IZU, Japan — For three decades, Mitsuyasu Asada has proudly tended the same lush mountainside terraces where his father and grandfather grew wasabi, the horseradish-like plant with a fluorescent green hue and head-clearing pungency that unmistakably connotes Japanese cuisine. Yet at the age of just 56, Mr. Asada is already thinking about retiring, worn down…
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Loel Phelps, a design director for The Sims, said his team uses consultants, research and input from employees with diverse backgrounds to decide which foods, and elements of cooking and eating, best fit the spirit of the game. “The Sims is about real, lived experiences, so once we have a theme or setting, I like…
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In regions where coffee is grown in mineral-rich volcanic soil, the complexity of the beans receives a boost. Volcanica Coffee, a roasting company based in Suwanee, Ga., focuses on just that, with more than 100 mostly single-origin coffees from dozens of locations around the world where volcanoes loom. It recently introduced several so-called “natural” coffees,…
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Louis Catizone, an owner of the Brooklyn distiller St. Agrestis, has entered the busy nonalcoholic field with a drink that gets right to the point: the phony negroni. The garnet-red drink comes in the same conical bottle as the company’s well-made spirited negroni and has the same herb and citrus formula. It retains the bitterness…
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Here comes another pandemic Valentine’s Day. According to a study conducted in January among just over one thousand adults by the data company Morning Consult, only 43 percent of the sample plans dinner out, down from 69 percent in 2017, the last time the study was run. (The reason most often given was the virus,…
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Those who have watched the series “High on the Hog: How African American Cuisine Transformed America” on Netflix will know the name Hercules Posey, the enslaved Black chef who set a high standard for George Washington’s table in Philadelphia, and later cooked as a free man in New York City. Ramin Ganeshram, the executive director…
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In search of sausages for the Bengals vs. the Rams? Cúrate Bar de Tapas, a Spanish restaurant in Asheville, N.C., has added an online marketplace for nationwide shipping; sausages are a specialty. They have assembled a package of their own deliciously meaty butifarra, rich morcilla casera, spicy chorizo and ruddy, spiraled chistorra ($65). Sear the…
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Heart-shaped everything — bagels, pizza, cheese and even Dutch ovens — is the Valentine’s Day signature. Now Ladurée, the Paris-based bakery, confectioner and restaurant, has created its first heart-shaped croissant, a generous, properly flaky beauty with a ruby glaze and nubbins of rose. It will be sold at the pastry counter in the bakery’s New…
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But as Mr. McMillan of Silicon Valley Bank points out, millennials have less disposable income than their parents and more economic fears. They are often burdened by student debt, have fewer middle-class job opportunities and cannot assume they will ever be able to afford real estate. That’s a primary reason that millennials have gravitated to…
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LONG BEACH, Calif. — The pleasure of a well-made kouign-amann — a French pastry from the town of Douarnenez, perfected in bakeries across Brittany — is in that tickle of salty butter layered throughout the laminated roll, set against the sweetness of the yeasted dough and the dark caramel that covers it. At Gusto Bread,…
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