Food « Black Marks on Wood Pulp / by Corey Vilhauer

Category: Food

Restaurants can do spec work, too

October 11th, 2011

Daily deal sites like Groupon and LivingSocial are built upon the concept of traffic.

The goal of the daily deal site is to increase site traffic by offering amazing deals in a short window of time. The goal of the client – the company featured in the deal – is to increase traffic in the store by providing half-priced meals or spa visits.

The majority of these clients – especially those in our area – are new and/or small restaurants. There are no Burger King or McDonald’s deals; instead, the emails are for the new neighborhood bistro, or the 20-seat enchilada restaurant.

The selling point of these daily deal sites is the promise of increased traffic. The assumption is that increased traffic will eventually lead to repeat customers. Salespeople make their case and small restaurants – most of whom have no one on staff responsible for serious marketing – buy the line.

And then, there it is. Spend $15 and get $30 worth of food from your local Indian restaurant.

That’s a huge discount. Offering a fifty-percent cut on a meal, in an industry that makes on average four cents of every dollar in profit, means you are giving away your food for free. Not just a sample, either. An entire meal. And, as AmEx’s Open Forum reported, only one in five of these people are returning to make a full-price purchase.

A client giving away their craft for the promise of exposure, while the daily deal site profits.

That, my friends? That’s serving food on spec.

Which helps narrow down why I get so annoyed with daily deal sites.

Comments: 1

Issues Considered: Annoyances, Food, Marketing

Anything you want, we’ve got it

May 9th, 2011

On Friday night, Kerrie and I talked about how great it would be to have a service that compiled your recipes, instinctively reading and separating the ingredients and organizing them through some tagging structure. Because as fantastic as Epicurious is, it’s limited to its recipe box, and we have a lot of recipes that aren’t in that box.

“That would be great,” we said. “I can’t wait for someone to figure that out,” we said.

Today during her presentation at Confab, Mandy Brown of Typekit/A Book Apart mentioned, offhandedly, that she would love – and would totally pay for – a Pinboard-like service for recipes. Like whoa, I was just talking about that, and, like whoa, I am thrilled someone else is looking for that type of service. Like whoa.

And then I ran into Daniel Eizans, and mentioned how funny it was that the “recipe compiling service need” was brought up, because, OMG LIKE ME TOO, and Daniel says, “OH HAI YOU MEAN LIKE THIS?”

Like this = Pepperplate.

And yes. I do mean like this.

The Internet, you guys. You say “I wish this was a thing” and it responds by saying “Dude, it already is.”

Comments: 2

Issues Considered: Food, Web

Serves Four

March 15th, 2011

I live for food, it seems. I live for pizza and Indian and Thai and slow-cooker pork and enchiladas and more enchiladas and let’s just say I really like enchiladas, okay, so stop judging.

Want to know what makes this “live for food” thing pretty fun? My wife. She likes to cook. A lot.

So we cook. A lot. And we try new things. And we grow gardens. And we buy cookbooks with beautiful pictures. And we introduce our kids to foods that they normally wouldn’t encounter and, let’s be honest, they still don’t eat them but at least they know what lentils and cardamom pods and homemade turkey pot pie are.

Serves Four In the past month, we’ve roasted our own coffee, baked our own hamburger buns, planned a spring garden and developed a fast and easy kettle corn process.

(I say “we,” as if I’ve had any real input other than saying, “OMG THAT SMELLS GOOD LULZ!”)

So we like cooking, baking and gardening.

Now that THAT’S been established, I’d like to finally announce Kerrie’s new blog: Serves Four, a blog about cooking, baking and gardening. It’s named “Serves Four” because our four person family gets to reap the rewards of all that cooking, baking and gardening. It’s a blog because there JUST AREN’T ENOUGH cooking, baking and gardening blogs out there.

Check it out. We’d appreciate it.

Beef freezer

February 24th, 2011

Today, Kerrie made a list of food in our freezer. She did this because we just purchased a third of a cow, and we need to remember what we have in there. YES, I SAID A THIRD OF A COW.

The list:

Beef roast (2)
Sirloin steak
Beef stew (2)
Ribeye steak
Beef ribs
T-bone steak
Ground beef (14 lbs.)
Whole chicken (2)
Fake bacon (2)
Spicy black bean (3)
Garden veggie (2)
Meat crumble
Ham hock
Lasagna (3)
Rhubarb
Cubed ham

And to think: we used to be vegetarian.

In other news, Kerrie now has an extra reason to collect frozen food. She has her own blog: Serves Four.

I think it’s pretty great, so go bookmark it or RSS it or whatever you people do to save cool web blogs.

Comments: 2

Issues Considered: Blogging, Food

Food of the future

January 8th, 2010

We’re Schwan’s customers, or, at least, we’re Schwan’s customers as much as is allowed while only purchasing ice cream every four weeks. It wasn’t a choice – it came with our house. Or, to be clear, the handsome Schwan’s delivery driver came with the house, a bi-weekly reminder of our mortality.

Schwan's “Only TWO gallons of ice cream?” he says, burrowing a deep gaze into our resistance.

It’s the extra 150 pounds or so I’ve gained since moving into this house that put things into perspective. What is this service? In Today’s Turbulent and Volatile Economy, how do people justify ordering frozen food via delivery service, the prices sitting comfortably at around 20% higher than grocery store rates?

My only guess: this is some weird holdover from the 50’s, when convenience was the invention du jour. The catalog reads like one of those Sears Wish List books, with row after row of frozen food, all ready to put into your Kitchenaid Range or, later on, your Panasonic Microwave Oven.

Jetsons Kitchen of the Future Broccoli. Penne Gratin. Mixed Vegetables. Sushi Rolls. Meatballs (Turkey or Pork). Pretzel Poppers. Tomato Basil Soup. Green Beans. Sliced Ham. Brown Rice.

“Don’t forget to tell them about this week’s special, the Pirogues.”

Yes. Sorry, handsome delivery driver.

This is Schwan’s. Everything – and I mean EVERYTHING – at the ready. Totally prepared and brought to your door. But now, instead of the future, it seems like an old standby of less frugal times.

This, my friends, is the future we were always waiting for. And it continues to serve us, one bag of frozen grilled mushrooms at a time.

Comments: 2

Issues Considered: Food, Home, On..., Technology

Risotto spoon

November 23rd, 2009

It may simply look like a wooden spoon, sure. You wouldn’t be crazy to think that. But you’d be wrong.

It’s handle was thick; sturdy and solid, it gave control to the flimsy, tedious process of stirring. It’s wide face, cupped enough to provide necessary currents, gave life to dried rice, moving, constantly moving, the power to sift and dance and swirl. It was more than a wooden spoon. It was an agent of change, perfect for turning rice into risotto through the slow, delicate process.

Pour. Stir. Pour. Stir. It sat idle only long enough to allow for a bit of liquid.

It was hefty. It felt comfortable. It was perfect.

That is, it was until Becket found it. A few minutes of gnawing and several slivers later, it had become old news, left abandoned as he turned his attention to another bone.

Some people might say, “Just get another one.” But then again, it wasn’t just a wooden spoon. Which makes it painfully obvious how much some people don’t understand.

Cheese

November 13th, 2009

I love cheese. Love it. LOVEIT. There is nothing better. Nothing. NOTHING.

Kerrie asked me recently to guess the three classes of consumables she appreciated the most. I kinda sorta guessed correctly: coffee, beer, bread. And, I wholeheartedly agree – my three are nearly the same, with the only difference being my choice of cheese over bread.

(Though both are crucial for the most underrated great food in the world: the grilled cheese.)

Coffee. Beer. Cheese. I’m good, thanks.

That being said, there are things I don’t want to know about cheese.

It’s fermented. Through acid and coagulation, it’s rotted to a perfect, pungent taste. It’s separated like bad cream, the chunky part smashed and left to sit. Sometimes, it’s curdled.

We usually throw out things that are curdled.

It’s moldy. It’s often filled with gross things like pimentos and horseradish. It’s smelly. It has a rind. Oranges have a rind, and you DON’T EAT THE RIND.

It’s populated with weird (albeit awesome) words. Curd. Rennet. Milkfat. Blue vein. Sometimes, it’s barely cheese at all; it’s milk-like (see: Époisses) or it’s processed (see: Velveeta).

Despite the fact that it’s a staple in my diet, and despite the fact that it’s responsible for my second favorite Monty Python sketch, cheese is sort of creepy.

If you think about it too much.

Which is why I don’t think about it too much.

[Prompt: Cheese is sort of creepy, if you think about it too much.” – Abi Jones, editrix of Heat Eat Review, UX expert, Arnold Schwarzenegger expert.]