The Feed: June 11, 2014

Kale is trendy, that we know. But why that and not, say, mustard greens? In Alice Robb's story below, she talks to an author of a new book on the implications of food trends.

The Feed is my weekly round up of interesting food-related stories from newspapers, magazines, blogs and websites.

Washington Post: “José Andrés Thinks Food Can Fix the World, Starting in Haiti,” by Steve Hendrix.
It’s well known that D.C. chef, José Andrés, caters to expensive food taste. His Minibar, tips the scale of cost, starting at $250 per person. What’s not so well known is his work on the other end of the spectrum--his food-based humanitarianism in poor countries like Haiti. Covering both of those aspects and more, Hendrix profiles our city’s top celebrity toque, a man of undeniable energy and vision, with a reach that extends from Penn Quarter to Port-au-Prince.

Washington Post: “Superfoods’ Chefs Challenge: VoltaggioPower Fueled by Honey and Pumpkin,” by Bonnie S. Benwick.

If you’ve been following Benwick’s inventive Superfoods’ Chefs Challenge series, you know the usual drill is for a notable D.C. chef to choose two superfood-ingredients and make four recipes with them. Well, Bryan Voltaggio (Range, Aggio) is no usual guy—rather than pick two, he throws in 11! Voltaggio whips up a Yogurt Coconut Parfait that Benwick describes as close to panna cotta and makes as good an argument as any for enjoying squash this time of year with his Cream Soda Butternut Squash.

Washington Post: “Easy Garlic Peeling Tricks,” by Joe Yonan.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen Yonan do a video before. But what fun! Here he goes over five methods for peeling garlic. The shake method is interesting, but I agree the ol’ knife-slap method works great.

New Republic: “‘How Au Courant I Am, Eating This Pig Face’: Why some foods become trendy, and others never take off,” by Alice Robb.
Robb’s Q&A with David Sax, author of the new book The Tastemakers: Why We're Crazy for Cupcakes but Fed Up with Fondue, sheds light on why some foods take off and others don’t and the implications for what food trends reveal about our tastes.

New York Times: “A Glimpse (and a Taste) of Celebrity, RestaurantReview: Gato From Bobby Flay,” by Pete Wells.

Wells favorably reviews Chef Bobby Flay’s new restaurant Gato. Says Wells, “Mr. Flay brushes flavor on his ingredients in thick impasto strokes, making each plate a three-dimensional aggregation of char, smoke, capsicum, sugar, acid and fat.” Sounds perfect.

CNN: “Are Butter, Cheese and Meat That Bad?” by Nadia Kounang.
Eat less fat, especially saturated fat, has been the key American dieting instruction for some time, a lesson rooted in rising mid-century levels of heart disease and studies done at that time showing correlation between heart disease and higher consumption of animal-fat-based foods like meat and rich dairy products. Kounang examines some more recent research, showing that the correlation isn’t so simple, especially if those fatty foods are substituted with simple carbohydrates, such as pasta, a cornerstone of the much-lauded Mediterranean diet.

NPR: “The Secret's In The Sugar: Lower-Alcohol Wines Are Taking Off,” by Allison Aubrey.
For years, the alcohol content of wine has been creeping up, with 14 to 15 percent ABV becoming pretty common. Now the trend appears to be swinging back, as wine drinkers find renewed interest in the balance that lower ABV wines offer.

Cheese Underground: “Game Changer: FDA Rules No Wooden Boards in Cheese Aging,” by Jeanne Carpenter.
Dealing, as the articles states, a “potentially devastating blow” to artisan cheese-making, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has clarified its requirements to state that wooden boards cannot be used for aging cheese—a practice common for domestic and foreign cheese-making. Imports aged on wooden boards may also be affected.

Sustainable Dad: “Red Lentil Coconut Curry Soup,” by Chris Bacchus.

Sustainable Dad shares this recipe for lentil soup with a coconut milk base that comes together fast and looks like it would hit the spot on a weeknight evening.