Welcome to Open Tab, a weekly roundup of the news, gossip, and stories that have stayed open in my tabs all week. Last time we covered the Cornell bear butchery saga.
Welcome back to Open Tab. While the rest of the world waits in lines for frozen yogurt—inexplicably, the latest thing—I am still standing stubbornly by soft-serve. This week on a quick jaunt to Montreal, I found myself double-fisting both a chocolate-blueberry swirl and a cantaloupe cone from Dalmata. Soft-serve swirls from Leo, Caffe Panna, and Hani’s are still on my to-visit list, and every summer without a Ninja Creami moves me closer to buying my own so I can have some whenever I want.
Goop founder Gwyneth Paltrow is celebrating summer by hosting “a private, off-the-record alfresco dinner at her home in honor of Sam Altman” next weekend. I think it’s fair to read this dinner as a ringing endorsement of Altman’s OpenAI despite its many controversies, and its, uh, existential threat to humanity. Although the event was verified, the invite itself seems to have been made using AI, and Paltrow herself responded to all the online kerfuffle by trying to meme herself out of it. Interesting decision! If you’re attending this dinner, do me a favor and write in. I need to know what’s on the menu.
Did you read the long (long!) story on the Major Food Group guys in GQ? More is more, world domination, riches and excess—those were the main points. But when I reported on the MFG trio earlier this year, I was struck by the careful calibration behind that excess. They spoke to me at length about technique and the finer points of service. That kind of thinking is what keeps Carbone (and the many, many other MFG projects) from feeling like a Dave & Busters.
Also in this week’s Open Tab: Jason Kelce comes out as anti-data center in a charmingly weird way, there are blueberries that can kill you, beef prices may finally be too high for American consumers, and the Catskills getaway serving unique, hyper-seasonal fare.
Jason Kelce wants your piss!
This week, in an ad for his beer company, Garage Beer, and in association with Liquid Death, Jason Kelce starred in a video in which he joyfully sang a call to action for his audience to ship their pee to data centers. This kind of marketing gimmick isn’t completely unexpected from Liquid Death, but it’s a bit of a departure for Kelce to be, you know, singing about pee on the internet.
The day after it went live, the video had more than 1.5 million views, and the accompanying pee jars (to send your pee to the data centers, of course) were sold out.
Kelce is not alone in his anti-data center sentiment. In fact, protesting against new construction of data centers (which are used to power AI programs, mostly), is one of the only issues uniting Americans politically. So far, I haven’t read reports of any data centers actually receiving jars of piss, but there’s still time!
These blueberries will kill you
The lettuce is making you sick. Jalapeños pose a risk of salmonella. Now, some blueberries sold at Publix are being recalled due to a risk of E. coli. The FDA recently upgraded this recall to Class 1, which means, according to the agency, that there’s a “reasonable probability” that being exposed to or eating these blueberries “will cause serious adverse health consequences or death.”
Are our food safety mechanisms failing more than usual? First, it’s important to remember that summer temperatures increase the likelihood of pathogens in our food. It’s not that our food safety systems are failing us necessarily, but experts say cuts to federal agencies in charge of inspecting and enforcing food safety procedures could make for weaker food safety standards in the future.
Beef is finally dethroned in America
One thing about Americans? We love beef. But according to reporting from the LA Times, beef sales have shrunk year over year while sales of chicken have continued to grow compared to last year. Part of that has to do with the high price of beef, which, in part, is due to the screwworm issue I wrote about weeks ago. Efforts to contain the screwworm meant the US paused cattle imports from Mexico for more than a year, though they’ll resume later this month, according to the Times.
When will we stop beefing with beef? Experts say it may take a while for beef prices to fall. In the meantime, may I offer you some delightful chicken recipes?
Inside the boutique, ultra-seasonal Piaule
I am spiritually European, by which I mean during the month of August my body and soul yearn to take the entire month off from work. Unfortunately, I am not literally European, which means I am reporting to work throughout the month of August. But reading about Piaule, the small, chic getaway in upstate New York, is the next best thing to taking a full month off. Bon Appétit’s Kate Kassin takes us inside the 24-cabin property serving outstanding locally sourced fare.
Facts Only
* Gwyneth Paltrow is hosting a private dinner for Sam Altman next weekend.
* Jason Kelce appeared in a promotional video for Garage Beer and Liquid Death.
* Kelce's video encouraged viewers to send urine to data centers.
* Pee jars associated with the video sold out after 1.5 million views.
* The FDA issued a Class 1 recall for blueberries sold at Publix due to E. coli risk.
* Beef sales in the US have decreased year-over-year.
* Chicken sales in the US have increased year-over-year.
* US cattle imports from Mexico were paused for over a year due to screwworm issues.
* Cattle imports from Mexico are scheduled to resume later this month.
* Piaule is a 24-cabin property in upstate New York serving locally sourced food.
Executive Summary
Current trends in American consumer habits and public health reflect a period of volatility and shifting preferences. In the food sector, beef is losing market share to chicken, driven largely by high prices and supply chain disruptions caused by screwworm infestations and subsequent import pauses from Mexico. Simultaneously, public health concerns have escalated with a Class 1 FDA recall of blueberries at Publix due to E. coli risks, highlighting potential vulnerabilities in food safety systems exacerbated by seasonal temperatures and federal funding cuts.
Cultural narratives are currently intersecting with technology and infrastructure. High-profile figures are engaging with the AI discourse through divergent methods: while some host private endorsements for industry leaders like Sam Altman, others utilize subversive marketing—such as Jason Kelce's campaign with Liquid Death—to signal opposition to data center expansion. This reflects a broader, rare political consensus against the physical infrastructure required to power generative AI.
Full Take
The strongest version of this narrative is a curated snapshot of "the current moment," juxtaposing the high-society endorsement of AI with the visceral, populist rejection of its infrastructure. It frames the tension between the "curated" life (Gwyneth Paltrow, boutique getaways) and the "raw" reality (E. coli, screwworms, and urine jars).
The root cause of this narrative is the "curator's lens," where disparate events are linked not by causal logic, but by an aesthetic of contemporary chaos. It assumes that the reader finds value in the intersection of prestige and absurdity. This echoes the historical pattern of the "society column," updated for an era of algorithmic anxiety and food insecurity.
The implications suggest a widening gap between the architects of the AI future and the people living with its physical externalities. While the "existential threat" is discussed at dinner parties, the local opposition manifests as a "charmingly weird" prank. This risks trivializing systemic infrastructure concerns by framing them as marketing gimmicks.
Patterns detected: none
Bridge Questions:
1. Does framing infrastructure protest as a "marketing gimmick" undermine the legitimacy of the anti-data center movement?
2. To what extent are food safety failures systemic versus seasonal, and how does the framing of "federal cuts" influence that perception?
Counterstrike Scan:
An influence campaign pushing this narrative would use "chaos-mapping" to link unrelated anxieties (food safety, AI, economic shifts) to create a general sense of instability. The actual content does not match this; it is a personalized newsletter of interests rather than a coordinated psychological operation.