Ashlie D. Stevens, Salon

When I was finally face-to-face with The Butcher — a caricature of a man with a meat cleaver tattoo and a Bob Belcher mustache — I asked if he had any necks for purchase.

"What's that sweetheart? Necks?" he shouted over the din of customers chatting and meat grinders whirring. "Waddya need 'em for? Your dog?"

I had a recipe that called for them, I replied. ...

Kimberly Guilfoyle, the former advisor to President Donald Trump's failed re-election campaign who later become engaged to his eldest son, is hawking steaks for a meat delivery service whose Better Business Bureau (BBB) accreditation has been revoked. In online reviews, customers allege that the curated meat boxes from Good Ranchers, which may cost hundreds of dollars, are not only a "rip off" but also sometimes never arrive.

On May 15, Guilfoyle uploaded a video of herself standing over a smoking indoor grill, flipping thin cuts with little visible marbling over the flames. "I'm here with these beautiful steaks from goodranchers.com," she says. "And this is the way you show your family you love them — by buying this meat that is born and raised here in the United States."

Guilfoyle continues by claiming "85% of the meat that they sell in stores today is not even from the United States." That statement is inaccurate; according to the Department of Agriculture, only 8 to 12% of the beef sold in the US comes from foreign sources. (Guilfoyle may be referring to grass-fed beef, of which 75 to 80% is imported, though often processed in the US.) ...

In 1960, three years before the publication of Betty Friedan's seminal feminist text "The Feminine Mystique," Peg Bracken published her own book. It began like this: "Some women, it is said, like to cook. This book is not for them."

The aptly named "I Hate to Cook Book" was built on convenience foods — crushed cornflakes, frozen vegetables, powdered soup mixes and Spam. During an age when the United States' culinary godfather James Beard was ascending as an evangelist of sorts for "fresh, wholesome, American ingredients," Bracken's book was subversive — and it was successful for it. As the New York Times reported in the wake of Bracken's death in 2007, more than 3 million copies of the "I Hate to Cook Book" had been sold in various editions.

In the foreword to a re-release of the book, Bracken's daughter, Johanna, wrote that her mother's book was "written in a time when women were expected to have full, delicious meals on the table for their families every night" and offered women "who didn't revel in this obligation an alternative: quick, simple meals that took minimal effort but would still satisfy." ...

In a moment that feels like it was pulled from an episode of "Atlanta," a Juneteenth soul food festival in Arkansas was canceled as quickly as it was unveiled after word spread that all of the "featured hosts" for the event were white.

On Tuesday, a Twitter user shared an image of a poster for the event, with the caption: "Somebody has to explain this to me."

The June 17 event, which had been scheduled to take place at the Little Rock War Memorial Stadium, promised "3 floors of food from some of Arkansas' top restaurants and caterers." It also advertised three featured hosts: Rex Nelson, the senior editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette; Heather Baker, the president and publisher of AY Media Group; and David Bazzel, an Arkansas radio and TV personality. All three individuals are white. ...

A new two-minute short film about coming out, collaboratively produced by Oreo and PFLAG, has predictably gotten under the skin of conservatives. Already, Greg Kelly and Ben Shapiro are among the right-wing talking heads vowing to boycott "gay cookies" following Oreo's public display of LGBTQ allyship.

"The Note," which was directed by Alice Wu ("Saving Face" and "The Half of It"), depicts a young Chinese-American man practicing a coming-out speech before a few close family members. Before the young man shares his truth with his grandmother, his mom slips him a note. "She might be my mother," it reads, "but you are my son."

The video ends with a message for viewers to pay it forward. "Coming out doesn't happen just once," it says. "Be a lifelong ally."...