2010 FOOD TRENDS: Top Chef hits the strEATS; a sip of Dandelion Wine

Top Chef winner Hosea Rosenberg has a brand new gig: cooking inside a specially designed Airstream trailer in Boulder, Colorado. The company's called stEAT chefs and the fare includes banh mi sandwiches, watermelon gazpacho and cherry limeade. Details: streatchefs.com. Photo by Kim Long, American Forecaster, Denver

Nibbles is a compendium of food, dining and beverage information from the U.S. and the world edited by John Lehndorff.

TV food star Guy Fieri quoted in the New York Times:
“Will organics prevail?” he asked, furrowing his rubbery, normally cheerful face as he fretted that America is at a culinary crossroads. “I don’t know. Will schools get the funding they need to feed our kids? Will we be able to bring back all the cooking skills that got lost in the drive-through and the microwave?”

Reported by www.slashfood.com:
“For our sweet-toothed readers, we have some bad news to report: Baskin-Robbins announced that it’s shelving five of its 31 signature flavors including the classic staple French Vanilla, which was with the company since it started in 1945, Caramel Praline Cheesecake (1970), Campfire S’mores (1975), Apple Pie a La Mode (1976) and Superfudge Truffle (2007). This has happened before, but never to such magnitude.”

Reported by NDP:
According to NPD’s Spring 2010 ReCount Study, the total number of restaurants declined by 5,204 from April 1, 2009 to March 31, 2010, and 5,093 of the units closed were run by independent foodservice operators.

From Ray Bradbury:
“Dandelion Wine. The words were summer on the tongue. The wine was summer caught and stoppered…Hold summer in your hand, pour summer in a glass, a tiny glass of course, the smallest tingling sip for children; change the season in your veins by raising glass to lip and tilting summer in.”

Listen to Radio Nibbles, John Lehndorff’s weekly food conversation and commentary program, at 8:25 a.m. Thursdays on KGNU – 885 FM, 1390 AM, and online at www.KGNU.org.

Comments: lehndorffj@aol.com

Visit: www.johnlehndorff.com

Homer’s grill tips; Top Chef winner hits street; 2,500-calorie pasta; grocery store restaurants growing

Homer Simpson’s grilling tips reported by Parade Magazine:
- “I find that a half pound of meat really wakes up a veggie burger.”
- “Grill up some vegetables for the vegetarians in your life, like my daughter, Lisa. It’s easy. But remember, no matter how you do it, veggies taste bad.”

Reported by dailycamera.com:
Season Five Top Chef winner Hosea Rosenberg and partner Laura Rice have started a new company, StrEat Chefs, a business that hooks up fast casual dining and gourmet street food trucks, using an Airstream trailer as a love nest. StrEat Chefs will be bringing the Airstream to Chautauqua, the Louisville Street Faire and the Twenty Ninth Street Mall this summer, as well as making lunch stops at local businesses and catering. However, the pair are thinking beyond Boulder. He and Rice hope to test-drive the concept in Boulder and then take it on the road, specifically to food-loving towns with the demographics to appreciate menu items ranging from homemade tater tots and the Vietnamese sandwich, bahn mi, to healthy salads and noodle bowls. “Our goal is to be the first national company of street food,” Rosenberg says. (Details: streatchefs.com)

Reported by AP:
The popularity of Bravo’s “Top Chef” has led to the launch of TopChefUniversity.com, a comprehensive online curriculum taught by the show’s celebrity chefs. Students pay $25 per month for self-paced classes that begin with kitchen basics and progress through increasingly complex lessons.

Reported by WebMD:
The latest list of terrible-for-you restaurant food is out, according to Michael Jacobson, executive director of the consumer group Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI):
California Pizza Kitchen Tostada Pizza with Grilled Steak: 1,680 calories, 32 grams saturated fat (50% more than recommended for adults), and 3,300 milligrams sodium.
Five Guys Bacon Cheeseburger: contains 920 calories and 30 grams of saturated fat.
P.F. Chang’s Double Pan-Fried Noodles Combo: 1,820 calories and 7,690 milligrams of sodium, more than a five-day supply.
Cheesecake Factory Pasta Carbonara with Chicken: 2,500 calories (25% more than an adult should get in a whole day) and 85 grams of saturated fat, according to the CSPI.

Reported by naturalfoodsmerchandiser.com:
“The recession has people looking for cheaper options to traditional restaurants. Couple this with a society in dire need of convenience and you’ve got a recipe for grocery store restaurants. Evidence of this trend was found across nearly 20 product categories, according to recent research conducted by Technomic for its RMS (Retailer Meal Solutions) Monitor intelligence service. While rotisserie chicken, macaroni and cheese and deli salads remain a substantial part of the mix, they are by no means the sole anchor to capture consumer attention and dollars, the report says. “From Korean-style barbecue, Hispanic baked goods and Mediterranean salads to gourmet versions of retro Americana sides, made-to-order specialty sandwiches and chicken wings in a host of flavors, it’s immediately clear that ‘deli’ doesn’t do these offerings justice,” says Jenny Anderson, manager of the RMS Monitor project.

Visit: www.johnlehndorff.com
Complaints, tirades, comments, critiques? lehndorffj@aol.com
Nibbles Colorado food column: http://yellowscene.com/2010/05/18/on-the-food-trail/

‘I’ll have a chocolate bacon funnelcake with fried, chorizo-stuffed olives’

A compendium of food, dining and beverage information from the U.S. and the world

Reported by gadling.com:

Knott’s Berry Farm has added a chocolate bacon funnel cake to the menu at the Buena Park, Calif., theme park’s Funnel Cake Kitchen.

Reported by Tastingtable.com:

Salty, crunchy fried olives have been a favorite bite-size snack in Italy for centuries, and now they’re making delicious inroads on American menus. At 8 Oz Burger Bar in Miami, chef Jacob Wildman fills large, green Spanish olives with house-made chorizo, rolls them in a cayenne-and paprika-spiked panko crust and fries them.

Reported by guardian.co.uk:

“When you are underfed, harassed, bored and miserable, you don’t want to eat dull, wholesome food. You want something a little bit tasty.”

Reported by icw-net.com:

Top Failed Haggis Marketing Ploys:
- Freeze-dried Haggis, the official haggis of NASA
- Kentucky Fried Haggis, in extra-crispy or the Colonel Original secret recipe
- Mountain Ewe, totally refreshing carbonated haggis beverage. Do the Ewe!
- Wool-Whip Non-dairy dessert topping
- Two all-sheep haggis, special sauce, lettuce, cheese……
- Haggis Dazs: Premium ice cream with chunky swirls of real haggis

 Reported by theretailbulletin.com:

New research published by G4S Secure Solutions reveals almost one in ten retail employees have committed a crime against their employer in the last 12 months. The most common crime committed by retail employees was consuming produce without paying for it. 

* Listen to Radio Nibbles, John Lehndorff’s weekly food conversation and  commentary program,  at 8:25 a.m. Thursdays on KGNU – 885 FM, 1390 AM, and online at http://www.kgnu.org.

* Nibbles Dining Column: http://yellowscene.com/2010/03/24/nibbles-talkin-bout-my-aging-generation

* Comments: lehndorffj@aol.com

* Visit: www.johnlehndorff.com

* Interview with Top Chef winner Hosea Rosenberg: http://www.ediblecommunities.com/frontrange/summer-2009/hosea-on-top.htm

Frasca and friends

Top Chef Masters party at Frasca

 

Photo by Kim Long/ American Forecaster

Boulder’s Frasca restaurant hosted a viewing party July 15 to watch an episode of Bravo’s Top Chef Masters featuring chef and co-owner Lachlan Mackinnon-Patterson.  He watches himself onscreen above with his daughter, Lydia. On the eatery’s tiny patio friends of the restaurant gathered to sip wine and nibble on house-baked grissini and prosciutto, mixed olives and roasted nuts. Among those in attendance: Tavio Laudisio of Laudisio Ristorante, Mathew Jansen of Radda and Mateo, Sylvia Tawse of the Fresh Ideas Group, and chef Ann Cooper who is revamping the fare in Boulder’s school cafeterias. In the end, Lachlan lost the chef competition but losing meant that we don’t have to watch this especially inane show next week. Besides, $3,000 was donated to Denver’s Children’s Hospital. If you’re keeping count, that means that four Boulder/Denver chefs have been involved in Top Chef shows in the past two years including Frank Bonanno (Mizuna/Luca d’Italia/Osteria Marco/Bones), Melinda Harrison (Happy Noodle House), and Hosea Rosenberg (Jax Fish House) who won Top Chef this season. You can read my interview with Rosenberg in the current issue of Edible Front Range Magazine.