Crypto News: A hat tip to home chefs

Hello, Zijia Song here. Yesterday, I wrapped up my three months' embed with the Pursuits team. Oh man, has it been a wild journey!

Just this week, I went to a festival-like party that closed off two blocks on Madison Avenue for Hermès's biggest store opening. Prior articles had me braving the crowds at a cult backpack pop-up in Time Square, hunting for the city's best vegan restaurants, and unpacking a sliver of the luxury rental market for young Chinese students. I still hear the tinkling of the ice in the glasses of the authors, artists and business executives from a SoHo salon on David Gelles's new book, The Man Who Broke Capitalism.

Bagel and a branded coffee during an early morning press tour of the new Hermès space. Photographer: Zijia Song/Bloomberg

And as I transfer to the legal team, I wouldn't have traded this experience for anything else. My definition of luxury has expanded—it's not just fancy objects, no, but about "maximizing your satisfaction with the limited time we've got," as our deputy editor Justin Ocean said last week.

Now when I think about luxury, even a home-cooked meal counts.

I grew up spoiled by my mom's and grandma's cooking. Every time, after a bite of their green beans pork bun or a spoonful of their potato pork belly stew, my cousin and I would exclaim how well the dishes would sell if they opened their own restaurants.

Even after I came to the US, I'd had the fortune to live with a host family in Minneapolis whose family tradition revolves around homemade meals—Tandoori chicken, grilled turkey burger with poblano pesto aioli, slow cooked spaghetti Bolognese—to name a few.

If you're going to jump on the TikTok butter board trend, follow some top chef tips to make it extra luxurious. Source: Aubrey's Kitchen

But it wasn't until 2015, when my host parents moved to Buffalo, Minnesota, that they started going hard on cooking—including creating a 99-page Google doc full of my host mom Hope's self-tested recipes. They even planted a vegetable garden in the front yard, which now provides much of the house's daily fresh produce.

For someone used to cooking for seven children (including me), Hope often talks about how small her portions are now because the kids have all moved out of the house. So the hospitable family now invites friends and relatives in the neighborhood to dine.

Home chefs with a sharing spirit like Hope are a blessing everywhere—and a business opportunity.

Ever had chicken kelaguen from Guam? Neither had our critic—and he was smitten. Source: Shef

Shef and WoodSpoon are two apps for ordering homemade meals to your doorstep. As Matthew Kronsberg wrote in his recent Bloomberg Businessweek review, they fill in the gaps for chefs who don't have the means or time to open their own business, or for those whose cuisines are too niche to sustain a commercial operation. You can find regional dishes from Guam to Turkey to the North Carolina shore and Udupi in southern India.

Perhaps the best part: the personal touch. Be it stories behind the cooks' beloved cuisine or handwritten notes that often accompany a meal, these biographical sketches "add a human touch missing from typical takeout," Kronsberg writes.

After all this food talk, I'd love to burn some calories mountain biking in Madeira. Photographer: Tiago Sousa

Both services are quickly developing, with ample interest from big-name investors. Perhaps soon, my 36-year-old host brother Brad can use one of the platforms to serve his moist and juicy smoked meat, while saving up to open his own barbecue restaurant. Or the cooks in a food-sharing Facebook group my friend Fanmei belongs to may also share their sheets of lasagnas with the wider Chicago area and not just their neighbors in Hyde Park.

Which all reminds me, travel is another luxury, and I'm overdue for a visit.

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You have you one right? I started one since I joined Pursuits and just added more things to it from the recent stories below.

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This Black-owned, Memphis-based brand makes unorthodox chocolate truffles in flavors like fried chicken and balsamic and blue cheese, as well as edible calendar sets for Christmas and Hanukkah.

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More of the private listening experience type? Focal has the best over-the-ear wired headphones around.

Yep, this is a chair. And it's surprisingly comfortable. Photographer: Sarah Anne Ward for Bloomberg Businessweek

What's the craziest-looking chair you've sat on? I'm sad to report that my wildest chair encounter was merely a pile of beanbags. But in the imagination of top designers, the sky—or rather the floor—is the limit.
People wanting to sell weed and THC legally are getting creative. This cannabis brand out of Mexico City is shaking up the industry by putting women and their wombs first.
Airport chaos, inflation, recession—who cares! Let's travel. Although you may want to consider skipping these four airports.
And Dyson is leaning in on the breathwork craze by offering a gorgeous all-in-one air purifier, humidifier, and fan.

And it will only cost you $940! Photographer: Joyce Lee for Bloomberg Businessweek

Marry now, pay later? No thank you! But that's not stopping couples from embracing Klarna-style weddings, and to me, this sounds like the worst hangover: paying for one giant party months or even years after it happened.
I'm not sure what the standard pay grade is for a 10-year-old to do chores nowadays, but Andres Valencia is surely beating it with his six-figure surrealist-style artworks. (Mom and Dad, I blame your sluggish business acumen.) Paintings by the fifth grader, who's called the "little Picasso" and an "art prodigy," fetched $159,000 at an auction in Hong Kong and hit $230,000 at a charity gala in Capri, Italy.
If you haven't, go see Hadestown on Broadway. I went on a theater spree in September and this show was my absolute favorite. The singing and dancing, along with simple and effective stage design, that threads motifs of "build the wall" and climate change throughout still give me something to chew on today.
Like my thriller-loving colleague Sarah, I'm also looking forward to the Knives Out sequel starring Dave Bautista and Leslie Odom and seeing just what kind of trouble Drax and Aaron Burr can get into.
But until then, pick your poison: something raunchy or something spooky? Trick question—I'm seeing both Bros and Hocus Pocus 2 this weekend.

Here's some answers! Whatever the topic, keep them coming for next week via our Bloomberg Pursuits Instagram and e-mail.

Have luxury goods stores in the UK and Europe changed their prices to reflect the weakened euro/pound?

Yes. We're already seeing that in Rolex watches, which have had a price bump by about 5% in the UK because of the record low British pound against the US dollar. Luxury brands know that there are risks that come with the price gap, which can incentivize resellers and lead to a secondary market where brands can't have direct contact and therefore, build relationships, with customers.

But that adjustment seems almost irrelevant when you look at how much the pound has slumped. And the country's plan to reintroduce tax rebate on goods bought by tourists can boost discounts even more.

That said, the luxury world is driven by exclusivity where demand outstrips supply. So this attractive price arbitrage is likely to be limited on a small scale. Those months- and even years-long Rolex waiting lists aren't going anywhere.

If you're in the market for a watch, have you considered bronze? These Ulysse Nardin, IWC, and Panerai timepieces are pretty with patina. Photographer: Chelsea Kyle for Bloomberg Businessweek

What aspect of luxury were you surprised that you found interesting while on this beat?

Hands down, cars. Living in a city like New York means the subway will get you anywhere, and so my drivers license has been collecting dust at the bottom of my drawer for years. But I've become interested in reading about cars (fancy cars!), thanks to our critic Hannah Elliot.

Reading about luxury cars have broadened conversation topics for me, like being able to talk about legal loopholes for supercar owners or the sports car that was originally based on a video game. It's made me look cool in front of friends being able to identify cars in movies like Top Gun: Maverick.

I'll let you in on the secret: It's a 1973 Porsche 911 S that may be worth more than $200,000. Photographer: Paramount Pictures

Where can I get fancy indoor garden pots?

As a proud owner of four flourishing plants including two pothos and a succulent, I refuse to call myself a plant mom as I consider us in an equal and mutually beneficial relationship.

But if I ever want to send the kids off to college, so to speak, I'm going to spring for some Lechuza self-watering planters. They come in all shapes and sizes and although their rugged plastic, modernist vibe may not scream fancy, plants thrive in them—and they save you worry and time. (The ultimate luxury!) My colleague swears by them and has a 17-foot-tall bird of paradise in his Brooklyn living room as proof.

Why binge-watching bonsai videos is better than meditation. Source: Bonsai Mirai

What are the best luxury restaurants in New York?

Obvious but true—everyone has different ideas about luxury, especially when are sitting down at a restaurant. A three-plus hour meal swimming in wine pairings is heaven for some people, for others a nightmare.

But our food editor Kate Krader points out one place in New York that doesn't get enough attention despite its two Michelin stars: Aska.

"The elegant, spare Scandi dining room located under the Brooklyn Bridge offers a sea of space around its tables," Kate says, "and the outstanding dishes from chef Frederik Berselius taste so fresh as if to sparkle. It's a restaurant you leave feeling refreshed, which is no small thing in NYC."

Each week we're picking reader questions and putting it to our network of experts. So get in touch via AskPursuits@bloomberg.net.