August 17, 2010 – 1:29 pm
by Charlotte Beal I’ve been enjoying almost daily glasses of rosé as part of my usual summer routine — did you know that wine has a season? Nothing tastes quite as refreshing to me or many of my wine-loving consumer-cousins. Yet I’ve had a number of wine wake-up calls this summer. As part of Iconoculture’s [...]
by Nina Elder WHAT’S HAPPENING Pittsburgh’s Conflict Kitchen offers only one menu item, but its mission goes way beyond food. The tiny takeout shop was created by a group of local artists. Their idea? Choose a country that America is in conflict with and serve up one of that country’s traditional foods. Every four months, [...]
by Lindsay Paterson WHAT’S HAPPENING Butlins has never been synonymous with fine dining, but a new up-market wine list offers consumers choice and quality at surprising prices. The “Fine but Fun” wine list offers holidaymakers a range of fine wines, including Chablis and Chateauneuf du Pape and even a Krug Grand Cru at serious (but [...]
by Raya Jewell WHAT’S HAPPENING Spike Your Juice gives consumers a buzz to call their own. Getting started as a fermenting master requires a Spike Your Juice kit, 72 ounces of juice, and only 48 hours of time. Consumers add a magical powder to any juice (pomegranate or cranberry are recommended), then let it sit [...]
by Charlotte Beal WHAT’S HAPPENING In a recent blog post for TheAtlantic.com, Lesley Freeman Riva wrote about a phenomenon she calls Foodiephobia: When Friends Fear Feeding You (5.26.10). Freeman Riva describes how she happily entertains (and cooks for) friends at her house, but then she began to notice that people rarely reciprocate. Finally, some of [...]
by Tory Davis WHAT’S HAPPENING A fisherman’s collective on Tokyo Bay, Japan, has taken sales into their own, um, nets. Each day they post photos of the catch online; consumers scroll through, click “buy,” and the bounty is delivered to the buyer’s home the same day (Asiajin.com 4.27.10). As the fish and shellfish is caught, [...]
by Charlotte Beal I love food, but I hate my lifestage when it comes to food. I have a job, a picky preschooler, a Bjorn-saddled infant and a husband who doesn’t get home from work until late evening. The dinner ritual pretty much consists of me doctoring something in a mad dash, only to find [...]
by Charlotte Beal WHAT’S HAPPENING As we documented in our “Iron (Chef) Age” trend, consumers are cultivating a competitive cooking spirit. The latest example is the “continuing social experiment” in New York known as Chaos Cooking (ChaosCooking.com 6.10). 45 people; 4 burners. The group gathers in a residential kitchen to simultaneously cook 1 recipe each [...]
by Tory Davis WHAT’S HAPPENING Worried by the decreasing global oil supply, threats of terrorism and fear of climate change, suburbanites in Lafayette, NJ, have begun digging up their pristine expanses of lawn to sow survival gardens and become self-sustainable. Some locals are taking survival gardening classes taught by Linda Grinthal, a 55-year-old former financial [...]
by Josh Kimball WHAT’S HAPPENING Wine-making isn’t limited to idyllic rural settings these days. The East Bay Vintners Alliance is a group of wine makers who truck grapes in from wine country and work their grapey alchemy right in the city. We started to see urban wineries (and the buzz that followed them) pop up [...]
February 16, 2010 – 5:01 pm
by Charlotte Beal Valentine’s Day fell on a Sunday this year, but also on a three-day weekend for some lucky workers, and we bet that meant more people just focused on food and relaxation, staying home to cook a romantic dinner or going out to a low-key restaurant. Or they went to White Castle, which [...]
February 12, 2010 – 6:53 am
by Charlotte Beal WHAT’S HAPPENING When a cook has a need for a specific ingredient, how does she know if trudging to the farmers’ market will be a waste of time? Enter WhatIsFresh.com, an online guide to the greenmarkets in the boroughs of NYC. Consumers can use the site to search by market location, day [...]
February 4, 2010 – 10:12 am
by Tory Davis WHAT’S HAPPENING It’s hard to speak pretentiously about terroir with secret sauce dripping down your chin. Los Angeles-based Learn About Wine’s Blind Date tastings pair a variety of respectable reds with beloved In-N-Out Double-Double cheeseburgers (UrbanDaddy.com 1.5.10). The tastings are held on assorted Friday nights in a downtown loft and boast 20 [...]
January 22, 2010 – 12:28 pm
by Tory Davis WHAT’S HAPPENING More husbands are eagerly navigating the dinnertime waters, as their spouses waver between gratitude and irritation in this latest evolution in gender roles. Though many wives are relieved another household task is knocked off the list, they’re unsettled when their culinary skills are criticized (DoubleX.com 12.15.09). Writers Sandra Tsing Loh [...]
January 5, 2010 – 6:27 am
by Abelardo de la Peña Jr. WHAT’S HAPPENING MarketMakeovers.org, a Los Angeles-based website, is transforming food deserts by motivating teens (Epicurious.com 12.4.09). The site focuses on South Los Angeles, a neighborhood where fast food restaurants and convenience stores are king. Supermarkets, farmers’ markets and fresh produce are almost impossible to find. The folks behind Market [...]
