Food news antipasto

After 17 years, Top Chef host Padma Lakshmi announced that she was leaving the Bravo TV series. In a tweet, Padma said that “After much soul searching, I have made the difficult decision to leave Top Chef. Having completed a glorious 20th season as host and executive producer, I am extremely proud to have been part of building such a successful show.”

Have you ever wondered about the origination of weird food names that have little to no connection with the food itself (such as “sh*t on a shingle” or “devils on horseback”)? So has Eater’s Amy McCarthy, who writes about the stories behind bizarre food names.

Supermarket giant Asda will be taking over ownership of the Leon restaurant chain as part of a merger between the retailer and its sister company, EG Group. Both are owned by the billionaire Issa brothers and private equity group TDR Capital. EG Group bought the Leon chain in April 2021. Stuart Rose, chair of Asda, said: “Asda’s acquisition of EG UK and Ireland will create a consumer champion like the UK has never seen.

Before the GBBO became a must-watch program for bakers, a yearly competition for title of best baker in the US had been ongoing for decades: The Pillsbury Bake-Off (the reason the US version of the show isn’t the Great American Bake Off). While the recipes in the Pillsbury contest are decidedly more low-brow than the impressive bakes on GBBO, the Bake Off can be seen as the precursor to this and other reality cooking shows. “The Bake-Off foreshadowed our global obsession with reality TV cooking competitions like Top Chef and Cake Wars and influenced today’s time-saving recipe “hacks” that prioritize fewer steps and greater convenience,” says Taste’s Adam Reiner.

As we announced yesterday in our post about the James Beard Cookbook Award winners, Pati Jinich was the host of the event. She’s had a busy week it seems, because Epicurious recently talked to Pati and got the lowdown on the celebrated television personality and author’s top five books she can’t live (or cook) without.