Food news antipasto

This week we learned some sad news from Andy Ricker. Most of his Pok Pok locations are closing due to issues arising from the pandemic. Ricker said that Pok Pok NW, Whiskey Soda Lounge, and both locations of Pok Pok Wing would all be shuttered. He said he did this so that he could focus on potentially reopening the original Pok Pok at some point. In his Instagram post announcing the closures, Ricker noted that even reopening his original location is not a given. In a Twitter thread, Nick Kokonas of The Alinea Group also notes obstacles in opening restaurants with the requirements for Covid-19 testing of staff in addition to other pandemic measures that states have put in place. We can probably expect more of these announcements in the future.

I spent a lot of time earlier this spring putting raised garden beds into our large suburban yard, and it looks like I am not alone in expanding my gardening this year. A recent Gastropod podcast titled Dig for Victory explores the history of urban gardening movements, digs into the science on urban agriculture and dispels myths that surround WWII “Victory” gardens.

Good news for fans of Samin Nosrat’s ‘Home Cooking’ podcast. On Friday she tweeted that she is making four more episodes of the show with Hrishikesh Hirway. If you have a cooking question that you would like to see discussed on the program, you can record a voice memo of it and send it to her via email or you can leave a message at 210-241-COOK.

The bake sale is back – but this time the fundraising is not going to support a school trip or youth sports team. Instead, groups such as Bakers Against Racism are using the bake sale as a vehicle to raise money for political causes. “Bake sales are a form of protest,” says NYC-based pastry chef Natasha Pickowicz. “They are organizational frameworks that can be used to support or enforce certain values and movements.”

More loaves of banana bread have been baked during the pandemic than at any other time in history. Okay I made that up, but baking the common quick bread is definitely a trend. If you have some bananas that are dodgy, but you really don’t want to bake one more loaf, The Guardian has your back. They have ten great ways to use bananas that aren’t banana bread.

Photo of Flour’s famous banana bread from Flour: Spectacular Recipes from Boston’s Flour Bakery + Cafe by Joanne Chang and Christie Matheson