Archives for February 2008
This Week in Bacon
Celebrate National Pig Day tomorrow with Wild Boar Bacon from the wonderful folks at D’Artagnan.
Perfect for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. (Talk about great bacon-cheese burgers!) This bacon is cut from the bellies of free-range Wild Boar. You’ll find the flavor full-bodied without being “gamey.” A great gift, especially when combined with D’Artagnan Duck Bacon. After all its boar, not boring!
More on tomorrow’s holiday from us and from Epicurious.
A Prince Unfit for a Meal
With his son Harry serving in the war in Afghanistan, Prince Charles is no doubt preoccupied… with other stuff like foie gras.
Andrew Farquharson, the Deputy Master of the Household at Clarence House, said his chefs were ordered not to buy or serve the food.
“The Prince of Wales has a policy that his chefs should not buy foie gras,” he said.
“His Royal Highness was not aware that the House of Cheese sells foie gras and this will be addressed when their warrant is reviewed.”
Justin Kerswell, of Vegetarians International Voice for Animals, which has campaigned against foie gras, said the move was overdue but welcome.
“We are very pleased but foie gras should have been banned a long time ago,” he said. “There is a groundswell of opinion against the food.
“Foie gras is seen as very posh and the heir to the throne is probably the poshest person in Britain so for him to ban it is very good news.”
More here. Proving he wants to ban not just “posh” foods, Prince Charles last year called for Abu Dhabi to ban McDonald’s, for which he drew round criticism.
In other foie news, Henry Hong, writing in the Baltimore City Paper, has a pretty good piece on the battle over foie in Charm City. Crispy on efforts to keep foie gras legal in Baltimore here.
That’s One Pissed Off Sandwich
In addition to mac & cheese and a wrap, Burger King is set to bring the Angry Whopper, made “with spicy, crisp onions”.
The Miami Herald has more on that and other new BK products.
Backhanded Review of the Week
Under the title “Could be Worse,” Alison Hallett writes a great review in the Portland Mercury of a restaurant that, well, could be worse. The lede:
Leonardo’s isn’t going to make it onto any critical best-of lists anytime soon, with a menu of passable Italian dishes dressed up with bells and whistles that aren’t fooling anyone into thinking the food is better than it actually is. (Pine nuts! Dried cranberries!) The place is mediocre, but inoffensively so—and considering that Leonardo’s is situated in a space formerly home to restaurants that actually were offensive (the short-lived tapas joint Graze, and before that Nina’s Place), this actually is a backhanded endorsements of sorts. Simply put: Leonardo’s is the best restaurant to ever occupy 939 NW 10th Avenue.
The whole review reads like that — funny, snarky, and smart. Good stuff. More here.
Also noteworthy: the Mercury is looking for a food editor.
Baby Food + Stains + Popular Deman….zzzzzz
From the hard-hitting reporters of KJRH in Tulsa:
“You Vote, We Test” is back by popular demand.
Viewers asked Erin Christy to test spot stain removers.
We tested Tide To Go, Shout Wipes, the Clorox Bleach Pen and Oxi Clean Instant Stain Remover.
We smeared baby food and tested each product to see which would get the stain out.
While none of the products removed the stain completely, the Clorox Bleach pen is the clear winner. But it is bleach, so it’s only designed for whites.
It’s not clear from the KJRH website if the segment ever existed previously, nor what sort of popular demand existed to allegedly bring it back, nor if any “viewers” actually demanded the spot-stain test. Just sayin’. It does actually seem that Erin Christy is a real person.
William F. Buckley Dies
William F. Buckley, the National Review founder, died last night.
What’s that got to do with food? Plenty. First, he was discovered at his desk by his cook.
Second, one of my favorite Buckley stories includes what I consider to be the greatest, most evocative food sentence of all time, by Tom Reiss in a 2005 New Yorker profile of Buckley:
Buckley’s housekeeper, a stout Slovak woman, served us hamburgers, on fine china, with ramekins for ketchup and mustard on each plate, and I asked Buckley how he felt about conservatism’s current course.
That, my friends, is writing.
The NY Times obit notes Buckley’s own food writing, from Cruising Speed: A Documentary:
For example, in “Cruising Speed: A Documentary,” published in 1971, he discussed the kind of meals he liked to eat.
“Rawle could give us anything, beginning with lobster Newburgh and ending with Baked Alaska,” he wrote. “We settle on a fish chowder, of which he is surely the supreme practitioner, and cheese and bacon sandwiches, grilled, with a most prickly Riesling picked up at St. Barts for peanuts,” he wrote.
Obit here.
Update: NBC anchor Brian Williams remembers Buckley as a kind and affable man with a love of good peanut butter.
Touchscreen Dining: Lose the Waitstaff
Sick of surly waiters who still expect 20% tips? Equally tired of waiting for the advent of the robot waitstaff?
Enter the e-waiter.
Restaurants in Europe, the United States and Japan are testing technology to let diners order their food direct from a screen at their table instead of depending on a fellow human being to note their choice — sometimes grumpily or erroneously.
Besides cutting costs, companies that sell the “e-menu” argue the bytes-for-bites approach has a novelty value that can lure younger customers, and boost revenues as tantalising photographs of succulent steaks and gooey desserts tempt diners to order more.
[…]
In Israel, privately owned start-up Conceptic has already installed e-Menu technology in sushi bars, pubs and family restaurants. The system is based on touch-screens already used in self-service canteens or for ticketing in airports and cinemas.
[…]
In Japan, a company called Aska T3 has produced a similar system. But the field is attracting more than startups.
Microsoft says its new Microsoft Surface system, which transforms an entire table into one big touch-screen, is due to go live in spring 2008 in some U.S. hotels and casinos, letting customers order food direct as well as play music and games.
The Seattle-based giant says on its Web site it will “transform the way people shop, dine, entertain and live”. Both Conceptic and Microsoft argue their examples of interactive and communal technology represent the future.
Reuters has more, including video. Conceptic site here. Microsoft Surface here.
Via MarketingVox.
Why Does the Whopper Hate our Freedom?
Abominable fat-suit king John Banzhaf has some serious competition, in the form of Lawrence Gostin, who teaches law just up the road from where Banzhaf does the same. Gostin says we worry way too much, and so gives us… another thing to worry about.
“Ever since September 11, we’ve been lurching from one crisis to the next, which has really frightened the public,” Gostin told AFP later.
“While we’ve been focusing so much attention on that, we’ve had this silent epidemic of obesity that’s killing millions of people around the world, and we’re devoting very little attention to it and a negligible amount of money.”
The excellent Center for Consumer Freedom takes Gostin to task. And in spite of his Osama bin Whopper headline, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel columnist Patrick McIlheran gets it, too.
If you generally eat healthy but make only an occasional trip to fast-food joints, the only junk-food related dangers you’ll face will happen when your friend gashes you with a samurai sword at BK.
Bourdain, on SoBe, Makes Nice with his Enemies (or Vice Versa)
Anthony Bourdain filed three posts from the South Beach Wine & Food Festival over the weekend. They were great reading, of course, but also contained several bits of… well, there’s no other way to put it… alarming kindness shown to culinary enemies.
It’s been a confusing weekend on the beach. My Saturday event was a roaring, enthusiastically belligerent success–yet … I feel, I dunno, diminished and drained by the whole sordid enterprise. Maybe I’m just not angry anymore. I tell you, it shakes you to the core when people you’ve been insulting for years–at every opportunity–are decent to you.
In the last three, up-is-down and down-is-up days Rocco Di Spirito bailed me out, Emeril Lagasse generously fed me, Jamie Oliver talked child rearing with me for hours. Cat Cora was civil and … drum roll please … Rachael Ray was unfailingly polite. I fear I might even have hurt her feelings.
If one’s 50s are the second stage of life (after the LiLo and Paris stage) where some people start to make frenemies, my hope of hopes is that Bourdain avoids it like he avoids a mouthful of iguana.
More on SoBe from Bourdain here, here, and here. Full list of “personalities” who attended SoBe F&W here.
Other Things Red Bull Gives You
The life and times of retired British soccer legend Paul Gascoigne have basically taken a track akin to that of crotch-flashing legend Britney Spears — right down to the British accent and the whole involuntary commitment for mental issues angle.
Right before Gascoigne went “to hospital” — as the definite-article-hating Brits say — he was on the sort of bender only the deadest of rock stars might identify with: he was in rehab to try to dent his habit of drinking 50 cans of Red Bull a day.
…Gascoigne said he spent £16,000 trying to cure his addiction to RED BULL.
[He…] was downing 50 cans of the energy drink every DAY.
So he checked into a £4,000-a-week rehab clinic in America for a month.
The ex-England ace confessed to the bizarre addiction during late-night chats with a hotel worker at the Marriott in Gateshead.
The Sun has more. A mere 8 cans of Red Bull just last week sent another Brit to hospital, reports the BBC.
For those truly unconstrained by, say, work, Gateshead Marriott site here.
Minn. Governor’s Coffee Cup Runneth Over (Onto Radio Console)
Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s radio show came to a steaming halt this morning after the governor spilled his coffee all over the show’s control panel, reports Minnesota Public Radio.
I should just confess that I spilled some coffee into the control board here and now we’re experiencing a delay so we can’t take calls. This is not good.
Impressively, the Daily Kos put a coffee hex on Pawlenty and the GOP just two days ago.
Pawlenty, unknown among my synapses, is apparently the frontrunner and hot pick to serve as John McCain’s GOP running mate. Which I guess would make Pawlenty — potentially a cross between clumsy Gerald Ford and doofus Minnesotan Rose “Because I Come from the Land of Pawlenty” Nylund — a heartbeat away from spilling coffee on the button.
Schultz Announces Starbucks Cutbacks
Recently returned Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz announced he’s cut about 600 jobs at the coffee giant. In a letter to staff, which also took the form of a press release, Schultz said the review that led to the cuts…
…was done with great thoughtfulness and respect for everyone concerned, organizational changes have been made. These changes will restructure the company, but they will also result in a decrease of both the number of positions and partners by approximately 600. This total includes the elimination of existing positions and open headcount, as well as the reduction of our current workforce. Within this context, approximately 220 partners have separated from the company. Nearly all were U.S. partners serving in non-retail support roles. We are thankful and proud of the contributions our departing partners have made, and we are committed to treating them with respect and dignity.
Though I’m no fan of what Schultz did with the Sonics, I think you’d be hard-pressed to find a better CEO. I met him the first day I ever worked at Starbucks (back in 1993) when I waited on him as he made his way, like every other customer, through the line. That’s how he is, and that’s why I’m still a loyal Starbucks customer, and why I’m confident he’ll right the first mate’s ship.
This Week in Bacon
Stand by your ham! That’s the refrain coming from chefs and pig farmers in Britain, where local bacon and pork products are evidently less frequently consumed. Gordon Ramsay (who raised pigs for slaughter on his great BBC show, The F Word) is on board, as is his sometime F Word collaboratrix extraordinaire, the bawdy Janet Street Porter. And British pork fans aren’t stopping here. There’s not only a best bacon in Britain award, there’s even a song, “Stand by Your Ham,” sung the tune of Tammy Wynette’s “Stand by Your Man”.
Farmers’ video site here. More on the pro-pork campaign here, and at the aptly named pigsareworthit.com.
As Breakfast Cereal Goes, So Goes the Nation
You’ve no doubt seen your grocery prices rise steadily in recent months. With producer costs increasing, they have little choice but to pass the costs on to consumers. But the smart companies aren’t just raising prices, they’re also finding ways to cut costs — and adding to their bottom line even in increasingly lean times — as BusinessWeek notes:
General Mills (GIS) in recent months reduced the number of pretzel shapes in its Chex and other snack mixes to 3, from 14. The company had pretzels in the shapes of the letters “H,” “O” and “T.” But research found (not surprisingly) consumers cared more about the variety of pretzel flavors than shapes. That move, combined with other manufacturing improvements, is saving the division more than $1 million a year.
In a similar vein, Minneapolis-based General Mills cut in half the number of pasta shapes it uses in Hamburger Helper, to 10. Food engineers and marketers even worked on the pasta bits so they nested together, enabling the company to shrink the box. That reduced the cost of raw materials by 10%.
And how is upping prices paired with cutting costs working? Pretty well, reports the Wall Street Journal:
General Mills said due to its hedging program, it is covered on all its energy and commodity needs for the fiscal year ending in May. The company, which like others in the industry has been raising prices on its products, said it hasn’t seen signs of a pushback from consumers. The company increased its expectations for fiscal 2008 earnings to $3.64 to $3.66 a share, including 19 cents of noncash contributions from tax items and other gains. The Minneapolis food company expects earnings, excluding these items, of $3.45 to $3.47 a share. The company had estimated earnings of $3.39 to $3.43 a share.
The Journal says “cost cuts continue to shore up profit margins [while] increased marketing is helping them keep customers despite price increases.” All this is helping food giants stave off a very realistic fear: a consumer rush to generic brands.
Israeli Government Looks to Deport Asian Chefs
The first victim of xenophobia is the people who directly suffer its consequences. The second victim is a nation’s cuisine. Immigrants are always found in a free nation’s kitchens, and they’re usually doing the bulk of the good cooking. Which is why an Israeli government plan to enforce a protectionist, anti-immigrant law specifically aimed at Asian chefs in Israel is sure to hurt both immigrants and diners.
Israel’s nationwide sushi craze is being endangered by a wasabi-strength threat: The government, seeking to protect local jobs, wants to send all foreign-born Asian chefs packing by January 2009.
Asian food has become increasingly popular in Israel, fueled by the large number of young Israelis who travel to the region in an unofficial rite of passage after compulsory army service.
Thai, Chinese, Japanese and Indian restaurants have grown into a $280 million industry, accounting for 10 percent of the local dining landscape, according to the Ethnic Restaurant Association.
For the moment, Asian restaurants employ 900 foreign chefs and kitchen workers. But if the government has its way, that number could soon drop.
“We feel an Israeli can hold a wok as well as a Thai or a Chinese person,” said Shoshana Strauss, a lawyer at the Industry and Trade Ministry, which regulates work permits for foreign workers.
Restaurant operators said the Israeli plan posed an existential threat to their thriving businesses, saying the foreigners have expertise that cannot easily be replaced.
“If we don’t have cooks, we don’t have food. If we don’t have food, we don’t have customers,” said Steven Lobel, a sushi operator who owns two Asian restaurants that employ 14 Asian kitchen workers in the Tel Aviv area. “It’s pretty much one of the biggest threats we have as restaurant operators.”
What an outrage. I’m with Lobel, obviously. If there’s any justice in the world, Israel will cut out this xenophobic crap and put Strauss on the first plane to Bangkok, where I’m sure she’ll find that Thai chefs can’t make just as good a matzoh ball soup as she could find back home.
Coincidentally, tonight is gay Jewish sushi night in Philly.
Former First Chef Scheib On WH Eating Habits
Walter Scheib, the longtime White House head chef who was fired by Laura Bush in 2004, dishes on the carni-, herbi-, and omni-vorous habits (but not on the firing, which the NYT recounted here) of the White House denizens he cooked for during his 11-year tenure there in an amNY Q&A.
One would imagine that the two presidents had different tastes, but according to Scheib, the culinary camps were determined by gender, not politics.
“If we opened up a burger joint in the basement, both presidents would have been just as happy. They both believed if something was good, putting melted cheese on it would improve it 100 percent.” Predictably, the first ladies were more diet conscious: Hillary Clinton was a fan of local, regional cooking; Laura Bush was “adament about organics.”
[…]
[”]If you look at it geographically, Texas and Arkansas are pretty close. They both have lots of barbecue and lots of spicy foods. The main difference was the steak dinners. The Bushes would more often look for beef.[”]
Scheib, who published The American Chef last year and runs a haute cuisine catering company of the same name — also serves up Bill Clinton’s favorite steak recipe, which boasts buttermilk and 24-ounce porterhouses — and talks about Chelsea Clinton’s teenaged veganism, from which she’s seemingly (and thankfully) recovered.
Egg-selent Egg-secution
The fantastic Serious Eats highlights a new Cadbury creme egg campaign featuring a suicidal creme egg.
Learn why the Cadbury egg is the “number one brand in the filled egg market” here. More history here.
For some reason, Cadbury Schweppes makes good disaster-themed commercials. Recall the John Cleese schweppervescence ad of about 15-20 years ago.
CVS Brand Cookies Do Not a Snack Make
Sunday night, about 11:30pm, my girlfriend and I were sitting around our pad in that not-quite-ready-for bed mode. Both of us had been reading for a good part of the day, and so we were a bit tired, but still up for watching another hour of garbage TV. And we both wanted a snack. But we didn’t have anything worth eating — unless you consider freezer-burnt Safeway vanilla ice cream edible — and were out of eggs, so oatmeal cookies were mostly out of the question.
So we decided to trek to the CVS up the street for some snacks. Why we sailed past the perfectly edible Chips Ahoy in favor of the CVS Gold Emblem Absolutely Divine Pecan Chocolate Brownie Cookies I’ll never know.
I’ll be the first to admit my expectations probably exceeded what they should have for a CVS-brand cookie. But the description was so promising:
Delight in the taste of creamy milk chocolate chunks and real pecans, made with real butter. Delicious!
Suffice to say they seemed to have never been subjected to any process resembling cooking; they tasted of old flour, rock salt, and corn syrup. (Note hip celebration of semicolon in previous sentence.) There was also no evidence — in spite of the chocolatey color — of any actual chocolate or nuts in the cookie.
I don’t know that either of us finished one cookie before the box was resting in the rubbish. Lesson learned.
Hops Bracketology
Spitting in the face of the dreaded hop shortage — which is driving up prices and shelving some good beers — is this year’s National IPA Championship. It’s a bracket-y contest, just in time for March Madness, in which thirty-two of the nation’s best IPAs go 3 oz. sample cup to 3 oz. sample cup against one another.
An added bonus, compared to the real March Madness, is that to the best of my knowledge none of the beers are coached by Mike Kriezcyziewisiszkzikwkwizwski (pronounced “sha-CHEF-skee”).
Deadline to enter is February 23. I’ll be in Atlantic City, NJ for the Atlantic City Beer Festival when winners are announced there on March 8.
Find more on the contest here. Download and print your bracket here. And check out the contestants here.
This Week in Bacon
I have always secretly believed that all good things come from the mind of a Des Moines insurance salesman. Via Coldmud and the Des Moines Register, I learn that Brooks Reynolds, an insurance salesman from Des Moines, has proven me correct.
[W]hen Brooks Reynolds was asked the question Des Moines always asks itself - “What does Des Moines need?” - this is what he said:
“A festival for bacon.”
Thus, the High Life Lounge will hold its first Blue Ribbon Bacon Festival March 1, National Pig Day, attracting bacon lovers from California and Arizona along with a Pittsburgh bacon blogger.
To Reynolds, it was no throwaway line. For years, he has gathered his buddies for a summer weekend pilgrimage to a Spirit Lake cabin for “all things bacon,” toting along 15 pounds.
When they returned, their wives and girlfriends complained their very skin smelled like bacon grease.
“Why not bring it to the masses?” asked Reynolds, 32, a Des Moines insurance salesman.
You’ve still got a couple of weeks to figure out how to get yourself to Iowa to take part in the March 1 National Bacon Day festivities at the highly rated High Life Lounge. $30 gets you a bunch of bacon-themed goodies, cheap beer, and a “bacon lecture”. There’s even a bacon-eating contest.
Barring a trip to Iowa — as winter, distance, and Iowa’s very Iowa-ness do for me — you can find more locally bacon-friendly things to engage in at Serious Eats, which had a fantastic rundown of all the things to eat and places to eat them at for last year’s National Bacon Day.
