Free for ALL Friday!
It's Free for All Friday!
It’s Free for ALL Friday! Each week I keep track of some of the off-the-path things I've found, and work extra-hard to make sure you never hit a paywall, using my own subscriptions, gift links, and other (legal) hocus-pocus.
A $600 Suckling Pig? Wagyu for All? On Menus, It’s a New Gilded Age
In Manhattan and across the country, restaurants are trotting out ever-pricier dishes and luxury upgrades to meet the demand from affluent diners.
When the term “conspicuous consumption” joined the language during the Gilded Age, it didn’t specifically apply to food. But it certainly does at many of the new restaurants opening in Manhattan’s current gold rush.
At Le Chêne, a cozy new bistro in the West Village where you might expect to find boeuf bourguignon and bouillabaisse, those spots are occupied by a $435 tomahawk steak and a $260 turbot fillet. A lobster roll at Lex Yard, the gleaming new restaurant in the refurbished Waldorf Astoria hotel, is topped with caviar and truffles, and costs $68. At La Grande Boucherie nearby, foresighted diners can advance-order a whole roast suckling pig for the table, for $600.
Around the city, would-be Morgans and Mellons are indulging as never before in old-school luxuries like foie gras, Dover sole and seafood towers, as well as trendy ones like crudo, uni and toro.
“Customers message us, asking what we have that night that’s extraordinary, and never ask the price,” said Alexia Duchêne, the chef at Le Chêne, who pays about $1,000 for each turbot she imports from France. Ms. Duchene said she moved to the United States partly because of the challenges of turning a profit in Europe, where high-quality ingredients are expensive but diners are frugal.
They Get Wheeled on Flights and Miraculously Walk Off. Praise ‘Jetway Jesus.’
Travelers bemoan a rise of able-bodied passengers who game the system to skip the lines; 'That's some good healing right there!'
When Carlos Gomez’s recent flight from Guadalajara was delayed, he asked a gate attendant why. It wasn’t weather or crew shortages. There were 25 wheelchair passengers holding up boarding.
There were no such delays when Gomez’s flight landed. Most of the same passengers stood up without assistance and bounded off toward the baggage claim.
Social media has credited a divine intervention for this sudden return to mobility. An enigmatic “Jetway Jesus” is curing these passengers by the time they land, and the remarkable recovery acts have been dubbed “miracle flights.”
Some people are unafraid to get ahead. They boast about how they’ve found the ultimate travel hack and share the trick.
“Bring your grandma to skip the lines,” advised Raphael Miranda in a TikTok video. The 28-year-old ophthalmology technician from New York said he uses his grandmother as a Fast Pass through the airport. “She walks fine,” he said, “but to move quicker we get her on a wheelchair.”
Every Year, She Thanks the Trooper For the Arrest That Led to Her Sobriety
An Ohio woman has been sober since her 2015 drunk-driving arrest, crediting the trooper who pulled her over for turning her life around.
Kimberly Slavens saw the flashing blue lights in her rearview mirror as she neared her Ohio apartment. She knew she was in trouble: She was returning from a bar after drinking about a half-dozen vodka tonics.
Slavens was charged with operating a vehicle impaired. She cried for the next few days, worried she would go to jail, get fired from her job and lose custody of her teenage son.
“I just felt like I was just completely out of options,” Slavens said. “I didn’t know where to go; I didn’t know where to turn.”
A year later, however, the Ohio State Highway Patrol trooper who arrested Slavens received a thank-you card. It was from Slavens, who wrote that her gratitude for the trooper was “unmeasurable.”
“On Dec 5th, 2015 — you pulled me over for speeding and subsequently arrested me for DUI, blowing a 0.10,” Slavens wrote. “This was my 2nd DUI in 14 months & that night was a wake up call that I needed. Shortly after my arrest, I signed myself into Rehab, admitted to myself & many others that I was an alcoholic & needed help. Today, I celebrate one year of sobriety.”
The card began a tradition of Slavens writing a thank-you note to the trooper, Brett Lee, every Dec. 5.
Slavens celebrated the 10th anniversary of her arrest Friday by telling Lee that she wouldn’t have enjoyed her son’s wedding or bought her first house this year without him. Slavens said she might’ve kept drinking and driving until she hurt herself or another driver.
“I can never express to him how much that one interaction between the two of us just changed the entire trajectory of my life,” said Slavens, 49.
These Moms Are Done Being 'Doormats' for Their Estranged Children
Parents blast adult offspring for cutting them off, drawing tens of thousands of online followers; 'ungrateful little bastard'
One evening last year, Laura Wellington opened her phone, created a TikTok account called “Doormat Mom” and filmed her first post from her porch in Connecticut.
“Were you a really good parent who did the best they could and yet your child has decided to be an ungrateful little bastard as an adult?” she says in the video. “We need to connect here. We need to support each other, and we need to talk about it.”
Welcome to the pissed-off parent pushback.
After years of therapists, psychology influencers and internet chat groups encouraging adult children to cut ties with families they deem harmful or “toxic,” estranged parents are now speaking out. But rather than beg for forgiveness and reconciliation, many deliver a defiant message:
We weren’t bad parents. This is the kids’ fault. Now, my needs come first.
How I Finally Got Myself to Be an Early-Morning Exerciser
I am not a morning person, and I never have been—well, unless I have to make money.
For years, my start time at my old job was 5 a.m. and, against all odds, I made it in every day. Now, I teach a 6 a.m. spin class twice a week after being moved off the more-tolerable late morning shift. Until a few months ago, though, I was sleeping through every alarm on all the other days, even though I knew I should be getting up and going to the gym early as a solid way to start my day.
It took me a long time, but I have managed to force myself into being the kind of person who is up before the sun and done with my daily exercise routine before my friends are even out of bed. Here’s exactly what I did.
‘Don’s Best Friend’: How Epstein and Trump Bonded Over the Pursuit of Women
This is a very long (7,000-word) New York Times examination of the relationship between President Trump and Jeffrey Epstein, released just before the U.S. Department of Justice will supposedly be forced by law to reveal more of the Epstein files.
For nearly a quarter-century, Donald Trump and his representatives have offered shifting, often contradictory accounts of his relationship with Mr. Epstein. Closely scrutinized since Mr. Epstein died in a Manhattan jail cell during Mr. Trump’s first term, their friendship — and questions about what the president knew of Mr. Epstein’s abuses — now threatens to consume his second one.
Do You Remember What Happened in 2025? Test Your Knowledge
I got 17 out of 25: a few right that I had thought were wrong, and a few wrong that I probably should have known.
Suckling pig - honestly, even if I was wealthy, I couldn't enjoy a meal that cost that much. Too much need and hunger in the world to spend $1K on one meal. Give me good old fashioned diner food and a check in the mail to a local food pantry!
Jetway Jesus - people continue to amaze (but not delight) me. The DUI story following is more like it. How wonderful to be grateful and to express it to the trooper! I now express my gratitude to you, Bill, for something I look forward to reading each weekday!