Food news antipasto

Does it feel like you’ve been seeing more food cross-branding partnerships lately? It’s not your imagination, food companies are doing collaborations in increasing numbers. One of the latest was Coca-Cola Oreos paired with Oreo-flavored Coke Zero. This follows on the heels of things like Hidden Valley Ranch ice cream and Dr. Pepper Peeps. Are consumers demanding these pop-culture mashups? Eater’s Jaya Saxena says no, bringing us the real reason behind these food collaborations.

Melbourne-based food writer Julia Busuttil Nishimura recently shared cooking advice with Good Food, providing her top five essential tips to improve your cooking. Her first tip really resonated with me, that grocery shopping is as important as the cooking itself. One of my favorite activities is my weekly shop, where I look for the best in-season produce. Julia agrees that shopping seasonally makes sense, saying “There is real joy in cooking a particular ingredient for just a month or two in the year, enjoying it at its best, then saying goodbye to it for another year. Your cooking will be better for it, I promise.” I found her other advice spot on as well. Julia’s most recent cookbook, Good Cooking Every Day: Simple Recipes. Beautiful Menus. All Year Round, was released just a few days ago.

Over at Epicurious, there’s more cooking advice, this time a very specific tip on when and how to skim meat stocks. Whether you need to skim mostly has to do with aesthetics, but the technique can also impact the flavor and especially the texture of your broth. The article provides an explanation of how different cooking methods will influence the development of foam or other ‘impurities’ of your stock, and tells you the best tools to use for skimming.

Yotam Ottolenghi is poised to open his first restaurant outside of the UK. Unfortunately for fans outside of Europe, the location is going to be Geneva Switzerland. Ottolenghi is partnering with Mandarin Oriental hotel for this restaurant, which will “be inspired by the ethos of the London-based restaurant ROVI” featuring a Mediterranean theme. Speaking of Ottolenghi, I recently received my copy of Comfort and am looking forward to digging into it. When I went to add it to my Bookshelf, I noticed that my plea to the US publishers to please give us the UK covers has been heard, and there is an “alternative cover” edition available in the US. However, this knowledge came after I ordered the book from the Ottolenghi UK website and paid for the international FedEx shipping. Oh well, at least it’s a signed copy.

Costco lovers may already be hip to this information, but for those of us who weren’t aware of it, Food & Wine provides us with the lowdown on how to interpret Costco price tags. The ending digits signify different things, with .99 meaning a regular Costco price while .97 indicates clearance items or markdowns specific to that location. Additional signifiers include limited-time promotions or deals on returned items. Besides numbers, watch for the asterisk symbol, also known as the “death star”, which can mean that the item is not likely to be reordered once the remaining stock is sold. If you see that on your favorite item, stock up while you can!