Tag Archives: Food

May 31, 2013 · 8:26 am

Remoulade

Foodie Friday Fun time! Today our topic is a sauce many of you have had with crab cakes, french fries, cold beef filet, or many other dishes called remoulade. Other than spelling, and the fact that it’s good, that’s about where the agreement ends.

Français : Sauce rémoulade faite sans mayonnaise

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I was chatting with a dear friend and fellow cook on the topic (we had dined at a place with excellent remoulade years ago and were trying to figure it out) and realized that we didn’t even know where to start.  Unlike many dishes, remoulade is a bit of a chameleon, changing itself based on its enviroment.

Cajun remoulade is different from French, which varies from Belgian.  Is it mayonnaise-based or more of an aioli (I know – splitting hairs bit still…)? Is there ketchup in it or not? Anchovies? Do we use French cornichons or a dill pickle? Capers – in or out (is that a master’s thesis topic or what)?  In fact, maybe it’s more of a condiment than a sauce?  Tell a cook to make a remoulade and you’ll get one of several things, each of which is “right” based on the cook’s background.  It’s unlike one of the “mother sauces” which are very specific. Which is the business point.

Most business issues are like remoulade – there is more than one right answer.  As my friend said, “there are so many different ways and you don’t know which one is right for the job, maybe you should just give them a list of options and let them pick the one that suits their needs the best.”  Good advice for consultants like me and other business folks like you.  What can hamper our business success is thinking that there is just ONE way to accomplish the goal.  We need to focus on “a” right answer, not “the.”

We haven’t quite deduced how this restaurant made their remoulade – they’re out of business now so we can’t go back and ask – but we’ll keep trying.  What we do know is that their answer to the remoulade question was unique and worked for them with their food.  That’s just like the answers to most of your business questions are.  You with me?

Enhanced by Zemanta

1 Comment

Filed under food, Thinking Aloud

Tagged as , , , , , ,

May 24, 2013 · 8:56 am

Brands Out Of Control

A Foodie Friday that begins a long weekend here in the US. Today, however, we’re doing Foodie Friday Fails, and actually they’re kind of fun because of their inherent stupidity. Our fist bit of joy comes to us courtesy of the folks at Nutella.

Deutsch: Ein Glas Nutella-Nussnougatcreme

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A big fan of the hazelnut and chocolate concoction decided to celebrate the product by creating a “World Nutella Day” celebration and used social media and the web to promote it. Want to guess what happened next?

Sarah Rosso, the principal organizer of World Nutella Day, says she received a letter from Ferrero demanding that she stop using the Nutella name and logo. Since it’s a little hard to celebrate Nutella without using the word “Nutella,” that essentially spells death for any sort of World Day. Rosso, who described the letter as “a bit of a surprise and a disappointment,” will have to shut down her Facebook page, Twitter, and website — or, I guess, make them into blind items. “World Day to Celebrate An Unnamed Hazelnut Spread” doesn’t have as much of a ring, but at least it’s not actionable.

That’s right:  in a time when hundreds of brands are spending millions of dollars to create social virality, the geniuses at Ferrero shut down something that does nothing but celebrate their product in a positive way.  They’ve since recanted and are now supporting the effort, blaming their lawyers who reacted reflexively to use of a trademark.  Right.  In an event, the damage has been done but the lesson is worth repeating.  We no longer “own” our brands.  Our customers do and we need to support nearly everything they do unless it’s hurtful or illegal.

Then there are the folks at  TGI Fridays in the great state of New Jersey.  13 of their outlets were caught filling premium liquor bottles with cheap booze and charging top shelf prices for it.   Obviously, the brand takes a hit as a bar, but it also has to make customers wonder what’s going on in the kitchen if the bar is so out of control.  One bad apple and you can write it off to a rogue bar manager.   13 outlets and clearly no one is minding the store (or bar) by watching inventory and sales reports.  Maybe they’re not watching what’s being served or how it’s being cooked.

While the Nutella case shows someone paying too much attention, Friday’s shows the opposite   Managing is often a balancing act and here we have two food brands that have fallen off the wire.   Thoughts?

Enhanced by Zemanta

Leave a comment

Filed under Consulting, food

Tagged as , , , , ,

May 17, 2013 · 9:32 am

Smoked Salmon Vodka

For our Foodie Friday Fun this week, let’s start with a movie. Oh sure, there have been plenty of foodie movies over the years (Big Night is my favorite) but I want to start with the 1982 Michael Keaton classic Night Shift. I know – not really a foodie movie but in it Keaton offers up a food-oriented line that I thought of yesterday:

What if you mix the mayonnaise in the can, WITH the tunafish? Or… hold it! Chuck! I got it! Take LIVE tuna fish, and FEED ’em mayonnaise! Oh this is great.

What prompted the thought was someone mentioning that they’d recently tried smoked salmon vodka.  My immediate response probably mirrored yours: YECH!  Then I thought about it for a second.  How often have you gone to a nice wedding or similar function and there’s been chilled vodka put out alongside the platter of salmon?  The two really do go together when you step back and think about it.  Or take the idea of making doughnuts in a muffin tin.  They’re not muffins and they’re certainly not doughnuts  but is there a way to get the texture and flavor of a donut in the easier to make form of a muffin?  There is, and someone figured out exactly how.  Which is the business point.

Tuna and mayonnaise, salmon and vodka – normal combinations presented in a different way of thinking (I’d tweak the tuna notion a bit but he’s on the right track).  Often in business we’re presented with ideas that seem ridiculous on the first pass but when you stop thinking “bad idea” and start thinking “interesting notion – what does it need to be a great idea” you just might end up with a better mousetrap.

Pushing ourselves to think differently is the only way we grow our businesses   People get bored quickly these days and if you’re not innovating you get left behind.  While I’m not sure that smoked salmon vodka is going to be my drink of choice, the thinking behind it is very much what I like to order up.  You?

Enhanced by Zemanta

Leave a comment

Filed under food, Helpful Hints

Tagged as , , , , ,