Food juju 🤞
Using an everyday staple!!
Good morning. Newton said that objects have inertia — a tendency to resist changes in its state. Being engineers, we are the “belieber” equivalent of Newtonian physics, which explains why we always take an additional week off from publishing after every planned break without any regret! After all.. science is irrefutable.
That being said, readers Arthur and Sarah are about to be highly caffeinated after winning the referral giveaway for the portable barista kit and a 6 months coffee supply! A big thank you to everyone who participated. Even if you didn't win, take comfort in knowing that no gift can compete with that fuzzy feeling of helping your friends become more informed about the food world.
In the food world
👖 Napkin pants
Chipotle teamed up with Nicole McLaughlin, dubbed as one of the internet's hottest "up-cycle designer" to ensure hands are always kept clean by making multipurpose zip-off pants made from Chipotle's napkins. Unfortunately, these aren’t for sale. So the only hope is to DIY them by stealthily grabbing an insane amount of napkins during your next carryout along with this stitching pants 101 course.
🌮 Italian Taco
After the tremendous success of Taco Bell’s Mexican pizza, Pizza Hut, a company that knows a thing or two about pizzas wants to try their own crossover — the Italian Taco. In an aim to piggyback off Taco Bell’s success the Italian taco is a hand-tossed taco shell stuffed with a classic marinara sauce, melted mozzarella cheese and whatever toppings you choose.
☕️ Tall order
Laxman Narasimhan, most recently CEO of consumer goods company Reckitt, will take the reins from interim chief and Starbucks founder Howard Schultz in April. He’s taking over during a turbulent time when the coffee chain is reinventing the way frappuccinos are made and trying to fend off a unionization drive by its baristas.
Superstitious foods
Superstitions are folk beliefs, convictions or suspicions that certain behaviors will have good or bad consequences. Be it a black cat crossing your path, knocking on wood, crossing your fingers, getting bad luck for not referring this newsletter or anything to do with the number 13, we’re surrounded by them!
And much like the actual landing time of a flight has nothing to do with the pilot saying “we have begun our initial descent”, these beliefs have no proven relationship with their consequences. So whether you believe them or not, here are some of our favorite food related superstitions to protect you and your loved ones.
Hanging lemons and chillies
Next time you visit an Indian friend for dinner, don’t be shocked to find a lemon and few green chillies hanging outside the front door. And before you get ahead of yourself, these aren’t part of a DIY pico de gallo course. Instead, they are used to ward off other’s evil intentions, if any.
Apple is the new cupid
If you find yourself running out of out luck on Tinder, it’s time to get off your iPhone and pick up the fruit to improve your chances. Peel its skin away until it breaks, toss it onto the counter and see what letter it resembles. According to a New England superstition, that letter is the first letter of your true love's name.
Spilling salt
According to a Mesopotamian belief, spilling salt is bad luck which can be overturned by tossing salt over your left shoulder. The rationale behind this is that the Devil always whispers over your left and the Angel over your right (picture your favorite cartoon). Pepper-spraying the Devil with salt will give you the time to escape before he can take your soul.
Gifting knives
According to an old Japanese superstition, gifting a knife to a friend is as bad unfollowing them on Instagram and you may run the risk of "cutting" the friendship. However, you can get around this by attaching a penny to the knife before gifting it, which the recipient must immediately return to you as "payment."
Long noodles = long life
When planning your next Asian-themed dinner party, include a noodle dish on the menu, but serve the noodles uncut. Some Chinese cultures believe 8-10 inches is the ideal length (for noodles) symbolizing a long life! So cutting the noodles before serving is effectively cutting life short.
Quiz
Keeping the theme alive, here are a few other bad omens that we came across. Three of them are true and one is as fake as the Rolex sold by the New York city street vendor. Can you guess that?
*Answer at the bottom
Close call
Members of the US grain industry breathed a collective sigh of relief yesterday as President Joe Biden announced that a tentative railway labor agreement was reached after 20 hours of intense negotiations, just hours before a strike would begin.
Why do we care about freight trains? More so when they are not blocking our cars at the crossing. Over the past several years, supply chain disruptions in power grids, semiconductors, and Suez Canals have taught us about the under-the-radar industries that keep the economy functioning. Trains are one of those.
What happened? Unions representing the 90,000 rail employees threatened that they would go on a strike starting Friday over disagreements with their work scheduling. A strike would halt all activity along the US’ 140,000-mile rail network.
What is the impact? For each day that trains don’t move, the US economy will face a bill of $2 billion! A third of the US grain exports and half of the US fertilizer travels in trains. Any potential strike would stifle the supply, adversely affecting food prices.
What next? The last minute agreement has prevented the economy from imploding… for now. It will now go to union members for a vote after a post-ratification cooling off period of several weeks.
Fortunately… much??
Fortune cookies — those sugary treats we all love — have provided us with life lessons, been morale boosters and to some extent was our Twitter when Twitter wasn’t around. Here are some fun facts about these little wonders:
💰 Fortune cookies correctly predicted Powerball numbers leading to 110 people winning $100K each in 2005 and another winning $344m in 2019!
🇺🇸 Contrary to popular belief, fortune cookies are an American invention
🤜🏼 Shuck Yee from California invented the first fortune cookie folding machine in 1973, making them affordable to everyone.
🏭 Wonton Food, Inc., pumps out 4.5 million of them every single day and up until 1995, their VP Donald Lau wrote the fortunes himself.
Take out recipes
Fortune cookies are one of the many American Chinese takeout favorites. Here are the vegetarian versions of some more popular dishes from this cuisine.
General Tso Tofu: It’s spicy-sweet, healthier than the classic and ready in less than 30 minutes.
Vegan Chop-suey : The perfect meal when you feel like eating something flavourful, easy to make, and packed full of veggies.
Orange Cauliflower: Made with cauliflower florets that are coated in panko and baked to crispy perfection.
Media watch
CEO Watch
The Great British show’s new season drops this month. Get baking for your signature, technical and showstopper challenge!
While this simmers…
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Answer
Thankfully, you will not have to worry about counter measures if you sneeze while chopping tomatoes.