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hels.bsky.social
Helen Rosner
@hels.bsky.social
71K followers 530 following 3.9K posts
“Zizek if he was a woman and loved sandwiches”

New Yorker staff writer, dept. of mastication

It’s always Free Palestine 🍉
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hels.bsky.social
Helen Rosner @hels.bsky.social · Nov 12
Hello! I write a weekly column for the New Yorker (mostly restaurant reviews, sometimes other vibey stuff) called The Food Scene. It’s also conveniently available as an email—the whole article, in full, no paywall!—which you can sign up for here:
Sign up for The Food Scene newsletter
Helen Rosner on what, where, and how to eat.
www.newyorker.com
Reposted by Helen Rosner
daralind.bsky.social
I can’t stress this enough. The state of 4th Amendment law is that the cops can’t force you to type in a passcode but they can force you to swipe your finger or present your face. Never stop using passcodes/passwords to unlock your devices. And consider additional code to unlock Signal.
runasand.bsky.social Runa Sandvik @runasand.bsky.social · 11h
The FBI was able to access Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson's Signal messages because she used Signal on her work laptop. The laptop accepted Touch ID for authentication, meaning the agents were allowed to require her to unlock it. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
February 1, 2026 at 12:08 AM
Reposted by Helen Rosner
mayor.nyc.gov
Corporations will not exploit working people in NYC.

Uber Eats, Fantuan & HungryPanda broke the law — shortchanging workers while raking in profits.

Today, we secured $5M+ in restitution for 49,000 delivery workers.

Let this be a warning: steal wages, face the consequences.
Mayor Mamdani surrounded by worker justice organizers Worker justice organizers Los deliveristas unidos sign
January 30, 2026 at 7:55 PM
Reposted by Helen Rosner
markagee.bsky.social
The Epstein emails should really end the debate over whether society should have billionaires. "Do you want there to be a class of people so powerful they can fuck your kids and no one will even try to do anything" seems like an easy sell if everyone in politics wasn't trying to get on their payroll
January 30, 2026 at 11:21 PM
hels.bsky.social
Again and again and again. Minneapolis is the West Bank, is Northern Ireland, is French Algeria, is Kenya under British Rule.
adamserwer.bsky.social Adam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social · 3d
We need to talk about the rise of "smol bean fascism" where you have all the guns and the immunity but the really scary people are the ones with whistles and phone cameras and they're giving you generational trauma and ptsd by filming you killing people for no reason
January 28, 2026 at 10:24 PM
Reposted by Helen Rosner
jayrosen.bsky.social
If you have not yet read @adamserwer.bsky.social on Minnesotans' heroics, you are going to feel way better when you do. He went there. He talked to the people doing the work. Then he thought about it and produced something rare. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0... [gift link]
January 28, 2026 at 10:11 PM
hels.bsky.social
Rode the elevator yesterday with a DoorDasher delivering a paper bag of Taco Bell and. Listen. I am devoted to Taco Bell. But it is 20° and the streets are snow walled and you have this man fully risking death so you can reheat a thirty-four-dollar six-dollar crunchwrap in your microwave
January 28, 2026 at 4:27 PM
Reposted by Helen Rosner
clairewillett.bsky.social
People did similar coverage for Renee Good and I do absolutely believe that it makes a difference. It reaches a lot of low-info voters who don’t consume much political media, and it isn’t framed as political news coverage. it’s framed, correctly, as coverage of an innocent person’s murder
eliza7777777thstar.bsky.social Eliza 7777777🌟 @eliza7777777thstar.bsky.social · 7d
This is the kind of write up we see for victims of airline crashes or other high profile deaths.

Thank you, @peoplemag.bsky.social for not participating in gaslighting & character assassination.
People Top Stories, SUBSCRIBE 三今C ⑧ Federal Agent Reportedly Said 'Boo Hoo' After Minneapolis Man Was Shot Dead, Mayor Asks... 2 Exclusive Man Killed by Officers in Minneapolis Wasn't 'Someone Who Would Pick a Fight, High School Friend Recalls (Exclusive) Rory Shefchek tells PEOPLE that Alex Pretti " should be remembered as a happy-go-lucky, nice guy" By Nicholas Rice and Wendy Grossman Kantor Published on January 24, 2026 09:55PM EST • LEAVE A COMMENT 10:22 People SUBSCRIBE be remembered as a happy-go-lucky, nice guy" By Nicholas Rice and Wendy Grossman Kantor! Published on January 24, 2026 09:55PM EST - LEAVE A COMMENT Credit : va.gov NEED TO KNOW • A high school friend of the man who was shot and killed by federal officers in Minneapolis says he was "a good dude" who "should be remembered as a happy-go-lucky, nice guy" • Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse, was shot dead by US Border Patrol
January 25, 2026 at 5:34 AM
Reposted by Helen Rosner
danielharper.bsky.social
The fact that every right winger with influence screams "who is paying for all of this" tells you exactly how awash in cash they all are, and how much they rely on that to keep their movement afloat.
jeffsharlet.bsky.social Jeff Sharlet @jeffsharlet.bsky.social · 7d
James O'Keefe says he's never seen anything so organized as the anti-ICE movement, observers--he seems to think this term is code--everywhere he goes. Who is paying for it??? he demands to know. It's like he can't even imagine people caring for one another.
January 25, 2026 at 11:06 AM
Reposted by Helen Rosner
derzquist.net
One of the best organizers I know in the Twin Cities has a great line, "We can't always take away the hurt, but we can take away the alone."
January 25, 2026 at 4:49 AM
hels.bsky.social
Hey you know that uncomfortable, existentially reorienting realization you might be having right now that America is harmful, has always been harmful, is built on harm — and you are in & of it, even as you might choose to rage against it?
January 25, 2026 at 1:17 AM
hels.bsky.social
It finally happened. My 3yo asked me “why does the sun shine?” and I responded by conversationally reciting the entire lyrics of the TMBG song
January 24, 2026 at 2:02 AM
Reposted by Helen Rosner
margaret.bsky.social
Essentially, what stops abductions is when crowds outnumber the masked kidnappers. When people aggressively follow ICE with whistles and horns, crowds are ready to show up. If they show up fast enough, ICE leaves and a family is not broken. (People here understand the stakes).
January 23, 2026 at 7:20 PM
Reposted by Helen Rosner
emayfarris.bsky.social
I’m not much for religion but if I were, if a line of clergy flew in to freezing weather to line up and oppose me while singing songs of faith, I might be thinking “are we the baddies?”
January 23, 2026 at 5:09 PM
hels.bsky.social
I think Al Gore would be fun to be friends with
January 21, 2026 at 8:59 PM
Reposted by Helen Rosner
greatdismal.bsky.social
I think we’ve got better and more culturally-varied street food than I could have imagined, cool jackets galore, and drugs that make us think we’re really fast and strong before they kill us.
lauren.rotatingsandwiches.com lauren @lauren.rotatingsandwiches.com · 11d
we're getting all the downsides of cyberpunk (social alienation, ruthless hyper capitalism, digital mass surveillance state) but none of the promised upsides (cheap street food, cool jackets, super drugs that make you really fast and strong before they kill you)
January 20, 2026 at 10:02 PM
hels.bsky.social
I want to bully this pseudosciencey antifeminist sauce company so badly
WE CAN ALL AGREE THAT FOOO IS JUST A VEHICLE FOR SAUCE, RIGHT? The thing is, most tasty sauces suck. They're loaded with hidden additives, "natural" flavors (whatever that means), crappy fillers, and inflammatory oils. You're told to use a sad little teaspoon or skip it altogether. (TRAGIC.) Enter She's the Sauce. NO SAUCE? NO THANKS. Our She-EO and Sauce Boss, Nicole, started She's the Sauce after getting fed up with being told to use her sauce sparingly. While she understood that eating mindfully for her food sensitivities and PCOS was ridiculously important, she also knew that sauce was a non-negotiable. So she decided to create something better: condiments that don't compromise your health or need for bangin' flavor.
January 20, 2026 at 8:23 PM
hels.bsky.social
Girl if your mid-priced perfume is so rarefied and exclusive and sold-out and infinite-waitlisted and precious why are you advertising it on goddamn instagram
January 19, 2026 at 11:21 PM
hels.bsky.social
Hello I have visited the pit that emits oracular vapors of restaurant trend prophesy and have had a vision that fried fish sandwiches (upscaleified Filets-o-Fish et al) are on the cusp of being a huge huge thing and are only gonna get huger
January 19, 2026 at 9:47 PM
Reposted by Helen Rosner
cascoinfoundation.org
This almost made me cry lol
hels.bsky.social Helen Rosner @hels.bsky.social · 13d
Sometimes someone writes to my intermittent @newyorker.com advice column and sets me up in a manner resembling Payton alley-ooping Kent www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...
THE FOOD SCENE HELEN, HELP ME: ON THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF CHEESEBURGERS A New Yorker food critic answers questions about burger toppings, beef tallow, and the subjectivity of memory. By Helen Rosner January 18, 2026 How do you approach the sweetness of pickle relish on a cheeseburger? Does it complement or compete with ketchup? There was a legendary place in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that used to do mustard, relish, and ketchup, and I can't for the life of me decide if I loved it, or if I just loved being there in the middle of the night eating it. — Brian K., N.Y. C. Honestly, I've never really considered pickle relish to be one of the hamburger's totemic toppings. Sliced pickle rounds, certainly; spears on the side, without a doubt. But relish, that finely chopped, neon-hued, marmalade-textured stuff? To me, that's a hot-dog thing-which I mention here not to issue judgment but rather to illustrate how distinct my own personal associations are from your own. Herein, I think, lies the answer to your real question, which is not actually about the sweetness of the relish. The question of what toppings make a burger great, while we're eating it, is both technical and trivial, having to do with the nature of the patty and the bun, the mood of the establishment serving it, the sensibilities of the person eating it, even the time of day or night or life. Regarding the substance of the burger itself, the same accoutrements that might show a slim, lacey-edged smash patty in its best light—a little slick of mustard, a few circles of raw onion, and a melty cap of American cheese, say-might be too flimsy against the brawny heft of a half-pound bar burger that can sustain degrees of sweetness, richness, and piquancy (your barbecue sauces, your secondary meats, your nontraditional cheeses) that would suffocate a smaller patty. But what you're really asking, I think, is what makes a burger great not as it's being eaten but as it lives on in memory. Or, more to the point, how can we know that our memories of happiness are true? I spend an inordinate portion of my professional life creeping around in my own psyche, untangling knots of nostalgia and pleasure and, god, so many emotions, not least self-love and self-loathing, all of them unavoidable colorants of any bite I take. I give myself the task of locating some sort of unassailable, uncontaminated truth: that this dish of dumplings, or that cocktail, or such-and-such restaurant is actually, inarguably, wonderful. It's impossible, of course, and more than a little absurd, but it's so irresistible, isn't it, to attempt to discharge the burden of our own experience? Was that burger you ate from the Tasty, in Harvard Square? I think it must have been, and it's been nearly thirty years since that perfect little sandwich shop closed forever. I imagine it was a simple construction: a bun, a patty, a slice of cheese, ketchup, mustard, relish. But you created it, just as much as the white-capped guy standing at the grill did. The mouth and brain and cascade of sensations were yours. There is no true burger per se, lurking behind your experience of it; it didn't become the burger you ate until you ate it. It's a ludicrous idea, this notion of an objective culinary truth, but it's even more ludicrous that we're so quick to doubt our own taste in pursuit of it. Just as I go looking for proof that my rapture— or, at times, misery—at a given meal has nothing at all to do with me, here you are wondering whether you should append an asterisk to your reminiscence of a long-ago cheeseburger, one that you could never eat again, even if the Tasty were still up and running. Why question a recollection of sweetness, even of the pickle variety? You did love the relish. And you love the person you see in your memory: a young man, awake in the middle of the night, a burger topped with relish in his hands.
January 19, 2026 at 3:06 PM
Reposted by Helen Rosner
edenrobins.bsky.social
Digging into the phenomenology of cheeseburgers is the sort of thing that keeps me coming back to the internet, despite everything
hels.bsky.social Helen Rosner @hels.bsky.social · 13d
Sometimes someone writes to my intermittent @newyorker.com advice column and sets me up in a manner resembling Payton alley-ooping Kent www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...
THE FOOD SCENE HELEN, HELP ME: ON THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF CHEESEBURGERS A New Yorker food critic answers questions about burger toppings, beef tallow, and the subjectivity of memory. By Helen Rosner January 18, 2026 How do you approach the sweetness of pickle relish on a cheeseburger? Does it complement or compete with ketchup? There was a legendary place in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that used to do mustard, relish, and ketchup, and I can't for the life of me decide if I loved it, or if I just loved being there in the middle of the night eating it. — Brian K., N.Y. C. Honestly, I've never really considered pickle relish to be one of the hamburger's totemic toppings. Sliced pickle rounds, certainly; spears on the side, without a doubt. But relish, that finely chopped, neon-hued, marmalade-textured stuff? To me, that's a hot-dog thing-which I mention here not to issue judgment but rather to illustrate how distinct my own personal associations are from your own. Herein, I think, lies the answer to your real question, which is not actually about the sweetness of the relish. The question of what toppings make a burger great, while we're eating it, is both technical and trivial, having to do with the nature of the patty and the bun, the mood of the establishment serving it, the sensibilities of the person eating it, even the time of day or night or life. Regarding the substance of the burger itself, the same accoutrements that might show a slim, lacey-edged smash patty in its best light—a little slick of mustard, a few circles of raw onion, and a melty cap of American cheese, say-might be too flimsy against the brawny heft of a half-pound bar burger that can sustain degrees of sweetness, richness, and piquancy (your barbecue sauces, your secondary meats, your nontraditional cheeses) that would suffocate a smaller patty. But what you're really asking, I think, is what makes a burger great not as it's being eaten but as it lives on in memory. Or, more to the point, how can we know that our memories of happiness are true? I spend an inordinate portion of my professional life creeping around in my own psyche, untangling knots of nostalgia and pleasure and, god, so many emotions, not least self-love and self-loathing, all of them unavoidable colorants of any bite I take. I give myself the task of locating some sort of unassailable, uncontaminated truth: that this dish of dumplings, or that cocktail, or such-and-such restaurant is actually, inarguably, wonderful. It's impossible, of course, and more than a little absurd, but it's so irresistible, isn't it, to attempt to discharge the burden of our own experience? Was that burger you ate from the Tasty, in Harvard Square? I think it must have been, and it's been nearly thirty years since that perfect little sandwich shop closed forever. I imagine it was a simple construction: a bun, a patty, a slice of cheese, ketchup, mustard, relish. But you created it, just as much as the white-capped guy standing at the grill did. The mouth and brain and cascade of sensations were yours. There is no true burger per se, lurking behind your experience of it; it didn't become the burger you ate until you ate it. It's a ludicrous idea, this notion of an objective culinary truth, but it's even more ludicrous that we're so quick to doubt our own taste in pursuit of it. Just as I go looking for proof that my rapture— or, at times, misery—at a given meal has nothing at all to do with me, here you are wondering whether you should append an asterisk to your reminiscence of a long-ago cheeseburger, one that you could never eat again, even if the Tasty were still up and running. Why question a recollection of sweetness, even of the pickle variety? You did love the relish. And you love the person you see in your memory: a young man, awake in the middle of the night, a burger topped with relish in his hands.
January 19, 2026 at 12:37 AM
hels.bsky.social
Sometimes someone writes to my intermittent @newyorker.com advice column and sets me up in a manner resembling Payton alley-ooping Kent www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...
THE FOOD SCENE HELEN, HELP ME: ON THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF CHEESEBURGERS A New Yorker food critic answers questions about burger toppings, beef tallow, and the subjectivity of memory. By Helen Rosner January 18, 2026 How do you approach the sweetness of pickle relish on a cheeseburger? Does it complement or compete with ketchup? There was a legendary place in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that used to do mustard, relish, and ketchup, and I can't for the life of me decide if I loved it, or if I just loved being there in the middle of the night eating it. — Brian K., N.Y. C. Honestly, I've never really considered pickle relish to be one of the hamburger's totemic toppings. Sliced pickle rounds, certainly; spears on the side, without a doubt. But relish, that finely chopped, neon-hued, marmalade-textured stuff? To me, that's a hot-dog thing-which I mention here not to issue judgment but rather to illustrate how distinct my own personal associations are from your own. Herein, I think, lies the answer to your real question, which is not actually about the sweetness of the relish. The question of what toppings make a burger great, while we're eating it, is both technical and trivial, having to do with the nature of the patty and the bun, the mood of the establishment serving it, the sensibilities of the person eating it, even the time of day or night or life. Regarding the substance of the burger itself, the same accoutrements that might show a slim, lacey-edged smash patty in its best light—a little slick of mustard, a few circles of raw onion, and a melty cap of American cheese, say-might be too flimsy against the brawny heft of a half-pound bar burger that can sustain degrees of sweetness, richness, and piquancy (your barbecue sauces, your secondary meats, your nontraditional cheeses) that would suffocate a smaller patty. But what you're really asking, I think, is what makes a burger great not as it's being eaten but as it lives on in memory. Or, more to the point, how can we know that our memories of happiness are true? I spend an inordinate portion of my professional life creeping around in my own psyche, untangling knots of nostalgia and pleasure and, god, so many emotions, not least self-love and self-loathing, all of them unavoidable colorants of any bite I take. I give myself the task of locating some sort of unassailable, uncontaminated truth: that this dish of dumplings, or that cocktail, or such-and-such restaurant is actually, inarguably, wonderful. It's impossible, of course, and more than a little absurd, but it's so irresistible, isn't it, to attempt to discharge the burden of our own experience? Was that burger you ate from the Tasty, in Harvard Square? I think it must have been, and it's been nearly thirty years since that perfect little sandwich shop closed forever. I imagine it was a simple construction: a bun, a patty, a slice of cheese, ketchup, mustard, relish. But you created it, just as much as the white-capped guy standing at the grill did. The mouth and brain and cascade of sensations were yours. There is no true burger per se, lurking behind your experience of it; it didn't become the burger you ate until you ate it. It's a ludicrous idea, this notion of an objective culinary truth, but it's even more ludicrous that we're so quick to doubt our own taste in pursuit of it. Just as I go looking for proof that my rapture— or, at times, misery—at a given meal has nothing at all to do with me, here you are wondering whether you should append an asterisk to your reminiscence of a long-ago cheeseburger, one that you could never eat again, even if the Tasty were still up and running. Why question a recollection of sweetness, even of the pickle variety? You did love the relish. And you love the person you see in your memory: a young man, awake in the middle of the night, a burger topped with relish in his hands.
January 19, 2026 at 12:30 AM
Reposted by Helen Rosner
helensonner.bsky.social
Helen Rosner channels Wallace Stevens.

"There is no true burger per se, lurking behind your experience of it; it didn’t become the burger you ate until you ate it." @hels.bsky.social

"It was only a glass because he looked in it. It was nothing he could be told." share.google/FE7tie7mSKtL...
hels.bsky.social Helen Rosner @hels.bsky.social · 13d
Ha ha ha I made myself cry about cheeseburgers www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...
THE FOOD SCENE HELEN, HELP ME: ON THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF CHEESEBURGERS A New Yorker food critic answers questions about burger toppings, beef tallow, and the subjectivity of memory. By Helen Rosner January 18, 2026
January 18, 2026 at 5:09 PM
hels.bsky.social
Ha ha ha I made myself cry about cheeseburgers www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...
THE FOOD SCENE HELEN, HELP ME: ON THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF CHEESEBURGERS A New Yorker food critic answers questions about burger toppings, beef tallow, and the subjectivity of memory. By Helen Rosner January 18, 2026
January 18, 2026 at 4:34 PM
Reposted by Helen Rosner
jonathanhoefler.bsky.social
While the pasty incels who work the federal agencies continue to churn out feeble, bloodless AI pastiches of Axis propaganda, here’s how a living breathing artist powerfully invokes design history. This is by illustrator Emily K in South Philly, a free poster-sized download on her website: →
January 15, 2026 at 7:57 PM
hels.bsky.social
The unstoppable force of unconscious spoken nickname evolution has led to me, these days, calling my daughter “Bunnicula”
January 15, 2026 at 12:39 AM