Hello,
I was chatting to Yotam this week and he was telling me about how he’d been at the birthday party of a famous chef and one of the guests had pulled a bottle of chilli oil out of their pocket and slathered it all over the food. He said what an insult it was for this guest to ‘fix’ the food that had been so carefully prepared with a condiment. I said, “Yotam, it’s not that simple, things aren’t that black or white, there are lots of shades of grey.”
Take salt and pepper, which coincidentally are black or white, no one is going to begrudge you for putting some pepper on your pasta, and I put lots of pepper on my pasta. Salt can seem a bit passive-aggressive, as undersalted food suggests an oversight in the cooking process, but equally, it can just indicate someone with a particularly salty palette.
Some foods, quite frankly, need the lubrication of a bit of a sauce. Chips are the obvious example here, but not if you’re having steak. For some reason, mustard is right. I suppose it has something to do with the delicacy of flavour. Chilli oil makes sense on a pizza to cut through the richness of the cheese and the tomatoes, but probably not on whatever this chef made for his birthday party.
There is a somewhat darker side to this story. Capsaicin, the chemical that makes peppers spicy, has been found to release dopamine and endorphins. So in reality this poor guest was just trying to feel something in their cold condiment-addled heart.
Can you pass the salt,
Hugo
Chief Pepper Officer
The Business of Stuff
P.S. Just to clarify, Mr Ottolenghi was on a stage, I was in the audience and this conversation happened in my head.
The Stuff
Diageo is considering the sale of Guinness 🍺 - the global drinks giant is contemplating spinning off the business whilst it is at the height of its popularity which would get them an estimated £8bn to do some other capitalism. Diageo has been moving away from beer but selling one of their most prized assets would be a major gamble. Guinness 0.0 is now the most popular non-alcoholic beer in the off-trade and indeed outsold cans of the real stuff over Christmas.
Blackstone is taking control of 5,200 British railway arches 🚂 - it’s astonishing the variety of activity that goes on in railway arches, particularly in London. I’ve dined, danced, shopped, rehearsed and climbed with trains rumbling over. The American private equity company is looking to take charge of a £2bn portfolio from TT Group and will continue to refurbish these spaces, hopefully into cool stuff not Costa Coffees (no offence, Costa Coffee).
News jobs board for careers in space 🧑🚀 - a space race is (allegedly) taking off in the UK and if you fancy being a ‘Mission Analysis Engineer’ or perhaps doing a PhD in ‘Digital Twin Extrapolation in Space Object Re-Entry Monitoring’ then www.spacecareers.uk is the place to look. The government is trying to avoid the skills gap that exists in other high-tech sectors.
Rolls-Royce agrees £9bn deal for nuclear subs ☢️ - this marks the biggest deal they've ever done with the UK’s Ministry of Defence and will see them make the reactors for a new fleet of nuclear submarines. The UK has had a nuclear deterrent since 1969 much to the chagrin of people who don’t like the idea of nuclear war. It does however mean we can sit at the big boy’s table at the UN to help not make decisions.
Brixton sues Brixton for calling themselves Brixton 😡 - an American company called Brixton LLC took the absolute liberty of suing Brixton Street Wear (who are actually in Brixton) for using their name. Fortunately, it has all ended amicably with a slightly smaller font on their logo and a promise not to sell outside of the UK. I’m still annoyed on their behalf tbh.
Shipments of Champagne are down for a second year running 🍾 - total shipments fell to 271.4 million bottles which represents a 9.71% annual decline. The French drink almost half of Champagne produced and their consumption has fallen to its lowest level since 1983 (apart from the pandemic). I’d like to do some research that breaks down the context in which champagne gets consumed.
Sainsbury's is putting an end to its cafes ☕ - I’ve always thought those cafes at the side of supermarkets seem like they’ve been on a permanent decline since their 90s heyday which actually never happened. Supermarkets are looking to focus in an increasingly competitive market and so Sainsbury’s is cutting 3,000 jobs and shutting down its remaining 61 cafes.
LinkedIn accused of using private messages to train AI 👂 - a lawsuit has been filed on behalf of Premium users in the US as a privacy setting was noticed that automatically opted people into sharing their data to train AI models. LinkedIn denies the claim, and says that the lawyers are “telling porkies”.
Australia is leading the way with the future of farming 👩🌾 - many believe that technology is how we need to dig our way out of the environmental hole we find ourselves in. Everything from robotic bees to soil-enhancing fungus is being trialled in Orange, New South Wales. Australia is at the frontline of climate change so they’re evolving through necessity.
‘Cancellation insurance’ has a whole new meaning 🙊 - Samphire Risk, an independent underwriting agency backed by Lloyd’s of London is offering ‘cancel culture’ insurance should you wake up to discover your series of red-wine-induced tweets about the state of society haven’t gone down well. The policy includes a 24/7 hotline and a sixty-day plan to manage negative press. One can only speculate on how long the terms and conditions are.
Quote of the week
“I drink Champagne when I’m happy and when I’m sad. Sometimes I drink it when I’m alone. When I have company I consider it obligatory. I trifle with it if I’m not hungry and drink it when I am. Otherwise, I never touch it―unless I’m thirsty.” - Lily Bollinger