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rare and inspirational thoughts from the brain at the top of the cane |
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| Your comments to GrumpBlog are encouraged. Messages to: thegrumpygourmet@wowway.com |
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05SEP05 Pairing Beer, Wines with Compatible Foods… Every reviewer has trouble when writing about food pairings with alcohol – beers, wines, not high-octane alcohol. Up front and quick, don’t even try to match a martini or whiskey sour with food. Stick to moderation dictates, imported beers and basic red and white wines. Life is too short to deal with P/R flacks telling you how good some food item goes with mixed drinks or blended whiskeys. Recently our review world has been blessed with two good sources: Phil Lempert’s newsletter – Supermarket Guru; and a wine pairing column by Eric Asimov in The New York Times, 17 August 2005. I wish I had written this lead: “What do Thai, Japanese and Chinese food have in common? Not to mention Indian and Mexican food, Middle Eastern and Haitian, and, as long as we’re on it, barbecue?” That’s Asimov’s lead into the suggestion that you relax and grab a beer, “or a Coke, or water – lots of water.” Asimov reasons that his listed locales are not wine-making regions. So, he settles the matching issue quickly: Champagne. Champagne has a versatile quality to go with a wide range of foods that are, he notes, assertively spiced. As for beer, a Grump suggestion: Ignore the stuff produced in the USA. It is thin, watery, lacks body, and as a rule to quote his German kin, “they only run it through the horse one time.” Pull up Phil Lempert, search out the Supermarket Guru. His archives well you how to match beer and cheese, beer and seafood, beer and brats, chili, even mustard. Another beer authority: www.beertown.org/education/pairing.html. |
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18JUN05 Dr. Phil, You’re an Overweight Pill A gaggle of watchdog docs wants TV psychologist Phil McGraw to clean up his mouth and set the record straight. As Dr. Phil, he posed for one of those “milk mustache” ads. Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) says his claim that milk helps weight loss is phony. “Get real,” PCRM tells McGraw, adding that, if anything, milk adds to weight. School kids for generations have been told to drink milk and today we have enough fat kids to prove McGraw wrong. Here’s what PCRM says is the research designed to come up with this nutty pitch. “ The only studies showing weight loss with dairy were conducted by a single experimenter paid by the dairy industry, using questionable research methods.” Got milk? Get real. (A writing tip: Every time you are about to use “got” in a story, read it back to yourself. Got is a harsh word that can be replaced by softer words – have, for example. Got is first cousin to git. Got that? Oh, make that “do you have that? GrumpBlog opinion: Got milk? That has to be the worst, the most unappetizing advertising pitch in food service. Equates with – Got hemorrhoids? PCRM recently filed a petition asking the Federal Trade Commission to halt the Dr. Phil ads and other dairy industry advertising falsely suggesting that milk causes weight loss. PCRM has also asked the Food and Drug Administration to put an end to such claims. • For the real skinny on false dairy diet claims, contact Howard White – hwhite@pcrm.com. |
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17JUN05 Health Cops rap Spud Chip Bags Here’s a new scare coming out of California. Potato chips may be carrying agents for a new cancer-causing chemical – acrylamide. That is an industrial chemical used in plastics, and, apparently, has a kinship with some brands of potato chips. Public health attorneys in Schwarzenegger Country are doing battle to reroute the Guv’s intent to list carcinogens caused by heat processing on food labels. The World Health Organization has said acrylamide may be responsible for up to one-third of all cancers caused by diet, as demonstrated by laboratory animal studies. Acrylamide is already on California's list of chemicals known to cause cancer, but some chipmakers haven't listed it on their product packaging as required by Proposition 65 statute. The brands tested and cited for high levels of acrylamide are: Lay’s Baked!, Lay’s Stax BBQ, Lay’s KC Masterpiece. Lay’s Natural Country Barbecue, Lay’s Light KC Barbecue Masterpiece, Pringles Snack Stacks (Pizzalicious Flavor), Pringles Sweet Mesquite BBQ, Kettle Chips Lightly Salted, Kettle Chips Honey Dijon, Cape Cod Robust Russet and Cape Cod Classic chips. Schwarzenegger is expected to announce a decision by August. (Credit to News 10, The Gannett Co.) |
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13JUN05 Red Tide Warning to Clam Lovers Tourists, if heading for New England to dig the otherwise succulent clams, best to take along tins of sardines. Red Tide warning flags are flapping from Maine south to Cape Cod, Mass. That area represents more than 35 percent of the clam harvest this summer, so says the NYTimes this date. Ipswich is all but out of business. The Red Tide is composed of toxic algae. The Times says restaurants serving shellfish are now importing product from Canada. While debates center on whether fish, lobster and crabs are affected, best to ask your servers if they know origins of both shell and finfish being served. The scary headline in the Times: Dark Days for the Fried Clam, a Summer Staple. |
 Gilroy Garlic Festival |
12JUN05 The Vic Foreman Survival Advisory In keeping with what has become the Vic Foreman Survival Guide advisory – Never eat anything imported from countries without inside plumbing – add McCormick’s garlic powder. The Maryland-based producer of all sorts of seasonings must have found quality problems with the Garlic Capitol of the World – Gilroy, Cal. Not buying garlic grown in Gilroy is akin to buying your Rolex from a Times Square street peddler – or at Sam’s Club. On GrumpBlog’s Lou Dobbs Shelf of Shame where outsourced products repose, there is a McCormick & Co. plastic bottle with 88 grams of garlic powder inscribed thusly: Packed In U. S. A. Product of China. NOTE: All items on the Lou Dobbs Shelf of Shame remain unopened, seals intact. |
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13MAY05 Here's filler for your Round File GrumpBlog note: As a legit reviewer you are on many public relations mail lists. Here's one that illustrates what should be tossed. Besides being a bold faced pitch for free space, the idea sucks at first blush. This chain has three stores in my town. To this date I have yet to see one column inch of advertising. If this had been published as news, the newspaper would have been swamped with requests for the addresses and phone numbers. Dump quickly before weakening and giving the publisher's product away. On May 5, Cinco de Mayo, already a commonly celebrated day of festivities, Moe's Southwest Grill is encouraging the American worker to take "eight hours off" to do nothing, essentially. And how do we celebrate? With a burrito as big as our head with names like the "Homewrecker" and a cold beer. Across the globe, many industrialized nations are supporting European and Asia-Pacific trends to reward their workers with more time off. However, in the United States, we seem to be working harder and longer hours. The Citizens for Eight Hours Off (CEHO), sponsored by Moe's Southwest Grill, is campaigning for May 5 as an official day off for Americans. A recent poll commissioned by CEHO found that more than 200 million American support a day off in May. Moe's is planning to arm its customers with two letters they can pick up in-store beginning May 3. Customers can grab a letter to their employer requesting the day off as a member of one of the hardest working industrialized nations in the world. or a letter they can send to Congress requesting a bill to be passed acknowledging the "holiday" and requiring businesses, banks and state, city and federal branches to recognize the day. Moe's formed CEHO, Citizens for Eight Hours Off, after recognizing that Americans are working longer and longer hours, taking shorter lunches and coming into its restaurants later and later. In order to raise the importance of the cause which Moe's acknowledges is a long-term effort; CEHO can work towards educating employers and state governments about the importance of giving the American worker a day of doing nothing. |
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12MAY05 How to gross out readers; Reviewers, avoid this stuff On July 4, 2005, the eyes of the world will focus on Coney Island, NY, for what is believed to be the 90th installment of the Nathan’s Famous Fourth of July International Hot Dog-Eating Contest. Four-time world champion Takeru Kobayashi of Japan will look to make history as he defends his title against top eaters from around the globe. In coming weeks, the finest eaters in the world will fight for one of 20 spots in the most celebrated sporting event of the year. According to archives, the contest has been held since 1916. This year, as in 2004, the event will be televised as a live, one-hour broadcast on ESPN. Kobayashi, who secured his fourth straight win on July 4, 2004, by consuming 53 ½ Nathan’s Famous hot dogs and buns in 12 minutes, weighs only 144 pounds. His main competition this year is expected to come from Sonya Thomas, a 100-pound, 37-year-old Korean-born resident of Alexandria, VA, and Rich LeFevre, a 135-pound, 60-year-old resident of Henderson, NV. Editorial comment: This sort of promotion needs to be outlawed. The above is a News puff received by GrumpBlog. No mention is made of the deaths caused by Such affairs, all choking deaths. An example of grossness: A startup chain called Zyng with a unit in Columbus, Ohio, sponsored an all-you-can-gorge contest. News photogs were there to record the event. When one of the participants threw up all over the contestants’ table, the photographers passed. Zyng closed in less than six months with a huge loss to the two operators. |
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23APR05 Shoot first, ask questions later... Her name is Anna Ayala. In your restaurant career you will have to put up with such worms. This is the woman who cost Wendy's millions of dollars in the worst publicity possible - the human finger she claimed was in a bowl of chili. At this writing she's jailed pending further investigation. Market speculation is that she planted the finger from a corpse. Authorities are going the DNA route for hints of embalming fluid. Here's a suggestion for your restaurant career manual: Post the worm's picture above all exits. Use this overline: BANNED FROM PROPERTY. Second suggestion: Trip the bitch with a mop. Hold'er down with a garbage can. Call 911. Frankly writing, every restaurant in the country - all 900,000 of them - should make Anna Ayala a national cause. Post her pix in every restaurant, print her mug shot in all training manuals - DO NOT SERVE - COUNT YOUR FINGERS. |
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21APR05 Kentucky Fried - taste sells; screw the Grease Police... Even in death, that old Kentucky tintype wins. Long before there were 5,525 KFC chicken joints, there was a pleasant little filling station in Corbin, Kentucky, owned by a senior citizen who fried chicken and made mint juleps. At least he gave julep lessons to travel writers visiting his filling station that had been converted into a sit-down restaurant. That old gent had yet to sell his first Kentucky Fried franchise. His restaurant was in a dry Kentucky county, so he had to give away those juleps - after teaching us how to place mint leaves in the bottom of a tall glass, sprinkle a teaspoon of granulated sugar atop the leaves and crush with the spoon. Then fill the glass to the top with crushed ice, fill to the rim with bourbon. (Only Kentucky makes bourbon.) Sip. I took his julep course two years in a row. That's all I remember about Kentucky. So, today it is announced: All KFC joints are going back to what counts - taste. Screw the Grease Police. KFC fades to black; signs to read Kentucky Fried Chicken. Business returns. What a pity the Colonel's true legend isn't being honored by serving his true Mint Julep with a wing and a breast fried in lard. |
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01APR05 Flight food advice: One more time... Chicago health inspectors have closed Gate Gourmet Storage, a warehouse used outside O'Hare used to store airline snack foods. Pretzels, soda pop and beer, among other once-untainted goodies, were banked on pallets until delivered to various airlines trying to fly out of the worst (*) airport in the nation. City health snoops found the stuff was infested with rodents (rats, cousin). The inspectors found more than 1,000 rat droppings throughout the facility. Gate Gourmet, an ironic name there, will not re-open until the joint gets a new license and passes another inspection. As GrumpBlog has advised for the recent three or four years, pack your own snacks, sandwiches and a bottle of benzene-free water, waters from sources in this hemisphere. (*) O'Hare has just been named "worst" for airport delays in 31 major airports by the federal Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Source: Airline News |
 GM-Frankenfood |
26MAR05 A new food writing shorthand All of your adult writing life use of a firm’s initials has been acceptable to editors. Write GM and the world knew you were using shorthand for General Motors. No longer. The WSJ (Wall Street Journal) now uses “GM foods” when writing about genetically modified foods. I love this lead on an in depth piece about the public paying scant attention to what is happening with Frankenfoods loading supermarket shelves: “Can animal genes be jammed into plants? Would tomatoes with catfish genes taste fishy? Have you ever eaten a genetically modified food?” Your new writing field is to sort out critical claims from all sides of GModification. What about the allergy factor? What about any perceived toxic reactions? GM, the growing use thereof, has been with us since 1994. Google it and get cracking. Today’s Google has 551,000 GM food stories. Feel free to tell your editor that you both Google and GrumpBlog. (Business aside: GM the Detroit car maker is facing hard times for reasons of their own stupid management; GM the altered vegetable and meat trend will increase in public interest.) |
 Don Imus WFAN |
25MAR05 A note to militant vegans, PETA ilk et al… Over the years my vote for investigating terrorist groups goes to vegans and just plain vegetarians who rattle cages in efforts to get everyone to convert to carrots and hay. Militant veggies are the nut cases who picket restaurants serving lamb. The PETA terrorists toss pies into faces of execs of food corporations. And, take it from me, PETA has been known to threaten food reviewers. Here’s a tip for the turnip brains: Take on a positive cause. Talk show host Don Imus could give legit vegetarians (those who are vegetarians for health reasons) a great showcase for their cause. The Wall Street Journal last week ran a slanted story about the Imus Ranch in New Mexico. The Journal rapped Imus for, allegedly, using his 4,000-acre ranch for personal and family vacations. Actually, the ranch is a non-profit operation designed and intended to be a charity ranch where critically ill children visit and experience a change in their routine. They take part in doing ranch chores. They ride horses. They muck stables. They come away with different perspectives on life. The WSJ questioned all that. One huge daily change for the kids is the food they experience. Ranch cooks cook vegetarian dishes. They’re my kind of cooks one day a week. I am a practicing vegetarian one day a week – for health reasons. Pears, bananas, applesauce, raisin toast, oatmeal and a banana, hot tea, prunes, green beans, and lots of pulpy orange juice, some times a dinner of tempura vegetables at my favorite Japanese restaurant, plums canned or fresh, pancakes, that sort of stuff fills a day. I cannot do organic, but, I understand, the Imus spread pays attention to the importance of serving organic vegetables. No meat. Wouldn’t it make a great story if the cranky veggies used the Imus Ranch as a starting point in spreading the peaceful/healthful aspects of vegetarianism? Lastly, the WSJ should do a second Imus story. New York’s attorney general found no cause to cite Imus for anything. The newspaper used PETA tactics. It slammed Imus in the face when he wasn’t looking. |
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16MAR05 What ever happened to Grape Nuts? One huge problem – huge huge – today is obese children. Iowa’s Sen. Harkin wants cereal companies to take the blame. If you want proof that something has to be done quickly, pause along any supermarket cereal bank of shelves and read the deadly list of ingredients. Sugar, sugar, sugar. GrumpBlog is not for total censorship or a boycott, but any good food writer should consider doing a list of offensive kid cereals with a skull and crossbones on the box. Sen. Harkin is dreaming. His quote on the issue: “I sincerely hope the industry will develop tough and effective marketing guidelines.” He should not hold his breath. If needing specifics as a food writer, buy a box of General Mills’ Shrek cereal. Tell your readers that it is really sweetened corn puffs with marshmallow pieces loaded with 14 grams of sugar per serving. Marshmallows for breakfast? Go on a grams-counting splurge. Raise hell in ink, if your advertising chief gives the OK. |
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01MAR05 Take a lesson food writing… When anyone tries to write about turkey and Thanksgiving, the one thing that makes it tough is that it is hard to find a new way of saying it. So, write about baking pies for that big bird day. Mike Harden, just may be the second best columnist in any North American newspaper, wrote this pie review is his Columbus Dispatch column: "It is a fragrance possessing the nostalgia-generating powers of Proust's Madeleine – a scent that the Saturday Evening Post would have coveted for a scratch-and-sniff patch on a Norman Rockwell Thanksgiving cover." When you can link the likes of Proust to pie, you're ready for the front lines. |
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23FEB05 Say goodbye, Zagat As every legit restaurant reviewer in the United States is saying today, it is about time. Guide Michelin is about to give New York City a taste of honest restaurant reviewing beyond what has been the bailiwick of The New York Times and Esquire’s John Mariani. Note the operative word – reviewing. Michelin NYC goes on sale in November. Five hundred restaurants in the five boroughs will be rated in the famed Michelin stars. Stars are awarded based on detailed reports made by professional inspectors dining anonymously. It is assumed Michelin has retained food and restaurant professionals to conduct inspections as the company does in France. Such a concept! In recent years the Zagat Survey has owned the dining guide business with what it calls “the shared experiences of diners like you.” Translated that is similar to selecting Peoples Choice ribbons at a chili cook off. Oh, the ubiquity of it all. A little GrumpBlog background, please: A decade or so ago Zagat entered Ohio. Persons selected to “survey” Ohio restaurants were sent a stack of restaurant names from eight cities on legal-sized sheets. There were 800-plus restaurants in Ohio’s eight largest cities, Canton and Youngstown among them. While GrumpBlog has dining receipts from Toledo, Cleveland, Dayton and Cincinnati and could, maybe, make some opinion contribution to direct readers to those destinations, no way for Canton and Youngstown. GrumpBlog rates/surveys/reviews Columbus only. Such a limited review assignment was the format for John Mariani who, in 1986, pulled together fulltime restaurant reviewers from across the nation. They wrote about the food they consumed and paid for. While they dined anonymously, their reviews in Mariani’s Coast-to-Coast Dining Guide (Times Books) authenticated opinion sources by listing both names of the writers and their media affiliation. Mariani writes about food prepared by chefs with names. Michelin is a guide to food and chefs. Welcome Guide Michelin to NYC. Mariani is, has been, and still needed for all that space west of the Hudson river. A Zagat plus: If visiting NYC, the Zagat Survey book has uses for tourists spending more than one night. It is far superior to Yellow Pages for dining out beyond all the push carts. |
 The Maisonette, Cincinnati, Ohio. |
23FEB05 A Zagat review in Ohio A current "survey" for Ohio's second most famed, most acclaimed restaurant: The Maisonette, in Cincinnati: (note respondents quotes) "bona fide classic – "Grade A everything" – "old money clientele" – "tried and true" – "a little stuffy" – "dated, overrated." But, how's the food? When Guide Michelin does Ohio, we may get a reading on the beef Wellington and a hint as to how the new chef is doing with what Zagat mentions as "new French fare." What a great approach! When Ellen Brown, Cincinnati Enquirer, reviewed this institution for the Mariani guide, she suggested such (then) specialties as veal with shiitake mushroom sauce, sweetbreads in a light paprika sauce served with spinach pasta and a sautéed duck breast complimented by a braised leg in a well-reduced Beaujolais sauce. How appetizing! ==30== |
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21FEB05 Guide Michelin still the best... Guide Michelin is the only valid restaurant guide in the world - sadly - covering only France and adjacent nations. It is unique, once compared to outfits such as Zagat and/or Mobil Guide. Michelin inspectors/reviewers actually eat the food. What a concept! Michelin recently has undergone a flap with a deposed reviewer. The Associated Press story gives good incite into the workings of the guide. What a pity the United States, with more than 900,000 restaurants serving an uninformed populace, does not have such a dining guide. Advisory: Forces are at work to change that. Developing.... |
 Stuart Alexander, the "Sausage King." |
15FEB05 Don't try this in your own kitchen A guy who called himself the "sausage king" in Oakland, CA thought he had the means to fame and fortune. Tired of what he considered harassment by meat inspectors, he decided to shoot them on his surveillance camera, then plead insanity, beat the rap, write a book or movie script, and be happy ever after. In 2000 he shot two fed and one state meat inspectors. All died. His count could have been four, but his target took off running. The sausage king, Stuart Alexander, 43, chased No. 4, firing all the way, but missed. The judge kept to the script of 12 tried and true citizens who recommended the death sentence. Alexander gets the needle, date to be set. As they say, one of the two things you don't want to watch is sausage making. The other? Oops.... Karl Rove just pulled the GrumpBlog plug.......%$#%&(... |
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14FEB05 Krispy Kreme in the dumper? A week before the above date Krispy Kreme stock dropped 14 percent, an all-time low. Part of the problem could have been the strange hiring of a turnaround firm intended to make the chain profitable again. Krispy is to pay the firm of Kroll Zolfo Cooper $400,000 a month to noodle the problems. Meanwhile, back on the Street, some analysts are telling their clients that bankruptcy fears abound. GrumpBlog will act as consultant for two glazed and a cuppa coffee, no cream. Retrench and fire all those names atop the annual report. If Kroll et al suggests recipe tampering, file suit. |
 Powerade from Coca-Cola |
12FEB05 Just how did we get along with plain H2O ? Only since the bottled water craze swamped our municipal dumps have we been aware of the nutritional facts of life. Bottled water, as required by law, lists what ain't. GrumpBlog always checks for sodium in everything. Water bottle labels always reassure me that I am ingesting zero (O) calories; O sodium; O fat; O carbs: O proteins. Bottled waters with labels of origin in this hemisphere give some degree of safety assurance. GrumpBlog has never recovered from the days when fancy green glass bottles with foreign addresses were found to be tainted with benzene. All this purity concern surfaced when Coke put out a release announcing a new bottle design for POWERade, a sports drink. Come April Coke will flood the market with 20-ounce bottles that are "easy to grip, easy to open, and easy to use on the go." All well and good, but just what are jock types swigging these days? GrumpBlog asked for an ingredients list. Gulp this: Sugar, sodium, potassium, chloride, niacin, vitamin B6 and vitamin B12. While the Coke flack was quick to respond, no mention of water was included. We must assume POWERade has nature's premier liquidity. As West Virginians always say at the water well when a bucket is swinging under the pulley, "Reach me the tin, cousin." |
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13FEB05 Chefs, cooks, bakers needed in bunches GrumpBlog is so old he remembers when newspaper classifieds pleaded for cooks and bakers. World War II service branches all ran Cooks and Baker Schools. Never was the French descriptive of chef mentioned. In the 1950s and 1960s a chef was a person who owned a restaurant in France. If a French restaurant, say La Caravelle in New York, opened in the 1960s, it was by a French chef. Today this country has more than 900,000 restaurants. More than half the family food dollars go into restaurants or for food prepared outside the home. One figure bouncing around says this nation needs 80,000 trained chefs or kitchen managers annually. Need and today’s culinary training programs may take credit for elevating the word chef to professional status. To fill needs for the nation’s largest collective employer, the restaurant industry, sign up for the one educational study course that has a job waiting when you walk off campus. Here’s a road map to full employment: www.allculinaryschools.com Here’s a career planning plus not found in most professions. In days of old to be a plumber the aspirant worked as an apprentice. Every trade has apprentice training programs. GrumpBlog may be biased. The formal culinary apprentice programs in the United States are the best, the most inviting in the world. |
 Wolfgang Puck Express, Downtown Disney. |
06JAN05 One Puck, two Pucks Two decades ago chef Wolfgang Puck made his mark in Beverly Hills with his wood fired pizza at Spago. Since then the Puck name has been in a few more places. Las Vegas for one. Last year a new Puck brand appeared as a franchise.. It is a chain called Wolfgang Puck Express. Just for record, the pizzas are not baked in a wood fired oven. There is a bright flame at the rear of the oven, but there is not hickory or apple wood within an elephant toss. The trade name of the oven is Wood Stone. But, no wood, no stone. Just for record. If you go, try the barbecued chicken, mozzarella, onion, cilantro with a rather decent Q sauce. …developing…. |
 Dr. Phil |
05JAN05 Be your own judge Today has been one of those days. PR firms will load you up with all sorts of “studies,” strange or vague “official findings” and “honors” awarded by institutes and trade associations. Today, I am informed by some PR outfit that the American Culinary Institute has determined that eggs marketed by Eggland’s Best, address unknown, have “superior taste” as determined by a gaggle of unnamed chefs. The American Culinary Institute is not to be confused with the American Culinary Federation. My question: Just which stores nationwide are selling Eggland’s Best? Add this to your questionable clips. Headline: Two new studies sour milk’s image: One study confirms link with ovarian cancer; Second disproves dairy weight-loss claim. The puff release from something called Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine quotes the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. A “recent study…shows that women who consume two or more glasses of milk a day have twice the risk of a certain form or ovarian cancer than those who rarely or never consume milk.” The second study questioned high dairy consumption helping dieters lose weight. In the middle of the top paragraph there is a note that Dr. Phil is a spokesman for milk.That made me want to stop reading and do my own research. |
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03JAN05 Diners Club for Ohio Diners Club update: If moving about my Ohio and depending upon Diners Club to pay your restaurant checks, tough tough. The state’s most noted French restaurant, Maisonette in Cincinnati, is not listed in the 2004 DC guide. If in Dayton, plan to use your AMEX at the state’s finest (my appraisal) French restaurant, L’Auberge. Also, you’ll have to pass on Dayton’s top steak house, The Pine Club. If in Cleveland, take your AMEX, because Diners is all but unknown in the finer establishments. You’ll have to pass on Blue Point Grille, Baricelli’s Inn, Blake’s Seafood Grille, even the almost historic Parker’s. Oh, all the Buffalo Wild Wings accepts Diners. This is an industry question: Just who does the marketing for Diners Club? I’ve tried for years to find out. |
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02JAN05 Goodbye Diners/ Hello Amex Since 1982 the Grumpy Gourmet has been a supporter of Diners Club. The appropriately named card was a good fit. Even in the 1980s Diners was equal to AMEX or better when dining in London and Paris. Diners had some acceptance in my Columbus, Ohio. Today’s list of eateries/restaurants/pizza joints/beer joints does not fit my needs. I tend to patronize my Top 10 fine dining venues. For the complete list, pull up this website: www.columbuschefs.com Only three of my favored Top 10 restaurants accept Diners Club. All take American Express. The Diners 2004 directory lists a batch of bars and pizza joints, several so poor that the only way I would dine in them is to take my own food. Of the Columbus area listings, six have closed; and two of the listees deny they accept Diners. Three of those listed apparently do not converse with employees. All three had people answering the phones to say they did not know if the establishment accepts Diners. But in each case, they knew their employers accepted Master Card, Visa or American Express. Diners is a paid card, unlike the free Visa and Master Cards. I have been reduced to using Diners at Uncle Sam’s Post Office…for stamps. Diners does provide a detailed monthly statement to users. But, so does AMEX. So, to reviewers, use the card favored by the better restaurants you will be reviewing. |
Hôtel-résidence Tirreno
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14DEC04 Guide Michelin still the best... Guide Michelin is the only valid restaurant guide in the world - sadly - covering only France and adjacent nations. It is unique, once compared to outfits such as Zagat and/or Mobil Guide. Michelin inspectors/reviewers actually eat the food. What a concept! Michelin recently has undergone a flap with a deposed reviewer. The Associated Press story gives good incite into the workings of the guide. What a pity the United States, with more than 870,000 restaurants serving an uninformed populace, does not have such a dining guide. |
 Alison M. Chestovich wears the bandanna she was wearing at Union Station. |
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12DEC04 Move Over Egg McMuffin It had to happen. The Evil Empire found out that a market exists that relates to expensive coffee. America eats on the run and, for some reason, Starbucks has made it easy to grab a cup and go. To go with an egg-bacon-sausage - what ever - seems a market need. The next Starbucks thing to come...oh, how about a dry martini? Do you think we'll reach the time when we can sit in a Barnes & Noble and munch on a hot sandwich while fingering through the latest Kitty Kelley trash? |
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02NOV04 Clara Peller, You Are Missed Fire McCann Erickson. Today. That's the high priced outfit that noodled Wendy's "unofficial spokesman" TV series and came up with a big scratchy ziltchhhh. Apparently the ad firm was trying to outdo the Herb guy that all but put Burger King in the dumper. BK stayed with some bland guy they tabbed as Herb selling burgers. The Grump wrote at the time that Herb couldn't sell postage stamps at the post office. Herb had the Q factor of a cabbage. Mr. Wendy, nee an unknown actor named Roger Eschbacher, looked like one of those trade show pitchmen who give away yardsticks. Could it be that Mr. Wendy also played Herb for Burger King? If keeping Stupid Counts, include the two above next to Mr. Delicious. He did it to Rax, once a roast beef chain. What ever happened to Rax? Ah, Clara. |
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16OCT2004 Is it the Evil Empire? Starbucks competitors, always the small pops and moms (independents) serving coffee, think so. Could it be that eventually Starbucks will be poured in the confessional? Your child's school cafeteria? Church socials? Remember, there are no legal age limits when it comes to serving coffee. No IDs are required by Starbucks. Restaurants & Institutions magazine this date reports the company targets a long-term potential of 30,000 stores worldwide, 15,000 of them in the US. Starbucks store count at noon this date is 5,945 US, 2,392 overseas and in Canada. Say you read it here second: Starbucks plans to put CD burners in 45 stores this year. Java drinkers can then sample online music and make their own albums. Of course, all downloads will come from HearMusic... a Starbucks subsidiary. Son of GrumpBlog is a huge fan of Starbucks. Because of the stiff price, GrumpBlog sticks to Earl Grey in the US. If, at Harrods, fifth floor tearoom, make it PG Tips. + + + + + For the company line, call Starbucks press, 206-447-7950 x52690, Lara Wyss. mailto:lwyss@starbucks.com |
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10OCT2004 This Bud's not for you OK, taste tells. GrumpBlog has an office pool going. Anheuser-Busch is planning a marketing teacher's dream. Come November the world's largest brewer will introduce something called BE – the “E” denoting something “extra” in the mix. It is supposed to be a new beer. For all who thought a good brew was hops, malt, yeast, clean water and a German point of origin, this one's a concoction starting with a fruity-smelling beer spiked with caffeine, guarana and ginseng. Yeah, ginseng. At first GrumpBlog took a second look on the chance this was a fake news thing from the Daily Show or some unhitched Blogger. This attempt to do a marketing repeat of New Coke Has been sent to the nation's product-intro-expert, Dr. Patrick Dunne, Texas Tech, Lubbock, TX. The gent knows beer. Expect him to set a death date for BE as a full chapter in his next book. (Guarana? To the first 25 respondents telling GrumpBlog just what the hell guarana does for you – namely what it is – gets a free GrumpBlog cookbook plus the inexact recipe for Hobo Stew. Include a slow mail address.) |
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9OCT2004 Advising McDonald's, an update This from a failed advisor to the BigMac brass. GrumpBlog, which always praised the good citizenship of the McDonald's empire, may be the only applicant to Hamburger U. to be denied matriculation. Mac once each decade noodles the possibility of attracting a dinner trade. The most recent effort was to introduce toasted deli-like sandwiches. Pleasant, but no after dinner cigar. Long ago Mac even toyed with evening table service on a test basis. Again, no cigar. Again, no dinner customers beyond the usual drive-through on-the-run eater. GrumpBlog suggested (repeatedly) that MacUSA visit their stores in Paris. Unwrap a BigMac within a block of the Eiffel Tower. Sip of a red wine or a German beer, both sold in Europe's BigMac stores. It appears the Anti-Saloon League and the 700 Club have little influence over there…over there. |
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8OCT2004 Federal Inmate 55170-054 Mark the date. The lady begins five months behind Federal bars. She's working for 12 cents an hour. As of this date the Feds have not announced just what she will be doing to earn those pennies. GrumpBlog suggests a kitchen assignment, of course. GrumpBlog also suggests the lady be set totally free by the Bushies - until the Karl Rove government bag and number the likes of Ken Lay. What sort of countryside is Alderson, W. Va.? It is mountain KKK country. It is just a few miles from the homestead of West Virginia's senior senator Robert Byrd, a former KKK member. Alderson once housed such as Toyko Rose and Axis Sally. Both survived the place and went on to retire to quiet lives - Rose in Los Angeles; Sally in a Columbus, Ohio, nunnery. For Inmate No. 55170-054, GrumpBlog wants her to return to what she was doing before: Dressing up the food we put on our plates. Developing... |
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26SEPT04 Safe At The Plate (Update) Dirty Dining Survey. Stone Phillips, host of NBC's Dateline, led off with this zinger: "Here's a statistic that might turn your stomach, each year it's estimated that more than 30 million Americans get some kind of illness from restaurant food. It makes you wonder how safe and clean your favorite restaurant is." Essence (wrong descriptive here) of the piece was a ranking of dirty eateries' chain restaurants. Culled from a list of more than 500 national chains, using more than 1,000 locations, NBC commissioned a survey firm to check inspection reports issued by health departments. Here are the results - top one being the dirtiest: Waffle House. Ruby Tuesday. IHOP. T. G. I. Friday's. Applebee's. Outback. Chili's. Red Lobster. Bob Evans. Denny's. As in the Latin advisory: Caveat emptor. |
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8AUG04 Counterfeit prunes, sardines? On the chance you missed 60 Minutes this date, be advised: Take a long look at all tins of sardines and cans of prunes appearing in your market. Besides manufacturing phony tennis shoes and brand sname golf clubs, China is packing something that looks like oily sardines and marketing them as having a country of origin other than China. As an aficionado of sardines, I always check the origin. Good sardines should be tinned in Portugal or Morocco despite their total lack of icy water fishes. To confuse people who shop sardines by name, the Polar brand tins fishes from Morocco. My favorite sardines are from cold waters off Canada. Brunswick is a safe brand. A safe brand, Underwood, packs smoked sardines in soybean oil, a product from Scotland. One tinned product I tend to avoid: Smoked oysters from Korea under the Crown Prince label. As for prunes, stick with known American labels. Sunsweet comes to mind for both ready-to-eat and juice. Prune and prune juice sold in box stores under strange labels: AVOID. Thanks for the alert, 60 Minutes. |
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01 AUG 2004 Charles Courtney Seabrook, 94 When it comes to frozen foods, the name Birdseye comes to mind. But the name behind the process of freezing vegetables is Charles Courtney Seabrook. Seabrook with his brothers, Belford and John, experimented with using dry ice in a wooden box to quick-freeze vegetables they had grown on their New Jersey farm. Seabrook was a civil engineer. The Seabrook brothers formed a partnership with Birdseye, a Brooklyn-born inventor who is generally credited with the process that today is the food industry's largest segment. Eventually the Seabrooks raised vegetables on 55,000 acres to fill those Birdseye packets. A family quarrel broke up Seabrook Farms in the mid-1950s. It was sold to a New York wholesale grocery company. And later came the microwave to undo their good work in three to six minutes. |
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31 JUL 2004 Rocco's doomed from the start The Restaurant, that NBC reality show on How Not To Run a Restaurant with chef Rocco DiSpirito supposedly in the kitchen where chefs should be, ends the misery at the end of August. The money man, Jeffrey Chodorow, found a New York judge who was willing to make a strange ruling: If the joint ain't making money, close it down. Chodorow is the plaintiff; Rocco the loser. Rocco had contended that he was a 50-50 owner. But the money guy disagreed. Even though the NY state liquor license listed both as owners, the high judge ordered the lock down. It was a horrible restaurant business show. A couple of the waiters looked like Saddam's sons. The female servers fussed throughout. Show viewers came away with the impression that the eatery only served meatballs. The money guy's big gripe other than it was losing money, complained that Rocco was never in the kitchen. Maybe he was right. Rocco was out signing his cook book or playing VIP at the Culinary Institute of America. But GrumpBlog really gave up on the show when Rocco finally did make a kitchen appearance. He was showing line cooks how to make pizza. He pounded out a ball of dough, flattened it, tossed into the air like any good movie chef should do, and then draped it over his oily-looking hair. This was his comment on camera: "A lotta people up there are gonna eat hair tonight." (FULL COLUMN FOR SALE: Rocco's demo on How Not To Run a Restaurant. Call the Grumpy Gourmet, 614-538-1822; or e-mail: grumpy@dispatch.com. Publication rates based on circulation.) |
Soy Milk Machine
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20 JULY 2004 Selling Soy May Be a Tough Sell Maybe with a spike of 180-proof Barcardi soy milk could have a future. Otherwise, you beginner scribes best wait until some soy something appears on a few chain eatery menus. Quickie soy milk review: It tastes like liquid chalk. But, it is white. (FULL COLUMN FOR SALE: Soy, A Tough Sell. Call the Grumpy Gourmet, 614-538-1822; or e-mail - grumpy@dispatch.com. Publication rates based on circulation.) |
The News Herald Panama City, FL.  David Stewart |
19 JULY 2004 Phone Scam Weirdo Bagged Wendy's International bankrolled the successful hunt to bring down a perp who had been getting his rocks off by using a calling card to "order" fast food store managers to strip-search employees. Panama City, Florida, cops bagged David Stewart, 38, after cops managed to bring all the dots together using Wendy's money. While the scam's modus operandi dates back a decade, only recently did the fast fooders unify and go after the guy. His alleged approach was to call stores (McDonald's, Taco Bells, KFC's, Applebee's, Perkins, even Hooters) around the nation. Getting a manager on the horn, the guy used his authoritative voice (Perkins was a prison corrections officer) to order a strip search, most always a female employee. In one case the female manager was ordered to strip-search a male employee. Many fooders were sued. It took Wendy's money to get a formal investigation going. Stewart's downfall came when investigators used phone records, calling-card numbers and security surveillance cameras outside a Panama City Wal-Mart to link a face with the scam. Stewart has burger joints around the nation bidding for his neck. But Mt. Washington, Ky., cops may get get first dibs once all the right papers are filed. They want to interrogate Stewart to see if he's the punk posing as a cop who convinced a Big Mac manager to strip-search a female cashier. Developing.... +++++ |
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12 JUNE 2004 What's next? Heat 'N Serve Sushi? This must be true. I read it in a seafood business magazine. A Seattle outfit is gearing up to sell Thaw & Serve Sushi, a branded name owned by Trans-Ocean Products. The wraparound plastic pack also includes soy sauce, wasabi and ginger packets. The deal seems to be popular with institutional feeders. What happened to all those Japanese teachings that say sushi doesn't travel well...and that you should never eat sushi that is not assembled in front of you while seated at a sushi bar. Only in America. |
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musical selection: "east of the sun"