beer

Friday Faves No. 91

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Meat Atlas Shows Latin America Has Become a Soy Bean Empire (Guardian)


The home brewing trend has left cooks with a new ingredient. Spent But Not Worthless: How to Cook with Spent Grain (Food52)

3D-printed pasta – the shapes of things to come? Italian food giant and Dutch researchers working on technology for rapid production of custom-designed pasta shapes.  (Guardian)

Spain Tightens Rules for Bottled Olive Oil attempting to use compulsory labeling as a way to boost the country's image as a producer. “It now also gives Spain a chance to ensure every visitor goes home with a clearer appreciation of our oil."  (New York Times)

Food truck clusters making quickie urban development: SoMa StrEat Food Park in S.F. "We've created an oasis in a food desert." (SF Gate / San Francisco Chronicle)

Although from a few weeks ago, this issue came across our desk again this week. China's ban on Pacific Northwest shellfish that's left an industry stranded is an important reminder to not put all your export "eggs" in one basket. (Olympian)

And this one was too awesome to not run: there's a small but growing trend for subdivisions with a working farm at their center. There are more than 200 of them across the country. (NPR)

Friday Faves — notes from the new gastroconomy, No. 87

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

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  • Are you ready for a machine that brews beer for you at home? The PicoBrew Zymatic works like a bread machine and might be coming to a counter top near you. "A pro can do targeted test batches," says Mitchell, who created the  PicoBrew brand with his brother and another former Microsoft executive. "A beginner can produce beer using someone else's recipes, because it  takes talent to come up with great recipes. Both parties can benefit  from the tool."(Fast Company)

Sing Along Snacks: Beer Bottle Boogie

It's never too early or too late for a snack, so crank up that volume on your computer.

Our love of craft beer is spilling over into Snack selections with the Beer Bottle Boogie by Ko Ko Taylor.

"Well I don’t like beer when I’m goin too fast

I don’t like foam in a muggy glass

You put out s’more and let the beats come on

I drink good beer when I go home"

Friday Faves — notes from the new gastroconomy, No. 85

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

  • Singing the praises of masa, from pupusas (above, from a NYT slide show) to arepas and tortillas. "Without the tortilla, there is no taco. And, as the Mexican saying goes: Sin maíz, no hay país. Without corn, there is no country." (New York Times)
  •  An OpEd on how states can help Keep Farmland for Farmers by the founders of the National Young Farmers Coalition highlighted the difficulty faced by farmland turning into second homes for the wealthy. "Easements are intended to protect farmland, water, animal habitat, historic sites and scenic views, and so they are successful in keeping farms from becoming malls and subdivisions. But they don’t stop Wall Street bankers from turning them into private getaways, with price tags to match....one-quarter of the land trusts that oversee these conservation easements have seen protected land go out of production. Why? A nonfarmer had bought it." (New York Times)
  • In Scotland two of our favorite industries are joining together to turn the byproduct of whisky into salmon feed. “Distillery effluent can be damaging, but also contains potentially valuable nutrients and micronutrients. The waste can also be used to produce a microbial biomass which has the potential to be a cheap and sustainable source of protein-rich feed." (Food Magazine)
  • Marcella Hazan, teacher, cookbook author and guide to Italian cooking for scores of Americans, died this week at 89. Her New York Times obituary quoted her husband on her notoriously strident style: "'A lot of people had encounters with her because she knew in her mind, in her heart, exactly how things were supposed to be,” Mr. Hazan said on Sunday. “That is what made her cooking great. Marcella wasn’t easy, but she was true. She made no compromises with herself with her work or with her people.'” (New York Times)
  • Ever want a taste of that cake you're bringing to a party later but can't think of a way to cover up where you snuck a taste? Of course you do. The solution to that dilemma has been found in the Nibble, a cake pan with a tiny sidecar for sampling. (Laughing Squid)

 

Friday Faves — notes from the new gastroconomy, No. 84

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

  • Guerilla Wi-Fry: Burger King left giant, eight-foot-long fries lying on the streets of New York, Los Angeles and Chicago (above), along with free wi-fi in the area, to promote its new crinkle-cut fries. (Design Taxi)
  • We've posted about independent Scottish brewery Brew Dog before because we love their irreverent style. Now US consumers are going to get to know them better through a show on the new Esquire network (see video previews) where they travel around the country making new beers and evangelizing for craft brewing. Audio clip on the show from The World. (PRI/The World & Esquire)
  •  October 2 is National Kale Day, with a whole supporting web site celebrating all things kale (actually way more about kale than you would have thought possible).

Friday Faves — notes from the new gastroconomy, No. 79

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

  • We're so excited about this retail-focused photo shoot (above) we did for a client, that we had to share. The full gallery is on our site.
  • Sure, it's a bit gossipy, but Eater's Airing of Grievances, Parts One and Two is hard to resist. New York food writers dish on both the new and established, from David Chang, to Le Bernardin and Cronuts. Preach. (Eater)
  • Food columnist Mark Bittman braved locavore wrath by stepping out to say that Not All Industrial Food Is Evil, like canned tomatoes, for example. "The issue is paying enough for food so that everything involved in producing it — land, water, energy and labor — is treated well. And since sustainability is a journey, progress is essential. It would be foolish to assert that we’re anywhere near the destination, but there is progress — even in those areas appropriately called 'industrial.'” (New York Times)
  • It's hard to pass up a headline like Sommelier turns water into cash. The 43-page water tasting menu at Ray's and Stark Bar located in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art sounds a bit more like performance art than an epicurean experience, but it wouldn't be the fist wacky idea from LA (see avocado beer). And then there are great phrases, like how one comes to "drink water professionally" and the new branded water Beverly Hills 90H20. (CNN)

Friday Faves — notes from the new gastroconomy, No. 78

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

 

  • Chefs as media celebrities is old news. Now chefs are becoming comic book heroes (see right). "According to the folks at Marvel, 'Fanboys and foodies are very much alike. There are similar mentalities to both kinds of fandom.' Foodies collect culinary experiences—often displayed in digital pictures—oozing with the same glory and excitement found in the eyes of fanboys (geek culture aficionados) who collect comic books." (Food Arts)
  • Ever wonder how sake gets made? The Birth of Sake, a documentary in progress and looking for more crowd funding by Erik Shirai, gives a peak into the ancient process. View a short video about the project (Food Tech Connect)

Friday Faves — notes from the new gastroconomy, No. 77

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


  • Sushi Cat Island (above, full video here), courtesy of Japan. Sometimes, it doesn't help to ask why. The world, and internet videos, are mysterious.
  • Ecologists Turn To Planned Grazing To Revive Grassland Soil "'When I learned about it, that style of grazing, the basis was everybody was producing more grass," said Andrews, a fifth-generation cattle rancher in eastern Colorado. "It's hard, as a producer, to argue with more grass. Because we never have enough grass.'" (NPR)
  • The trailer for A Year in Burgundy (a documentary film on Burgundy winemakers that Polish has done publicity and promotion for) has been viewed 11,000 times by people in 128 countries. Have you seen it yet?

 

Friday Faves — notes from the new gastroconomy, No. 75

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

 

  • Draught and flood-resistant gorilla beans (above) are helping fight malnutrition in central Africa. "Protein-rich gorilla beans have been bred to target malnutrition in DRC's North and South Kivu provinces. They contain up to double the iron and 70% more zinc than regular beans, and are often used as a meat substitute. Much of the scientific research into the purple and white kidney-shaped pulses, which have been produced without genetic modification, has been conducted by African research institutions" (The Guardian)
  • Rising temperatures are throwing food production in jeopardy, especially in the western US, and we're not doing enough to adapt, says an OpEd on Our Coming Food Crisis. "Last year some farmers made more from insurance payments than from selling their products, meaning we are dangerously close to subsidizing farmers for not adapting to changing climate conditions." Maybe we should be looking at Gorilla Beans too. (New York Times)
  • The Distraction of Data: How Brand Research Misses the Real Reasons Why People Buy "The evolutionary psychologist Geoffrey Miller believes that humans display brands like proud peacocks exhibit their tail feathers, as “fitness indicators” that advertise their potential as mates....Humans also advertise their “fitness” to our fellow kind. The brands we choose are symbols that signify traits that mark our success and worth in the pecking order." (Fast Company)
  • We love collective action: A new seafood industry coalition for sustainability has formed called Sea Pact, made up of member companies Albion Fisheries, Fortune Fish & Gourmet, Ipswich Shellfish Group, Santa Monica Seafood, Seacore Seafood and Seattle Fish Co. "The coalition will pool resources to promote fisheries and aquaculture improvements, in an effort to support more environmentally-friendly fishing and seafood farming." (Seafood Source)
  • In the shadow of the world's tallest building, Dubai has a farmers market. "A whopping 4000 people attended the first market. 'People were unbelievably grateful...Local produce just was not available to the common man.'” (Modern Farmer)

Friday Faves — notes from the new gastroconomy, No. 64

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

  • 3D printing meets food (above). Janne Kyttanen has produced prototype printed pasta, breakfast cereal and burgers to demonstrate how advances in 3D printing could transform the way we eat (interview and slideshow). "Kyttanen, co-founder of design studio Freedom of Creation and creative director of printer manufacturer 3D Systems, told Dezeen: 'Food is the next frontier. We’re already printing in chocolate, so a lot of these things will be possible in the next few years.'"
  • What drones should be dropping: beer. In South Africa this summer, concert goers will be able to order beer on their phones that will be delivered by drone, kind of like beer from heaven.
  • Square, the mobile payment start-up firm, sets its sights on the food industry "Several months ago, Square launched a “Business in a Box” package for $249, including two card readers, an iPad stand, a cash drawer and an optional receipt printer, all wirelessly connected to the Square Register app. Last week, Square announced an update to that app designed specifically for quick-serve restaurants, allowing operators to modify orders and print kitchen tickets."
  • Flavor and Language — the eternal challenge of describing flavors in words. "I came across an interview with Harold McGee, that peerless explorer of the science of food. In it he said apropos of sauvignon blanc: ‘It is so difficult to connect particular flavours with their sources, it’s hard to really define what minerality is, or what the expression of a place in a product could actually be. And you have to ask yourself, how many times have people actually tasted minerals, like the flint from which Loire white wines are said to get their flavour? How often do you put a rock in your mouth and suck on it?’" via the excellent project Flavour First
  • Workers Claim Racial Bias in Farms’ Hiring of Immigrants “If you can’t find locals to do the work, why is the answer to bring in people who have little protection and not grant them legal status?” asked Mr. Knoepp of the Southern Poverty Law Center. “If we need them, why not bring them in and make them legal citizens with real protections? The answer is because then they wouldn’t keep working in the fields given the conditions of that work. They would do something else. It doesn’t have to be this way.”

  •  Trending: sommeliers = new food celebrities "Until recently, serious restaurants in the United States were owned by celebrity chefs, creative developers like Danny Meyer and Richard Melman, or corporate chains. But sommeliers have now begun taking the lead role, as investors make them the centerpiece of their restaurant concepts."

  • Nigeria is one of the top markets for champagne. "The figures, from research company Euromonitor, found that Nigeria had the fastest growing rate of new champagne consumption in the world, second only to France, and ahead of rapid growth nations Brazil and China, and established markets such as the US and Australia." And not only are they drinking champagne, they're making music video about it. Check out Pop Champagne


Friday Faves — notes from the new gastroconomy, No. 59

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

 

  • International style reigns: The Liberation of Paris  Vibrant, young, adventurous, international chef shake it up (in glamorous slides from the New York Times).
  • View the other worldly Vanishing Spirits: The Dried Remains of Single Malt Scotch "'After first noticing the patterns left behind in his glass, Button began experimenting with other Scotch residues, shining different colored lights on them and photographing them up close. The results were strangely beautiful. 'A little celestial, or extraterrestrial, almost,' says Button."

Friday Faves — notes from the new gastroconomy, No. 50

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

 

  • We found ourselves on a bit of a theme this week with stories from Scotland, and this little gem of a video sealed the deal. Above is a fine example of what the internet was really meant for — a goofy song featured animated Scotch Eggs.
  • It's a little geeky but a cool development for fisheries: the James Dyson Award goes to a new kind of net called a SafetyNet (link to a video that explains it all to you). "The goal of the SafetyNet system is to make commercial fishing more sustainable by significantly decreasing the numbers of non-target and juvenile fish caught during the trawling process."
  • And now to mix it up, an only-in-New York story of the The Lox Sherpa of Russ & Daughters, famous smoked fish emporium of the Lower East Side. "After growing up on a diet of flour paste, cheese soup and butter tea, Mr. Sherpa now subsists on caviar and pickled herring and wild Baltic salmon. Instead of trekking in flip-flops, he hops the F train to work (when it’s running), and he prefers coffee to butter tea. “Forget about it,” he said. “You have to start your day with coffee in this city.”'

Friday Faves — notes from the new gastroconomy, No. 47

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

  • Wine in a box, wine in fake designer handbags, now wine in a can. Hmmm.
  • Campus Farms are springing up all over and now will have help from a new resource called Campus Farmers. '“There’s a great new trend of students growing their own food on college campuses. They’re very excited, but they often have no idea where to begin,” Nicole Tocco, East Coast fellow for the Bon Appétit Management Company Foundation, tells TakePart. “This will be a place where they can post questions, blog posts, status updates and more. There will be a resource section to show them how to get started.”'

Friday Faves — notes from the new gastroconomy, No. 43

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

  • A sense of whimsy decorates a bar called “Le Nid” (meaning the nest) in Nantes, France.
  • Food has always been part of diplomacy, but now American chefs are being tapped by the State Department as official culinary ambassadors. "The wide-ranging effort creates an American Chef Corps, a network of culinary leaders who could be deployed to promote U.S. cooking and agricultural products abroad."
  • Smithsonian magazine takes a visual tour through the history of the lunchbox, from 19th tins to mid-20th century classics, like the Partridge Family and Lost in Space.
  • There's nothing more mid-century than nuclear obsession. Cold War–Era Science Shows Beer Will Survive a Nuclear Apocalypse "In a world that had seen the potential of nuclear weaponry and that faced the threat of disaster as America and the U.S.S.R descended into the Cold War, a hierarchy developed around facts society might need to know about nuclear explosions. Number 32.2a on that list, apparently, was understanding 'The Effect of Nuclear Explosions on Commercially Packaged Beverages.' Specifically, beer. And soft drinks."
  • Urbanization Puts Farms In Africa's Cities At Risk "The survey — which is the first of its kind — looked at city farming in 31 countries, where more than half of Africa's urban population lives. The authors say that governments need to integrate urban farming into city planning, or else the cities may lose one of their best sources of food."

 

Friday Faves — notes from the new gastroconomy, No. 41

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

  • Pastry chefs are tough, and so are their tattoos, like the one at right of a KitchenAid mixer, easily the best of 21 Awesome Culinary Tattoos.
  • Farmers hard hit by the extreme drought are turning to twitter for news and support, but also checking in on the grain market prices via twitter.  Market information that used to take days is now a farmers fingertips. 
  • Mark Bittman, in his latest New York Times Opinionator column, eloquently urges us all to Celebrate the Farmer! "...to get these beautiful veggies, we need real farmers who grow real food, and the will to reform a broken food system. And for that, we need not only to celebrate farmers, but also to advocate for them."  Now if we could just get some rain...
  • If anything is worth signing a petition for it's definitely the White House Honey Ale recipe. Press Secretary Jay Carney says: "Got a Q today on  petition asking us to share WH beer recipe:  If it reaches the threshold, we'll release it"  So far (at the time we are publishing this faves edition) 6,895 have signed.....we only need 18,105 more.
  •  For those of you who didn't know that today, August 24, 2012 is  National Waffle Day, and are just kicking yourselves because you didn't fully celebrate like you think you should, well, it's not too late celebrate.  Thanks to our friends over at Laughing Squid, we found Georgi waffle-flavored vodka. This new libation was launched today, at the breakfast bar (literally!) at the Holiday Inn Express in Stony Brook, NY.  According the good folks over at Georgi in addition to making a fun addition to breakfast, they have concocted a number of waffle-inspired cocktails including the signature waffle-tini — the drink over ice, served with a mini waffle garnish on the rim of the glass.   I guess with enough waffle-tinis, just about anyone could end up with a KitchenAid tattoo!

Friday Faves — notes from the new gastroconomy, No. 36

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

This week we're dedicating ourselves to one of our favorite themes — beer.


  • Is it really true that everything good in the universe can be combined into one experience? Rouge Ales is giving it a try with it's new maple, bacon, doughnut beer. 
  • We had no idea that London ever fell out of love with beer, but according to the Washington Post, the romance is back on.

Friday Faves — notes from the new gastroconomy, No. 32

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

  • What the Pork Fairy might get as a tattoo, on the cover of Lucky Peach food journal.
  • "Driven by a growing awareness that the only thing local in most “local” beers is the water, microbrewers all over the country have begun using regional hops, fruits and honey. Now, many are taking the next logical step and snapping up local grains." Malters Bring Terroir to the Beer Bottle: Mr. Stanley (profiled in the article) "hopes the malt revival can stem the tide of hop-heavy pale ales, enabling craft brewers to focus on malt’s sweet, rich character and, in turn, open up a new kind of terroir for American craft brewers to explore."
  • It's Pastured Poulty Week in Atlanta and Athens, Georgia with over 30 chefs serving pastured birds to introduce them to the public. Chefs explain, that means new education for both customers and staff: “A few years ago we were able to get a very small supply from a gentleman in South Georgia, and when we would serve it, people would say things like it, ‘It’s too flavorful’ — which was funny to me, because, you know, this is what chicken actually tastes like. It made us realize that,  if we were going to change people’s minds about the product, we would have to do it with some education attached.”
  • The Guardian asks: Should we be eating more goat? "When goats are bred for dairy farming, the billies are killed at birth. Why not rear them free-range for meat instead? Says one farmer: "The idea of treating my billies as a waste product doesn't sit comfortably."