P i s t a c h i o

Bejing Noodle No. 9 at Caesar’s Palace, Las Vegas

Via We Heart and DesignYouTrust

Below, how the resto sees itself.

A Stanford University study released this week looks at the buying practises at fast-food outlets that display caloric information.

First the good news.

At Starbucks, customers who usually choose high-calorie items were twice as likely to choose a lower-calorie option now that the sad facts stare them in the face.

Since New York City made it mandatory to post calorie charts in April, 2008, Bucks’ customers have reduced their caloric intake by 26 per cent per transaction.

The whipped cream on top: no impact on profits.

Now the bad news.

Another part of town tells another story. Customers of McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King and KFC in lower-income neighbourhoods, where there’s a higher incidence of obesity, were tracked the same way.

The calorie charts made absolutely no difference.

For as long as there’s fast food of the sort we’re talking about here, there’s going to be the exercise of choices that revel in consumption, not vanity.

A couple of years ago in Toronto, McD’s put comfy chairs in one location for a café-style ambiance. I wonder if charts would work there.

Stopping for a quick cup at the new Tim’s in my hood, I noticed their new recycle bins.

They’ve designated where cups can go and where lids can go, which I hope will go a long way toward quelling the kerfuffle. A gargantuan volume of take-out coffee cups is messing up the great progress we’re making on keeping the city’s solid waste under control.

The core issue concerns the cups’ plastic coating. Our processing can’t accommodate their slower rate of breaking down compared with other waste in their category.

Today’s Globe reports that the deadline For Tim’s conversion to a greener cup might be delayed.

Some jaw-dropper stats from the report: 

• 1 million: Estimated takeout coffee cups generated in Toronto each day
• 152,858: Number that leave the city
• 336,883: Number brought in
• 1,184,025: Net daily that end up in Toronto’s waste
• 357,575,550: Annual total
• 4,291 tonnes a year: Weight of those cups
• 715 tonnes a year: Weight of their plastic lids

Source: Report for city by Entec Consultng Ltd., obtained by The Globe and Mail

Sarkozy’s favourite meal at Le Bristol, where he dines a couple of times a week, is a starter of stuffed macaroni with black truffle, artichoke and duck foie gras, which costs about $100.

Associated Press

For starters, an economic crisis during which the guardian of rarefied cuisine says to its family: Why can’t you be more like your expat brother Jean-Georges in New York? “He does a three-star prix fixe lunch for $28,” says Michelin France’s Director Jean-Luc Naret. Actually, JG is only one in a band of peers lining up killer deals.

Main course, the heart of fine-dining, pumping with the life-blood of corporate spending [about to hit an endangered watchlist, but still sustaining].

To finish, with sweet irony: a declarative coup de gras from Le Bristol’s chef, Eric Fréchon, the only star upgrade [from two to three]  given by Michelin France this year. Says Fréchon: “In the past, we used to turn people away. Today, we aren’t doing that any more.”

Great news for the cheese course: a ripening democratization of grande cuisine.

“Tiradito is said to be the most cherished imprint the Japanese left on Peruvian cuisine. It’s often compared to sashimi for that reason, but it’s actually more like carpaccio.”

The soul of authentic Peruvian cuisine can be found in a humble place called Soñia’s, a popular Lima eatery that specializes in ceviche — fresh, raw fish dressed with lime juice and little else. The fish still carries the flavour of the ocean, and as a foil for the lime’s brightness, ceviche is traditionally served with sweet potato and corn.

In this neighbourhood, where there are cevicherí­as at every turn, Soñia’s, has endured because, for the last 30 years, she has been cooking the fish that her husband pulls from the Pacific that morning. You don’t dine at Soñia’s. You eat what is likely to be the best ceviche you’ve ever had and you’ll try other fish, too, like the fried calamari.

Gourmet advisory: not all Peruvian eating is like this — a little out of the way, very casual and relatively unchanged over three decades. [more]

“I wanted witnesses. I wanted to mark the moment so that we would remember it.”

– Jeff Crump

The book had modest beginnings. “We had in mind a little spiral-bound book,” says Jeff Crump, Executive Chef of Ancaster Old Mill. He wanted to document how his kitchen and a local farm had found an exciting way to work closely together. Then Random House got interested, then a New York agent, then Earth to Table: A restaurant and farm relationship began entertaining inquires about Chinese publishing rights.

“A lot of farmers are gun-shy about working with chefs,” says Crump. “Chefs are picky, and kitchens aren’t naturally geared toward buying from small farms. But Crump found his match in Chris Krucker of nearby ManoRun Organic Farm.

“Chris got it,” says Crump….more

It’s always bothered me that there’s an entire industry churning out vegetarian food made to look like meat.

I saw quite a lot of it last week at the Grocery Innovations show.

This is uniquely North American, because vegetarian cultures have never run out of satisfying ways to cook vegetables without any need to pretend they’re meat. When these cultures use tofu and tempeh, it’s as the things themselves. No mocking, faking or subterfuge.

The Chicago Tribune ran a piece last week about what it called “fake food,” like “Vienna” sausage and “cheese food” singles. But for vegetarianism, why does it need to be fooled into being itself? is it really vegetarianism for carnivores or for social vegetarians? And if so, are they your real market? And if not, is your market not even your own?

Veggie resto owner Karyn Calabrese tells the reporter: “It’s a cultural lure. I serve ‘ravioli,’  but they’re made of turnips, and the filling is macadamia nut cheese. Who do you think would buy it if I said ‘I have a plate of turnip and macadamia nut cheese’?”  A vegetarian, for one, is what I’m thinking. It’s a dubious state to be in if you’re selling your stuff to the self-described converted as something other than what it actually is — or worse, as the thing you oppose.

As a committed carnivore, I had one of the best meals in my life at Live Organic Food Bar on Dupont. What they were able to do without meat was something genius, gorgeous and delicious.

When its integrity is recognized, the thing itself is good, and that’s a worthy thing.

Out of the Frying Pan is a memoir by Gillian Clark, who left a career in communications to become a chef. [Been there. Can quickly relate.]Despite some tender moments from her childhood — particularly her description of how her father inspired her love of cooking — Clark doesn’t sugar-coat a thing:

…the long hours and what that meant to her kids, whom she was raising alone

…the tenuous hold her restaurant owners often had on their businesses

…the struggle to build and train a great team, only to lose great key people, again and again

…those difficult cooks and kitchen helpers who turn out to be fiercely loyal, enduring and true, but still prickly…

I particularly enjoyed Clark’s most telling display of visionary womanhood: to open her own restaurant despite her kids’ challenges. She said her kids deserve a mother who has the courage to follow her dreams. This would show them how to follow theirs.

â—Š

Kudos to John Papaloukas.

He’s a pizza seller in Victoria, BC, and he’d had it with the province’s ministry of education, which classifies pizza as junk food, and therefore deems it unwelcome in the schools for lunch.

“This whole notion of pizza not being healthy is a crock, at least not at our business,” he told the National Post last week, and to prove it, he had his pizzas analyzed by a lab.

Result: his pizzas passed with flying colours, and Papaloukas is selling his pizza to local high school cafeterias.

There’s our proof that not all pizzas are created alike.

Still, if you’re putting good tomato sauce on whole-wheat dough, and then topping it with fresh vegetables, good quality meat and cheese, what’s there to offend?  Hello happy food groups.

How did we go wrong with pizza?

It’s not the food; it’s the eating.

Finally wrapped it up, the largest piece of business journalism I’ve tackled to date: 4500 words on the new provincial budgets and what they’re offering to restaurateurs and operators across the country.

It was a great assignment, a lot to chew on and plenty of opinionated industry people to quote.

Here they are.

A scintillating read.

Really.

Pacific-Prairie Edition

Ontario Edition

Atlantic Edition

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