All posts tagged: Food and Drink

Want to Smell Like Donuts? Beauty Brands Think You Do

Want to Smell Like Donuts? Beauty Brands Think You Do

Published by skeptic

But in 2023, we moved from food-inspired aesthetics to actually wanting to look like food, with trends like cinnamon cookie butter hair, blueberry milk nails, and glazed doughnut skin. Today, anything goes: Velveeta hair dye, dill-pickle-flavored lube, and Hellman’s parfum de mayonnaise—the rule seems to be the more unhinged, the better. For millennials and zillennials, these products are a sensory trip down memory lane, reviving the candy-scented mall staples of our youth. For Gen Z, it’s a clash of high and low—a clean beauty brand like Native rubbing shoulders with a fast food institution like Dunkin’. So Happy Together TikTok, with its algorithmic obsession with the absurd, thrives on these edible beauty launches. The marketing strategy borrows liberally from streetwear’s scarcity playbook, implementing limited-edition drops designed to create urgency and exclusivity. But unfortunately, these products aren’t built to last. They’re flashpoints for FOMO-prone shoppers and sentimentalists looking to romanticize their routines. For Gen Z, the more bizarre the concept, the faster it seems to circulate. TikTok content This content can also be viewed on the …

Simplify Your Morning With a One-Step Coffee-Weighing Cup

Simplify Your Morning With a One-Step Coffee-Weighing Cup

Published by skeptic

Eyeballs are great: I have two. I also like spoons. But if you want a consistent coffee dose for great espresso or pour-over, a precise scale is the mildly inconvenient one true path. I can still remember a time when in order to weigh out my coffee beans each morning, I placed a little dosing cup atop a digital scale, and then pressed a button on the scale, and then waited a second or so for the scale’s display to zero out before pouring coffee beans into the dosing cup. Back in the sands of time—October of 2024, I think it was—I didn’t consider this a dire inconvenience. It’s just how coffee scales work. But perhaps they don’t need to. Over the past year or so, a few coffee brands have cottoned to the simple idea that a dosing cup and scale could be combined into one device. Trigger lightbulbs above foreheads, and bluebirds on shoulders. Perhaps the most elegant of these is the Subscale, new from Singapore coffee brand Subminimal (also the maker of …

‘Artificial tongue’ can detect chemical makeup of alcoholic drinks

‘Artificial tongue’ can detect chemical makeup of alcoholic drinks

Published by skeptic

Molecular testing can be used to assess drink quality Evgenii Parilov/Alamy Drinks manufacturers and consumers may soon have a small, portable kit, not much bigger than a covid test, to check the quality and safety of alcoholic beverages. The device is being described as an “artificial tongue” because it can detect additives, toxins and the sweetness of the drink with just a few drops. Shuo Huang at Nanjing University in China says that while this first generation of the new technology can’t yet test for date rape drugs in spiked drinks or detect methanol contamination, which recently resulted in the deaths of six backpackers in Laos, future versions may. Current methods for analysing alcoholic drinks, such as liquid chromatography, involve expensive and cumbersome laboratory equipment, requiring expert technicians to operate and analyse samples. The artificial tongue relies on biological nanopore technology. This uses a modified organism such as a bacterium with a small hole or pore, just a few nanometres in diameter, in its cell membrane. By charging the membrane with electricity, small molecules of …

5 Best Carbon Steel Pans For Every Budget (2024)

5 Best Carbon Steel Pans For Every Budget (2024)

Published by skeptic

Sometimes in this wild life you stumble upon a rabbit hole that ends up being more like a vast chasm. Such is the state of interest and appreciation for the world of carbon steel pans. One might think this humble node of cookery might be overlooked in favor of heritage-credited cast iron, utilitarian nonstick, or trending hexagon hybrid pan technologies. You would be wrong; carbon steel is no also-ran, no runner-up. There is an intense, rabid fandom for this style of cookware that shocked even me, and I write about, like, mineral water influencers. From a busy subreddit to a secret world of obsessive home and professional chefs to in-demand artisan carbon steel craftsmen who sell their wares by raffle ticket, the dedication and appreciation to carbon steel runs deep. It is a roaring American foodways subculture that has gone largely uninvestigated by the wider press, and I can only hope to scratch the surface of doing it justice with this guide (after the surface is scratched, of course, I advise reseasoning the pan with …

Tryptophan Isn’t What Puts You Under on Thanksgiving. It’s the Carbs

Tryptophan Isn’t What Puts You Under on Thanksgiving. It’s the Carbs

Published by skeptic

Every year, I promise myself I’m not going to eat myself into a food coma: I’ll eat responsibly, front-load my belly with salad, and go light on the turkey and gravy. Instead, I wake up three hours after Thanksgiving dinner, sprawled out like Robinson Crusoe on the living room floor under a pile of my nephews’ toys. My shirt is covered in light brown stains, and greasy handprints smear my jeans. What is it about Thanksgiving that sends me—and millions of other Americans—into digestive oblivion? Are we all blissed out on turkey, or is there another reason Thanksgiving is the holiday for sloth? You’ve probably heard that turkey meat is dripping with a sleep-inducing chemical called tryptophan. And while it’s true the stuff plays a part in sending your brain into slumber, saying it does so single-handedly is like saying Neil Armstrong jumped to the moon all by himself. For one thing, turkey isn’t particularly laden with tryptophan. Ounce for ounce, a roast chicken, grilled steak, or rack of pork spareribs all have comparable amounts. …

The 11 best hand blenders tried and tested on soups, smoothies, sauces and dips

The 11 best hand blenders tried and tested on soups, smoothies, sauces and dips

Published by Sam

  What to look for when buying a hand blender When buying a hand blender, options range from simple compact hand blenders with the blending leg only, to multifunctional hand blenders that transform into choppers for chopping veg, crushing nuts and making dips, to food processors for slicing, dicing and grating and hand mixers for beating and whisking. The power comes from the main body of the blender which is designed to be comfortably held to operate whichever attachment it is connected to. Power is an important factor to consider when buying a hand blender . Essentially, the higher the power, the more easily it can blend hard or tough ingredients. The hand blenders in this test ranged from 200 Watts to 1,200 Watts of power. Rechargeable cordless hand blenders are available and we tested a few, but mains-powered models are still the most common. What is the best way to use a blender? To blend a basic soup or smoothie, Great British Bake Off finalist, cook and author Crystelle Pereira, says, “I find adding …

The complete guide to cooking oils and how they affect your health

The complete guide to cooking oils and how they affect your health

Published by skeptic

Whether you are roasting a chicken in the oven, browning onions in a frying pan or choosing a spread for your toast, oils are at the heart of our culinary activity. We have a dizzying array of choice. From sunflower to flaxseed, avocado to coconut, around 30 varieties of oil are now used for cooking. Your decision on which to use could have a profound effect on your health, with consequences for your cholesterol, blood pressure and risk of cardiovascular disease. If you believe the headlines, then palm oil is out, sunflower oil is on shaky ground and there seems no end to the benefits that extra virgin olive oil brings to the table. But are these claims backed up by solid science? And how do the health effects of these products weigh up against their environmental costs? Saturated or unsaturated? First, some chemistry. Cooking oils contain fats, which are made from long chains of carbon atoms linked together. Saturated fats, found in red meat and dairy, are so named because each carbon atom is …

Here’s How Much Garlic Italians Actually Use

Here’s How Much Garlic Italians Actually Use

Published by Sam

First, came the news that I’m not using the right amount of water for my pasta; then, it turned out that a lot of my attempts at Italian cooking were missing a pretty vital ingredient. But what about garlic? Surely you can’t go too far wrong with simply lobbing the delicious allium into your favourite Bolognese recipe? Well, I’m a seasoning libertarian. I’m not going to tell you how much garlic to put in your meals. But if traditional is what you’re going for, you might want to hold back on the cloves ― according to The Italian Cultural Foundation at Casa Belvedere’s site, it’s often omitted from certain dishes entirely. What? Why? “Garlic is not a staple ingredient in northern Italian cuisine; it is more commonly used in southern Italy,” Casa Belvedere says ― think of garlic in sauces a bit like chips with gravy here in the UK. The divide runs so deep that “some Italian purists despise it,” the site reads. Part of it has to do with the bulb’s previous reputation …

This £1.32 Pasta Bake Is Perfect For Leftover Chicken

This £1.32 Pasta Bake Is Perfect For Leftover Chicken

Published by Sam

If you’re left with a container full of last night’s chicken, you might be on the hunt for a great recipe to stretch it into a meal. Perhaps you’re tempted by Mary Berry’s chicken lasagne recipe or want something speedy and easy. But for what it’s worth, my vote goes to The Chiappa Sisters’ seasonal leek and pea pasta bake ― not least because it doesn’t really matter how much leftover chicken you’ve got left. What’s involved? The one-hour bake, shared on Jamie Oliver’s site, calls for leeks, chicken stock, wine, frozen peas, ricotta, milk, Parm, garlic, pasta, oil, and butter. What I like about it is its almost-too-forgiving attitude towards substitutions and measurements: ricotta can be cream cheese or (gasp) cottage cheese, leeks can be spring onions or celery leaves (strip them of their stalks first), and wine can be switched out for a dash of cider vinegar or stock. There’s no reason you can’t sub out some missing chicken for bulky butterbeans or just leave the meat on the lower side ― and …

Mary Berry’s Secret Ingredient ‘Mexican Lasagne’ So Easy

Mary Berry’s Secret Ingredient ‘Mexican Lasagne’ So Easy

Published by Sam

Mary Berry’s a bit of a funny one when it comes to lasagne. First, we learned she puts crème fraîche in her midweek (chicken) lasagne to speed the cooking time up a bit. Then, it turned out she put redcurrant jam in her spag bol. So what about what she calls a kind of “Mexican lasagne”, which involves lobbing mango chutney into a chilli? What possible (delicious) affront to multiple cultures could lie ahead? Well, it turns out the Great British Bake-Off legend uses “ready-made tortillas instead of sheets of pasta,” which she promises is “utterly delicious and very moreish!” Hear me out… …This sort of makes sense? I mean, isn’t it basically a slightly ungodly, but nonetheless delicious, nachos/enchilada/lasagne cross? And as with the redcurrant jam in her bolognese, Mary Berry’s addition of mango chutney to her sort-of chilli mix offers a caramelising, sunny tang. There’s a throwback to the Cordon Bleu-trained chef’s chicken lasagne in the recipe too, in that she uses mascarpone instead of a fiddly roux-based cheese sauce (the solution for …