Tag Archives: Foodie

September 4, 2015 · 8:45 am

Meatheads

It’s the last Foodie Friday of Summer.  Well, officially, at least.  Most of us will be grilling in the warmth for at least another month and then we’ll move the party indoors.  I don’t know what you’re grilling this weekend, but here at Rancho Deluxe some sort of meat will be involved.  While we have vegans and vegetarians in our household, some of us are unabashedly carnivorous.  I thought this might be a good time to put forth a few of the absolute truisms we all know about cooking meat.  There’s a business point too.

Beef and Corn on a Charcoal BBQ grill

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Let me just list a bunch.  These come from the website amazingribs.com which is focused on all meats, not just ribs and is well worth a few moments of your time:

Searing seals in juices. Pink pork is undercooked. If there is red in chicken it is undercooked. If you’re lookin’ you ain’t cookin’. Cooking time depends on the weight of the meat. The bone adds flavor. Oil the grates before putting food on them. Flip burgers only once. The Stall (note: – this is a BBQ term and is the point at which cooking seems to stop for a while) is collagen melting. High heat is the best heat. Whole chicken tastes better than chicken cut into parts. Beer can chicken is the best chicken. Melting fat penetrates the meat. Grilling causes cancer. Grill marks are important. Medium and medium rare are the same thing. Stainless steel grills are better. Cast iron grates are the best. You can rely on your grill’s built in thermometer. Ground beef is the riskiest food for pathogens. Barbecue sauce is always red. Marinades add a lot of moisture to meat.

I’m sure you’ve heard or said one of more of the above.  Here is the thing – none of them are true.  I know – it’s like I just told you the Easter Bunny is made up.  Sorry, but just because you believe it to be true doesn’t make it so.  When food scientists looked into these “truths” and others, they found the facts to be something quite different.  Which is the business point, of course.

We hear “truth” all the time in business.  I wonder how often we actually take the time to look into whether we’re just subscribing to a shared myth.  I think it’s incumbent on each of us to do so.  My guess is that we’ll find, more often than not, that the truth isn’t exactly as it’s been presented.  A word of caution.  You can expect people to react badly when you give them proof that their facts and THE facts aren’t the same.  Be judicious and tactful or do so wearing running shoes.

Enjoy the weekend and use a digital thermometer.  You really can’t tell how done something is my touch, you know…

 

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August 28, 2015 · 8:46 am

Substitutions

This Foodie Friday I’d like to talk about something I hope you have handy in your kitchen: a table of substitutes. There is nothing worse than doing your mise en place and realizing that you’re out of something you need for what you’re making. Maybe it’s sour cream for a dip you decided to whip up to watch TV (use plain yogurt – Greek if you have it!). Maybe you need some buttermilk but only have regular (combine a tablespoon of an acid – lemon juice, vinegar – and enough milk to make a cup). How many large eggs can I substitute in when the recipe calls for jumbo?  Even understanding how to substitute dried herbs for fresh is important (use 1/3 as much dried as fresh). Having a list of things which can serve as alternatives is very handy and can often save a dish.  

We need to do that in business too. When we don’t have the proper things for what we’re trying to accomplish, we need to figure out substitutes. Maybe the higher-ups aren’t giving us the resources we need or maybe the budget isn’t big enough to cover the project at hand. We need to think about alternatives and reframe the problem. Maybe there are exceptions to what we perceive as the norm – organizations who have faced a similar challenge. Can those exceptions point us in another direction?

There are some things for which there are no substitutes.  Good people, for one, and smart, out of the box thinking for another.  I realize that you can’t cook a piece of chicken and call it beef.  Then again, you can substitute turkey for veal in some dishes so maybe chicken for beef isn’t so far-fetched.  That sort of thinking is something in which every organization needs to engage.  What business model can we substitute for our own if things begin to fall apart?

My table of substitutions is tucked away in a kitchen drawer and I rarely need to use it.  I used to have one for my business tucked in a desk drawer – people I might want to hire, companies to replace current partnerships if they fell apart.   Where is yours?

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August 21, 2015 · 9:02 am

Becoming A Steakhouse

It’s Foodie Friday, and my mind is turning to steak. While I enjoy grilling steaks as much as the next person, most of our efforts here at Rancho Deluxe can’t compare to the product put out by a good steakhouse. It got me thinking about why that is, and it turns out there are some really good business points one can take away.

Steak at Peter Luger's

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

At first I attributed the biggest difference to the meat itself. After all, high-end steak places serve nothing but prime meat, and generally, it’s been aged. As with any business, NOTHING can take the place of top-shelf raw materials. You can’t make a great product out of inferior ingredients. So on a special occasion, I splurged on an aged piece of Prime porterhouse thinking I now had the ability to replicate that great steak at home. While it was very good, it was definitely NOT the same.

Then there is the cooking method. Top steak places might use a broiler that is heated to 1,000 degrees or more. While I do have a high-end broiler in my oven, I don’t think it gets quite that hot. A charcoal grill can get quite hot using lump (not briquette) charcoal, but it’s a different experience than most steakhouses. Still, it came close in terms of providing enough heat to do the job.

So now I had the equivalent ingredients and a similar cooking tool but it just wasn’t the same. Putting aside that I was doing the cooking and not just being served, I realized that there was one more huge difference: practice. Steakhouses cook 1,000 steaks a week or more. If I do 24 in a year it’s a lot. But it’s a good business point.

There is no substitute for practice, and the more times we do things – presentations, analyses, whatever – the better we become at them. That’s noticeable to the recipient.  Having great raw materials – that includes people – and a great methodology coupled with the right tools to do the job and a LOT of practice can produce a great steak.  That formula’s also capable of producing greatness in your business if you’ll let it.  Will you?

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