What The Gulf Oil Spill Means for the Foodservice Industry – Mushroom Clouds and Fish Soup.

A few weeks ago there was an environmental catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico that made the Exxon Valdez oil spill look like a few dark drops in a very large bucket. The BP deep-water oil rig explosion on April 20^th is being called America’s Chernobyl, not just because the extent of the consequent ecological damage is being estimated as the worst in human history, but also because the disaster has thoroughly exposed the corruption and rot at the core of the United States economy. On a smaller scale, the restaurant and food service industries are in for one heck of a bumpy ride

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Unfortunately, the worst part is that there is really no telling what the long-term effects of the spill will be. The seafood industry is already reeling, with a ten-day offshore fishing closure by federal officials, starting on May 2^nd. This covers Louisiana waters at the mouth of the Mississippi river to waters off Florida's Pensacola Bay. Chef John Besh, of Restaurant August and long-time Louisiana produce proponent, wrote in an article for The Atlantic, that he expects his supply of Gulf shrimp to be cut in half, that is, only if he’s lucky. Considering that, in 2009, Louisiana exported nearly 4.6 billion dollars worth of shrimp and oysters to Canada, there will probably be plenty of less lucky people.

Although Besh’s numbers may be a little on the pessimistic side, you should expect all seafood prices to skyrocket, no matter where they’re coming from.  Not necessarily because of a genuine lack of supply, but a perceived lack of supply will have prices jumping (P.E.I. oysters are already set to rise charges). Also, as Louisiana is a huge port, you can expect any produce that usually docks there to have to compensate for the added cost of docking elsewhere.

Additionally, be prepared to field questions regarding the safety of the shrimp, crab and oysters currently on your menu and in your house.  Remember, seafood that hit the market before the closure is perfectly safe to eat. Besides which, the waters west of the Mississippi River are still open and represent more than three-quarters of Louisiana seafood production. A great concern is the media misrepresenting the situation and convincing people to boycott seafood in general. Make sure you do your part to allay fears and maybe we can keep the nuclear fall-out from this Chernobyl under control.  

Sous Vide Cookery - Doing It Under Pressure and In A Bag.

Anyone growing up in the early sixties should be familiar with the boil-in-a-bag dinner. Before the widespread advent of microwaves, a short-form re-heating method was to drop your entire meal (carefully sealed in plastic) into a pot of boiling water. Of course, vacuum sealing has been recognized as a valid preservation technique from even farther back. But the combination of the two, their subsequent adoption by your higher-end professional kitchen, and the consequent coining of the term molecular gastronomy, has been sliding around the edges of the culinary scene for only two decades or so. These days more casual restaurants, and even some home cooks, are experimenting with what we’re now calling cooking sous vide. Sam Gundy, co-owner of Olliffe, a high-quality meat shop in Toronto, wrote a list of the top 10 carnivorous trends to watch in 2010. Right at the top? Sous Vide.

But will it be more than just a fad? A curriculum advisor from the Culinary Institute of America once told me that culinary schools have to be incredibly careful when choosing new courses; as respected institutions, they really can’t afford to chase a trend that might disappear tomorrow. So I think it speaks of the enduring nature of this particular cooking method that I’d like you to check out The French Culinary Institute’s primer on sous-vide cooking. Great temperature guides, thorough explanations and it’s well written to boot.

Now, unquestionably, as a technique, sous vide cookery has certain problems; it's much more reliable when applied to vegetables than to certain proteins, it creates a unique product but doesn’t necessarily always taste better than more traditional methods, and the professional-grade tools are quite expensive (my favorite is Polyscience). On the other hand, when used appropriately, sous vide can definitely create the sublime. So why not make up your own mind? Follow these instructions for making an immersion circulator out of a beer cooler, stage a competition, and see which technique will have it in the bag.

How Servers Represent Your Restaurant - Some Tips on Tips.

Now that I’ve covered why you should work on dealing with allergies, and I’ve covered how you can do so in the back of the house, there’s just one last frontier to deal with…though it’s the first frontier to face your guest. Your server. Or, well, at this point it becomes their server. And according to restaurant marketing firm You Got Meals, for better or for worse, to your customers their servers are your restaurant. So it’s absolutely no use taking the greatest of care in the kitchen if it isn’t reflected out on the floor.

Almost all critics and patrons agree that service will often prove more important than the food. A caring and passionate staff can even erase the memory of an overflowing plate of culinary missteps. So you can imagine how powerful that might make a problem-free kitchen! Moreover, that server pride usually ends up having a positive effect on customers’ financial appreciation as well. So it should be easy to convince your front of the house to adopt a positive attitude. According to the critics (and founders!) of ChefSeattle.com, a great site dedicated to food and foodservice in the Northwest United States, there are eight key tips to stand out, service-wise, from the rest of the culinary crowd. Here are the ones I think we most often forget, but you should definitely head to the article for the complete list: 

-       Your opinion as a server does matter: If the guest asks for your opinion they probably actually want it!

-       Learn your wines; surprisingly, people drink wine without knowing that much about it, which means that they’re going to look to you for expert advice. Be ready with some.

-       Learn how to handle the negatives. Lord knows that customers are going to complain, sometimes with validity, sometimes not. Handling these moments with verve and professionalism is the mark of a truly great server.

-       Smile! 

Working with Gluten-Intolerance - The Wheat Wasteland.

In 1922, T.S. Eliot wrote that April was the cruelest month of the year but, no offense to the great poet, it just happens to be my favorite. Besides the promise of summer, April offers two great holidays to keep us occupied: Easter and Passover. And since Passover, among other things, concerns a huge dietary restriction, it seemed like a great time to discuss the Gluten-Intolerant Guest as part two of my series on staying allergy conscious.  

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There are several different strains of the gluten-constrained breed, and, according to this LA Times article, the ranks are swelling fast: The doctor-diagnosed Celiac, the self-diagnosed Celiac, the Wheat-Sensitive and the Carb-Free. Yet, with a little planning, it’s easy for the restaurateur to come up with one common, economical system to deal with any gluten-related contingency. Considering that you’ll be well re-paid with free advertising on sites like the Gluten-Free Restaurant Awareness Program (which will even send you helpful info free of charge) and the National Foundation for Celiac Awareness, it’s entirely worth it.

Obviously, I’m not recommending you close up the bakery and go totally gluten-free. I’m just saying that an occasionally over-looked component of the food service industry is the effort to make people happy. Moderating our tendency to declare: “Take it or leave it!” might just help us in the big-picture sense of the long run. So, with that in mind, here are a few helpful hints at satisfactorily satisfying the gluten-intolerant, courtesy of Gluten-Free Cooking For Dummies:

-       Line cookware with foil and bam! Sterilized for gluten-free work.

-       Think of arrowroot, cornstarch or tapioca starch before you automatically reach for the flour. All of these work just as well as thickeners (and in some cases, better!)

-       Cornmeal or Masa can double as a breading in the fryer, plus they have a better flavor and a neat texture to boot.

-       Be wary of crumbs. Even 20 parts per million of gluten can make a celiac sick, so that means thinking about using typically un-food related areas of your kitchen to plate their dish and turning off the convection feature on an oven or toaster to avoid gluten-y dust.

-       Finally, be aware that gluten, like radar traps, can lurk in some surprisingly places. Amusingly, Passover Matzah is actually on the list of gluten-full items…and less obviously, so is soy sauce, malt vinegars and couscous. Here’s a small list of surprisingly unfriendly foods and here’s a more comprehensive list of banned items, if you'd really like to pore over it.

Dealing with Allergies – Put on the Ritz, but Hold the Cracker, Please.

Once upon a meal, somewhere out there in the restaurant-wilderness, a picky eater decided to ‘save time’ and pretend to have an allergy. Pleasantly amazed by the server’s understanding looks, and exhilarated by the careful exorcism preformed by the kitchen on the hapless ingredient, this picky, and as it turns out, loudmouthed, eater decided to spread the word. Flash forward to 2010 and servers are constantly faced with supposed allergies, which, nine out of ten times, are just the labels finicky diners give to their dislikes. Sadly, this has led to a backlash against the truly anaphylactic, those who aren’t just “breaking out in chives” as journalist Ruth Samuelson put it. I say sadly because, when treated with the appropriate care, fastidious customers can become the most loyal (and lucrative) of patrons.

So, with that in mind, consider this post the first in a series on staying allergy conscious, both in the front and back of the house.

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Most restaurateurs see an allergic customer as a hassle, an annoyance, someone better left at home but surprisingly…the allergic customer sees us the same way! A diner with a sensitive palate can rarely enjoy a simple meal out, always having to rigorously barter with the staff, often watch their companions eat while the kitchen fixes an inaccurately prepared dish and even, for the very severely limited, face unpleasant physical reactions. If you can prove yourself to be as accommodating to these tables as you are to any other, well, there’s a whole community out there just waiting to shower you with business! So, what to do?

First, you should check out FAAN, the Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network, and their comprehensive program on welcoming guests with food allergies. Second, you should read this article about how a frustrated father couldn’t find a restaurant that would cater to his allergic sons and then, you should review your restaurant on his brainchild, an online guide to allergy-friendly restaurants across the United States. Finally, you should tune in next week for the second installment. Or at least…that’s what I would do!

Deciding on Menu Prices – How to Jet Yourself into Profit.

Everybody knows that the restaurant industry has one of the greatest fail rates of any service-related field. Think about it; when was the last time you heard of the immense attrition facing massage therapists? Taxicab companies? Movie theatres?! So why not start taking a page from one of their books and adapt our, considerably less-successful, marketing and pricing schemes?

One of the more lucrative and unique of our peers is the Airline industry. Even with the ever-increasing, ever-confusing, regulations related to the ‘war on terror’, companies such as WestJet, British Airways and Delta still manage to fill a remarkable amount of seats. Restaurant Business magazine recently broke down four great high-flying promotional pricing approaches that could easily be redesigned for foodservice. Of course, they do warn you not to take it too far…Don’t forget what the meals up there taste like!

And once you’ve decided HOW you’re going to price your menu effectively, you can actually choose those prices. Here’s a great description of the four most commonly applied pricing formulas. Just determine what it’s going to cost you, or decide how much you want to make, plug the number in, and ta da! Instant menu prices.

Happy Pricing!

(And, remember, if a Captain Kirk look-a-like tries to push you into some sort of priceline negotiation, just stand your ground!)

The Soaring Costs of Hazardous Food-Handling – Up, Up and Away!

Salmonella, Listeriosis, Norovirus: The microscopic villains of the food service industry. Make the wrong move and these no-goodniks will give you sick customers, bad press, recall edicts and expensive legal hassles. As if you weren’t already concerned about the negative consequences of unsafe food handling, take a look at this article published recently in the LA Times. According to a new study by Georgetown University, the health-related costs of food-borne illnesses come close to a whopping $152 billion…a year. The study was released in an effort to push a food safety bill that would increase U.S. inspections, fund research and force the American food industry to ramp up record-keeping efforts, a bill which has stalled since last November.

But bill or no bill, making a heroic effort to keep supreme control over the food safety of your establishment is a smart choice. Fight BAC®! Fight bacteria that is, with these four key techniques as established by the Canadian Partnership for Consumer Food Safety program Be Food Safe:

                                     - Clean carefully
                                     - Separate to avoid cross-contamination
                                     - Cook to appropriate temperatures
                                     - Chill in a timely fashion

Remember, we professional foodies genuinely know what evil lurks in the hearts of romaine, so it’ll always be one of our most important tasks to keep those nefarious pathogens at bay.