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Hello, and welcome to the CulinaryWoman Newsletter! I’m happy to see so many new subscribers and to thank everyone who’s been with us. This is the free weekly newsletter. CulinaryWoman looks at topics in the ever-changing food world, and I also share the stories that I’ve written for news outlets, and podcasts.

Before we start, I want to send best wishes to Catherine, Princess of Wales in her cancer battle. I have great affection for her as a fellow airline child, and as a graceful human being, daughter, wife, sister and mother. Cancer has touched my family, and I was also a child who worried about an ill parent (my father died when I was 14). I sympathize with George, Charlotte and Louis and I hope Kate will have a successful healing.

Since late 2022, social media has been abuzz with posts of the Crookie. It’s a combination of a croissant and a chocolate chip cookie that originated at a Paris bakery called Boulangerie Louvard. Essentially, bakers take a stale croissant, fill it with chocolate chip cookie dough, and bake it again.

The result is akin to an almond croissant, except with cookie dough instead of almond paste. Last week,

The crookie has since crossed the pond to arrive in New York City bakeries, a development I do not see as positive. I am adamantly opposed to what I call stunt food - dishes intended to create something that can go viral on social media.

At first on Facebook and Instagram, and now on Tik Tok and YouTube, people post photos and videos about these “of the moment” dishes. Sometimes, the food moves beyond experimentation and goes mainstream. That’s what happened with the Cronut, a combination of a croissant and doughnut that was invented in 2013 by French bakery owner Dominique Ansel.

It took him two months to perfect the original Cronut, which is a doughnut built from croissant dough. It usually has icing on top and some kind of filling inside. When it was introduced, people lined up for blocks to try one (perhaps they still do).

Despite his care in creating it, the Cronut was quickly copied by bakers everywhere and even by fast food places. I tasted my first Cronut in 2015, at Jack in the Box in Phoenix.

My verdict: it was fine, but it wasn’t as good as a good croissant or a top-notch doughnut. And that’s my main problem with these inventions. I’d rather eat a great example of something, than a photogenic mashup.

Freakshakes are another example. These are milkshakes topped with all kinds of snacks and confections, from fruit and marshmallows, to cake, candy, pretzels and varipus toppings. They seem to have originated around 2016 at the Pâtissez cafe in Canberra, Australia, and social media gets the credit for spreading the trend around the world.

Vedia Glover, of Lilli Oliver Cake Boutique in Manchester, England, went a step beyond freakshakes by inventing the freakaccino, which adds a shot of espresso to the concoction. Nutrition experts estimate that some of them have 1,500 calories.

Another indulgence has become what I call tall burgers, or hamburgers piled high with multiple patties, strips of bacon, slices of cheese, avocado, basically whatever you can stack up. They’ve lately been challenged by wide burgers, which are dinner plate sized sandwiches that probably could feed four people.

This all makes me wonder why these combinations have spread so widely, so to speak. Maybe people truly enjoy them, but I suspect the reason is that to get clicks and hits on social media, you simply have to become more and more outrageous.

For instance, the New York Mets are selling a rainbow cookie egg roll this season. It’s exactly what it sounds like: a rainbow cookie, the kind you get at Italian bakeries, wrapped in a wonton skin and fried. You can already anticipate the Tik Toks.

Think of the spate of “counter foods” that we saw during the pandemic, in which videographers poured jars of tomato sauce and plopped hot spaghetti and cheese on top of them, letting guests serve themselves.

To all of this, I say: enough stunt food.

It is difficult enough to create a perfect croissant, a wonderful chocolate chip cookie, or a delectable burger without tarting it up with other ingredients. And while the culinary food is awash in fusion ideas, there’s tremendous merit in being able to achieve the best possible version of something simple.

As I wrote for The Takeout a while back, I have some tests of bakeries, restaurants, coffee shops and other spots. For a bakery, my test is a plain croissant (the one at the Boro in Ann Arbor, above, is excellent). For a pizza spot, it’s a margherita pizza.

In a coffee house, I order a Cortado (as I did earlier this month in Toronto and also in Ann Arbor). If I see fried chicken on a menu, I’m likely to order it. In summer, I like a wedge salad and gazpacho, as well as strawberry shortcake.

My friend Ria Alicehec Turnbull, the owner of Piccolo Gelateria in New Orleans, told me in that story that her primary focus is quality. “I go by presentation, taste, texture, and freshness of the ingredients,” Ria said. “Too many times, there are so many ingredients mixed together that food loses its identity and is confusing. Classic, simple, fresh is always the winner, in my book.”

Certainly, there can be some flavor experimentation. Cafe Japon, one of my favorite vendors at the Ann Arbor Farmer’s Market, does a wonderful matcha croissant. Chocolate babka is a nice variation on the classic coffee cake. King Cake season in New Orleans brings forth all styles of that pastry, and people make a point to try them.

But mixing two completely different things, like the Crookie, or putting on so many ingredients that the dish goes to waste, like the burgers and shakes, is not my jam. I’m more than happy to hear your views on these variations, and if you’ve found one you like, feel free to sing its praises.

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In Bristol, England, a group of 14 pubs temporarily changed the draft beers they offered, swapping in one tap with zero alcohol beer. According to the BBC, they found that drinkers substituted the alcohol-free versions in an equal measure to alcoholic beer.

There was no impact on the money earned by the pubs, none of which had previously offered alcohol-free beer. Their revenues held up.

The study was carried out by Bristol City Council and the Tobacco and Alcohol Research Group (TARG) of the University of Bristol.

Said Dr Angela Atwood, associate professor of TARG: "This does not restrict consumer choice; in fact, it increases the options available to the customer, and at the same time could reduce population levels of alcohol consumption and improve public health."

In 2015, Eastern Michigan University, just down the road for me, launched Swoop’s Food Pantry. Named for the school’s mascot, an eagle named Swoop, the pantry has served thousands of students since it was launched.

But recently, the pantry has been experiencing surging demand, and as a result its shelves are getting bare. During the summer, the pantry serves about 55 students a day; lately, the shoppers have averaged about 90 per day. All the food is provided free to students.

There’s also a lounge where students can get coffee and tea as well as snacks. Local businesses often contribute treats.

Items in the most demand include peanut butter, dry cereal, snacks, rice, condiments, black beans, highlighters, notebooks, and spices. The food pantry can do a porch pick up of donations from residents in Washtenaw County.

The pantry accepts monetary donations, and there’s also a shopping list on Amazon where supporters can sign up to donate groceries. You can find the list here.

My mother was on the administrative staff at EMU; I did my first year of college there and my nephew Parker received his undergraduate degree at Eastern. I’d love it if CulinaryWoman readers could help them out. Thanks for considering it.

I date my entry into food writing from the week I spent in Paris cooking with Patricia Wells. The journalist, author and teacher has divided her time between Paris and Provence for many years.

Last week, she launched the most elegant estate sale that you can imagine. Patricia made dozens of culinary items available from her home Chanteduc, from copper pans to posters and pottery. Buyers quickly descended.

I was too slow to pounce, and many of the items I would have liked to buy were gone by the time I scrolled through the sale. But you should click anyway. It’s fun to see what she had available — and hopefully, she’ll be sharing more items with us in the future.

I have a little personal news to share. I’ve been invited to contribute to Food & Wine magazine, which is very exciting. I’m going to focus on food and business, which as you know is CulinaryWoman’s stock in trade. I’m working on my first piece now and it should post soon.

Meanwhile, I had a busy week last week.

• I wrote about Chinese electric vehicles for the Boston Globe Ideas section. I’m in favor of letting companies sell them here, as long as there are some strict guidelines to keep Americans’ data safe. You can read more and hear observations from veteran trade negotiators Jeffrey Garten (who I knew before I met Ina) at my Intersection newsletter.

• Dan Pashman shared the recipe for Pasta Pizza from his new cookbook, Everything’s Pastable, in a story I wrote for The Takeout.

• Anna Francese Gass gave The Takeout her recipe for Piadina, with Mortadella Ricotta and Pistachio. It’s from her beautiful cookbook, Italian Snacking.

• And, the Lions, Towers and Shields podcast looked at one of my all-time favorite Hollywood musicals, An American In Paris.

I would love to hear from you! If you’d like to reach me, or suggest a story idea, you can email me at culinarywoman (@) gmail dot com.

I’ll be back tomorrow with Red Beans & Advice for our paid subscribers, and I’ll see everyone else next Sunday. Thanks for dropping by.

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