Tag Archives: Foodie

January 17, 2014 · 11:06 am

The Stuff On The Bottom

Let’s end the week with some Foodie Friday Fond Fun.

English: Fond left in a white enamel pot after...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

What is fond, you ask? A food scientist would tell you it’s the residue on the bottom of the pan left over when you sauté meats or vegetables. It’s the browned stuff that forms from either caramelization of sugars or from something called the Maillard Reaction. I’d tell you it’s yummy goodness.

Every good cook knows that you never toss this stuff.  It’s the base for most good pan sauces and at a minimum you want to use it in whatever else you’re going to be doing with what you cooked to create the reside in the first place.  The addition of a little wine or stock or even water will release the fond and that process is called deglazing.  You can then use the resulting liquid either to make a sauce (add butter and seasonings) or as the base for anything from gravy to soup.  Whatever you do, you never want to discard it

That principle applies to business as well.  There are a number of very successful companies that are built on the residue of other business activities.  Think about how many times you read about “unsuccessful” brands being sold off or failing businesses being bought to be turned around, reinvigorated, or repositioned to yield better results.  Those things are the fond of business and private equity firms have learned to deglaze those opportunities into excellent profits.

We do that to people too sometimes.  An employee is not producing as they once did or maybe a smart person with excellent skills is burned out.  Rather than discarding them we should be thinking about what we can add – the deglazing liquid – to bring them back to life and transform them into a more productive, happier person.  Maybe it’s a role change or maybe it’s a different sort of challenge.  Like fond, discarding them is a waste of something that can be quite good.

The next time you cook something in a pan, think about how the stuff on the bottom of the pan will be used.  When you get the chance, you might give some thought to recognizing and using it in the office as well.  Yum!

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January 10, 2014 · 12:05 pm

Is All You Can Eat Bad Business?

Foodie Friday, and this week I had a number of food related items from which to choose.

SpiceMarket Buffet American food

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

One thing I noticed this week kept popping into my brain, however, and so that will be our topic today.  This was the item:

Starting January 2, 2014, you’ll want to head to your local IHOP® restaurant because “All You Can Eat Pancakes,” a perennial favorite among guests, is back for a limited time.

I preface what I’m about to say with an acknowledgment that there are few things more obnoxious than a reformed anything ramble on about their former addiction.  Like many folks, mine was sugar and carbs.  With that disclaimer, I think we all know there is an epidemic of obesity in this country.  Each of those (quite tasty) IHOP pancakes is roughly 150 calories and 22 net grams of carbs.  That’s as many calories as a large York Peppermint Patty and as many carbs as two Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups – the big ones.  As a once in a while indulgence, they’re a treat.  As an “all you can eat” incentive, they’re deadly.

Besides the ranting, I do have a business point to make.  IHOP isn’t alone in the food business in using the promise of low prices or vast quantities of food for the money to attract business.  I suppose this seems like a customer-centric way to market.  Dollar menus and all you can eat buffets are staples of our food culture.  However, while these promotions seem customer friendly, I would ask how friendly it is to kill off the customers sooner.  So much for average lifetime value!  How friendly is it to promote something that can lead to serious health issues?  It’s interesting to me that we forbid cigarette advertising and put warning labels on the packs but unlimited calories, carbs, and fat are all seen as virtuous offerings.

The food business isn’t the only one at fault in terms of promoting one thing and delivering another.  Anything that’s presented as all you can eat often has strings attached.  Take “unlimited” data plans.  Some wireless carriers won’t sell them any more.  I have one grandfathered in, although I know once I get to some point each month the speed gets cut back.  Some ISP’s throttle back speeds or charge more once certain limits are hit despite that usually being buried in the fine print.  Consumer centric?  I’ve seen ads for “unlimited” green’s fees for one price at golf courses only to find that a cart fee is due every round. False advertising?

I don’t think businesses need to “nanny” their customers.  If someone chooses to eat a lot of unhealthy food, so be it.  There is nutrition information on the walls of most quick service and family restaurants and I’ve never seen a line waiting to read it.  I’m not sure, however, that we ought to be in the business of encouraging it nor making it the center of our marketing.  I also think the marketing needs to be clear about what “unlimited” means.  What do you think?

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January 3, 2014 · 11:17 am

The Ploughman Cometh

The first Foodie Friday of the new year and we had a lot of snow here in the northeast with which to welcome it. The folks have been out plowing streets and driveways all night and that put the word “ploughman” into my head. I know – different kind of plough (or “plow” as we spell it here in America). But it also brought a ploughman’s lunch to mind.

For those of you unfamiliar with the term, it’s a meal one can order in a British pub consisting of bread, cheese, and beer (you knew I’d get to food eventually).  I had always thought that this was some sort of traditional lunch that field workers had eaten for centuries.  When those workers migrated from the fields to the cities, I assumed that they took their lunch with them and pubs served the food that people traditionally ate midday.  As it turns out, that was what I was meant to believe by the British Cheese Bureau which created the lunch and marketed it following the second world war as a way to increase cheese sales.  Pretty clever – create a feeling of nostalgia for a supposedly traditional meal in a time when the world was just betting back to “normal” following a decade of horror.  Which of course is the business point today.

History is constantly being rewritten to suit the purposes of the author.  On a very minor scale, we do it every time we tweak our resumes.  On a major scale, different people are given credit or blame for things that go very well or very badly.  The past is changed to suit to present.  Whether it’s work or play, one always needs to understand not just the author’s point of view but also their agenda.  While the ploughman’s lunch didn’t taste any worse once I found out it was a marketing ploy, I kind of felt like Dorothy when the curtain fell and The Wizard was revealed.

That’s a reminder as we start the new year – question everything (even me!).  Look for facts from disinterested, multiple sources.  That’s getting harder to do as journalism migrates from reporting to advocacy outside of business and it’s always been a challenge inside.  Are you up to the task?

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