Food news antipasto

Molly Yeh, an EYB Member favorite author, branched out from her cookbook writing in 2018 with a series Girl Meets Farm. This week we learned that Yeh recently inked an exclusive two-year deal with Food Network for additional episodes of the Midwest-inspired cooking show. Production is set to begin in March.

This Tuesday is the date for Mardi Gras also known as Fat Tuesday, in New Orleans. These days the celebration extends far beyond the confines of that city, and one of the food traditions for Mardi Gras is king cake. Epicurious brings us the history of king cake, explaining how it became “carnival royalty” in New Orleans.

Chef Michel Roux Jr. is still looking for a table decoration that went missing a few weeks ago during a charity dinner honoring his late father, Albert Roux. It was a recycled cutlery frog that is part of a larger collection of ornate animals that Roux has made especially for his restaurant. “This particular frog I think I purchased from [the sculptor] probably around 30 years ago. These sculptures are getting pretty antique as well and very precious. It’s obviously not just the value that’s been lost; it’s also sentimental.”

If you are headed to the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas next month, you might want to check out a discussion by Chef José Andrés happening on 11 March. He will be speaking about his charity, World Central Kitchen, which travels to areas of distress such as natural disaster locations or war zones, to provide meals to those affected by the tragedies.

Pennsylvania Dutch country is a popular tourist destination west of Philadelphia. The region is speckled with Amish communities and you’ll see plenty of horse and buggy transportation if you visit the area. You might also come across a culinary specialty known as Lebanon bologna. Since Pennsylvania Dutch country doesn’t feature Dutch people (the name is a corruption of Deutsch, referring to the region’s German settlers), it isn’t a huge surprise that Lebanon bologna is neither Lebanese nor traditional bologna. It’s a type of cured meat with a unique sour flavor hailing from Lebanon county. To learn more, head over to Gastro Obscura, which takes a deep dive into this unique salami-like creation (one of my favorite cured meats).