Behind the Scenes on Food Network

Posted on January 14, 2010 by Chris Zach

Back in the days when I had a TV, I was a big fan of the Food Network. What’s my favorite show? Good Eats! Thanks for asking. (I now own three of Alton Brown’s books after receiving Good Eats: The Early Years for Christmas.)

 

 

Good Eats

 

I never assumed that filming cooking shows was easy, but this article gives some idea of all the preparation that is required before filming can begin. And it turns out that the TV chefs have little people on their shoulders giving them cooking advice the whole time!

Excerpt:

One of the most surprising behind-the-scenes facts is the tiny earphone worn by many of the cooking show hosts. “Cooking on TV is a hard job,” Novatt says. “You need to really actually cook while listening to the culinary producer whispering in your ear telling you to smile and to move your hand because it's blocking the celery, all while you also have to pay attention to the studio director on the floor who is pointing to which camera you have to face.”

“What's great about the Food Network studio environment,” says Sunny Anderson, star of “Cooking for Real,” “is having a team where, if I miss an ingredient in the rush or forget how much time I have left, a gentle voice chimes in my ear to keep me on track.”

via Behind the scenes on Food Network – latimes.com.

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Pretty Power

Posted on January 11, 2010 by Chris Zach

Need power generation plants always exist as hulking industrial behemoths? Wind and solar power growth is already shifting the generation of electricity from an eyesore to a new and necessary component of our 21st century landscape.

Now a British architectural design firm is giving the more conventional combustion power plant a much-needed makeover. Of course, this plant doesn’t burn coal, but substitutes palm kernel shells instead.

Why not make these facilities good-looking and integrated into the environment? Sure, they lose their attraction as a movie setting for climactic clashes between humans and alien invaders, but they’re likely to endear much more good will with the surrounding community who views the plant out their kitchen windows.

Fancy-schmancy biomass plant

Fancy-schmancy biomass plant

Excerpt:

Heatherwick Studio has just released its design for a biomass station on the banks of the River Tees in British town Stockton-on-Tees, for British company BEI.

The facility is expected to pump out 49 MWe–enough to power 50,000 homes. Those homes are expected to see their per capita carbon footprint cut by as much as 80%, since the electricity will be generated simply by biomass generators that will burn palm kernel shells, rather than coal.

Thomas Heatherwick, Heatherwick Studio’s founder, has a genius for offbeat architecture, made with experimental techniques–for example, he designed a colony of houses with tinfoil and a bridge that curls up like a snail.

This time, the building has been conceived as less of a power station, and more of a local attraction and amenity. The building’s skin will literally be green, made up of exterior panels planted with local grasses. Inside, in addition to offices and the biomass factory, there will be a visitor’s center.

via Heatherwick Turns Biomass Into a Thing of Beauty | Design & Innovation | Fast Company.

Posted in Energy, Innovation | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Tostadas with Mango Pomegranate Guacamole, Black Beans, Cotija, and Cabbage Slaw

Posted on January 7, 2010 by Chris Zach

I had my heart set on attending the DC food bloggers’ potluck this evening, but the Iowa Hawkeyes’ victory in the Orange Bowl kept me out of the kitchen last night, and by the time I could pull a dish together today it was too late. Nonetheless, I think the selected dish turned out well and a couple friends helped me enjoy it for dinner.

The dish is tostadas with mango pomegranate guacamole, black beans, cotija, and cabbage slaw. Here’s a photo:

Tostada deliciosa

I was able to pick up all the ingredients at Lily’s Mexican Market in Columbia, MD near the office. It’s a wonderful little Mexican grocery with a kitchen in the back, and I’m always the only gringo there. They make fresh tortillas every day, and they also have a meat counter (carniceria), produce, and baked goods (panaderia).

As you’d guess, the guacamole is complimented with fresh mango and pomegranate seeds. Next comes cilantro-lime black beans, followed by crumbly, salty, irresistible cotija chese. The cabbage slaw (ensalada de repollo in Spanish, translates to cabbage salad) is in a cilantro/lime/garlic/chipotle dressing with radish. This was all layered on either crispy tostadas or tender tortillas made the same day. Me gusta.

Recipes:

Mango Pomegranate Guacamole
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/350568

4 ripe avocados (2 pounds total) 
1 cup finely chopped white onion
2 fresh serrano chiles, finely chopped (2 tablespoons), including seeds
1/4 cup fresh lime juice, or to taste
3/4 cup pomegranate seeds (from 1 pomegranate)
3/4 cup diced peeled mango 
1/2 cup chopped cilantro

Accompaniment: plantain chips
Garnish: lime wedges

Halve, pit, and peel avocados. Coarsely mash in a bowl. Stir in onion, chiles, 1/4 cup lime juice, and 1 1/4 teaspoons salt, then fold in pomegranate seeds, mango, and cilantro. Season with salt and additional lime juice.

Cooks’ note: 
Guacamole can be made 4 hours ahead and chilled, its surface covered with parchment paper or plastic wrap. Bring to room temperature and stir before serving.

Gourmet
November 2008
by Lillian Chou

Mexican Cabbage Slaw (Ensalada de Repollo)

1 clove garlic, minced
1 tablespoon ancho chili paste or adobo sauce (from a can of chipotles in adobo)
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
2 teaspoons brown sugar
1/4 cup oil
2 cups finely shredded green or red cabbage
1 bunch radishes (about 6), julienned
1/2 bunch fresh cilantro, roughly chopped
1/2 teaspoon salt

Whisk the garlic, chili paste, lime juice, sugar, and salt in a large bowl. Slowly whisk in oil to make a dressing. Add the cabbage, radish, and cilantro and toss.

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Lessons from an Engineered Restaurant Menu

Posted on January 4, 2010 by Chris Zach

New York Magazine published a piece providing some insight into the marketing – one might even say “gastro-econo-engineering” – that goes into well-planned restaurant menus today. The information is pulled from the book Priceless: The Myth of Fair Value (and How to Take Advantage of It) by author William Poundstone.

The terminology Poundstone uses seems roughly analogous to that employed by other businesses in portfolio planning, the BCG Growth-Share Matrix.

From the New York article:

Puzzles, anchors, stars, and plowhorses; those are a few of the terms consultants now use when assembling a menu (which is as much an advertisement as anything else). “A star is a popular, high-profit item-in other words, an item for which customers are willing to pay a good deal more than it costs to make,” Poundstone explains. “A puzzle is high-profit but unpopular; a plowhorse is the opposite, popular yet unprofitable. Consultants try to turn puzzles into stars, nudge customers away from plowhorses, and convince everyone that the prices on the menu are more reasonable than they look.”

Instead of puzzles, anchors, stars, and plowhorses charted based on popularity and profit margin, the BCG matrix uses stars, cash cows, dogs, and question marks organized by market growth rate and relative market share. So, the tools are similar in their mechanism but analyze slightly different marketing situations.

While a cash cow sounds like an expensive filet mignon, I can see why Poundstone wouldn’t want to label any restaurant dish with “dog”. These are both simple but powerful tools that can be used in strategic planning exercises to illuminate options for improving future profitability.

Another indispensible but deliciously simple strategy tool? SWOT.

Via Tyler Cowen’s Ethnic Dining Guide via Marginal Revolution via New York Magazine.

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Take Two Placebos and Call Me in the Morning

Posted on January 2, 2010 by Chris Zach

You’ve probably heard the results of many studies where pharmaceutical company’s hopes and dreams and tens-of-millions-of-dollars-investments are extinguished before they wake by the placebo effect.

Well, Sugapil is here to fill the void created by those stillborn dream drugs. With sugar pills.

It’s such a relief to see honesty in marketing.

From Sugapil.com:

Harness the power of your mind.

Sugapil©-like placebo has been shown to work effectively in hundreds of randomised control trials.

Most recently Sugapil©-like placebo was shown to help 60.1% of patients suffering from painful knee arthritis(1).

via Sugapil – harness the power of your mind.

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Thanks, NPR: The Loudness Wars: Why Music Sounds Worse

Posted on January 2, 2010 by Chris Zach

Thanks to NPR for bringing some mainstream attention to the lack of dynamic range in pop music today.

Have you ever heard a pianissimo on the radio? Nope. How can a song build to a rewarding musical climax without crescendo?

A Visual History of Loudness

As we come to the end of the decade, we turn to one of the more dramatic changes we’ve heard in music over those 10 years: It seems to have gotten louder.We’re talking about compression here, the dynamic compression that’s used a lot in popular music. There’s actually another kind of compression going on today — one that allows us to carry hundreds of songs in our iPods. More on that in a minute.

But first, host Robert Siegel talked to Bob Ludwig, a record mastering engineer. For more than 40 years, he’s been the final ear in the audio chain for albums running from Jimi Hendrix to Radiohead, from Tony Bennett to Kronos Quartet.

Bob pointed to a YouTube video titled The Loudness War. The video uses Paul McCartney’s 1989 song “Figure of Eight” as an example, comparing its original recording with what a modern engineer might do with it.

“It really no longer sounds like a snare drum with a very sharp attack,” Ludwig says. “It sounds more like somebody padding on a piece of leather or something like that,” Ludwig says. He’s referring to the practice of using compressors to squash the music, making the quiet parts louder and the loud parts a little quieter, so it jumps out of your radio or iPod.

Ludwig says the “Loudness War” came to a head last year with the release of Metallica’s album Death Magnetic.

“It came out simultaneously to the fans as [a version on] Guitar Hero and the final CD,” Ludwig says. “And the Guitar Hero doesn’t have all the digital domain compression that the CD had. So the fans were able to hear what it could have been before this compression.”

According to Ludwig, 10,000 or more fans signed an online petition to get the band to remix the record.

“That record is so loud that there is an outfit in Europe called ITU [International Telecommunication Union] that now has standardization measurements for long-term loudness,” he says. “And that Metallica record is one of the loudest records ever produced.”

via The Loudness Wars: Why Music Sounds Worse : NPR.

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