Courtesy of Escobar Highland Farm

A Ahhh: the A – Z of The Year in Food in Review!

B The buzzwords this year were “bacon, bacon, bacon,” butchers, back-to-basics cooking, Balloon Boy Batali, Barefoot C. D. Bouley, D. Boulud and db Bistro Moderne. The Beer summit with O_bama sent bloggers a-blogging. Blight (as in tomato) and the Big Bee Buzz Off also made news. Bottled water fell in trickle down economy.

C New cheese course in restaurants resulted in food jobs for cave men. Terrance Brennan, Chef-Proprietor of Picholine Restaurant and Artisanal Bistro and Wine Bar was nominated as Le Grand Fromage. Cup cake sales surpassed Pop Tarts. Copia, Napa’s bankrupt center for wine, food and the arts, was in the soup after amassing $78 million in debt.

D Doughnut claims proved to be full of holes.

E Epstein (Jason) wrote Eating: A Memoir.

F What began as “sugar-free” morphed into “salt-free,” “calorie-free” and “cholesterol free.” ‘FREE for All’ became the brand new and improved marketing concept. Let Freedom Ring! “Farm to table” was considered a brand new concept though, admittedly, this is the way people have eaten since the beginning of time. (The cost of a home-grown tomato was estimated to be in the range of $100. Gardening also took up heaps of free time.)

G Gordon Ramsay swore innocence in alleged sex affair. Government legalized marijuana. Rumors suggested that the appointed leader of a new agency would be known as Mr. Pot Head. ‘Green’ was declared the only way to go for those who wanted to get in the pink.

H Hospitals began replacing the rules of hospitality; some treated themselves like ‘out patients.’ They opted for a diet of denial. Dem(ocrat)s preferred smoothies. Healthy cocktails became all the rage.

I I will launch my web version of the Great Food Almanac in the new year.

J In the movie, Julie (Powell) blogged but Julia (Child) mastered our hearts.

K Kellogg dropped immune-boosting claims for sugary cereal — sweet gesture. Kraft’s courtship of Cadbury was rejected. Chocolate lovers turned dark and bitter.

L Happy No ‘L’ to All!

M Michelle (Obama) planted a vegetable garden. Martha (Stewart) tried to dig out from a 3rd quarter $11.7 million debt. Mobile foods kept on trucking.

N NASA located ice on the moon; still searching for scotch on the rocks.

O Organic lost its charisma; “sustainable” was the newfound concept. Obits for Sheila Lukins (of the Silver Palate) and Café des Artistes were written. Gourmet (magazine) bit the dust. Tavern on the Green is now on life support, but soon will be resurrected.

P Po’ Boys were getting poorer. Petite sweets were big and getting bigger.

Q Q’s were forecast for health care reformers by grim death panels. Q’s were eliminated by self-serve check outs in supermarkets. Barbeques remained popular with Dads, who prowled their backyards with a beer and a spear.

R NRA (National Restaurant Association) pegged future profits to rising Tide. Many restaurants washed up, leaving line cooks out to dry. French Laundry Executive chef Thomas Keller ironed out his issues and revealed a softer side.

S This year we appointed two supreme judges: Sonia S(otomayor) and Sam S(ifton). One is a fed, the other is a foodie. Both were well grilled before taking their hot seats — one on the bench, the other on the banquette. Both thanked their lucky stars.

T T-baggers made a big splash. Tweeters’ ‘Rec.A.P’s got even shorter.

U U still here?

V tV Food Network cooked up only contests and conflicts that generate a stampede of students into culinary schools.

W Increased cooking school enrollment led to more cooks, less home cooking. WOW!

X XXX and XXXX designates grades of confectioners’ sugar that is dusted on Xmas cookies.

Y Yellow fins were sinking. Yellow tails are rising.

Z SEASONings EATings to all and to all a white knight! Zzzzzzz.. Tweet Tweet… The  Nd

Cordially,

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Ron Ben-Israel Cake, photo by Monica Stevenson

The Chicago Sun Times tells us about the sensitive guy who announces to his beloved that before they go any further he needs to tell her something. That something turns out to be his revelation that he plans to serve pie on his/their? wedding day.

“So?,” as former Vice President Cheney, another sensitive charmer, is said to have asked. “So!” “Why Knot?” seems to be the reaction of the affianced…

Weddings are very sexy occasions — not only for the bride and groom, whose passion is on display for all to see, but also for those who are invited witness the joining of two into one. The occasion of the marriage ceremony gives us all a lot of great ideas as once again we turn our attention to matters of food and drink in general, and wedding cakes in general, and now — pies in particular.

Fashions change. Today’s wedding cake master designers like Sylvia Weinstock, Ron Ben-Israel, and the Ace of Cakes, no longer, (or mostly no longer), look with favor on those old-time tacky plastic bride and groom figures standing stiffly on the top cake layer.

Pedestals and pillars have been jettisoned and cascades of fresh flowers have gained favor among the eco-friendlies. Now five or even six cake layers are placed one on top of another, each one composed of a different symphony of flavors.

So if pie it is to be, what’s the big deal?  If pies and cup cakes don’t quite jell with the glamour of the occasion, there’s yet another alternative. Krispy Kreme tells us, doughnuts can be created into a  stunning make-believe wedding cake when festooned with cascading ribbons and real, or almost real, certainly life-like, flowers. Thoughtful brides are handing out boxes containing two-for-the-road-doughnuts to their departing-but still-hungry-after-the-reception-guests. The doughnut favors are $2 a box plus $50 to have them passed out by a Krispy Kreme representative.

The best edible wedding day advice yet comes from a couple who, having lived together for a few years, decided to march down the aisle holding a dozen hard boiled eggs that they decided to put all in one basket.

If you want a career in wedding cake designing and decorating or pie making or cake art, you can read more in  FOOD JOBS.

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Courtesy of http://chanpoetry.blogspot.com/2009/06/ticking-clock.html

I’ve been thinking about time, and how starved we have all become.

We no longer have time to read Gourmet magazine. Ruth Reichl said, “We pioneered writing about farmers and issues from the field, and we wrote about genetic engineering when nobody else was touching that. We wrote about trans-fat and it was important for me to do that.” She added, “The advertisers didn’t agree that this stuff was what readers wanted to read. So they buzzed off.”

When the death bell tolled, Gourmet had a circulation of 980,000. Every Day with Rachael Ray has double this number of subscribers. She commands a rapturous following. Short cut cooking is all the rage.

Many magazines are folding. Newspaper circulations are plummeting. USA Today is the top selling newspaper with a circulation of 2,528,4372. The Wall Street Journal has the second highest subscriber base with 2,058,3423. The venerable New York Times is in third place. It has fallen to 1,683,8554. The Los Angeles Times has only 1,231,3185 readers while The Washington Post has plummeted below a million daily readers. These are among the top 100 newspapers. Number 100 on the list has barely 120,000 readers. The advertisers mostly have migrated online.

Sales of cookbooks, (and all but a precious few hard cover books), are languishing. A Kindle can provide a reader with thousands of books at a mere price of $9.99. Literary classics, like Wuthering Heights and the Complete Works of Shakespeare can be delivered in a few seconds at a cost of  just a couple of dollars.

All this is troubling news indeed for food writers.

The good news though, is there are plenty of other opportunities. This is the information age where bloggers like 101 Cookbooks are creating new universes. (According to Google, there are currently 12, 847, 478 food blogs, but who’s counting!) There’s also  work to be found writing: for supermarket publications; compiling food celebrity profiles; collaborating with chefs to write legible recipes; setting up shop as a restaurant reviewer or a publicist; seeking a position as a culinary librarian or an acquisitions or copy editor, fact checker, proof reader or indexer.

Or, perhaps…a culinary literary agent, who is required to spend his or her days reading, rewriting proposals and going out to lunch. Literary agents are among the few who take authors out for lovely, long lunches, (though usually only once).

Time is at a premium. Serve it yourself and do it yourself is the way to go today. Scan your own groceries. Fill your own gas tank. Check yourself onto the airline and out of the hotel. Find your own telephone number. Buy and sell, online. Earn a degree online. Do your own pregnancy test. Prescribe your own medicine. Heal thyself.

We have stopped cutting our own hair, cleaning our own clothes and looking after our own children. We have largely also stopped cooking. If a microwave “dinner” takes more than three minutes from freezer to table, forgeddabout it!

I mention all these things to emphasize how important it is to keep up with changing trends. It is essential then to identify which sectors of the food and hospitality industries are thriving and which may require a dive into treacherous waters.

The two messages we are receiving loud and clear are: Keep it short and surely you can’t be serious. (Observe the TV Food Network programming.)

So tweet tweet. I am AAK. (Asleep at the Keyboard.)

LOL (Lots of Love)

IC

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