Category Archives: food

June 19, 2020 · 3:39 pm

Egg Creams

Foodie Friday! Unless you grew up in the New York area, you probably have no idea what an egg cream is. I suspect you might even have to be of a certain age to know. No, it has nothing to do with those eggs Cadbury sells. It’s a beverage, one that was a real treat when I was a kid. Here’s the thing: it contains neither eggs nor cream.

An egg cream is basically a glass of chocolate milk with some carbonation added via seltzer. Of course, a REAL egg cream is made only with Fox’s U-Bet chocolate syrup, whole milk, and a good spritz out of a blue seltzer bottle to froth the whole thing properly. Good luck finding one of those bottles any more!

The egg cream actually has its own day – March 15. Its origins are shrouded in mystery and it seems as if every soda jerk in NYC had his or her own closely-guarded recipe (proportion is everything!). The most interesting thing about it to most people is that it’s not at all what one would think it is, which leads to our business point today.

One thing that’s essential to any successful business (or businessperson) is authenticity. Their purpose is clear, they operate under a set of values that everyone involved knows and adheres to, and they have a defined personality. You can call it a brand image but I think it goes deeper than that. Apple, Disney, and others are great examples of this. As Dennis Green famously said, “they are who we thought they were.” Unlike the egg cream, the image you have about them is probably spot on to reality.

None of us can afford to be egg creams. We need to be clear about our personal and business brands. We need to project an image that rings true. I hope that makes sense. Now if I could only find a way to get a full, traditional seltzer bottle here from NYC without spending $100!

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June 5, 2020 · 3:48 pm

Fresh Picked

A little bit of a detour this Foodie Friday. Instead of talking about how food is prepared and served, this week I want to tell you a bit about where some of my food comes from, and it’s not a supermarket.

One of my favorite things about having moved to NorthCarolina is that I live in the middle of many farms. Most of them produce corn and soybeans and tobacco, but there is also a fairly local farm that offers fruits and vegetables. Each week I go online and can order a box of whatever is in season as well as some fantastic canned goods such as pickled okra or salsa made at the farm. They deliver the box to my house, and most of what’s in it has been picked earlier that day or the day before. That’s a serious flavor upgrade from what you get at the store, which might have been picked a week ago. 

While not organic, the farm is a GAP certified farm (Good Agriculture Practices) and is very careful to maintain a safe and healthy farm. The majority of their plants are started from seeds in the greenhouse. They purchase expensive hybrid seeds, which means they get good quality plants to grow the vegetables. The use of any pesticides or fungicides is closely monitored with all the crops. They use as little as possible, in part for health reasons and in part because chemicals are expensive. While not inexpensive, the produce is less expensive than buying organic produce ar the store and the quality is a huge upgrade.

I’m not alone in my thinking about supporting smaller farms. Maybe you’ve joined a CSA – Community Supported Agriculture – near you. If not, you can learn more about it here and search for one near you. It points us to a broader business point as well. There’s often a tendency to focus on the easy and less expensive in business as well as on the “big guys” (you’ve probably heard the expression that no one ever gets fired for buying IBM, ATT, etc.). Now – especially now as we’re beginning to come out of an economic disaster – is a great time to look at smaller options. Maybe the product isn’t as uniform as what the big guys produce, maybe it’s a little more expensive, but it might also taste better and be better for you. It’s almost certainly made with more care.

Something to chew on this weekend!

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May 29, 2020 · 3:29 pm

That Tonnato Sauce

This Foodie Friday, I want to write about one of my favorite summer dishes, vitello tonnato. When I first had it at some fancy lunch many years ago, I thought it was something thought up by a clever chef. As it turns out, it isn’t a new dish at all. One can find it in the 130-year-old Italian cookbook Science In The Kitchen and the Art Of Eating by Pellegrino Artusi (it’s on page 271 of my edition).

The dish is veal, generally a shoulder or rump portion, that’s been boiled and thinly sliced. It’s topped by a sauce that’s basically a tuna and caper-infused mayonnaise. Trust me – it tastes a lot better than it sounds. The veal is really just a canvas for the sauce in my book.

I was pleasantly surprised when one of my friends emailed my a recipe for a vegetable plate of crudites that was served with a sauce that wasn’t called tonnato sauce but absolutely was the same as what one would put on the veal down to the capers and anchovies in the sauce. The chef described it as a “garlicky aioli bolstered with oil-packed tuna.” Uh, yes, please.

It got me thinking about special sauces since the tonnato sauce is clearly special to me. Every business needs a special sauce if it’s not going to be a commodity. If you’ve not done a competitive set analysis, that’s a great place to start to see how you’re different. Then ask yourself why you exist. What’s the problem you’re solving and why is your solution unique/better? Check your assumptions against what your customers and employees think. 

Is your sauce really yours? Can it be duplicated or is it unique and defensible? Back in the day, we used to call something that you marketed around a USP – Unique Selling Proposition but I think your secret sauce is more than that. It gets to the heart of what your business is, including the culture. It’s what makes you you!

You can put tonnato on sliced pork tenderloin, vegetables, and of course veal. I suspect it’s great on grilled foods – veggies and proteins. As I’m thinking about it, it’s not far from a Caesar Salad dressing but with tuna. You see? Once you have a secret sauce, you can’t really tell how far it will take you!

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