Food news antipasto

We start the weekly recap with a bit of sad news. One of New England’s preeminent chefs, Jasper White, has died at the age of 69. White is credited with elevating the cuisine of Boston and the broader region by pairing fine dining techniques with local ingredients. Named best chef in the Northeast in the first-ever national James Beard Foundation awards, White mentored a generation of chefs in New England, including Todd English, Gordon Hamersley, Barbara Lynch, and Chris Schlesinger.

Michael Ruhlman recently polled several of the top chefs and food writers in the US, including Thomas Keller, Eric Ripert, and Dan Barber, and asked them what cookbook mattered most to them. To Ruhlman’s surprise, Keller listed Vincent Price’s A Treasury of Great Recipes as one of his favorites. The chef included that tome because it was the very first cookbook he owned, a gift from his mother. Each chef had a different book (or books) on their list, and it was an interesting peek into what matters most for the chefs. There were few professional/culinary school books mentioned, which was comforting to learn.

Le Creuset quietly released three new stoneware pieces, and they have been selling like hotcakes despite the lowkey drop. The three cocottes are shaped like fruit: strawberry, blueberry, and raspberry to be precise. Each has a 14-ounce capacity and all contain a lid and small handles. While I think they are cute, I’m struggling to think of what I would make in them, so I will be giving these a pass. (Blueberry and raspberry are sold out but you can be informed when they are available by entering your email at the links above.)

Earlier this month, Le Creuset released their latest color for spring/summer – peche. This lovely peach colored would make any table shine.

One of the most ubiquitous kitchen tasks is chopping meats and vegetables, which requires a good knife and the proper cutting surface. There are numerous styles and materials to choose from when selecting a cutting board, so Serious Eats compiled a list of the six best cutting boards to make your decision easier. They looked at both high-end and budget wooden and plastic boards, plus carving boards and charcuterie boards. My 17-year-old Boos board is still going strong, despite a scorch from placing it too close to a gas stove and years of near daily use. It has a couple of small cracks at the ends, but I plan to keep using it until it falls apart.

Since we recently mentioned festival foods on the EYB blog, it seems fitting to switch it up with a discussion of food festivals. BBC Good Food has compiled a list of the best food festivals in England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. The article provides the location. dates, costs (if any), and what you can expect to find at each event. There are festivals every month from now until October.

Australian restaurant legend Kylie Kwong has announced that she is closing her restaurant Lucky Kwong and is exiting the restaurant business altogether. The news comes after other closures by high-profile Sydney chefs including Tetsuya Wakuda and Josh and Julie Niland. Kwong referenced the “challenges” of the industry but her Instagram post announcing the departure was mostly upbeat. She said she  would continue her passion for “food, art, culture and connection”, as well as her work with First Nations communities.

Have you heard of the “tradwife” trend? Short for “traditional wife”, the tradwife influencer is almost always a young, white woman of some means who posts carefully curated videos extolling the virtues of cooking, cleaning, and raising children for her husband, who is the primary breadwinner. The videos often show the women in flowery dresses, working in a pristinely clean kitchen, creating everything from scratch and lovingly serving it to their families. Eater’s Amy McCarthy decided to try being a “tradwife” for a weekend, and it did not go exactly as planned. McCarthy notes that “the sense of obligation that tradwife thinking demands is crushing. It is truly never-ending, thankless, and totally uncompensated work, and there is real harm in glamorizing the idea of it, whether or not that’s what creators…intend.”