Author: Jawdah Hannad Basara

The majority of people associate sleep with rest. About getting an extra hour on a Sunday, or about waking up less sleepy. In the early 2020s, no one who lay down for a routine overnight sleep study at a clinic thought they were creating the foundation for a medical revolution. However, that is essentially what took place. SleepFM, an AI model developed by Stanford Medicine researchers, can predict a person’s risk for more than 130 diseases, including dementia and heart attacks, years before any symptoms manifest based on a single night of sleep recordings. It sounds like science fiction. Three…

Usually, it begins at three in the morning. The phone is glowing, the ceiling is staring back, and the thoughts are racing. Anxiety has become more of a permanent roommate for millions of young people navigating relationships, careers, social media noise, and economic uncertainty. Additionally, although the mental health sector spent years encouraging Generation Z to seek professional assistance, the truth is that anxiety doesn’t follow a schedule, therapists have waiting lists, and appointments are expensive. AI apps have quietly entered that gap, which is the space between needing support and actually receiving it. Not with much fanfare, but through…

Some of the competing chefs must have felt something change beneath them at one point, between the judges’ deliberations and the trophy handover. Not the anxiety that comes with losing; all professional cooks have that. Strange. They were informed that an AI had created the winning recipe. During development, there is no tasting. No instinct developed over many years in a hot kitchen. It is merely a language model that draws from a vast array of pre-existing recipes and produces something that just so happens to be perfect. Whether this will turn into a pivotal moment in the history of…

When you last sat down at a restaurant and boldly said, “I know exactly what I want,” it’s likely that the menu had already made most of the decisions for you. Not the cook. Not your hunger. An algorithm. Although it sounds almost dramatic, it is actually taking place in dining rooms all over America and beyond. Restaurants, ranging from upscale independents to fast-casual chains, are feeding AI systems with sales data, ordering trends, and behavioral cues to reposition dishes, redesign menus, and gently direct patrons toward whatever brings in the most money. The owner of more than fifty restaurants…

Around week three, there comes a time when you no longer feel like you’re conducting an experiment and instead feel like you’re just… training. That change occurred more quickly than anticipated. Honestly, it was faster than it ever was when a human coach was watching your squat depth from across the room and checking their phone in between sets. It wasn’t an easy choice to replace a personal trainer who charged £80 an hour with an AI. Two years of Tuesday and Thursday workouts at a Clapham gym with a trainer who was familiar with both cats’ names—a routine that…

The amount of flavor that can be extracted from a batch of Schezwan sauce is almost unbelievable. You can make something that could convincingly anchor an entire meal on its own with just a handful of dried red chilies, a generous amount of garlic, a splash of vinegar, and about forty minutes of attention. When you first taste the homemade version, it’s difficult to ignore how much the bottled version tastes like an apology. The sauce’s origins can be found in the southwestern Chinese province of Sichuan, which has always been known for cooking with a certain assured intensity. Sichuan…

Romesco sauce has subtly taken on the role of the condiment that the British table was unaware it was lacking when the barbecue is served for the first time in late spring, and someone invariably brings out a bowl of something smoky and rust-colored, cutting off the conversation. Like most good things, it arrived gradually. There was no fanfare, no viral moment, just a steady accumulation of dinner parties, recipe columns, and food bloggers who insisted it went well with everything from a bowl of crisps at midnight to chargrilled chicken. Romesco originated in Tarragona, a seaside town south of…

Marie Rose sauce has a subtle stubbornness to it. Fondue sets, avocado on everything, and the brief and confusing era of deconstructed everything are just a few of the trends that have come and gone, but this pale pink, mayonnaise-based sauce continues to appear on British tables, Christmas starters, dinner parties, and seaside cafés, served with a bowl of cold prawns and a wedge of lemon. It hasn’t attempted self-reinvention. It is not required to. It’s an almost embarrassingly easy recipe. The base is made of mayonnaise, which should be of high quality and have a distinct flavor. Stirring in…

The extent to which Americans adore ranch dressing is almost embarrassing. It’s more akin to the subtle self-awareness you experience when you order a third slice of pizza than it is shameful. It is present everywhere. It affects everything. However, the homemade version, which is made from scratch with a strong ranch seasoning blend, actually tastes better than anything found in a grocery store squeeze bottle. The store-bought version begins to seem like a compromise you no longer need to make once you realize that this gap is larger than most people realize. The recipe itself is not difficult. You’re…

Something about salted caramel defies reason. Shop-bought chocolate sauce starts to feel like a consolation prize after you’ve had a decent version of it, even though it’s sweet and salty, which shouldn’t work. It’s interesting to note how few people are aware that they can finish watching half an episode of a forgettable television show at home. For good reason, the majority of home cooks end up using the condensed milk method. Refined sugar cannot match the inherent richness of a typical tin of sweetened condensed milk. When butter and soft brown sugar are mixed and allowed to gradually thicken…