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McMorning Now to Span Length of Entire McDay

In an announcement sure to be ignored by purveyors and consumers of fine food everywhere, McDonald’s has announced that it may soon offer its breakfast menu all day long.

And while it’s easy for readers of The Art of Eating and Saveur to ignore this sort of news, that doesn’t make it any less earth shattering for the estimated 300 trillion Americans who depend on McDonald’s for at least one of their daily meals on a regular basis.

The extension of breakfast menu hours could have important implications for McDonald’s specifically and fast food in general; it was the aggressive relaunching and rebranding of McDonald’s breakfast offerings—anchored by stronger coffee and McGriddles—that put the fast-food purveyor back on the road to fiscal health in 2003. Anyone who counted the original fast-food giant out after Super Size Me had better start revising their predictions.

(McGriddles, for those not in the know, are actually very delicious, if you enjoy eating a greasy hockey puck for breakfast. Which is actually better than it sounds.)

Edit Post / Posted on Wednesday, September 20th, 2006

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Can Super Marketing Save the Grocery Store?

The New York Times today takes a look at traditional supermarkets (requires registration), which, despite embracing technology, are losing ground to upstart rivals. We’d all like a clean, well-lighted place to shop, but do we really need to buy our food in a store that looks like an art gallery?

In that spirit, the Times’ Julia Moskin writes about eschewing Whole Foods for her neighborhood supermarket:

I embraced the assignment of learning to love my supermarket: grimy aisles, shelves of overprocessed food and all.

Maybe the Times is cutting salaries.

She managed, though, to cobble together a list of 13 packaged foods that pass muster. The good news: Some are hidden gems. The bad news: She mostly goes for the pricier offerings. No pasta sauce (a staple for many busy folks) except Rao’s (at the exorbitant price of $11) makes the cut.

For those getting started with their first kitchen, there’s also a nice primer on stocking your pantry.

But the feature’s main focus is analyzing the state of the old-school supermarket, a place where big changes are being made by desperate execs:

In 2003 Safeway began to remake its 1,772 stores into something it termed a lifestyle concept. Perishables and prepared food sections were updated, lights were toned down and wood floors were added in the produce section.

Serious cooks and eaters have always done their gathering in lots of different places, from farmer’s markets to ethnic grocery stores. When it comes to food shopping, bigger isn’t necessarily better.

Edit Post / Posted on Wednesday, September 20th, 2006

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Got Meat?

The sorry life of the feedlot steer—given a recent high profile in Michael Pollan’s bestseller The Omnivore’s Dilemma, which contrasts the life of a typical cheap-burger-bound animal with those living on pasture in a small, sustainably managed farm—is turning more and more people away from supermarket meat. Today’s San Francisco Chronicle reveals another option: buying a big chunk of cow (particularly one that been grass-fed and humanely raised) direct from the rancher.

It helps to have an extra freezer, since even small farms generally require a half- or quarter-cow purchase, but intrepid city dwellers can always get together with friends and share out the extra pounds. The Chronicle article also has useful info on cooking grass-fed meat (it’s generally leaner and more muscular than typical grain-fed beef, so it can dry out and get tougher faster).

Interested? Check out the listings on Eat Wild for a ranch near you.

Edit Post / Posted on Wednesday, September 20th, 2006

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America’s Next Top Wino

Striking the gastronomic reality show iron while it’s hot, PBS has gathered 12 purple-lipped contestants who will compete for the opportunity to create and uncork their own wine labels.

Christened Wine Makers and set in Paso Robles and San Luis Obispo, California, the new reality show is set to air next year. An SF Gate.com article explained that 12 contestants “will experience every aspect of winemaking from viticulture and enology to sales and marketing.” And the winner doesn’t just get drunk, because, according to today’s Media Post article on the subject, “the winning label will be distributed at Whole Foods stores and via Wine.com.”

Honestly? I’m not sure what a prize that really is. Half the time, I can’t even find the wine section at Whole Foods, and when I do, it’s so small and unvarying, I’m almost sorry I even bothered. (Just so that a bunch of Whole Foodies don’t get their backs up, I’m speaking from the experience of one San Diego, two San Francisco, and three Boston Whole Foods stores.)

If couch-judging food that people cannot taste was a hurdle for Top Chef to overcome, getting viewers interested in wine they cannot sniff, sip, or spit could be close to impossible. Of course, there’s always the option to “play along at home” with selections from their personal cellars. I’m also wondering how long it will take the winning oenophile’s special label to actually make it into the market. I mean, I’m not a winemaker by any means, but I thought making wine could take several years. Since the show will be over by then, will the impact be lessened? Will people even remember there was a Public Broadcasting Station wine to look out for?

On the other hand, maybe the show will be a ratings success and the previous year’s winner could promote the launch of their new wine in the following seasons. Unfortunately, as Cooking Under Fire proved, PBS might not have what it takes to stir up a tasty pot of nasty reality stew. Sadly, I think it’s because they are too nice, and nice doesn’t make for good ratings. Just look at this year’s Survivor: Ratings Stunt Island, where just the news of racial divide has people alternately up in arms and salivating for the premiere.

Edit Post / Posted on Wednesday, September 20th, 2006

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Brined for a Fight

A funny entry about oversalted potato-chip chicken on the Failed Recipes LiveJournal inspired some commenters to muse about just how much of the mineral one person can take. Poster Volkerri describes her boyfriend’s reaction as he begins eating the chicken (before she’s discovered her salty slip-up):

He took his first bite … his lips curled in. His face turned red. He started gulping his drink and running to the kitchen for more. He had his head under the faucet as I rounded the corner. Still flushed, he asked what in the world did I do to that chicken.

Commenter Coercedbynutmeg is moved to ask, “Is your boyfriend a slug? I’m amazed at his reaction to the salt! Unless you used a ton, it shouldn’t have been such a big deal.”

Mr./Ms. Nutmeg has a point: Given the excessive salinity of processed foods these days—which recently led the American Medical Association to declare a war on salt—we’re supposed to have lost that kind of sensitivity. And by the way, AMA, restaurants are apparently just as guilty of oversalting: Together with processed foods, restaurant meals make up almost 80 percent of the sodium in our diet.

Of course it’s not just McDonald’s that likes to salt it up—one of the supposed marks of a true chef is that s/he isn’t scared of liberally sprinkling sodium on everything. A friend of a friend who works in the Chez Panisse kitchen once said that your own cooking will never taste like what you’d get in a restaurant unless you add way more salt than seems appropriate. This trick (along with using tons of other seasonings, and a whopping dose of butter) is what makes lots of restaurant food so delicious. I’m all for reducing the average person’s sodium intake by requiring convenience-food manufacturers to cut back on the stuff, but if the FDA ends up regulating salt content in restaurant food as well, they might just have some angry chefs (with some very flat-tasting dishes) on their hands.

Then again, if processed foods become less salty, eateries could end up cutting back sodium levels in their food to meet changed consumer tastes. Any chefs out there want to share their thoughts?

Edit Post / Posted on Wednesday, September 20th, 2006

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A Cooktop That Sizzles

This month’s edition of Food and Wine contains a mostly workaday roundup feature about the latest shiny and/or transparent and/or curvy kitchen fixtures. But one of the featured range tops is wicked cool.

Admittedly, this sort of defies conventional wisdom, which tends to reserve the term “wicked cool” for racecars, Red Sox players, rock stars and automatic machine guns.

But this particular range from the Santambrogio Milano Simplicity line is simply mesmerizing. Its three stainless steel burners float majestically on a small glass counter. The counter itself is mounted, in turn, on another larger glass counter. According to Food and Wine, both are made from “the same sturdy type of glass that’s in the Louvre’s famous pyramid.”

The whole assemblage looks like something you’d find in the living room of Rem Koolhaas, slightly to the left of a $24,000 Finnish easy chair.

You can view a somewhat less majestic version of the Coolest Range Ever by clicking the sixth tiny box in the “Today’s Products” section of the Santambrogio Milano website.

Edit Post / Posted on Tuesday, September 19th, 2006

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Pie in the Sky

Boing Boing, Gothamist Food, and SliceNY are all linking to the results of pizza-obsessive Jeff Varasano’s yearlong attempt to reverse-engineer a perfect NYC-Neapolitan pizza. And besides his recipe, he also lists his top favorite pizzerias on the East Coast.

The photos alone will make any pie hound drool. And even amateur home cooks, if they’re dedicated enough, can follow Varasano’s tried-and-tested techniques to make a better pie.

The one must-have, though, is an oven that’s hot, hot, hot. As in 800 degrees hot, way hotter than the usual 500 degrees of most home ovens. This is no easy task—remember the scene in Jeffrey Steingarten’s book The Man Who Ate Everything where he melts the paint (and the plastic parts) off his outdoor grill by trying to jack it up to proper pizza temperature? But Varasano has come up with his own don’t-call-the-lawyers method for circumventing the normal oven’s timid temperature controls.

Is it safe? Probably not. Does it work? Well, pix don’t lie …

Edit Post / Posted on Tuesday, September 19th, 2006

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Beyond the BLT

It’s harvest time, and while our garden didn’t produce any of these, we are overloaded with these.

Like squirrels who fill their dens with nuts to get them through the winter, humans have come up with many ways to preserve their home-grown bounty. Although there are some reasons to fear home canning, safer methods abound. While you won’t be enjoying juicy tomato sandwiches in January (unless, of course, you live in the Southern Hemisphere, in which case you actually will be enjoying juicy tomato sandwiches in January), you can check out one of many newspapers this month that are cranking out articles on how to freeze or dry this season’s crop. Even if you’re already off the grid.

Edit Post / Posted on Tuesday, September 19th, 2006

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Food Blogs Shun Spinach Controversy

Call me a wet blanket, but I’m surprised at how few food bloggers have said anything about the spinach saga (if you scan the food blogs I read regularly, you’ll see what I’m talking about). Kate at Accidental Hedonist is one notable exception, posting regular commentary on the latest spinach news and providing some thoughts on why this relatively small outbreak is of national concern. A few others have weighed in (provoking some interesting and some misguided reader comments), but most seem to be continuing their daily discussions of ingredients, recipes, and restaurants without so much as mentioning the leafy green.

Judging from this roundup of spinach-related bloggery on Bloggers Blog, though, folks elsewhere in blogland—who don’t primarily write about food—are all over the issue. Su Avasthi at the Lime Network is feeling rebellious and wants to stuff her face with the erstwhile supergreen; Kai at Daily Kos addresses the manure question; and tech-business blogger John at johnon.com raises some interesting points about the lack of PR response to the E. coli outbreak.

What do you think—would you want to hear more food bloggers’ takes on the spinach scare, or have the papers and radio stations already covered all the bases? Does the issue even matter to folks who already shop at farmers’ markets and eat far yummier greens than that bagged Earthbound Farm stuff?