The theatre of food right now.
The only newsletter where the sauce packet is the story.
Food is doing something right now.
Not the food. The theatre of it. The pure spectacle of it.
Don’t tell Timothée Chalamet about the theatre of food. He might lump it in with ballet.
“I don’t want to be working in ballet or opera where it’s like, ‘Hey! Keep this thing alive,’ even though no one cares about this anymore,” the ping pong movie star said.
”All respect to the ballet and opera people out there … I just lost 14 cents in viewership. I’m taking shots for no reason.”
I’m inspired this week by recent listens to The Ringer’s podcast, Food News. This is where Juliet Litman and David Jacoby “sample various snacks, share personal tales about food, and round up the latest in food news from around the world.”
I’ve been listening to them for years, for over a decade now. And I hold them personally responsible for my entry into the Bravo realityverse.
They got me on to Stassi and Jax and the gateway drug of Vanderpump Rules. I blame them for all of it.
So that’s why I’m starting with $15 honey in an aluminum tube. That’s Honey Department. That’s the whole company. Their tagline? “honey but thicker.”
It’s absurd. This makes squeezable olive oil seem strategic. I get it. Your average bottle of honey drips everywhere, gets crusty or worse solid.
Don’t get me started on the bear-shaped honey bottles. This solves the problem and looks cool doing it. And making this an actual trademark? The Official Honey of Honey™. Someone had a good week there.
Okay. Now that we’re warmed up and covered in thick honey. Let’s cook.
The World Baseball Classic is serving cannoli in mini batting helmets. I have nothing to add to that. Everything is better in mini helmets.
It’s not new, but the WBC has unearthed, the Tokyo Dome ice cream sandwich. Now this has been going viral every six months for years. Same product. Same photos. But this is guaranteed to get at least 50k likes every time.
There is a product design lesson in there about getting something so right it never stops spreading. Someone should write a case study.
Not to be outdone, the Seattle Mariners are serving crab nachos out of a iconic souvenir Washington State ferry boat. Wonton chips, crab salad, Thai chili sauce. Basically you can get whatever you want in it. The souvenir is the vessel. And you could do a whole newsletter about that ferry’s design system that appears to have not changed in 50 years.
Also on the “get it in a ferry boat” menu: Sidewinder Fries. I said I didn’t want to look up what those are. The mystery would be better. But I couldn’t help myself. They are maxed-up curly fries.
Ranch is having another moment. Stassi must be going crazy with this.
First, the Tulsa Drillers are rebranding as the Ranch Dippers for four games this season. It’s been a while since I snuck a baseball hat into the newsletter, so this is great news. And a great hat.
Meanwhile Hidden Valley is hiring four people to travel Europe for eight weeks as “Ranch-bassadors”.
Well played. That’s their actual job title. The role? Introducing ranch to countries that have been living without it. The wild thing is how they talked about it in the video. The video from the Chief Ranch Officer (classic marketing gag. Side bar, I once pitched the idea about a Chief Slots Officer for a casino with Seth Rogen as the CSO. Still bummed that didn’t happen).
Calling it the “flavour of America” as an eagle carries a bottle of Ranch across screen.
That feels like the most American marketing activation ever conceived. I mean that as a compliment.
Actually, the most American marketing thing ever might just be the owner of Keens Steakhouse in New York. They paid $525k for the flag that was supposedly draped over Abraham Lincoln’s casket.
So the flag is hanging in their Lincoln Room now. You can eat steak right beside it. They’ve been collecting memorabilia like this since 1885.
They didn’t run an ad. They spent half a million dollars and got a couple weeks of press. A cheaper-than-a-Super-Bowl-ad strategy that is a way better story.
Giving the ranch news a run for its money is Buffalo Wild Wings. They attempted a triple axel (or maybe unholy trinity) of food branding by launching the “wing-flavored Espresso Proteini.”
An espresso martini infused with buffalo dry rub seasoning and packed with 10 grams of protein.
The future of marketing is just going to be weird collabs and finding the scientific limit of how much protein you can include in a single piece of popcorn.
Then Taco Bell dropped its 2026 menu.
This is where things went even more sideways.
It’s a Milk Bar collab. So yes, there is a Birthday Cake Empanada. A Crème Brûlée Crunchwrap Slider. Strawberry & Cream Mex Pizza Bite. Mountain Dew Baja Midnight Pie, Obviously.
All of those are completely insane. But it’s the Edible Fire Queso sauce packet, that steals the whole show. The sauce packet is the food now. It’s environmentally friendly saucing.
We’ve fully crossed over into something.
So it makes sense that Pokémon and Heinz made Pikachu ketchup bottles. Of course they did. And in 40 years those will fetch a hefty price on eBay. It’s not even yellow ketchup. It’s just got Pikachu on the label.
The pitch is always: if you know, you know. Works great when the product earns it. Doesn’t work at all when it doesn’t. KitKat is pretty iconic. And the logo is there, just not in any field tested or accessible way. It still seems like we are playing insider marketing to an extreme level.
But Jackson. I’m hungry. What is the point of all this?
Here’s what all of this actually is.
Nobody’s selling food anymore.
They’re selling the screenshot. The group chat share.
The cannoli helmet, the ferry boat nachos, the edible sauce packet, the crème brûlée crunchwrap, the wing-flavored Espresso Proteini. None of that is lunch.
It’s content with a side of lunch. The food is the media buy.
Guess what? It’s working.
In today’s algorithms weird travels farther than good.
A honey tube goes viral. A mini batting helmet stops the scroll. Taco Bell’s whole 2026 strategy is basically: what if we just keep going?
What if there was no ceiling to food mis-innovation?
We are living in the era of the edible press release.
What a time. What a weird, delicious, completely unhinged time to be alive.
This Week’s Cocktail: The Baja Dirty Ranch Water
Ranch is having a moment. Taco Bell is putting Mountain Dew in a pie. Someone is paying you to bring ranch dressing to Europe. The least we can do is make a drink that matches that same energy.
The Baja Dirty Ranch Water is not a craft cocktail. It is not even a vibe. It is what happens when a tailgate and a Tuesday night make a bad decision together. It is perfect for this week specifically.
The Baja Dirty Ranch Water
2 oz bourbon
Juice of half a lime
Top with Mountain Dew Zero Sugar
Rocks glass rimmed with a packet of Taco Bell sauce and Tajín spice. Big ice. Squeeze the lime in, pour the bourbon over it, top with Dew, sprinkle a little more of that Tajín like you’re a chef. Don’t stir it, let it be a little chaotic and messy. Garnish with a lime wheel if you’re feeling fancy, which you are not. This is a dare.
Notes: Use a low-shelf bourbon. Nothing too precious. This drink does not reward subtlety.
Okay, the Edible Fire Queso sauce packet is pretty cool. I’ll take that + the Cool Ranch nuggets, please.