Food & Cooking
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14 virtual cooking classes featuring cuisines from around the world

Roger T. Brown

My husband and I love to cook, but even though we know our way around the kitchen, there’s always more we’re looking to learn.

Both before the COVID-19 pandemic and during, we’ve been big fans of taking virtual cooking classes together: Buying a nice bottle of wine, tying on our aprons and learning new techniques and recipes from some of the best chefs out there.

In recent months, we’ve learned everything from a great recipe for a roasted vegetable salad to how to arrange a gorgeous charcuterie plate. Virtual cooking classes have become one of our favorite in-home date nights, and the best part is that after the class, you get to sit down together and dine on the fruits of your labor.

Whether you’re just dipping your toe into the cooking class world or a seasoned pro looking for something a bit more challenging, these are some of

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Food & Cooking
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Home cooking, booze demand fire up global grocery sales in 2020

Roger T. Brown

Bloomberg

Central Banks to Pour Money Into Economy Despite Sharp Rebound

(Bloomberg) — The aggressive rebound in global economic growth still isn’t enough for most of the world’s central banks to pull back on their emergency stimulus.In Bloomberg’s quarterly review of monetary policy covering 90% of the world economy, the Federal Reserve, European Central Bank and Bank of Japan are among the 16 institutions set to hold interest rates this year.The outlook suggests officials still want to guarantee the recovery from last year’s coronavirus recession by maintaining ultra-low borrowing costs and asset-buying programs. That may require them to accept any accompanying bounce in inflation.Six central banks, most of them in emerging markets, are still predicted to hike, including Brazil, Russia and Nigeria. Turkey is the only one of those monitored which is forecast to cut borrowing costs this year.What Bloomberg Economics Says:“For advanced economies, continued virus uncertainty, deep labor market

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Food & Cooking
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Food Trends Come and Go, but Nigella Lawson Is Forever

Roger T. Brown
Photo credit: Matt Hollyoak

Photo credit: Matt Hollyoak

Nigella Lawson still knows best.

The beloved British cookbook author has graced our bookshelves and television screens for more than two decades now, and her charmingly aloof yet unpretentious approach to cooking, food, and life has never resonated with home cooks more. Lawson—much like the rest of the world—couldn’t have predicted a global pandemic would upend restaurant culture and send us back to our kitchens for the bulk of a year. But the fact that her latest literary offering, Cook, Eat, Repeat, is filled with recipes that could easily be adapted through this unprecedented period of time? Well, that’s just the magic of Lawson herself: She always knows what we’ll need, far before we know we’ll need it.

Though Lawson’s cookbooks always tend to have a theme (i.e., a fresh focus on Italian fare in Nigellissima or baked confections in How to Be a

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Food & Cooking
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Michelle Zauner’s ‘Crying In H Mart’ Memoir Is Essential Reading for Emotional Eaters

Roger T. Brown

It’s a bit unfair to the rest of us that Michelle Zauner—the writer and musician known as Japanese Breakfast—is as multi-talented as she is. 

Her dream-pop lets you float away in an ambient haze. Her writing pulls you between heartbreak and hunger as she weaves together food, loss, family, and identity. She’s proven her skill at directing her own music videos. In the coming months, Zauner will release three long-in-the-works projects: her memoir, Crying in H Mart, which hits shelves on April 20; her third album, Jubilee, out June 4; and her soundtrack for the video game Sable, due later this year. 

What first drew me to Zauner was her writing. In 2016, after releasing Japanese Breakfast’s debut album Psychopomp, Zauner won Glamour’s essay contest with the piece “Love, Loss, and Kimchi.” She described the death of her mother from cancer

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