Chorizo at Chipotle; Shonda Rhimes on Ice Cream

Happy Monday. Congratulations on making it through another weekend. Celebrate with a drink or two. In today’s food news:

— In case you still eat at Chipotle, heads up, as of tomorrow there will be a new protein option in stores nationwide: Chorizo first landed on Chipotle’s menu in June in several test markets, and now it will be available for all as of tomorrow. Eater’s critics had some thoughts about the quasi-pork.

— Falling food prices are hurting restaurants nationwide according to several reports. In a new story the New York Times notes the confluence of factors, including shifting social structures, higher restaurant prices, and cheaper groceries on how, why, and how often Americans are dining out today. B. Hudson Riehle, senior vice president of the National Restaurant Association says, “it is still over all an environment where consumers continue to use restaurants, but for the industry, it’s a more moderate growth rate than in the past.”

— D.C.’s new Trump hotel has been vandalized. Eater DC notes that someone spray-painted "Black Lives Matter" and "No Justice No Peace" on the building, which houses a location of the chain BLT Prime.

— Patagonia, the makers of hiking gear and activewear, has just introduced its newest product: A beer called Long Root Ale that promises to — get this — save the world. It’s the first beer to be brewed from Kernza®, a perennial grain grown using regenerative agriculture practices, meaning it’s “grown organically, restores soil biodiversity, sequesters carbon, and grows efficiently without chemical fertilizers or pesticides.”

— Emmy award-winning producer and screenwriter Shonda Rhimes wrote a story for this upcoming issue’s New Yorker titled “My Summer of Scooping Ice Cream.” It’s about women, the workplace, and the power of wardrobe choices. It’s also about ice cream. Here is an excerpt:

That’s the curse of the job—ice cream everywhere. My uniform’s pink-brown-and-white striped shirt was crisp, cheerful, but by the end of each shift it was gummy and streaked with chocolate and pistachio and sorbet and mint chip. The clear plastic gloves didn’t help. Ice cream ran up and down my arms; it slipped inside the gloves; it stuck in the crevices behind my knees. You have not fully lived on this earth until you have tried to wash Pink Bubblegum ice cream out of your cornrows.