Prospects on the open labour market

When trade tensions with China flared last year, many companies sought refuge in a country with a long, stable relationship with the United States: Mexico. Now, that alternative for production and materials may also be in jeopardy with President Trump’s threat to impose escalating tariffs on imports from Mexico, aimed at forcing action on illegal immigration. In the short term, the tariffs would mean lower profits for American importers and higher prices for American consumers on everything from avocados to Volkswagens. In the long run, they could force companies to reconsider the continent-spanning supply chains that have made North America one of the world’s most interconnected economies. That disruption, experts warn, could be far more damaging to the United States economy than the cost of tariffs themselves. The United States imported more than $345 billion in goods from Mexico last year, and shipped $265 billion the other way. But if anything, those numbers understate the … [Read more...] about As Trade War Spreads to Mexico, Companies Lose a Safe Harbor

On a trip to New York about a decade ago, Benoît Astier de Villatte and Ivan Pericoli stopped at ABC Carpet & Home in Manhattan. The store was among the first to stock ceramics from Astier de Villatte, the line the men co-founded in Paris in 1996. They were admiring how some of their dishes were displayed when a salesclerk told them the pieces were copies of those used by Marie Antoinette. “No, they’re not!” Mr. Pericoli, 52, recalled saying to the clerk, who was unaware that the men who seemed to be browsing had designed the plates. While the plates were not replicas of any belonging to the French queen, their look was informed by tastes of France’s former ruling class, at least loosely. In designing the ceramics, Mr. Pericoli said he and Mr. Astier de Villatte, 60, are inspired by “anything from the past, any period, starting from the Neolithic.” The two, who met after each had graduated from the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, drew on their time as students in creating the … [Read more...] about Are You an Astier Person?

On a cold Tuesday afternoon in January, four women made their way down Guernsey Street in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. They had just finished lunch at Acre , a Japanese cafe and shop, where they had been served bento boxes and green tea, and were headed to 50 Norman , a new warehouse space nearby that housed three other Japanese businesses. The women, all Japanese immigrants, had driven in from New Jersey, at the advice of their friend, Chieko Koie, who had already dined at Acre and was interested in visiting the warehouse after seeing it on Instagram. The group’s first stop at 50 Norman was Dashi Okume , which sells dashi, a soup base typically made from ingredients like dried fish, seaweed and mushrooms. The business, which opened in Tokyo in 1871, offers various ready-made dashi powder blends, as well as bins of dried ingredients for customers to make their own. “For Japanese people, dashi is really important for making food,” Ms. Koie said. “It’s like a piece of home here in … [Read more...] about Sake. Dashi. Soba Shops: Japanese Chic Takes Root in Brooklyn

MINNEAPOLIS — Pot roast was one of the first dishes the chef Gavin Kaysen learned to cook, if you can call it cooking. The recipe he used as a teenager growing up in Bloomington, Minn., a Twin Cities suburb, required no culinary training. “I’d just Crock-Pot it,” Mr. Kaysen said. He then mimicked the act of pouring packaged beef stock into a slow cooker and grinned. Mr. Kaysen had just slid a more technically advanced pot roast into the oven in the open kitchen at Spoon and Stable , the restaurant he opened here in late 2014 to much anticipation. “I can’t wait for that gravy,” he said. Northeasterners cook Yankee pot roast . Jewish brisket and most beef daube in New Orleans are pot roast by other names. But to many who grew up in America’s heartland, pot roast tastes and smells of home. Comprising little more than a large cut of beef (chuck roast is common), onions, root vegetables and braising liquid, pot roast has none of the meddling influence of haute cuisine. … [Read more...] about Coming Home to Pot Roast

See the article in its original context from June 5, 1988 Section Page Buy Reprints View on timesmachine TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. About the Archive This is a digitized version of an article from The Times’s print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them. Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions. THE PHILOSOPHER GEORGE SANTAYANA was once asked which books young people should read. It didn't matter, he replied, as long as they read the same ones. Generations of Eng. lit. majors in American colleges followed his advice. You started with the Bible, moved briskly through Beowulf and Chaucer, Shakespeare and Milton, the 18th-century novel, the Romantics, a few big American books like … [Read more...] about ON CAMPUS: THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS