groan: "I was into sriracha before sriracha was a thing." But it's true: Sriracha, that spicy stuff we all used to feel mildly smug about having in our stoner-food arsenal (my favorite: Velveeta shells and cheese with sriracha) is now everywhere. There are sriracha-flavored potato chips. There's a sriracha documentary. In Los Angeles and Minneapolis, there are doughnut shops that use sriracha as a topping. When news came down that the factory in California might have to close, people freaked out. Someone is trying to sell a package of sriracha on eBay for $10,000. It's on Subway sandwiches. It's like the hot sauce that ate America.
A. Scattergood
Sriracha is such a trend that the backlash has already begun: In recent months, bloggers have penned such posts as "Sriracha Sauce Is Massively Overrated," "There is Nothing Cool About Sriracha," and "There's Nothing Punk Rock About Sriracha Anymore." Do we hate this trend or love it? It's hard to get worked up about it either way -- it's hot sauce. Just hot sauce. Chill out. -- Besha Rodell
Kale
We blame the cupcake and pork years of the late aughts for our present bitter green situation -- we wanted a vegetable on our plates, too, after what felt like eons of butter and animal fat. And while we're still for produce, let's all agree to call a moratorium on the kale salad. Packed with antioxidants as it might be, this joyless pile of greens sports the texture of well-worn shoe leather, and, what's worse, it's usually prepared the same way everywhere, from the reclaimed-wood-bedecked hipster halls to the white-tablecloth-adorned fine-dining temples: That combination of fruit, sharp cheese, nuts, and a light citrus dressing is not as novel as you, dear kale salad-maker, think. And if one more chef tells us that his or her kale salad is exempt because it was the first kale salad in the universe, we're going to squirt lemon vinaigrette right into that smug a-hole's eyeballs. Let it go, our friends. Put your energy into making something new. -- Laura Shunk
Tejal Rao
