Gourmet Food Shops of Today | The New Yorker

"Opened in 1977 on the Upper West Side, the Silver Palate became an archetype of the gourmet food shop; as I read in Sheila Lukins’s New York Times obituary (she was a co-founder), these shops arose to accommodate city‑dwelling professional women (and some hapless bachelors) who wanted good food but lacked the time to produce it. At the Silver Palate you could buy curried squash soup or lemon chicken to reheat and plate as you wished, and its cookbook, The Silver Palate Cookbook (published in 1982 and since selling millions of copies), helped popularize a prepared‑food style and ingredient standards that changed home cooking." - Hannah Goldfield