Tag Archives: Foodie

August 22, 2014 · 9:49 am

What Do You Mean, BBQ?

Our Foodie Friday Fun this week is about barbecue. I mean, we’ve reached late summer and I haven’t posted anything about one of my favorite foods. Then again, I can spend the next few hundred words writing about it and we might be thinking about two completely different things since “barbecue” means different things to different people. Therein lies today’s business point as well.

English: Central Texas Style BBQ from Pearland...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

First, when some people hear the term (BBQ for short), they think it means food cooked on a grill, as in “fire up the BBQ and let’s get the steaks on.”  That is NOT what I mean.  The term in my mind always refers to food cooked low and slow in the smoke from a wood fire.  Notice I didn’t say “over” a fire since BBQ is indirect heat cooking at its finest.

Second, there are many different types of BBQ.  Pull into a BBQ joint in Raleigh and you’ll be getting whole hog chopped up with a vinegar and pepper sauce.  Go further west and you get just pork shoulder chopped with a tomato-based sauce.  Kentucky serves up mutton barbecue served with “dip,” a Worcestershire-based sauce, in the western part of the state but pork in the east.  An order in Tennessee will get you a Memphis style dry rub on ribs.  The whole hog in South Carolina adds mustard to the sauce while in Texas you’ll get beef brisket.  Finally, in Kansas City you might get any or all of the above.  One order, many potential results.  Which is, of course, the business point.

How many presentations have you seen in which fairly generic terms are used?  How many times have you been shopping on the web and come across a product page that has lots of flowery language that sells the product but very little specific information as to how the product is differentiated from anything else?  One mistake we all make in marketing from time to time is assuming our audience knows what we mean.  While we all know our products inside and out, the consumer might not.  Even worse, by using common terms without making sure we’re putting them into the correct context, we run the risk of having the consumer pass on ordering since they might assume something that’s not true.  Even worse, they might order and be very unhappy with what they receive.

We can’t be in the business of selling “BBQ.”  We need to sell “chopped whole hog in a vinegar and pepper sauce.”  We want to use language that puts an indelible image into the consumer’s mind while making clear what exactly it is we’re selling.  Don’t assume everyone knows what BBQ or anything else means.  Have a great weekend – that’s clear, right?

Leave a comment

Filed under Consulting, food, Helpful Hints

Tagged as , , , , ,

August 15, 2014 · 9:50 am

Dirty Hands

Foodie Friday and this week I want to talk about two of my favorite kitchen tools.  You already own them and you’re probably not using them as much as you should while cooking.  I’m talking about your hands.  I’m not talking about using them to hold a knife or any other kitchen implement.  I mean using them to touch and feel ingredients and dishes as you go.  Yes, it means getting them dirty and this is why I generally cook with a towel tucked into my waistband – I’m constantly washing them.  But let me explain why you should be getting your hands dirtier more often.

I’m thinking specifically about pasta dough.  Many people dump the flour, oil, salt and eggs into a mixer and once the ingredients are combined they’ll switch to a dough hook to knead the dough.  That’s less effective than using your hands.  The warmth of your hands helps to develop the gluten and unless you are checking the dough constantly there is no way to tell when it had reached the right consistency (it should feel like Playdoh, by the way).  You can’t feel if it’s too grainy or too dry without working it by hand for a bit.

There is no better tool for mixing ingredients together in a bowl than a hand.  You can feel for pockets of ingredients that haven’t combined evenly and it’s almost impossible to mix together a meatloaf or form meatballs without using your hands to do so.  It’s an important business point too.

You can’t manage a business without tools but you must get your hands dirty as well.  I have worked with managers who considered their staff to be a set of tools that would do the work efficiently and they were right for the most part.  However, they never got their hands dirty by getting deeply into the work and two things would happen.  The first was that their staff came to see them as detached and aloof.  The second was that they had no feel for things.  Like the pasta dough, the only way to assess how things are developing is to get your hands into the work.

Anyone who claims they’re a cook and has long fingernails isn’t getting their hands into the food often enough (or is making people sick!).  Any manager who sits behind a closed door and reads reports isn’t getting their hands dirty either (which might make the business sick).   How dirty are your hands?

 

Leave a comment

Filed under Consulting, food, Helpful Hints

Tagged as , , , ,

August 8, 2014 · 11:36 am

Baked Oatmeal

Foodie Friday and our topic today is oatmeal.

Oatmealraisins2

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I know – not the best thing for breakfast on a hot summer morning but I know plenty of people who start the day with a steaming bowl of grain no matter what the weather so I’m pressing on.  I was reading one of the many food blogs I scan regularly and it made a great point.  The piece is called Why You Should Stop Boiling Your Oatmeal and Start Baking It.  I’ll admit I’m one of those lazy slobs who throws my oatmeal of choice (Irish Oats, thank you) into the microwave.  The Mrs. boils hers almost every morning – obviously she is a lot more patient than her husband.  Baking never entered either of our minds.  Maybe it should have:

With baked oatmeal, all you have to do is toss it all in a baking dish and slide it into the oven. In about 30 minutes, you’ve got a dish of steaming, tender oats. To enrich it, I use milk instead of water, and just one egg lightens the texture. It’s the perfect stress-free hot breakfast to serve to guests. Why? There’s no à la minute cooking: the oven does all the work.

There is a business point in here too.  In many cases it’s not what we’re doing that’s an issue but how we’re doing it.  People tend to believe their memories instead of facts.  When a business does things in a certain way, that’s a memory.  The facts we might gather if we stepped back and assessed the situation with an open mind might tell us that the process is inefficient or unproductive.  It’s not the what – we need to accomplish the task – but maybe there is a better way to do so.

We need to think about baking the oatmeal in our business lives by asking if there is a better, more efficient, more profitable way to go about it on a regular basis.  Maybe over breakfast?

Leave a comment

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as , , ,