Wednesday, May 13, 2026

Coverage

226 substack items across 10 feeds (delta: 147 since 2026-May 5 via --since=2026-May 5; 8-day gap, /pulse skipped on May 8 and May 11); Google Trends 3,946 records (20 food-adjacent realtime-7d, ~5 usable after filtering recall/news/sports); IG 85 records (46 since 2026-May 5). Category weighting from context.md (food primary, home secondary, apparel tertiary). NY-metro geo weight applies to IG.

Sticky from prior pulse (no new evidence)

• Cinco de Mayo (prior #1): calendar-bound, fully decayed. Closed.
• American whisky deep-dive (prior #2): no new bourbon/rye pieces in delta. Imbibe ran NA aperitif and Sparkling Wine instead. Sticky inactive.
• Italian comfort + pizza-at-home (prior #3): partial continuation via SE "Ricotta Gnocchi With Asparagus and Prosciutto" May 11, SE "Cacio e Pepe Shaved Potato Omelet" May 12, F&W "Cannoli Tart" May 7; pizza-at-home folded into today's #2 (grill-as-pizza-oven). No longer a primary cluster.
• Spring potluck dessert bars (prior #4): folded into today's #5 (strawberry/spring) and #6 (Mother's to Father's pivot).
• Grocery store as cultural object (prior #5): extended into today's #7 (Costco fixation).
• Outdoor entertaining / grill (prior #6): escalated into today's #2 (Memorial Day blitz).
• Persian dried limes / loomi (prior #7): no follow-on from any publication. Single-source signal hasn't crossed. Watch.
• Reusable food storage / non-toxic (prior #8): extended into today's #9 (non-toxic coffee, lead-filter water, dye-free mixes).
• Galway food-travel (prior #9): no follow-on. Saveur ran "What I Learned When I Became Food" May 8 (memoir, not destination). Watch.

News excluded (not consumer trends)

costco giovanni rana ravioli recall (recall, 20k +700%), dozens of popular snacks recalled salmonella (50k +500%), horizon organic chocolate milk recall, target good & gather recall, spring & mulberry chocolate recall, five guys store closures 2026 (50k +200%), feltner's whatta-burger russellville closure, las iguanas (UK chain, not US trend), kash patel bourbon (50k +500%, political proper-noun spike), trader joe's summer mini insulated tote bags (single-SKU launch), starbucks tropical butterfly refresher (single-SKU launch), mcdonalds.

Noise excluded (false positives)

roast of kevin hart / jeff ross / tom brady / katt williams (entertainment), chase rice / madison beer (musicians), declan rice / ben white (sports), maple leafs nhl draft lottery (sports), half baked harvest / tieghan gerard (influencer-only mention).

Caveats

• 8-day gap since prior /pulse (skipped May 8 and May 11). Twice the target cadence; themes had longer to crystallize so cross-source thresholds are met more easily. Interpret intensity against the wider window rather than 1:1 with prior pulse.
• discover on the 147-record delta returned 0 phrases at min-feeds=3. Re-running on the raw 226-record file surfaced grocery store, olive oil, los angeles, united states; fed into Trend #7 (Costco / Big Food).
• F&W produced 50 of 147 delta records (34%). Heavy buying-guide and Amazon-affiliate skew. Trends #2 (grill), #7 (Costco), #9 (non-toxic) are F&W-heavy; cross-source confirmation is partial except for grill (SE + BA also published).
• Google Trends realtime-7d: 20 food-adjacent strings, ~15 of them were recalls / closures / proper-noun celebrity spikes. Only ~5 represent consumer-trend signal (chocolate generic, evian/water-filter adjacent, half-baked-harvest creator). Sparse week for organic search-trend signal.
• Apparel still under-detected on substack feeds. IG @himichelleli surfaced Pleats Please Issey Miyake May 5 (jp-supply, apparel) but no US-side apparel cross-source. Apparel scan remains a /weekly-report gap.
• NY-metro IG geo bias intentional but produces NYC-restaurant concentration in #4. National-restaurant signals likely under-counted.