Beetroot ketchup to avocado oil mayo: how sauces have gone gourmet

The choice used to be “red or brown?” but fridge shelves and barbecue trestle tables are heaving under the weight of condiments this summer thanks to gourmet makeovers aimed at “adventurous” taste buds.There is a “real buzz around condiments right now”, says Jeff Webster, the managing director of Hunter & Gather, which sells sriracha hot sauce and chipotle and lime “100% avocado oil” mayonnaise. He says people are looking for something that brings “big flavour” to their plate.Today the horizons of ketchup lovers are no longer limited to tomatoes. There are beetroot, tamarind and even beer flavour ketchups after Brewdog’s recent launch of a variety inspired by its Hazy Jane IPA

Smithfield and Billingsgate market redevelopment plans begin – but traders’ future in doubt

Smithfield and Billingsgate food markets in London will be turned into new homes and a cultural destination under plans by their owner – but the future of the meat and fish traders housed on each site remains in doubt.A council within the City of London Corporation, which is responsible for running the capital’s Square Mile, has voted to task a team to oversee the regeneration of 28 hectares (70 acres) of land across Greater London. However, it has not allocated any new money for the project.The corporation decided in a separate vote last November to permanently close Smithfield and Billingsgate when it pulled the plug on a planned £740m relocation to a new site in the east of the capital at Dagenham, blaming rising costs.The markets will continue trading in their current locations until 2028, but the closure will mark an end to centuries of meat and fish trading in the city

Till Jeff us do part: divisive, star-studded Bezos wedding hits full swing in Venice

The Black Death. Byron on the prowl. Rising water levels. Cruise ships the size of city blocks. Venice may have endured many tumultuous events and sinister challenges over the centuries but rarely in its long history has it had to contend with an issue quite as odd and quite as divisive as the sort-of nuptials of the world’s fourth-richest person

Google’s emissions up 51% as AI electricity demand derails efforts to go green

Google’s carbon emissions have soared by 51% since 2019 as artificial intelligence hampers the tech company’s efforts to go green.While the corporation has invested in renewable energy and carbon removal technology, it has failed to curb its scope 3 emissions, which are those further down the supply chain, and are in large part influenced by a growth in datacentre capacity required to power artificial intelligence.The company reported a 27% increase in year-on-year electricity consumption as it struggles to decarbonise as quickly as its energy needs increase.Datacentres play a crucial role in training and operating the models that underpin AI models such as Google’s Gemini and OpenAI’s GPT-4, which powers the ChatGPT chatbot. The International Energy Agency estimates that datacentres’ total electricity consumption could double from 2022 levels to 1,000TWh (terawatt hours) in 2026, approximately Japan’s level of electricity demand

‘I get what I deserve’: Sabalenka says TikTok dance helped clear the air with Coco Gauff

Winning Wimbledon is hard enough to do when everything’s going swimmingly off the court as well as on it. When something is rumbling beneath the surface, focusing on the job in hand can be almost impossible.So it was perhaps no surprise that Aryna Sabalenka chose to clear the air with Coco Gauff after the world No 1’s harsh words in the wake of her painful loss to the American in the final of the French Open this month.Claiming it was “the worst final that I ever played”, Sabalenka said she had lost the match rather than Gauff winning it and, most insultingly of all, that had Iga Swiatek, the four-time French Open champion, beaten her in the semi-finals at Roland Garros, she would also have beaten Gauff in the final.Sabalenka apologised to Gauff privately and here this week, in true Sabalenka style, it was repeated by means of a TikTok dance, with the caption: “TikTok dances always had a way of bringing people together

England fall to heaviest T20 defeat as Mandhana century sparks India rout

England’s one-sided series against West Indies last month was merely a dress rehearsal: India was always going to be the main show. And so the curtain finally went up on the Charlotte Edwards-Nat Sciver-Brunt era for a Trent Bridge Saturday matinee.The audience, though, went home disappointed after witnessing an England performance akin to The Play That Goes Wrong, bowled out for 113 inside 15 overs, to hand India a 97-run win, England’s heaviest T20 defeat in terms of runs.Edwards’s calling-card has been about transforming England into a side that plays smart cricket and find ways to win. With the honourable exception of Sciver-Brunt – whose 66 from 42 balls was the only contribution of note – this performance failed on both counts