Credit: Wired Science, click for link
This has been a hot topic of discussion on mirepoix so, with a new post from Wired Science I thought I’d bring it back up – Urban Gardening. Cities like Cleveland and others are trying to combat urban blight, engage communities, and take a large step towards food independence by bulldozing vacant lots and turning them into vegetable gardens like the one pictured above.
Proponents of this approach argue that those gardens are able to feed most families in a one to three mile radius and can generate revenue by selling produce that is not given to the garden volunteers at Farmer’s Markets and to local grocery stores. Opponents mention the need for constant tending, the chance of vandalism and theft, and the cost to the city.
How are the urban gardens in your city these days?
Art of the Menu is an interesting website showcasing some beautifully designed menus. Some of the ones I’ve seen lately could definitely use some inspiration from those on that site.
- Cooking with @feastcraft in the Lounge @ Savoye Addison – by @AlanRRust
I made a fool out of myself today. Not just a slight one, a big one.
I was scheduled to give a cooking demo at seven at a local residential full-service complex. You know the kind, the one with gym and pools and a theater. Well, this one has a kitchen.
Being the usual pedantic butthole I am, I left to arrive there at five, a good two hours to prep and get setup. Which is a great plan. Unless, of course, a tire blows on 635, a few miles from the kitchen. My food slowcooking in 115 degree heat, AAA promising and not delivering a tow, and the seven-o-clock deadline looming, I started running to find a rental car place. Which I did, drenched in sweat and all.
So I arrived at the place, two minutes ahead of time. I did my demo through a fog, a pounding headache, struggling for words and simple prep. I forgot ingredients, misflipped a pancake (that one hasn’t happened to me in decades), all while sweating profusely and looking as deranged as can be. Bad mojo.
After delivering an abysmal demo of which I finished two out of five planned courses I went downstairs, had food, and passed out. Hard. All the telltales where there, the sweating, the fog, the headache, the blood pressure spike, the join pain. The fatigue, dizziness, headache … yeah. Now, heat strokes are a major medical emergency but they generally come with dry skin. I was sweating like a pig. I don’t think for a second that was the case for me, this time. I spend time in 105 degree kitchens and did in desert climates and never, ever, had a problem, though. Something was off.
In the end, I spent a good deal of cash and time to make a fool of myself at no cost to anyone but me and the people who went out of their way to help. Oh, and to ruin my reputation. And I hate it. Next time I will call in sick, I promise.
I am a known collector of old menus and restaurant items so this one is making my day. It’s from the Hennepin County Library’s tumblr and a fine specimen indeed – menu on the front, cocktail recipes on the back, written in all likelihood by Charles “the Finn” Herlin himself (who was the second Charlie to own the place, it is named after Charles Saunders, the first owner. Via TYWKIWDBI.
A century of farms, 1900 - 2007
This infographic from GlobalResearch.ca shows the change in farms from 1900 to 2007 – the disappearance of more than 4 million of them while the average acreage for existing farms rose from 150 to 400, peaking at 416 in 1990.
The Best Cooking School in the World. Period.
It’s a tired topic, one that has been chewed to death and spat into the reading masses a million times since the granddaddy (and last original piece) of them all, Burnt Chefs, appeared on SFWeekly. Are cooking schools a ripoff? Recent in this is Time U.S.’ “Top Chef Dreams: Are Cooking Schools a ripoff?“
So, where did this “French is the language of the kitchen” thing come from? One can only presume it’s clever marketing by the French and those who like to cook based on books witten by French dudes in London. I mean, come on, there’s about 300,000,000 French speakers in the world, first and second language. That’s less than English speakers in this fair country. And every American has been in a kitchen at least once. Not to forget China, India, the Balkans, Spain, Germany, all of which have deep culinary traditions and neither speak French nor care to. If anything, Spanish (with a Mexican accent) is the language of U.S. professional kitchens.
In the grander scheme of hospitality idiocies, nothing comes close to the notion of kid meals. There is nothing good about those things.
They’re a massive ripoff.
A 30 cent corn dog, some fries, and that’ll be $6 please? Oh, and we’ll give you an individually packed Oreo cookie, too.
Gooey Kraft mac ‘n cheese? Crappy mini burger from the freezer bag? Kids meals are designed to be cheap, free of any exciting, healthy, or otherwise desirable qualities, made quickly in the microwave or by pouring some hot water into a cup, and sold for almost the price of an “adult” meal.
They teach kids to eat crap
If mammi and pappi can have sauerkraut there’s no reason lil’ Jimmy can’t. Unless it’s a bottle of burbon poured over a dish there’s nothing adults should be eating that can’t be eaten by a two year old. And nothing more annoying than parents who are afraid to give their kids real food. Guys, you’re shoving asses and lips into your kid, that petite cut steak won’t hurt the toddler any more, and likely much less.
I teach a class of nine to twelve year olds, half of which never ate broccoli before my involvement. And most of which who can not name squash or rhubarb from looking at it. The school’s cafeteria has teachers showing second graders how to use a fork and knife because home meals are eaten with hands from boxes or on sticks.
…
As a parent it’s our job to make sure our kids know what a freaking cucumber is before their first day in school. It’s our job to not screw up our kids’ palate and body by feeding them the lazy microwave crap, at home and on the road. And if restaurants don’t get behind that they deserve to be called out and ridiculed, too. No more mini-pizzas, chicken nuggets, or gooey fast food. Ever.
So, next time you’re in a restaurant with your kid tell the waiter you want something off the menu in a kid sized portion. If he huffs and puffs and talks about charging regular price, tell them to forget it and ask for a small plate so you can share.
Don’t feed your kid yet another microwave hamburger or powder based mac ‘n cheese. And don’t pay another restaurant five bucks for a ninety cent meal.
The year was 1993. I was in France, visiting old friends and making new ones, in a tour de force across the country. We’d left Marseilles and gone east, following the coast, until the sun had set when my companion, a student from Lyon whom I’d met there and who was on her break from school and not extremely creeped out by the idea of driving around the country with a stranger, suggested we stop and eat at a restaurant she’d been to a few years back.
We parked near a cliff and descended down a small pathway, the waves crashing underneath us, the roped off path cut into the stones many decades ago and lit only by a few lights. We turned around another bend, and below us was a cove, lit by the moon above and burning oil lamps. Protected from the tides, there was a small restaurant, music coming from its patio, a flickering firepit throwing shadows against the cliffs. We entered and the dining room was about the size of my living room at home, three communal tables had an assortment of old, weathered, men and young couples on it.
We sat down at one of the windows, and an elderly matron came over and brought us red wine, a steaming warm loaf of bread, and two deep bowls of bouillabaisse.
The still warm, salty, air came in through the open window, there was laughter outside and the smell of burning wood, a man played the harmonica and sang chansons about la guerre and la mer, and whenever I thought we’d finished our dish, the matron brought more bouillabaisse and more bread.
After dinner, which cost less than an appetizer these days, we retreated to the patio, looked at the moon, listened to an old man telling tall tales about the day he almost caught “Le Grand“, the Big One, and fell in love. I felt so incredibly welcome, protected, and amongst good people, there, the food was extraordinary, and the night was nothing short of magical. The intense majesty of the ocean, the sound of the waves, the warm air and moonlit cove, it all conspired to create the, perhaps, only true moment of total peace I would ever feel. We left hours later, leaving the laughter and lights behind, already longing to go back and stay forever. That night we didn’t get two rooms.
I spent the next year driving seven hours each direction to see her every chance I had, sometimes just for a coffee and dinner. After a while we drifted apart, be it because we never again experienced the same magic as that one night in a cove east of Marseilles, be it the distance. I don’t know what became of her, and I am not sure she even thinks about me much, but I will always remember that one, perfect, dinner, the best meal I ever had.
I’ve learned a lot from that night. That “best dinner” isn’t measured in Michelin stars or what’s on the menu. That it has nothing to do with stiff waiters and six-week reservations. That it doesn’t matter what my friends or anyone else thinks of me for eating there, that I don’t need to collect chef’s names and restaurants like Pokemon cards, all that counts is to feel at home and be in the best company one could be in at that very moment.
I guess my mother was right when she told me that only constructive criticism makes for happy people in the long run. A while back I lashed out at the current restaurant “technology” front which seems to concentrate on areas that are either utterly useless or push restaurants into niches by not providing enough outward connectivity to a food service operation’s (FSO) other technologies.
Last night we discussed NFC and the changes it can bring to restaurants. There’s, of course, the primary target – payments. Everyone knows about this part, so we won’t cover it. Just a side-note, if your future apps and solutions don’t account for NFC coming around the corner you’re careless. It is coming and it will be adopted. Quote me on that one in three years.
When I wrote my missive against loyalty, discount, and reservation-for-points systems I tried to make the argument that those are the FSO’s “fad diets”. Sure, there are some results but as soon as one stops doing expensive and disruptive things to one’s body or restaurant everything yoyos back to the old state. That’s OK if you have to make a fat payment on your mortgage or primp up for a calendar shoot, it’s not OK for sustained living or restaurant operations.
In fact, the damages done by those fad diets for restaurants are often big enough that all those successes mean nothing a year later. If not having enough butts in seats is the issue, the root causes are so much deeper than just lack of advertising.
…
Wait? Is he making FUN of QR codes? :)
Ideally, new technologies make the lives of chefs and owners easier. Less work means more time to do the right things and that means more money. Bringing in twenty more diners to an upscale casual joint means something in the realm of $150 in additional net revenue. That’s nice. But no technology today brings in that much, consistently over months, every day. Building technology that allows chefs to source their food from local suppliers without taking a day of calling around and finding out which of the ten farmers has pork in sufficient quantities and can deliver by tomorrow could mean that much or more in savings every day.
Which brings me to the biggest of hogs in the industry – reservations and seating. And here’s what I want you guys to build. In fact, if you do build it I’ll be your unemployed employee for quite some time, selling it to anyone and everyone I know.
Consider this scenario (I have always been a fan of use case scenarios and narratives, so much more fun than dry specs): Jack, Jill, and James are out and about the town. They pass a restaurant that seems fun and Jack pushes his phone against the NFC transmitter outside (or takes a picture of the QR code next to it with the app you’ll be writing).
Immediately a page appears showing a short welcome from the chef, a menu, and – prominently on top – a “Welcome to Maison. We have a table ready for you and would love to have you as our guest tonight”.
An hour later, it being 8pm now, John and Jessica arrive. Jessica snaps a picture of the QR code, gets her menu and message from the chef. Above it there’s a note:
“Welcome to Maison. As you can see, we’re currently full but we would love to welcome you as our guests in about twenty minutes. Press the “accept” button below and we will page you on your phone as soon as seating is available. In the meantime, why not stop by our bar and enjoy a drink and appetizer on the house. Press the “Bar” button and we’ll let our bartender know to inform you as soon as your table is ready”.
Jessica presses the “Bar” button, Hans the bartender gets a heads up, and Holger the chef hears the scratching of his chit printer spitting out an order of the garlic bread for the bar. Jessica and John are barely seated at the bar when their appetizer arrives and a cold one for John.
Integrate with other pager and reservation systems and my chit printer and you’ll have yourself a product that makes my life easier, much easier, and brings in real customers not just bargain hunters that won’t be back once that coupon is no longer in their hands.
Who’ll build it? I know if you do, they’ll come.
Tour De Food
