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Re-Coning a term

We found the the holy grail! We were walking down one of the aisles of the show and there it stood:

It’s the perfect gift. It makes for an excellent story. It even leads itself to a picture and a puzzle.

Can you guess what it is?

1000 Foodies, but only Food Court Chow

As part of our continuing education into the food business, the auntieChef team went to our first professional conference. I’ve been to a a number of conferences in the past, both as an attendant and as a booth worker. All of these conferences were technical in nature, whether for electronics or software. This one was different. The International Restaurant & Foodservice Show of New York had the same format of rows upon rows of booths with companies showing their wares, but in this case the wares were food. And you got to sample their ice cream, mango liquor or fried squid.\

The show is the place where companies showcase their food, machinery or other services for the restaurant business. For example, if you were looking for commercial quantities of Soy or Green tea or specialty Wasabi or silverware for your restaurant or prize Wisconsin Cheese or Organic Pork or prime beef or chef’s knives or flat bread or even a company to do the interior decoration for you, that’s the place to find them. They were all there, and you got to sample the Wasabi or Fortune cookie. But not the interior designer.

And the only food to buy was in the Javitz Center’s food court. Kind of ironic, that.

Walking down one of these isles is where we found the holy grail, the can that generated a few days of gratuitous jokes, the can that will re-coin a phrase, the little can that could!

Any guesses so far?

Hint – the back of the can has a green star that looks like a quality seal. Looking closely you find that it was approved by one of the US veterans associations!

Recruiting Chefs

Last week we visited the French Culinary Institute‘s career fair. The school runs intensive accredited cooking classes of 6-9 months, specializing in either French cooking, Italian cooking or Pastries. A couple of weeks back we did a tour of their classrooms and kitchens (4-5 separate ones) and were very impressed. The career fair is where students and alums of the school come to meet restaurant owners and HR reps from restaurant chains who are looking for cooks for their kitchens.

I couldn’t help but contrast this fair with the the ones I was used to in technical schools:

First, this is a culinary school. The school has a restaurant (L’Ecole), that lets the students try out a real restaurant setting. They work in the kitchen while a professional staff mans and womans) the front of the restaurant. As recruiters in the fair, we were invited to a free lunch. All I can say is – exquisite. French food done well.

Then, there was a distinct power structure to the fair that’s not as visible in tech fairs. In a technology fair, you’d go up to a recruiter, take a seat (or you’d both stand if there aren’t any seats) and talk to them about what you want to do, while the recuiter will tell you about the company.

Here, all of us recruiters sat down around the room, while students and graduates circulated and gave their resumes to the interviewers. There was a clear distinction between the sitting-down employers and the supplicant students standing trembling before them. We were surprised to see that we were the only people (at least in the room we were in) that would stand up to talk to the students.

We were also the odd-company out since we weren’t really recruiting anyone. We were there to tell them about our site and encourage them to check it out and sign up.

The students we talked to were fascinating. There’s no fixed age, since it’s not a typical post-high-school college. For many of the chefs it’s a second or even third career. We’ve met the guy who cooked since he was little, the woman who was an actress, then an administrative assistant and is now a chef, and the ex-MBA come consultant that decided cubicle life is not for him.

If you’re in town, check out the restaurant, L’Ecole.

To Re-coin that term

And now, back to our restaurant show discovery: Introducing, drum-roll please, Canned Bread.

Yes bread.

This Japanese company has found a way to can bread. It stays “fresh” for 3 or so months and comes in a number of flavors.

They are looking for ways to market it, and their posters had such awesome suggestions as “for survival”, “for long hiking trips” and “great as a giveaway at shows”. We took one. As you can see – it was a great giveaway at the show

So remember – it’s “The best thing since Canned bread“

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Here’s an exercise in creativity. How would you start the following sentence?
“…, as rats are very skeptical of new things.”

Yes, it’s a real sentence I came across. Seriously. Stop for a second and think about it. What would be a good opening for it? Here are some of mine:

• Don’t try confidence games on rats, as rats are very skeptical of new things.
• The newest fashion is wasted on rats, as rats are very skeptical of new things.
• Rats haven’t moved from myspace to facebook, as rats are very skeptical of new things.

If you’ve got good ideas, add them as comments to this post.

I’m taking the New York City online Food Protection Course, a course that all supervisors in restaurants and food establishments must take. This is not a backup career choice. It’s a way to understand food safety better, and get a feel for what our Aunties (the internal nickname for sellers on auntieChef) have to go through.

Imagine my surprise as in the middle of this dry material about the proper way to wash dishes (you’re all doing it wrong) and why that lasagna in the fridge must not be placed under the thawing chicken for tomorrow’s dinner I suddenly come face to face with the very skeptical rat comment on the food safety course:

“Do not set up traps for several days to allow rats to become acclimated with the traps, as rats are very skeptical of new things.”

This is so much more than rats just plain avoiding new things.

Imagine you’re a rat, snooping around, minding your own business when suddenly, there’s this new thing you didn’t see before? You immediately rush to your friends to have a debate about it:

- Rodney, you there?
- Yep George. What’s up?
- There’s this new thing up there. Not sure what it is. Waddaya think?
- Hmm. New thing? What new thing?
- This thing, Rodney. This square thing with other thingies on top of it.
- Hmm. I’m not sure George. I know! We’ll send Kenneth to check it out. He’s gullible. He’ll try anything.
- Hey Kenneth! Kenneth! Come over here a sec, we’ve got something for you to try. It’s really cool.
- What is it Rodney?
- See that thing over there? It’s a new Rat game. Go ahead – try it out. Jump on it a few times. Food will come out.
- Cool! Let me take a running leap and j… <snap>
- Well George, now we know. Stay away from it.  I knew not to trust these new things.

Or maybe it means rats don’t like change?

- Hey George, we’re planning tonight’s run. Your path is through there, as always. Just go around that new thing there.
- But we’ve always run that part straight, Rodney. It’s the way we’ve  always done it. Why should we change now? If it ain’t broke and all that.
- Well George, would you believe it’s because the competition is coming out with a new business model that will cause our sales to drop? No? Ok – just run it the way we’ve always done it.
- Hey Rodney, it’s not a probl… <snap>

Well, off to the next chapter in the course where I’ll find out which diseases can kill me when I eat at restaurants.

Don’t forget to comment on this post, as rats are very skeptical of new things.

It’s amazing to see the kind of changes a connected world is bringing to food consumption and food production. Even before the internet, consider what the printed word did for food. Those of you who watched Julie & Julia, saw the beginning of a revolution in cooking brought to the US by a cook book. More specifically it was brought by a cook, Julia Child, who talked to the masses through a book and through television. Suddenly new ways of making food became readily available.

In the new millenia, a blog started by Julie Powell who cooked her way through Julia’s cookbook brought millions more to try out new food, new cooking techniques and have more appreciation for food.

The connected world is changing us even more. It’s not even on the PC any more. A friend just sent me a link to foodie, an iphone application that gives you real-time news about restaurants and deals in Chicago. The Chicago limit is, I’m sure, a question of marketing and having to find the deals. There’s no reason why the app wouldn’t work anywhere in the world.

On my blackberry, I now have Yelp mobile that helps me find reviewed restaurants next to me, and a recipe application that lets me search for ingredients I need while at the supermarket. Suddenly I’m not limited to making spaghetti and marinara sauce, and I don’t have to do a lot of research before I start shopping.

So what brought this post on? Whole Foods is hosting an event next week around New Media and food, or social networks and food: A New York New Food Media Panel. You can read more about the event in The Food Section. auntieChef.com is all about democratizing food production and letting small food producers reach us, the people looking for good food. In a sense, we’re enabling UGF – User Generated Food. I’d love to be at the event though it’s sold out, so I’m shamelessly making a public plea – please please, are there any tickets left?

We are what we eat and what we eat is changing. The future looks very exciting (even if I don’t make it to the event)!

So, what exactly is auntieChef?

auntieChef is the online marketplace for folks to buy and sell homestyle food.  We came up with auntieChef when we realized that, while we craved real home cooking, we never had the time (and in my case, skills) to cook for ourselves. And honestly, there’s only so much frozen food or takeout that the body can take – we were hungry.  So we started a company.

How does auntieChef work?  Local cooks (e.g., caterers, personal chefs, bakers, other food entrepreneurs) open up auntieChef.com online “kitchens”, listing their dishes and prices.  Hungry folks can order meals from these cooks online.  The food is freshly made-to-order, and is delivered or picked up. Voila…home cooking without the hassle!

There – the secret’s out, and we hope you join us on our mission to make food personal again.  Drop us a line and let us know what you think, and if you know any great cooks in Boston, send them our way!

Warming up the stove...

Our friend JJ Gonson (a fabulous locavore chef, and a true supporter of the auntieChef team from the beginning!) is hosting “O.N.C.E. in Hell: Dante’s Inferno in 10 Courses” December 15, 16, and 17th at Oberon, the American Repertory Theatre‘s Harvard Square venue.

Yes, a culinary and theatrical interpretation of Dante’s “Divine Comedy.”

The delicious courses promise to be heavenly.  Diners will enjoy plates of some Purgatory.  Luxuriate in some locovore Lust.  I can’t even imagine what she’ll come up with for Gluttony, Wrath, Violence… ?  She’s hard at work perfecting some of the sinful foodie delights for the night.  “I was thinking about how to really do Avarice right, truth be told,” she wrote to me.  The course has to be sufficiently “greedy or spendy.”

And how about Heresy?  “Heresy has just been hard for everyone, but a lot of things happen in Heresy.” So true.

Major points for toasty ambiance?

Fair warning, my veggie friends – apparently, its hard to be sinful and vegetarian at the same time – this particular O.N.C.E. will be geared towards the carnivorous.

JJ is the whirlwind locavore culinary talent behind O.N.C.E. (“One Night Culinary Event”).  For those of you who may not be in-tune with the Boston locavore intelligensia, O.N.C.E. is basically a scrumptious 3-hour, 10-course, locally-sourced dinner party conceived of and prepared by JJ’s crew at Cusine en Locale.

So check it out – nothing like a delicious Inferno to warm up the winter nights!

And no, we’re not trying to compete with Regretsy, we are actually loyal fans ourselves.

A gorgeously roasted whole turkey on a platter of garnish. Lots of silverware and place settings. A “carving station” for the poultry. Grandparents in suits and ties. Acknowledgment that food may not need chili powder and turmeric to taste right.

Where's the kofta curry?

But really, that’s not how we roll. Without fail, some kind of oyster curry, or tandoori chicken, or veg biriyani finds its way on the menu. Of course the “bland” mashed potatoes are kicked up with a pinch of masala or some sprigs of coriander. And we’re happy with just our forks, thank you very much (why one needs 15 different utensils is still beyond me).

That’s why I love this time of year. I am so happy to have arrived home a couple days ago, lazily settling back into being the (29-year-old-) baby of the family. That Thanksgiving itself, this unwavering and powerful yearly tradition since before I remember, simply did not exist in my parents’ consciousness a few decades ago, is hard to believe. We’ve now made it our own, as surely as we’ve made this our home.

Happy Thanksgiving, all.

Imagine my joy when I discovered that NPR dedicated a full story to the nostalgic value of ramen noodles in people’s lives (thanks Sarit!). I must say the waffle and burrito ramen noodles are more imaginative than any entrepreneurial or other ramen noodle recipe I’ve ever heard of or tried. Maybe we should organize a “tastiest disgusting-sounding ramen noodle” challenge for the auntieChef cooks?

Endangered species?

Faithful reader(s)- let me start off by saying: Don’t Panic.

I consider myself a relatively calm person. Not exactly nerves-of-steel, but let’s be honest: I don’t freak out.

I’m freaking out.

I just heard about impending Eggo crisis. Read about it on this economics blog if you’d like. The Kellogg factory has had some “technical malfunctions” which has resulted in a nationwide shortage of their frozen waffles. Anecdotal/circumstantial evidence/rumor suggests that Target’s Eggo shelves are running bare – and then what? What next?

How long will these Eggo last? No one knows.

Yes, so maybe frozen breakfast food isn’t exactly homemade. I get it. But you know what? I grew up in an Indian household, and Mom most definitely was not making us waffles from scratch (Idalis, dosas, upama? Yes. Waffles? no). It was Eggo. It had to be. And Aunt Jemima. Every Sunday.

I’ve gotta cut this blog post short, because a trip to the grocery store is in order. Stockpiling – there’s no shame in that.

Kellogg, don’t make me kick “Leggo my Eggo” up a few notches – you know I will!

Eddie Lin is coming out with a new book called “Extreme Cuisine” (Lonely Planet publishing). In his blog ( http://www.deependdining.com/2009/10/get-copy-of-my-book-extreme-cuisine-for.html ) he asks people to comment on the types of food they won’t ever eat. For me, it’s been about eating animals I consider ‘friends and family’, i.e. dogs, horses, etc.

I’ve done my share of traveling the world and have eaten some weird stuff over the years. Probably the most surprising was Wisos.

What is Wisos, you ask?

I was in Vietnam a few years back on a month-long tour of the country. I spent a few days in the mountain range in central vietnam, specifically doing a 4-day motorcycle route through the mountains along the Ho Chi Minh trail.

One of my goals was to sample the local food, and especially to find some Weasel Coffe, a type of coffee that makes it through the digestive tract of a local weasel. My local guide promised that we’ll find some to buy at one of the bigger towns we’ll get to, but meanwhile we’ll sample Vietnamese cuisine along the way.

Somewhere along day two or three, he promised me some special local food – Wisos. I couldn’t figure out what Wisos was, nor did my book about Vietnam talk about it, so I resolved to wait and see. And so after a bone jarring ride through a gravel road (still on a motorcycle), we stopped at a local restaurant where the guide ordered for both of us.

When my plate arrived, I examined it carefully but couldn’t see anything that didn’t look like minced beef with some spices. It tasted somewhat gamy but I still couldn’t figure out what it is so I asked again.

“Wisos, wisos!” said my guide. “Wisos, like the animal from the coffee.”

Apparently Weasels are good for more than eating coffee. They’re also good for eating.

What of the coffee – you ask? I bought some later on and brought it back to the states where I held a little weasel coffee tasting party. About half the people tried it. A later google search found that the brand I bought was actually chemically treated (with man-made chemicals, not weasel-made ones) so I guess I still haven’t quite sampled weasel coffee…