I LIKE TO COOK. It's how I show love," Pierce Abernathy tells me while deftly slicing an eggplant. I try not to swoon, staring at his hands. I mean... his knife skills. "I was going to butcher a whole fish for you. I thought that might be a little too much," he says.
We're in Abernathy's full-floor Crown Heights apartment-high ceilings, pocket doors, big fireplaces (he says it once belonged to a fur trader)-making a couscous salad. With a message. This particular couscous we'd be eating, he informs me, comes from a women's farming collective in Palestine. "Good grains!" he chirps.
Pretty much everyone I know has a crush on the 29-year-old Instagram chef and model these days. Scroll his socials-he has 454,000 followers on Instagram and 3.5 million likes on Tik Tok (where his handle is @pierzza for some reason) and it's easy to fall into a fantasy of this wholesome boy with long, center-parted locks and wire-rimmed glasses serving you breakfast in bed in his plaid robe and bringing you flowers from the farmers' market. Watching him at home washing a cucumber or licking labneh off his pinkie finger, I almost let out a completely inappropriate "Yes, chef," though to be honest, his version of kitchen life couldn't be further from the sweaty scramble seen on The Bear. For Abernathy, it all seems to come together without much fuss or mess.
But we don't follow this sample-size kid from Kentucky to learn how to cook, exactly. It's revealing that he calls his content his "journal entries." The videos he posts are more ASMR than instructional and don't get bogged down in tedious step-by-steps. Click on one and you'll see his pretty face, then his pretty farm-fresh ingredients, and... seconds later, a pretty little snack.
This story is from the April 22 – May 05, 2024 edition of New York magazine.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the April 22 – May 05, 2024 edition of New York magazine.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
War of Attrition
In the Kendrick-vs.-Drake battle, no one wins.
More Than Mad
Grief drives a fantastic installment in George Miller's series.
We've Hit Peak Theater
Nobody knows how to succeed on Broadway anymore.
Small Plates, Big Checks
Why restaurant prices feel so high—and why they’re going to stay that way.
Nobody Wants to Mow the Lawn at the Beach
Breck and Georgia Eisner's Amagansett retreat gives the children a cottage of their own.
HOW TO CRIMINALIZE a PROTEST
In Atlanta, the George Floyd demonstrations of four years ago are being used as evidence of illegal gang activity-and the activists of today could be next.
CHESS BRAT
It was the biggest cheating scandal in chess history. Now, cleared of the most serious accusations, Hans Niemann is gunning for a world title-and doubling down on his opponent-trashing, hotel-wrecking, money-flaunting ways.
MIRIAM ADELSON'S UNFINISHED BUSINESS
One of Israel's most ardent supporters, she could transform the presidential election if she gives to Trump like she did in 2020.
ON THE CAMPAIGN TRIAL
Trump is running for president while bumping into the past at a Manhattan criminal courthouse.
Lord Maurice Saatchi
The British advertising executive is thoroughly enjoying the rollout for his new book, Orgasm.