World-renowned celebrity chef Martin Yan’s collection of nearly 3,000 cookbooks, his first wok, thousands of photographs and other media will be the main ingredients in an archive to be established in his name at the University of California, Davis.
As a viticulture and enology student, I have become accustomed to the process of wine tasting through my years of study and practice. The process has remained romantic while becoming systematic to me--I see, swirl, sniff, sip, savor the wine. During the Robert Mondavi Institute’s Sips and Bites event “Exploring the World of Artisanal Tea,” I learned that this same tasting approach also applies to tea, the most consumed prepared beverage in the world.
Researchers at the University of California, Davis, have developed a new type of cooling cube that could revolutionize how food is kept cold and shipped fresh without relying on ice or traditional cooling packs.
These plastic-free, “jelly ice cubes” do not melt, are compostable and anti-microbial, and prevent cross-contamination.
They say there’s a first time for everything. The recent Savor lecture “Our First Superfood and the Infant Microbiome” was the first time I watched a game show focusing solely on breast milk, the original “superfood.” I’m sure it was the first time for many others in the Zoom audience too!
Ironically, the same night that I attended the Robert Mondavi Institute’s virtual forum titled “Growing Real Beef Without the Moo: The Future of the Cultured Meat Industry,” my dinner plans included cooking ground beef to serve with a pasta dish I was making. After spending the night learning about cultured beef, I was about to cook conventional beef, and I could not look at it the same way. I now had a deeper appreciation for the meat in front of me and a new education on the growing food demands our world is facing.
The solution to the growing food demand? Cultured meat.
I think fermentation is amazing. Majoring in viticulture and enology, I hear about the process of fermentation in my classes almost every single day. After all, without fermentation, we would not have wine. However, fermentation impacts more than the process of winemaking; it is used in beer, pickles, cheese, yogurt, kombucha, and so many other foods.
