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Cameron Diaz reveals the delicious meal she cooked future husband Benji Madden for their first date
Cameron Diaz reveals the delicious meal she cooked future husband Benji Madden for their first date
Cameron Diaz has revealed the delicious first-date meal she made for her husband Benji Madden.
In a sneak peak at Wednesday’s episode of The Drew Barrymore Show, the beloved A-lister opened up about winning Madden’s heart with a savory dish of Mediterranean lamb chops.
Barrymore, 47, set the stage for her best friend Diaz, 50, describing how she helped Cameron prepare for her first date with guitarist Good Charlotte, 43.
Snatched his heart through his stomach: Cameron Diaz, 50, has revealed the delicious first-date meal she made for her husband Benji Madden
‘We get home from this two-day immersive course on Northern and Southern Italian cooking,’ recalled Drew, ‘and you are about to go on a date with Benji.’
Barrymore went on to describe how they ‘talked about [the date] all weekend’ and that she even drove Diaz to the grocery store for ingredients.
‘I drove you to a grocery store,’ said Drew, ‘so pregnant I stayed in the car, and you went inside. What was the dish you made him that night? I’m gonna let you tell it. I remember it clear as day.’
The Charlie’s Angels stars were in Drew’s studio kitchen preparing a meal of their own when the reclusive Cameron detailed the dinner that led to true love.
Charlie’s chefs: In a sneak peak at Wednesday’s episode of The Drew Barrymore Show, the beloved A-lister opened up to her Charlie’s Angels costar about winning Madden’s heart with a savory dish of Mediterranean lamb chops
Drooling for details: Barrymore, 47, set the stage for her best friend Diaz, describing how she helped Cameron prepare for her first date with the Good Charlotte guitarist by driving her to the grocery store for ingredients
Savory romance: ‘Lamb chops,’ revealed The Mask star. ‘Mediterranean lamb chops, some couscous, and some broccoli and sautéed zucchini’
‘Lamb chops,’ she said. “Mediterranean lamb chops, some couscous, and some broccoli and sautéed zucchini.”
‘Did you make him the shallot gold that night?’ asked Barrymore, eagerly inquiring about Cameron’s secret flavor enhancer.
‘I put shallot gold in the couscous,’ replied The Mask star.
Shallot gold is a special concoction of caramelized shallots blended with olive oil.
The stunning foodie loves adding it to a variety of different recipes and dishes, jazzing up anything savory.
Drew was evidently a fan of shallot gold as she turned to her audience and exclaimed: ‘Do you see what I’m saying!’
Mad about Madden: Diaz tied the knot with her rock star husband at her Beverly Hills home in 2015
Diaz tied the knot with her rock star husband at her Beverly Hills home in 2015.
The four-time Golden Globe nominee announced that she had ‘retired’ from acting in 2018 and gave birth to a daughter named Raddix in December of 2019.
Both Cameron and Benji have been extremely private about their family life and rarely speak about their daughter.
But the giggly megastar is about to make her acting return with the aptly titled Netflix film Back in Action.
The action-comedy will co-star Cameron’s close friend Jamie Fox and its central storyline remains a closely guarded secret.
The source recently told People that Diaz has a more careful strategy for her film career this time around: ‘She doesn’t want acting to overtake her life now as it did before.’
Returning to the spotlight: The four-time Golden Globe nominee announced that she had ‘retired’ from acting in 2018 and gave birth to a daughter named Raddix in December of 2019. But the megastar is about to make her acting return with the aptly titled Netflix movie Back in Action
Israel’s vegan revolutionary now spreading the word on plant-based food in New York
At the forefront of the vegan revolution in Israel, Omri Paz, the founder of Vegan Friendly, has now set his sights on bringing his model to the United States market.
Vegan Friendly, a self-sustaining nonprofit founded in 2012 to promote veganism and animal rights and improve access to plant-based food, is planning to expand its activities to the US after launching in the United Kingdom about two and a half years ago.
“What makes us unique is that we have created a huge ecosystem that gives businesses and restaurants benefits, much more than just the labeling or certification of being vegan friendly,” Paz told The Times of Israel. “With us, they can participate in our events, and we can connect them to thousands of our members through exposure on social media, our app and the website.”
In Israel, which hosts the world’s highest per capita vegan population, 1,800 businesses including restaurants and hotels are certified with the pink and green Vegan Friendly heart sticker. Over 500 food manufacturers such as Unilever, Nestle, and Strauss use the Vegan Friendly seal to label over 10,000 plant-based products certifying that they meet strict criteria.
Additionally, Vegan Friendly has built a community of over 6,000 people in Israel who donate a monthly sum toward the organization’s attempts to raise awareness and encourage veganism or vegetarianism, Paz said. Together with the Tel Aviv Municipality, Vegan Friendly this year hosted a three-day Vegan Fest touted as the world’s largest vegan event, with cooking classes, food stands, food-tech and health stalls.
“From the businesses who sign up with us we get discounts or products to try out, which our members can enjoy at hundreds of businesses and restaurants across the country,” said Paz. “Our model gives businesses and restaurants a lot of value for certifying and that helps us to promote veganism and make it more accessible.”
With the use of big campaigns involving billboards, YouTube lectures and prime time TV ads, Vegan Friendly seeks to create a dietary change.
Omri Paz, founder of Vegan Friendly. (Courtesy/Vegan Friendly)
“We applied our model to the UK two and a half years ago and today we have a team of almost 10 people with about 200,000 followers on social media, 1,200 businesses or branches certified as being vegan friendly, and over 3,000 products labeled as vegan friendly ,” said Paz.
“I don’t think there’s any big organization in the US that is going to focus on dietary change, which is important to us,” he noted.
Vegetarians make up about 5% of the US population. For the US launch, Vegan Friendly went through 50,000 restaurants and businesses and selected about 15,000 that met the criteria to be certified as vegan friendly. Initially, the nonprofit will focus on restaurants located in New York City.
“At the first stage we aim to launch a community through social media, on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, Twitter, and to get users on our app and the website before we plan to approach restaurants and ask them to be certified as vegan -friendly by adding options to their menu,” said Paz. “We already have 20 businesses that signed with us to become vegan friendly certified businesses.”
Paz disclosed that the first restaurant that received its vegan friendly certification in the US is The Gray Dog, a neighborhood restaurant with five branches spread across Manhattan.
“Two years from now we aim to have about half a million followers and about 5,000 businesses that sign up with us either for the restaurant certification or product certification,” said Paz.
Looking ahead, Vegan Friendly seeks by 2029 to grow to a team of about 160 people generating revenue of $60 million and being completely self-sustainable, according to Paz.
Science Has Decoded Comfort Food
When you think of your favorite food, what do you picture? For me, it’s nachos. Yet even as I’m thinking about the delicious pile of toppings that can really make the platter pop, I’m also picturing cozying up with a big old plate of the things in front of my favorite movie, sharing them with friends. When I crave nachos, I’m not only craving the taste but also the warm and fuzzy emotions that have surrounded my past nacho-eating experiences. And some of the nachos have been objectively bad, with burnt cheese or too many jalapenos, but even so, the dish maintains its association with positive memories. The New York Times posits that this mental connection defines our favorite comfort foods, more so than the flavor does.
What makes a dish “comfort food”
There is some direct science behind the notion of “comfort food”: eating anything at all triggers a release of opioid-based chemicals in the brain, and carbohydrates in particular increase serotonin levels. If you identify as someone with a sweet tooth, that simply means that you have stronger brain-reward responses to sugary foods.
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But it’s our association with memories that makes certain foods more comforting than others. Comfort foods are different in different cultures, The New York Times explains, because that association is with foods we were given by people who cared for us early in life. This is why foods typically associated with healing during sickness, like soup, are often seen as comfort foods. The meals that you’re drawn to during times of emotional distress as an adult were actually determined by your parents or grandparents or whoever was feeding you as a child.
There’s another sense that has a strong association with both memory and food: smell. We process smells in a part of the brain that connects directly to the part of the brain that processes emotions and handles memory, so the smell of a specific food can instantly trigger a comforting memory. If you enjoy cinnamon rolls on a particularly pleasant day with your family, for example, the smell of cinnamon rolls will quickly bring you back to that feeling.
Of course, the flip side is also true: associations between food and memory can also lead to a list of “never again” foods that are associated with bad times. It’s one of the reasons one bad experience with tequila may turn you off the stuff for life.
How brands are cashing in on nostalgia
Brands are, naturally, always hoping to capitalize on those positive mental associations. Earlier this month, Whole Foods declared “retro products” a trend to watch in 2023, and we’ve already seen some major brands hopping on board this year. McDonald’s appealed to our inner child with the return of its Happy Meal Halloween Pails, White Castle has introduced an entire menu harkening back to 1921, and social media pages like @Snack_Memories serve as a reminder of all of our favorite snacks from a bygone era.
Some brands are even setting themselves up to cash in on future nostalgia by discontinuing beloved items, like Klondike’s Choco Taco and McDonald’s McRib. Testing the waters of how people emotionally respond to a product’s demise can be a good indicator of how deep the memories of that item run. It’s those positive memories that will push people to line up for the next chance to taste it.
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