episode 23: dairy discrimination and chocolate-covered strawberries

we’re talking about a dairy discrimination lawsuit, the debate over chocolate-covered strawberries for Valentines, and much more! lets go!

the chocolate strawberry debate 🍓

mom and dad are fighting! in celebration of V Day, NYT’s Eric Kim put out a recipe on making chocolate-covered strawberries at home. I used the recipe for a Galentine’s party and I totally screwed up the tempering but yes, this simple dessert was still tasty. but then BA’s Carly Westerfield released what I call a hit piece, “No More Chocolate Covered Strawberries on Valentines Day.” sad :/ but tbh, she makes a good point: chocolate-covered strawberries are expensive and the fruit itself is out of season. she proposes that strawberry cream puffs are a better V Day dessert instead. girl, you think I can make cream puffs?? ya lost me, i’m sticking with my poorly-tempered strawberries!

live Más, Apple-style 🌮

Taco Bell or Steve Jobs? the fast food giant recently hosted an event to unveil new menu items via a live broadcast in front of a large screen just like the Apple’s meetings to present new iPhones. Taco Bell announced many new menu changes, including a Chicken Cantina menu, chicken nuggets, a baja blast! gelato, a “dipping taco” or birria, a Cheez-It Crucnhwrap, and more. whats even funnier is they got Omar Apollo and one of my fav DJs, LP Giobbi, to play tunes at the event. adding the next TBell menu event to my concert list i guess!

fried toothpicks…?

I mean, you would think this would go without saying but I guess not! South Korean health officials have recently warned against a new social media trend: eating fried toothpicks. the youngins on social media are deep-frying these toothpicks until they puff up into curly-fry-type snacks, then seasoning them with spices. however, the toothpicks in South Korea are made of corn or potato starch mixed with sorbitol, which is technically edible — unlike the wooden ones we have in the US. still, these have not been approved for human consumption by health officials in the country. do not eat!

super bowl snax 🌯

while I cannot report on the sports of the super bowl, I do loooove a super bowl snack! I “watched the game” last weekend at a friend’s house and we had a great spread of snacks: essential items include a buffalo chicken dip, my 7-layer taco dip, white queso dip, and some brewskis. if you made food for the party and you noticed ingredients were more expensive, you would be right! this graphic set from WaPo shows how climate change and inflation have impacted the price of popular party spread components, like chips, beef, avocados, veggies, and more.

speaking of 7-layer dip, have you ever wondered why Tex-Mex food is so popular at the super bowl? this NYT article spotlights the history of these Tex-Mex party foods and how they evolved from imitations of traditional Mexican foods. learning that nachos were made by a man whose nickname was Nacho was funny indeed. read more here!

awards season food 🍕

its awards season, as we are sooo aware. Oscars, Grammys, Emmys, many of these big awards shows feature dinner service for the guests, but what do they eat? the 2024 Golden Globes served salmon tartar and caviar from Nobu, which apparently led Will Ferrell to comment, “it smells like hot sushi in here.” lol. at the 2024 Critics Choice Awards, they gave celebrities pizza in a bag - captured on video being served to Oprah, Fantasia Barrino, Taraji Henson, and more — to which Oprah declined, refusing to mess up her lipstick. it was literally half a pizza in a paper bag, DEF not good enough for Oprah!

“its funny that the wine’s name is just…Josh”🍷

if youre still on Twitter/X, you probably saw that Josh Wines has been featured in a slew of memes lately. it all started with this post about how Josh is an upgrade from Barefoot, which morphed into jokes like this and many more. but why does this wine look so familiar? turns out, Josh wine has been popular for decades. its the biggest US wine brand over $10 a bottle, available at every national chain like Walmart, Costco, and Kroger, and is one of the fastest growing labels in the country. by a combo of the simple name, palatable flavor, and really good marketing and distribution, Josh is basically the elite every-person wine. because it’s so accessible, it makes sense as to why its widely relatable, and widely memable. you can read more about the brand in this piece, here.

let it (cake) burn 🎂

move over “is it cake” it’s time to burn your cakes instead! the viral videos go like this: people holding a flame to a thin layer of frosting on top of a cake, as it slowly burns away to reveal another layer of frosting underneath, which is usually decorated with some sort of message - like a gender reveal, surprise message, or the inside page of a book. these look very cool, but of course, are very expensive. the frosting design layers are made with an edible ink printer. but, if you feel so inclined to, idk, make me a cool burnaway cake, and you don’t want to buy that printer, BA wrote about how you can make your own with edible markers and other tools too.

oat milk discrimination 🥛

the milk wars continue! a group of people who have milk allergies or are lactose intolerant are suing Dunkin’ Donuts for charging an extra $2 for non-dairy milk in their beverages. in a class-action lawsuit, they allege that lactose intolerance is listed as a disability under the ADA, or the Americans with Disabilities Act, which directs that “reasonable accommodations” must be made for those who qualify, which cannot be subject to surcharges. read more here!

food prison labor

the Associated Press conducted a years-long investigation into the connection between forced prison labor and the food industry, finding that many of the foods we see at national chains are intricately linked to prisons across the country. prison labor is sadly, legal - while 13th amendment prohibits slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for crime. prisoners have been producing common-place goods like Frosted Flakes to Gold Medal flour for pennies or no pay at all, and face punishment or parole denial if they refuse to work. the full AP investigation uncovers the brutal treatment and forced labor of prisoners, how it links to the agricultural system, why this is all happening and more.

cool-girl non-alc drink guide 🍹

did dry January leave you even more confused by all the new trendy non-alcoholic beverage options? don’t worry, BA made a guide for you, separating all the drinks into four scenario-categories: the Energizers, drinks that have some caffeine but also complexity; the “Social Lubricants” with adaptogens or amino acids that encourage serotonin like a Kin Euphorics; the Dupes, or drinks that mimics the taste of a cocktail, like a Phony Negroni; or the Chillers, a nightcap-type drink. for a list of options for every scenario, click here.

Martha Stewart committing (more?) crimes 🕵️

while we know Martha Stewart committed fraud landing her in prison, allegedly she committed another no-no: plagiarizing. in a new CNN docuseries about her life, much has been revealed about Martha, not only did she smuggle food into prison to bake for her inmates, but she apparently stole the credit for her employee’s recipe in the 1980s. her employee brought into work a recipe for a cranberry nut torte, which apparently Martha took credit for and published in her subsequent cookbook. however, you cannot legally steal a recipe because you can’t copyright a recipe. if this is true, the etiquette is certainly bad, but Miss Martha won’t land herself in jail for this one.

restaurant review: Your Only Friend

hot new sandwiches at a hot new spot! the folks at the cocktail bar the Columbia Room had a pop-up sandwich shop for a while called Your Only Friend. that pop-up opened as a standalone restaurant a few weeks ago, and to a lot of hype!

Merry

and I got to go the week after it opened, and while I know there’s some early-days kinks to work out, the food, and especially the drinks are already fantastic. i’m still thinking about the celery shrub gin cocktail - and this iCOnIc “sandwich sistine chapel” stained glass ceiling. read more below!

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f*cked up food

thinking about becoming vegan…

dc happenings:

openings

• fundraiser to keep As You Are, a queer bar, open!

• new cafe, Childhood Cafe coming to 17th St

• Bammy’s reopening in Navy Yard

• new spot Izumi Izakaya opened in Adams Morgan

• Maman Navy Yard opened

• O’Kabul opening in Bloomingdale

• new spot Plantish open in Navy Yard

• new French spot La Bonne Vache opened in Georgetown

• new pizza spot Alfreda coming to P St

• new Duccini’s opening under Ivy and Coney in Shaw

• Van Leeuwen coming to Logan Circle

• Big Bear in Bloomingdale looking for investments

• hot new Mexican spot, Pascual, opening in Capitol Hill

• sandwich spot Prego Again re-opened in DuPont

• yet another Planta is coming, Planta Queen in Logan Circle

• 90 second pizza now open on U St

• Rise Up Coffee open on Florida Ave

closings

• Las Gemelas and Destino closing at La Cosecha :(

• Sticky Fingers Diner on H St closing

• actually, Taco Bamba is not coming back to Chinatown

• Quattro Osteria closed in Shaw

home cooking: many things

smoothie, salad, drinks, toast, dip, crunch wrap, pasta!

made a few good things at home in the past weeks! back on the smoothie grind - for which I have no recipe, just a basic formula (banana + frozen fruit + protein powder + chia seeds/hemp seeds + milk and kefir). also blended up some cottage cheese for toast, which made the texture much smoother! I was on a big chopped salad kick, which is just sandwich ingredients in a salad, all chopped to the same size. made a crunch wrap at home (yuM!) and some extraaaaaa dirty martinis where I actually chilled the glasses this time and dang it makes a difference! made a great 7-layer dip for the Super Bowl (loosely based off an NYT recipe) and the best thing was this kimchi mac and cheese - SO good I cant wait to make this again.

that’s all!! have a lovely weekend, all!