Food news antipasto

Value grocery chain Aldi is starting a complete revamp of its private label merchandise. The move comes after extensive customer feedback, placing the Aldi name front and center. Many items will also feature the nicknames that customers have given the product, such as Red Bag Chicken. Aldi has also met its goal that every Aldi-exclusive product will have reusable, recyclable,… read more

Is cereal technically soup?

The easiest way to start an argument among food lovers are the questions about food categories or definitions. Is a taco a sandwich? Are ravioli dumplings? Let the fight commence. Over at Food Republic, they are currently arguing about whether cereal is a soup. Rhubarb, ginger & strawberry soup from Green Kitchen Stories by David Frenkiel and Luise Vindahl While… read more

The rise and fall of “foodie”

Jaya Saxena, former correspondent at Eater, has had her last byline on the website and boy, is it a doozy. Saxena dives into the formation of "foodies," how the term has transformed in the past quarter century, and what it looks like today. She explores this history in parallel to - and driven by - the rise of food television… read more

A new definition of bread bag

Reducing food waste just got fashionable - as in items to wear and/or to hold. At the fashion website Dauphinette, you can find Toast Bags, Croissant Minaudière, a Bag-uette, and more items made from real, surplus bread. Dauphinette collaborated with Yukiko Morita at Pampshade to create these reimagined 'bread bags'. The Croissant Minaudière and Toast Bag at Dauphinette The bread… read more

Food news antipasto

We start out this week's review with the passing of two very different culinary figures. The first is Marian Burros, cookbook author, food columnist for The New York Times from 1981 to 2014, and former Washington Post food editor, who has died at age 92. An Emmy award-winning television host, Burros became famous for her plum torte recipe, which was… read more

Chemistry in the kitchen

If you love to cook, you are applying scientific concepts every time you make a meal - even if you hated science classes in school. I happened to love chemistry, which may explain why I geek out over the science of cooking. Serious Eats also has a thing for food science, which is why they created a series of articles… read more

Forgotten vegetables

While there is a large variety of vegetables to be found at farmers' markets and grocery stores, some veg that were once staples in diets around the world have faded into obscurity. The Takeout looks into fifteen of these all-but-forgotten vegetables and explains a bit of the history of each. While I was familiar with several of these foods, there… read more

A new (old) way to fry food

A deep frying technique that has been used for centuries in Asia is gaining a new fan base in the West, and it uses a surprising ingredient: salt. Salt (or, more commonly, sand) frying "is a process with historical roots that spans countries and centuries" says Food & Wine's Merlyn Miller. It's receiving renewed interest since cooking creator Roice Bethel's… read more

Food news antipasto

Love avocados but struggle to get them out of their skins? You may want to try the viral method that relies on a whisk. It is just as easy as it sounds - cut the avocado in half, remove the pit, and "insert your whisk right into the green part of the avocado, twist, and scoop". Just be sure to… read more

In praise of beige food

Beige is not a color that inspires - it is most often associated with words like dull, drab, boring, and bland. This is true even when you extend it to the food world. Instagram is not exactly brimming with glam shots of plain porridge or buttered noodles or an unadorned piece of toast. These foods get zhuzhed up with vividly… read more

Are cooking shows on their way out?

Cooking shows have proliferated in the past 20 or so years - every streaming service has multiple offerings, as do more traditional broadcast and cable networks. These vary from competitive reality TV to educational programs to travel shows. Programs like Top Chef, Chopped, Hell's Kitchen, Good Eats, America's Test Kitchen, No Reservations, and dozens more have educated and entertained us… read more

Cooking by sound

A friend was over at my house one day when I was baking a cake. When I took the pan out of the oven I held it to my ear. Puzzled, my friend asked what I was doing. I told her I was listening for the cake to tell me it was done. She didn't believe me at first, but… read more

Food news antipasto

Gordon Ramsay announced he plans to revive his show Hell's Kitchen in the UK, possibly with a spin-off chain of restaurants. His show in the US has run for 24 seasons and spawned seven restaurants across the country. ITV has reportedly trademarked the Hell’s Kitchen name and insiders say the show could debut as early as 2026. Fried chicken, honey butter, and… read more

Food52 goes to the farm

Food52 is not the place I would think of when it comes to rural life. Based in NYC, it's filled with glam and a definite urban vibe. However, the site recently added a new weekly column from food writer and recipe developer Alexis deBoschnek titled From the Farm. Alexis has written two cookbooks, 2022's To the Last Bite: Recipes and… read more

Of ground cherries and gooseberries

There are not many tropical fruit flavors to be found growing in gardens in the northern Midwest where I live. In fact, there is really only one garden stalwart with this attribute: ground cherries. After I posted a photo of a tomato and ground cherry tart on my Facebook page, some of my friends asked what a ground cherry was.… read more

The vegan restaurant dilemma

A few weeks ago I wrote about how, after four years as a vegan-only establishment, Eleven Madison Park was adding meat back to the menu. The famed NYC restaurant is not the only vegan eatery to make changes in the current restaurant climate. Many once-beloved vegan restaurants have even closed permanently in recent months. Is this part of a trend… read more

Food news antipasto

Want to experience something from Rene Redzepi's NOMA but can't afford to go to Copenhagen? You can try Noma Kaffe, a monthly subscription service that allows you to sample the coffee served at the award-winning restaurant. As you might expect, this service is not cheap: the cost is $65 USD per month for two 250-gram bags of coffee. Noma’s head… read more

TL;DR

Remember food blogs? You know, the ones that had charming stories that ultimately led to a recipe that you wanted to try? It seems that in our increasingly fast-paced world, reading a few paragraphs takes too much time. In the last few years much ado has been made about food blogs being a waste of time and that bloggers should… read more

Seasonal shifts

A few days ago, we had a brief taste of autumn when temperatures dipped to unseasonable highs and lows. While we are still weeks away from true autumn, this short spell of cool weather created a shift in how I thought about cooking and baking. I have written before about how changes in the weather can provoke anticipation for certain… read more

How do you like them pommes (de terre)?

Please forgive me for the bad pun on the old saying "how do you like them apples?", but I just couldn't resist. But it is for a good reason - the ranking of 10 potato dishes from worst to best, by Andrea McGinniss of The Sydney Morning Herald's Good Food. This is bound to be controversial, because everyone is going… read more

When I dip, you dip, we dip

French dip sandwiches, which like most things labeled "French" in the US, are not French, are currently having a moment, says Eater's Andrea Strong. She chronicles the current crop of offerings in New York City, which is not the birthplace of the revered 'wich that was allegedly cooked up first in Los Angeles. Strong says that New York's “roast beef… read more

Food news antipasto

It's easy to get excited about cookbooks, so I never really thought about why so many titles included exclamation marks, like Dolci!, Galette!, and You Got This! Nina Moskowitz of Epicurious has thought about it and asked several authors and editors why they included exclamation marks in their titles. For Diane Morrisey, author of You Got This!, the exclamation point… read more

Food festivals

One of the best things about living near farming areas is the abundance of festivals that revolve around a certain crop or food. My friend has made it his mission to seek out as many of these events as possible, and he has identified over a dozen festivals within a few hours' drive of the Twin Cities. There an Apple… read more

IACP 2025 Cookbook Award finalists

The IACP announced the finalists for its 2025 Awards, which includes cookbooks along with digital media, food writing, food photography & styling, and special recognition awards. The IACP Cookbook Awards honors "the authors, publishers, and other contributors behind the best cookbooks published each year." There are fourteen categories plus a cookbook of the year. The categories shifted slightly in 2025… read more

Tomato, tomahto

Most cooks use cherry tomatoes and grape tomatoes interchangeably and likely many people believe they are essentially the same. However, they actually have different flavor profiles and textures, says Serious Eat's Brandon Summers-Miller. He breaks down the differences, noting which type is best suited to various dishes. Roast tomato and asparagus tart with rosemary from The Guardian Feast supplement by… read more
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