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San Francisco Chronicle
8 hours ago
- Business
- San Francisco Chronicle
How Trump's trade war has forced me to rediscover my hidden superpower
Like many Americans, I've struggled with the whiplash of President Donald Trump's trade war. Amid the gut punch of Liberation Day, I worried whether to dip into savings to panic-buy bananas, avocados and Parmesan Reggiano. (Ultimately, I resisted, but did stock up on coffee — I'm only human). Since then, each head-spinning tariff update has reopened wounds of childhood material deprivation and pandemic scarcity. As a child, I skipped meals for lack of resources. I have since crafted my life to avoid ever worrying again about another bounced check or missed electric bill. But it's hard to feel empowered in the face of chronic economic chaos. Tariffs are already increasing the prices and availability of essential goods. The situation could become dire when tariffs start to impact access to medications that many Americans with chronic illnesses like me rely on. With my partner recently unemployed, I'm our household's sole earner. We're tracking every penny to make ends meet. To cope, the religious side of me recites the Serenity Prayer: 'God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, and Wisdom to know the difference.' As a sociologist, however, I search for opportunities for individual resistance, no matter how modest, to counter immense social forces. Yes, there's much we can't control. But we can always do something. And lately, I'm discovering that something may be nothing. I've resisted ransacking stores like a doomsday prepper, realizing that I possess a greater power than stuffing my shopping cart: my lifelong frugality. I refuse to let the world's most powerful bully — our president — drive my behavior, nor let billionaires like Mark Cuban or media commentators dictate what I 'should' do, advising me to buy more and buy now. I don't fault anyone's urgency to purchase that new phone, car or early Christmas gifts. But I'm buying as little as possible. And I invite you to join me. In the spirit of never letting a serious crisis go to waste, as former Obama White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel once wisely counseled, we shouldn't squander this crucial opportunity to modify our consumption habits and reassess what we need compared to what we want. We're overdue for a cultural reset when it comes to our dependence on cheap products and trends like fast fashion that pollute our environment by wasting huge amounts of water and energy while emitting greenhouse gases and leaving us choking on plastic. Those TikTok 'haul' videos come with a steep price. Younger me rolled my eyes at calls to dial back consumerism, such as when a decades-older college classmate lamented the difficulty of finding her son sneakers made without overseas exploited labor. But I grew up. Now I'm that older woman worried about the human and environmental cost of inexpensive goods flooding our marketplace. The truth is that some things shouldn't be so cheap. Years ago, I remember feeling mildly horrified at the mountains of toys in my sister's home. I surmised she'd bought her kids everything we lacked growing up. But visiting friends with young children has confirmed that drowning in toys is now the hallmark of a typical middle-class American childhood. Trump has made repeated statements about the number of dolls he thinks girls should have, saying, 'I don't think a beautiful baby girl that's 11 years old needs to have 30 dolls. I think they can have three dolls or four dolls.' Putting aside the ick factor of his patronizing language about gender, morally and logistically, I agree with reducing excess. But that's the only nod I'll give him. Kids will survive with fewer toys. But higher toy prices are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to China, or 'the country that makes all our stuff,' as comedian Stephen Colbert quipped. Imagine the absurd cruelty of telling older adults to survive on only a few of their prescription pills, which are also increasingly manufactured in China. As for the nonessential stuff, I'm proud of my working-class family's survival strategies that I still employ. Growing up, we stretched, scrimped, repaired and saved. Dad scavenged furniture and books from the trash. Mom scoured supermarket sales to feed our family of six, creating a complex shopping list organized around deals from weekly loss leaders. She made everything from after-school snacks to Barbie's outfits. I clumsily sewed my own dresses to wear. Neighborhood mothers donated bags bursting with clothes their kids had outgrown. Thrift stores supplied everything else. I have come to appreciate how this childhood spurred my imagination and creativity. Though we struggled financially, I still learned to be a magician. Thinking and dreaming cost nothing. I conjured images out of thin air and changed reality with the power of my mind. Library books taught me how to be an escape artist, whisking me to faraway worlds. Spending less, not due to necessity but choice, is a quiet yet powerful form of protest. The BuyNothing project, which aims to foster community through a gift economy, promotes a different form of wealth in the connections cultivated among neighbors. Right to repair laws and tool lending libraries can help protect us from obsolescence and forced replacement purchases. We gain more collectively by sharing and giving than accumulating things that clutter our homes and clog our landfills. One of my heroes, photographer Bill Cunningham, famously declined food and drink while working events, explaining, 'Money is the cheapest thing. Liberty is the most expensive.'
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Phil Rosenthal on His Favorite Food Destinations, the Best In-flight Meal of His Life, and How Ray Romano Inspired 'Somebody Feed Phil'
Phil Rosenthal has built a travel career (and following) on his infectious enthusiasm for seeing the world on Somebody Feed Phil, but his first taste of wanderlust didn't come from a passport stamp or a five-star meal—it stemmed from a 7-Eleven in Atlanta. He was just nine years old, sipping on a Slurpee during a family trip, when it hit him: "Wow, I need to travel more." Rosenthal didn't grow up globe-trotting and jet-setting. Instead, his early windows to the world came through pages and screens. "We didn't have a lot of ways to see other worlds; we only saw it on TV, movies, and books," he told Travel + Leisure. Then, at the age of 23, came a life-altering courier flight to Europe. "My first stops were Paris and Florence, and that was when my life was changed forever," he recalled. The trip didn't just expand his worldview; it reshaped his priorities. "I knew this is what my extra money is for: to save up for these experiences, to save my money to travel." At the time, he had no idea travel would one day become his job, but the seed was planted, and it would grow in an unexpected place: the writer's room of Everybody Loves Raymond. During a casual conversation with actor Ray Romano, he asked where the actor was going on vacation between seasons. When Rosenthal learned Romano was going to the Jersey Shore, he asked if he had ever been to Europe. The actor hadn't, and said he wasn't interested in something "different." So Rosenthal did what writers do: he turned the moment into an episode. "I said, 'We're doing that episode. I'm going to send you in the show to Italy as you and you're going to come back as me—someone who's excited about traveling.'" It took three years to make the episodes happen, and it was the only time the series filmed abroad. "I saw what I wrote—this character who didn't want to go and is complaining the whole time, and then suddenly gets it—happen to Ray Romano, the person. When this happened 25 years ago, I thought, 'What if I could do this for other people?'" That question became the foundation for Somebody Feed Phil, but the path to turn his vision into a show wasn't a straight one, even with a hit series under his belt. He wrote other sitcoms before fully pivoting to a show that inspires people to travel. "People think I did Raymond and they just gave me a show and whatever I want. No, it took 10 years. Was it worth it? Yes."What's your go-to plane snack? there anything you won't eat on a flight? If you can eat in the lounge or before the flight, I like that better than plane the best in-flight meal you've had? Korean Airlines made a samgye-tang soup, with the whole baby chicken in a pot. I just thought that was as good as a you have a restaurant red flag? If there's a tourist menu, don't go your favorite food souvenir? Parmesan Reggiano. You can vacuum seal it. I love a food Rosenthal, travel doesn't require luxury—it just requires action. And his advice is straightforward and simple: don't wait. "Go and don't put it off. You're never going to be as young as you are right now. So go while everything still works," he told T+L. "I tell young people all the time that you don't have to have a lot of money. You just got to get there. You can stay on a friend's couch, you can stay in a youth hostel. Doesn't matter; you're there. And just being there, meaning anywhere else on Earth, is everything." His ethos is that travel isn't just a personal journey, but rather an opportunity to quietly shift the world's perspective. "You make the world a little better because you represent where you're from, and people get to see this is what, you know, a real American looks like. Forget the news. If you're a half-decent person, you're spreading a little bit more love in the world. And what you get back is invaluable, because it literally changes your perspective on life, and that's something you bring home with you." Now, Somebody Feed Phil is returning to Netflix, and the season 8 itinerary takes viewers to destinations like Amsterdam; Tbilisi, Georgia; Sydney and Adelaide in Australia; Manila, Philippines; Las Vegas; Boston; and Guatemala. The Guatemala episode, in particular, holds deeply personal value for Rosenthal. "Guatemala is one place I never thought about going, but we had a nanny from there. She would make us little dishes from there that were always delicious. So when the idea of doing Guatemala came up, I said, 'Let's bring Claudia home.' We brought her with us. That's one of my favorite episodes because she's part of the family." Beyond the personal connection, he was blown away by the food scene. "You think you know what the cuisine is going to be like. And then it's really surprising. The young people are doing kind of modern takes on the authentic Indigenous foods. It's like nothing I ever had; it's really great." Another standout this season? Spain's culinary gem: San Sebastián in the Basque Country. "It's so gorgeous, and the food culture seems to have everything." As for his all-time favorite episode, Rosenthal doesn't hesitate to mention the challenge and fulfillment of filming in his hometown, New York City. "I was very nervous to do New York because everyone's done it. It's been more represented than maybe every other city in the world, because it's in every TV show and every movie. So how do I do the definitive New York? I realized I can't. But I can do my New York—and that turns out to be the key, always, you do what means the most to you." The episode includes one of his favorite scenes: going to his parents' apartment. When the cameras aren't rolling, Rosenthal finds himself returning to tried-and-true destinations (London, Paris, Japan, and Spain, to name a few), though the age-old travel dilemma remains. "The more I travel, the more I fall in love with places. So you want to revisit the places you love, but you also realize, 'I gotta see the rest of the world.' Who knows what I'm missing? So what I usually try to do is—if it's my own vacation—a place I love with another place I haven't been." When asked about standout food cities, Rosenthal is quick to spotlight Bangkok. "The city has some of the best food I've ever had in my life. Some of the best things I ever ate were in Thailand." Among those unforgettable bites is a $1 bowl of khao soi, the meal he said he still thinks about from his travels in Chiang Mai. The Northern Thai curry noodle soup is typically made with a coconut-based broth, a protein like chicken or beef, and topped with crispy noodles and pickled mustard greens. As for food cities that don't get the culinary credit they deserve, Rosenthal offered up two surprising answers: Orlando and Las Vegas. "They're similar in that they both have these giant tourist attractions—The Strip and Disney World—that were built and maintained by immigrants over many decades. These immigrants came and set up their communities around the big tourist attraction on the outskirts. So they have a fabulous Chinatown, Thai towns, and Indian restaurants—these are microcosms of America, which is made up by immigrants. So yes, there are great restaurants on The Strip and some fun places to eat in Disney World but the real Magic Kingdom is the real world outside. No one thinks of these cities as great food destinations, but they are." Rosenthal's golden rule for travel is not to overplan. He credits these unscripted moments, whether chance encounters or local recommendations, as the key to unforgettable travel experiences. "Leave some room in your schedule, as we do when we make the show, for serendipity, for stuff to happen," he said. Of course, a little research still goes a long way. When looking for restaurants, Rosenthal keeps it simple. "I Google 'best restaurants in Chiang Mai,' and then I don't go by just one review. I look at all the reviews, I start cross-referencing and note the same places start popping up in all the lists. And we have such resources now, like people who blog and Instagram. Instagram is a little dangerous because sometimes you're thinking that the most photographed thing is the best, and it's not. So you can't just go by that." (For the show, though, he credits his production company in New York and their team of fixers around the globe.) And as for the bottomless meals Rosenthal appears to devour on screen, it's not quite what it looks like. "A lot of people think that I ate all that stuff in one day, and it looks like, 'Oh, my God, he eats so much.' But we film for a week and that scene is probably all I ate that day. And if I looked excited, it's because it's the only meal I've had." The show's popularity has taken Rosenthal on the road with his live show, where he gives fans a behind-the-scenes look at his global adventures. And he's doing exactly what he set out to do as a nine-year-old with a Slurpee: see the world—and bring the rest of us along for the ride. Read the original article on Travel & Leisure
