"The other day, as I ate a salad that I’d ordered from Yardy, an event-production company started by the twenty-seven-year-old artist, chef, and model DeVonn Francis, my brain kept short-circuiting. Every time I bit into a cube of yellow fruit, dusted with Francis’s riff on Tajín (a Mexican chili-and-lime seasoning powder), I expected pineapple; in fact, it was mellow, sunny-fleshed watermelon. Between the cognitive glitch and the heat of the spice mix—heavy on dehydrated Scotch-bonnet pepper, ubiquitous in West Africa and the Caribbean—it was a dish that reframed my palate as much as it brought me pleasure." - Hannah Goldfield