Food news antipasto

Samin Nosrat shared news with her followers: she is moving to Substack with a newsletter called a grain of salt. Nosrat is “looking forward to building a vibrant community focused on cooking, gardening, reading, and general good living” in her new venture. She is also offering a free online cooking class for people who preorder her upcoming book Good Things. (Reminder we have an ever-growing list of Substack newsletters by cookbook authors and food writers.)

Saveur’s Alex Testere recently sat down with chef and author Olia Hercules to discuss her upcoming memoir. The book, which comes out this month in the UK and later this year in the US, is called Strong Roots: A Ukrainian Family Story through War, Exile and Hope. The Saveur article delves into how Hercules brings elements of her family history into the kitchen through plants along with traditional Ukrainian arts and crafts.

Another recent cookbook release, Setting a Place for Us by Hawa Hassan, also explores the themes of war and exile, but in a slightly different way, showing how war can impact a culture’s cuisine and food system. In a podcast earlier this week, Mark Bittman spoke with Hassan about the book and her personal experiences with displacement.

Keeping with the theme of articles that feature authors, we head over to Food and Wine for a discussion of Nigella Lawson’s favorite condiment: Colman’s Mustard. On a re-published episode of the podcast Sporkful, we learn that Lawson loves the condiment so much she keeps a tube of it in her purse. Colman’s Mustard is not like the bottle you keep around for squeezing onto hot dogs and hamburgers, but is spicy and sharp due to its blend of brown and yellow mustard seeds and unique production method.

Self-checkouts are becoming more popular at retailers around the world, especially in grocery stores. Supermarkets have started adding high-tech features to the scanning stations, and chains like Tesco are trialing new AI technologies to help catch would-be shoplifters. The Independent’s Hannah Twiggs discusses these technological innovations, and what it means for the future of grocery shopping.

SBS Food has an interesting article featuring vegan chef, cooking teacher, and author Katie White. White explores trends in veganism, and why the lifestyle is here to stay, despite flagging sales of faux meats and cheeses. “It’s a privilege to live in a time when we don’t need animal products to cook a full meal,” White says. “And these options are affordable, especially if you’re not buying the steak and the chicken at the same time.”

In case you missed this article published yesterday: Reduce, recycle – but don’t reuse.