Food news antipasto

We start off the week’s news with a tidbit from Epicurious about one of my favorite KitchenAid mixer attachments. Just like Grace Elkus, I’ve discovered that this tool is perfect for making flaky pie crusts. Although it looks unassuming, it does a great job of cutting cold butter into flour without overheating the butter like a food processor can. It also works well for mashed potatoes and shredding meat.

You’ve probably heard about the benefit of saving your pasta water, which can be used as the liquid in bread dough or soup and is allegedly great in a martini (I haven’t tried it yet so I remain agnostic about this application). But what about your rice water? Eater’s Bettina M gives us the lowdown on why we should also be saving this liquid. She says “rice water is a useful byproduct in both cooking and housekeeping.”

Valentine’s Day is almost here! If you’ve been procrastinating on planning that romantic dinner for your sweetie, check out Yotam Ottolenghi’s Valentine’s Day recipes in The Guardian. He’s got “a dinner to melt the heart” featuring a delightful salad, a seafood soup, and a make ahead chocolate dessert.

Carbonara purists might want to avoid clicking on this next article from The Sydney Morning Herald, which is reporting on the latest internet food debate. Earlier this week The New York Times tweeted a carbonara recipe that includes an unusual ingredient: tomatoes. This caused an immediate uproar, although the recipe actually dates from 2021. When it was first published, the recipe drew a scathing reply by the Italian farmers association.

According to one source, the internet has dubbed a food commercial featuring Ben Affleck as the winner in the unofficial Super Bowl commercial competition. The commercial features Affleck working the Dunkin’ drive thru, and it also sports a cameo from Affleck’s wife Jennifer Lopez. Affleck’s “affinity for Dunkin’ is well-documented”, spurring the creation of many memes last year.