What should you eat on Juneteenth?

Plus, a new dad ponders Father's Day [View in browser]( [Bloomberg]( Hi! [Chris Rovzar]( here, I’m the editor of Bloomberg Pursuits. You can find me at [@rovzar]( on Twitter and [@crovzar]( on Instagram. This week, I’m so proud of a feature put together by Pursuits photography editor Evan Ortiz and food editor Kate Krader, which looks at dining traditions—decades-old, or just getting started—[that honor the Juneteenth holiday](. Celebrations, after all, become traditions in no small part because of the food we share. So Kate and Evan gathered Black chefs around the country who are honoring the holiday with dishes that speak to their own cultural heritage—and the shared experience of being Black in America. Freddie Williams, a private chef in the Galveston area, has listened to many stories about what happened on that day, June 19, 1865, after people heard the announcement that freed the last remaining enslaved Americans. Ope Amosu, the chef-owner at ChopnBlok in Houston, will be serving honey bean coconut curry, with black-eyed peas and prawns, plus Liberian-style collard greens and kale on Juneteenth. Photographer: Arturo Olmos for Bloomberg Businessweek “What you hear is the amount of food people made,” Williams says. “Grandma lit up the grill, and someone got a hog, and then there was smoked ham from the hocks to the butt.” Williams says people still smoke hogs and cook skillets of black-eyed peas and hot water cornbread. “So many of these families were enslaved, they didn’t have massive homes, so they had backyard celebrations,” he says. “That’s what we still do.” Felicia Mayden, the executive pastry chef at the Emily Hotel in Chicago, will be making a strawberry poke cake in honor of the 7-Up cakes her family used to make on big occasions. Mayden’s strawberry poke cake has jam injected into the yellow layers to add a little something extra, the way her grandmother would slip 7-Up into batter when she was growing up. Photographer: Paul Octavious for Bloomberg Businessweek “My grandmother is from Mississippi, she moved to Chicago in the ’70s,” says Mayden. “We always had a 7UP cake at celebrations. If you have something flavored, you had a little more extra money to pay for it.” This year, Mayden is taking the holiday off from work, and going to a cookout with her cake—and her son. “I have a 5 ½-year-old child. I want to make sure he knows, that our future knows, that it’s important to us. Not just African Americans, but what the date means for all of us.” What is Father’s Day, anyway? I work at Pursuits, but my most important job is to be a father; this year I’ll celebrate my second-ever Father’s Day. Being a dad is the great joy of my life. Every morning, when I wake up with my daughter, I think to myself: How is this possible? How did I get to be so lucky, to have this incredible tiny human who is mine, and I am hers? It’s like I’m a lamp, and she’s my plug, and ever since she’s been here, my light’s been turned on. That said, I really do not get Father’s Day. 22 ideas for what to get the father figure in your life—it’s not too late! Illustrator: Tomi Um There’s a lot of reasons for this. For one, my household is a two-dad one, so Father’s Day just kind of feels like… “day,” to us. And of course, my toddler is too young to understand the holiday, make us gifts, or prepare us breakfast in bed—although I’m frankly waiting impatiently for the last. She’s not the only one who likes Eggo waffles. Plus, I already have a birthday, where people give me stuff. Why do I need this other day? And then one of my mom friends asked me: “So, how does Father’s Day work in a gay family? How do you have a day where everyone does whatever you want? You need two Father’s Days!” This spoke to me. I could make people… do stuff? We could all do… my things? A dinner party at your place—but cooked by a private chef—is a treat for any parent. An Australian startup called Gathar, just entering the US, will help you do just that. Photographer: Jasmin Sleeman When you become a parent, your time and possessions aren’t really yours any more. Your things end up squished into the margins of life: TV shows watched after the kids go to bed, gadgets placed on a high shelf where they can’t be reached, hobbies put on the backburner until the young ones go to summer camp… in eight years. So I got interested in the idea of Dad’s Stuff. Not physical items, necessarily. But the things that dads, and all kinds of parents, want to do just for themselves. So for the 2022 Bloomberg Pursuits Father’s Day Gift Guide, [we asked 22 dads all over the world]( what they wanted. And the answers were a joy: they ranged from [a soft cooler from Yeti]((requested by a dad of two in London) to [tennis lessons from a pro]( (on the to-do list of a recently retired dad), and “six hours by myself.” That last one was a plea from a dad in Ohio, but honestly, isn’t that what we all want sometimes? A portable phone charger from Belkin is a GREAT gift for your parents, especially if they are retired. What is it about being retired that always makes people so panicked about their phone running out of batteries? Photographer: Wenting Gu for Bloomberg Businessweek Happy Juneteenth from all of us at Pursuits, and happy Father’s Day! The real luxuries… This idea of things that are special just to you really gets to the heart of what luxury is all about, for me. It’s not about something that costs a lot of money. Although we cover lots of fancy things here at Pursuits, I myself don’t own an expensive watch. I don’t buy designer clothes. I drive a small SUV that has a carseat in the back and is encrusted with shards of Pepperidge Farm Cheddar Goldfish. I have never, ever done [a “caviar bump.”]( We’re about to enter a difficult economic time, and[just as we did during the worst days of the pandemic](, it’s important to remember that a luxury can be anything that makes you happy. Time with your friends is a luxury. Amazing takeout dumplings are a luxury. A cooler you can carry to take drinks to a picnic is a luxury. Traveling somewhere beautiful with your family is a luxury! Six hours by yourself, even, is a luxury. Here are some recent stories we’ve done that might help broaden your view of what luxury can be. - Why not try some [delicious non-alcoholic drinks]( at your next summer party, and give your body a break? - Lettuce blow your mind: [you can grill salad](! - More [Americans are camping than ever before](. And it’s not as rough as it used to be. - As sushi prices soar in NYC, [here are the best omakase joints](where a meal is under $100. - [Cannoli are taking over the dessert world](. Get into them. - Here’s [what most people get wrong about birding](, the hot travel trend. Next week, get your pulse up for Pursuits deputy editor [Jim Gaddy](mailto:jgaddy@bloomberg.net?subject=I have a question), who is going to talk about fitness, golf, basketball, hockey, and more. Send him your questions [over on Twitter](. Reader questions! What are your thoughts on lab-grown diamonds? Oooooeeeeee!! This is a hot topic. We first [talked to our readers about lab-grown diamonds in 2018](, and by then there were already a group of startups trying disrupt the centuries-old mined-diamond industry with stones that were physically identical, just grown by scientists. Leonardo DiCaprio was in the business! Penelope Cruz had created a collection of jewelry for Swarovski! And that was about when De Beers, the diamond giant who coined the phrase “a diamond is forever,” announced that even they would be getting in on the game. Diamonds manufactured by Pure Grown. Photographer: Jamie Chung for Bloomberg Businessweek With their [Lightbox]( line of lab-grown diamonds, De Beers flooded the market with small stones that were sold for a lower price per carat than what the startups were offering, which undercut these upstart rivals and set the standard that lab-growns were cheaper stock than mined diamonds. De Beers’ attitude is, basically, synthetic diamonds are fine on inexpensive jewelry, but when you are going to propose, are you really going to do it with something that was created by technicians a few months ago? Or are you going to do it with a “real” diamond, which was made by the forces of the Earth a billion years ago. I’ve heard reps say this, and admittedly it’s a good line. But it’s also baloney. Lab-made diamonds allow for cool innovation, too, like the case inserts and all-diamond crown of this TAG Heuer Carrera Plasma watch. Source: Hodinkee No one is looking down at their engagement ring and thinking, “This was forged a billion years ago in the Earth’s crust.” They’re thinking, “This is beautiful, and someone who loves me bought it for me because they want to be with me for the rest of their life.” It’s exactly what I said above about luxury being what’s important to you. This isn’t Lord of the Rings, mined stones don’t have some magical powers. That’s why I think it’s great that Kay Jewelers and Jared both have lines of lab-grown jewelry and engagement rings. [If you want to invest in jewelry](, certainly, historic mined gems and pieces by world-famous houses like Cartier, Tiffany, Bulgari, and Van Cleef & Arpels are a better bet right now. But if you want something beautiful that you can actually afford, and means something to you? Please do not hesitate to buy lab-grown. We shot these earrings from Bulgari’s Barocko collection in 2020, and I loved the artwork so much I have a print of it on my daughter’s wall. I realize this will cause problems when she’s older. Photographer: Frank Frances Studio What do you see as the best investments in luxury items for the future? We write a lot about investing in luxury, [like the aforementioned jewelry](, [watches](, and [classic cars](. It’s something we keep a close eye on, and recently Credit Suisse came out with their [annual report on collectibles](. Basically, they say that watches and jewelry tend to be safe investments, with low volatility and solid but not huge returns. Art tends to fluctuate with the economy and can have huge returns but is also much more volatile. Fine wines and classic cars are moderately volatile but usually show strong growth. And [luxury bags]( offer the best risk-reward proposition. A chapel painted by the artists Sol Lewitt and David Trimlett, in exchange for a case of Barolo. Photographer: Cub Barrett What's the best wine region to visit that’s not Napa, Bordeaux, or Burgundy? This is tough because one of my favorite trips I’ve ever taken [was with friends to Burgundy](. But luckily there are so many wonderful wine regions. I took my honeymoon in Piedmont and Tuscany and both are simply mind-blowingly beautiful. I suppose Tuscany’s the more famous choice, so [I’ll recommend Piedmont](. Stay at the fantastic [Villa Tiboldi](, right among the vines, and explore the beautiful towns and vineyards of Barolo, Bra, and Alba. Then go spend a couple of nights in bustling Saluzzo at the [San Giovanni Resort](, which is in a former monastery and is one of my favorite places I’ve ever stayed. You once wrote a story about going to Prince Edward Island. Will you ever get there? [I wrote that essay]( at the beginning of the pandemic, when we were doing [a series of stories that we called our “Daydreams.”]( They were all about the trips we wanted to take when travel was safe again, the future ones we fantasized about when things got too dark in our current world. I talked about how both my husband and I both grew up loving the Anne of Green Gables books, which were all about the adventures of a rambunctious, brave, adventurous girl who lived on Prince Edward Island with her adoptive family. I still haven’t gone, but I really want to take a road trip there. Green Gables National Park in Cavendish, PEI. Photographer: Wolfgang Kaehler/LightRocket I think, now that I have my own rambunctious, brave, adventurous little girl, I’ll wait until she’s old enough to appreciate it. And then we’ll all go as a family. It can be for Father’s Day, because it’s something both me and my husband have always wanted to do. But it’ll be for her, too, because I know I’ll teach her to love those books. And then something that was once my thing will become our thing, to do together. That, to me, is the ultimate luxury. One last thing! Caroline Cassini with her 1948 MG TC. Photographer: Joyce Lee/Bloomberg We recently started a series of [columns]( by Hannah Elliott called “How’d You Get That Car?” In them, Hannah interviews collectors about their favorite classic automobiles. This week, [she talks to Caroline Cassini](, the US head of [Market]([ by Bonhams](, on how she came to posses her wonderful MG convertible. It’s a great story, and I hope you’ll follow the series. And while you’re here, give those icons below a click to keep up with Bloomberg Pursuits as a whole. Follow Us Like getting this newsletter? [Subscribe to Bloomberg.com]( for unlimited access to trusted, data-driven journalism and subscriber-only insights. 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