Flash in the Pan

There are news reports that China has closed down many food producing factories. Here's something from industry news outlet ThomasNet.com:

Acknowledging systematic problems in its food supply, the Chinese government said it closed 180 food manufacturers and revoked 37 processing licenses of food makers found to have used industrial chemicals and additives in food products.

The notice came in a state-run newspaper in response to uproar around the world because of industrial chemicals found in food and health products. Apparently the ingredients were used from December 2006 to May 2007. And here's an admission according to Forbes.com:

The watchdog said it had found 23,000 cases of adulterated food nationwide in the six months, or 128 a day, involving 200 million yuan ($26 million) worth of products including flour, candy, pickles, biscuits, bean curd and seafood. Eleven cases have been handed over to courts.

Good that they're doing something, but, really, so what? Amazing that the government was able so quickly to pinpoint all these facilities. That leaves me, at least, with deep distrust and a suspicion that government officials must have known about most of this all along. According to Forbes, the government "claimed that cases of food contamination were isolated," but clearly it couldn't have really thought so.

Forbes also reports that it's unclear whether any of the cases being brought to court involved foods for export. But the problem here is that you can't just look at what products have officially been designated as exports. Counterfeiting is a huge problem worldwide. "It’s happened in the food business as well," said Neil Smith, an intellectual property attorney with Sheppard Mullin, when I interviewed him a couple of years ago about the issue of counterfeiting. "In some cases, oriental food products. In a lot of cases they’ll come in from China, or Chinese herbs like ginseng products, that will be counterfeited and you’ll see those in the wholesale market or in the stores."

If "regular" food products made in China can wind up with industrial chemicals as an ingredient, why would anything think that counterfeits would be an exception? The only difference is that the people who counterfeit are by definition doing something cut-rate to fool people. I see this as a complete PR exercise, at least right now. Perhaps there is a change in attitude among Chinese leaders, but they'll have to prove it over a period of years, and not on simply as an exception to business as usual. Let's not forget the second to the last paragraph in the Thomas.net story:

Despite that, Chinese authorities said yesterday they had logged 68,000 cases of adulterated food in 2006 and withdrew 15,500 tons of substandard food from the market.

That's a whole lot of food. I wonder how many cases they miss.

Labels: China, contamination, counterfeit, fast food

When Menus Become Intellectual Property

The New York Times had an interesting article yesterday about chef Rebecca Charles suing her former sous-chef, Ed McFarland, claiming that his restaurant Ed's Lobster Bar copied "each and every element" of her establishment, Pearl Oyster Bar, from the decor to the Caesar salad recipe.The article goes on to say how a growing number of chefs are resorting to intellectual property protections - such as patents, trademarks, copyright, and trade secrets - to keep competitors from lifting their concepts. I found the following paragraph particularly intriguing:

She [Rebecca Charles] was, she asserts, the first chef in New York who took lobster rolls, fried clams and other sturdy utility players of New England seafood cookery and lifted them to all-star status on her menu. Since opening Pearl Oyster Bar in the West Village 10 years ago, she has ruefully watched the arrival of a string of restaurants she considers “knockoffs” of her own.

Ah, but where does inspiration leave off and copying start? The first chef in New York to treat New England seafood as haute cuisine? Maybe, but since when does originality stop at state borders?

A few years ago I interviewed Jasper White for Fortune Small Business because he had actually patented a way of cooking lobsters quickly in large batches. It was a veritable assembly line. "The reason I patented it is because this is a real copy cat business," he said, adding that other restaurateurs had lifted his ideas time and again. "Their idea of an influence is to copy it, put a new name on it, do it in another city, and call it a day."

White has been doing the upscale treatment of New England food - including seafood - since at least his time at the restaurant in the Bostonian Hotel back in the 1980s. So is Charles really innovative? And taking the ambiance of a seafood shack? They've been around for decades - as have other places

She acknowledged that Pearl was itself inspired by another narrow, unassuming place, Swan Oyster Depot in San Francisco. But she said she had spent many months making hundreds of small decisions about her restaurant’s look, feel and menu.

Those decisions made the place her own, she said, and were colored by her history. The paint scheme, for instance, was meant to evoke the seascape along the Maine coast where she spent summers as a girl.

Hundreds of small decisions? That's nice, but there was that original concept she saw - and adapted. The paint scheme evocative of summers in Maine? She may see that as a personal statement, but so could hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of others who have spent enough time in Maine. The Caesar salad? Got the recipe from her mother who got it from an LA restaurant years ago, except now she calls it a trade secret. But whose? Coddled eggs as a basis for the dressing? I remember hearing that concept probably a dozen years ago on a cooking show where the chefs said that it was a way to prevent problems with salmonella from raw eggs.

I understand the desire to protect intellectual property. I do that myself, as my living is based on IP. But you need to know when you've really done something different and when you owe too much to everyone who has gone before. When you want to keep a tight hold on what you've done and keep anyone else from using it as a springboard, you argue that you should not have the benefit of anyone else's experience, either.

The article mentions a Chicago chef who patented a way of printing images on edible paper. That's certainly different. An upscale clam shack? I think not - at least not by someone who didn't invent the idea in the first place.

Labels: Ed McFarland, food, IP, Jasper White, patent, Rebecca Charles, restaurant

Here's another product I stumbled across at that recent festival. Dancing Star has energy snacks with high fiber - like the energy bars you might buy, but with a couple of differences. Instead of buying individually wrapped bars (though Dancing Star does have a line of those), you buy little energy cubes in bulk and then take as many along as you need. There's the taste, which is really good. I tried a couple and thought they could almost pass for dessert. And when you buy in bulk, the cost is about 50 cents an ounce rather than over a dollar as is true with the popular bars.

If there is no store near you carrying the products, a 5 pound bag will set you back $35, but it is more economical per serving than picking something individually wrapped from a grocery store, and even better, shipping is free.

Labels: Dancing Star, energy, energy bar, snacks

During a recent festival near where I live, I had a chance to try the results of some baking mixes from Namaste Foods, which specializes in foods free of gluten, wheat, potato, soy, corn, dairy, tree nuts, peanuts, and casein. I'm still trying to figure out what that leaves.

I didn't do the baking, but did get to try the results of the brownie and spice cake mixes and was duly impressed. Whatever they left out, what remained was tasty. If you've got any kind of food allergy, or entertain those who do, this is a great resource. They also have muffin, waffle, and pancake mixes, pasta meals, and bread and pizza crust mixes.

However, cheap it isn't. For example, a bread mix for one loaf is $5.29. Retail price for a single chocolate cake mix yielding 2 9-inch lawyers is $5.79. Add $6.95 shipping for orders under $30, and that's one expensive bag of ingredients - and you still add oil, water, and eggs.

It's good to know that the resource is available; it's just a shame that the prices are high enough to keep you from using it casually.

Labels: bread, cake, mixes, Namaste Foods

A weekly round-up of odd kitchen events:

• Culinary Criminals Inmates in a Bangalore, India prison like the food, made by the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, so much that they're refusing to apply for bail. They also like the saffron uniforms. (AFP)


• Beersicle Brouhaha A suburban Washington, D.C. restaurant is getting heat for serving frozen beer pops because the liquid isn't in the original container or served immediately on pouring. And can you ask them to hold the ice? (AP)


• Three-Year-Old Served Vodka in Restaurant. Neat. A restaurant accidentally switched drinks and sent a three-year-old a vodka-based drink instead of pineapple juice. The family was still charged for the drink (no kidding). Wonder if they got to keep the kiddie cup.


• Chef TV Show Sued A manager at a New York Indian restaurant is suing to keep an episode of Gordon Ramsey's new show, Kitchen Nightmares, from airing. At the celebrity chef's behest, the restaurant fired the manager on the show. And you thought that the networks could be harsh. (Reuters)

Labels: beer, India, popsicle, prison, toddler, vodka, weird

According to the US Department of Agriculture, ethanol production has grain byproducts. Researchers are trying to find ways of using this material to make the process more economically (and environmentally) efficient. One of the interesting uses could be to create cookies, breads, and pasta that are low in calories and carbohydrates. A couple of scientists have taken the remains, turned it into flour, and done some baking, replacing over half the wheat flour used in some recipes, like cookies:

The cookies are smaller than those made with all-wheat flour because the high-protein/low-starch combination keeps the cookie batter from spreading as easily as batter made with 100 percent wheat. But the batter bakes consistently.

The products are more nutritious because ethanol processing concentrates the fiber and proteins in the byproduct materials. Unfortunately, to date the products have had a nasty taste - bitter, and with an off-putting odor. Who says that food that's good for you has to taste good? I'm sure it still beats castor oil.

Labels: cookies, ethanol, fiber, protein, wheat

We've been experimenting with a frozen hot chocolate recipe - really a cocoa-based drink made with ice. This has gotten my daughter's vote as favorite:

• 1 TBS. Valrhona cocoa


• 3 TBS. sugar


• 3/4 cup milk


• 3/4 cup small ice cubes

Put all the ingredients into a blender. Blend until smooth and there are no large pices of ice. Serves 1.

Labels: drink, frozen hot chocolate, recipe

Produced by MBA Poultry, Smart Chicken is a brand of chicken and chicken parts marketed as a premium choice raised without antibiotics or hormones and packed with no water. We've had the organic version in the past, which my wife dubbed nearly as good as kosher. For her, that's saying quite a bit. So we thought that the vegetarian-fed, non-organic version would be good. Wrong.

We had purchased some and put it into the freezer, usually a safe enough thing to do. After defrosting the package of plump leg quarters, I baked the chicken without adding anything. The meat was spongy, like you might expect from a Purdue chicken, and nowhere near the quality of the organic. My guess is that their touted cold air processing doesn't do much to the texture, as the two types of birds receive the same handling, yet the difference would have been obvious in a blindfold test.

If you're thinking of trying Smart Chicken, my suggestion is to purchase the organic or else pass it by and pick up a kosher bird.

Labels: chicken, product, review, smart

A weekly round-up of odd kitchen events:

• Toddler Tippling A San Francisco area Applebee's served a margarita in a sippy cup to a two-year-old - accidentally. The apple juice and margarita mix were stored in identical bottles and the manager grabbed the wrong one. Obviously he was looking for the whiskey sours. (AP)


• Pass the Pud A Delhi celebrity chef is filming a 40-part series on British cooking to air in India. It was thumbs up for bangers and mash, down for Welsh rarebit. Who says the glory of the British Empire is over? (Independent Online)


• Weiner-Weight Bout A 107-pound woman managed to eat 26 franks and buns in 12 minutes during the annual Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest. Growing up in China, food was always scarce, so she learned to eat a lot when it was available. Just don't come between her and the plate. (AP)


• Getting the Last Honk For years the French have been force feeding geese to fatten their livers for foie gras. It now appears that those livers can transmit amyloidosis, a rare disease that affects various organs. Symptoms range from fatigue and weight loss to swelling and kidney damage. And certain death, at least for the goose. (Reuters)


• I'll Drink to That A Japanese person was just named the world's oldest living man at 111 years. He attributed his longevity to abstention from alcohol. Let's party ... kinda. (Reuters)


• Toss Up The Mexican city of Tijuana, having seen dozens of drug war killings in the last few years, has decided to pick its collective chin up with Caesar salad, invented there in 1932. A local restaurant industry association hopes to give the city "a better image." Nothing like mass salmonella outbreaks to make you forget murder. (Reuters)


• Forget the Market, Let's Get the Royalties The man believed to be the model for the face adorning Cream of Wheat boxes finally got a grave marker with his name after almost 70 years. (AP)


• With a Shot of Ranch, Please Pepsi is selling a cucumber-based soda in Japan. (AP)

Labels: Applebee's, Britain, British, Caesar, contest, Cream of Wheat, cucumber, foie gras, hot dogs, India, margarita, Nathan's, Pepsi, salad, soda, Tijuana

Last week I mentioned a New York Times story about the U.S. Department of Agriculture adding more inorganic ingredients to the list of those that can go into food labeled as organic. In my post, I mentioned Annie's Homegrown, whose CEO, John Foraker, the story quoted. Apparently someone using the name John F, apparently from Annie's, tried to post a comment anonymously on the entry. Instead of allowing the entry, I decided to look at it graph by graph.

I just came across your piece on this....Here is what I wrote on another blog to get the facts straight...

There is a whole lot of confusion around this issue, Here are the facts vis a vis the NY Times piece and the letter I wrote to the FDA on the issue...

I somehow doubt that the CEO himself is reading blog entries on this issue; I would have guessed a PR factotum. But as it was posted at 10:12 in the evening, who knows? Though as they're based in California, that's probably actually just after 7PM. And I just came across this comment on a site that was new to me, Ethicurean.com, which is about "sustainable, organic, local, and/or ethical" food. Pretty cool, and I'll be adding it to my links.

Most importantly: Annie's is in no way seeking to undermine the organic standards. In fact, the organic standards are being tightened in this new process, and we completely support that! The USDA previously offered a blanket exemption for non-organic ingredients, like annatto, to be used in Certified Organic products when the ingredient is not commercially available in organic form. Recent changes in the organic guidelines (due to the Harvey lawsuit) now require manufacturers like us to get specific USDA pre-approval for any trace ingredient which is natural, but not organic, in a product that is Certified Organic at the 95% level. Approval for these trace ingredients will only be granted when there is no viable organic alternative for the ingredient.

Literally what this says is that under an older set of standards, a company could use non-organic for up to 5% of the ingredients when the ingredient wasn't commercially available in an organic form. Now a company has to get pre-approval to use a non-organic ingredient when there is no viable organic alternative - which could actually be even looser than commercially available. If the product were commercially available but too expensive, a company could technically argue that it was a non-viable alternative. And we're talking about a list of pre-approved ingredients, so what's the big difference?

We have been making organic mac & cheese colored with annatto since 1998, and have been completely in compliance with the letter, and spirit of the organic National Organic Program guidelines. The product in question, Organic Shells and Real Aged Cheddar, is Certified Organic at the 95% level (it’s actually 99.4% organic), and always has been. The only non-organic ingredient is the natural color derived from annatto seed, a plant used by native cultures throughout history, and widely used to add color to natural and organic products. My letter to the USDA requested that annatto be added to the list of specifically pre-approved ingredients so that our product can continue to be legally labeled “Certified Organic” at the 95% level, as it has been since introduction to market.

Yes, I think we all understand that food coloring isn't going to be a big percentage of the ingredients. I'm sure many of us are familiar with annatto seeds, which you can commonly find in Latin food shops because it's often used in Central and South American cooking. And thanks for letting us know that it was Annie's that was looking for the annatto exemption.

If we could find organic annatto, in the quantity, quality, and efficacy we need, we would use it, even if it were more expensive. We have been searching trying to qualify a source for a long time. I am sure we will eventually succeed. However, while we continue that effort, we need to ensure our ability to remain within the law; that is why I wrote the letter to the USDA, to ensure that annatto was not overlooked in the process.

Fair enough - the quote did mention that you weren't getting a deep enough color from the organic. But maybe, just maybe, you could have a somewhat paler artificially colored mac and cheese. It could still be toward the orange end of the spectrum. The driving force to buy Annie's will be parents, not kids, and the parents just want something that appeases to some degree the child's demand for the Kraft blue box. And there do seem to be bulk producers of organic annatto, though as Ethicurean.com points out, it's about four times as expensive and the non-organic.

You may believe, and there are certainly others that agree, that there is no place for colored Mac & cheese. Why not just offer white? Well, we do offer white and it is very popular. However, there are millions of kids in America that have been convinced by decades of advertising from a large company that makes macaroni and cheese that shall remain nameless, that Mac and cheese should be orange/yellow. Overcoming that is difficult. In fact, we received thousands of letters from consumers asking us for an orange mac & cheese product. So, we bridge to give these kids and their parents a path to organic that they will accept, and adopt into their everyday life. The more consumers we bring into the organic tent, the better off we and the planet will be.

Let's be frank - this is really about marketing and sales and the needs of the business, not about creating a path to organic. It's easier to make the sale when you have both types. I'm not arguing that - heck, your company wants to keep growing, and I understand that. And there are many expectations that cheddar cheese itself should be an orange color because so much of it has been dyed for so long, even though real cheddar might be a pale yellow because of whatever the cows eat. But I think you have to admit that the driving force isn't necessarily the good of others, even though that does clash with your overall branding. This is where businesses have problems. Branding is a communication of an espoused way of doing business and existing as a company. Things get uncomfortable when corporate practices start differing. I think that's what bothers people like me, and what makes things uncomfortable for CEOs.

Annie’s has long been a leader in converting consumers and the mainstream food companies toward more organic products. For example, I am very proud that there are now >16,000 acres of precious farmland that are now growing wheat for Annie’s organically, rather than through the unsustainable practices of conventional farming. This is just one example. We are part of the solution, not the problem.

So why not hold off on yellow until you can get the organic source? And, to be fair, you haven't been converting consumers. It really bothers me when companies think that they're the ones in the drivers seat when often they aren't. Consumers have been moving toward organic foods because they have seen so many problems with commercial agriculture over many years and they want something more trustworthy. Companies like yours have been able to grow because of the demand. You aren't converting them; they're converting the market and making it possible for your business to exist. There are 16,000 acres of wheat that are now organic and sold to you because consumers want organic and farmers want the higher and more sustainable prices that organic crops offer. It's the consumer demand that is the solution, and you are benefiting from it. When you start doing things that appear to be backing away from that demand, consumers don't like it. When people ask for orange mac and cheese, why not say that it doesn't exist and part of the reason you get organic is to avoid that level of artificiality?

There is a detailed FAQ on our website for additional information about Annie's position on this subject. The link is:

http://www.annies.com/faqs/annatto_organic_standards.htm

It largely repeats what is already here.

Labels: annatto, Annie's, FDA, organic, standards

At a riverside festival in western Massachusetts last weekend, I had a chance to try samples of a number of products that were new to me. Over the next week or so I'll mention more of them, but let's start with Myron's 20 Gauge Sauce from Myron's Fine Foods of Millers Falls, Mass. Here's a combination of ingredient list and description from the company's site:

Low sodium, naturally brewed soy sauce (water, soy beans, wheat, salt), red wine, natural brown sugars, fresh garlic, olive oil, rice vinegar, juniper berry and Myron's distinctive blend of unique spices. It has a deep and slightly malty flavor base, a piquant/sweet, pungent and peppery bite and subtle "evergreen" (juniper) flavor points.

It's supposed to be for wild game and fish, but I tried some chicken that had marinated in the sauce before grilling. The description is close enough, though far more subtle than I would have expected from something intended for game, and pleasant. The company's site indicates distributors carrying the products, though not retail outlets. However, you could ask a local spot to place an order, or you can purchase a 2-pack of 16-ounce bottles for $24.45, including handling and continental US shipping via UPS ground.

Labels: chicken, fish, game, Myron's, sauce

Labels: CIA, cookbook, review, vegetables

Labels: case, knife, knives, Messermeister, storage. culinary

A weekly round-up of odd kitchen events:

• Death of Cheez Whiz Whiz The man who developed McDonald's method for freezing french fries and co-invented Cheez Whiz died at the age of 91. He was also a pioneering researcher into E. coli. (Associated Press via AZCentral.com)


• Internet Made the Video Stars An elderly couple from Cypress, now living in London, have become minor YouTube stars with their cooking videos. (Ananova.com)


• Think That Knife Is Big? A pizzeria customer, angry at a long wait for food, went to his car, got a two-foot long machete, and attacked the manager, injuring the man. Thank heavens they didn't forget the pepperoni. (AP via STLtoday.com)


• Tea and Doughnuts?Dunkin' Donuts, Krispy Kreme, and Mister Donut are all heading to Asia. Great, now I have to learn to eat a cruller with chop sticks.(Reuters via Yahoo)


• Spam, Spam, Ham, and Spam Burger King is trying to compete with McDonald's in Hawaii by finally serving the state's favorite breakfast food - spam. Cue the vikings.

Labels: cheez whiz, donuts, doughnuts, krispy kreme, weird

An article in the New York Times says that the US Department of Agriculture is ready to add more inorganic ingredients that can go into food sporting the department's organic seal. Under the current rules, at least 95 percent of something labeled organic must actually be organic. The rest must be something where an organic substitute isn't commercially available. Apparently this includes such items as hops for beer, dill weed oil, and elderberry juice. What I'm left wondering is whether there is absolutely no organic substitute, or if a company only has to say that it can't get it commercially. And if that's the case, would the inability to get the wanted ingredient at a given economic price be considered unavailable? And just how serious are "organic" companies?

John Foraker, chief executive of Annie’s Homegrown, argued that nonorganic annatto was a crucial ingredient in the company’s macaroni and cheese. “Organic annatto is not readily available and does not deliver the same cheese color,” he said in a May 14 letter to the Agriculture Department. “Making orange colored macaroni and cheese is an important element of our offering. Without annatto, our macaroni-and-cheese products would be white.”

I can remember my wife and I feeding this to our kids to get away from the more commercial varieties. But the color is artificial? It just seems wrong that organic is the same processed crap as non-organic. Oh, and then the public was given only a week for the public to express its opinion, even though food companies had two years to request ingredients to be put on the list. Maybe organic will have to go out the window and making things from scratch will be the only reasonable option for those interested in what they're really eating, and not what a label claims.

Labels: agriculture, Annie's, ingredients, organic

Rouxbe (pronounced ROO-bee) offering an interesting online step-by-step videos of recipe preparations. I just viewed one of the recipes that doesn't require membership (which, after a month-long trial, runs about $50/year or $100 for a lifetime membership, though there is a sponsored version, which wasn't clear to me from first looking at the site). It was for a pan-seared cod. There are some great advantages to a video approach. With a close-up view of the procedure (and not some smiling chef trying to build more of a business platform) you can see critical details, like how finely to crush the coriander seeds. As new things come up, like a mention of Japanese Panko breadcrumbs, you can jump aside to see something about them, and then return to the main video. When getting ready to coat the cod in a Panko and coriander seed mix, all you have to figure out is how to rinse the fish and pat it dry. Everything else - including sprinkling salt and pepper on the fish surfaces, is in front of you, and you get a visceral sense of how much is enough, rather than using some prescribed amount that might not be a good match for the actual pieces of fish you have. Or you get to see just how brown the top of the fish should be before transferring to an oven.

There are some minor weaknesses in the recipes. For example, the cod one said that the fish goes into an over for five to eight minutes, depending on the thickness of the cod. They eventually do say how to tell that the fish is done, but it would have been smart to tell people to wait and that they'd see it soon. But that is criticism almost reaching quibbling.

Even if you are an experienced cook, you might find that you will learn a few new tricks. For example, in the cod preparation, the cook used the flat of a knife to crush olives, making it easy to remove the pits and then chop. Now there's a handy tip that I had never seen before.

I do think that the price is a bit high for this when currently they only have 83 recipes by my count, not including the various intermediary demonstrations, like how to cut a chiffonade, though if you can choose to watch some ads to get to the content, it's not bad at all. It's also tough to get a real sense of the site, and things aren't necessarily clear in the layout. For example, at first I couldn't find the list of ingredients; someone from the site had to point out that clicking a Print button would have given that.

However, I look at this as a first step to new types of cooking sites that will undoubtedly spring up. In fact, I had already planned a series of videos of how to make dough for my new cookbook's web site. This is giving me additional ideas, particularly in terms of integrating background music and using production to get a more useful result.

Apparently the people who run the site see it as an online cooking school, comparing the price in a favorable way. But, as I wrote back, video and even in-home materials aren’t enough, because there are a thousand and one things that someone won’t correctly get and that the teacher won't know without significant professional experience: short-cuts, ways of recovering from problems, tips about how to handle certain ingredients, someone there to correct when the student is doing something wrong, and so on. While video can be a useful tool, it’s not a replacement. However, overall the site is a worthy attempt.

Labels: cooking, recipes, review, videos, web

An article in the New York Times had me cringing. Here's the gist:

But for some hosts in the age of the armchair Boulud, even a laid-back dinner with friends can be a challenge to their sense of self-worth. They may not care whether they wear Gap or couture. Their place in the Hamptons might be a share. But they would no sooner serve their guests grocery-case Drunken Goat cheese than a Vogue minion would wear an Ann Taylor dress to a party given by Anna Wintour.

Oh, criminies, can we please drop the food as Second Coming (or should that be Second Serving)? When food becomes a status symbol and there's shame in not making your own tortillas (and, no, I'm apparently not making this up, either - wish I were), then you're no longer eating dinner. In fact, you don't even know what dinner tastes like, and you can't take joy in your kitchen skills because they'll never be good enough.

To the tortilla example, someone quoted in the story was "mortified" that he and his girlfriend had used store-bought tortillas. Mortified. I'll grant you that fresh tortillas, which I have made out of curiosity, taste completely different from the disks that come out of a refrigerator case. But it's the taste that should drive the effort, not what people will think. I'm capable of baking a good loaf of pretty much any type of bread that comes to mind, but I'm not going to beat myself because we have people over and I use bread from a store. The essence of good cooking is love for what you're doing and a sincere interest in making the people coming to your home happy. When you obsess as these people seem to do, then it's not about your guests but about you. For example:

Andy Birsh, owner of a letterpress print shop in Brooklyn, would rather make a mad, stressful dash to Brighton Beach for smoked sturgeon an hour before guests arrive for dinner than serve the kind he can buy from a market around the corner. And for him, serving a dish that is on the menu at several good restaurants in the city right now — a fava bean salad with shaved pecorino, for instance — would be like being caught reading “The Lovely Bones” right after Oprah Winfrey endorsed it.

Please. Running out an hour before the guests come to pick up smoked fish? Yes, there can be a big difference in quality - so why didn't he do it earlier, or even a day or two before? Doesn't want "anyone to be able to identify something I made as being from a book or a restaurant?" I see, this former Gourmet restaurant critic doesn't want to give credit where it's due.

My guess is that he and the others like him enjoy the drama and want to be stars. Guess what - you pretty much can't come up with anything so original that no one else has thought of cooking it, and ingredients are important to give guests a good experience, not to enhance your own glory. Or else they could stop serving what everyone else has tried, which will leave ... precious little to be upsetting.

Labels: entertaining, foodies, guests, parties

Clif Bars sent samples of their new Organic Fruit & Nut Bar line. Each one offers "2 full servings of fruit and nuts," which does leave some question of interpretation. Do you get two servings of each? Two servings combined? There's no wheat, soy, or dairy, for the vegan or ingredient-sensitive, no processed sugars or artificial sweeteners or trans fats for everyone, and 5 to 7 grams of fiber. A bar is 150 to 170 calories, still lower than eating a candy bar, though the price is $1.49, not so cheap for 1.6 ounces (or a suggested price of $14.90 a pound).

As for the taste ... eh. I preferred the cranberry, apricot, and almond to the dark chocolate raspberry because the latter's taste just didn't come up to the standard depth you can fine in a good piece of chocolate. However, it's certainly a better nutritional choice than candy, and not so expensive as to discourage a bit of experimentation.

Labels: bars, chocolate, Clif, fiber, fruit, nuts

Odd stories from the previous week:

• Step Away From That Burger Three kids get arrested in a school food fight. Guess the fare was a bit more stale - and hardened - than usual. (San Francisco Examiner, et. al.)


• Ah, the Bouquet A Florida McDonald's had to be evacuated after toxic fumes affected the workers. Given the usual fare, I'm surprised anyone noticed. (WFTV)


• Officer Sues a McDonald's A policeman was legally displeased to find "a mucousy substance" in his sandwich, and he's charging that two teens working at the place were responsible. Apparently this is close to the last step after arguing with the establishment, which had fired the employees. Of course they did - phlegm costs extra adn you can't just give it away.(Sun Sentinal)


• Two Hurt in Japan from KFC Salad Two patrons at two different Japanese KFCs were hurt from small pieces of glass found in salads. How many times do we have to say it: The salad goes into the bowl, not the bowl into the salad. (Reuters)


• Don't Order the Steak Israeli diplomats tired of having to take guests in other countries at kosher restuarants have just been told that they'll have to continue with the practice. And they'd better clean their plates, too. (Reuters)


• This Ain't Peanuts A Pakastani zoo is looking for financial help. It's one elephant gets angry when meals are late and beats the zoo keeper with a stick. And you should see what it does when the fish comes with red wine. (Reuters)


• Was the Food a Little Dry? A patron at a Wendy's in Florida shot the manager, who refused to give him more chili sauce. Hey, rules are rules. (Miami Herald)

Labels: elephant, food fight, KFC, kosher, McDonald's, Pakistan, Wendy's

Seems that Brookline, Massachusetts - a place we once lived and where we still visit and have relatives - is gearing up its politically correct protectionist collective self to ban trans fats, according to a Boston Globe story. The town voted 194 to 11 in a town meeting for the ban. Restaurants will have to stop using trans fats in frying by Nov. 30 2008 and in baked goods by April 30, 2009.:

"I think it's a great public health step," said Anita Johnson, a Town Meeting member who sponsored the proposal. "I hope that a trans fat ban will be extended to other cities and towns in Massachusetts."

There were a few hold-outs, including one Karen Wenc:

"I feel a little hypocritical saying, 'Let's ban trans fats, but enjoy all of the buttery croissants we want and all the ice cream we want,'" she said.

Sorry, Karen, but better forget the buttery croissants. Butter has small amounts of trans fat naturally occurring, as the New York Times has pointed out, and if the town voted for no trans fats, bakers have to drop the butter, as well.

Oh, and for all the health nannies, there was an AP article noting that people eat about five times as much saturated fat as they do trans fat. But, by golly, at least the town is protecting them from ... something. I guess.

Labels: ban, Brookline, butter, trans fat

I'm a great believer in skeptically treating the One True Way tone you get in so many recipes. What someone did once becomes the prescribed method for all, even if it's not the best approach. I was part of an online discussion on a writers' board and someone started a discussion for those who develop recipes. One of the tangents was how sometimes the "safe" way of doing something is for the birds. For example, I make hollandaise sauce directly on the range and not in a double boiler; if you're careful, the eggs won't curdle and you'll be done in about a fourth of the time or less.

Another writer mentioned also being lazy and doing the same with melting chocolate, which I've also done. But I also mentioned a trick I learned from a book (I can't remember which one). Chop up the chocolate, put it into a microwaveable container, and microwave it on full power for about 60 seconds. Take it out and stir. The chunks that look solid will suddenly break apart and turn into nicely melted chocolate. If that time isn't enough, add more in 30 second blocks, doing the stir test at the end of each block. Eventually you get a nice pool of liquid chocolate with no danger of scorching or having the chocolate seize into a mass harder than a hockey puck.

Labels: chocolate, melting, microwave