Forked: A New Standard for American Dining

"Restaurants are political environments. You're shoulder-to-shoulder with immigrants. You're at one of the nexuses of income inequality. Your hourly wage is even less than the minimum wage. You're working for tips. You're getting sexually harassed. It was a very galvanizing political experience for me." -Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

"No one has done more to move forward the rights of food and restaurant workers than Saru Jayaraman. This is the story of the next steps in the movement, as told by the woman who is creating them." -Mark Bittman

A restaurant critic can tell you about the chef. A menu can tell you about the farm-sourced ingredients. Now who's going to tell you about the people preparing your meal?

From James Beard Leadership Award winner Saru Jayaraman, Forked is an enlightening examination of what we don't talk about when we talk about restaurants: Is the server tolerating sexual harassment because tips are her only income? Is the line cook working through a case of stomach flu because he doesn't get paid sick days? Is the busser not being promoted because he speaks with an accent?

As most corporate restaurants continue to set low standards for worker wages and benefits, a new class of chefs and restaurateurs is working to foster sustainability in their food and their employees. Forked offers an insider's view of the highest -- and lowest -- scoring restaurants for worker pay and benefits in each sector of the restaurant industry, and with it, a new way of thinking about how and where we eat.