Friday Faves No. 101

our favorite finds from the front lines of food

The San Francisco blog The Bold Italic has a series based on taking four-year-olds to fancy restaurants and getting their views on the food, like this little girl (above) who went to Plum. Unless chicken nuggets are in fact your favorite food, it's not super-informative, but they sure are funny. (Bold Italic)

Bodega Snacks & Wine Pairings: The Definitive Guide Now you know what to drink with wasabi peas & Swedish Fish. (Epicurious)

Bittman tackles talking about "organic" and "GMO" in Leave 'Organic' Out of It "Maybe all I’m saying here is this: There are two important struggles in food: One is for sustainable agriculture and all that it implies — more respect for the earth and those who live on it (including workers), more care in the use of natural resources in general, more consideration for future generations. The other is for healthier eating: a limit to outright lies in marketing “food” to children, a limit on the sales of foodlike substances, a general encouragement for the eating of real food." (New York Times)

It's about time: Seafood Suppliers Get Bullish on Brands “The marketplace has a lot of choices, so you need to position a strong brand, particularly with seafood...if we don’t position ourselves we can’t go to market.”  (Seafood Source)

Per-Anders Jörgensen photographs staff meals at top restaurants  "The family meal has evolved to become an extension of why people work in restaurants in the first place. Now more than ever it is fundamental to their success, and symbolic of what makes a good restaurant great." (Financial Times)

Airpocalypse Now: Jing-A’s New Double IPA Is Inspired by Beijing’s Notoriously Bad Smog
At the launch party, a sliding-scale beer discount was tied to the Air Quality Index.  (First We Feast)

Friday Faves — notes from the new gastroconomy, No. 74

weekly round-up of our favorite finds from the front lines of food

 

• In Australia, one farm is employing the cutest little beekeeper you've ever seen, a labrador retriever named Bazz (above) who takes to the fields in his custom-made suit and has been trained to sniff out diseased hives. (Treehugger)

• It's not like selling handbags: For online food startups, a challenging recipe for success "Unlike groceries, artisanal foods are generally considered a niche market. They make great gifts, as well as delicious occasional treats, but most people -- even foodies -- aren't buying high-end truffle oil too often." (Fortune)

• Rare Japanese Volkswagen Bus Toaster Imprints VW Logo on Toast and you can't have one, unless you're one of the lucky few. (Laughing Squid)

• Men's fashion site Mr Porter has bridged their style into food with their "The Way I cook" series, like this one with model and cake enthusiast Sam Homan. Anyone looking to make a company video for their food product, take notes. (Mr Porter)

• Hotels and resorts want a piece of the Farm to Table movement: "In May 2012, Hyatt Hotels Corp. required chefs at its 120 full-service hotels in the U.S., Canada and Caribbean to use at least five local ingredients on their menus. The rules define local as food grown or caught within 50 miles of the hotel." And the experiment is still going. (News-press)

• Want to know which currencies are over or undervalued? You can find the answers through Burgernomics. (Economist)

• More US consumers are looking to purchase organic foods, but supply issues are sending farmers and consumers to China. Will the US be able to sort out its domestic supply? (audio of radio show) (On Point)

• Harrod's links it's Cocktails and All that Jazz in-store promotions with its social platforms including great little videos like this one for mixing Hendricks gin cocktails in a teapot. “Extending a local retail campaign like this to digital can enable a global audience to participate, expose new customers to the brand, and ultimately, if done right, drive traffic and sales to ecommerce.” (Luxury Daily)

• How to drink coffee in space at zero gravity, explained to you, in this little video made by NASA. Because, you know, it could come in really handy if you find yourself in space. (Laughing Squid)

• San Francisco style prediction: uni is the new foie gras, with a tour of some of their favorite uni dishes, from crostini to flan to snuggled up next to a raw quail egg. (The Bold Italic)