episode 37: cucumbers, Coke, and a croissant lamp

this week we’re talking about: when you need to eat a whole cucumber, Coca-Cola’s Oreo collab, and a failed croissant lamp!

a newsletter on a Wednesday? yes yes I promise i’ll get back to the usual Friday mornings sooooon. sorry!

did I start the tomato party trend? 🍅

now now, i’m not claiming to have invented “tomato girl summer.” but you know what, I definitely threw my tomato party before Eater wrote about it! while Eater’s piece is more about a tomato-themed dinner party, some of my tips align with this article: like doing a tomato cocktail (toma-tini!) and making a variety of tomato dishes that feature the fruit raw, baked, and marinated. I liked her tip of buying the tomatoes ahead of time and prepping them to last longer, instead of rushing to the farmers market day-of (like i did!) you too can throw a tomato dinner party (but it can’t be better than mine!!)

margarine smugglers 🧈

if you lived in Wisconsin just 50 years ago, you would have had to smuggle your margarine in from a whole different state! in the late 1800s, the state banned the manufacturing and sale of yellow margarine, what is traditionally used as a butter substitute, to protect the local dairy industry. if you wanted margarine, you had to buy it in a weird white color (which was unappetizing) and pay an extra tax. many other states in the early 1900s had these laws too, but as they started easing restrictions in the 50s and 60s and Wisconsins’ laws remained, people started to head to Illinois or Minnesota to pay for cheaper butter-like margarine, hence, the margarine smugglers! during debates in the Wisconsin legislature about this ban, legislators brought forth claims that 32 tons of margarine were bootlegged into the state each week. there’s a good timeline in this article here, leading up to when the ban was repealed in 1967. the remnants of this ban that remain to this day: restaurants and public institutions are barred from serving margarine as a butter substitute in restaurants unless a diner asks for it!!

oreo + Coke = besties? 🥤

ah yes, what goes better together than Oreos and…Coca-Cola? these giant brands have paired together for a collaboration called “Besties” that features two products, an Oreo + Coca-Cola sandwich cookie and an Oreo + Coca-Cola zero-sugar soda. the brands came together in the spirit of playfulness and “unexpected connection,” which sounds about right! the cookie sandwich contains one chocolate cookie with Coca-Cola syrup and popping candies in one half and a golden oreo cookie half with the classic cream in the middle. the soda will be classic Coke with some Oreo flavors, which i’ve heard tastes kind of creamy? anyways, both products are on the shelf as of September 9th.

new FDA food labels 🏷️

the Food and Drug Administration is considering warning labels for packaged and processed food this fall. this proposal is being analyzed in attempts to drive down obesity rates and illnesses derived from the proliferation of ultra-palatable highly-processed foods. these labels would flag foods with high levels of saturated fat, added sugar, and sodium, defined as containing 20% or more of the recommended daily amounts per serving. other countries like Chile and Mexico have adopted this strategy, but their labeling system and design is much clearer than what the FDA is considering. that’s why Senator Bernie Sanders is leading efforts to make the label design clearer. of course, there is pushback from the food lobbyists, claiming that these labels are subjective, even misleading from a holistic nutrition perspective. read more in this Washington Post piece, here.

the state of illegal happy hours ❌

whether you like it or not, happy hours are an essential part of DC’s (drinking) culture. but did you know that if you travel a few states up north, happy hours are illegal? in Massachusetts, happy hour drink specials are banned by law, prompted by a tragic drunk driving-induced car accident that killed a young woman after the driver had gotten drunk at a happy hour. while many states joined MA in implementing these happy hour bans to curb excessive drinking, restrictions have fallen off the books in the following decades, while they still stand in Massachusetts. there have been many attempts to overturn this ban in the legislature, with some politicians alleging this restrictive culture drives young people (of legal drinking age) away from living in the area. DC could never…

temu makes a bad product? shocking 🥐

imagine you buy a cute lamp in the shape of a croissant…..and its infested with ants! because the lamp was made with real bread! this is what happened to one TikTok user, who returned home after a hot day to find her croissant lamp from temu was attracting insects. she opened the lamp only to find that it was a real croissant! for those who don’t know, temu is a drop-shipping company that regularly makes counterfeit low-quality products at low prices. this shoddily made lamp is not terribly surprising.

but here’s the thing, I actually do have a lamp in the shape of a bread slice made from real bread! its from the company Pampshade, who pioneered the bread lamp product. they start with a stale piece of bread and hollow it out, coating it liberally in anti-fungal and anti-bacterial coating, and then thick layers of resin. it protects the shape and look of the bread but makes it safe for electricity. the temu counterfeit version was only coated in resin on the outside, with no treatment on the inside, which created rotting and attracted bugs. buy your bread lamps from the source! I promise you wont get an infestation!

vanilla extract and prohibition 🍾

if vanilla extract is technically alcohol, why can you buy it at a normal supermarket? the answer dates back to the eras of prohibition. as the laws that banned alcohol formed, trade group lobbyists realized they needed to save their industries by writing carve-outs into the ban for their products. so, the Flavor and Extracts Manufacturers Association argued that the ban of alcohol-based extracts would harm the food industry - the same argument used by ethanol producers for gas. eventually, the Volstead Act that banned alcohol contained a carve-out for alcohol extracts as long as they were considered non-potable, and that a reasonable person would not drink them straight. to this day, extracts are regulated as food under the FDA, instead of alcohol, and therefore not subject to higher taxes and more stringent regulations. read more here.

starbucks and customization ☕️

the perpetual problem of the publicly-traded restaurant chain is this: endless customization, not enough staff, and the constant demand for growth from its shareholders. an NYT Opinon piece on Starbucks encapsulates just that. Starbucks guesses that there are 170,000 possible drink combinations, but Bloomberg estimates it at over 300 billion. then, there’s the problem of high demand and never enough staff to keep up with in-person and online app orders. speaking of the app - theres so much business in rewards points and gift card that theres even an argument that Starbucks sneakily works like a bank, considering its sitting on $1.6 billion dollars of customers’ money from its app. but the chain keeps adding more drinks options to appease its shareholders in the endless chase for growth, a far cry from its simple coffee-and-tea Pike Place Market beginnings. the author alleges that this combination of factors is killing the chain - but if customers stay loyal, will the bubble actually burst? read more here.

internet trend roundup 🥒

some fun internet trends and tidbits about food lately:

• sometimes you just need to eat a whole cucumber: Logan Moffit, a Tiktoker has convinced us all that yes, we do need to eat a whole cucumber. his videos of making cucumber salads have gone fairly viral, featuring his technique of grating a cucumber with a mandolin into a deli container, into which he adds spices and topppings before adding a lid to the container and shaking it all up to make a marinated salad. tasty and hydrating!

• meal prepping a Dense Bean Salad (DBS): another TikToker named Violet Witchel started making videos of her meal prep for the week, including what she calls a Dense Bean Salad. this features a combo of beans, like chickpeas or cannellini, vegetables, herbs and hard cheeses - no lettuce in sight - which is why this dish lasts throughout the week and doesn’t wilt.

• batch drink calculator: I came across this super useful tool called batchcalc.com by blogger Jeffrey Morgenthaler. this tool scales up cocktail recipes for a crowd. when I host parties i’m usually doing these calculations by hand, so its super great to have a tool that will make a batch measurement, with ice, for you! he also has a tool for syrups called syrupmath.com.

restaurant reviews: Petite Cerise and more

I wanted to highlight a few last fantastic restaurants from my August travels, and one recent impressive meal here in DC:

• Owamni by The Sioux Chef: a fantastic Native American + Indigenous restaurant in Minneapolis. i’ve never had food like this, it was so tasty and of the earth.

• Copra: some of the best South Indian food i’ve had in the states in San Francisco - really flavorful and comforting.

• Petite Cerise: a really great DC find: a $58 tasting menu, great prices and a fantastic variety of food including the most beautiful chocolate mousse dessert.

f*cked up food

preparing for fall?

d.c. happenings

openings

• Fresh Baguette in Penn Quarter opened

• Amelie opened on 14th next to Pappe

• Mama Tee’s Kitchen, new soul food spot coming to old Little Vietnam/Himitsu/Almeda spot in Petworth

• Chinatown Taco Bell finally open!

• Sol Mexican Grill location opens on 19th

• Fuddruckers coming to Chinatown

• Plantish closed on M St

• new restaurant Yalla opened on U St

• folks at Yellow opening cocktail bar La’ Shukran this month

• wine bar Poplar coming to Brightwood Park

closings

• NuVegan on Georgia Ave closed :(

• Cinco Soles closing in Columbia Heights

• Bar Spero closed downtown

other

• front door of El Presidente smashed

home cooking

wellll, not much again, lol. bought some endive and made this endive with egg salad from NYT. used the leftover chicken from the rotisserie chicken to make some quesadillas and salads. also used some canned tomatoes to make a puttanesca with TJs chickpea pasta and then to make some tomato soup with grilled cheese! oh, and many buffalo chicken wraps with blue cheese too. a hodgepodge of pantry and fresh stuff indeed!

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that’s it folks, have a great rest of your week!