FoodWords Between Deadlines

FOOD MARKETERS' SELF-REGULATION CALLED A FAILURE

2005-06-17T07:47:00.000-05:00

Food Marketers' Self-Regulation a Failure?

This article from AdAge.com reviews complaints by the citizen group Center for Informed Choices, which wants the Federal Trade Commission to get tough on food marketers.

The group's comments come a few weeks before the FTC's first two-day workshop investigating causes of childhood obesity.

It's the old debate -- who's responsible for fat kids? I can assert as the parent of a 10-year-old, who mixes both sedentary play and vigorous physical activity, that the responsibility starts with the parents, who have the final say over what goes into the grocery cart.

In this debate, though, the parents seem to be silent while the war rages between two camps who aren't really invested in the target audience, the kids.

Like so many public debates today, this argument has no final answer because the two sides are arguing different cases. The childhood-obesity people criticize food marketers and manufacturers for "pushing" junk food on kids, but the marketers and manufacturers are looking at what will sell. Each side answers to a different audience.

The last time I checked, food manufacturers were not making kid-friendly products out of the goodness of their hearts but because they know kids will buy, or ask to have their parents buy, those foods. Is that bad? Only if the parents are irresponsible enough to buy their kids anything they demand without regard to diet or healthful qualities.

Parents should demand that food manufacturers clean up their acts, limit the amount of added sugar, salt and fat. But will they stop buying what's out there? Probably not.

How successful has the apple-dipper side item been for McDonald's? Purists would argue it's not much better than french fries because the dipper is almost all sugar. I prefer to look at it as a way to get kids to eat apples.

Parents need to support efforts, however meager, by mainstream food marketers to present more healthful foods, and to seek out smaller manufacturers who do produce higher-quality foods. Or they could start doing more of their own baking, cooking and snack-making.

But the debate will go on. The advocates and the manufactuers will continue to issue self-serving proclamations, charges and counter-charges, and parents will keep buying their kids Happy Meals and Big Kid Meals.

Chicago Tribune news : Business

2005-06-13T19:24:00.000-05:00

Birthplace of the Frango Mint

Here's one question that didn't get asked in this story about Knechtel Laboratories, a Skokie, Ill.-based candy and flavor lab that apparently developed the recipe and manufacturing process for my all-time favorite chocolate candy: the Frango Mint, sold exclusively by Marshall Field's.

Field's outsourced the candy manufacturing several years ago (one of many unwise decisions made when it was owned by Target/Dayton-Hudson).

Along the way, I am convinced that something has changed in the recipe. It's not as full-flavored. Or, the mouthfeel is different. Or something. But it's different.

Still good. But not as good as before when you could watch people making the little double-chocolate mints at the State Street store.

Even if you don't have a strong attachment to any of the candies, cereals or other treats Knechtel has concocted over the years, this is still an interesting story. Could have used a few more common-people details, but it did run on the biz page, not the Food page.

Women Find Their Place in the Field - New York Times

2005-06-01T08:38:00.000-05:00

Finally! A Shout Out for Farm Women!

And don't call them farm wives, either, although some might feel they are married to their farms.

The New York Times reg.req. today profiles some of the growing population of women who head farms. It's billed as being "across the United States," but of course most of those profiled run small specialty veg. or herb gardens, not 500-head dairy farms in Wisconsin or cattle ranches in California, but any recognition is useful. And the photos are not all of glamorous, stick-thin women bearing magazine-quality baskets of produce. (Yes, my bias is showing!)

I like this story most because I am the daughter of a farm woman and may become one myself someday. Hooray for hayseeds!

Snack Makers Use a Calorie Count to Appeal to Dieters - New York Times

2005-05-30T14:16:00.000-05:00

The 100-Calorie-Count Snack

Here's something I just saw in the store yesterday: a new product that repackages a popular snack food into 100-calorie portions.

In other words, you can eat the contents of one pouch and get no more than 100 calories. It's a new snack trend that forces portion control onto snacking, so people can indulge without guilt.

The snacks are either smaller versions of the original snack, or, as in the case of Oreos, a reformulated version that has some of the hallmarks of the original but in a different form.

It's okay -- but they aren't sold individually. They come boxed in multipacks, although I didn't see how many pouches come to a box.

Maybe it's the answer for people who faithfully track their calories every day. I think I'll just stick to Goldfish, thanks.

Crying, while eating

2005-05-26T21:59:00.000-05:00

Crying, while eating?

When does 30 seconds feel like an eternity? When you're watching somebody writhe and moan in faux histrionics while consuming tasty snacks.

I'm not sure about the motivation behind this site, "Crying, While Eating," although I do give it extra points for correct punctuation. It's a collection of 30-second QuickTime clips showing people mourning banal, minute or irrelevant problems (lost opportunity, "the somber moments after dawn," etc.)

I guess there's something provocative, quirky or dissonant about people who can assemble and consume actual food.

Whatever: here are my nominations for the CWE (rhymes with "twee") Awards:

1. Most sincere distress: Ted, eating Honey Nut Cheerios. Ted knows you can't chew and cry at the same time. His silent paralysis is heartbreaking ... almost.

2. Most revolting abuse of an eclair:What could that harmless little French pastry have done to receive such abuse from Afshin, supposedly mourning the absence of positive news stories? Obviously a Fox News devotee.

3. Most artisitic merit: Giacomo, absently consuming a tuna sandwich before recalling he doesn't really like fish. Shot like a classic foreign film, possibly more Bergman than Fellini or Godard.

4. Most compelling argument for no-fault divorce: Hannah and Paul, bewailing the gulf between them. Or, maybe they're just grieving the really hideous cafe curtain behind them. Doesn't matter. Just go get the lawyers and put this relationship out of its misery.

Medill News Service : Chicago

2005-05-26T15:54:00.000-05:00

Historic breakthrough! Dogs Match Buns!

So it's not as groundbreaking as a Iranian nuclear test-ban treaty. But thrifty sausage-eaters everywhere will rejoice to know that in Chicago, the decades-old tragedy of wasted buns is about to end.

That's because Vienna Beef, which makes sausage among other meat products, has brokered an agreement with a commercial bakery, Alpha Baking (S. Rosen buns) to put eight buns in a bag to match Vienna Beef's 8 tube steaks per pouch.

This news story -- "alleged news story," we should say, because it sounds like a press release even though it came from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University -- claims 2 million buns go stale every year because the number of buns in a bag doesn't match the number of dogs in a package. We weren't aware that it was a crisis, perhaps because we either don't eat that many hot dogs or we find other uses for those extra buns.

No, our problem is Johnsonville, which packages its fresh brats 5 to a tray, but local bakers sell brat buns (shorter, wider and denser than hot dog buns) six or eight to a package. So we buy the frozen cooked version, which comes six to a bag.

(Here in Wisconsin you would think buying a frozen cooked version would be tantamount to treason; actually, they come pretty close to the actual grilled version. It works for us because we're not hardcores who grill all winter long, just until the snow covers the grill.)

2005-05-25T10:09:00.000-05:00

'Attack of the killer cupcake'

Would someone please explain this to me?

In the Midwest, cupcakes are what you make for your kid's bake sale or birthday. You buy them at the neighborhood bakery. My old boss at the high-end bakery would make them if somebody paid her to, but they weren't a big-ticket item (too expensive to make for what people in Green Bay, Wis., want to pay.) In other words, they're no big deal. Okay, the mom who bakes and decorates them by hand gets viewed with suspicion by those of us who churn out massive doses of puppy chow to meet our obligations, but we don't drive all over town for them.

Now, in California, where every third person has food preferences that render them unfit for the average dinner party, cupcakes are all the rage. And not just your average store-bakery no-ingredient-found-in-nature version, either. In the state that made no-carb, low-carb, no-sugar and no-dairy diets the norm, the softball-size cupcake has pride of center plate.

Thankfully, Los Angeles Times reporter Betty Baboujon maintains perspective, reminding the giddy that cupcakes are, after, just cakes shoved into smaller containers, and that "gourmet" cupcakes often can fall flat in the flavor and texture departments.

This story does come with recipes, of course, and they look pretty swell. Worth registering on the LATimes site.

2005-05-25T08:47:00.000-05:00

Haute Dogs in New York

For my money, I would still rather have a brat slathered with Secret Stadium Sauce at the old Milwaukee County Stadium. but if I get a hunger for a hot dog on my next trip to NYC, I'll know where to get one.

This story in today's New York Times (registration required) runs the gamut from Nathan's Famous at Coney Island to $19-a-pop dogs made with Kobe beef. Thankfully, reporter Ed Levine knows his franks well enough not to mislead by the Hamptons-ization of this most American of foods. (FDR and Eleanor served them to the English Royal Family when they visited the U.S. in the 1930s).

Lots of good information and oddball facts to be found here.

2005-05-24T13:00:00.000-05:00

'Busted for harboring ham'

A ham-sniffing beagle ruined a Trib reporter's bid to bring a tasty but pricey hunk of jamon Iberico de bellota into the U.S. at a Chicago O'Hare customs point.

Apparently she didn't declare the snack on her customs form, but that isn't what brought the customs hound, who remains unidentified, down to her canvas carryall.

Eng didn't know the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Services prohibit bringing Spanish pork products into the country. Meat products are potential sources of hoof-and-mouth disease in the U.S. view because the USDA hasn't cleared any Spanish slaughterhouses yet.

She could have faced a $50K fine or 10 years in the clink; instead, she just had to hand over the $50-a-chunk souvenir. I can understand her feeling of loss.

A few points to take away:

1. There's a Museum of Ham?! Yes, but that's not the wierdest part. Madrid has six museums competing for the title, along with countless other tourist attractions that make it the Heaven of Ham.

2. I know it's gourmet and all, but ham out of refrigeration for at least six hours? Ewww.

3. The customs inspector was no ordinary ham-fisted bureaucrat. She knows her ham: After Eng asked what would happen if she just ate the ham instead of handing it over, the inspector said the ham itself was so salty, "I think you might have regretted it for the rest of your life."

2005-05-24T10:30:00.000-05:00

Worth Visiting: A Brief History of Food

Here's a handy place to go when you need to get your mitts on some fast food trivia, history and interesting or odd bits. (Just the thing we specialize in.) It's the Web site of Clifford A. Wright, expert in apparently a whole bunch of things according to his publishing history, mainly Mediterranean food, foreign affairs and child-raising.

The site is comprehensive if slightly pedantic -- just the kind of approach you can expect when really, really brainy people latch onto a new passion -- but that's not an insult. If we had to choose, we'd pick pedantic over flip any day -- PBS over Food Network, Clifford over Rachel Ray and anybody over Nigella Lawson.

Wright's latest book is "Some Like It Hot: Spicy Favorites from the World's Hot Zones." He also wrote "Little Foods of the Mediterranean," "Cucina Rapido" and "Cucina Paradiso" among others. Earlier in his career, he specialized in hot-button Middle East issues. So, he's exchanged one kind of hot zone for another.

Wright's site also has an especially useful list of foodie links. It has the usual suspects (the About.com food site, Chowhound, Food Reference Site, Soupsong), but its true value is in its concentration on non-Western foods, foodways, countries and cuisine styles (Palestinian, Turkish, Libyan, North African) ancient cuisines, etc.

(Thanks to LII -- Librarians' Index to the Internet for this tip.)

2005-05-23T09:54:00.000-05:00

Podcasting Goes Gastronomical

If you're not a full-fledged Internet geek, you might not know about the latest hot new technology called podcasting, which sort of brings audio, sound and RSS feeds together.

Most podcasting takes place in the thin air out on the leading edge of Internet thought, but the technique is starting to filter down to other subjects, including food, and especially with chef Neal Foley's Gastrocast, which covers food, cooking, eating, rants, stream of consciousness, etc.

If you're ready to check out podcasting, you need to download an aggregator. Get one for free here. And find more programs in this directory.

(Thanks to Steve Rubel for this tip.)

2005-05-19T18:03:00.000-05:00

Obi Wan Cannoli Wants You!

Even if you're sick of Star Wars, you have to check out this viral Flash video produced by the Organic Trade Association: "Store Wars." Starring Cuke Skywalker, Obi Wan Cannoli, Ham Solo and Darth Tater, it tells the tale of food adulteration and how to combat it. Spot-on parody of the earliest Star Wars chapters, obviously done by people who appreciate a good pun (Hey! Watch out for the Thai fighters!). So what if it's cornball?

Learn the ways of the farm here.

2005-05-19T17:13:00.000-05:00

Want Some Spam with Your Pasta?

Hormel Foods is the House of SPAM (the canned meat, not the email product). Its product list spans all kinds of canned, cured and deli meats.

As far as we can see, there isn't a noodle anywhere in the place. So, it stands to reason that Hormel devotes one extensive page to a useful, if basic, guide to dried pasta: ingredients, flavors, shapes, cooking directions, matching sauces to pasta, Asian versus Italian, etc.

But that's not all! Pasta just takes up just one page of Hormel's Knowledge department. It's a good, handy quick reference section, which will be useful if you keep your computer near your cooking space.

Now, if they could just make the Find It Fast quick-search function less annoying. It floats and bounces alongside the copy. You can close it but then you have to move back and forth among pages to find things.

2005-05-18T12:05:00.000-05:00

Blue Over Chips?

Memo to the sales and marketing staff at Old Dutch Foods, St. Paul, Minn.:

The Chicago Tribune's Good Eating staff just ranked Ruffles as the city's top chip. That must mean they didn't have Old Dutch to test. Better run a truck down there right now and show them what a big bet they missed.

Ruffles and its itty-bitty, brittle ridges, is the chip equivalent of Domino's pizza or the Chevy Cavalier -- serviceable but nothing special.

Here's the Trib's ranking:

1. RUFFLES

(6.3 points. 12-ounce bag, $2.50; 21 cents per ounce.) "Very crunchy, crisp." "Very good potato flavor but greasy; excellent dunk-ability." "Plenty of salt, not much potato."

2. VITNER'S RIDGETTS

(6.2 points. 9.5-ounce bag, $1.99; 21 cents per ounce.) "Salty, spuddy, just oily enough." "My favorite of all. Great flavor." "Light, oily flavor; not much potato taste."

3. (TIE) BONANZA RIPPLE

(5.3 points. 12-ounce bag, 99 cents; 8 cents per ounce.) "Golden, big ridges; more potato taste with some oiliness." "Very pretty with uniform ridges." "No potato flavor; oversalted."

JEWEL RIDGES

(5.3 points. 12.25-ounce bag, $1.99; 16 cents per ounce.) "Some potato flavor shines through." "Good crunch." "Bland."

Also tasted

4. Lays Wavy (5.1 points)

5. Kettle Krinkle Cut Natural Gourmet (4.7)

6. Jays Crispy Ridged (3.9 points)

2005-05-17T10:08:00.000-05:00

Coffee, Guns and Land Mines

Here's a story about how coffee gets from the slopes of Nicaragua to your breakfast table. But, author Sam Gugino ("Sam Cooks") adds a twist with the kick of a quadruple espresso.

Gugino's story is a wilder ride than usual into the heart of coffee country. In the first five paragraphs he introduces assault-rifle-equipped guards riding along with his excursion AND teams of land-mine hunters removing reminders of Contra fortifications from the 1980s.

Not your usual collection of lyrical descriptions, cliched travelogues and overworked adjectives, to be sure.

This article is from Gugino's most recent Sam Cooks ezine. Definitely worth checking out. Sam is a great straightforward food writer, nothing cutesy. He wrote the Cooking to Beat the Clock books, has backgrounds in both food and journalism and writes a solid column.

2005-05-16T20:05:00.000-05:00

Field Trips and Farm Markets

About the only thing I really miss about living in Madison, Wisconsin, is the weekly Farmers Market around the Capitol Square. It's one of the best in the country.

(And I'll be honest here; I miss it only until I've been about halfway around it, at which point I usually exceed my capacity for tolerating the stylers and poseurs who are there more for the experience than for buying stuff and the people who stage neighborhood or college reunions right in the middle of the heaviest foot traffic.)

Nevertheless, I thought about it again this past Friday when my son's fourth-grade class made its annual field trip to the Capitol and UW-Madison campus. The square was relatively quiet in the afternoon, but 14 hours later, it surely would have been humming with early-season producers and serious shoppers.

This is the best time of year to shop the market, especially if you're easily irritated. The selection isn't as great, obviously, but you run into truly dedicated farmers who have produced the season's first radishes and lettuce in their coldframes, the cheesemakers (including Willi Lehner the yodeler), bakers, bee people and jam-sellers and others who can produce through the winter.

The early season also draws out the serious shoppers. Generally you won't stumble over as many dogs, strollers or chatters or bang into as many elegant shopping baskets as you do in the peak of the season, and that's reason enough.

Now, the point of this post: Here's a good farmers' market story from the LA Times (registration required)

Well, the story is so-so. But it has a recipe for a fresh strawberry pie that looks just luscious and not nearly as gooey-sweet as the ones you find at Perkins or places like that.

We're getting California strawberries now, here in Wisconsin, and like many things from California, they look pretty but don't have much juice or flavor. But the recipe comes about six weeks ahead of the Wisconsin strawberry season, and our local berries are just wonderful.

Julia Child Dies at Age 91

2004-08-13T11:29:00.000-05:00

Julia Child Dies at Age 91

It's true -- the woman who helped revamp cooking at all levels in America died in her sleep Thursday at her home in Santa Barbara, Calif. (Link points to a Chicago Tribune story; registration required).

Prepare now for an onslaught of eulogies from everyone who ever watched any of her PBS cooking shows (I preferred the ones she did with Jacques Pepin for their humor, banter and crosstalk about food and cooking), or bought one of her books, or attended a show, or sat next to her and had the effrontery to ask her for an autograph (like me).

I am lucky enough to be able to report on actually meeting her several times in the 1990s. She was tall, gracious, interested in everything and everyone, generous with opinions, even potentially unpopular ones and unflagging. She came to Wisconsin either as a guest of corporate entities such as the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board or heritage-food organizations. I met her in Madison as she toured the famous Saturday-morning Farmers Market around the Capitol Square and then cooked with Odessa Piper at her restaurant, L'Etoile, for one of her shows, then again when she went on a cruise dinner in Milwaukee and taught a cooking class at Jill Prescott's former school in Kohler.

The best thing to do now would be to make something from one of her books. I heartily recommend the chocolate-and-almond Queen of Sheba cake ( Reine de Saba, p. 677 in the original 1961 edition of Mastering the Art of French Cooking).

A faster alternative is the shrimp quiche from The Way to Cook (my copy of which opens right to the recipe on p 384).

If you're not up to that, go buy or borrow "Appetite for Life: The Biography of Julia Child" by Noel Riley Fitch, a gush-free examination of Julia's remarkable life.

Most people will remember Julia as the woman who made French cooking accessible to the American public, but she's also to be remembered as an apparently fearless woman who carved her own path in life, who reinvented herself in her early 30s and ended up with a husband whose life eventually centered around her own. She was able to create her life without the distraction of children, which opens up a small debate: If she'd had a child, or children, would she have become the Julia we know today? And, would they have been the best-fed children in town, or would the old cobbler's-children maxim have ruled (the cobbler's children are the worst-shod)?

Discuss amongst yourselves.

Bon appetit!

2004-07-27T14:19:00.000-05:00

FoodWords Between Deadlines is back up and running!

If you're as old as I am -- the first generation of newspaper writers who worked solely on computers and never with typewriters -- you heard that phrase, "back up and running," a lot. Mainly because the mainframe computer system your company was using either crashed a lot (usually on deadline) or had to be taken down at least once a day for maintenance or whatever other secretive reasons the IT guys for interrupting your work routine.

It has been a long time -- 25 years, omigod -- since I first sat down at a desk in a real newsroom and heard that deathless phrase broadcast over the loudspeaker. But it sticks with me. So today, I proudly announce that FoodWords The Blog is back up and running after a lengthy hiatus. Is anybody out there?

I recently left a wonderful staff gig writing for Anne Holland at MarketingSherpa in order to deal with some family issues. But, seeing as I'm continuing on as an occasional contributor to EmailSherpa, and I'm at the computer, anyway, and I'm still getting all my usual food news via email, I thought I'd put my time to good use and see how we can build up the ol' blog.

Hey, guess what! Since the last time I posted here, I've acquired an RSS feed! Wahoo! We're totally out there now. Here it is: http://www.foodwords.blogspot.com/atom.xml

I am still hoping to revive my newsletter, but for now, start looking for new, notable, goofy or otherwise comment-worthy food news beginning Wednesday, July 28.

2004-05-18T13:50:00.000-05:00

The Miracle that is Clamato

Chicago Tribune | Why is it consumers clam up when it comes to Clamato?

This is a great story, from the Chicago Tribune, about the red-juice drink Clamato, one company's major marketing missteps and how appealing to the core audience can boost sales. I've never had Clamato, but a hundred million Canadians and Mexicans can't be wrong, right?

2004-03-05T08:29:00.000-06:00

Primer for Newbie Crockpot Users

The crockpot isn't just for your mom anymore. You might think it's a distinctly downmarket way to prepare a meal, not consistent with a kitchen full of the latest gadgets and high-end cookware from Broadway Panhandler. But there's a reason the humble crockpot has remained popular and not just as the classic middle American wedding present -- it works, it's convenient and you can make some fabulous food in it. Just think of it as really, really slow food.

This article from the Boston Globe takes you through the finer points. Read it soon because it will go to a paid archive soon and this link will vanish like the last little bits of sauce from the bottom of the pot.

2004-02-27T11:52:00.000-06:00

2004 Food Trends via R&I

Looks like it's going to be a combination of frou-frou and updated homestyle comfort foods, according to Restaurants & Institutions magazine. Here's the lede:

"Something for everyone will be a dominant theme throughout foodservice. As diets go head to head with a continuing demand for indulgence, restaurants have been challenged to address both with equal aplomb. Kitchens accustomed to preparing foods with nary a thought to nutrition must now school chefs in the nuances of Atkins, organic foods and calorie counting, all with the aim of keeping customers happy— whatever their diet regimes."

2004-02-26T14:00:00.000-06:00

Newspaper 's Stupid House Ad Outs Its Restaurant Critic

Oh, this story will resonate with anyone who has to contend with a dopey publisher. The Nashville Scene, a weekly in Music City, published a house ad showing a bashed-in paper box and four possible culprits below it. One of the culprits was the newspaper's own restaurant critic. Another was a cartoon of a Mafioso, in bad taste on so many levels, but especially because the critic had just recently ripped an Italian restaurant whose name was a play on the word "Mafioso."

The Mafia is not known for its sense of humor, but then neither are restaurant critics who guard their identities and probably don't think it's funny when their own paper exposes them. D'oh!

2003-07-25T11:40:00.000-05:00

More stories coming soon!

This blog is not dead! It just looks that way. I've just had to put it on hiatus while I deal with life and work. The newsletter also will be revived very soon. Want to sign up? Send a blank email here.

Thanks!

2002-11-14T11:13:00.000-06:00

Crisco: Crucial to baking or Franken-food?
Here's a great story about the history of Crisco, that "white-white" solid vegetable shortening that heralded the era of manufactured foods. As an aside, it also explains the hydrogenation process clearly -- how oils solidify into fats and why they might be bad for you. I confess -- I use Crisco for frying French toast. Nothing else works as well.

2002-11-07T11:07:00.000-06:00

Central Illinois primes country's pumpkin pie passion

This story could have done a little more to mine the culinary aspects of major-league pie-pumpkin production -- like asking the pumpkin-processing plant manager, who must taste a pie every day, what makes the best pies -- but even so, it's a nice look at an area of the Thanksgiving feast that gets overlooked. It's also a nice reminder NOT to cook up that gassy old pumpkin that has been sitting on your front porch since Halloween.

2002-10-18T09:16:00.000-05:00

How your dinner died

Is this useful information or more than you really want to know? Some restaurants are going to great lengths to explain how that salmon or elk steak ended up on your plate. The story began in the Wall Street Journal; this one is from MSNBC's Web site.

2002-10-17T08:53:00.000-05:00

‘Tear factor’ discovered in onions

You'll just have to find another reason to have a good cry in public, now that Japanese food scientists have discovered the enzyme in onions that generate tears. The tearless onion, they say, is just a few years away. No more eating bread, holding a piece of raw potato in your mouth, freezing onions or washing them -- a few of the ways people say they can combat the sniffles.

2002-10-01T17:45:00.000-05:00

Yahoo! News - Boy rings police over grandma's dumplings
So much for the love between grandparents and grandchildren.

2002-10-01T11:34:00.000-05:00

"First there were chickens; then, chicken tchotchkes!"A great story AND a great headline -- life is good! This is a fun story about a Wisconsin woman who wrote the book on chickens -- actually, one of a growing collection of chicken-focused books. Here's the beginning of a trend: Chickens are cool. Martha Stewart might have elevated an underground tendency toward chickens into a designer niche with her own flock of "pedigreed poultry" (stole that line from the story, I did), but others are finding the joy in raising a small flock. Having been in close personal contact with chickens, I have to say I prefer my chickens on a plate or on a piece of Quimper pottery -- the only stench that comes close to chicken poop is pig poop, and while some chickens are smart, most of them are not -- but if it gives some poor urban drone a few moments of pleasure to imagine a futue spent gaily tossing feed to appreciative avians, fine. Hey, maybe there's a book or a movie to be made there! No, sorry, somebody beat me to it: "The Egg and I," published post-World War II, made into a funny film with Fred MacMurray and Claudette Colbert.

2002-10-01T10:20:00.000-05:00

Organic food labeling to debut this monthHere's a great explanation of the new federal regulations on organic labeling and what it means for consumers and producers. Its from CBS MarketWatch, an excellent Web site that deals mainly in business and finance issues.

2002-09-25T11:18:00.000-05:00

More to Irish Cooking than Cabbage and Soda Bread

Oh, I do so love the Chicago Tribune food section. Have done since the old Mary Meade days. Here's another reason why: The staff takes what could have been a standard cookbook review and takes you inside the Trib's test kitchen -- been there! -- to show both how they tested some of the recipes and candid comments on the results. It's a great story and a good example to follow.

2002-09-24T13:23:00.000-05:00

The Big Doughnut Battle: Krispy Kreme Invades Dunkin' Donut's Turf

Will Krispy Kreme unseat batter behemoth Dunkin' Donuts, now that it has arrived in downtown Chicago, or will it have the Starbucks effect? (Instead of driving independent coffeehouses out of business, they actually boost business for everyone.) Personally, my money is on DD. KK doughnuts are good right out of the oven, but I hate that sweet glaze that goes over every doughnut, even the frosted ones. Too icky-sweet for me. Although you can't beat the glassed-in production area for voyeuristic interest.

2002-09-24T13:13:00.000-05:00

Frito-Lay North America to Add Healthier Snacks

Okay, they're not copying McDonald's. Yeah, yeah. But Frito-Lay, the snack-maker, said today it plans to cook its Doritos, Tostitos and Cheetos snack in a more healthful cooking oil and to introduce low-fat versions of some of its snacks, all because it is worried about the way Americans eat. Jolly decent of them, I say, but I wonder if the consumer reaction will be the same as the reaction that greeted McDonald's announcement that it is cooking french fries in a different oil. (See item below.) Essentially "ho-hum."

2002-09-24T13:08:00.000-05:00

Report: Target May Give Supermarkets 'A Run for Their Money'

Taking a page from the Wal-Mart Big Book of Big-Box Retailing, Target is poised to become a major food retailer in the United States, which is probably all U.S. food retailers need to hear. Personally, I dunno. Is Target prepared to replace the frozen food I buy first but allow to thaw while I get distracted in the hard-lines department?

2002-09-24T09:42:00.000-05:00

And You Thought Tofu was Boring

If anybody knows how to make solidified bean curd interesting, it's the Japanese. How about smoked tofu, baked and coated with salt and soy sauce, seasoned with apple and cherry essence? You'll have to go to Family Shokuhin in Takagi, Nagano Prefecture to get this Kunsei-tofu. Or, you could try it at home. This story, from the English-language version of the Asahi Shimbun, Japan's leading newspaper, tells you where to go and how to create some of the dishes at home. It's fun reading, even if you don't like tofu. (And if you do, freeze the tofu first before deep-frying. Works much better.)

2002-09-23T14:35:00.000-05:00

Certified Organic: What's It Worth?

Need an all-in-one guide to buying organic foods? This isn't exactly it, but it's close, and it's from Newsweek's cover story this week on MSNBC.com . It doesn't endorse organic 100 percent, but it makes a stronger case for buying certain kinds of organic foods over others. ("organic" is a little bit of a misnomer here; isn't all food organic? But it's used to mean plant foods grown with minimal inputs such as chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides, and products from animals raised without synthetic hormones and antibiotics and fed only organic feed.) It's a well-written, evenhanded treatment of a story that all too often evolves into emotion versus efficiency.

2002-09-23T14:06:00.000-05:00

Consumers Don't Buy 'Healthier Fries' Claim

Here are some interesting findings -- not scientific, but interesting anyway. SupermarketGuru.com, the Web site run by food-marketing expert Phil Lempert, asked visitors to fill out a short online survey about McDonald's recent claim that it is changing the way it cooks french fries to make them more healthful. This touched off a debate on a food mailing list about all the media coverage this announcement got, with some people criticizing the media for covering this at all and asserting that it will just further bamboozle the great unwashed who patronize the Arches. This survey shows that while about 85 percent of those who voted do buy fries at Mac's, the same percentage said the news will not cause them to eat more fries. Also, just over half say the announcement was just a marketing gimmick. Again, this is not a scientific survey -- it relies on people to self-select -- that is, you're more likely to get people who have some motivation rather than a true cross-section of the population -- and it also doesn't control for the tendency of people to answer the question the way they think they should instead of the way they truly feel. Still, the results are there.
I draw two conclusions: 1. Even regular customers aren't necessarily buying into McDonald's marketing plan (which might be one reason why the company's financial outlook is flatlining at best. 2. Mass media coverage apparently did not produce the mass general acceptance that some food people predicted. Food writers have always had to deal with soreheads who insist that covering a trend implies endorsement, but I maintain that when a major food entity such as McDonald's does something like change its fry formulation, that is news, but not because we all think McDonald's is great.

2002-09-23T13:29:00.000-05:00

Fewer Pumpkins This Year??

The summer drought that beset many parts of the United States continues to echo as we veer into fall. The latest bad news comes from the pumpkin patches of Indiana, where the crop is reported from nonexistent to spotty. As goes Indiana, so goes much of the Midwest.
We saw a big patch with the mournful sign "No Pumpkins This Year Due to Drought" while out on a country drive this year. Also, friends who can usually grow grass on sidewalks also reported that most of their pumpkins never made it past the blossom, and those that did are pretty sorry-lookin'.

2002-09-23T13:25:00.000-05:00

900 Chicago Restaurants Ban Smoking in Restaurants

Doesn't say whether the infamous Billy Goat Tavern (once the hangout of the late great Mike Royko and allegedly the inspiration for the Greek restaurant in the old Saturday Night Live sketches).

2002-09-23T12:15:00.000-05:00

Now pending in Australia: Plastic-bag tax

Here's a corollary to the debate just beginning to surface in the United States about a junk-food tax. The Australian Parliament is set to begin debate a proposed levy on the use of plastic shopping bags -- or "carrier bags" as they're known in various parts of the world -- in an effort to cut down on nonbiodegradable waste. A similar tax in Ireland apparently did cut down on the number of bags that ended up at the dump. Okay, it's not totally food-related, but here's the inevitable result: What if the world's governments someday do impose a plastic-bag tax? And a junk-food tax? I'llhave to pay extra to take my Twinkies home in a plastic bag. Is it worth it?

2002-09-20T11:54:00.000-05:00

Seasonings and salt - innovating for success : just-food.com Feature

2002-09-20T08:25:00.000-05:00

"Meals Make Us uman"
Here is a brief but charming essay that says today's culture of fractured, solitary dinnertimes "is a blip, not a trend. Cooking will survive, because it is inseparable from humanity. A future without it is impossible."

2002-09-18T14:11:00.000-05:00

'It's not your grandmother's food section any more'

Hey, I'll bet you guys didn't know that, didja? Whoa nelly, those Gannett executives sure are on top of changing times. This page from the Gannett media company's Newswatch section argues for and outlines changes in newspaper food coverage. Trouble is, many food sections are already doing just what they want. Which, for the cynical newspaper journalists here should recognize is only par for the course. Most of the time, they don't even know the section is there. Most of them value their food news so little they don't bother to highlight or promote it on their Web sites or in email alerts. (That's one of the founding principles behind this blog -- we don't overlook the food section!) Much of this is done to capture the elusive 18-to-34 age demographic, which apparently doesn't respond to recipe-style coverage. I have one caution for newspaper section heads who want to break down the old mold and install something new: New is good, but don't forget who actually buys the paper and uses the news. Don't leave older readers in the dust, particularly older women readers who lost access to the kind of women's news they wanted to read when women's sections were revamped into "lifestyle" sections in the 1970s and 1980s. A good food section is like a buffet line: You can have an overall theme, but you should try to publish something for everybody. Otherwise, you risk losing yet another demographic, one that isn't as sexy but has just as much or more spending power to attract advertisers. Okay, rant over. Check out the story.

2002-09-17T13:40:00.000-05:00

Snack food sales rocket in Britain

Here's an issue to unite parents around the world: Your kids aren't the only ones squandering their allowances on junk food and cigarettes. Interestingly, speaking of cigarettes, the story from BBC News, the online component of the grand old BBC, says more girls than boys buy cigarettes. Are the girls letting the boys mooch in order to gain favors?

2002-09-17T13:36:00.000-05:00

Moosewood to Sell Canned/Frozen Products

It seems a bit heretical to apply conventional marketing terms to what Moosewood Restaurant in Ithaca, N.Y., is planning to do, but there's no way around it: the restaurant will extend its brand, already on cookbooks, to canned and frozen organic vegetarian foods, and they're planning an extensive trade and consumer campaign to support the roll-out early next year. (Yikes! Get my pinstripe suit out of mothball!) This story, from MediaPost, a Web site and email newsletter tracking media and marketing news, reports Moosewood will market the products for specialty health-food stores, supermarkets and institutions. The move is destined to capitalize on supermarkets' increased willingness to allot shelf and floor space to organic foods and consumers' willingness to buy them at higher prices than they'd pay for conventional equivalents. Plus, the Moosewood brand is gold in organic/vegetarian circles, thanks to the restaurant's rep, which extends beyond the People's Republic of Ithaca (as someone who lives there once called it), and the cookbooks by food writer Mollie Katzen. (Highly recommended; the garbanzo-bean dip from "Sundays at Moosewood," the most conventional of the Moosewood book series, I think.)

2002-09-17T12:09:00.000-05:00

More on trans fat
This story from the Tallahassee Democrat is a Knight-Ridder Tribune wire story giving good background about trans fatty acids - what they are, how they differ from other fats, why we should care about them. If you're a hard-core food or nutrition professional, you probably know most of this by now, but it explains the facts in easy-to-understand language that doesn't dumb down the issues.

2002-09-16T13:03:00.000-05:00

McDonald's 'Healthy Fries' Debate

2002-09-16T11:20:00.000-05:00

Schwan's Service Really Delivers

If you don't live in the Midwest, particularly the less-populated parts of the Midwest -- or you don't have a child who attends a grade school with a vigorous fund-raising program -- you probably don't know about Schwan's, the home-delivery food company.

In Green Bay, Wis., where I live, I see the little goldenrod-yellow trucks with the big white swans on their sides all over the place. They deliver frozen foods -- mainly desserts and frozen dinner foods -- at all times of the day and night, and their drivers are probably some of the hardest-working guys in the food-delivery business. The foods they sell would fry the eyebrows off our good friends at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, but I have a good friend who says, "I don't know what I'm having for dinner until my Schwan's guy shows up."

2002-09-05T21:43:00.000-05:00

Circling the Racetrack and Other Curious Shoppers' Habits

Forget a lot of the conventional wisdom about how people shop in a supermarket. A new study by Herb Sorenson of Sorenson Associates shows how supermarkets need to rethink store design and product placement - where the best places are to merchandise products, how to manage the store's "dead zone" (Hint: That's why they put the milk way back there!) and on and on. If you believe firmly that stores are designed not for the shopper's convenience but to maximize the store's goal to extract as much cash as possible from the wallet, you might not appreciate some of the advice. As a shopper, though, I can attest to Sorenson's description of the "racetrack" method of shopping, in which I circle the store's perimeter and then make excursions up the aisles. (Which is a dumb way of doing things, because the cold items usually are on the perimeter, like meat, dairy and frozen foods, so they have lots of time to warm up in my cart while I hunt down kitty litter and paper towels). If the store wants to make my work easier and shorten my time in the store, I'm all for it.

This story appeared on the GreatMindsinMarketing.com Web site, one of the properties in the marketingsherpa.com online-publishing empire. marketingsherpa.com's sites and email newsletters should be required reading for anybody whose calling in life even remotely resembles marketing communications and email publishing. Publisher Anne Holland (like me, a refugee from the print world) and her crew are some of the smartest people in the business.

2002-08-27T09:46:00.000-05:00

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.

2002-08-26T12:22:00.000-05:00

'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.)

2002-08-26T12:17:00.000-05:00

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.

2002-08-23T22:09:00.000-05:00

'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.

2002-08-23T21:56:00.000-05:00

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.

2002-08-23T21:31:00.000-05:00

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.

2002-08-21T13:02:00.000-05:00

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.

2002-08-21T12:38:00.000-05:00

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.

2002-08-21T12:07:00.000-05:00

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.

2002-08-21T09:41:00.000-05:00

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!

2002-08-20T14:25:00.000-05:00

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.

2002-08-20T10:29:00.000-05:00

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.

2002-08-19T21:25:00.000-05:00

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!

2002-08-19T15:15:00.000-05:00

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.

2002-08-19T12:48:00.000-05:00

Consumers, Retailers Slow to Accept Food Irradiation

Description later. Read it now. (You don't have to register.)

2002-08-19T12:46:00.000-05:00

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.

2002-08-19T12:41:00.000-05:00

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."

2002-08-19T11:51:00.000-05:00

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.

2002-08-19T09:51:00.000-05:00

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.

2002-08-15T09:15:00.000-05:00

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.

2002-08-14T13:19:00.000-05:00

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.

2002-08-14T12:10:00.000-05:00

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.

2002-08-14T11:43:00.000-05:00

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.

2002-08-13T13:02:00.000-05:00

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.

2002-08-13T10:13:00.000-05:00

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.

2002-08-12T23:42:00.000-05:00

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.

2002-08-12T14:49:00.000-05:00

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.

2002-08-12T14:44:00.000-05:00

'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.

2002-08-09T13:08:00.000-05:00

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.

2002-08-06T11:20:00.000-05:00

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.

2002-08-05T15:12:00.000-05:00

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.

2002-08-04T22:29:00.000-05:00

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!

2002-07-29T11:32:00.000-05:00

RICH CHOCOLATE STORMS AMERICA

I have bad news for you if you're trying to break your chocolate habit. Premium chocolatiers are planning a $30 million advertising blitz this year to persuade Americans to eat more chocolate. (File this story under "Preaching to the Converted.") According to this story in Advertising Age, Americans are not holding up their end of the deal in worldwide chocolate consumption. This comes as a major surprise, seeing as Americans constantly get accused of consuming far more than their fair share of every other precious global resource. A few example: Lindt & Sprungli plans to spend $4 million to get us to eat more Lindor Truffles (my verdict: The fillings are too icky-sweet.) Godiva, a brand owned by the Campbell Soup Co., aims to spend an undisclosed amount to persuade us that its chocolate is not just a product but a lifestyle. (And not because you need a second income to support your premium-chocolate jones, I'm guessing.) I'd write more, but I just got this sudden urge for a Mars bar ......

2002-07-25T10:43:00.000-05:00

Is Bottled Water Better Than Tap?

Okay, I do feel a little doofus-like whenever I buy a bottle of water from a vending machine, a convenience store or the supermarket. Buying water?? What next, buying air? (Oh, yeah. We do that already. Oxygen bars. Not me, though; I draw the line there.) This story from the Baltimore Sun casts an earnest if slightly jaundiced eye at the practice, examining it from various viewpoints: nutrition (beware extra carbs and calories in flavored waters), economics (It can be pricey!) and environment (added pollution caused by trucking water from source to plant to store). And, of course, the snob value: Some restaurants are adding "water sommeliers" to help diners navigate their way through all the varieties. Get me a Coke!

2002-07-19T08:49:00.000-05:00

The Five Olive Oils of France

France produces only 2 percent of the world's olive oil, but, because they are French, they've gone and appellation-controleed the whole process. That means, as with wine, there are five distinct growing regions around the country, and only the olive oil produced in a particular region, such as the Coteaux d'Aix en Provence, can bear that particular appellation. This article in the International Herald Tribune by Patricia Wells explains the differences among them, notes characteristic flavors and suggests best uses.

2002-07-12T09:33:00.000-05:00

Breakfast at Tokyo's (coffee shops, that is)

Tokyo is one of the most expensive cities in the world. Even if you have an unlimited expense account, at some point you too would rebel at paying almost US$5 for a cup of coffee. The solution, according to Kaori Shoji in the International Herald Tribune, is to venture out of the hotel to a local coffee shop. The shops cater to the hordes of commuting Tokyo businessmen who don't have to eat at home by offering full meals for the price of one coffee. And we're not talking the Cholesterol Express of your average Denny's Grand Slam breakfast, either. It's an entertaining piece and in IHT's tradition of food-meets-culture reporting.

2002-07-11T12:27:00.000-05:00

FDA to require trans fat listing on food labels

Research that came out in the late 1980s and early 1990s cited trans fatty acids as being potentially more harmful to the body than traditional evils such as cholesterol, although the current wisdom is that neither is good for you in large amounts. Trans fats are commonly those that have been hydrogenated. If you haven't been near a hydrogen molecule since high school, that means foods that are made with fats that have had a hydrogen molecule added to make them firm enough for use in manufacturing. Margarine is the one that comes to mind first, because it's an oil in its natural state. Many processed foods are made with hydrogenated fats, such as cookies, crackers and microwave popcorn. This story, from the Boston Globe and Associated Press, talks about how the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is thinking about adding warning labels noting the presence of trans fats in a food product.

2002-07-08T09:12:00.000-05:00

ICED-COFFEE $CAM DUPES JOE SCHMOES
Only in the New York Post could you find this story: Two guys go a-walkin'; the first buys hot coffee, the second buys iced coffee and pays half again as much. In a white-hot New York rage, the first guy does some cipherin' and figgers out that the iced coffee should actually cost less than the hot coffee. He's right, mathematically speaking, but what he forgets is the "chic" tax, that it's cooler to walk around with iced coffee in a showoffy see-through plastic cup than with a paper cup of plain old standard stuff. Not that we agree with the rip-off, of course, but people are people.

2002-06-28T10:28:00.000-05:00

Chicago Tribune | Scientists take starch out of french fry cancer scare
Of course, this doesn't mean you should celebrate with a Biggee Fry. But, the word from the World Health Organization's conference in Geneva, Switzerland, is that while acrylamide levels in cooked starchy foods such as potatoes are above those recommended for drinking water, they aren't high enough to be considered harmful or cancer-causing. Not yet, anyway; the scientists want to study the issue more - they are, after all, scientists. Still, they did say that McDonald's and Burger King's fries had the highest levels of acrylamide, which the U.S. Environmental Protection Association has classified as a "probable" human carcinogen.

2002-06-14T08:37:00.000-05:00

Where is a Tall a Small? Starbucksland

As if there weren't enough reasons some people need to dislike Starbucks. The Car Talk Guys from National Public Radio (make that "Cah Tawk") are ranting about the deceptive ways Starbucks sizes its drinks (perhaps, as Dr. Ink of the Poynter Institute for wayward journalists suggests, to justify the big bucks the drinks cost). If you live in a city where there isn't a Starbucks on every corner, you might find this more amusing than people who have been held hostage to the tall (make that small) green coffee cups.

2002-05-30T14:44:00.000-05:00

Cooking with the Farmers Market

We're on the cusp of summer; so, it must be time to head out to the Farmers Market. You who live in warmer climates can eat fresh all year long; we in the northern climes live for the day when a radish - usually the first veggie of spring - comes out of the ground instead of from the produce aisle. If we still lived in Madison, Wisconsin, we could even now head down to the Dane County Farmers Market, which brings a dizzying array of fresh foods to the Capitol Square every Saturday from thaw to frost, to see what's fresh out of the hothouses and coldframes. Up in Green Bay, though - 130 miles and three cultural lightyears away - the market won't begin for at least another month. Till then, I'll have to content myself with what's at the store and save the recipes in this excellent Baltimore Sun story about chefs cooking with whatever's available at the market. That to me is the sign of a good cook - anybody can produce something memorable with a truckload of imported goods, but making a fabulous dish with whatever's on hand is true culinary genius.

2002-05-07T11:55:00.000-05:00

The world’s greatest hot dog maker?

I dunno. This looks like a much pricier version of the Presto hot dog cooker my brother dragged home from a rummage sale sometime in the late 60s or early 70s. I'm not a fan of one-purpose appliances, but the guy who wrote this column thinks it's the greatest thing since, well, since sliced bread. It looks and acts like a toaster, except the slots are different. I think it's telling that a guy thought this was great, whereas your typical overworked mother is thinking, "Great. I don't have anyplace to put this, I still have to clean it out, I can't put brats or Vienna dogs in there, it costs $50, and my kids eat too many hot dogs now as it is." It might not ever replace the microwave-toaste oven combination, unless of course you're a single guy with more money than sense.

2002-05-07T09:55:00.000-05:00

Burger chains ready for fight in 99-cent war

Today, from the pages of the Chicago Tribune, this alert to a new marketing incentive by executives of major burger franchises in the U.S.: the initial skirmishes are between No. 1 McDonald's and No.2 with a bullet Burger King, but you can bet the shake machine that the ramifications will filter down to your local Sonic or Fatburger soon. Just great: Another temptation to get take out instead of a "real dinner!"

2002-04-11T09:00:00.000-05:00

Supermarket Gripes are the Same the World Over

Here's something to ponder the next time you're standing in the 10-items-or-less aisle behind three people whose carts are overflowing with merchandise but who can intimidate the high-school sophomore into accepting them anyway - things aren't much better in England, the alleged "nation of shopkeepers." Catherine Sleep, editor of the food-news site just-food.com, lists her pet supermarket peeves - make that "whinges," a much more interesting word - including price deception, inadequate product knowledge and lack of convenient alternatives. She pokes as much fun at herself as she does at the "major multiples."

2002-04-10T10:20:00.000-05:00

Coke: It's What's for Breakfast (And Not Just Down South)

Having just polished off my daily breakfast Coke - fountain product from McDonald's, over ice, in my plastic reusable Coke cup with lid - I can heartily attest to this essay by Lucian V. Truscott IV (which might or might not be an alias) about the joys of drinking Coke for breakfast. I too was a Coke nonimbiber for many years - I remember watching a fellow journalism-school student start his days that way and thinking how awful it was - I have since changed my mind about both the student (I married him) and the drink (I started the awful habit a few years ago when I just had to accompany it with a sausage muffin, also from McDonald's). Today I have ditched the muffin but retain the Coke - it helps me start my day and goes so well with my oatmeal, yogurt and banana! I disagree with one interview subject's contention that the best Coke is poured from an icecold two-liter bottle over commercial ice: My preference is for fountain Cokes that use the Classic Coke formula (McD's doesn't, sadly but Cousin's Subs, Fazoli's and a sandwich place here in town do).

2002-03-27T10:26:00.000-06:00

Chicago Chefs Vow to Pass on the Bass

This week, chefs in many of Chicago's highest-profile restaurants are taking a pledge not to serve any Chilean sea bass until the fish, which is neither Chilean nor a sea bass, until the fish population is allowed to recover. Like swordfish, orange roughy and redfish before it, the fish formerly known as Patagonian toothfish swam in relative obscurity until it was discovered, promoted and found on menus all over. Now, it too has become overfished and a favorite of poachers, and the once-hearty fish that tipped the scales at 200 pounds now barely registers at 20 pounds. Read the story from the Chicago Tribune and then go out for a salmon dinner, which is much better for you anyway. (eDiets.com has a story today that salmon is one of the 10 best foods for women.)

2002-03-26T13:32:00.000-06:00

A Peek Behind the Curtain at Michelin's Guide Rouge

How does the Michelin Man find all those great restaurants? If your travel taste is so rarefied that you can detect the shifts and waves that add a star here, deduct one there at restaurants over le tout France, you'll enjoy this piece from Business Week magazine that purports to peer into the mysterious process in which the guide, published by the same family business that makes tires (or tyres, for our English cousins), demarcates the state of French cuisine and causes joy and misery throughout the land. Plus, it's fun to read.

2002-03-22T10:39:00.000-06:00

Hot Gossip in the Food-Editor Job Shuffle!

Now, here's something you don't see every day in the frantic world of media gossip: As reported Thursday, there's a shakeup in the food-editing world at the very pinnacles of newspaper food journalism: A former Talk magazine editor is going to be the New York Times' new food editor, while the Times person is moving to take Russ Parsons' place as LATimes food editor. But, as the NY Post reported Friday, the ex NY-er will be joining her boyfriend at the Times, who also is a food writer. To avoid the appearance of nepotism, the boyfriend won't be reporting to the girlfriend but to a neutral third party, the LATimes' deputy managing editor and an exNYT'er himself. All of this sounds like just so much inside baseball, but to those of who just watch the gods relocate themselves on Olympus, it's a fun spectator sport.

2002-03-20T11:18:00.000-06:00

In Praise (Or Not) of 'Taste of Home' UPDATED

Do any of you read this magazine? It makes a big noise about being different from the usual food magazines because it uses only recipes from readers; in other words, real people, not those snotty East Coast editors who are too skinny for words and wouldn't know how to use a tub of Cool Whip on a bet. Personally, I am not a fan, although I know many are (even a couple of you!). I find it hard to read, and it's a little too just-us-girls in the writing style. But, as this New York Times article shows, (it's written by confirmed New Yorker Regina Schrambling, who manages to look only slightly askance at the magazine and its solidly Midwestern staff and surroundings) the magazine has a devoted readership and reflects its readers. I loved the paragraph that says the magazine opened a Taste of Home restaurant to divert its groupies from visiting the offices. The main reason I don't read it is that one of its readers ripped off a recipe that won a prize in the Wisconsin State Journal's old cookbook contest in 1989 or 1990 - the reason I know she ripped it off is because I rewrote the recipe based on an extensive phone call with its originator, and the version that appeared in the magazine didn't even change my somewhat colloquial wording. Still irritates the heck out of me, but it was a great recipe: Blueberry Stuffed French Toast. Mmmm!

Update! The reason for all this East Coast interest in a distinctly middlebrow foodiemag is that Readers Digest had been rumored to be interested in buying it for $700 million. The rumor came true and the sale was announced on Friday. Seven hundred million?? That'll go a lot farther in Greenfield, Wisconsin, than it would in New York or LA.

2002-03-13T08:55:00.000-06:00

Top Story: Silicon Valleyites can recreate favorite pricey restaurant dishes at home

The heady days of four-figure dinner checks are a memory for many newly unrich tech workers, but that doesn't mean they have to resort to mac and cheese from the ol' blue box. The San Jose Mercury-News has taken extreme pity on these poor folks who now must learn to shop for food and wash dishes like the rest of us and some tips for recreating the taste of the high life at home, such as substituting a sirloin tip or chuck roast for that thick steak, buying monkfish instead of lobster, choosing a soy-based "caviar alternative" instead of the fishy real stuff, making do with truffle oil instead of truffles and the like. Now, I dunno. This sounds a little Marie-Antoinetteish, don't you think? Perhaps the Merc's corporate tongue is planted firmly in its cheek, but it sounds a little to me like one old duffer at the country club leaning over to the other and saying, "Yes, old boy, it's sad that you had to give up the limo, but I'm sure you'll get used to driving yourself in the Lexus."

2002-03-12T11:40:00.000-06:00

Farewell to the Cake Lady

Some of the best newspaper reading is on the obituary pages. The Boston Globe's obit page featured this story of the Cake Lady, a woman in Newton, Mass. famous for her luxuriously frosted cakes. It recounts in affectionate details how she painstakingly detailed cakes for everyone from the birthday boy down the street to President John F. Kennedy to Dr. Benjamin Spock, whose cake rode belted in its own cabin seat, ticket and all, to a party in New York City. What are you doing with your own life today to make your obit worth reading?