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August 2008
What does it take to reinvent a restaurant?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I ate lunch recently at Joel, a north Atlanta restaurant that’s in the process of reinventing itself.
Chef and part-owner Joel Antunes left earlier this year for New York’s famed Plaza Hotel, to head the revamped hotel’s Oak Room. Cyrille Holata, Joel’s chef de cuisine, took over the reins in Atlanta. He has worked with Antunes for 14 years, including a stint at the Dining Room at the Ritz-Carlton Buckhead.
He knows the restaurant’s customers well enough to leave favorites like the gazpacho with tomato sorbet and mango pavlova on the menu, but is also introducing his own dishes.
The most recent change — and the restaurant has seen many since its opening seven years ago, from a cozied-up dining room to a now-defunct lunch takeout shop and spa menu — is a bistro lunch menu, a 30-minutes or less selection all at $10 or less.
Choices include French comfort foods like croque monsieur, a grilled ham and Swiss cheese sandwich served with bechamel sauce, along with a salmon and cucumber pasta, and other salads, pastas and sandwiches. You can still order from a more traditional lunch menu, too, where the gazpacho, pavlova and more labor-intensive entrees are offered.
Holata is focusing on foods sourced from local farmers when possible, although it’s not something customers will notice on reading the menu. At other restaurants that focus on local food, menus often identify the farm, perhaps converting diners into customers for those farmers when they see their meat or produce at local markets.
Do you notice the names of farms on restaurant menus? If so, does it influence whether you buy from that farm, or your opinion of the restaurant? If you’ve eaten at Joel recently, what do you think of the changes?
Take care, and eat smart.
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Would you buy irradiated spinach or lettuce?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Spinach and iceberg lettuce can be irradiated to kill harmful bacteria, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced Friday. Read the latest news story
What does that mean?
Irradiation is ionizing radiation, applied to food as gamma rays from radioisotopes, or electron beams or X-rays from machines. It penetrates into food to kill germs, and also kills insects on the surface of foods. Irradiation extends a product’s shelf life.
The Grocery Manufacturers Association of America asked the FDA to approve irradiation of leafy greens several years ago. Many consumer groups opposed it, instead pressing the FDA to impose more stringent farm-to-table safety standards.
The FDA approval only includes iceberg lettuce and spinach; other leafy greens, like romaine lettuce, may be added later. And the FDA continues to advise consumers to wash all leafy greens, including irradiated ones, before eating them.
Food that is irradiated must be labeled, a requirement that industry is trying to change. Industry petitions call for a more generic label like “pasteurized.” Irradiation can affect the flavor and texture of food, depending on the dose level; those promoting irradiating leafy greens say consumers won’t notice any changes at the levels used.
The approval comes at an interesting time. The FDA and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention continue to investigate a Salmonella Saintpaul outbreak that’s been tied to tomatoes and serrano peppers, one that’s still making Americans ill, albeit at a much slower rate than at its peak. Both agencies have been criticized for their handling of the investigation, with much of that criticism falling on the FDA.
At the same time, the produce industry is facing hundreds of million in losses from unsold tomatoes, jalapenos and serranos, the latest in a string of outbreak-related losses. In 2006, an e. coli 0157:H7 outbreak tied to spinach caused 205 confirmed illnesses and three deaths, and the spinach industry took a big hit. Sales suffered months after the outbreak had ended, with some shoppers continuing to avoid the food.
Consumers are the wild card in this situation. Will Americans embrace irradiation of iceberg lettuce, which has little to offer but its crunch, if irradiation affects that texture? Will those who seek out spinach for its healthfulness buy it if it’s been irradiated? Will people who avoid fresh salads now because they’re at higher risk for foodborne illness be able to eat and enjoy them again because they’ve been treated to reduce bacteria?
In the past, shoppers have had a mixed reaction. Irradiated foods such as beef have been a tough sell, but tropical fruit from Hawaii and spices haven’t faced the same level of resistance.
You can read the arguments for irradiation here and against irradiation, here.
Would you buy irradiated fresh spinach or iceberg lettuce? Why or why not?
Permalink | Comments (56) | Post your comment | Categories: Food Safety
What are your favorite specialty food/cooking stores?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Evening Edge is putting together a list of specialty food markets and gourmet cookware stores around Atlanta that are great resources for cooks.
I’ve got favorite places to buy hard-to-find items, or meats raised without antibiotics or hormones, or frozen cheese straw dough that’s as good as what I make from scratch. There are gourmet stores packed with equipment for serious cooks, such as Cook’s Warehouse and Sur la Table at Perimeter Mall, and ones that focus more on fun entertaining accessories, such as Swoozie’s.
If I wanted a wider range of Asian ingredients than I’d find at a mainstream grocer, I’d head to one of Super H Mart’s four metro locations. For British food or specialties from Australia, I’d go to Taste of Britain in Norcross. A co-worker is especially fond of El Valu, with stores in Smyrna and on Buford Highway, for a deep selection of Hispanic items, from Mexico to Argentina.
What are some of your favorite specialty markets that you’d like to share with other Atlanta cooks? Let us know about them here and we’ll try to work them into our directory.
Permalink | Comments (18) | Post your comment | Categories: Groceries
Is it worth the money to cut up raw chicken yourself?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
One of the surest ways to save money on food is to buy a whole chicken and cut it up yourself. There’s just one problem with this strategy for many people: They hate touching raw chicken.
How much do cooks dislike handling poultry? Enough so that a few years ago, one turkey producer introduced a bird that roasts in its original packaging, so that cooks need never touch raw poultry. There are good reasons to be careful when handling uncooked meat, such as spreading bacteria around the kitchen if you’re not careful. But if you wash hands and clean your cutting board and knife with warm, soapy water , there’s little to fear except the ick factor, which I think is probably what bothers most people who avoid cutting their own chicken.
I usually buy a whole chicken and roast it, mostly out of laziness. Just rub it with a little butter or olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper, stick in the oven at 350 degrees for an hour or so, and it’s done.
If I’m going to fry the chicken, I’ll cut it up into eight or 10 pieces. And if I happen to buy the chicken at the DeKalb Farmer’s Market, I’ll get one of the butchers to cut it up for free. Buying the whole bird saves anywhere from $3.50 to $9 a pound, depending on where you shop — I saw organic boneless, skinless breasts selling for $11.49 a pound at one major supermarket chain recently. So I’m willing to put in the time and knife work to save the bucks.
A couple of YouTube videos at the bottom of this post will show you how to do it: The first one focuses on the basics, just eight bone-in pieces; the second one details how to carve off boneless breasts and chicken tenders when you’re trimming the whole bird. A tip, though: Chicken cooked with the bone in is more flavorful.
Do you buy whole chickens to save money? Or would you rather pay extra to avoid touching raw poultry?
Permalink | Comments (38) | Post your comment | Categories: Groceries
Will collards and okra fly on school lunch menus?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I went to meet-and-greet at my twins’ elementary school yesterday, and got a look at the lunch menu for the next two weeks.
Along with the usual suspects — teriyaki chicken nuggets with rice and a breadstick, fish sticks with macaroni, side salads and fruit cups — were a few surprising newcomers.
Collard greens. Sweet potatoes. Baked, breaded okra. Tomato and zucchini casserole. Although school nutrition programs aren’t required yet to match menus to federal dietary guidelines that were revamped in 2005, more are starting to do so, including Cobb County schools, where my children are enrolled. I’m noticing more of the heavy-duty vegetables on some other districts’ menus, too.
The dietary guidelines call for more dark green, leafy vegetables like collards, orange ones like sweet potatoes and carrots, and legumes. I’m seeing beans in many forms on school menus, from the red beans and rice served in Gwinnett to the seasoned black-eyed peas on Cobb high school menus.
(Other metro district links: DeKalb breakfast and lunch menus; Clayton menus; city of Atlanta.)
But serving the vegetables is only part of the struggle. Getting kids to eat them is the other.
If your children buy a school lunch, do they usually choose and eat the vegetables served? As schools move away from Tater Tots and iceberg lettuce to vegetables with a greater nutritional punch, do you think your children will embrace collards, okra and sweet potato pancakes? Are these foods that they eat at home? If you’re a teacher or lunchroom worker, how do you think students will react?
Permalink | Comments (12) | Post your comment | Categories: Healthy eating
What do you think of the choices on kids’ menus?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
We went out to eat last night with our 8-year-old twins, to a restaurant known for its local, sustainable food. Just the kind of place you’d expect lots of healthy food and fresh vegetables served within a couple of days of harvest, right?
Sure, if you’re ordering from the adult menu. The kids had already settled on one of the daily specials, a veggie pizza with eggplant, spinach, bell peppers and tomatoes, when the waiter sauntered over. We’ve got chicken fingers, fries and macaroni and cheese made with white cheese, not with cheese that’s been dyed orange, he said. They also offered soft drinks. We asked about milk. They had it, but only whole milk, which is high in fat and not recommended for children ages 2 and older.
I didn’t even know they had a children’s menu. I was disappointed to learn it was the same bland lineup of high-fat, high-calorie foods that are on almost every children’s menu, rather than something that would take advantage of the restaurant’s strengths. The kids got water they juiced up with lemon slices, shared most of the veggie pizza, nibbled on their aunt’s heirloom tomato salad and had a few bites of our pie, with house-cured salmon and avocado.
I’m not sure why I was surprised. We just don’t order from kids’ menus when we go out, because so many of them offer nothing but fat, sugar and starches. I might laugh about the idea of someone offering a macaroni and cheese plate with fries on the side for children, except I’ve seen it listed on too many menus.
The Center for Science in the Public Interest released a study today on children’s menus that probably won’t surprise many parents. Of the kids’ meals at 13 chains surveyed, 93 percent exceeded 430 calories. For a child ages 4 to 8, that’s one-third of their daily needs. A few meals exceeded 1,000 calories.
The report singled out KFC, Chick-fil-A, Taco Bell, Sonic, and Jack in the Box, which operates on the West Coast, as the chains most likely to offer kids’ meals that were too high in calories. (The links provided lead to nutrition information for those chains.)
Among the chains surveyed, some of the kids’ meals ranged from 830 to 1,020 calories. The group’s report notes that with many children eating these kinds of meals regularly, rather than as an occasional indulgence, the calories can pack on unneeded weight and lead to long-term health problems. (For a different take on the healthfulness of meals served at Chick-fil-A, check out dining critic Meridith Ford’s blog about a new book that gives it an “A”.)
Subway offered the healthiest choices, according to the study, with just a third of its kids’ meals exceeding 430 calories.
CSPI is using the study to argue for nutrition information on restaurant menus. That’s not likely to happen in Georgia, since legislators passed a bill earlier this year banning cities and counties from requiring restaurants to do this.
Still, you can find some nutritional information online for chain restaurants, and work out a healthier combination meal — extra crispy drumstick instead of popcorn chicken at KFC, mandarin oranges instead of cinnamon apples at Chili’s — before you go.
What do you think of the nutritional quality of children’s meals? If you eat out, how do you handle what your child orders? Are there menu combinations that are off limits for your kids? Do you check nutritional information at restaurants?
Permalink | Comments (14) | Post your comment | Categories: Healthy eating
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