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Archive for December, 2009

The Year of the (Chef) Burger

Dec 31

Posted by admin in Economy, cooking, dining out

This year, the one we’re saying good bye to, has been a major gut check experience. We learned a lot about ourselves as we changed our spending patterns. We became savers! Unheard of!

In our saving mentality, we started to cook more, eat at home more, and dine out differently. No longer was every restaurant meal one that approached stratospheric prices. We welcomed new places that promised better buys, greater attention to our needs, not just THEIR bottom line. We patronized new burger spots and bistros, the types of restaurants that succeed during tough times.

Big-name chefs figured it out and rearranged menus and moved into this dining space. Why not? Customers were receptive. Tables were full. The price was right: A perfect solution to wanting to dine out but refusing to spend 4-star dollars.

If chefs like Daniel Boulud (Daniel and DBGB Kitchen & Bar), Laurent Tourondel (BLT Steak and BLT Burger), Danny Meyer (Union Square Hospitality and Shake Shack), and Michel Richard (Citronelle and Central Michel Richard) are flipping burgers; there’s a good reason for their aggressive moves: Dining Dollars talk. It’s not that their fancy restaurants sit empty; it’s just more likely that diners can opt for frequent USH_ShakeShackburger or bistro stops several times a month!

So much of the year was spent saying, “Don’t worry, it’s almost over.” The elusive elephant has never really left the room. The economy has improved but more people are on the breadline. We want everything to be better; we want to return to the more carefree universe that gave us tacit permission to eat out and carry in without as much anxiety about our decisions.

We welcome the Burger and Bistro approach.

The lines are long.

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Happy Anniversary

Dec 30

Posted by admin in food universe, lifestyle, news

birthdaycandlesIt’s hard to believe that I’ve turned a whim into a regular gig. Yes, when I tried my hand at the blog world last December 30th (that was 2008!), I occasionally visited my site, as a Wordpress newbie, but something happened as time went on. I was drawn into the blog and decided I rather enjoyed it.

I am not one to put up a billboard and announce my latest interest, so this project was mine which I shared with very few people. OK, make that nobody!

I was content with communicating via the computer and my blog outlet. Then one day, somewhere in early spring, I decided to take a bigger plunge, I started to write daily, not just occasionally. I found it a relaxing way to deal with all the information floating around in my head. Reading does that to you!

I wanted an outlet, a means to communicate my food and beverage thoughts. I had an opportunity to comment on items I read, research I uncovered, or just the usual inanities of life. It was time to move on and say thank you and goodbye to Wordpress and join the World Wide Universe. I was ready and even daringly upgraded the appearance of my communication. I still maintained my work-related reporting, but enjoyed the opportunity to expand my writing into a boundless arena.

As we all know, there are no shortage of bloggers. Actually if you look at how many blog posts there are daily, you’ll probably crawl back under the covers. As for food bloggers, that number in itself is shockingly large. We’ve all become experts in one aspect of the food industry or another. There’s so much to say.

The problem may fall at the feet of readers, or of the eyeballs, as so many people are oversubscribed to information and can’t comprehend the jump to an additional outlet they may not need. So I say to you, stay tuned. I still have a lot to say.

I’m ready to blow out my single candle (OK, maybe I’ll fill the cake with lots of candles as my posts number over 300!). Yikes, that’s a lot of words.

At the count of three, help me blow out  the past, and and join with me as I wish a great year for us all.

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What I Learned This Year

Dec 29

Posted by admin in beverages, cooking, dining out, lifestyle, news

As with every year when we talk about food and the hospitality industry, there’s lots of news. This year was no exception, but it was a challenge for many businesses to stay above water. Some didn’t make it. Money was tight and customers were careful. It was certainly not a year where everyone stood and waited for the world to change. It was a year of action, invention, and reinvention.

–Coupon use was way up–grocery stores doubled and tripled the value of coupons in response to consumer belt-tightening and renewed interest in home cooking. No longer did grocers rely solely on newspaper coupons, but they expanded their online coupon promotions. Who would have expected Whole Foods to aggressively participate in this type of endeavor? Not me. They did and became as serious about coupons and sales as any of their competitors.

–Grocers worked on their house brands and made them palatable and popular. The price differentiation between the big brands and the new house brands became a deciding factor for many shoppers. House brands scored well in this contest.

–Restaurants increased promotions such as half-priced wine nights and 3-course prix fixe menus. They strived to emphasize how they have changed and how they could respond to the new, emerging diner. The strategy continues with greater emphasis on value dining.

–Restaurants revamped their menus and placed a greater emphasis on small, shared plates. Restaurant Weeks, with their specialty menus for lunch and dinner, were expanded to become multi-week experiences and commonly became a fixture both in winter and summer.

–Food recalls became more frequent as we became more diligent in monitoring the possible health risks of numerous foods. It was a bad year for packaged ground beef and a bad year for government watchdogs who had not tightened the rules enough to stop a problem at the source. “Voluntary recalls” became popular responses to early questions.

–Value became an important focus whether we were talking about new-found wines, sparkling beverages that tasted like Champagne, or a regular cup of coffee. All food-related businesses and others in the hospitality industry understood the importance of repeat business and strived to wow consumers with their own loyalty programs.

It was a good year to write about COFFEE as so many health research studies confirmed my basic mantra: Another Espresso, please (Sure, there are numerous studies that question that wisdom).krups-fast-touch-203x180x180_0

I learned a lot. Way more than this mini list details, but the search function should give you an opportunity to refresh your tastebuds.

I hope you had an opportunity to enjoy the life and times of an opinionated food and beverage blogger.

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I’m in Love

Dec 29

Posted by admin in Uncategorized

Heard it could happen. Took me by surprise.

Thanx Chick-Fil-A–who knew how clever your name is, and how smart your service and tasty your food!

Score one. I’m smiling.chick, too.

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Hold the Wheat; Eat the Popcorn

Dec 28

Posted by admin in cooking, food

Popcorn_Bowl-thumbThe “other” flours are finding new-found popularity in this heightened allergy world that quickly points the finger at wheat products, especially whole wheat. Not just obvious, allergic reactions, but there’s plenty of medical discussions and research about behavior-altering reactions from the wheats. Did you know you could buy rice flour, potato starch flour, or tapioca flour? Pay attention, these products, and other similar non-wheat flours, are not that difficult to find anymore; they are gaining greater visibility on grocery shelves.

If you want to make a traditional bread or pancake recipe, you need to approximate all-purpose flour (primarily, regular wheat) with the above ingredients or a combination of them. For instance, if you are using rice, potato starch, and tapioca flours, you achieve the accustomed flour milled consistency by following a 6:1:1 ratio or 2 C rice flour, 1/3 C potato starch flour, and 1/3 C tapioca flour. Sure there are lots of recipes that call for extra thickeners, but the most basic simulation uses the flours in and of themselves.

We bash corn products continually as the villain in high fructose corn syrup and its alter-ego, obesity, but wheat has clearly achieved its own villainous persona. As more people experience allergic responses to certain foods, nutritionists frequently recommend eliminating wheat products all together. When you go on a wheat-free diet, where do you get the all-important fiber?

Figure out the foods you can handle and consider the obvious ways to get fiber into your wheat-free diet. If other factors are not interfering, then fresh fruits, vegetables, and nuts should do the trick.

You can easily tolerate the wheat-free lifestyle, if you plan ahead and think about how much fresh popcorn you want daily!

That just might do the trick.

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The Drinks World

Dec 27

Posted by admin in beverages, lifestyle

As we tune out and wind down, let’s not forget how the beverage world has changed this decade. Very few people carried individual water bottles wherever they went. Did they even sell those 35-pak cases at Costco? OK, I know not everyone recycles, but drinking water is good for us, right? Now we’ve even flavored them and forced people to make major water decisions when dining out: Tap or expensive? Maybe that approach will stay in the decade we’re leaving behind. Hope so.

Artisan beers became a craze, and big brewers needed to step down into the craft market. Wait, for many that became a significant financial step upwards. Look at the popularity of Blue Moon and the significant number of brewers making Hefeweizens. Slice of lemon, please.

Remember expensive bottles of French wine? OK, they still exist as do the reserve wine lists, but as the recession took its toll on our dining out and dining-in budgets, we learned to embrace new regions of the world and become familiar with other wines and sparklings such as Malbec, Cava, and Prosecco. What was being poured in Chile, Argentina, New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa became of greater interest to us as we scoured those regions for our new vintages.

No longer were we limited to American wines from California, Oregon, Washington, and New York. We learned Thomas Jefferson was right: Virginia became an established wine region with award-winning wines from Barboursville, Chrysalis, and Jefferson Vineyards.

We even became fascinated by different wine glasses for different wines. What was once limited to high-end stores and fancy restaurants became more commonplace on the shelves at Target as Riedel moved into the consumer space with its 4 and 6-boxed items. A glass for red, one for white, and the emergence of the flute instead of the floating half circle for sparkling! Of course, those who follow every trend knew they needed a specific glass for a specific pour. Stop, not that one, that’s for Zinfandel only!

We even bought the whole wine lineup including the darling of the opening set, the Rabbit, and the multitude of decanting carafes. We became serious wine drinkers, and as we traveled wine regions, we became more knowledgeable, and less intimidated, by what we drank!Rabbit7

As we look forward, we’ve gone back to the old cocktail routine and elevated the bartender to a drink specialist who has studied the chemistry, or alchemy, of an ingredient-shaken beverage. Specialty cocktail menus re-emerged and the high priced, fun-sounding cocktail helped many restaurants survive.

We became caffeine freaks with an almost unstoppable fascination with coffee drinks, both hot and iced. It was clearly the Starbucks decade, a title the company hopes to regain in the upcoming year. Grocery stores proudly introduced coffee bars. We decided one double espresso was too limiting and added caffeine-based energy drinks to our daily consumption routines. All these steps hit soda sales as they plummeted, and the old brands started to lose the high fructose corn syrup and explore cane sugar drinks.

We were a thirsty group and little has quenched our thirst as we reach for the next tantalizing trend.

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Food Words/Concepts of the Year, the Decade

Dec 26

Posted by admin in food recalls, food universe, gardening, lifestyle

Now that we are in the wind-down stage of the month, the year, the decade, it’s time to look back before we focus our energies on the brighter future. It’s coming, right?

In the food world, it’s been a vocabulary buster. New words were created to define the state of the industry and the intensity of the passionate chef and consumer. All who were interested in food and sourcing (there’s a word) became trend followers as everyone seemed to consider himself a foodie (bad word, overused).

The word locavore was born. This is a word that says it all and says too much, all at the same time. Everyone wanted a ride on this gravy train as a way to support the farmer and all the local producers. People wanted to be called locavores for all their efforts! Food miles became an added descriptor helping people explain that proximity plays an important role in all our purchases. Some even chastised those who exceeded purchases beyond a 100-mile radius.

This was certainly the decade for the farmer, a previously forgotten soul who was hidden under big agriculture’s compost. Although statistics remain gloomy in terms of the small farmer’s livelihood, people wanted to connect with farmers and became loyal devotees of farm markets which managed to end the decade with much higher visibility. CSAs grew in popularity and became more mainstream than alternative as they were a decade or so ago. Green became our favorite color as we recycled and composted: We finally understood Kermit’s mantra.

Vegetable gardening became a headline grabber. Everyone dug the garden culture this year including The White House one, spearheaded by First Lady Michelle Obama who stressed healthy eating.

One of my favorite new food phrases being thrown about is ranch of origin. If you can’t find it locally, then at least you want to know where it is coming from and who is bringing the product to market. I just saw that phrase for the first time not too long ago and believe it will be a keeper. Knowing our food source has become an important shopping goal in light of some of the more fearful food words of the year: food recalls and food safety.

Of course, there’s been heightened interest in organics, but price has been a problem this year with the bleak economic situation, but organic dairy has proven a growth industry.  More people are discovering food allergies and the gluten-free market has literally exploded.

Sustainability has become an important consideration, especially in terms of  the dwindling fish population and the importance of finding foods that are not being overfished. Is it wild has become a common query as farm-raised fish, once a darling concept, lost its luster as questions occur about the water itself–are the fish swimming in chemically-laden runoff?

As for new foods and those we retired: Tilapia has certainly grown in popularity basically because of its less expensive price point and its versatility. Kobe Beef quietly succumbed to the new reality of less spending money and was replaced by its less expensive-sounding name, Wagyu. Semantics. Then there were the hamburger denizens, many overseen by popular chefs who once captured audiences with their expense-account locations.

Of course, the ever-present cupcake helped us maintain our obesity status as food trucks even got in on the never-ending dessert action.

This has been the decade for more products available in cryovac to communicate safer food handling. Sous vide preparation moved from the top tier chef to the home aficionado. The home chef became a reality during this past year as so many people saved their dining out dollars for more clever in-home preparations.

Foam magically appeared on many restaurant dishes as molecular gastronomy has become an important technique for many chefs. With that notion, we grew from 3-course prix-fixe menus to extravagant small plates, with big-name chefs striving for 10 or more courses.coolpot We became cooking scientists.

Then there are the words I hope never to see again: E.coli and Salmonella, both too present in our discussions. Too fearful. We purchased way too many containers of hand sanitizers.

The list goes on.

I look for a year, a decade of great food and new traditions.

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A Happy and Merry Holiday

Dec 25

Posted by admin in news

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Holiday Recall

Dec 24

Posted by admin in health, news

The irony is not lost on me that this year, the year of so many significant food recalls, ends the decade with another holiday problem.

Let’s review the big impact recalls of ‘09: Peanut Butter, Pistachios, Refrigerated Cookie Dough, Ground Beef, and now another seasonal nut: Hazelnuts. Before we discuss the particulars, let me warn again about ground beef: There’s been another recall.

It’s not too late to get a grinder attachment for your mixer and buy a chuck roast, trim the fat, and make your own 80-20 burger. They come out beautifully and are free of anxiety fears! If you miss out on the Holiday wish list, look for this product on the After-Christmas sales. You’ll be feeling smug about the decision all year–OK, don’t forget the meat thermometer. Together the two products, which will not cost that much, will save you a blood pressure spike every time you read about another meat recall!

Now about those nuts. It’s really been a bad news year for nuts. The overall industry has been hard hit by Salmonella problems and now the popular Hazelnut or as it is often called the Filbert, has joined the dreaded list. Here’s an update from the Oregon Department of Agriculture. It seems not everyone agrees with that assessment and believes that the potential for Salmonella is enough to warrant action. I agree. I’m too squeamish to take a chance. I’ll need to wait it out.

nutbowl

As we leave this decade, the almost one-year old promise of solving Food Safety concerns is still out there. Let’s make sure food safety regulation and monitoring happens early in the new year. Everyone will benefit.

Promises; promises.

We need action.

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Sans Gluten-Free

Dec 23

Posted by admin in gluten-free, health

In an effort to be a player in the ever-emerging G-F market, some companies are taking it to a higher, or maybe lower, level. I just saw a whole new tagline: Sans Gluten-Free. You know about double negatives so I guess this means it’s chock full of glutinous ingredients. For those who missed the first day of French class, “sans” means without. That means this product line, stated another way, would translate as “without or lacking” gluten-free properties which means it’s got gluten. Not. It’s actually a product line from a well-regarded supplier in this market space: Glutino, a French-Canadian company that has many of its products supplied from Israel.  Most significantly, they offer an extensive product line!

You gotta laugh as so many companies are trying to rush out products to meet this growing market where cost becomes second nature as a bag of Glutino pretzels costs almost $7. Seriously, the price makes it prohibitive for many which is often the overriding G-F product problem. Or, you can really indulge and go to the big box merchant Amazon and buy 12 bags for over $70–not enough of a savings to warrant the big shell out. You’ll seldom run out. Amazon is smart like that and understands the captive audience syndrome so they have a frequent shipping plan which lowers the price considerably! 41q-5g5Oe5L._SL500_AA280_PIbundle-12,TopRight,0,0_AA280_SH20_

Sans gluten works BUT sans gluten-free has its own marketing snafus. It sends a different, albeit humorous, message. Test it out: Walk into a Whole Foods aisle and exclaim “Sans Gluten Free,” and you’re guaranteed a laugh from nearby shoppers.

True.

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