Food news antipasto

Netflix just released a new documentary about Martha Stewart, and while the octogenarian was involved in the making of the show, she is not pleased with some of the editorial choices made by the director. Martha thought the first half was good but felt like the latter portion of the program spent too much time on her conviction and jail time and portrayed her as too frail. She also wanted Dr. Dre to score the film although the director chose classical music instead.

Do you have a lot of leftover Halloween candy? If so, head over to Eater where Jaya Saxena provides us with instructions on how to turn that bounty into a decadent chocolate glaze for cakes. She says she learned this trick through reading a Cake Doctor book by Anne Byrn that utilized Milky Way candy bars to create a silky, smooth glaze that Saxena says bests any buttercream. Trigger warning: she disparages all buttercreams, saying that “no matter the style, buttercream tastes like nothing.” As they say in the South – them’s fightin’ words. If the idea of chocolate glaze doesn’t excite you, perhaps you might like the Milky Way ice cream from Food Network pictured above.

Saveur’s Jessica Carbone takes us on a journey of food as a narrative device in her story about how dining and drinking can be a plot point in murder mysteries and other crime novels. She provides synopses of a few current books where food plays a major role, including a translation of a Japanese novel about how a woman falls into an affinity with a famous serial killer and food blogger. Carbone also points to older books such as the noir novels by Anthony Bourdain and even some that touch on cannibalism.

Bonfire Night (aka Guy Fawke’s Day) is only a couple of days away, and both Nigel Slater and Yotam Ottolenghi have Bonfire Night recipes in The Guardian this week, with Slater focusing on sausages and potato cakes and Ottolenghi offering hand pies. BBC Good Food also has you covered for this occasion with 27 recipes for Bonfire Night desserts. Likewise, The Telegraph has three “deliciously warming” recipes to complete your celebration.

It seems like the world has gone mad for matcha, with the green drink outselling coffee in many locations. This has led to major matcha suppliers to limit the supply of the powder and of course price hikes are set to follow, with spikes as much as 40% higher than the previous year. While top matcha suppliers note that there is only one high-quality harvest per year so they can’t just ratchet up production, other producers dispute this claim. Maria Mooney, the Sydney, Australia-based director of Grow Green Tea Company and Matcha Matcha, says “There is no shortage of matcha production not only across our farms, but our contracted farms across Japan.” 

In other drink news – do you feel like Starbucks has strayed too far from its coffee roots? If so, you are not alone. Company officials have said that customers have been saying that not only with their words but also their wallets. Same store sales were down 6% and overall sales slumped by about 10% year over year. What does this mean for the giant coffee chain? If you sift through the corporate-speak, it sounds like they plan to simplify the menu and get rid of some of the more esoteric items. If they could learn how to better roast coffee beans that would be nice too (there’s a reason the company’s nickname from some coffee aficionados is Charbucks).