AI Cakes, Mushroom Murders, and Rebel Wine 🍷
Welcome to Secret Breakfast / The best place to recycle Greek Yogurt, fill butter with radish, and enjoy cooking when it’s hot outside
Hi there!
I think you've noticed Artificial Intelligence is becoming our new Google Search. Especially since Google placed a Gemini answer at the top of search results.
I'm no Gemini fan, but I use other AIs (duck.ai, claude.ai,...) for many tasks: from visualizing bloodwork trends to helping me code or buying a cartridge for my turntable.
Yesterday, I was in a country house and I had 500 g of Greek yogurt I had frozen months ago. I wanted to cook something with that, and this AI-suggested sponge came out fluffy and perfect with some caramelized apricots tossed in.
500g Greek yogurt, 3 eggs, 150g sugar, 300g flour, 16g baking powder, 30ml seed oil, zest of 1 lemon.
Caution! At first, the AI suggested 200g of flour and it was clear it was not enough. Lesson learned? Always question the machine!
Piero
✹Chungking Express is a dreamy, offbeat portrait of love and loneliness in 1990s Hong Kong, told through two interwoven stories of heartbroken policemen and the women who disrupt their routines.
Who, what, why and how when it comes to wine
Rebel School of Wine by Tyler Balliet, the creator of Wine Riot and Rosé Mansion, makes a clear case: wine should be about joy, not intimidation. This vibrantly illustrated guide quickly dismantles the complexities of wine, covering everything from production to industry economics with an inviting, step-by-step approach. It's the fun, comprehensive insider's guide you've always wanted. It's perfect for a present: to you or somebody else.
Rebel School Of Wine by Tyler Balliet
→ Shortplot: 🍇 🍷 🥂 🍾
Death, Beef, and the Curious Case of the Mushroom Murderer
In 2023, Erin Patterson cooked a Beef Wellington lunch (as in Gordon Ramsey's Beef Wellington, ★recipe) that killed three of her in-laws and seriously poisoned a fourth. The dish, she later admitted, contained death cap mushrooms — among the most lethal fungi in the world.
Patterson claimed the mushrooms may have accidentally come from a mix of wild and store-bought dried mushrooms. Now she has been found guilty of three counts of murder and the attempted murder of the lone survivor.
Her story was huge and it even started a daily podcast (and a shorter podcast, as well). People remembered movies like I Love You to Death, where a wife repeatedly tries — and hilariously fails — to kill her unfaithful husband.
Even Patterson’s estranged husband, Simon, survived! He didn’t attend the lunch and later questioned her about poisoning his parents. Their children, however, ate the same meal the next day and were unharmed — casting doubt on whether the dish was intentionally poisoned for specific victims.
***
Murders aside, it is practically impossible to precisely quantify how many people have died discovering that a food was poisonous, but the number is certainly very high throughout human history. It is thanks to those attempts — often fatal — that today we have a vast knowledge of food edibility.
A hypothetical estimate based on some anthropological models suggests a surprisingly low number, or at least lower than one might expect.
Can you imagine? Throughout human history, approximately 70-100 million people have died from discovering which foods were poisonous. It's a staggering number because every year around 9 million people die worldwide due to malnutrition (and could be saved).
🧑🏻🍳The Chef's Wedding: Eleven Madison Park's Daniel Humm married Succession's Annabelle Dexter 🌿I'm reading a novel where they cook Curried Chickpeas with Spinach (★recipe) 🧠How to Make Better Decisions, According to a Neuroscientist 🧈Have I already posted a Butter Tart? (★recipe) 😓How to Enjoy Dining When It’s Hot As Fxxx Outside 🥮What to Bake When It’s Too Hot for the Oven (★recipes) ❄️Mexican Paletas will make kids happy (★recipes) 🍋🟩It's said that this Key Lime Pie will get you a boyfriend (★recipe), or at least it worked for the recipe developer 🏗️Thanks Puci (🇮🇹newsletter), I needed a song about two cranes who are in love: These New Puritans, Industrial Love Song
The War on ‘Artificial’ Ice
Louis Anslow / Pessimists Archive
"Artificial meat is under attack: US states like Montana, Mississippi and Alabama have banned it - taking the lead from Florida who outlawed it in 2024. The irony? 180 years ago the sunshine state would pioneer another artificially produced product that was traditionally harvested from nature: ICE".
Out of the Ashes. How fungi are surviving—and even thriving—in a warming world
Meera Subramanian / Orion
In this article, Christian Schwarz, a naturalist, discovers new mushroom species flourishing in Big Basin Redwoods State Park after a devastating wildfire, leading him to study how fungi adapt to a changing world. The author then explores how fungi offer lessons in resilience and interconnectedness amidst climate change, posing the question of whether humanity can adapt and survive like fungi.
