Food news antipasto

Peeking inside celebrities’ kitchens and pantries is a source of fascination for people. It may be so popular because it’s a way to relate to the celebrities (they’re just like me because they have [insert your favorite item] in their fridge!) or perhaps because it offers a glimpse into a lifestyle few of us can afford (think Kim Kardashian’s enormous and perfectly curated pantry). Gwyneth Paltrow recently posted a video showing her refrigerator (she admits she organized it first). The linked article makes much ado about how many types of milk she has, but I frankly found that to be the most relatable thing about the refrigerator’s contents. Or maybe I’m just weird as I have milk, half-and-half, heavy cream, buttermilk, and oat milk in my fridge right now.

Arepas are an iconic Venezuelan dish that have not achieved widespread adoption outside that country until relatively recently (we reported about it in late 2014). A wave of restaurants and food trucks by the large Venezuelan diaspora have elevated the profile of the tasty cornmeal cakes. This prompted Irena Stein to write an in-depth cookbook about the subject titled The Arepa: Classic & contemporary recipes for Venezuela’s daily bread. “The book was intended to introduce the first comprehensive arepa cookbook to the world,” she says, adding that it was “time to give the arepa the honor that it deserves.”

One of our Members alerted us to an unusual Facebook group that has garnered a lot of attention for its focus on one food: cheese toast. Retiree Scott Kominkiewicz found himself with a lot of time on his hands so he decided to perfect cheese toasts and created a Facebook group called Cheese Toast Love. It had a small number of members until Kominkiewicz’s daughter posted about the club in a popular forum. Suddenly the group ballooned to more than 16,000 members, and Kominkiewicz has hosted meetups in several US states.

Speaking of cheese, we turn to America’s Test Kitchen, which posits that people who think they don’t like blue cheese just haven’t found the right one yet. They provide a listing of the top 14 widely-available blue cheeses along with tasting notes for each. I had to include this ranking for two reasons: first, I fit the description of someone who didn’t like blue cheese until I found one that matched my palate and second, they selected a cheese made in the city where I live (St. Pete’s Select), which really is a lovely product.

Restaurants continue to struggle with attracting and keeping employees. The challenge isn’t just for mom-and-pop operations or even large chains – it’s affecting a broad spectrum of companies, including the catering arm of the UK’s Houses of Parliament. There, restaurants have had to limit the number of hours they are open to accommodate the employee shortage.

People who are working in restaurants are facing their own challenges. Morale isn’t great, working conditions continue to lag other sectors, the work is physically demanding, and the hours aren’t great. Diners should be appreciative of the hard work by chefs, cooks and front of house workers but they often do not behave in a manner that indicates such appreciation. The Guardian recently queried several chefs, restaurant owners and sommeliers about the actions by diners that really irritate them.

One of the irksome issues that chefs complain about are no-shows, which is why more and more restaurants are asking for reservation fees at the time of booking. Often these fees are a deposit that gets credited to the final bill, but some restaurants are charging the fee as an added cost of dining in that establishment.

Would you like to be a ‘pizza influencer’? What if I told you the salary could be as high as $110,000 USD per year? The app Slice, which is an ordering app for independent pizzerias, is looking to hire a pizza influencer who will create TikTok videos, Instagram reels, and other social media content that “celebrates pizza, pizzeria owners, and pizza eaters alike.” A love for pizza is a must as is being comfortable in front of a camera. Another requirement is living in a large US city (preferably New York).