"Zip" is also an expression used to describe the quick disappearance of something: "It was gone - zip - like a fart in a storm." So, it is used for the absence of things. This usage may have expanded to mean "nothing":
"You got any money in your pockets?"
"Zip."
"Zippo" is not as commonly used in this way - probably it is the result of someone being "playful" with zip, and using the common brand name. In the Wall Street Journal quote you provided, the writer was trying to be clever - although, something like "doodley-squat" would be preferable to "zippo". It is just as likely to hear something like:
"My wife went to see her mother and left nothing in the house to eat"
"Nothing..?"
"Zip-a-dee-do-dah."
(US)
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