| rare and inspirational thoughts from the brain at the top of the cane |
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Two reasons: (1) The restaurant rating systems in this country needs uniformity and credibility now that Jane Snow has exposed Mobil Guide for what it does not do. (2) The grazing/slurping/dining/eating out public needs a daily reminder (dose) as to what is safe on the plate. The Mobil Guide: Ask around. Do Mobil inspectors eat the food they are alleged to have rated? In the mid-1980s Akron Beacon Journal food editor Jane Snow managed to get an admission from some high Mobil Guide informant that eating what's on the inspector's plate was not a consideration in granting stars. Europe's famed Guide Michelin hires full time reviewers who put emphasis on the food. For more rating details, see ....Meaningless Rating Systems http://www.grumpygourmetusa.com/star_ratings.html. |
| Columbus, Ohio USA |
Your comments to GrumpBlog are encouraged. Messages to: thegrumpygourmet@wowway.com |
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21AUG2006 Boar Paté to Jail House Baloney, Act 1 Food writers, if you think all airline grub has gone to hell, follow the JonBenet Ramsey headlines. John Mark Karr, nut case, pornographer, gender bender applicant, admitted child murderer, second grade school teacher, gay divorcee, may already have had his final death row supper, albeit at 40,000 feet. Thailand wanted this screwball off its soil after he told a gaggle of reporters that he knew the Boulder, Colorado, six-year-old, that he was with her the night of her murder. So, rather than await Con Air, Thai authorities tossed his ass on the first flight heading east out of Bangkok. No chains. No cuffs. No shackles. No steerage. Business class had to do for Karr and his Boulder bound entourage. During the 15 hours into LAX he enjoyed what may go down as one of the finest airline menus yet recorded, certainly best Circa 2006.In no particular order of the white linen-silver-china-stemware service: Salad greens with walnut
When it comes to airline dining today, only two carriers are still + + + + + rated: Thailand's national airline and Singapore Airlines. Jot this down: When Karr is sprung from his Boulder digs, he has a proven plan. Look for him to return to Bangkok and Singapore. From there he will be admitting to killings and whereabouts of Judge Parker, Jimmy Hoffa, maybe even information on LA's Black Dahlia killer. Coke, Pepsi share marketing woes in India… Six states in India have imposed whole or partial bans on Coca-Cola and Pepsi. An Indian research group said the products contained harmful levels of pesticides. Both deny such claims. The two account for 80 percent of India's $2 billion soft-drink market. One plus side of this action yet to catch up in the States: One of the six banned sale of all soft drinks in schools, public offices and hospitals. |
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19AUG2006 Competition for salt water taffy Atlantic City has been a seedy destination as far back as the Hoover Depression days when the Boardwalk attraction was Grandma Carver riding a white stallion into the surging surf off the end of Steel Pier. The other biggie lure was to buy a poke of sticky salt water taffy to take back to the farm. Atlantic City invented tacky. That included the Miss America gaggle.
WSJ reviewer Raymond Sokolov gave pluses to star chef Bobby Flay, mostly based on Flay's NYC rep. As for Wolfgang Puck's attempt at "fine dining" too close to the din and flashing lights of a casino, Sokolov was less kind. His minuses noted Puck's failure to offer South Jersey's noted fresh tomato or anything else from the lush local farm countryside. Sokolov said Puck's prefabricated menu made no sense, citing his "deracinated pork chop garnished with Moroccan preserved lemon and a French-infected goat-cheese potato gratin." That was "a hodgepodge of flavors not meant to be playmates." Curtain line for Puck: Stick with Spago pizza. Curtain line for Michael Mina: His Seablue, all pluses for what real chefs favor, local fruits, seasonal vegetables and greens. Patron selects 10 from a menu of 30-plus for an assemble-your-own salad order; and fish and meats identified with origins. Sokolov's ultimate pat: Seablue is the best restaurant in New Jersey. That's a start. |
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18AUG2006 FDA approves viruses as food addditive The next time you buy a hot dog on the street or pick up a pound of sliced nitrate for your lunch box, take a serious look at that headline. Food & Drug says it is OK to spray "a mix of bacteria-killing viruses on cold cuts and hot dogs.'' Read that twice. A gent speaking for something called Intralytix Inc., who manufactures the spray, told the AP this: The combination of six viruses is designed to be sprayed on ready-to-eat meat and poultry products, including sliced ham and turkey. Well, don't call the FDA because, I suspect, no one there knows what the hell has happened. I cannot spell the approved viruses, but the batch is "meant to kill strains of the Listeria" lurking in my meats. Key word: Meant... A US Dept. of Ag guy says the spray is safe "as long as used in accordance with the regulations" set down by his outfit. He says the Dept. of Ag will "regulate the actual use of the product." Crazy. Impossible. Ag inspectors already have full plates and hardly have budget and qualified people to handle one meat plant for the E.coli problems. My question: How will Hebrew National handle such for the all-beef, Kosher approved hot dogs, a fave for my grand children. Final curtain: Demand exacting answers when next in your fave deli. Ask if the pastrami package lists the six approved viruses as ingredients. |
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But Will It Play in River City… In my hometown I recently wrote a story about waitress Betty Dotson. She retired in good health after 53 years tableside in a high traffic, high ticket fine dining steak house. When she started her honorable career, all the restaurant's servers were taught to take orders tableside without writing them down and walking the slip to the kitchen. Even as a regular in this restaurant, oh, say 40 years, I marveled at this capability and talent. There was a game played at times between a regular and the server pros. The guest would be looking over the menu and repeatedly changing his mind as to how he wanted his steak or salad prepared. That restaurant today has servers who tap in orders electronically from tableside to kitchen. Now comes more change.
The Grump's question: How will all this go over in Mason City, Iowa, when the corn farmers want to pay with cash? |
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18JUL2006 Chicagoans Joust With Fat Gremlins... Nothing will come of it, but a bag of Chicago politicos think they have a cause. They want to ban bad-for-you-fats. Best they solve Middle Eastern problems. Or boost stem-cell research. Maybe just pick up the garbage and keep the streets cleared of snow. But some guy on council wants to make it illegal for restaurants to use oils that contain trans fats. The nut case, rightfully so, notes that such fats have caused many health problems such as clogged arteries and, of course, heart attacks. Yeah, no doubt about. First, however, best that he sponsor city legislation to require constant maintenance of restrooms in public places. That, too, will float about as long as a poke of lead weights in a bucket of Lake Michigan water. Ban Twinkies. Torch KFC. Arrest Rich Melman. Bann all Julia Child cookbooks. Fat is fat and will continue to have appeal across the table - restaurant tables and grandma's table. Chicagoans eat big time. The city runs the nation's biggest outdoor show for gorgers. I love this lead written by Monica Davey for The Ney York Times today: "In Grant Park, this city's front yard along Lake Michigan, a dizzying pack of people filled the streets evening after evening, all holding their gazes firmly on the little plates in their hands, loaded with catfish beignets, curly fries smothered in cheese, pirogies with sour cream, beer-battered artichoke hearts, and fried dough buried in berry-sauce and whipped cream." Whew. Charlie Trotter, take note: Next comes a City Hall campaign to ban prix fixe dinners as unfair to your Socialist masses. |
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17JUL2006 A Cracker's Plan for Success... Robert H. Brooks inherited his successful career from a loser. Word in the history of Hooters that the Methodist gent from South Carolina came about his fortune by accident. He had loaned a friend money to invest in a Hooters franchise. When the guy defaulted, Brooks took over the franchise. Brooks, a South Carolina Cracker, said he did not know the intended meaning of the name Hooters. When he found out the name referred to female anatomy, he was shocked. Shocked. Rather than unhand himself from the establishment, then little more than a bar concept, he managed to overcome and flourished. Brooks, who died today at 69, decided that for a bar to succeed it needed food. He liked chicken wings. His Hooters became a full service restaurant with scads of chicken wing flavors. Success. Yep, but only after his method of service. Enter the Hooters orange hot pants with white tank-tops. His philosophy: "Good food, cold beer and pretty girls never go out of style." Brooks early on had repeated legal fights with the six original Midwesterners who opened the first Hooters in Clearwater, Florida. In the end he was the winner. Hooters is a chain today with 430 restaurants in 20 countries. . The original six owners, one a Pittsburgh shopping center manager, opened with this plan in mind. They wanted to run a place "they couldn't get kicked out of." |
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16JUL2006 My Favorite Rolling Rock is No More... I gave up Lowenbrau brews when they started making it in South Carolina, the nation's bubbling toxic waste dump.I have long been suspect about sources of Heineken because the long ago labels promised that it was "brewed and bottled" across the big pond. Look at the Heineken label today and something is missing. Heineken leaves something out. The green label advises: Brewed In Holland. That is true. But, for doubters, it may mean that good lager was "brewed with natural ingredients" in Amsterdam, but shipped to some USA point and then bottled. I cannot get a definitive answer from the robot at 888-HEINEKEN (888-434-63536). However, until further notice, I shall revert to Heineken in view of what is happening this month in Latrobe, PA. Sip this: The Associated Press says that after six decades of Rolling Rock bottles reassuring me that a Rock comes "from the glass lined tanks of OLD LATROBE" there is to be a "different water source." AP quotes a Busch suit saying labels continue to carry this: IT COMES FROM THE MOUNTAIN SPRINGS TO YOU." Mountain springs in New Jersey? Yeah, and surf boarding in Iowa is big sport. AP says future Rocks will be brewed with water from city reservoir near Newark, NJ. A city holding pond of spill water from where and what? There should be a law to regulate labeling. Oh, there is one? Along my cubical Wall of Fame, just above my Remington Rand typewriter I have placed today's memory of a Rock on a 95 degree day outside - one green bottle inscribed Latrobe Brewing Co., Latrobe, PA. Dare Busch tamper with that 1939 attribution? Cousin, hand me a Heineken. |
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01MAR2006 Two Books Fill Critic's Critical Needs If there are textbooks for food and restaurant reviewers, here are two new ones for your research hours: • Organic, Inc., by Samuel Fromartz, a business journalist; Harcourt Trade Publishers; US $25; Barnes & Noble. • Garlic and Sapphires, Ruth Reichl's secret life as the nation's noted restaurant reviewer; The Penguin Press; $24.95; Barnes & Noble. Organic, Inc. has to be the most compact piece of writing for study in this expanding organic world. For something like two decades my repository of papers, newspaper clippings and books on the organic explosion has grown sufficiently to fill a wheelbarrow. Now, thanks to Fromartz's economy of words when writing, I have an all-inclusive organic reference guide packaged suitably for quick use. As a restaurant reviewer Organic, Inc. provides talking points. When seated before a review dinner, about all I want to know is the food organic or is it not. In today's writing for confined ink spaces, I am not going to discuss the making of soy milk with organic soybeans. Fromartz did. The read was fun. His wife hated it. The Fromartz summation: For year the counterculture ate such foods, because, quoting that old bit - if it tastes bad, then is has to be good for you. There are 320 quick-read pages of organic history, politics. definitions, marketing, farming. But the textbook aspect comes in 32 pages of what the author calls "notes." What he's created is a detailed bibliography with less rigidity than in the norm. Give up Google if you want to keep up with things organic.  The Anonymity Approach: The Columbus DIspatch, left; The New York Times, right. Garlic and Sapphires is the story of what happens between two teas. Ruth Reichl, then doing double duty at the L. A. Times as food editor and restaurant reviewer, is invited to meet with a top New York Times editor over tea when she flies east to a James Beard event. She agrees to meet, but makes it clear she does not like New York and is less interested in having to change or put up with Times newsroom politics. She voices rather harsh opinions of what had happened to a popular reviewer then stepping away from the eat-for-pay circuit. Ten or so years later, Reichl takes a call from Conde Nast. Would she be interested in having tea? The caller asked if she would be interested in becoming editor of Gourmet. Unlike the previous tea invite, she said "yes." At that moment, the six ghost voices (Molly, Brenda, Chloe, Betty, Miriam and Emily) that had made up her reviewing cadre, she writes, "all echoed yes, yes, yes." The story line is what happens between the two teas. She writes with a visual dialogue worthy of a movie script. That Reichl script is a textbook for a profession that needs a classroom. Reichl 101 is loaded with colorful vignettes, all little lessons about what to expect should you make it to a good newspaper willing to pay for such a beat. Flipping back through her 328 pages, Reichl 101 could be a 13-week sitcom. I have offered to do the shooting script. Provided, however, Reichl plays herself. |
 Patti Shock |
23NOV2005 Now that Vegas is the hottest restaurant destination... Now we have an inside source when it comes to the booming hospitality and restaurant business in Las Vegas. Patti Shock, head of the tourism and convention department at UNLV, has watched the city move from an era of 99-cent breakfast buffets and $2 steaks...to the hotels taking in top AAA five-diamond awards. Along the way the nation's top chefs have found fame and fortune there by opening satellite restaurants along the Strip. Puck pioneered the move. Emerel and other celebs came later. Shock covers the growth and importance of restaurants in Vegas. Her periodic reports (e-mails) provided a good read to all who have hapy thoughts about working in the nation's most exciting food city. Shock calls her stuff - stuff. While compiled as "stuff of interest to hospitality educators," students and reviewers will be looking for more Shock Treatments. Her e-mail to get on the list: patti.shock@unlv.edu. |
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18OCT2005 Machined Pizza cheat sheets When reading a menu board in a pizza joint, ask yourself if the pie you are ordering was built by the numbers. The pizza business has become so large and so universally appealing that few chains or mom-and-pops have to worry about doing scratch pizzas. Rich Products Corp. offers a line of pizza dough for any size operation. There’s a frozen dough ball. There’s frozen sheet raw dough. There’s a self-rising dough that has been chemically leavened so as to permit you to pull the product from the freezer and pop it in the oven. And then there are the par-bakes. After the operator selects his dough/crust, Pizza Romana of the Divine Pasta Co., Los Angeles, has 12 different choices of frozen sauces. The big ConAgra Foods out of Omaha is the finishing touch. There, through Gilroy Foods, are all the vegetables you will need. They’re controlled moisture fire-roasted vegetables. Hey, not all bad if the place you’re reviewing is a one-body joint in a store front with limited ventilation. Oh, if the hired help is unsure of the how-to of pizza making, Rich’s puts out a cheat sheet to post in the kitchen – in English or Spanish, depending… Just thought you would like a heads up on how the pizza making is today. |
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15OCT2005 Everybody loves pizza, so says Chef magazine… That may be true. We have no numbers handy that says hamburgers have lost the title. But Pizza Market Quarterly may know who is in the running. In 2004 pizza was a $30 million market in the USA. That is 6.88 percent of total sales in restaurants – which was $440 billion Chicago-based Technomic Inc. says the 25 top national chains only own 36 of the market and 49 percent of total pizza sales. Independents have the biggest slice – 51 percent of the sales. |
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10OCT2005 Oprah, you’re being used, but not in Iowa… There are many foods restaurant reviewers should not be required to appraise. Besides deadly (fugu) blow fish, second on the Grump’s list is cabbage soup. Life is too short to put up with any boiled vegetable that peels boarding house wallpaper. Cabbage soup, in all forms should have been outlawed after the 1929 Depression. Still, there now exists, a mail order outfit pushing “Cabbage Soup Diet” sous vide packets, 12 for $35.95. plus $5 for shipping and handling. Each is a 50-calorie meal, it says right next to the icon noting…”Cabbage Soup As Seen on Oprah.” Text of the ad says Oprah “confessed to her studio audience that she went on the Cabbage Soup Diet and lost 17 lbs*” That asterisk is keyed to the source of such information” The “5/26/98 issue of The Star Magazine.” In 1998? The Oprah pitch appeared in a 2005 issue of a daily newspaper stuffer, Value Pages Shopper. Cabbage soup? Little wonder Oprah decided to retain services of a personal chef for her Chicago and California homes. The mail back coupon notes in bold face: NOT AVAILABLE IN IOWA. Bless that corn, beef and potatoes state. Little wonder Iowa is considered to be one of the most literate states in the Union. |
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2006
musical selection: "east of the sun"