Food news antipasto

Gordon Ramsay plans to open 14 restaurants in Thailand after signing a deal with Tanachira Group, the lifestyle company behind jewelry brand Pandora. It is part of an international expansion push for the chef’s group, which runs 37 UK restaurants and 35 additional eateries worldwide.

If you describe someone as being very “granola”, most people understand the characteristics you are talking about. However, the same doesn’t hold true for other breakfast cereals or snacks – no one is very “corn flakes” or very “cheese puffs”. So how did granola become associated with a certain personality? Over at Salon, Mary Elizabeth Williams traces the history of granola and explains how it entered the vernacular as a description of certain traits.

This week Nigel Slater is celebrating his 30th anniversary of writing for the Observer, and in honor of that occasion, he has compiled a list of the top 10 recipes from the past 30 years. His first column published on 26 September, 1993, began with the words “It has been a good week for flavour” and included recipes for damson plums and red peppers.

Cook’s Illustrated alumnus and award-winning cookbook author J. Kenji López-Alt announced a new gig on Instagram earlier this week. He has a new column in NYT Cooking where he will answer tricky cooking questions. He says he will “be pulling out all the stops to get you answers that are thorough, accurate, and most of all, useful. Whether is consulting experts, diving into written literature and research, or designing and conducting brand new tests in the kitchen, there is no question too big or too small.” You can email questions to askkenji@nytimes.com.

A large percentage of supermarket produce ends up in the trash bin, contributing to the food waste problem. One possible solution to this problem could be on the horizon, however. A recent study from the University of California-San Diego found that by using dynamic pricing, retailers could dramatically reduce food waste. It’s the same principle that hotels, airlines, and ride-sharing services employ, and it’s different than just marking things down that are short-dated. “It’s gradual discounts throughout the shelf life of the product,” says Robert Sanders, the study’s author.

As cookbook enthusiasts, EYB Members likely prefer to cook at home using fresh, unprocessed ingredients. But even those of us who do most of our cooking from scratch rely on some convenience or shortcut foods. Unless you are a careful reader of ingredient lists, you might be surprised to learn that ultra-processed foods are lurking in places that you might not expect.

Stanley Tucci recently launched a new line of cookware in a collaboration with Williams-Sonoma. I think the world doesn’t need another line of celebrity branded pots and pans, but Epicurious’ Emily Farris thinks otherwise, at least for one piece of the collection. She fell in love with an oversized sauté pan and is singing its praises.