FoodWords Between Deadlines
Tuesday, August 27
Social Changes in the Grounds
Two voter initiatives, one in Berkeley, California, and one in Seattle, Washington, want to require anybody selling brewed coffee to sell only shade-grown, organic coffee for which the growers were paid a fair price. (No more Folger's for you!) Fair-trade coffee is available in many markets these days (even in little old Green Bay), but the protests have come thick and fast. Not just from people who resent having the government tell them what kind of coffee they can sell but from coffee associations themselves who say the rules will harm, not hurt, the small coffee growers who have been squeezed in the current world coffee glut. Their answer is to get people to drink more coffee. You make the call. This Chicago Tribune story handles the topic, rich with lampoon possibilities, even-handedly. I have no comment on the politics involved. However, whenever I hear about people who want to pass laws that spell out exactly which kind of product everybody can sell, I start looking behind the curtain to see which manufacturer or distributor might be holding the strings. How many purveyors of shade grown, organic fair-trade coffee are there in the world, anyway? Just asking.
posted by Unknown9:46 AM
Monday, August 26
'Russia Settles US Chicken Row'
That's row as in "squabble," "disagreement" and "dispute," but this is the BBC reporting, and "row" just works better. Russia is the biggest importer of U.S. poultry (where do you think the rest of the bird goes after the US market takes all the wings and breasts?). The Russians had put the kibosh on poultry parts imported from the US because of concerns about antibiotic residues and use of genetically altered foods in chicken feed and chlorine in food processing. However, the Bear and the Eagle have now agreed on a new veterinary certification, so the US can once again give Russia the bird. (Look, I'm sorry, I couldn't help myself. Never again, I promise.)
posted by Unknown
The Double Whammy of Food Poisoning
No matter how awful your job is, at least you're not Disney World's food-services director. In June, according to this AP story from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, salmonella-tainted Roma tomatoes were served at Disney World restaurants on the same day as an athletic competition for people who had received organ transplants. Who are some of the people most endangered by salmonella? People with weakened immune systems. Such as organ-transplant recipients. Yikes! Disney officials said the tainted tomatoes were diced and prepackaged. The Centers for Disease Control said as many as 141 people got sick, and lab tests confirmed results for 18 people. At least two had attended the organ-transplant games.
posted by Unknown
Friday, August 23
'Nutrition Watchdog Praises Burger King, McDonald's'
No, that is not a misprint, and it's not April Fool's Day, either. The Center for Science in the Public Interest, scourge of Big Food and Big Alcohol, really did say this week that some of the best fast food on the market comes from BK and Mac's. Of course, what CSPI gives with one hand, it takes back with the other. The five worst foods on its good food/bad food share the Burger King menu with the Chicken Whopper Jr. sandwich and the meatless veggie burger, which it ranked as two of the best foods. In addition to McDonald's fruit and yogurt parfait, CSPI also praised Wendy's mandarin chicken salad and the low-fat subs at Subway. The five worst, in nutritional and economic terms, were BK's ice-cream shake, hash browns, french fries and Value Meals.
posted by Unknown
Vegetables Forever: Real Life on a CSA Farm
Have you seen or heard stories about Community-Supported Agriculture farms, in which people buy shares of a harvest and get fruits, vegetables or meats delivered year-round? It's a great idea - you buy a small, medium or large share of a harvest, or a slaughter if you buy meat. You either pay cash for the whole share or mix cash and some hard labor on the farm. Then, when the harvest comes, you get your share. The reality can be a mixed blessing, especially if you are a city-dweller with romantic notions of going back to the land. The joy of getting your hands dirty lasts until you can't dig Mother Earth out of your cuticles, you've done your turn on the corn-detasseling crew or battled a horde of grasshoppers under an unforgiving August sun. But, the rewards make up for the labor when you taste your first sun-warmed tomato, broccoli that tastes as green as it looks, or sweet corn that's hours, not days, off the stalk. This story is worth reading on two counts: It's an honest, wry look at a woman's first year on a CSA farm, and it's written by Marian Winik, a writer who has had a fascinating life and has written lots of nonfiction books about it, including The Lunch-Box Chronicles: Notes from the Parenting Underground. It's not as precious as the title might imply, and this story isn't as reverential about her all-vegetables-all-the-time experience as stories about CSA tend to be.
posted by Unknown
Price is the Stopper for Organics
A recent survey found that when many people think about organically grown food (no chemical inputs including pesticides or herbicides), the first thing they think is that organics are more expensive than conventional food. Also, people who have never bought organics by now say they probably won't ever buy them. However, people who say they have committed to eating more healthfully do buy products they believe are better for them. This is all in a survey by A.C. Nielsen's Consumer Pre*View, a panel headed by the SupermarketGuru himself, Phil Lempert. This brief story from ProgressiveGrocer.com packs some interesting statistics in a small space.
posted by Unknown
Wednesday, August 21
NYT: The Deep-Fried Truth About Ipswich Clams
It's always good to see ordinary people in New York Times stories, especially when the stories treat them like intelligent human beings. (This happens rather less often, whenever Timesfolk step away from the Square, than one would like.) This story is worth reading for its look into the claims about Ipswich clams - are they or are they not really from Ipswich, Conn.? - and for the unassuming but "content-rich" quality of the writing by Nancy Harmon Jenkins, a wonderful but underappreciated food writer whom I worked with way back in graduate school at dear old UW.
posted by Unknown
School Dumps Junk Food for More Healthful Snacks
Here's a good lesson in how to skew the news. The Center for Consumer Freedom, which despises anything that smacks of do-gooderism, especially in food, had a knee-slapping good time with this story about a school in Fresno that will enforce a no-junk-food policy on campus and is putting less junky junk food in its school store. The center seems to think this does kids a tremendous disservice. I say, good for them. The Center takes particular glee in quoting a teacher saying that she'd snatch a bag of Chee-tos right out of the hand of an unsuspecting grade-schooler. This apparently is the height of political incorrectness. Okay, if I want to give my kid a bag of salty or fatty snacks for lunch, that should be my right. But if I know the school is trying to encourage better eating habits, I'll just save the Doritos for a snack at home.
posted by Unknown
Hot Lunch Goes Organic in Palo Alto
Is it a case of offering more attractive and healthful lunches or pandering to the bad-food cops? You make the call, but when school resumes in the Palo Alto Unified School District, more kids will be able to buy organic vegetarian lunches. Not a bad idea in my view, if it offers something kids will buy and it's not junk food. Sounds better than another story, reported in the newsletter from the no-liberals-allowed Center for Consumer Freedom, which said a Fresno grade school will enforce a no-junk-food rule on school lunches. I'll post that if I can get the link.
posted by Unknown
Forbes.com: Fast Food Counts Calories
We could have predicted this one: People say they want fast food, but when they have to commit to it, they back out. Big surprise!
posted by Unknown
Tuesday, August 20
Portrait in Toast
Don't throw out that piece of burned toast! Use it to create your own bit of toast art, just like artist Maurice Bennett of New Zealand, who has an entire online gallery devoted to artworks pieced together from toast. But this is no garden-variety Toastmaster-charred bread. Bennett carefully toasts bread slices to achieve varying shades from barely tan to near-charcoal. Yes, he has devised a tribute to Elvis. Yes, these are public artworks, because, as he says, "The best view is gained from being some distance from the work." If he were to publish an email newsletter about his artworks, he could call it "Toast Points." Then again, probably not.
posted by Unknown
Bob Greene and the $74 Steak
What's Bob cheesed off about now? A restaurant in Washington, D.C., that sells a Kobe-beef steak for $74. He doesn't talk about what cut of meat it is - a rib-eye? Sirloin? Tenderloin? - just that the price seems pretty high in these days when people are seeing their net worths evaporate along with their jobs and their optimism. Bob wonder, where does one find this steak? The answer in this story is Washington, D.C., and Bob lets the implications fly (your Congressman eats high on the hog, sort of, while the rest of us trudge to McDonald's). You probably could find the same steak for a price in the same neighborhood - this is Kobe beef, imported from Japan, where the cattle get daily massages, live a stress-free life, mostly, and get fed a special diet - in Chicago. No comparisons drawn between congressmen and aldermen. Oh, and Bob's also mad about having to pay $5.75 for a bottle of water presumably from the minibar. Walk over to the sink and get a glass for free, he sputters.
posted by Unknown
Monday, August 19
Welcome, Eat-L Subscribers!
This is the place for FoodWords. I park stories here between mailings of my FoodWords newsletter, so I won't forget about them and so I can write a little about them ahead of time. If you'd like to subscribe, go to the FoodWords sign-up form. To read the original story, click the headline. Thanks!
posted by Unknown
Finally! A Place for All Those Happy Meal Toys!
I knew there was a reason we still have almost every fast-food meal toy Evan has collected in 7.5 years. The Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago has a special exhibit, 25 years of toys, beginning with a Burger Chef Triple Play Funmeal today from 1977. Suppose they need to round out their collection of Spy Kids 2 commemorative gadgets? Oddly, I couldn't find a place to offer more donations. Hmmm.
posted by Unknown
Consumers, Retailers Slow to Accept Food Irradiation
Description later. Read it now. (You don't have to register.)
posted by Unknown
Lettuce: The Newest Processed Food
Here's another story that makes you register at the Web site before you can read it, but once again, it's a worthwhile place to park your address. The packaged salad has become the flagship product in the lettuce department. What was the eye-rolling product introduction of the early 90s has become the salad-makings of choice for more consumers. Lettuce - once a reliably unprocessed food in the supermarekt - is now officially a processed food, unless you continue to buy it by the less-expensive but labor-intensive head. What's instructive is the idea that the lettuce that goes into the bag salads is its second-grade quality. You can expect a more compelling description in the next FoodWords newsletter, out next week, but for now, here you go.
posted by Unknown
Changes in grocery biz offer food for thought
You'll have to fill out the nosy registration form at the Web site for Crain's Chicago Business in order to read this story about how supermarket chains are influence product innovations among other things. However, it's worth it for the insider look you get at how supermarkets control access to their shelves and what it means for independent food retailers, manufacturers and consumers. Excellent explanation of "slotting allowances," which some manufacturing folks prefer to call "paying tribute" or "bribes" or "extortion."
posted by Unknown
Rice Yes, FlatBread Maybe Not
Perhaps this will help erase the "Ugly American" stigma that dogs McDonald's image outside the U.S. Perhaps not, if its move to sell rice dishes in Hong Kong displaces smaller independent business. This story from the Chicago Sun-Times looks at what's being planned, gives an independent reviewer's opinion -- rice too sticky, chicken was good -- and where McDonald's resides as a whole in Hong Kong public opinion. It also includes a sidebar story saying that while the public has embraced its chicken-flatbread sandwich, the suits at the chain's Oakbrook, Ill. HQ aren't as sold on it. Two good looks at how big-business fast food makes decisions.
posted by Unknown
Julia Child's Kitchen at the Smithsonian
I know I said you could dispense with reading anything else about Julia Child once you read two recent stories in the LA Times and the Trib. However, the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., has just opened its Julia Child's Kitchen exhibit and has put up a helpful Web site with plenty of photos, details, background information, etc. It includes a detailed project diary that catalogs all the steps the Smithsonian workers took to document, pack and recreate the kitchen in their museum space. Good thing I'm not a world-famous chef; I would hate to have every centimeter of my kitchen put under the microscope. It was embarrassing enough when the oven-repair guy opened up the oven to reveal how long it has been since I cleaned under the dang thing.
posted by Unknown
Thursday, August 15
A Day in the Life, at 90
Here's a wonderful Los Angeles Times interview with Julia Child in which we learn more about the life she lives now - in an assisted-living complex; DON'T call it a retirement home!, where she uses a walker to get around after back surgery - and in which the kitchen is wholly inadequate, right down to the useless min-oven which, she laments, "it tells you what to cook, you don't tell it." Pair it with the William Rice story listed below, and you'll get a well-balanced picture of the real Julia.
posted by Unknown
Wednesday, August 14
Farewell to Tall Food (Finally!)
Have you ever ordered a meal in a fancy or trendy restaurant and stared in appalled fascination at your entree because you were afraid to eat it? Not because it was scary-looking, but because it was so tall you wondered "why you didn't order your meal with a stepladder on the side." Those aren't my words, they're in this entertaining Baltimore Sun story by Arthur Hirsch, who links the death of "tall food" to the dotcom decline and tracks other odd-food trends. He talks to restaurateurs on many sides of the issue, from those who welcome a return from the dizzying heights to those who defend the practice as intellectual exercise. Ah, simplicity.
posted by Unknown
Shoppers Still Prefer Supermarkets, But Explore Other Formats
A new FMI/SupermarketGuru.com study says grocery-shoppers still do most of their primary shopping at supermarkets but say club and supercenter stores help them save money and offer better values. Well, okay, so far so good, but here's a twist. They also say the club/supercenter stores tempt them to buy more. Sooooo, where's the savings? I suppose because you have to commit more time to shopping in the club store - it's so huge, it's laid out almost anti-intuitively compared with your neighborhood Sentry, Schnuck's or Safeway - you're tempted to buy more. Wasn't that always the big knock against standard supermarkets, that they were designed to separate you from as much money as possible with tempting products? Nevertheless, check out this story from GroceryNetwork.com (Progressive Grocer), which provides lots of useful statistics. You'll find the full press release here.
posted by Unknown
Julia on Julia: America's Favorite Chef Talks to the Trib
Why do I love Julia Child so? Because she didn't use gimmicks in her cooking shows? Because she's a strong woman who eats what she likes? Because she isn't a phony, shares the credit, refuses to follow the trends? Because I got to meet her and tour the Madison Farmers Market with her many years ago? Sure, all these reasons and more. Julia Child is 90 this year and being celebrated from one end of the United States to the other. Although she has retired to a condo in Santa Barbara - she had to, her kitchen is being enshrined in the Smithsonian Institution this year - she is still a vigorous figure in the food world and a lively interview, as this phone conversation with William Rice of the Chicago Tribune shows. The story also includes a recipe for an excellent chocolate cake from one of her cookbooks, although not the to-die-for Queen of Sheba cake from her original Mastering the Art of French Cooking. We can expect lots of adulatory stories before the year is out; before you start to tire of them. Read this story first, and then you can dispense with the rest.
posted by Unknown
Tuesday, August 13
Yoo-Hoo! Here's Some Competition for You!
I didn't know the beverage market was crying out for a Yoo-Hoo replicant. What do I know? I'm not a marketing genius. Apparently, Coca-Cola and its product partner Nestle just couldn't let Cadbury-Schweppes have the whole chocolate-milk-beverage market to itself. But the name: "Choglit." Ewwww. Did they want something that sounds like "Chug It?" If I were a trademark attorney working for Dean Foods, I'd be busy investigating whether it comes to close to Dean's Milk Chug brand of pocket size milk drinks. But why am I complaining? At least it's a milk product that should resemble the dairy base. At least they didn't color it blue. Not yet, anyway. This story first appeared in the San Jose Mercury-News.
posted by Unknown
The Fight over Labeling Trans Fats: FDA vs CSPI et al
Will Americans ever find out the amount of trans fatty acids in their brand-name baked goods and margarines? Just adding that one line to nutrition labels has produced a 10-year battle and a new split between the Food and Drug Administration and consumer watchdog groups such as the Center for Science in the Public Interest. CSPI says the new warning, which the FDA is closing to ruling on, doesn't say enough to warn consumers away from foods that are high in trans fats. Trans fats, you might or might not know, are fatty acids that show up especially in foods make with hydrogenated fats, like oils that have an extra hydrogen atom added to make them solid and usable in mass production. Margarines made from plant oils are one example, but you find in many commercially baked goods. Some nutritionists says trans fats are worse on the heart than the cholesterol you get from butter.
posted by Unknown
Monday, August 12
Specialty Coffee, Anybody?
Now that Supermarket Guru Phili Lempert is turning out a decent weekly email newsletter, I'm paying more attention to his site. (I wouldn't read the newsletter closely when it was just a bunch of links to stories at the site, but now that he's putting up-to-the-minute news in the weekly email, I'm more likely to read it and find something interesting at the site. Just a bit of email-newsletter biz for my Ezine-Tips readers; the rest of you can come back now.) This piece has some good statistics on specialty coffee consumption, tastes, etc. - all material that's worth keeping in your evergreen file the next time you do a coffee story. Good for sidebars etc. and has a nice little graphic Phil might let you borrow.
posted by Unknown
Cure for the common cafeteria: Hospital has great takeout food
Here's a nice story from the Miami Herald about a hospital that hired a former restaurateur to run its food service. On the menu are Latin-inspired dishes like the kind Ray Acosta used to serve in his own restaurant. It's so popular people come from outside the hospital to eat or order take-out. Well, it's not a surprise to me. I did a story a few years ago about hospital cafeterias in Green Bay that were trying to break the hospital-food stigma, although picadillo and chicken adobo certainly weren't on the menu. No word about whether the patients get to enjoy the same fare in their rooms. My one suggestion: Remember to let the hospital workers get in line first, because they're probably on a 15-minute lunch period.
posted by Unknown
'Fast Casual' Takes Over from Fast Food
It was inevitable, I think - 20 years of going to the drive-through at your local fast-food palace has finally taken its toll on the Baby Boom generation. We ate there as overworked career-building singles, we took our kids there for emergency Happy Meals, and now we just can't face the prospect of one more Whopper, Big Mac or McSalad Shaker. (Who did the engineering on that one, I'd like to know?!) Although the big fast-food firms will probably never go away, their influence is fading among middle-aged fast-diners, to be replaced by quick-serve chains that produce something a little different. Some of the names in this new movement, as cited in this Des Moine Register story, include Culver's (a Wisconsin-based chain where the leading product is the butter burger) and Sonic.
posted by Unknown
Friday, August 9
Boar's Head: How to Write a Profile When Nobody Wants to Talk to You
Here's a story that scores on two counts: 1. It talks about a company that's a leading brand in the cutthroat world of gourmet deli products (not an oxymoron, despite what your own deli experiences have been) and 2. It does it with virtually no cooperation from the principal characters involved. Send this to your favorite Investigative Reporting 101 professor or student.
posted by Unknown
Tuesday, August 6
A Food Critic Tells (Almost) All
Every food writer who has ever had to express an opinion publicly knows the double pain of restaurant reviewing: writing about a bad meal and having to defend yourself from the restaurant owner's wrath. This detailed story from the Philadelphia City Paper talks with Craig LaBan, the food critic for the Philadelphia Inquirer, and goes to greater lengths to asses the issues than most similar story treatments. In another blog entry, I'll include a couple of links to Craig's stories so you can judge for yourself.
posted by Unknown
Monday, August 5
Yes, This is the Perfect Job
And now for this week's requisite chocolate-related story: From CNN, we learn that Fortnum & Mason's, that most British of prestige food shops, is looking for a chocolate buyer."We are looking for enthusiasm and energy to develop the already divine range of products available," the company said in a recent ad. Is it any surprise the company was flooded with chocolate-hounds? We would add one caveat: To rework an old phrase, when the gods want to punish you, they answer your prayers.
posted by Unknown
Sunday, August 4
Hello Blogger! Get Me Circulation!
For some reason, the correct subscription address isn't appearing, over there to the left. If you'd like to get FoodWords in email instead of having to trudge to the blog in hopes I've found something interesting for you to snack on, send a blank email here: Subscribe me!
posted by Unknown
