Food news antipasto

This week we learned the sad news that chef Michael Chiarello has died at age 61 following a severe allergic reaction that led to anaphylactic shock. The chef hosted shows on PBS, Food Network, Fine Living, and Cooking Channel. He also appeared on Top Chef Masters and was a judge for Top Chef. The partners in his restaurant group said  “In remembrance, we ask that you join us in celebrating his remarkable journey and the incredible impact he had on the world of food, wine, and family by inviting you to share a meal with your family and friends to remind all of us that the bonds forged over a meal are among life’s most precious treasures.”

Canned foods are sometimes derided by serious cooks, but tinned beans, fish, and tomatoes are pantry staples that even top chefs swear by. One frequently overlooked item in the pantheon of quality canned goods, according to The Washington Posts’ Aaron Hutcherson, is evaporated milk. He says this “versatile, understated pantry all-star” is equally useful for sweet and savory applications, and provides a little history about the product for good measure. Evaporated milk is indispensable in dishes like the Perfect flan from Three Many Cooks by Pam Anderson, pictured above.

EYB Member favorite author Diana Henry was recently profiled in The Independent. She spoke with the paper about how recent serious illnesses have changed the way she thinks and cooks. Her long recovery made her reconsider the sacrifices she often made for her work, and she said “I’m not willing to work 14-hour days any more to get books done. I just won’t do it.” Instead she turned her efforts to a revamp of her 2005 release Roast Figs, Sugar Snow: Food to Warm the Soul. In the interview, Diana says she loves snow, even though it only snowed a few times during her childhood in Northern Ireland. If she ever wants to experience loads of it, she’s welcome to come to my Minnesota home during the winter, as we have plenty to go around. (If she times it right she can experience St. Paul’s Winter Carnival.)

Karen Martini’s Melbourne restaurant Hero closed unexpectedly last week. The critically acclaimed restaurant was Martini’s first in Melbourne in 15 years. Operating in the renovated Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI), the restaurant had claimed a spot in Gourmet Traveller’s 2023 Restaurant Guide. The ACMI announcement of the closure didn’t provide a reason, but Martini released a statement that said the restaurant was “currently obtaining legal advice as to our options moving forward including to recover loss and damage occasioned by ACMI’s conduct.” ACMI replied with a statement noting that the restaurant was “unable to meet its legal and financial obligations under the agreement and has accrued significant unpaid debt.”

In an Eater essay called “Who’s afraid of a spatchcocked chicken?”, novelist C Pam Zhang explores the concept of how English words for meat remove the eater from the act of dispatching the animal in question. While she was a student at Cambridge University, Zhang noticed that her hallmates were squeamish about preparing meat as she spatchcocked a chicken in their shared kitchen. “In England, in modern English, a living cow arrives on the plate as “beef,” a calf as “veal,” a sheep as “mutton,” and a pig is transmuted into “pork,” which is also called, prettily, the other white meat,” says Zhang, who viewed these euphemistic words as a “form of hypocrisy.”

The Sydney Morning Herald recently announced the finalists for the SMH Good Food Guide New Restaurant of the Year. The restaurants are Brasserie 1930, Clam Bar and Bistro George, and “they are among more than 40 venues to open between Bent Street and the Circular Quay station this year,” according to the announcement.

In 1992, the United States Department of Agriculture unveiled its “food pyramid”, a graphical representation of how much of certain categories of foods a person should eat as part of a healthy diet. The pyramid has been revised over the years and has been replicated by several other countries. The USDA is still involved in evaluating and promoting nutritional guidelines and has convened a panel of industry experts to help develop them. According to a report by US Right to Know, a government transparency group, almost half of the members of this panel have ties to food giants like Coca-Cola, Nestlé, the National Egg Board, and other industry lobby groups, calling into question the priorities of the members.