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Besides the Studio-Funded Catering, Robert Pattinson’s Quarantine Diet Is Probably a Lot Like Yours

Plus, nearly 200 USDA employees have tested positive for COVID-19, and other news to start the day

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Robert Pattinson smiling.
Robert Pattinson at the 11th Annual Governors Awards at the Dolby Theater on October 27, 2019 in Los Angeles, CA.
Photo: Kathy Hutchins/Shutterstock

Robert Pattinson: actor, feral eater, pasta innovator

If by this point your quarantine diet looks a little less like elaborate home-cooked meals and a little more like whatever bits and ends you can cram onto broken crackers and top off with hot sauce, rest assured, you’re in good company. Robert Pattinson, in a GQ profile published online today, reveals that, aside from the meal plan he’s on in London for The Batman (the upcoming film in which he plays the, well, Batman), his go-to sustenance basically consists of “oatmeal with, like, vanilla protein powder on it” and canned tuna with Tabasco sauce, eaten straight out of the can.

In the profile, Pattinson also unveils a business idea that probably a lot of people have dreamt up while tipsy and/or high: “How do you make a pasta which you can hold in your hand?” His prototype apparently involved a panini press, but a meeting with a potential restaurant partner — Lele Massimini, the confounder of Los Angeles sushi chain Sugarchain — weirdly did not lead to immediate and generous funding of the pasta creation that Pattinson calls “Piccolini Cuscino,” or “Little Pillow.” Instead, the actor must resort to hawking the idea in the pages of GQ, demonstrating for writer Zach Baron the uhh rustic culinary appeal of microwaved pasta layered with tomato sauce, sugar, cheese (“I found after a lot of experimentation that you really need to congeal everything in an enormous amount of sugar and cheese”), sandwiched between cornflakes and a hamburger bun, and heated in foil until the microwave blows up.

Stars — they’re just like us!

And in other news…

  • The Colorado restaurant that drew backlash for illegally reopening for Mother’s Day has been forcibly shut down and had its license suspended. [Denver Post]
  • As the spread of coronavirus has ramped up in meat processing plants across the U.S., nearly 200 USDA employees have tested positive for COVID-19, and three inspectors have died. [Food Dive]
  • Steak ‘n Shake is permanently closing 57 locations as a result of the pandemic. [IndyStar]
  • In an effort to sell directly to consumers quarantine-snacking at home, PepsiCo has set up two new sites selling products like Sun Chips and Gatorade, thereby bypassing the middleman. [The Verge]
  • A face mask with a mouth hole in it to fit a straw for sipping cocktails seems to defeat the point of a mask, which is to protect other people from your mouth. [Fast Company]
  • This tale of a Waffle House cook-fighting boyfriend cannot be real, and yet we cannot look away:

All AM Intel Coverage [E]