Food news antipasto

There is hardly a news article that doesn’t mention the coronavirus pandemic, even in the world of food. Most are informational, some are alarming, and a few are uplifting. We’ll start this week’s review with one of the uplifting stories. An elderly woman with Alzheimer’s was saddened because she couldn’t go grocery shopping, one of her favorite activities. So her son created a ‘supermarket’ at home, and then took his mom shopping.

If you’ve fallen into a cooking rut and want more inspiration, you might want to break out by using ingredients you don’t normally have on hand. Spontaneous trips to various supermarkets and food stores are not in the cards right now, but you can find many items via mail order. Eater has a guide to mail order resources for almost any cuisine you can imagine.

Keeping children entertained during an extended home stay can be a challenge. One way to hold their interest is by baking something with them. BBC Good Food has five great cookie recipes that are well-suited for this task. The recipes are simple yet delicious, and have many steps that even younger kids can do.

Cooking in lockdown can be difficult, especially if you don’t have a huge larder filled with exotic ingredients. The good news is that some of the world’s best food can be made with a few simple ingredients. Marcella Hazan is one of the best authors who practiced this aesthetic. Many of her recipes deliver fantastic flavors that belie their sparse ingredient lists. Food & Wine focuses on three of these recipes, including the revered tomato sauce with onion and butter pictured above.