Food news antipasto

With every season come seasonal flavors of products ranging from drinks to chips/crisps to candies. It seems like food companies try to outdo each other with the new flavors and that is not always for the better, says The Guardian’s Jay Rayner. He calls out wacky holiday flavors, asking “has anyone ever really felt more Christmassy because Walkers have released their special edition brussels sprouts flavour crisps? That’s crisps, which taste of cabbage. By design. It’s not just a dreadful idea. It’s bad manners.”

Holiday cookie baking season is well under way. If you are having trouble finding inspiration for what to make, try The Washington Post’s Holiday Cookie generator. It features their favorite cookie recipes, which you can narrow down by ingredient, nutrition, whether they are decorated, and more to come up with the perfect cookie. Jenny’s earlier post shares links to loads of cookie recipes with this article in particular that links to many newspaper cookie contest recipes.

The Fifth Annual Readable Feast Festival is holding its virtual Cookbook Awards Ceremony on December 9, 2020. The Readable Feast is an annual culinary book festival designed to celebrate and support New England’s deep and talented pool of writers, cookbook authors, editors and chefs, and connect them with the reading public. You can register to attend the virtual ceremony (it is free to anyone), and you can also vote for the People’s Choice Award.

In the “solving a problem you didn’t know existed” category, the latest viral video involves an ingenious way to cut a celebration cake: using wineglasses. Each person uses his or her wineglass to “slice” off a piece of cake, and eats it right out of the glass. Pros: everyone gets the size they want, and people who don’t like loads of frosting can wait until the end and get a piece from the center. Cons: you have to eat the cake out of a wineglass, which I expect might be a bit awkward.

If you are a fan of culinary travel programs, we have exciting news. Bobby Flay and Giada De Laurentiis are pairing up to produce a new show for Discovery+ that will be centered on Italy. Simply titled Bobby and Giada in Italy, the program premieres on January 4, 2021. That is also the day that Discovery+ becomes available to the public. For $4.99 a month, you’ll be able to view shows from HGTV, Food Network, TLC, Animal Planet, and more.

Smitten Kitchen’s Deb Perelman recently sat down with The New Yorker’s Hannah Goldfield for a wide-ranging interview. The topics range from Perelman’s impetus to start a blog in 2006, her Thanksgiving philosophy (and how it is different this year), her pandemic cravings, and whether she ever gets sick of cooking (spoiler alert: “Oh, my God, all the time.”).

Photo of Do-almost-anything vanilla cookie dough from Everyday Dorie at The Washington Post by Dorie Greenspan