Welcome to Scrumptious or Distressing, the place we price current meals memes, movies, and different leisure information. Final week we mentioned Taylor Swift-themed soccer meals.
Martha, oh Martha. She all the time retains us on our toes: serving a five-month jail sentence for a shady inventory commerce at some point and gracing the duvet of the Sports activities Illustrated swimsuit situation the subsequent. The cooking maven and controversy magnet was accused this week, through CNN’s new docuseries The Many Lives of Martha Stewart, of stealing a cranberry nut torte recipe from an worker and crediting it as her personal in her cookbook. The place Martha had a possibility to deliver visibility to an worker’s baking chops, she as a substitute apparently went the route of plagiarism—distressing certainly. (Martha’s representatives didn’t reply to a request for remark from the Washington Publish)
Additionally this week, Day by day Harvest launched “calorie-conscious” meal kits meant for Ozempic-takers. Love Is Blind, identified to characteristic plenty of wine-guzzling, is promoting branded Chardonnay so you’ll be able to partake. Soup-slinging museum protests are again—and the goal this time was the Louvre’s Mona Lisa.
Learn extra under on this week’s meals information across the web.
Martha Stewart is in headlines once more—and did she ever actually depart them? That is headlines, plural, as a result of your complete web is abuzz with salacious tales mined from the brand new Martha Stewart docuseries on CNN referred to as The Many Lives of Martha Stewart. In simply two episodes we have already realized that Martha smuggled meals into jail, throughout her infamous sentence, as a way to bake for fellow inmates. At one level, Martha even managed to make a caramel flan—allegedly all with elements she’d snuck from the kitchen. The opposite revelation that is surfaced to this point is distinctly much less cheery: Apparently Martha plagiarized one of many recipes in her cookbook Entertaining, certainly one of her first publications that helped to safe a nationwide viewers. The entire story is that certainly one of her former staff, Sarah Gross, went to work for Stewart, and introduced within the recipe for a dessert she’d made, a cranberry nut torte. Quickly Stewart’s then-catering firm began making the torte typically, earlier than it finally appeared in her 1982 cookbook. A consultant for Stewart didn’t reply to a request for remark from The Publish. Technically, you’ll be able to’t steal a recipe in a authorized sense, as a result of they’ll’t be copyrighted, however this looks as if a reasonably cut-and-dry case of torte theft to me. I am giving this a 3.2/5 distressing —Sam Stone, workers author
I need to admit that once I heard Day by day Harvest was abruptly billing itself as Ozempic meals, I used to be like, “Wasn’t it already Ozempic meals?” I’ve tried my fair proportion of the model’s wholesome little snick-snacks (cup-sized grain bowls and brothy soups) and have all the time thought of them tasty bases that want some critical beefing up (eggs, bread, a large dollop of hummus). So, I suppose the model’s newest audience—folks on GLP-1 medicines, the medication designed to deal with diabetes which were co-opted en masse to advertise weight reduction and stymie your urge for food—is smart.
In accordance to Day by day Harvest’s web site, the “dietitian-curated assortment consists of pre-portioned, calorie-conscious meals,” akin to a 180-calorie broccoli soup and a 130-calorie dragon fruit smoothie, to “complement your weight administration journey.” It reeks of a strategic advertising and marketing play to me: Not one of the meals have been specifically developed, it seems, and the corporate as a substitute appears to have cherry-picked significantly low-calorie choices from its preexisting lineup, primarily based on a survey of two,000 folks utilizing the medication. Actually, although, Day by day Harvest is only a cog within the American weight reduction machine. Drug makers reap billions of {dollars} in revenue, and the identical Huge Meals corporations which can be partially liable for this medical disaster quibble over presumably dropping clients who simply aren’t hungry any extra. Regardless, they’ll all proceed discovering methods to promote us stuff. I’m ranking this one a 4.2/5 distressing. —Ali Francis, workers author
These monumental golden wine goblets wielded by everybody on Love Is Blind have been enigmatic ever for the reason that Netflix relationship present first aired. What are they hiding behind their gleaming metallic veneer? Wine, presumably. Love Is Blind is without doubt one of the most vino-friendly actuality sequence I’ve ever seen; a wine glass is fused to each hand in practically each dialog. “Is love really wine?” You would possibly ask. A bunch of former forged members is actually asking this very query—on Thursday, they launched a “Love Is Wine” Chardonnay forward of the present’s Season 6 premiere. Created in collaboration with Cupcake Vineyards, the bottle is vivid gold from high to backside, “pairs with Love Is Blind marathons,” and is already bought out. (Sorry to disappoint.) I can solely respect Netflix’s capacity to basically take a $13 bottle of wine that might be discovered on any nook bodega shelf, spray paint it metallic gold, and promote it out nationwide inside 24 hours. You’re doing wonderful, sweetie. 2.5/5 scrumptious. —Karen Yuan, tradition editor
Soup grew to become a nouveau protest medium in October 2022, when you keep in mind, when local weather activists hurled some at Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” in London’s Nationwide Gallery. A unique activist group this week, calling for extra sustainable meals manufacturing in France, took cues from the soup-throwing playbook, their goal of alternative being Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. Mona made it out unscathed, due to her protecting glass barrier, however the protesters caught eyes nonetheless. Whereas some have referred to as into query the efficacy of the soup-throwing tactic altogether, the hurt to tremendous artwork seems minimal, with extra visibility to their trigger on the finish of the day. I solely should marvel, as I questioned in December 2022, how museums haven’t modified their safety checkpoints to manage for soup at this level. 1.2/5 distressing. —Li Goldstein, digital manufacturing assistant
