Food Interviews

Vegetables Every Day Winner

2008-12-13T05:54:00.000-08:00

The winner of Vegetables Every Day is Jag! Congrats!! I'll be sending you an email shortly to get your mailing address.

Alanna Kellogg - A Veggie Venture and Kitchen Parade

2008-12-07T18:02:00.000-08:00

Alanna Kellogg

Alanna Kellogg calls herself a veggie evangelist. She writes a hugely popular (with reason) blog, A Veggie Venture, and followed in her mother's footsteps to write a food and recipe column, Kitchen Parade. I am most fortunate that Alanna lives just minutes from my house. We sat outside at a local restaurant and chatted for hours on the day that we did this interview. Oh, how I wish that it were still warm enough to sit outside!

Alanna not only shares her passion for vegetables with her readers, but a bit of her warm personality. When you read her blog, you almost feel like she has opened her kitchen to you to teach you how to make everyday meals that you and your family can enjoy.

Alanna has kindly offered a copy of Vegetables Every Day to one lucky commenter! Leave a comment on this post by the end of the day on Friday, December 12 for a chance to win.

Note: Except where noted, all photos are compliments of Alanna.

How did you end up writing about food?

My mom had cancer and was living with me while my dad and I took care of her. Near the end, she was bedridden and her mind was still quite good but she needed something to do. So, I sort of thought, “What can we do?” Then, I remembered that a couple years before we had talked about organizing a family cookbook with all of her side of the family. I went online and I found software that would allow us to do it from all over.

It actually turned out to be this really, really good thing because people could call her and say, “How are you doing?” and she could say, “Well, not so good today, but let’s talk about the cookbook.” She got to look back through all of her old recipes that we happened to have there. There are so many memories associated with food.

The day of her funeral (we hadn’t finished the cookbook yet) I asked people if we could name the cookbook Kitchen Parade, which was the title of the column that she wrote for 11 years starting when I was a baby and that she was still very famous for. They said, “Yes!”

For the first time as an adult, I went back and read her columns and they were so good. She was so ahead of her time about nutrition and fresh foods and just eating healthfully. I said, “I’m going to pick this up and carry it on.”

How did your mom get the job writing Kitchen Parade?

My mom was a Home Ec grad and married a small town newspaper publisher. She was a city girl and she was trying to find her way in a small town with a baby. He thought the newspaper could use a column and she was a natural - so she did it. They have no memory of why they called it Kitchen Parade.

There’s this funny little logo, which shows a woman in a kerchief at the stove and the father’s in the corner in an armchair reading a newspaper with a dog on the floor and two baby boys. Those baby boys are my sister and me.

What did you learn growing up with your mom writing this column?

We were proud of her for doing it. It was definitely part of the reason why so many people loved her. Even now, all these years later, people still stop me and say, “Oh, I made your mom’s such and such yesterday.”

But, just like food bloggers will know, because you’re testing something for the blog, you do weird combinations. You might do the same thing two nights in a row to get it right. Or, you might just have a really weird meal because you needed to fill the space.

Did you complain about the bizarre food?

I didn’t. We’ve talked about it (my sister and me) and neither of us have a memory of that. We just remember that food was always interesting.

Did she teach you to cook while she was cooking?

No. We actually had very different styles, especially as adults. We learned that if she cooked, I cleaned up and if I cooked, my dad cleaned up. She was a real natural cook. She was one to sort of make it up as she went along. She knew a lot more about the science of food than I do.

I think I pick good starting recipes and I make them very much my own. Also, I’m willing to invest in ingredients in a way she wasn’t, and I’m willing to take time in a way she wasn’t.

Stephen Cooks made Alanna's grandmother's pierogies. Photo credit: Stephen Cooks.

We have a family recipe for pierogies that my grandmother made for family occasions and it was a really big deal and they were so delicious. I remember the year when my mom wanted to skip making her own dough and use wonton wrappers. It was a nice experiment, but they weren’t very good.

She would have been a blogger.

Why do you say that?

Because she loved sharing recipes.

I started the column in 2002. If I had known about blogs, I wouldn’t have started a food column. I would have been one of the very first food bloggers because you wouldn’t need a column, if you will, to share the recipes.

What is the difference between being a food blogger and being a food columnist?

They are actually quite different. To write a column, you’re very attuned to what your readers are looking for. You’re also limited by space and you are affected by what ingredients people have available to them in that very local readership. A food blog can be a little bit more playful. You can say, “I tried this and it didn’t work, but I learned this.” In a food column, I wouldn’t ever do that. In a column, recipes are a lot more formal. The recipes may be simple, but these are recipes that are worth ink and paper.

Do you have a lot of editorial control when you write the articles?

I’ve only been edited twice. The first time was the very first column and we were getting to know each other. Once they became accustomed to my very conversational writing style, then they loved it. The second time, we had a very big disagreement about the appropriateness of a particular piece of information I wanted to include. Since it was their paper, they won.

Now, your column has a blog presence too?

I publish my column online as if it’s a blog.

How does that conversion work?

The column is written expressly to be published in two columns side-by-side. Until it was actually visually presented that way online, but still in a blog format with comments and a side bar and all the navigation tools that come with blogs, it didn’t work. I had very few subscribers. Even though the recipes were good, the writing was good, I think, it just didn’t work because it wasn’t presented properly. It was so geared for presentation in print.

Once you changed that, did it made a big difference?

Once I changed that, the site completely took off.

Are the readers the same people who would be reading your column locally, or do they come from everywhere?

I don’t actually know. The reason is because there’s no geotagging for the local area where the column is published. So, all I know is how many St. Louis readers come, not how many people come from our little corner of St. Louis.

Do you have a high percentage of St. Louis readers?

No. I actually have a lot of Canadian readers. I’ve sort of come to understand that I probably have a Northern style and Canadian style and that’s perhaps only natural because my mom was Canadian.

When did you start A Veggie Venture?

Actually, I started the blog on a whim - on April Fool’s Day. I did have this idea that it could be a joke. Like if it didn’t come to be, I’d say, “Oh, that was a joke.” It was so unimportant to me that it didn’t even make my journal until about two weeks later. I made some note that said, “I updated my blog today.” The whole idea was I was going to do a 30 day blog. I’m sure it was inspired by Chocolate and Zucchini. The only other possibility was the Julie & Julia project.

I just started it and the idea was very much to just post a vegetable cooked in a new way every single day for a month. Some place back on one of the anniversary dates, I actually cataloged how many days passed before I had a comment – just four - and how many passed before I had a second comment – 89! But, at the end of the 30 days, I was really intrigued. I was learning, and it was fun.

I still had no idea that there were other blogs. There were a lot of new blogs being started in that period in 2005, which is like an eon ago. But, we were all sort of in our own little worlds just plugging away at our own little blogs and it was a long time (like several months) before I did anything to reach out to other blogs. I was just kind of in my own little world cooking vegetables and loving it because I was learning.

At some point in the third or fourth month at the end of summer, I said, “I’m going to do it for a year.” I knew it was this big, weird thing to do - impossible actually. I mean, who can post everyday? What reader wants to read everyday? Or can absorb everyday? But, I just set out to do it. By the end I was very tired. I really thought I would give it up. It was enough.

Did you actually stop for a little while?

I didn’t ever say I was quitting. I just said I’m going to take a break. And that’s what I did.

For how long?

It wasn’t actually that long, maybe two weeks.

Two whole weeks!

But it was such a difference. Because I literally, for the first nine months, decided what to make, cooked it, photographed it, wrote it, and posted it the very same day. If you ever look at the time stamps, a lot of them were like at 11 o’clock at night. In the last three months of the first year, I got the idea, “Oh my gosh, I could cook during the week and take the weekend off.” So, I started writing ahead of time. That actually made a huge difference.

You didn’t take any vacations during that first year?

I did actually take a vacation in the summer time, but by that point, I had started to put Kitchen Parade columns online too, and so I posted archive columns while I was on vacation. All I had to do was press publish. By the way, in that period, I wasn’t doing any photographs either. So, in that sense, it was a little bit easier.

Why veggies?

I have no idea. I don’t remember having this grand scheme saying, “Oh that will be very popular.” I guess I’ve always eaten vegetables. I was a vegetarian for a number of years. It was just something I could learn about. I might have picked bread or cupcakes or soup or...

Later, I realized the only reason I could sustain doing it every day for a year was because it was vegetables and mostly simple supper vegetables.

What did you learn in that first year?

When you’re just doing it, not everything turns out. You might make a mistake or the recipe’s no good or the vegetables weren’t fresh enough. Especially in the first 90 days, as I looked back, I realized I didn’t have very many favorite recipes, ones that I would mark as keepers and I would recommend. That’s because I was used to almost always cooking with frozen vegetables. Now I love frozen vegetables. I think they have a great place in this world, and everyone’s freezer should have a stock. But for taste and pleasure, they really have to be fresh. I didn’t know that. I didn’t actually know that for quite some months.

What was a vegetable disaster recipe that happened?

Vegetable disaster recipe? I don’t remember the recipe, but it was so bad that the post actually reads, “I’m not sharing the recipe. Do you think I would want to perpetuate this?” I didn’t name the cookbook. I think it was a Brussels sprouts recipe actually and I love Brussels sprouts. But it was so bad. But, that was part of the learning process and being able to say, “Okay, I didn’t like that Brussels sprouts recipe, but I do like Brussels sprouts. Could I do something different with it?” So part of the learning, even for me, was to not give up on Brussels sprouts just because I had a bad experience with Brussels sprouts.

Is there any vegetable that you just hate?

Artichokes in the microwave

I didn’t get artichokes until this year. I just thought they weren’t worth the trouble. But now, I get them. They are very good and they are worth the trouble - especially since I learned you can throw them in the microwave and it’s just as good as steaming them.

Beet ice cream

There isn’t anything I’ve hated. But I will say that each year, I fall in love with a different vegetable. The first year, I just fell completely in love with beets. I did more beet recipes than you could imagine - very simple things like beets cooked any way you want to cook them, then chilled, cut in layers and plated with a little feta cheese on top and just a little drizzle of lemon juice. It’s sublimely simple and people who don’t like beets say, “Oh my gosh, can I have some more of that?”

Green bean casserole

Last year it was beans. I really fell in love with green beans in a way I hadn’t before.

What about this year?

Seared radicchio

It might be radicchio because I’ve only used radicchio, which is quite expensive, as just a little add-in to a salad for a little bit of color. When I cooked them seared this week, they were so good that I want to go on. I want to grill them, and someone sent me a recipe for a radicchio soup today. Radicchio has this sort of bitterness that isn’t found that often and is unusual to the American palate in a way that rhubarb is.

Is there anything surprising to you that you learned about vegetables during this time on the blog?

So many things. But mostly, it’s the obvious things, but because I never paid attention, I hadn’t put them all together. The first thing is that nearly any vegetable can be roasted and turned into something very different than you’ve ever tasted before. Even roasting kohlrabi or celery or rhubarb brings out a softness, a texture, and a sweetness that’s just quite different.

I’ve learned that most vegetables don’t require much enhancement. If the vegetables are fresh (and by that I don’t even mean farmers-market fresh, because I think what we get at the grocery stores is actually very good) and cooked simply just with a little bit of olive oil and a little bit of salt and pepper, you end up with something that’s really tasty and healthful and that you can eat a lot of and feel good about.

I’ve learned that if you get bored with vegetables, you can sort of change their structure and end up with something new. If you’re used to roasting beets, instead grate them and eat them raw - something very different. If you’re used to having Brussels sprouts always cooked whole and either roasting them or steaming them, mix it up a little - slice them really thin and cook them like a hash.

Oh, big surprise (this should be number one) - vegetables need salt. We’ve become so afraid of salt, just like we’re afraid of carbs and fat and in the mean time, we’re chowing down on our box pizzas and we’re going out for lunch and we go through the drive-thru and the carry-out and in those situations, we don’t know how much salt we’re consuming. My idea is cut out all that food that you haven’t cooked yourself and then you can literally salt your vegetables and your other foods so that they taste good. You can eat more of what’s good for you and you’re actually consuming less sodium than in your old diet. It takes an overhaul, however.

Does salt really make that much of a difference?

Oh, salt makes a total difference. If you cook green beans in well-salted water, you wouldn’t believe the difference in how the green beans taste. It’s not salt you’re tasting - it just changes the chemical structure inside the beans in a way so that both the texture and the flavor really just work.

What do you think vegetable-haters should do to get started eating vegetables?

If they are grown-ups, they are probably not going to change their ways unless they have children and they know that they need to be good role models for their children. Then, they will eat something that they wouldn’t have just to show the kids that they’ll eat it too.

First of all, I would do a little bit of research; there are actually chemical reasons why some people don’t like some vegetables. I keep coming back to Brussels sprouts like they are the only vegetable, but there’s a chemical reaction that some people have in their bodies to Brussels sprouts that makes them particularly unpalatable to them. There’s a way to counteract that. If you don’t like Brussels sprouts, that’s fine, do something else.

I think the greatest evidence of how kids can be turned on to vegetables is a project out of the UK, The Great Big Vegetable Project, that just published their book this month. Here’s this darling little nine-year old boy who turns up his nose at the site of a vegetable and negotiates whether or not he can eat just two peas, mom, please. Now, he’ll try anything. He doesn’t always like things, because he was given permission to not always like things. But, he was asked to try things.

Why did you become and then stop being a vegetarian?

I didn’t eat meat for eight years. It was sort of on a dare, but during those years, I wasn’t a vegetarian for ethical reasons. I wasn’t even doing it particularly for health reasons. I was just doing it. During that time, I always was hungry for ribs and hamburgers.

I was actually at a sushi place and learned that I was allergic to wasabi and ended up in the emergency room. I was driving home at seven in the morning with a friend who had taken me to the emergency room because my throat had closed, and I said, “I want a Big Mac.” I didn’t actually have a Big Mac, but a week later, on a mountain, I had a hamburger and a steak. I still eat meatless a lot.

Kitchen Parade actually has a lot of vegetarian recipes because I think that whether or not we go completely without meat is a personal choice, but all of us should be eating less meat than we do - much smaller portions and much less often.

Do you have a favorite recipe?

Do I favorite recipe? Do I have a favorite uncle? The recipes I like the most aren’t so much recipes as concepts because I’d like to provide families with tools so that just by an inspiration, just a bare, vague, construct of what to make, they say, “There’s our supper.” I work quite hard, actually, to develop concept recipes because they take a lot of testing to try and get the balance right - to get people the range of the options that you might give them.

What’s an example?

I have a stew recipe that will publish in January. I’ve tested it with five different kinds of meat and different vegetables, I’ve done it in a crock pot, I’ve done it in the oven, and I’ve done it on the stove top. It happens to have fruit in it as well. I’ve experimented with different kinds of fruit. It has so many variations that I asked for help testing it. Some family and friends jumped in and probably five of them cooked it in a couple of different ways. So it’s a well-tested, good, basic, very substantial, healthy stew recipe.

Are all of your recipes tested like that?

Not like that, but all of them are tested a lot.

So, you make a recipe more than once before posting it?

Perfected pie crust

Oh, yeah. Let’s see, when I was working on pie crusts last fall, I did, I think, 19 pie crusts in two weeks - 19 pies in two weeks. That’s overkill. I did four flatbread recipes yesterday. I’m working on a sorbet recipe that, funny enough, has only two ingredients, but it’s so simple, you need to be certain of the balance of it in different situations. I’ve made it four or five times.

Wow! That’s a lot of time invested into your posts. How much time do you spend on your blog?

Oh, let’s see, it might be easier to answer it the other way around. How much time do I not? I don’t know. I’m obsessed by it and I know I am. I’m very obsessed by it. It would be nice to have it move into balance.

Do you have another job or is this your full time job?

I do have another job. I’m a consultant in the payments industry. But, this is where I have all my fun.

On your blog’s About page, it talks about how you lost 30 pounds with Weight Watchers. Has Weight Watchers had an impact on the recipes you make?

Apricot bars

Completely. I provide nutrition information and Weight Watchers points for every single recipe, good or bad. This week, in fact, in Kitchen Parade, I took an old recipe that I love from 30 years ago and made it and loved it all over again. Then, I did the nutritional analysis and about died! I almost didn’t post it, but I thought, “You know what? I’m going to go ahead and post and I’m going to give the nutrition information.” I’m just going to say, “Listen, it’s so important that we know this information so that we can make our choices, good and bad.” Needless to say, I’ve put those 30 pounds back on since I started the blog.

Where do you turn to for recipes?

My recipes actually come from all over. I get a lot of reader recipes. People send me stuff and I love that - a lot of family recipes. Because of my mom having the column, you can imagine the stacks of recipes that I inherited. I do have too many cookbooks. I’m actually feeling very burdened by cookbooks right now. I’ve stopped accepting them from people that are offering to send complimentary copies, unless I’m really, really excited about a topic. I love Food and Wine and I really do love Gourmet and Bon Appetit as well. Their simple recipes are good and I’m good at picking the right recipes.

Where do you see the future of your two sites?

I think I would never, ever in this world run out of vegetable recipes because I haven’t even touched on the preparations of other cuisines. I’m looking at this beautiful Italian book right now and it has so many recipes where vegetables are the center of a dish. So, I think that can go on forever. Kitchen Parade, in another year, will turn into a real blog and only be published online.

It’s a real thrill to be published in print and, for me, in particular, it grounded me to Webster-Kirkwood and the area where the papers are published. It was really neat to run into people at the grocery store and have them say, “Oh, I made your such and such.” That was just really neat. But, papers have to be profitable and this is a really good local newspaper and they are getting pressured by the economy. If they don’t have room or they don’t have the page space for something like a recipe column, that’s okay. I still want them to do really well and will do everything I can to keep making them do well.

If you could interview one person about food, who would it be?

I would love to see an interview from someone who is bridging the publishing world and the online world well. I think it needs to be from the serial publishing world - the magazines - because cookbooks are different. I would say the editor of Food and Wine would be excellent. I’d like to see the topic be: How do we all get along and (without pandering to blogs) how do you incorporate blogs? What do they do for you? What would you like blogs to do for you?

Another idea (on that business side too) would be from the PR side, people who are trying to push product to the blogs. I’d love to start a conversation about mutual trust and respect and everybody getting something out of it for the benefit of the readers.

Patric Chocolate Winners

2008-11-13T06:25:00.000-08:00

The following very lucky people will be getting their Patric Chocolate orders for free:

Stephanie B.
Aimea S.
Lynette P.

They won a combined total of $177.81 worth of Patric Chocolate!

Patric Chocolate - Virtual Chocolate Factory Tour

2008-11-06T17:00:00.000-08:00

Join me on a tour of Patric Chocolate. Chocolate maker Alan McClure takes us step-by-step through the process of making chocolate from bean to bar! Note: At Alan's request, there are a few parts of this interview that do not have photos.

Before we start the tour, I want to remind you that Alan is offering Food Interviews readers a great coupon and a chance to win up to $100 worth of fine chocolate! Get the contest and coupon details here.

Smell that cacao - our tour starts now!

Me and Alan McClure at the beginning of the chocolate factory tour.

This is the place that my wife and I call “The Fac”, but actually, I tend to say it’s a workshop. A factory sort of hints at something much larger, much more substantial - like what the Big H would have, for example. What I do here is almost all done either by hand or is manual in some way, shape, or form. There are a couple of machines that I use, but they both require me to be there changing settings and monitoring things.

Bags of cacao

This is where everything starts, in the cacao-storage area. You’re actually here at a good time because I just got this cacao this past week. My storage area and the cleaning area were empty, I was out of cacao. Now I have about a metric ton, 2200 lbs of cacao. It’s from a single-estate in Madagascar.

How much chocolate can you make from this pile of cacao?

Each bag is about 150 pounds and makes approximately 100 pounds of chocolate, maybe a little more. We have 16 bags here or 32 batches, 1600 pounds of chocolate.

Cacao beans

This is cacao as it comes in. You’ll see that on some of these beans, the shells have started to come off or they’re broken or they’re double beans. Or sometimes, there is external mold on it.

Alan hand sorts every single bean to find problems.

There are problems with just using all of this material in chocolate. The double beans weren’t able to be dried properly because they were stuck together. The ones that are broken, there are potential mold issues internally because they’ve been broken apart. If I see mold, I know that inside it doesn’t taste quite right, so I don’t want to use that. Also, little shriveled beans are not going to taste right.

Other things that get thrown out are flat beans, germinated beans. The germ, or radical, is really hard and it pokes through the end in order to start growing a little sapling. Once cacao starts to germinate, the internal chemistry starts changing, just like with any seed. Again, it just doesn’t taste quite right after the fact. So, I remove germinated beans.
Really, what I want going into my chocolate are beans that are virtually perfect. I can’t cut open every single one and still roast them properly and it would take way too much time. If I could, I would, because you can tell things by looking inside too, to see if it was fermented and dried properly.

Do you manually sort through all these beans?

Exactly. By hand.

The cacao bean cleaning station

Here’s the cleaning station. A couple scoops go out on a screen . Everything that’s small falls right through - everything else is spread out and picked out manually. It gets rejected and the rejects are in those bags over there. So, all the cacao that gets cleaned goes into here.

Do other chocolate companies go through a similar process of hand sorting the cacao?

I don’t know what the other smaller companies are doing. I know some of what they do. Steve De Vries, he does stuff by hand, too. But the larger companies, do have machines that do it and what the machines do is they sift things automatically, so it gets rid of the small material, but then all of the large material stays on the top. They have vacuums that suck off leaves, feathers, or little pieces of rope. They have magnets to get rid of nails or anything like that and destoners to remove anything that’s much more dense than a cacao bean.. But, they still end up with germinated beans, cracked beans, double beans, anything like that that I get rid of.

It could theoretically be possible to have, like they do with cars, a very expensive mechanized system that has cameras and the cameras are trained somehow, programmed, to be able to figure out if each bean looks right and then have a little robotic hand come in here and pull it out. I doubt it’s going to happen because there are an awful lot of beans that go through one of those systems - millions and millions a day for those large companies. Whereas, I’m making one to two batches of chocolate a week.

Cacao shells

These bags over here, these are rejected cacao.

Rejected beans just gets used as fertilizer. I actually haven’t gotten rid of my reject beans. I don’t exactly know what I’m going to do with them. I’ve actually tried contacting a local farmer to pick them up and compost them and he says he will.

Alan continues the tour with his shelf of samples.

This is cacao that I bought back in 2005-2006 when I was still trying to figure out all the different origins and what they tasted like. I was making little test batches. This is more recent sample that I’ve gotten--just the other day, it's from Vanuatu, right near Papua New Guinea.

Alan smelling the beans

It smells different than the Madagascar, actually. It’s less acidic and it has an interesting, slightly smoky quality to it. It almost reminds me of smoked bacon or something like that, which isn’t something you’d normally associate with chocolate and probably isn’t a good thing, but we’ll see; it would normally be considered smoky or hammy, and a fault.

This [points to another sample bag] is from Hawaii - basically the only place in the U.S. where you can grow cacao. There’s not much of a scent any more since it has been sitting open, but when I first opened it, it really reminded me of like a floral, honey aroma. It smelled really good. There’s other stuff, Cuyagua, which is in Venezuela, one of the places I’ve visited. This is from Chiapas, southern Mexico. Most of what I get is junk—in fact, almost all of it.

Why are some beans so much better than others?

There are all kinds of differences and reasons for them and it’s really difficult to wrap your mind around the complexity that is cacao quality. To give you an idea, there are not really such things as varieties of cacao. There are clones, which is the closest things we have to varieties, which have been indexed and planted by certain scientific organizations like CIRAD or a center in Trinidad for example.

We’re still in the middle-ages in cacao. You’ve had people seriously thinking about wine for a very long time and growing it right in their backyard. Whereas right here, it’s totally different. It’s a raw product, It’s from another country, most of the time. It’s a relatively recent event that people are thinking about excellent quality and chocolate in the same sentence. So, it’s moving in the right direction. But, we’re probably hundreds of years from where grapes are right now, which is kind of infuriating for chocolate-makers, because we wish we could just pick up the phone and ask for excellent cacao grown under such and such conditions and fermented and dried in a specific way. At this point, it’s not really happening, and we have to be very involved.

There are a few companies trying to do some interesting things and move quality forward. Domori in Italy, they have a relationship with a company called Cacao San Jose which has an estate in Venezuela. They are trying to grow certain clones and make chocolate only out of those clones. They’re doing it at a relatively small scale at this point, thought the company is fairly big compared to Patric Chocolate. Who knows, hopefully that type of thing will catch on. But, there are also drawbacks to doing something like that and those drawbacks are diseases because we still don’t understand cacao diseases. You have diseases that will go through certain countries and can wipe out their cacao populations. So, all of the farmers that were growing cacao, are not growing cacao anymore.

Then you have terroir, the land itself, the climate right there, the microorganisms in that particular place. Because once you’ve harvested the cacao, then you need to ferment it. I don’t know if you’re familiar with Lambic. It’s a Belgian style of beer. Everything that ferments the wort is right there in that particular brewery - on the walls, in the vats, on the floor, in the air. Every brewery has slightly different microorganisms. If you move out of that area to another area, then the microorganisms are even more different, and so on and so forth. In Madagascar, part of what gives the cacao this quality is in large part the yeast and the bacteria that are right there. You take the same cacao genetically to another place, process it the same exact way, it will not taste the same. That’s one of the exciting things, also, about cacao - that there’s so much that is left to be understood regarding the interaction of cacao and microorganisms—the fermentation.

So on one hand, it seems like a depressing thing - we don’t understand anything, no one knows anything, we’re in the stone ages. On the other hand, there’s so much still left to learn that you can be hopeful that things are going to get better for sure because people are getting better at understanding the complexity of cacao.

Alan takes cleaning seriously.

You can photograph this because, ask my wife, I am an authoritarian when it comes to hand washing. I’m always on everyone’s case, “Did you wash your hands?” I try to be nice about it. Nothing is ever 100% perfect, but you want it to be clean.

The oven

This is room number two. This is where we roast the cacao. It’s just a commercial gas heated convection oven. Nothing especially chocolatey about it, but it roasts well, so it’s what I use.

Oven thermometers

You’ll see all the thermometers numbered. Each tray of cacao gets a thermometer during the roast and then every five minutes, I write down the temperature and then I plug that into Excel so I get a roasting curve. I know exactly what every roast is like in terms of numbers but also I can compare the roasting curve of two different batches. If there’s a slightly different flavor, I want to understand exactly where that slightly different flavor is coming from, then I compare the two. I can see, “Okay, this one got up to heat much more quickly than the other one did.” That allows me during the next roast to know, say, in the beginning I need to be a little more careful and keep things a little cooler or if I want it getting up to heat more quickly, etc., etc.

How long does it roast for?

Generally, 40-50 minutes, in that range. Typically between 230 and 270 degrees is a pretty good range, but different chocolate makers use different times and temperatures

When the cacao comes out of there, I crack it and sift it to separate different sizes of material. This is another very manual part of the process. I’m extremely excited to be getting a new machine for this soon because this is the biggest pain in the ass in the whole place and I don’t mind saying so. When I first designed my cracker/sifter setup, I knew it would work, I knew it would be time-consuming, but I didn’t know it would be as time-consuming as it ended up being. I just knew I wanted to get in here and make chocolate and I didn’t have $50,000 to spend on a refurbished, vintage winnower, let alone the hundreds of thousands to spend on a new, fairly small but still gigantic winnower, probably not the space either.

What I did was I used these little crackers which are used for whole-grain malt, for beer-making. In fact, the company’s called Crankandstein. Initially, it was made for cracking barley, but I had them do a custom one that was adjustable so I could make the gaps larger and smaller and crack the cacao and hand-sift it.

Screens

There are three different sizes of screens. Everything is screened through them. The large stuff is re-cracked. It takes hours to go through just one batch and that’s only separating the cacao into three different sizes.

Then, it has to be winnowed using a machine, which I also built. It’s functional, though extremely slow also. Again, I wanted to get in and make chocolate, but I didn’t have the money for an expensive machine so I built this thing.

When you have the cacao, you have the internal part and the external part. The external part is what you just saw, I call it the shell, though it is actually the seed coat. It’s kind of light. The internal part is heavier and denser, it's called the nib.

It’s like mixing rocks and feathers together and then trying to separate them again. The easiest way to separate rocks and feathers is air. That’s what the winnower does. Air blows up and the vacuum sucks that through, the shell moves up and the nibs fall straight through into a bucket below.

Chocolate nibs

You’ll see different sizes of nibs. So you see the stuff on top is small and the stuff around is a little bit larger. The stuff at the very bottom is larger still. So those are the three different sizes that have been winnowed. You’ll see a little piece of shell here and there, but basically it has all been removed. It really starts smelling like chocolate at this point. During roasting, it kind of starts but a lot of the volatile acids are coming off the roast too, so you smell a heavy vinegar smell during the roast, actually.

It does take pretty much all day long to do both of these [cracking and winnowing] for one batch of chocolate. Whereas, with an automatic winnower for that amount of cacao, we’re talking an hour - max.

The next step is the refiner. It has two large granite rollers and a thick granite base. It’s a 600 pound machine, or something like that. I turn these infrared heaters on then, and I start adding nibs to it. Then, the heat and the friction through crushing just turn the nib into a liquid.

Once all the nibs are added, it's nice and liquidy and not very viscous and I start adding the sugar. So for my 70% chocolate, 30% of the weight of the chocolate is going to be the sugar and 70% is the nib. This grinding/refining/conching process takes about fours days. The particles sizes of the cacao and sugar are gradually reduced and the flavor and texture improve and refine as well. Without this part of the process, the texture of the chocolate would be granular and almost gritty.

Aging blocks of chocolate

After four days, when the chocolate’s done, it gets molded into ten to twelve pound blocks. I take those blocks out to another room where they’re aged.

You’ll notice that the blocks look odd. When you take molten chocolate and you put it in a container and you let it solidify of its own volition, let’s say, this is what happens. It looks like this. What that is, is that in each of these circles, there’s a crystal that forms in the center and it builds outward. So every one of those is actually a huge crystalline piece of chocolate and what happens is, you’ll get some really interesting patterns and colors. But, as soon as you melt that back down again, it’s just normal liquid chocolate.

What you see here is simply cocoa butter, the way natural cocoa butter crystallizes when left to its own devices. Its not mold, it’s not a disease. I had someone in here once where I explained all of this to her and then she said, “But is it okay to eat?” I said, “It’s just like water turning into ice.” It’s still okay to drink the water after the ice is melted. It’s just like that. So, this chocolate after it's done being aged, I melt it back down and then it's molded into bars, the crystallization is controlled and so what you get is a nice shiny looking bar instead of this. This would be crumbly, like you can kind of crumble it apart and it looks like little marbles.

Do these blocks taste the same as the bars?

It doesn’t melt the same in your mouth. Because the way chocolate melts impacts the flavor of the chocolate, it doesn’t taste quite the same, but it has the same chemical compounds in it that tempered chocolate has. It actually takes a little longer for this to melt in your mouth and it melts less evenly, but once you melt it back down and temper it, then it melts the right way.

Alan points out the tempering machine

This is the tempering machine. It's the most expensive piece of machinery in here. . This is how it came, just like this; I didn’t have to make any modifications. After the chocolate’s aged, then it comes back in here and gets melted down in this machine.

Mmmm...melted chocolate

I just put in some aged blocks to melt down, as you can see. That’s about 120 pounds of chocolate in there. You would need considerably more than 120 pounds to submerge yourself!

Do you ever just dip your finger in there?

I try not to.

The next step is that the melted chocolate gets deposited into these molds here.

Chocolate molds

When you have molds, you can’t deposit warm chocolate in cold molds or you have shock which causes a bad appearance. What happens is that the surface of the bar looks all squirrelly and there are lines you can kind of see where the chocolate first touched the mold and started crystallizing right away. So, what you have to do is heat it up.

I have a heat gun hooked up to a temperature controller. I dial up the temperature and it turns the heat gun on and off for whatever temperature. You also can’t heat them too much or else it will take the chocolate completely out of temper and melt all the crystals and you end up with a whole other set of problems. There’s a very fine line that’s perfect.

The agitator

After I deposit the chocolate into a mold, I throw it on this, which is a great machine. It’s a vibrating table. Chocolate is a weird thing. It has different properties of viscosity to it. There’s actually something called a yield value where even very warm chocolate will sometimes tend not to spread out unless you sort of tap what it’s in. If you just gently tap it, it’ll just sort of spread out.

This kind of takes that same principle. You can deposit chocolate right down the middle of the mold and put the mold on a tray , and it’s not really spreading out that easily, but as soon as you put it on the vibrating table , it just spreads it right out and any of the bubbles that get caught in the corner, they kind of get worked out. That’s the way that works.

The next step is cooling. I built my own cooling cabinets. Box fans blow air through filters from either side to cool the bars. Have you ever turned off the lights and shined a flashlight through a dark room and seen all the stuff that’s floating through it? Even with this filtration system and great cleanliness, that stuff’s all over the place. I don’t want that getting on my bars. So what this does is create positive pressure in here and as the air blows across the bars, the only place for it to go is out, so as I bring bars in, I put them in. It’s a great system and inexpensive.

What large companies use are cooling tunnels that are like 60 feet long and maybe $200,000 or more t. There is one company making cooling cabinets that hold two-thirds what this one holds and they are $2,500. You can imagine this did not cost me $2,500 to build. But again, it works.

No golden ticket needed for this tour, but there sure are a lot of golden bars.

These are our wrapped bars that I just wrapped yesterday. So you can see, they are pretty uniform, they’re pretty even. It’s very hard with foil to get things to look like that. It’s easy to make them look all crinkly. That’s sort of the problem with having someone wrap the bars because they can look pretty bad and you don’t want someone paying six dollars for a bar, seeing this box, “Oh that looks nice,” and they open it up and it’s like this golden turd coming out.

Alan even stamps the boxes himself.

Do you print the boxes yourself too? Or do you have that done somewhere else?

They’re stamped. The backs and fronts are stamped by hand here.

Of course.

As I grow, I’m going to have the stamped part printed onto the box, for sure. I have the designs all ready. I knew when I was starting out, “Okay, I’m going to have different products but I don’t know exactly what those will be. I know what one will be so I can get those boxes printed and get others printed as we go along and spend a lot more money. Or get one sort of more generic box and hand stamp it as we go along, and save a lot of money." For a start-up, I went with saving the money.

So you’re just stamping this right here?

Right. Exactly. Then the little sticker there that says 70%, and then the stamps on the back. The 67% also needs a sticker on the back. It’s a little more involved because the ingredients have cocoa butter, too, whereas the 70% doesn’t. But again, the cocoa butter I press right here. This isn’t unique because Shawn Askinosie does that, too. But it is quite rare. Most people just buy their cocoa butter. It’s just another part of the issue of the consistency. If you’re pressing your own cocoa butter, you understand it.

From the start of your process from that bag of beans to the end, how long does it take you?

Cleaning’s done in one day, roasting the next, and winnowing on the third day. I could, theoretically, do all three of those in one day but it would be a very long day and I wouldn’t be able to do it by myself. I’ve got so many other things I have to take care of. I have people placing orders, I have orders I have to ship out, I’m dealing with vendors, I’m ordering new things, and I have to deal with that. And there’s accounting that I have to do also, so I really don’t have the time to do all that in one day so it’s split up over three days. Then, the refining is started on another day and goes for four days.

In a normal week, refining is started on Monday. Monday and Tuesday I would mold bars (if need be, Wednesday also). Wednesday, the cacao’s cleaned (not by me, though, if I’m molding bars). Thursday, I roast. I always do the roasting and so far, I always do the molding, Friday is winnowing and I’m also emptying the refiner to blocks. Those blocks get aged. That’s kind of how the week breaks down. And then the dishes - every day, there’s dishes or something.

Alan's extensive library of chocolate books

If you could interview one person about food, who would it be?

That’s a tough one. I respect a lot of people. I love Jeffrey Steingarten's writing. Have you read anything by him? I think he’s a brilliant food writer. He has a strong personality so I’m not sure I’d get very far in an interview with him.

There’s a guy that just died, where’s the book? Bartley, he just died. The amount of knowledge that went to the grave with this guy - it’s actually pretty sad. What he was working on was so detailed and terse, this book right here. People weren’t really taking his research and adding on to it. It was sort of like, “This guy’s doing that and we’ll let him do his thing.” But, it’s just genius stuff. But I guess I can’t interview that person either. So, I don’t know. That’s a tough question. I don’t know if that’s a very good answer. There are so many people I’d love to talk to.

People are always naming dead people. I think half the people that I interview say Julia Child.

That’s the thing, so many of the people who were groundbreaking in terms of writing about chocolate, they’re dead.

Would you want to write about chocolate some day?

I’m always writing on the blog. I haven’t been publishing a lot lately because I’ve been working on a really long piece that, taking your advice, I’ll just split up into like 20 different segments; about the beginning of fermentation. Where does fermentation even come from? Because people assume that the Maya invented fermentation and, often, even academics will say that the Maya fermented. But even in academic papers, I’ve never seen anything that proves that point. And on top of that, the one thing that we know for sure about the Maya is that they used cacao as money.

If you are not an academic and you’re a chocolate maker and you have your hands in cacao, you’ll know that unfermented cacao is very hard, is not brittle at all. You could easily carry that around everywhere. But fermented and dried cacao is very brittle and if you really wanted to carry around cacao as currency, would it make more sense to carry around something that broke easily whenever you just move or something very solid and not easily broken? So, that’s one of the things that I’m writing about now.

Hopefully, I’ll look back over my blog at some point and say, “Wow, if I could pull all this together, that would equal a book.” Then I’ll say, “Why don’t I do that?” So that’s kind of my goal at this point. I’m not focusing on writing the book, I’m focusing writing strong pieces for the blog that I can later pull together into something interesting for chocolate makers or chocolate lovers or whatever. Hopefully the market will continue to expand for fine chocolate and you’ll get people that are the same types of people that are crazy about home brewing, they’ll be crazy about home chocolate making.

Patric Chocolate - Meet Chocolate Maker Alan McClure

2008-10-29T20:24:00.000-07:00

Alan McClure of Patric Chocolate

You can't really know how special Patric Chocolate is until you taste it. However, after you read about owner Alan McClure's passion for chocolate and the care he personally takes with every step of the chocolate making process, I think you'll have a pretty good idea.

I've devoted two posts to Patric Chocolate. In this post, you'll learn all about Alan and the history of Patric Chocolate. In the second post, you will get to join me for a tour of the chocolate factory! You'll see where and how Patric Chocolate is made!

To make the experience a little sweeter, Alan is offering Food Interviews readers a chance to win up to $100 worth of fine chocolate! Every 10th person who places an order on the Patric Chocolate online store using coupon code 3FLMDE will get their entire order for free! That’s 1 in 10 odds of getting free chocolate!

In addition to the chance to win, your code also gets you 10% off of any purchase (including any already reduced items) and two additional complimentary chocolate bars on any purchases over $50.

The fine print: The contest and coupon code is good only through midnight (CST) on Wednesday, November 12, 2008. The “1 in 10” free chocolate prize applies only up to the first $100 of any order. You’ll be asked to pay at the time of purchase. However, on Thursday, Nov. 13, I’ll announce who the winners are and if you win, up to $100 will be refunded to you.

How did you start Patric Chocolate?

One thing that has always been a constant in my life is that I’ve always liked food. I wouldn’t say that all the time that it was gourmet food or fine food or even decent food necessarily, but I enjoyed the process of eating. As I got older and started learning more and having food from different countries, I started to appreciate diversity in food and then I’d start cooking more and more. I kind of thought about being a chef, but that falls into one of those things that I was like, “I don’t know if I want to do that.”

I lived in France for a year and I tracked down some really good chocolate while I was there. I actively tracked it down because I knew I wouldn’t be there forever. I got back here and I couldn’t find it and so I said, “Maybe I can make it. I can cook. I can bake bread or whatever. How hard can it be to make chocolate?” Little did I know. But when I first started, I didn’t know that. I just bought some small table-top machinery , which seemed expensive at the time, but in reality, it was nothing compared to the cost of my current machinery, and I just started experimenting. As I did that, I first got my taste of the bottomless void of potential chocolate knowledge.

I’m sure people in other fields say the same thing about what it is that they enjoy doing. But I don’t know. I’ve just never come across anything like this before where just no matter what aspect of the process you look at, it just seems infinitely complicated.

How much time went by between when you got interested in chocolate and when you sold your first bar?

I got interested in chocolate in 2004. In 2005, I first experimented with Mexican chocolate. I got some cacao beans online and I roasted them in a skillet and then winnowed them by hand one by one - I got blisters on my thumbs and fingers. Then I transferred that to a food processor. That was my first experience making chocolate. I used it in mole.

That was my goal, traditional mole. Toast the seeds and the spices and the chilies and grind them as I did. It was great.

Then after that, that’s when I really started entertaining the idea of fine chocolate, bar chocolate, and that was still in 2005. In early 2006 was really when I first was able to make something that was on its way to being fine chocolate. 2006 was also when I started the company on paper. So there were four months after I had first made something that I considered to be on its way to being fine chocolate where I was like, “Should I do this? Should I not do this? Do I know anything? Maybe I do. Maybe I don’t.”

This is when I got a hold of Steve De Vries (from De Vries Chocolate), who was already doing things and I told him , “I want to try your chocolate.” He wasn’t really selling it yet, and he told me, “Well, yeah, I only sell it here.” I said, “Oh, tell me where, I’ll have my dad pick it up. He lives in Denver.” Then he just said, “Oh, I’ll just send you some.” Additionally, Steve asked me what I had read so far I was like, “I don’t know. Chocolate Alchemy, and a couple of industry manuals.” So, he said “Okay, write these down.” So, I wrote down five books that he recommended. They are all old books from the early 1900’s, late 1800’s. But, I tracked them down on a used book website.

Anyway, so I bought those books a couple of days after that--got them and read them a couple of times and then I called him back. It was in a space of three weeks or so. I told him, “So, I got the books and I read the books.”

He could hardly believe it. He said, “I’ve recommended those books to a lot of people and no one’s ever read them.” So I asked him, “What else you got? I found this too, and this too.” “Those are good,” he said.

So, I just kept reading and then the summer of that year, 2006, I went to Mexico. I just felt, “I need to go somewhere and see cacao being grown and talk to farmers and see it fermented and see it dried.” If you’re going to be a chocolate maker or you think you might want to be, I feel you’ve just got to do that. It’s got to be an experience that you have. There’s so much that’s hard to understand without having that experience.

That was in the summer. About a year later, in 2007, I finally sold my first bar.

What’s your goal for the future of the company?

I don’t know. I’m just playing it by ear. I’m just trying to stay connected to every part of the company and try to really feel, “Am I going in the right direction? Do I need to slow down?” Because above all is the issue of quality, and if you feel like there’s risk of it deteriorating, then there’s a problem. So then it’s like, “Okay, can I keep this quality and change a few things and then do what I was thinking about doing? Is that possible or not?” I haven’t even come to that point. I feel like that question is way down the line for me.

Do you believe that it’s better to be smaller?

I made one metric ton of chocolate last year. Even the bigger guys, like Amano (and when I say bigger, I mean bigger than me, but still small), I don’t know what they made, but we’re talking two metric tons, maybe five metric tons, maybe more, but not 4,000 metric tons like some companies that are considered moderately sized

I just feel like there’s room for different companies to be doing different things and we should just be clear about what it is we’re doing so that people can know and see what’s going on. So, that kind of bugs me. I don’t expect every company to be so transparent that they tell you everything. It’s not going to happen, and I certainly won’t tell you everything either. It just feels like we need to be more open and honest with people as companies and with each other as companies as well.

I believe that there’s a limited amount of excellent quality cacao in the world. It’s limited and you can not make 4,000 metric tons of chocolate and have it all be of excellent quality - even if you have the expertise. When a certain Bay-area-based chocolate company first started up, their chocolate, from many reports, was excellent. Over time, though, some people thought that it decreased in quality . The reason is, their capacity increased over time. It wasn’t that they forgot how to make good chocolate or they didn’t care anymore, it’s simply that there’s a limited supply of what I would say is fine cacao. They needed to start bringing in other stuff that kind of bulked up the chocolate that they were making and it wasn’t necessarily as flavorful. That’s what happens.

Cacao

As people have more interest in quality cacao, do you think there will be more grown?

I hope so. It’s possible. That’s tied into something else that I’m always telling people, which is everyone is very concerned about fair trade, and I understand why. The reasons why people are concerned about fair trade are good reasons to be concerned, but when you start talking about fine chocolate, to give you an idea, I paid more than twice fair trade price for my cacao - more than twice! That is often the case. Why? Because when we’re selling products for six, seven, eight, ten dollars a bar, we can pay more for excellent quality cacao, it drives the price up because there’s only a limited amount. It’s just supply and demand right there.

The fact that this is twice fair trade price tells you something about where the demand is going. But, what’s not happening is that people aren’t growing more excellent quality cacao quickly enough to keep the price stable. They could be, but they’re not.

One of the things that I think is negative about fair trade is the fact that it gives people a feeling like that’s the best thing that could be done for farmers, when in reality if we wanted farmers to make even more money, we would say, “Grow better cacao.” Think about it in terms of some other crop. Are you going to tell a farmer growing bad apples that the best way to make more money is to become fair trade farmers, or are you going to say, "Grow better apples and you’ll make more money?" So again, I don’t want to attack fair trade. I think that they have a role to play; I think that in some cases, especially like the Ivory Coast where there’s been child slavery, it’s especially important. But I think in most cases, consumers who care about chocolate need to start buying better chocolate.

Buy chocolate that tastes better. If you buy chocolate that tastes better, it’s from better cacao. That cacao is bought for a higher price; the farmers are making more money. There are very few cases where that does not work out exactly like that. But there are cases where fair trade prices are paid and farmers don’t make anything more than commodity cacao prices.

What about organic?

This cacao right there is organic, by the way. That’s the thing, it doesn’t say that on my box and that’s a whole other issue. I have some retailers in other countries now who are wanting to carry my chocolate. Well as soon as I put organic on the box, I get into a whole other tangled mess because organic rules and regulations in the EU, for example, are not the same as they are in the States.

I’ve looked into it - I’ve spent a lot of time, and it’s not worth it right now because most people buying this chocolate are going to be fine with it not saying organic on the front, even though the cacao is organic. I feel like people should know that it just doesn’t make sense. It would be expensive for me with little return.

That’s one of the frustrating things (not to go on a rant here) about being a small company. Large companies can blow through that stuff. They have a team of lawyers and they have all the money possible to make that happen. Small companies don’t. It actually is kind of a burden, these new rules and regulations, though again I understand why they exist. But, they are kind of a burden on small companies just for doing what they would like to do. I don’t have sleepless nights about it.

Are you able to learn from other chocolate companies, or it a very competitive industry?

It’s a little bit of a mix. At the end of June in New York, there’s a Fancy Food Show. I wasn’t going to go because I had something scheduled in St. Louis at the Kitchen Conservatory and they called me the day before and said they only had five people signed up and they were canceling it. For a moment I was like, “Oh man,” then I thought, “Wait a minute. Fancy Food Show!” So I got a ticket with my frequent flyer miles, went up there, stayed with a friend, and I was glad that I did that because Steve De Vries was up there, Art was there, Shawn Askinosie, the guys from Taza, even the TCHO people. Everyone was there. I was like, “Okay. Perfect opportunity for us to finally meet face to face and be nice to each other and we don’t have to be dicks to each other. We can be cool and helpful.” That’s what happened, thankfully.

It was the start of a small artisan, chocolate organization in the United States. It’s something we’ve talked about and we’ve been emailing each other back and forth. I think there’s still a feeling of competitiveness. Though from the beginning I’ve said, "There are seven of us. Seriously, we’re not competitors with each other, there’s seven. There are 50 states, 270 million Americans or something like that, we aren’t competitors."

Let's get back to Patric Chocolate. Am I correct that the only people working with you are your wife and a part-time employee?

Yeah. I just hired a part-time employee and my wife is only here for the summer because she’s not teaching over the summer. She’ll go back to teaching. She has a PhD.

Does your wife like being here making chocolate?

Yes, but I can’t afford to pay her at this point. She’s making money out there, whereas if she’s in here, she’s not making that money, plus I have to pay more for our bills at home. So it’s still not quite working out. She would like to be here all the time and I would like her to be.

What parts of the business do you feel comfortable having other people do? You seem like you want to have your hand in all of it.

The things that I have other people do right now are sweeping, mopping, dishes, cacao cleaning, the winnowing process. That’s what other people are doing right now. I would feel comfortable with other people doing accounting or sending out literature and samples and getting orders together and stuff like that. In fact, my wife does some of that, but I just don’t have an employee to do it yet.

But, I’ll need to hire another part time person before the summer is over, though I’m not quite sure what they are going to be doing yet. Usually the people who want to do manual labor, they don’t want to do accounting also, and vice versa.

I would love to find someone who knew how to and was willing to do accounting and also pack up orders and also do dishes, but I don’t know if it will happen.

Roasting would be one of those things that I wouldn't feel comfortable having someone else do. You can’t have someone just go roast the cacao, it just doesn’t work. The same applies to understanding the tempering process. You can’t train someone to do that easily. You have to understand it yourself. I might be able to get the proper machine set up and going and tell someone, “Stick these molds under there and then put them on the tray,” that might be possible. But, I would still have to have a pretty large role to play in this process. Even wrapping the bars, I still do 95% of that myself.

It would be great to have someone who is as excited about chocolate making as I was and wanted to learn what I’ve learned and the things I’m still trying to learn. That would almost be like an apprentice type situation. I’ve never even had anyone come to me about that, so I’ve never even thought about it.

Alan is always thinking about chocolate.

What is your favorite part of chocolate making?

I’m still learning every day. Every day I read something - I go back to some book or some paper or I sit there and I think of something and often I go home from work and I can’t focus on anything else because there’s some problem I encountered and I just can’t get off of it until I think I’ve figured it out.

I guess you could say I’m obsessive. It’s probably true. I think there’s so much about chocolate that no one knows right now. Aside from the fact that I love chocolate, that’s what really drew me in to wanting to make chocolate, because every time I sat down to deal with it or think about it, I learned ten more things and it’s still like that today. There’s so much to be learned still. How can you go wrong with something like that? I can imagine a job where you learn everything there is to learn about that job - you get so bored you want to hang yourself. This job is never like that and I can’t imagine it ever will be.

Were you obsessed with something before chocolate?

No, in fact, that was my problem. Before chocolate, I had no obsession. I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. I had a religious studies degree and I didn’t really want to do anything with that. Prior to that, I was never quite sure I even wanted a religious studies degree. That is really the story of my life, that I was just always unsure. There are those kids that want to be a doctor and they go to school to become a doctor and then they’re a doctor. That was not me. I wasn’t a six year old saying I wanted to be a chocolate maker when I grew up. Absolutely not. But now that I’m here, I really love it.

Wade Groetsch: Noble Juice

2008-10-20T13:43:00.000-07:00

Listen now:

Right-click to download this podcast.

Welcome to the very first Food Interviews podcast. I would LOVE your feedback on this format. Please take a moment to fill out the short four question survey at the bottom of the post or leave your thoughts in the comments.

In this interview, Wade Groetsch shares the "juicy" details of running Noble Juice. OK, it's not all that juicy, but he answered a few questions that I have always wondered about - like what makes one 100% orange juice different from another, and what happens to the pulp that isn't used in pulp-free juice.

The best part about Noble Juice (aside from how tasty their juices are) is that their bottles and label are 100% compostable. They are the first juice company to be able to say that. In the interview, you'll hear all about how Wade is a huge recycling advocate.

Quizzes by Quibblo.com

Marisa McClellan: Food Blogger Extraordinaire

2008-10-15T10:54:00.000-07:00

Marisa at Coney Island from her Flickr account.

Marisa McClellan writes Apartment 2024, does a food podcast called Fork You, and is the lead blogger at Slashfood. As if that wasn't enough, she also holds a full-time job. In this interview, she shares her path to becoming a prominent food blogger. I'd be curious to hear how other Food Bloggers out there relate to her story. As I talked with her, in some ways, I felt like I could have been talking with myself.

How did you get into blogging?

I got into blogging about a little over three years ago, in late Winter 2005. I had been reading blogs for about a year before I started one, and I was desperately unhappy in my job. I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do and almost the kind of person I wanted to be.

I decided that I would create a blog and write my way to figuring out what it was I wanted to do. In the process of writing the blog, I realized that what I wanted to do was write. It’s been a pretty big life-changing experience for me.

What kind of work were you doing before then?

I was working as an Administrative Assistant. My titles were things like Staff Assistant or Program Coordinator. One job was at a non-profit and then I had two different jobs at universities here in Philadelphia where I was doing support work and hated it.

It sounds like your blog was almost like a journal at first.

Basically, yeah. I moved to Philadelphia six months after graduating from college because I had this feeling like I should move. Both of my parents are originally from Philadelphia and so I have a ton of family and family history here. There I was in my early twenties when my mom had been in Philadelphia in her early twenties and my grandmother had been in Philadelphia in her early twenties and my great grandmother and even my great-great-grandmother, so this feeling of being connected to these generations of women was also something that I wrote about a lot.

Did you have a lot of the same experiences that they had?

I don’t know if "same" is the right word, but I feel like there are certain foundational coming-of-age experiences that everyone begins to have as they move along, so I feel like I had similar experiences to my mom in that we were both similar on a very sentimental sense. We were walking the same streets and experiencing the city.

Did you initially have a focus on food on your blog?

Not at all. I liked food, I was interested in food at the beginning, but my personal blog never started out as a food blog. What would happen is that as I moved along, more and more of what I wrote about was food. I became known to friends, people who read my blog, as someone who could be depended on to write interesting things about food or tell fun stories about different food items. I started carving out a niche for myself.

How did you move to writing more than one blog?

Well, the way it grew at first was I became the city captain for the Philadelphia Metblog. I was in charge of Metblogging Philadelphia. Metblogs are a world wide chain of blogs - a blogging network that focuses on different cities. I helped get the Philadelphia one started. It’s sort of fallen apart a little bit since then though.

I found myself writing a lot more about restaurants and food out in the world. Then, my friend Scott and I decided to start making a cooking podcast. That was really how things started to take off in terms of doing things on the Internet related to food.

Scott was the movie blogger for The Unofficial Apple Weblog and so he was already all hooked into WebBlogs, Inc. Last summer, I was towards the end of my grad school experience, and I was desperately needing to be making some money. I was getting a Master’s in writing and what I really wanted to be doing was food writing. He connected me up with the folks at Slashfood and they hired me and I started blogging. That’s how I got into Slashfood.

The thing that I found remarkable about that experience is that it took about two weeks before the rest of the food blogging and food writing world looked at me as a legitimate food writer. It was amazing how little it took for the world to be like, "Oh yeah. Marisa’s a food writer." Whereas, I had been struggling and striving and scheming, trying to figure out how I could convince the world that I was a food writer. It happened in about five minutes all of a sudden, which was a relief and also sort of, "Wait, that’s all it took?" It was an interesting experience.

Marisa and Scott doing a live podcast of Fork You.
Photo from Flickr user dragonballyee.

Let’s talk some more about the podcasts.

The initial process to create a pod cast started in February, 2006. It took us about three months to figure out what to call it. You never think about naming as this vital and time-consuming thing, but just figuring out what to call this thing we were creating took us forever. Finally, by sometime in May, 2006, we were like, "Okay, we’re going to call it Fork You."

We initially had thought we were going to call Peaing Soup. It’s the punch line to a joke. You can roast beef, but can you pea soup? Scott thought it was the funniest thing ever to name a podcast after the punch line to a joke. But, I determined that I couldn’t live with Peaing Soup as our name. So, we finally went with Fork You. It was about food in Philadelphia and Philadelphia can have a little bit of an attitude, so that was it.

We filmed the first half of the first episode in that summer - July, 2006. Then, it sat around and we finally finished it and got the first episode up in November, 2006. Then, oddly enough, we kept doing it. We were as surprised as anybody that we kept it going. We kept making episodes and a couple of our friends got involved to run the camera and do sound and sort of be support for it.

We had a thing in Philadelphia last summer called Blog Philadelphia, and that was the first time I ever went to anything where I was meeting people who actually watched it and who enjoyed it and it was sort of shocking. Here was this random little thing we would make in my kitchen or a friend’s kitchen and suddenly I was exposed to a whole world of people who watched it and liked what we were doing. That was really fun; it was sort of validating. This isn’t just some crazy crackpot thing that we were doing. It was actually something that people were finding value in.

We’ve just continued and we’ve tried a bunch of different formats and settled on these two different formats that we do. The two minute Quick Fork and then the standard episodes, that are never longer than ten minutes. They really look at just one or two dishes because you can’t really fit more than that in and get all the information across and keep it interesting. On the Internet, people don’t want to watch more than ten minutes. That’s really pushing it. They like it better if it’s eight.

We’ve learned a lot and we’ve actually made several cooking show podcasts for Slashfood which they paid us for (which was pretty crazy because I can now say that I’ve been paid to make food online video content). It’s turned into something that people really watch. We get about 10,000 views an episode now, which isn’t huge but it’s certainly respectable in that little wacky online world.

In the process of making Fork You and being friends and all that, Scott and I actually got together. We are living together now - that was an unexpected bonus. It’s been a really fun experience. I keep talking about wanting to do a Fork You cookbook because we’re coming up on 50 episodes now. I’ve made a lot of food for this show in the course of the last almost two years now and I think it would be really fun to pull all that together and add Scott’s humor and my recipes. But, that’s just a dream right now.

Some podcasts take longer than others - like when you have to cook a turkey.
Photo from Flickr user Blankbaby.

How long does it take you to produce a ten minute episode?

Well, it takes me brainstorming to come up with what we’re going to cook and then having to do all the shopping and the prep. That can take anywhere from two hours to five depending on what I’ve signed us up for that day. Then, we film the episode, which again varies depending what we cook. One time we made corned beef and cabbage, where there’s not a lot of active preparation, but we had to hang around for four hours as the damn thing cooked. Then, it takes Scott between two and four hours to edit. So, a ten minute episode of Fork You can take eight to ten hours, which might sound like a crazy amount of time - but we do enjoy it, so it’s not that terrible.

We also do a monthly live episode at Foster’s Homeware,a local cooking supply store. Those episodes typically take me three hours to get ready for and we film for an hour. We do the cooking show for an hour and there’s a lot of footage there, so Scott ends up spending about five hours editing it down. It’s a time commitment, but it’s also fun and interesting and has given me a really good opportunity to feel comfortable in front of cameras, in front of groups, and develop this very random skill which is cooking in front of people.

How has the live experience been for you?

It was hard at first, but it’s also been really fun. It’s exhausting. You never realize how exhausting it is to be on constantly for an hour until you do it regularly because you’re like, "Oh you know, it’s just talking. I’m just cooking." But, I actually did my very first solo cooking demonstration recently and I realized how much easier it is to do it with Scott and have someone else who I can hand the conversation to at times so that I can focus on something else. It’s really fun, though. I’ve always been someone who’s been comfortable talking in front of groups, so it hasn’t been one of those things where I’m facing fears or dealing with my demons. It’s given me newfound respect for people who do live television and who do stand-up comedy.

Have you always cooked?

I have always been interested in food. My mom hated cooking with kids. So, when I was growing up, I would beg to be around to help in the kitchen and it just wasn’t her thing. She was busy. She just wanted to be able to get dinner done and move on. So, I didn’t, as a kid, get much opportunity to cook, except when I was staying home sick from school or something. I would always grab those opportunities to experiment making things like hash browns or whatever I could find. I didn’t really start developing any skills as a cook until I moved to Philadelphia and was living on my own and really was forced to make food for myself.

I spent a lot of years looking for a creative outlet. When I found food and I found that I was good at it and it satisfied that need to be creative, I grabbed onto it and really have, ever since then.

When you were hired on at Slashfood, were you initially the lead blogger or did you get a promotion at some point?

When I was first hired at Slashfood, I was just a plain old blogger. I got promoted to be the lead blogger last November. Sarah Gim was the lead blogger and she just didn’t have the time to do it anymore so they asked me to move into the role.

What is your job as lead blogger?

My job is to coordinate the work of the team - make sure that different columns are being maintained, that everybody gets paid the right amount, that we develop new and interesting content, that the team list gets seeded with new ideas. I do a monthly, end-of-month report so the other lead bloggers and the higher-ups know what’s been happening on Slashfood. I recruit the new writers. Basically, in a lot of senses I’m responsible for the feel and direction that the site takes.

Marisa has written 94 Slashfood posts in the past 30 days!

How many people are on your team now?

There’s something like 19 or 20 people on the list on the site at the moment. But a couple people have left recently and there are some people on the team list who don’t really blog regularly, so I would say we have about ten active people. I’m waiting for three more people to join the team. We’re going through the contract process right now, which as you know can take forever.

When I first started the site, we had maybe three or four active people and it was really tough because it meant that I wrote a lot of the site. Right now, I’m writing more of the site because a lot of people have vacation or they just have other commitments and that happens. But, what I really try to do is make it so that mine isn’t the dominant voice on the blog, because that gets boring for our readers. The whole point of having a group to write is to get different perspectives, different feels, and different voices talking about food on the site.

We’re actually bringing on someone to write about beer and another who is going to be a hot sauce blogger, so he’s going to write primarily about hot sauce - which is going to be the coolest thing ever. Someone else will be writing about southern cuisines and I’ve been talking to someone to come on who will write about wine. We’re kind of going in a direction that will have more people who write less but are specialists in their fields and that way, we become even more of an authority site than we are.

How do you see Slashfood fitting into the giant world of food blogs? What role does it play?

I struggle with that sometimes because I feel like Slashfood is more of a blog in the traditional sense where places like The Kitchn or Serious Eats have become food channels. I look at what other people are doing and I start to beat myself up about it. "Oh my gosh. All these other people are doing these amazing things to their sites and we’re just still chugging along at the blog." I never know what our traffic is like in comparison with other sites, so I really don’t have any idea of how we’re doing in comparison to everybody else.

I really try to frame Slashfood in my head as a site that is trying to cover the food world, cooking and eating, and food shopping in sort of a generalist manner (even though we’re bringing in all these specialists). I see Slashfood as hitting the high points - being a site that gathers the best food from all over the Internet, all over the world, and bringing it together. I don’t know if we’re actually achieving that.

I wish we had more recipes and sort of home cooking and real cooking contests because that’s actually my first love. But, sadly, the amount we pay makes it really hard to produce that kind of content because it takes time to test a recipe or create a recipe and it’s hard to get that on a daily basis. I guess I just look at it as we’re all just doing the best we can. We were one of the original food blogs out there, so we have that to hold on to and we just keep doing our best.

How much say do you get in the direction of the blog?

I used to get more say, but we integrated with AOL Food about five months ago and it’s not that they have more say over the blogs, but there are more people to take into consideration when making decisions having to do with the blog. I can’t necessarily implement some of my wild ideas, but I’m okay with that. Mostly, because, this will sound terrible, I don’t really have time to do a lot of the really crazy and creepy stuff I’d love to be doing, mostly because in addition to being the lead on Slashfood, I have a full-time job. I don’t mind the fact that we can’t get wild and crazy, because if I said I wanted to get wild and crazy then I’d actually have to do it. With Fork You and my job and my boyfriend and friends and still trying to cook on my own and all that stuff, I’m sort of maxed out.

How much time do you spend on Slashfood in a week?

I spend as much time on Slashfood than I do on my regular job. I would say that I probably spend, between writing posts, doing reports, talking to bloggers, recruiting bloggers, communicating with the folks at AOL Food and the rest of the WebBlogs, Inc. folks, 35 hours a week if not more on Slashfood. It really could be a full-time job.

I have another job because they don’t pay enough at Slashfood for it to be a full-time job.

That’s a shame.

It’s very sad, but it is the way it is and I’m still happy to be involved in it. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t wish that this is what I do full-time.

What do you do full-time?

I work as a web producer for the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing. I work on the site called Gophila.com, which is the official tourism website for the city. I write itineraries and I produce web content. Basically, I do the same stuff at my regular job that I do for Slashfood - only I’m more passionate about Slashfood.

I love Philadelphia, but I’m not in charge of anything there. With Slashfood, even though there are lots of people that work on it, in one sense, it really feels like mine. I have a great deal of ownership and so I have more passion for Slashfood than I do about my regular job, which my bosses probably shouldn’t know.

Do you not want me to print this stuff?

They’re not going to read it. It’ll be fine.

What kind of changes have you seen on Slashfood since AOL took it over? What do you think about the direction they’re giving it?

I think it’s really positive, actually. I know I said that I have to take more people into consideration, but I actually think, in the long run, taking more people into consideration makes a better website. There are more people looking out for the site trying to make it better. The team over at AOL Food couldn’t be more welcoming and warm and passionate about food, too. So, they’re fantastic.

Also, it gets us more content because they share their content with us and they get more traffic for us which is always good because more traffic means more revenue and means that Slashfood has that much more importance to the whole Weblogs network. Traffic is king when you’re working for a site that is owned by a large corporation that makes money from advertising.

Kat Kinsman is the editor over there and she’s terrific. I met her when I went up to New York for the Fancy Food Show and it was so nice to finally meet someone who I had talked on the phone with, emailed with and had worked with. She really gets it. She really cares about the site and she really cares about food. Smoking meats is one of her passions in life. When someone is so passionate about a little particular area of food, it’s impossible not to like them and understand that they’re only going to do what’s in the best interest of the site.

What’s your dream job? Where do you see all of this going?

If I could create a job for myself, here’s what it would be: I would have my own food site or I would have a site that I helped run where I had a little bit more freedom and I could do it full-time. I really would like to stay in this food blog, food writing world. I would be making some money off of Fork You and doing that full-time and writing some cookbooks and spending most of my time amidst the food content world, basically.

Basically what you’re doing now except making money?

Exactly, and not having to work the other job to have health insurance.

Does Scott also have a full-time job and work for Weblogs, Inc.?

He does. Scott left The Unofficial Apple Weblog in July and is now freelancing for Macuser and Macworld).

Do you guys ever leave your house?

When we have downtime, we don’t do much else but just sit and veg out. Most evenings, you’ll find us sitting on the couch together, both glued to our laptops. He’s working on his projects and I’m working on Slashfood. We’re watching TV as well, so we’re inundated with media. That’s how we spend our downtime, which is kind of sad.

The one thing I want to add about my ideal job is that it wouldn’t absorb my entire life. I feel like right now, with everything I do, I don’t have much in the way of downtime or true relaxation time. I do miss that. But, I feel like I’m in sort of a time where I’m building what I want and so it takes a little bit more time, a little bit more energy, and a little bit more work to get there. But, eventually, I’ll be there.

If you could interview one person about food, who would it be?

It’s going to sound really silly. I would love to talk with Deb of Smitten Kitchen someday. I have a bit of a blog crush on her site. I’ve never communicated with her. I’ve posted about her stuff. I even know people that know her but I’ve always been afraid it’d be too weird if I got in touch with her and been like, "I really like your blog."

Then I actually just started reading Real Food by Nina Planck. It’s an amazing book and so she’s another one that I would like to sit down with.

Better Life Green Cleaning Products Winners

2008-10-15T07:10:00.000-07:00

The winners of a bag of Better Life green cleaning products are:

Congrats to all of you!

Tim Barklage and Kevin Tibbs, Better Life Green Cleaning Products

2008-10-07T13:40:00.000-07:00

We all are thinking more about what we put into our mouths, even what we drink out of, but Tim Barklage and Kevin Tibbs of Better Life believe that we should start thinking more about what we clean with. In this interview, you’ll learn about how two lifelong friends worked to create green cleaning products that would be safe for their families.

Three random commenters on this post will receive a gift bag filled with: What-EVER All-Purpose Spray, I Can See Clearly WOW Glass Cleaner, Even The Kitchen Sink Gentle Scrubber, and 2am Miracle Nursery Cleaner. I will draw the winner on Wednesday, October, 15.

Update: The winners have been drawn, they are: Carli, Apple Blossom Designs, and Bender House.

Tim and Kevin in Tim's kitchen.

Tell me a little bit about Better Life.

Tim: Kevin and I both live in old, old houses that we’ve spent a lot of time rehabbing. Because of that, we’ve spent a lot of time exposed to a lot of chemicals - trying to clean woodwork and all that stuff. It hit home to me that these things are really dangerous, because I could feel the physical repercussions of just short term intense exposure to them.

As time went on, we both had kids and were both complaining about the cleaning products, and Kevin said, "Well, I can make something better that’s better for the environment, better for people, and performs better." I said, "Well, go ahead and do it. Let’s make a business out of it. Let’s see what you’ve got."

Fortunately, the prototypes that Kevin had made right off the bat were really good. We spent some time thinking about it and refining them and came up with some incredible products. We decided to create a business out of it. During that process, we recognized that we really didn’t have to compromise anything and we came up with our internal mantra of "people, planet, and performance" and the point of that is that they’re going to be the absolute healthiest products on the market for people. That includes not being exposed to toxins, having the ability to spray them on the surfaces you prepare food on, being able to spray them on the toys your babies and your infants use, the whole gamut.

They have to be the absolute safest for the environment, meaning that they have to biodegrade extremely rapidly, and they have to not contain items which pose a threat to our environment (whether that be marine life or potentially down the road, how it would leech into our soils, and all the other things that petrochemicals do).

Then, the performance. It’s pretty simple: it has to perform better than the natural products out there - but we didn’t stop there, we decided it has to perform equal to or better than the conventional or traditional cleaning products. I can confidently say that all of our products right now perform better than the traditional products that are out on the market and they’re incredibly safe and environmentally friendly as well.

How did you develop the Better Life products?

Kevin: I’ve been a formulation chemist for I guess over 12 years, but I specialized in skin care and personal care products. I’ve done all sorts of products that are out there on the market now: things that you can buy in large retailers and small boutiques. I’m responsible for a lot of those product formulas.

Over the last three years, the trend towards sustainability, natural, or organic has been really strong, especially in the skin care market, which was kind of trending ahead of the other areas. People wanted very safe, natural, organic things to use for their skin care and personal care. So, I started specializing in that area. Around this time, as Tim mentioned, we were talking about not having a real solution for cleaning products and even some of the "green" products that were available on the market, we found, weren’t so "green" after all. We felt like there was an opportunity to provide the customer with a real solution.

A lot of the technologies that I was using in skin care translated to cleaning because a lot of times cleaning products are in contact with your skin. The consumer deserves to have a safe product - whether it be a skin care product they put on their skin or a cleaning product that they use in their homes. With a lot of work and a lot of very creative chemistry, we developed this product line.

Tim: I think one of the things that makes our approach a little unique is that Kevin’s got the very disciplined, scientific approach to solving problems, but he also has a spark of creativity - not even a spark, a raging flame of creativity that a lot of chemists probably don’t have. When we’re testing things and we’re approaching a problem, it’s not, "How do we solve this problem in the lab," it’s, "How do we solve this problem in our homes?" Then, we apply the scientific method to that as well. It’s kind of a different approach than probably a lot of people take to trying to solve a problem.

I think it’s a pretty unique combination that a lot of people aren’t going to be able to say that they have. Plus, when we’re developing these products, we’re developing them. That’s a unique situation, I think. You know, other companies that are manufacturing products rely on a lab with people who are doing a wide variety of products. They’d say, "We want a cleaning product, and we want it to be green." What if their standards aren’t very high? I mean, they’re relying on somebody else to give them the product that they are marketing and selling. We don’t have to rely on anybody. We can develop these products ourselves to exceed all standards, and we can hold ourselves to them.

Tim, while Kevin’s busy formulating and testing in the lab, what are you working on?

Tim: I had spent over the last ten years or so working in a product development capacity, and I’ve also done sales and marketing and customer service as well in my career. So, I had a broad spectrum of business development and product development experience.

We’re a good, compatible team. Kevin has the scientific knowledge and creativity in ways a lot of other scientists don’t possess, and I bring some sales and business development expertise into the picture. It’s a nice match.

Are you guys still friends after all of this?

Both: Yeah. [laughing]

Tim: Of course. We actually have grown up together. Kevin and I knew each other when we were kids and just happened to follow some separate paths for a while and then reconnected, but always have remained friends.

Kevin: Almost more like brothers, I guess, rather than friends.

Tim: The past seven years, we’ve actually lived on the same block. Our families are very close. Our wives are great friends. Our kids are friends. So, it’s fun.

Kevin: And it’s easy to find him.

Tim: Can’t get away from those midnight meetings.

Kevin wanted to create a product that would be safe to have around his kids.

What should a consumer look for to determine if a product that claims it is natural is actually natural?

Kevin: Well, our products don’t contain petrochemicals at all. I can get into real specifics. We don’t contain ethoxylates, we don’t contain sulfates, we don’t contain monoethanolamines and diethanolamines. We can go on and on and on. These are materials that are probably not really responsible to have in your product. We don’t put them in our products. I think we’re probably the only ones that can say that about a lot of these items.

Our products contain zero solvents and when we say zero solvents, we don’t even have alcohol in our products - which is really amazing and pretty ground-breaking in the industry. Yet the products still work, not just equally well, but better than the traditional products that are out there.

What’s wrong with solvents?

Kevin: Well, solvents are volatile organic compounds and they’re released into the air. When you spray Windex on your windows, if it has alcohol, or ammonia, or glycol-ethers (all of the typical products do have these), whether you’re spraying it on your glass or your countertops, those volatile organic compounds are released right into the air that you breathe. They don’t dissipate. They stay in your homes - especially with them being so energy efficient these days. So, these things can trigger asthma attacks. They can trigger respiratory problems. They’re probably responsible for things we don’t even equate them with. I mean, it’s just if there’s a safer solution, why not use it?

Tim: You know, I think all the studies that have been done on these are based on short term exposure, and those are scary enough. But, the real problem is what happens after being exposed to them for 20, 30, 15 years, whatever it may be.

Kevin brought up a point that’s been really important for us, which is as a society we are trying to become more responsible by weather-proofing our houses, building green homes, just making things more energy efficient - not only our homes, but our office buildings. What happens is that the air in the house doesn’t recycle. The same air stays in there, so a lot of the studies that you read, they’ll say that the air, even in an urban area inside the home, sometimes contains two to three times more toxins than the air outside that you’re breathing. A lot of it is because of volatile organic compounds, like Kevin had mentioned, which are really prevalent in household cleaning products. They can really contribute to an unhealthy home. We’ve created something that contains none of those things. We didn’t make compromises and we won’t make compromises.

How long did it take to create the products you have on the market now?

Tim: We’ve been working at it for a long time. The company started at the end of 2007, but we had been playing around with (I shouldn’t say playing, but experimenting with) different things for some time before that. It was probably a four to five month process once we felt confident that our prototypes were very solid. Going through the process of bringing them to market was another six months or something of constant experimentation and redesigning.

Kevin: I’ll start working on a product and it will come very easily. It’s like baking a new recipe. Sometimes, with certain ones, all stars align and it happens really quickly and easily. Other times, you just keep going at it and trying and trying and trying and trying and not giving up and it takes a little bit more time.

How do you know when you’ve got it?

Kevin: Once we have some prototypes that we feel are very stable (they meet all the criteria in terms of safety and environmental responsibility), then we start testing phases. We do lab testing, which is very important because that will give us early feedback in a very standardized environment. But, we are very interested also in real life testing.

In the lab, you have standardized soils and they’re made with things like ink and peanut butter. All of these oddball items are blended together to create a standard soil. So, you test these different products against the standard soil and you get results.

People in real life aren’t dealing with standard soil, lab soil. They’re dealing with everything. They’ve got dogs making a mess, cats making a mess, children, themselves, and a lot of different food products that are spilled on the countertops. You can have something that performs well in the lab and does awful in real life, so we want to cover both bases.

We use beta testers who we’ll send the products out to and they give us non-biased feedback as to how the products work in real life. Then, of course, we have a lot of testing that’s done in third party labs for biodegradability profiles and toxicity profiles. Luckily, we both live in 19th century homes with small children and big dogs, so we get a lot of different types of stains that you can do some real world testing on.

Tim and his daughter sitting on their clean bathroom floor.

Let’s say I just finished baking cupcakes and my kitchen is a total disaster. I’ve got flour all over the place and grime on the cupcake tins. Walk me through how I would clean up my kitchen with your products.

Tim: I’m a horribly messy cook. I’m a decent cook, but I’m horribly messy. It drives my wife crazy, so I guess I’ll take this question.

The best thing to use on the food prep surfaces is generally going to be our all-purpose What-EVER cleaner, so I’d use that for the countertops. I often get stuff on our cabinets, so I need to wipe those down as well. I’ll generally just spray everything down with our What-EVER all-purpose cleaner.

Now, if you have a very shiny granite surface, like a true black granite surface, sometimes you might want to use our window cleaner because the window cleaner is going to be more of a streak-free type of finish, but the all-purpose cleaner has surfactants in it that will be able to break down a broader variety of soils. I have concrete countertops in my house, so I always use the What-EVER.

Then, I generally have made a mess all over our stainless steel appliances, somehow, so I will use the I Can See Clearly glass cleaner to clean the surfaces of that - the oven glass and the inside of the microwave as well. Again, since all of these products are completely made from plant sources, they’re completely safe to use anywhere that you’re preparing food. You don’t have to worry about spraying inside your microwave and then worrying about the next time you turn the microwave on it doing something funky to all the chemicals that you had sprayed in there.

One of the things that I really love is our product, Even The Kitchen Sink scrubber, which is a gentle, cream-based scrubber. It works really, really great on tough, baked-on, caked-on food, whether it’s in pots and pans or baking dishes, Corning Ware, or any of those types of items. It will take off either the grease or the baked-on flour or sugar-based spills that you might have on your baking-ware like nothing I’ve ever seen before. It’s also great on the kitchen sink after you’re all done with it.

We have a stainless steel kitchen sink and it’s big and its deep and it drives my wife crazy because she would use something to clean it, and then the first time you turn your water on, it would get filmy or wouldn’t shine anymore. Kevin put a vegetable wax in there so that once you’re done scrubbing it and cleaning it (and it doesn’t require a whole lot of elbow grease to do it), it actually puts a protective wax on there so that it will keep the stainless steel shiny. The potential staining agent will repel on that instead of adhering to it right after you’ve cleaned it. So, your sink will stay nice and shiny for days.

I have stainless steel pans as well and I use Even the Kitchen Sink all the time both on the inside of the pan and the outside of the pan and it does wonders with getting all that tough stuff.

But, the last thing is that I always seem to get grease or something else, like on her tea kettle, when I’m cooking because that stays on the stove. It’s awesome for cleaning that too. It’s the only product I’ve ever used that’s been able to take that off of a tea kettle.

Kevin: If you caramelize sugar on the pan, it’s just impossible to get that off. With Even The Kitchen Sink, you put it in there, scrub it in, and the pan looks brand new. Less elbow grease. Safer. Win for everybody.

Tim: Before I had these products, I would try to use natural products, but the natural products just wouldn’t work with the way I cook and make a mess. I always just knew, deep down, that this is not good to use on your pots and your pans and your dishes and your food prep surfaces, and now there’s just a certain amount of liberation that comes from knowing that no matter how hard I clean, I don’t have to worry about what’s going to happen the next time around when I use those pots and pans or appliances.

But, you don’t have a dish soap, do you?

Tim: We don’t have a dish soap right now, no. We’re going to be releasing some new products coming up here soon.

Maybe a dish soap?

Kevin: Well, there’s going to be several that are kitchen-friendly. On our next round of products, we’re focusing on the kitchen area of the home. Those should be out sometime this Fall.

Fabulous! Is the bottle Earth-friendly too?

Kevin: Yeah, it’s a number two, which is high density poly-ethylene. There are two very heavily recycled packaging materials: one’s PET and one’s HDPE, so we’re in the HDPE. The nice thing about that is we’re able to put in post-consumer recycled content, so it’s very recyclable. Once the material is recycled, it can then go back into the bottles that we use.

How difficult has it been to get your products on the market?

Tim: As you can imagine, it’s a challenge when you’re dealing with entrenched competitors. I’d liken this to how organic food was looked at ten years ago, just something that a lot of the buyers and the grocery stores were viewing as an extremely narrow niche that they weren’t sure that they could make money on or not, with a couple of exceptions. I think that’s kind of where we are in the household cleaning area right now. I think that it’s going to absolutely explode in the next couple of years here and I think we got in at the right time where we’re gaining the momentum that we need right now and we’re establishing ourselves as a very credible, effective, innovative type of brand. I’m hoping that household cleaning products are going to be going the way that organic food exploded, and it’s already showing extremely high growth.

Luckily, some of our competitors (which are absolutely massive in multi-national scope) are doing some of the education. I shouldn’t say for us, but they’re helping educate people that there is a better alternative and we view our product as a superior product, so hopefully, as people become more aware of the dangers of household cleaners, products like ours are really going to continue to grow at the rate that they have been for a long time.

Kevin: I think it’s exciting. I love it. I feel like we’re the underdog compared to the large multi-nationals that Tim’s talking about. People think they only have one solution and here we are, we’re giving them what we feel is a better solution - an alternative to traditional or pseudo-green products. Our products are the real deal.

Tim: That brings up another challenge. There are lots and lots of people who have already tried to make the jump over to a safe alternative. Now they’re disbelievers in the power of natural cleaning. And so, it’s not only convincing people that haven’t considered using a product to try an Earth-friendly product, but the really hard sell is the people who have tried to in the past and found that it didn’t work for them. Now, they think they have to use pretty harsh chemical cleansers to get the job done. We’re going to prove them wrong.

Kevin: Tim, how many times has somebody looked at you when we said "streak-free glass cleaner" and said, "Oh, yeah, I don’t know about that." Then they’ll come back and email to the website, "You’re right! It is streak-free!"

Tim: The response has been nothing short of phenomenal. It’s been everything that we hoped it would be once people get the products in their hands. We get unsolicited testimonial after unsolicited testimonial from people that have picked up our product and emailed us via our website just telling us how great it is. So, it’s been fun.

If you could interview one person about food, who would it be?

Kevin: I would like to have a sit-down conversation with either Emeril or Jamie Oliver because I’m not as much of a cook as I’d like to be. I enjoy going in and making things up in the kitchen and using fresh, natural ingredients that you get from the farmers’ market. Jamie seems like he could really give me some good insight there. They both just seem like pretty fun, down-to-earth people that you could just talk to about cooking or their weekend out - just fun people to hang around with.

Tim: I don’t know, this might not be what you want to hear, but I’m not going to name a specific person. I am not a baker by nature. I’ve always cooked just more along the lines of the appetizers and main courses and those types of things. There’s a lot of science behind baking and there’s a lot of knowledge that I would really like to gain from somebody chatting about that. Also, I’ve just recently become really enthralled with gourmet types of chocolate and just the amazing amount of variety and capacity for different complexities for flavor and that. It definitely is something I’d like to learn more about.

Sounds like you want to interview me? Way to kiss-up to the interviewer!

Tim: Yeah [laughs]. Maybe we need to sit down and just talk about that.

Ariel Diamond, Food and Liquor Project

2008-10-02T09:31:00.000-07:00

Have you ever been in that little bodega around the corner from you? Do you even have one? What do you buy there? Do they sell food? Do you know the owner?

Ariel Diamond is one of the founders of the Food and Liquor Project, which is part of Neighbors Project, based in Chicago. The Food and Liquor project aimed to “encourage people to buy fresh produce from local corner stores, bodegas and liquor stores that stock it, and encourage more neighborhood stores to sell fresh fruits and vegetables.”

In this interview, Ariel talks about the value of bodegas in a community and what her organization did to try to support them. You’ll learn about the challenges Food and Liquor Project faced and what small steps you can take in your own community to support small, local shops.

What got you interested in bodegas?

A lot of them have really crazy stuff, even if they don’t have produce. I live two blocks away from a Whole Foods and I shop there, too. But, I also live one block away from the bodega/corner store that started it all. This is the store that made me realize that bodegas are awesome, and it’s called Alta Vista Foods.

It’s the size of a very small storefront and it goes all the way back with two aisles with food stocked up to the ceiling, including produce and meat. I’m not going to buy the meat, no offense to them. But, they’ve got tons of produce and all these soups and spices and ice cream and TV dinners and an entire Mexican section and an entire cleaning products section. They have pet food, they have baking supplies, they have dry beans and canned beans, dried fruit, and it has pretty much everything that you need.

If you really need saffron or something, they’re not going to have that, but if you need milk, this place is literally attached to the train station so you don’t have to go outside to go there. It’s at the Sheridan Red Line stop and it’s amazing. It’s so nice to have something like that that is on your way home and you don’t have to make a grocery store trip.

There was an article in the Trib, maybe three weeks ago, about how the CTA and the city are trying to figure out how to develop more grocery stores in the train stations. I don’t think that had anything to do with us, but I think they realized that those things are great and we should have more of them.

Do you do a large percentage of your shopping at bodegas?

I do a fair amount, but my other issue that I deal with is sustainable food. I like organic, local, seasonal foods, and so I’m not going to lie: I shop at farmers’ markets and Whole Foods. I want the foods that I buy for myself to be organic and local (local probably above organic). Long story short, no, I don’t buy a ton of food at bodegas, but I do buy some. I go in that store frequently because I always need something. I don’t want to go the other direction, away from my house, to get a lemon. So, I’m going to go to Alta Vista Foods and I’m going to get this lemon. Or, I need some milk. I don’t do my main shopping there.

That’s the idea of the corner store and what you should expect to do with a corner store. Yeah, there’s always going to be a need for big grocery stores, I think. But, these ones are the in-between shops, like, “Oh crap, I ran out of bread,” and you can get it there. So, I think if you think about it (I don’t have a car so this doesn’t even occur to me), from a global warming perspective, does that save you an extra trip to the grocery store if you usually drive? If a lot of people start doing that, it would be another positive thing that bodegas provide: transit-oriented, neighborhood-oriented grocery stores.

What did you hope to achieve with the Food and Liquor project?

The Food and Liquor Project started in June of last year and the activity wrapped up in May of this year. There were about nine of us working on the project. It started when my friend Arline Welty and I realized that some of our bodegas were just treasure troves of awesome food. Then, there were other ones that had absolutely nothing. - only Gatorade and Cheetos and cigarettes.

We were interested in what the difference was between those two, and also how the ones that had all this awesome produce and awesome food got that way, and how to make that happen with more stores.

With support from Neighbors Project, we started doing walkabouts. (I lived in Australia for a year, so that’s where that came from.) We would just walk around our neighborhood on the main strips, because they had the most bodegas on them, and just go into stores and say, “Hello. It’s awesome that you have food.” We just started to develop a relationship with them, figure out what they were doing, and see if they were open to getting more produce in their stores. If they weren’t, we wanted to know if they had tried it before and what the reasons were for why they didn’t want to, or why they stopped before.

How did the store owners respond when you asked them about having more produce in their stores?

Well, a lot of them said, “Why are you asking us this? I don’t understand.” Actually, a lot of the ones we talked to had tried it already. We had numerous encounters with people who told us, “We tried that and it doesn’t work. Sorry.”

One of the most important things that I think came out of those walkabouts was talking to these store owners and figuring out what the problems were and why they don’t have produce. Because a lot of them said, “Yeah that would be great, but we can’t do it.”

What stopped them from bringing in more produce?

The reason that was most common was that produce is perishable, so if they buy a case of bananas and they only sell half of it before it goes bad, then they have to throw out the other half. Then, they probably lose money on that purchase.

Along with perishability is low turnover: people don’t think about shopping at a place that usually just sells Gatorade as a place to buy produce. You also have a low profit margin. With some things, I bet if you only sold half, you’d probably be fine; with produce, you’re probably only making a couple cents off of each sale, and if you lose even some of it to spoilage then you lose money on it.

Also, they’re not really marketing that they have produce, so people don’t recognize it. People don’t think of it as a place to go to buy produce.

What did you do to try to get the consumers more interested in bodegas?

In January, we decided to switch our focus a little bit to the consumer end, trying to send the message that your corner store is a great place to shop. It’s not just a place to buy cigarettes and you should be able to buy food here. You can support these local businesses and keep these businesses that were here before the gentrification started in this community.

We decided to hold a cooking class at a social service agency called Inspiration Café and invite all the residents of Uptown to it. All the food we cooked there was bought from corner stores. So, it was all very simple, adaptable dishes where you could buy the ingredients at most bodegas - pasta and sauce where you could buy the pasta, you could buy tomatoes, and put some mushrooms and sausage.

Did the cooking class have an impact on the community?

We got a lot of really good press for it. I feel like it really connected us even more with these store owners, because they knew that we were buying stuff from them and we were encouraging people to shop at those stores. We had a fairly low turnout for the event, which was a disappointment, but the good press we got counteracted that.

The best thing, to me, that came out of it was that we were covered in multiple media outlets, including one in Spanish, La Raza, the biggest Spanish language newspaper - we had a full page spread. They just talked about what is at your corner store and why it’s a great place to shop. It had a little sidebar about seasonal food, because we also had a nutritionist at the event who talked about healthy eating and eating well on a budget and things like that. If you buy food that is in season, it’s cheaper because it’s abundant, like apples in the fall, berries in the summer, stuff like that. If you want to buy berries in the winter, you’re not going to have much luck. So, that was really exciting and I feel like that reached a lot of people and a crowd that would be very difficult for us to reach.

Though, if we were to do it again, there would definitely be some things that we would improve on in terms of outreach and partnering with organizations to improve attendance.

Were any of the owners interested in bringing in produce?

A lot of them also were like, “Yeah it would be great, but we can’t afford to buy a cooler. I would love to do that, but you tell me where the money is going to come from to buy a cooler.” So, that would be yet another problem. The ones that we worked with were really pumped about it. They were like, “I would love to have green peppers and cilantro!” They would get really animated about it and they wanted to do it, but there were these obstacles in the way. That is what makes you think that there is hope that it could happen. It was just that we didn’t have the resources at our fingertips to really help them with that.

We put them in touch with the aldermen because the aldermen had some small business grants that they could have been eligible for. But some of them don’t have good relationships with the aldermen for whatever reason, so that kind of fell through.

If you were to do this again, what would you do differently to make the project more effective?

We would have the aldermen involved from the beginning and more in the loop, and probably have a specific contact who knew that we were working on this. We were dealing with the aldermen’s office but they’re always slammed. They are dealing with everything. So they were like, “Yeah, yeah. Great. Cool. Later.”

The other thing would be to partner with a church or a community organization that had constituents and they would help put on the cooking class. I think the cooking class would be very successful. It was really, really fun. Everyone had an awesome time. We did it with Share our Strength. One of their subgroups is called Operation Frontline, they put on these cooking classes that are either free or cheap for low income families to talk about nutrition and also teach people how to cook well on a budget. The issue was that we didn’t have enough people at the event.

I think that if we had worked with Uptown United Church, or another community group, and they knew what kind of food that their congregants would want at this event, and they talked about it all the time at services, and were helping us put it on, we would have had an established base of people who were going to attend. Also, it would root us more strongly in that community. That is number one on our list of things that we would do over, that we would be involved with, with those kinds of community groups from the beginning, not just when we were already planning the cooking class.

Is the hope that this will take off in other cities?

Food and Liquor Project is a pilot with the intention of it starting other people in other neighborhoods and other cities doing something similar to try to see what the bodega landscape is and if it can be improved. So, that is the next conversation we’re going to have. There’s definitely been interest expressed. We made an Instructable of how to do this and we are deciding, probably at the next board meeting in the next month or two, are we going to try to actively recruit people to do it or are we just going to put out our resources and say, “Contact us if you want to do something like this. We will support you and help you.”

If I wanted to start something like this in St. Louis, what advice would you have for me?

My advice would be to just start walking around and talking to people. See what your community has and what your neighborhood has. Figure out what you would like to see and if the store owners would also want those things, or if other consumers you know would want those things. In addition, before you launch in fully to the project, do an environmental scan of the other efforts in your neighborhood - the other community organizations. Connect with them and find out what’s going on - is there an existing effort that you can help out with that is already working on this? If there is not, then start figuring out what it would take to make your corner stores be a little healthier and a little more worth shopping at.

I think the really big thing is that you know it is going to take a fair amount of time, and I would encourage either partnering with another organization or at least some other person. I don’t think its something that a single person could do by themselves. But, if it was just you by yourself, an individual can make an impact by shopping at those stores and then talking to the guy at the counter and be like, “I would really like to be able to buy apples here. Can you do that?” That’s not even a project, you just have to say it and it would take 30 seconds. But, they respond to that, they are small and they can add things that you want quickly.

What are you working on now that Food and Liquor is done?

The next step for Neighbors Project is the Bodega Party in a Box. It’s kind of taking our cooking class, our cooking parties if you will, and making it so that lots of people can do this. The Bodega Party in a Box is a box with a cookbook that we developed with lots of food writers all over the country with recipes that have ingredients that you could buy from your corner store. It talks a lot about bodegas and what to expect there and how to interact with the owner. Then, it has invitations and little flags to decorate so that you can have these parties where everybody makes a dish with food from their bodega. So, it’s a really cool idea and it’s really well done. It’s encouraging to people who just might go to Whole Foods or go to Jewel to check bodegas out, because they can look really intimidating or, “I wouldn’t want to shop there because it looks dirty,” or something like that. But, they are great! They’re awesome!

How can someone get the Bodega in a Box kit?

At the moment, you buy it online, but you can always use it for an idea and you can have a party without the Bodega Party in a Box. (Shh!) You can have your own invitations. That is at the Neighbors Project website, neighborsproject.org, and also at bodegapartyinabox.org. We’ve been getting really good responses on it so far, and a fair amount of coverage on it. People are interested.

Does your day job have to do with food?

When I started it, it did, kind of. I was the business manager of a non-profit called The Land Connection, a non-profit that works on sustainable agriculture issues. We were training new organic farmers and generally doing outreach mostly in central Illinois, but I was based in Evanston.

Since then, I have switched jobs and careers and I am now a chef. So, I’m still working on food, but I don’t buy food for the restaurant from the corner stores. I actually just got a new job at one of the best sustainably-minded restaurants in the city, Uncommon Ground. It’s fantastic. It’s delicious. They have local, seasonal specials that change weekly based on what’s in season, and they have a roof garden that grows vegetables. I feel really lucky because I just started working as a chef in March and I’m at a place that I really support this early. I’m working on food, but I’m not necessarily working on food access issues at the moment.

If you could interview one person about food, who would it be?

I have all these names running through my head. I love Anthony Bourdain. So, I would interview Anthony Bourdain. Though, that would not be very political.

If I wanted to talk about food issues and things we talked about today, this is probably cliché, but I would interview Alice Waters. She was doing this before anyone was thinking about it. I don’t know how she had that foresight before anyone was really on this stuff.

If I could interview a person who was dead, I would interview J. I. Rodale, who is the guy who started that whole organic gardening and farming empire. His company still publishes the best books about organic agriculture and they have a fantastic center, newfarm.org, in Pennsylvania. He was doing it way before Alice Waters. But again, that’s all sustainable food stuff, so that’s the other side of my passion.

You may also be interested in this video of a corner store in action from the Neighbors Project:

Lollyphile Winner

2008-09-18T06:07:00.001-07:00

The winner of one box of Lollyphile lollypops is...

Toontz from Okara Mountain • Okara recipes, vegetarian recipes!

Congrats!

Deborah Hamilton (Biggie), Lunch in a Box

2008-09-15T16:04:00.000-07:00

Are you looking for a way to make lunches that are cheap, healthy, and fun for your kids or for you? Bento lunches might be your answer. Deborah Hamilton (Biggie) writes all about bento lunches at her blog, Lunch in a Box. In this interview, she shares some bento basics and lets us in on how bento has worked for her family.

Biggie making a bento.

Why do you go by Biggie?

It’s been my nickname since Junior High School because I have big feet. We made this big foot club and you had to have size 10 or above to be in it. My friends shortened it to Biggie. That’s all - I am not a gangster rapper!

What is a bento lunch?

A bento lunch is a compact, balanced, visually appealing lunch in a box. It’s pretty straightforward. It doesn’t have to be all Japanese food. It can be really anything you like, although some foods really lend themselves better to being transported.

What makes bento lunches different from typical American-style lunches?

One thing is that they tend to be waste-free lunches and you’re using a reusable container -the fact that it’s a number of different things in one container as opposed to “I’ve got a snack pack here; I’ve got a sandwich in a baggie over there.” It focuses more on incorporating things into one or two containers in an attractive manner.

Aside from having less waste, what other advantages are there to a bento box?

For me, it’s less clutter in the diaper bag. Also, I think it’s a portion control aspect. If you use, for example, a 600 ml box and pack it compactly, without junk food, candy, or greasy and oily foods, then it’s a one-to-one ratio of calories to the capacity of the box. So, if you’ve got a 600 ml box, you should be packing, basically, a 600 calorie meal.

It’s easy portion control if you just have the one container and you use the bento packing guidelines. That way you can lose some weight, make sure that you're not overeating or undereating, and make sure that you get a balanced lunch. I think it makes portion control easier.

What are the bento packing guidelines?

Bento packing guidelines can be found on Biggie's blog.

I’ve got them on my website. It's three parts carbohydrates (usually traditional Japanese bento style would be rice, but you can do pasta, muffins, bread or other grains), two parts fruits and vegetables, and one part protein. That’s basically it.

Also, they should be packed compactly without a whole lot of empty space in the box. So, you use gap-fillers. Gap-fillers are small, tougher things like cherry tomatoes. Something that’s going to squish like a raspberry would be a rotten gap-filler. Gap-fillers help you keep the bentos stable during transport so you don’t have an avalanche of food when you open up the lid at lunchtime.

Do you typically heat the whole bento lunch up in a microwave?

It depends on how you pack it. Again, I’ve got a post on this. If they have a microwave where they're going to be eating, some people might like to pack a bento that only had microwavable foods in one container, and maybe pack another container with fruit or something that is not going to be microwave friendly, and keep that aside.

My son's preschool does not have a microwave available, so all the kids eat room temperature food. Or, if you use thermal bento containers, then the food stays warm in the thermos. One thing to keep in mind, though, is the food safety issue.

I think the food safety federal recommendation is to keep everything cold if it’s going to be held for longer than two hours at room temperature. So, that's when it's a good idea to look into an insulated lunch bag with some ice packs. There are also some foods that have natural antibacterial qualities to them (for example, oregano, cilantro, or wasabi). If you spice your food more heavily when you know you're going to be carrying it at room temperature for a longer period of time, that will help prevent food spoilage.

Is lunch the only meal that you would do bento style?

Mini pancakes, bento style.

It just depends what our schedule is really. There’s no reason that a bento needs to be specifically a lunch. Occasionally, I’ll do a dinner. We’re not often out of the house for breakfast, so I don’t do those. But really, it’s just a meal in a box.

You can put any meal that you like into a box. Sometimes we do breakfast for lunch where I make little tiny mini pancakes. You can freeze those too, so I’m not making them from scratch in the morning. But on the weekends, when I’m making pancakes anyway, I’ll just take the little extra batter and make tiny pancakes and mini sausages. Bentos are really fun for miniature food.

Speaking of cute food, why is there such a focus on the presentation in bento lunches?

Biggie typically doesn't focus on food art, but check out this cute fish she made!

If I were packing lunch just for myself, I don’t think that I would really focus on the attractiveness at all. But when I'm packing for a preschooler or for a child who might potentially have eating issues, I think if you make it attractive, it’s sort of like a surprise in a box. They are more likely to try foods that they wouldn’t otherwise want to, just because it’s interesting.

You can do that with a balance of colors in a lunch, you can also do that with hardware by using little animal toothpicks or a little cute container or something like that. Some people take it to the extreme and make food art. People sculpt cartoon faces out of little pieces of food, which is altogether really too much effort for me. I’m kind of the lazy mom's bento.

It doesn’t sound to me like you can be lazy and make bento lunches.

Actually, you can. There are a lot of speed techniques and the freezer is your friend. It's possible to make a speedy bento in about 10 minutes, max. I aim for 10-15 minutes on the blog. The way that you can do that is by freezing leftovers or freezing cooked things in individual portions (like rice, muffins - you can do all kinds of little side dishes).

If you have leftovers from dinner, you can pack up the leftovers and freeze them in little individual servings and pop out one at a time later. Or, you can get a head start on packing the next day's lunch with leftovers when you're cleaning up from dinner. But, it really doesn’t have to be a time consuming process. It’s basically just lunch in a box.

How does your three year old son respond to the lunches?

Well, he’s in a Japanese immersion preschool where pretty much everyone packs a bento lunch. So, it's the norm where he is because he's surrounded by kids all eating bento lunches. I think I fall on the spectrum smack down in the middle between the super-achiever moms who are making food art and the moms who are maybe throwing a sandwich into a bag.

For him, it’s very run of the mill. It’s pretty normal. He does get excited on the rare occasions that I do make some food art or if he finds his favorite food in there. But all in all, we don’t make food an issue in our house. If he eats it, fine, if not, that’s okay too.

I've found that I've had success personally in getting him to eat different foods just by not making a big deal out of it. I try not to show him how happy I am if he eats something, or if I'm unhappy that he didn't finish. Honestly, oftentimes if we're at dinner and we're eating something, he might turn up his nose initially. Then we're like, "Okay, fine, then don't eat it. More for us." Then when he sees us eating happily he decides to try it.

I don’t make special children’s food for him. He eats what we eat. His bento lunches are just leftovers from what we had for dinner. Maybe I’ll make one additional dish in the morning.

How did you get interested in bento?

I speak Japanese and I worked at Japanese companies, but bento weren't really on my radar. I really got into it in 2004 when my husband was misdiagnosed with celiac disease, which is an intolerance to gluten found in wheat, barley, and rye. Basically, having celiac disease makes restaurant meals rather perilous - kind of dangerous to your health - because of the cross-contamination issue.

I decided rather than having him be depressed at the office while he watched his colleagues go out to lunch, I would make him something where he would feel, “Aww, I have just as good of a meal as everyone else does.” So, I went to a Japanese book store here in town and got a couple books on bento. I was sure that there was some kind of a technique to it. I didn't have any idea of what kind of dishes might pack well so I just started hitting the books.

Then, about 9 months later, my husband was undiagnosed. It turns out he did not have celiac disease after all, so we went back to gluten.

A couple of months later, Bug, which is what I call my son online, was eating solid foods and my diaper bag was just filled with Tupperware containers and snacks. So I realized, “Why am I doing this when I know how to pack something really compact?”

Do you still make lunches for your husband?

No, he's on his own now. Actually he wound up working from home for quite a while. So I'm not going to pack a lunch for someone who's just upstairs. He goes to the office sometimes and he can go to a restaurant. I don’t feel quite the level of caretaking that I did when he was misdiagnosed.

Do you eat bento lunches or is it just for your son?

I eat them on events or if we’re going to have a play date around lunch time. This weekend I made some because we went out to the beach. Once a week, we have a running club and I make bento for all of us then. On a day-to-day basis, I don’t make them just for myself anymore - only if I’ve got some sort of an outing or an excursion.

Do people need any special products to get started making bento lunches?

Not really. You can make it as small or as simple as you’d like - even just like a Rubbermaid box or Tupperware. Actually, my favorite containers are Lock 'n Lock. I have no commercial affiliations with Lock 'n Lock, but they have these great locking lids that go on plastic or glass Tupperware-like containers. They have a really good, secure, water-tight seal, and they are really cheap. I think Target or Wal-Mart may carry them. They’re very cheap, like $3.

What's important is that that food container be shallow because it's difficult to pack a deep box with a variety of different foods at once. So you'll have more luck if you get a shallow container. If you want to go all out, then you can go the route of buying bento accessories or thermal lunch jars, like the Mr. Bento. They have bento kits; there's really no end to the way you can spend money on this kind of thing if that's what you want to do. But it does not have to be expensive. Packing lunches will wind up saving you money over restaurant meals.

If I were just going to have a few containers, I would say a small one for my son, like a one-tier 360 ml box for a 3-year-old. Maybe a one-tier or a two-tier 600 ml box for an adult woman, and an 800 ml box for an adult man. Then a thermal food jar that you can find at stores like Target or Wal-Mart. The metal ones have very good heat retention and allow you to pack things like soup, curry, or stews, and even keeps something like rice warm and soft.

How many bento boxes do you own?

Do I have to say? Too many, but I’m very cheap. So, I try to get bargains and I usually don’t spend much money on any one individual box.

What is your favorite bento lunch that you’ve made to date?

This cold soba bento is one of Biggie's favorites!

I guess it would be a cold soba lunch with a dipping sauce where I curled all of the individual little bits of noodles into little nests. Once you let them get cold, they start sticking together. So when you eat, you take a little bundle of the noodles, dip it into the sauce, and it's really refreshing summer meal that takes very little time to make in the morning. Also, it hits my nostalgia button for my time in Japan.

When did you decide to turn bento lunches into a blog?

I guess in May of 2006, I just started snapping some photos of box lunches and loading them up onto Flickr so that I could participate in the bento communities on Flickr and also on Livejournal. I had a blog on Livejournal, but that was more repository of all the posts that I made in the Bentolunch community. I didn’t try to drive traffic there. It was just more my personal record.

Then, in February of 2007, I was going through my Japanese-language bento cookbooks and finding all kinds of really ingenious tips and tricks to speed things up. I thought, “Oh my gosh, this is so interesting.” I started trying them out and writing about them on Flickr and on my posts, but then I found that I needed to refer back to more complicated explanations of techniques.

In June of 2007, I got this stand-alone site, lunchinabox.net, and I just moved everything over there.

Was the blog what you expected it to be?

I had no idea what I was doing. My readers have been very patient and have stuck with me through my technical issues. It’s been a blast. It’s been very interesting from the technical standpoint and the blogging standpoint. My passion for the subject matter really keeps me motivated to keep going on the blog.

Do you find that your readers are really into bento or are they just people who are checking it out for the first time?

I'm finding that my readership consists of parents who pack lunch for their children, people with food allergies or food intolerances, dieters, environmentally conscious "green" people, Japanophiles, and also the frugally minded who want to save money by not eating out.

What is your day job?

This is my day job. I was a stay at home mom, and then I started making money off of the blog. That allows me to really spend time with my son, and it gives me some flexibility with my schedule that I'm really enjoying. It’s a luxury for which I’m very grateful. I used to be in public relations.

That probably helps you in terms of promoting your blog.

Well, I haven't actually done any media outreach at all (bad PR person!). It does give me a sense for the importance of understanding your readers and getting the word out.

If you could interview one person about food, who would it be?

It’s impossible, but I would just love to sit down with M. F. K. Fisher for hours and talk to her about food. She wrote a bunch of different food books. I just really enjoy her storytelling and her passion for food. She seems like a real, approachable person with a passion for food that I respect.

Jason Lewis, Lollyphile

2008-09-09T15:58:00.000-07:00

Jason Lewis of Lollyphile currently sells two kinds of lollypops: maple bacon and absinthe. How did he end up with those flavors, and why lollypops? Jason tells all in a candid and fun joy ride into the world of candy making.

~~One random commenter on this post will win a box of Lollyphile lollypops! I will draw the winner on Thursday, September 18th.~~

Update: The winner of one box of Lollyphile lollypops is Toontz from Okara Mountain • Okara recipes, vegetarian recipes!

Jason Lewis checking himself out. He didn't have a single photo of himself with a lollypop. Shocking, no?

How did you get started making lollypops?

Do you want the real version or the marketing version? The real version is more fun.

About two years ago, I started making my own absinthe because it was illegal and kind of fun. Then, some friends of mine up in Seattle started an illegal speakeasy where they had actual in-house gambling and a dress code (you had to wear 1920’s-style clothes or they wouldn’t let you in). They served liquor at all hours and the guy at the coat check was selling pot. It was a totally amazing speakeasy!

My friend came to visit and he was like, "Oh absinthe, can we buy from you?" So, I was like, "Sweet!" I was selling cases of absinthe, just scads of it. Wow, I shouldn’t be telling you this. They [the speakeasy] got busted, because that’s what’s going to happen. Suddenly, I was left with cases of absinthe at my house, which is just an obscene about of absinthe for one person to have. I didn’t know what to do with all of it.

Then, Halloween came around and I’m kind of crafty. So, I made it into lollypops to pass out to my friends. I throw events sometimes. I think about a third of my friend group are all French immigrants and they went nuts for them and loved them. Then, I started selling them at warehouse parties and art shows and stuff around town and people were buying them. That was fun.

Miette is a super fancy candy store here that literally has gumdrop trees. They’re wonderful! In fact, if Miette and Lollyphile were people, Lollyphile would have a huge crush on Miette, but would be kind of embarrassed to ask her on a date. Miette asked, "Can I try a few cases of this?" I was like, "Cool, totally! A retail store wants to carry me, that’s fun."

Then, I threw up a website that just sold those. It was an ugly-ass little website. I was doing it for a class project. That started doing really well. Then, what happened was I kept getting these phone calls from people like 16 year olds in Texas where they would be like, "If I buy some lollypops from you now, would there be any way I could get them in like two days and how fucked up would I be?" I had to explain that, one, you don’t hallucinate from absinthe and two, if you are going to be eating something that makes you hallucinate, you probably want to pay more than two bucks for it. It’s a you-get-what-you-pay-for kind of situation.

Then, I realized that I had to have something else that was not liquor-based or psychotropically-based. So, I thought of bacon - that’s fun, right? Then, I figured out how to do the bacon and I kind of test marketed it at a R. Kelly sing-a-long night. I was passing them out to strangers at this R. Kelly thing and then the next day, on my Yelp page, this one girl had written a 10 stanza poem about the maple bacon lollypops. So, they did well.

Then, Lollyphile got picked up by Daily Candy and I went from being a full-time marketing whore to a full-time confectionery pretty much in the course of three days. Now, that’s what I do.

How did you get interested in making absinthe in the first place?

I went to Burning Man a bunch of times and then one of the camps was just an absinthe camp and they made all these different kinds of absinthe. I was like, "You make this, that’s crazy!" I found a few different recipes and some of them made like 151 proof poison. The first batch I made of it, my girlfriend at the time and I (and this isn’t why we broke up) each had a glass of it, and the next thing we remembered we were waking up on the floor with headaches.

I just kept making it because it was fun, and once I start doing something, I get kind of obsessive-compulsive about doing it really well. I started making it really well. Now, I don’t make my own anymore. I just buy it because I don’t have the time or the wherewithal. Also, it’s legal.

How do you make lollypops?

You make lollypops with sugar and corn syrup and water and a little bit of cream of tartar to prevent crystallization (which I had to learn). I would be selling lollypops and people would be like, "Why are these turning white?" and I would have no idea. Apparently, cream of tartar is an acidic by-product of making wine and it does some chemical magic that I don’t quite understand. But, it does its job well.

So, you mix it all together and you heat it to about 300 degrees and then you have it in a hard crack and you pour it in the mold and then you package it. And, you don’t burn yourself, because if you burn yourself with sugar, it’s insane. It’s not only really hot, but you know how you get boiling water splattered on your hand and you’re like, "Oh, that sucks," and then it’s cool again? You react as though it was boiling water: "Oh that sucks. Oh my god, it still sucks. Oh my god, it still sucks." Then, at that point you have this massive sugar burn on your hand.

I take it you’ve experienced the burn more than once?

Yeah, a couple of thousand times, but not anymore really. Although, I do find myself doing things like I’ll see like sugar dripping over the edge of a pan and my initial instinct is, "Oh, that should be cleaned," and then I run my hand over and then I just sort of curse at myself for the next half hour. Because, it was nobody’s fault but mine.

Jason based the shape of his lollypops on this picture from Lolita.

Why did you decide on lollypops versus doing something else with the extra absinthe?

I was thinking about regular candies which would actually be a hell of a lot easier to make, but lollypops are sexy and they are kind of fun. You have this stick hanging out of your mouth and you get to play with it in your hand. You can sort of hold it.

Then, I decided on the shape for these because of the kind of iconic picture of Lolita from the 1970’s movie where she’s got the heart shaped sunglasses and they’re halfway down her nose and she’s licking lollypops. I was like, "Okay, that’s what I want my lollypop to look like in people’s heads."

Do you make the lollypops at home or do you have a lolly-factory?

I made them at home at first and then once it became a business-business, I realized that I had to be professional. So, I have a kitchen that I rent out in Hunter’s Point. I don’t have a factory yet. Apparently, for the equipment that I would need to get for it, if I could find it used somewhere, it would be a minimum of $100,000 outright, which I really don’t have just sitting around yet.

It’s not just that, it’s just like buying a baby. Then, you have to get a warehouse, then you have to deal with this thing forever, and then also you feel bad about having bought a baby, because that’s apparently illegal in most countries. That was a bad joke. So, no, I don’t have a factory just yet, but someday. It’s my little dream.

Do you still do it all by yourself?

I have part-time workers that come in and help out. I haven’t quite 100% figured out how to hire people. It’s a matter of being able to give them a set 20 hours a week that are definite. I’m really enjoying being self-employed. Like you saw though, getting me to do the interview was a pain in the ass, so imagine me trying to schedule you for work hours. So, again I do have people that are employed, but it's part-time and pretty much just me.

Tell me more about the work that you did before Lollyphile.

I run another business too, it’s called Swapsf. Me and my ex-girlfriend run it. It’s a large-scale clothing swap. It’s 500-1000 people at any given moment, and everyone gets drunk and gets a whole shitload of new clothes and it's really fun.

So, real life before this - I did marketing for a number of different industries, PR, and graphic design. And then, I sort of learned how to do what I think is real marketing, which is actually effective marketing rather just sort of lying for the CEO (which is kind of what marketing is, I guess, just lying to people).

I started doing real marketing, which is sort of actually communicating with people and finding out what’s actually up and making them feel like they are doing it with me - which is what Swapsf does. That’s the marketing I’ve been approaching with this.

When I send out newsletters, I make a point of being 100% straight up. If initially I was like, "Oh, I’ll come up with a new flavor every month," it couldn't work because the reality situation is that if I did that my life would completely collapse due to too much business.

My next flavor comes out in a few weeks. Recently, I sent out an email saying, "Hey, sorry I made everyone wait this long." I had a little sale and it was fun and it’s really cool. Because I’ve been doing it in that direction, I get fan letters - not like "Oh my god, I love you," but kind of like people feel a connection and they really get off on different kinds of candy.

I had this one letter from a lady - she and her husband celebrate every single major event, like their anniversary, engagement, whatever, with absinthe and he is currently overseas in the Army so she mailed him a bunch of lollypops. That was her way of having that moment with him. I thought it was the sweetest thing ever and I was like, "Can I put this on the website?" She said, "Please do." I loved her.

Are you a general foodie?

I’m kind of a food snob. I only buy from farmers’ markets, and for a minute, when I was younger, I was a chef at a pretty fancy restaurant in Seattle. I cook a lot. I make the best matzah ball soup in history.

Do you do make floaters or sinkers?

Floaters. Good question. Way good question! Are you Jewish?

I am. I ask because my husband likes matzah balls that you have to cut with a knife. I’m not a big fan of those.

Yeah, mine are floaters.

Jason said he wanted a Kosher is Binary shirt, so Jonathan designed one for him.

Wait! You’re Jewish and you make lollypops with bacon?

I know. There was a magazine called Jewcy, get it? I noticed on my website stats that there were a lot of hits from there. They were like, "This guy is selling like the least kosher lollypops." Which incidentally, I found out that saying something is the least kosher is kind of a misnomer because kosher is binary. It either is or isn’t. I could essentially make it on Saturday, cover it with blood and serve it with cheese and it wouldn’t be any less kosher than it is now. Kosher is binary. I kind want a T-shirt that says that.

They were like, "You should do a chicken soup version." I was like, "Okay, the meat has to be cured or everyone will die." And then my friend, James, said, "How Jewish would it be if everyone died from lollypops?" So, I made a deal with them that at some point in the future I’m going to make a genuine kosher lollypop and it’ll be like Manischewitz or like hamantaschen with cookie in it. I still have to figure that out.

I think you should make charoset lollypops. Those would be yummy.

Charoset is definitely one that’s been coming up a lot. I just think there’s a lot of moving parts involved with that so it has to be a super short run of like 2000.

Jason recommends the book Candy Freak.

Do you eat a lot of candy?

Not really so much. I’m kind of like a vain health nerd, so I can’t take in the sort of sugar that I used to. For a while, I was finding myself just sort of randomly shoving lollypops in my mouth while I was cooking, and then after a really quick period of time, I got sick of sugar.

I’ve got a thing right now where I’m trying out candy bars. I read Candy Freak. It’s really good and you’d probably like it considering what you do. He was talking about all these small regional candy bars that don’t really get outside like a two state area, like Valomilks and Idaho Spuds and whatever. I kind of get snobby with candy bars and so I’m the guy who shows up at a party with stuff that no one's ever heard of. So, that’s the candy I eat - weird and rare candy bars.

Is the next lollypop flavor top secret information?

No, in a couple weeks, I’m coming out with a Wasabi Ginger.

That sounds really good.

Yeah, it is. I’m just getting the last few kinks out, because I don’t want people saying it actually blows. But it’s really close, like a couple weeks off. Then after that, I’ve got some other stuff. But, I’m keeping that as kind of close to the chest for a minute.

How do you test new flavors?

I make them to where I think they are good. Then, I make a few hundred and I pass them out to friends who have no problem telling me whether they suck and then I go out to big parties and pass it out to strangers and see how they react. If it’s pretty much good across the board, then I’ll sell them.

Aside from the flavors, is there anything that makes your lollypops different than any other lollypops?

It’s a novelty, no one’s ever heard of them. But also, people like buying things that were made by somebody. It kind of has the mystique that they know that I made it. It’s not like it was mass produced by some machines that were watched over by people getting paid minimum wage and kind of hating life. It was made by a guy who was getting off on making them.

If you could interview one person about food, who would it be?

I’ve been reading a lot of Michael Pollan, but I guess that’s too easy, especially because I live in San Francisco. The next one I would say would be Alice Waters, but that’s also pretty easy, because I live in San Francisco. I’m going to go with Alice Waters. She’s pretty awesome.

Why’s that?

She’s kind of, I guess, the godmother of the Slow Food movement. She’s amazing. She helped San Francisco be even snobbier about food than it already is.

Dale Janzen, California Tree Fruit Agreement

2008-09-06T14:13:00.000-07:00

Do you ever wonder what the best way is to peel a sticker off of a peach or do you ponder the best way to tell when a plum in ripe?

Dale Janzen is the Director of Industry Relations for the California Tree Fruit Agreement (a government organization that allows growers to share knowledge, resources, and money to promote tree fruit, do research, and perform quality control functions). Dale has been involved in growing tree fruit (peaches, plums, and nectarines) since he was a kid. Grab a fresh piece of fruit and join him as he gives you an inside look into the industry and shares some important lessons about fruit.

Dale Janzen in a video courtesy of the California Tree Fruit Agreement

What is your background?

I tell people, basically, agriculture through osmosis. My father was a career businessman. His hobby was even business and he would buy ranches that were run down a little bit. My brothers and I would work on the ranch, prune the trees or the vines, improve the irrigation system, and bring the ranch back up to snuff. Then, he would sell that ranch for a profit. That wasn’t his full time business. That was just a hobby he had.

In my high school days, I would work in packing sheds. I’ve pruned trees. I’ve picked trees. I’ve packed the fruit. I’ve done every job on the way up to the point where I started working for the inspection service. I was inspecting fruit and certifying the fruit and the maturity as far as federal standards and marketing orders standards. I did that for ten years.

Then, I started working for the CTFA. Actually, at first I worked for the Kiwi Fruit Marketing Order. I was their first field agent for three years. Then, I worked part time at CTFA and now I’ve worked for them for 21 years.

Since you’ve done it all, can you walk me through the steps from starting to grow the fruit until it gets into the store?

The first thing you do - you want to make sure that you have the proper soil profile. Peaches and nectarines like a very well-drained soil (people call it sandy soil). Plums can actually take a heavier soil. They are not as particular.

Once you pick a place, then you shop around for the type of variety characteristics that you know can be marketed. In other words, you’re looking for fruit that will size to a good size, that’s got a good shape, and red color. You want fruit that’s full of good sugar and good flavor. Then, the last thing you look for is fruit that will ship well so that it doesn’t get bruised in transit. Also, you look for the timing. There’s a lot of aspects about growing fruit that come into play. It’s not as simple as just planting trees in the ground and watering them.

Does each tree only have one harvest per season?

Right. Exactly. That’s the thing, farmers work 12 months out of the year, but they only have one harvest of that tree (which always amazes me). Another thing about it is that all the fruit does not mature at the same time.

Maturity is what happens to the fruit as long as it’s attached to the tree. Once you pick that (once that umbilical cord to the tree has been separated), then you start the ripening process. Maturity is the fruit sizing up - the fruit is filling out at the shoulders and getting its sugar and its flavor. Once you pick the fruit, the fruit is not going to size up any more and the sugar content is going to be the same.

In the early spring, you might have 5 times as much fruit on the trees (more fruit than the tree could size up). Every tree has only so much energy to it. It can only give so much sugar, flavor, and sizing to the fruit. Once you’ve decided to grow a variety, then you need to learn that variety to know how many pieces of fruit you should fit on that tree. Early in the season, you might only fit 350 pieces of fruit on the whole tree. Later in the season, it might be 800-1200 pieces of fruit. Later in the season, the fruit has had so much longer to grow and size up.

It is important to control how many pieces of fruit are on the tree at a time.

Photo courtesy of the California Tree Fruit Agreement

How do you control how many pieces of fruit are on the tree?

By thinning the fruit. That’s what the process is called - simply "thinning" - because you’re thinning out the number of pieces of fruit on the tree. All of this is done by hand.

In the springtime, you can walk into an orchard and you hear this. It’s almost like somebody practicing a percussion instrument. The people who are thinning the fruit are pulling it off the tree and the fruit is dropping on the rungs of the ladder and you hear this "dip, dip, dip, dip" and you hear people singing as they like to do. It helps the day go by fast.

During the Spring, you hear this constant patter of the fruit being dropped. It’s really intensive hand labor. It’s very expensive, but if you don’t do that, the fruit won’t size up to the size that the retailers demand.

Is fruit grown to a specific size simply because retailers prefer it?

Sure. Right. But, then also going back to what I said earlier, the tree only has so much energy to deliver the size, sugar, and flavor. If you have a lot more pieces of fruit on the tree, you’re actually diluting the sugar and the flavor of the fruit. In the early season, because there’s only so many days from bloom to harvest, that limits how big the fruit can actually get before it’s harvested. Whereas, late in the season, that fruit has been growing on the tree since April. That means that fruit has been on the tree for 4 months sizing up and so you can have more fruit on the tree.

Does each variety take the same amount of time to mature?

The timing of varieties comes off at specific times. When you plant a variety, that variety will come within two weeks early to two weeks late of the same time period every year. So, here again, a grower (in order to use his people that work for him in the orchard), wants to keep them busy and wants to make sure that they get a constant paycheck. So, he will plant varieties so that the varieties come off sort of like a string of pearls in the summer - to keep his people that work for him busy throughout the summer. Those are factors about growing the fruit that all have to come into play.

You mentioned that the thinning was done by hand. Is all of the picking done by hand?

Oh, yes. The thing about the picking, I just mentioned briefly, is that not all the fruit comes off at the same time. Today is Thursday and maybe the farmers determined that this group is mature and ready for the first pick. The crews will go through and they’re gauging by the size and the color that the fruit is mature and they’re picking that piece of fruit from the tree and they are bypassing other fruit that isn’t mature yet and leaving it on the tree. In 3-5 days, the farmer will have the workers go through again and do a second pick. Then, they can do that a third time, a fourth time, even a fifth time. There are some growers that will keep picking and keep picking to get a very uniform maturity, but usually picking is done anywhere from 10-14 days.

These buckets are long and not tall so that the fruit doesn't pile on top of each other and dent the pieces on the bottom.

Photo courtesy of the California Tree Fruit Agreement

Where do they put the fruit when they pick it?

Generally, there are two ways. One is that they might have a picking bag. This bag is open at the top and at the bottom. It just has straps that go onto velcro tabs so that the pickers’ hands are free. He’s got shoulder straps to this canvas or nylon bag and he is just picking the fruit and putting it down in front of his chest into this bag. His hands are free to go up the ladder to pick the fruit. Once the bag gets as full as he wants with fruit, he walks over to a tractor that has bins. He will lower this bottom of the bag to the bottom of this bin, un-hatch these velcro ties, and then the fruit is gently put into this bin.

The other way of picking is they will have either a bucket or a tote (and here, again, its got shoulder straps so he/she has their hands free) about 16" long by about 12" wide and about 12" deep. They will just pick into the tote until the tote or bucket is full and then they go to the trailer behind the tractor and then they stack those up. The reason that people pick into totes and into buckets is they’ll pick a more mature piece of fruit. In a bin, you’ll have fruit that is stacked on top of other fruit and if the fruit is too mature, the compression or the weight of the fruit on top of it will actually dent the fruit. You certainly don’t want that to happen because that’s going to be a bruise on the fruit.

All the thinning is done by hand, the pruning after the harvest is done by hand, and all the picking is done by hand. It really is labor-intensive work.

Dale Janzen is typically responsible for removing the stickers from the fruit in order to take pictures like this.

Photo courtesy of the California Tree Fruit Agreement

How does the fruit get from the tractor to the store?

The tractor will take that fruit out of the orchard. There will be a forklift and a truck waiting. They’ll either use bins or pallets for the totes. They lift those onto the truck, and then the truck takes that into the packing shed.

Since the fruit is coming out of the hot orchard, they want to cool that fruit down. They will either hydro-cool it where you have a cold water bath that the containers of fruit (either totes or bins) go under to cool or they have cold storage that they put it in. They want to take that field heat out of the fruit as soon as they can because that gives it longer shelf life.

Then, once that fruit has cooled down, they run the fruit over a sizer, which sizes the fruit. It stickers the fruit and then it gently drops that into different pack lines by sizes so that all of the fruit is uniform.

Why does all of the fruit need to be stickered?

The sticker is demanded by retail. If there is an organic peach right next to a commercial peach, the organic peach looks exactly the same as the regular commercial peach, but they're going to have to charge a lot more for it. Retail has come up with this whole system of stickering the fruit in order to know what to charge. They might be charging $1.99/lb for one and the other might cost $3.99/lb and it looks like the same piece of fruit, but one's organic and one's not. The consumer doesn’t like stickers and really the packers don’t like the stickers.

I find it hard to remove the stickers.

It really is. Another one of my functions is that I’m always there on the photo shoots for our web site. I select the fruit for the photo shoot to make sure it’s portraying the fruit in a realistic and appealing way. As a result, I’ve taken off thousands and thousands of stickers.

The easiest way is look at the sticker. On 99.9% of the stickers there will be a wrinkle because the sticker is flat going on a curved surface of the piece of fruit. If you can see that little wrinkle and use your fingernail, that part of the sticker will come up. If you look for that wrinkle and just work that wrinkle up then you can remove the sticker. Tips from Dale!

Sometimes, I’m cutting fruit and doing slices and all that. I’ve even gotten dental tools that I can use to flick that little wrinkle in the sticker right off if I need to do huge quantities of it.

What happens during the ripening process?

Once you start the ripening process, what happens is you’ve got enzymes in the piece of fruit that are going to start breaking down the acid content in the piece of fruit. It might taste sweeter (because you don’t have the acid competing against the sugar on the palate), but actually, the sugar content is going to stay exactly the same from the day that you picked it.

What’s the best way to know if a fruit is ripe?

I always say, "Gentle palm pressure." Automatically, what I was doing is I had one open hand and I put my fist in that open hand and I pressed with all of my fingertips in the palm of my hand right by my thumb. That’s the way you want to test if the fruit has a little bit of give so that you’re not making actual fingerprint indentions in the fruit. You don’t want to use your thumb and first finger, you want to use your whole palm to gently squeeze the fruit and see if there is a little bit of give.

Then you take the fruit and smell it. A peach should smell like a peach, a nectarine like a nectarine, a plum like a plum.

There are some people that like a crunchy piece of fruit and then some people like a very ripe piece of fruit. Since I was young, I always called the ripe fruit leaners because a very ripe piece of fruit is so juicy that you bite into it and it runs down onto your chin. If you’re not leaning over, it’s going to go down the front of your shirt. When people ask how I like fruit, I say, "I like to eat leaners!"

I gave our promotional people a tour and they liked that term and so we have posters out to help educate the consumer about what types of food they like to eat. The poster says, "Cruncher, Leaner, In-Betweener." There are people that genuinely like a crunchy piece of fruit. I like a much riper piece of fruit. To me, a perfect piece of fruit runs down your chin and it’s just a real wonderful, delicious, juicy mess.

Can you tell from the color if the fruit is ripe?

The red color on our fruit is more about sunlight and the plant breathing than it is about actual ripeness. What happens is the red pigment that is exposed to the sunlight through the leaves of the trees will turn bright red.

Have you seen pieces of fruit that are red and just sort of have flame type patterns in the fruit that are yellow? Those flames are actually the shadows of leaves on the fruit. It’s sort of like back when I took tape and on my chest, I taped "DJ" and then went floating down the river and at the end of the day, I had a suntan everywhere except the white "DJ" on my chest. Boy, I thought it was so neat! It’s the same type of thing in that you get flames of shadow from the leaves that will be the yellow color that you see on the fruit.

Now, some pieces of fruit develop just about 100% red and in those cases, you can look down into the shoulder where the stem is and you don’t want to see a hard green color - you want to see a yellow to yellow-orange color. What we call those yellow spots or looking down into the stem well is background color. The red is the primary color, and anything that is not red is the background color. The background color tells you more about maturity and ripeness than the red color does.

To ripen your fruit, Dale suggests leaving your fruit in a bowl away from the sun.

Photo courtesy of the California Tree Fruit Agreement

If you buy a piece of fruit that is not ripe, what is the best way to ripen it?

The best way to ripen fruit is to ripen it at room temperature away from sunlight. Some people say, "It grew its whole life in the sun, I’m going to put it on the windowsill to ripen it up," but that’s not correct. Sunlight, once the fruit has been picked from the tree, actually will break down the fruit.

The best place is some place room temperature, away from direct sunlight, and not inside a plastic bag. A piece of fruit is still respirating – it’s still breathing through the skin, even though you picked it. If you put it in a plastic bag, it will get moist and start to break down and you might see decay start forming on the fruit. The classic putting the fruit on the dining room table is fine for ripening up fruit.

Once that fruit has gotten ripe or soft to the point where you want it, you can go ahead and put it in the refrigerator and that will stop it from ripening further. If you’re a cruncher, you can pick out the very solid ones, the ones that might have a little bit more of a greenish background color; if you’re like me, you’ll look for fruit that has a definite yellow background color and appears to be a little bit riper. Even if it’s not as ripe as I want it, I can sit it in the fruit bowl for a couple of days until it gets to the ripeness I want it. You put it in the refrigerator and that stops the process and now you’ve got a lot more time to eat that bowl of fruit.

California fruit is marketed all over the world.

Logo courtesy of the California Tree Fruit Agreement

Can you give a brief overview of the California Tree Fruit Agreement?

The California Tree Fruit Agreement is celebrating our 75th anniversary. Basically, the start of the California Tree Fruit Agreement was motivated because growers were not getting compensated for the cost of producing their fruit. So, they petitioned their politicians to come up with the Federal Marketing Order Act. Farmers could get together and vote to have a marketing order to share knowledge, resources such as statistics, and also to pool the money together to promote the fruit, do research on the fruit, and perform quality control functions. Those are the three functions of the California Tree Fruit Agreement.

Part of it is federal and then another part of it is the state of California. It’s the two marketing branches of CDFA (California Department of Food and Agriculture) or USDA on the federal side of things. We’re both federal and state to get the most bang for the buck out of the program and we do promote our fruits worldwide.

I produced a video which is on our website and just the other day, the president of CTFA was in Taiwan and she sent me a photograph of me on a big screen TV in the produce market in Taiwan, speaking Cantonese. I never knew I spoke Cantonese. What a big wide wonderful world it is!

Are all of the California fruit growers part of your organization or just the larger ones?

Every grower of fresh peaches, plums, and nectarines in California is a member. The key word is fresh (if it goes to the cannery, if it goes to the dry yard, that is not included in the CTFA). Every four years we have a referendum, and every grower gets a ballot and he/she votes whether or not to keep us in business. We have a heck of a report card every four years that determines whether or not I’m going to have a job.

How is the program supported?

Per package assessment. For every package that is shipped, we get money back from that in order to fund all these programs.

So, the growers themselves are paying for it?

Exactly. The great thing about it is that it is self-funded.

Are there similar programs in other states?

Yes. One that just comes to mind is Vidalia onions in Georgia. That’s a marketing order. The three things about a marketing order are quality control, promotion, and research. Some marketing orders are only promotion. Some are just promotion and research. We happen to be all three.

What is your role in the California Tree Fruit Agreement?

I am the Director of Industry Relations. What that entails is relations with the growers, with the packers, with the marketers of our fruit, and with inspectors that inspect our fruit. I also do a little bit of compliance work if I find that somebody is not meeting our quality standards.

What are some things that California growers do to ensure food safety?

We have a food safety trace back system so that every box has the number of the packer and the date it was packed. If I found product on the market that didn’t have these trace back numbers on them, I would follow that back with the actual packer and make sure that he started putting those on every single box.

We have never had a food safety issue - knock on wood. We have the definite advantage that our fruit is grown on trees and never touches the ground. A lot of the problems that leafy greens, tomatoes, and peppers have, we do not have because the fruit is grown on trees. Another advantage of fruit grown on trees is that our workers have access to ready-made shade at any time (which if it’s going to be 99 degrees is definitely a factor).

Do you think the fruit from California tastes different from the fruit in other places?

You know, that’s really subjective. I believe so, just because we have our tools of the trade. Our access to varieties are greater than in any other growing area. Because of that, I believe that yes, we do have the advantage as far as flavor and sugar. But, Stefani, if you interviewed somebody from South Carolina or Georgia, I would be truly amazed if that person wouldn’t tell you the same thing.

Here in California, we are blessed with such great soil. We have the Sierras that catch water for us in the form of snowfall and we have reservoirs that deliver that water to the San Juan Valley which would actually be a desert. Because we have those desert conditions, it’s a much drier condition to grow the fruit. Because of where we are, the trees go into dormancy in the winter and they have plenty of cold temperatures in the winter to go into dormancy. That’s when the trees get their beauty sleep so that they wake up nice and strong in the Spring to develop all that fruit.

California also has the advantage that we have peaches grown from mid-April all the way through September and into October. With such a wide growing season, we have many different varieties to choose from. Also, because we have such a dry climate, we don’t have some of the plant diseases, like fungi, that are caused with a lot of moisture. So, California really does have a lot of advantages.

How has California’s focus on being green affected the CTFA?

The plant breeders are just geniuses. Nothing as far as peaches/plums/nectarines is genetically modified. It is not being improved. It is all done with open pollination, so it’s all a natural process.

In California, our regulations of growing practices are stricter than anywhere else in the world. Here in California, the growers are very, very aware that the consumer wants as healthy and clean of a product as possible. Part of the marketing orders is the growers have a research committee that votes on the research projects that should be funded. We spend half a million dollars a year on research and a lot of that research is how to grow a healthier product to try to come as close to organic as possibly can be done. The whole story of the California peach/plum/nectarine growers is focused on a healthier product and it’s just getting better.

What are some of methods used to protect the trees from bugs?

When I was working in the orchards as a teenager, you didn’t see insects in the orchard - you didn’t see ladybugs, you didn’t see spiders, you didn’t see praying mantis. These are all predators of bad insects. You didn’t see them because pesticides were generally sprayed on a regular schedule. Now, part of the whole research here in California is that we have researchers that are entomologists, which is the study of insects, and they have one huge success story which is the use of mating disruption.

Researchers have developed pheromones which are the sexual attractant that insects use to find each other. They are just like little twist ties like you would use to twist a plastic bag except that they are a tube that has the pheromone inside. Here again, the pheromone never even touches the tree. It’s just given off like a vapor. They’ve only got so big of a brain and the eyes aren’t used as much as the sense of smell. So, the male insect hunts down its mate by smell.

The male moth comes into this orchard and he smells the pheromone and he goes, "Oh boy." He’s fooled into thinking there’s a mate in there, but he flies around and he never finds the mate because he can’t tell a female from the pheromone that’s everywhere in the orchard. Here you have a very clean method of deterring these very destructive moths.

This practice is used extensively in California and it’s backed up. We hired University of California researchers. They monitor the actual life cycles of the insect to know how to protect the fruit against it. It used to be, "Let’s just go in and spray." Now, they have pheromone traps in the orchard and as long as they are getting so many moths per trap per day, they know that the damage isn’t going to be too great by the time of harvest. In the past, they would spray, they look at this and go, "Okay, we think we might have one to three percent damage before harvest. That’s acceptable. Let’s just live with it."

The grower is so much more sophisticated and he’s hiring these entomologists to check traps in his orchard so that he does not have to use anything against the insects. It’s a wonderful system and growers have adapted this system for two reasons: one, the health of their product, and two, sprays are expensive.

Also, here in California, they have all these regulations: what you can spray, when you can spray. Your workers have to be monitored for their health. All the aspects of spraying are such that they want to shy away from that if at all possible and so it has opened up this huge business of entomologists that are going around checking orchards and making sure that it does not have to occur. What a great system!

And here’s another thing, just for your own knowledge. Sulfur (which is a naturally occurring product) is used by organic growers, but that is considered a pesticide. Pheromones, because they are artificial chemicals that mimic the sexual hormones of the insect, are considered a pesticide. Even some of the good practices are lumped into recording of practices that seem worse than they are. But, here in California, spending half a million dollars a year in research is just a tremendous tool for the California grower to deliver a healthier, pesticide-free product.

What kind of challenges do California growers face when growing organic fruit?

The organic fruit is held to the same quality and maturity standards as the conventional fruit, but the thing about the organic is because you cannot use the same materials that you do with conventional fruit, you will have some losses due to insect damage or just decay. There’s just a lot more handwork that has to be done on organic fruit.

At home, I do an organic garden as much as I can, and it’s a lot more work because you do have the pressures of nature. I love fruit, well so do the worms, birds, and moths - they all love it. With organic, your losses and your risks are greater. Therefore, they deserve to be paid more.

How often do you eat fruit?

My people are Mennonite people and so I grew up in this whole tradition of canning peaches, making pickles, and making jams. I still do the cooking. My wife is a good cook but I’m an inspired cook. Just about every week, I’m making peach pies, peach cobblers, and peach jams. So, I really handle the fruit.

I really love fruit. If you offer me a Snickers bar or a peach, nectarine, or plum, I’ll choose the fruit every single time. Growing up, I think I did 11 batches of jam, then I’d give jam away for Christmas, when people came over I gave jam at birthdays and all of that.

Aside from canning and making jams, what else do you recommend to save your fruit?

If I have too much fruit, I’ll slice fruit (like about 5-7 cups of fruit) and put that in a Ziploc bag with one cup of sugar. I let it sit there for 20 minutes or so and the sugar dissolves with the juices of the fruit and becomes like a syrup. I’ll take that bag out and put it in the freezer. Then, during the winter, I take that out and defrost that and I’ve got a ready made cobbler or peach/plum/nectarine pie from the freezer. If I’ve got an abundance of fruit or there’s this fruit that just is especially delicious, I make sure I put some away and that way I can have some in the winter.

Dale had the opportunity to meet Julia Child.

If you could interview one person about food, who would that be?

I got to meet one of my heroes with food: Julia Child. I met her and her husband, Paul, and there’s an interesting story. I’d only been working for CTFA for a couple of years and we got a letter from Julia stating that she was really unhappy with these peaches. She said, "How can you call them sweet, juicy, California peaches? They were really horrible."

We wrote her back and asked her where she bought them and what time period. She said she bought them in February and so we informed her that California does not produce in that time period, so it had to be imported peaches. I said, "If you would allow us, because you’ve taken the time to write this letter, I would really like to deliver some boxes of peaces to you this summer."

I arranged a date and a time and I took Julia Child six boxes of peaches. When I rang the doorbell, she filled up that doorway. She was a large woman! Her husband, Paul, was more my shape and size. I’m 5’8" and I think he was probably about 5’7".

She was just charming and gracious and very down to earth - easy to talk to, very approachable. If you look at some of her old shows, a towel would catch fire on the set and she wouldn’t cut that, it was part of the cooking process: "Oops, did that again!" She made it fun and she made it look like I could do this. There’s fun in the kitchen. It’s not drudgery. I think that’s why everybody likes Julia Child.

In her later days, she would do shows with Jacques Pepin and Wolfgang Puck - all these chefs who really wanted to spend time with her, because she was such a tremendous influence on their lives. She was just a charming woman - signed a couple of cookbooks I had. What I admired about Julia Child is that she brought French cuisine into everyday cooking. To me, she was just a really dynamic person in that she demystified French cuisine and made it fun.

Amy Casey and Karen Tedesco, Personal Chefs

2008-09-01T19:07:00.000-07:00

Amy Casey (Dinners for a Year) and Karen Tedesco (FamilyStyle Food) are both personal chefs and food bloggers. Amy's personal chef business, Eat! A Personal Chef Service, is based in Sparta, New Jersey, and Karen's, DinnerStyle, is based in St. Louis, Missouri. In this interview the two, who have never met, share the secrets of being personal chefs. You'll learn why you might need a personal chef or be a personal chef yourself.

Karen Tedesco loves cooking fresh, creative meals for her clients.

What is a personal chef?

Karen: A personal chef usually is a person you hire to come into your home, do your shopping, do all your meal planning, meal preparation, and clean up. They package your food and put it away, so it’s all there waiting when you need a meal.

Amy: You can focus on different aspects of being a personal chef. Some people do more of a catering type of business where they prepare dinner parties, baptisms, graduation parties, that kind of thing. Some go to client's homes and prepare people's daily meals. I’ll go in a make three different dinners for the family to enjoy during the day and they heat them up as they want when they get home. Some are private chefs that exclusively work for one family. So, you can focus on whatever you want to do as a personal chef - whatever fits in with what you like to do.

Who are the main people that use personal chefs?

Karen: The people that I targeted and the people that have been hiring me are busy people with families, with kids. Actually, my two clients now don’t have kids, but they are professional people. They love to eat, but they just don’t want to cook or they hate to cook or they don’t have time. So, they hire me to do that.

Amy Casey works with her clients to come up with personalized menus.

Amy: In my area, the main clients are busy families with two parents that are working and are tired of eating processed, frozen foods. They are looking for something nutritious and do not want to go to drive-thrus or purchase take-out all the time. I also have other clients who are busy families who also don’t want to go out to eat all the time. The families have kids who are in a lot of activities and they are running around most evenings at dinner time. They don’t have time to come home at night and make a good dinner, so they hire me to prepare their dinners for them.

Basically, my clients are people who want to eat healthier, but don’t have the time to cook, just don’t like to cook, or don’t have the desire to figure out what they want to make. I provide the service and make it easy for them to eat nutritious foods without spending an arm and a leg.

What is a typical day like?

Amy: I usually leave my house in the morning about 8:30 to do the grocery shopping for my client (it usually takes half an hour to 45 minutes to do the shopping), drive to the client’s house, and depending on the number of meals I’m making for them (it’s usually 3,4, or 5), I’m there for between 4 and 6 hours. During that time, I am cooking two or three things at the same time to keep everything moving. It’s not like I cook one dish from start to finish. I usually have a pot of water boiling for the pasta, I have the oven on with vegetables roasting, and the grills heating up outside that I’m going to do shrimp kabobs on. I have numerous things going at once to keep the process going.

Why cook in someone’s house versus bringing food in from your own home?

Karen: Because of the way the business is set up. I don’t have a commercial kitchen to work out of. If I did, I would be more of a caterer and my insurance would be different (my liability and everything).

The beauty of doing what I do is I have no overhead, but I’m also required by law to cook in the client’s kitchen because that’s how my insurance covers me. I’m almost like domestic help. Although, I hate to say it like that, because a private chef would be different. That’s a person who works for one family and that’s what they do - that’s their job, to be employed by that one family.

Amy: For health regulations, I have to cook out of someone’s house when I prepare their meals. Some personal chefs cook out of commercial kitchens so they can prepare meals for their clients and deliver them.

Some people prefer that I prepare their meals in their own homes because they know their kitchen and they just feel comfortable that I’m coming into their house to provide this service. They know exactly where the food is from start to finish. If they are home, they can see how the food is prepared.

Do your clients typically watch you cook?

Amy: Sometimes they watch me cook. But, when they watch, it usually slows me down because of talking as I’m preparing. A lot of times, they’ll come in, talk for a few minutes, and they usually have to go about their business. Sometimes, I have clients that aren’t even home. I have a key to their house or an access code and I just go in, cook their meals, clean up the kitchen, store their meals in the refrigerator or freezer, and leave a menu with heating instructions. At the end of the day, the client comes home to a homemade dinner.

How often do you typically visit a client?

Amy: It varies. I have clients that I cook for weekly. Some are every two weeks. I have one client now that is once a month, so I would make more meals for them. It just takes a longer day for me. But, they have more food that I put into their freezer. Clients that I cook for weekly usually just keep everything in their fridge and just heat it up over three or four days.

Karen: Usually it is once a week. Although, I have a client who has me go every other week because they divide their portions up. I’ll cook 4-5 meals for them with four portions. They’ll have half of it in the refrigerator for one week and the other half is in the freezer for the next week.

The challenge for me has been (because I like to cook fresh) coming up with things that will freeze well. You can’t freeze a salad, obviously.

Amy's manicotti crepes

How do you decide what to make for your clients?

Amy: When I first have a potential client, I meet with them and do a comprehensive interview. I ask them if they have any food allergies or any health concerns like diabetes or high cholesterol that they want me to take special note of, and any cuisines that they like (Asian, Thai, Mexican).

Then, I go through a whole list of all different kinds of foods and ask them, "In general, does your family like chicken? Do they like chicken on the bone? Do they like chicken with skin?" It’s like a 5 page survey that I go through with them and then most times, the clients want me to pick their menu.

About a week before I go to their house, I will decide on a menu for them and either mail it or email them my suggested menu for the week and they’ll say, "Great. That looks fantastic. We can’t wait to eat those five meals," or, "You know what, we really don’t like eggplant parmesan. We’ve had it before. Can you do a traditional lasagna for us instead?"

It just depends on the client. Some clients want me to pick all their meals for them, other ones like to pick and choose on their own and have me throw in an occasional different dish for them. It’s just kind of a learning process. After I’ve cooked for them three or four times, I get to know the family’s tastes. If they have kids, what do the kids like and do not like?

A lot of times, people like a personal chef because they get to try new foods that they generally would stay away from. I have one client where I make a snack for their kids each week that I go and she has the kids try it and generally it has some food in it that the kids said they didn’t like. But when they find out that I made it, they try it and find out, "Yeah, maybe I do like enchiladas with spicy sauce on it," and before they didn’t like it. So, it’s kind of a learning process between the client and me to find out the foods that they like and don’t like.

Karen: I want to focus on doing more like fresh, creative meals and I customize menus for people depending on what they want. When I meet with a client, initially, we have a long assessment. We go through everything they like, they dislike, they’re allergic to, whatever, things that they want to eat. Then, every week, I craft a menu just for them.

I don’t have a set menu. I think it would be a lot easier. A lot of personal chefs just have a menu that they’ve come up with and that’s what you choose from. But what I do is every week, I create a new menu and I send a list of choices and my clients choose what they want. So, I have more control over what I’m cooking and also I get to use more seasonal produce. I want to use more local rather than just having a set menu that’s always the same. It’s a lot more work to do it that way because every week I have to sit down and write a whole menu and it’s different for every client.

Karen's Grilled Steak and Roasted Tomato Flatbread with Fresh Basil

Do you ever get clients that put in specific requests?

Karen: These people haven’t yet. I’ve got these great clients that are just like, "Whatever you want to cook," and obviously they get to choose within this range of what I’m going to cook. It’s gotten to the point where I’ve got clients who start requesting things that they like: "I love that lasagna you make. Can you make that again?"

Amy: Oh yes! One client this last week asked, "Can you make me brussel sprouts next week?" The beauty of having a personal chef is that I personalize the menu to them. It’s not like you’re going to a restaurant and they have twelve choices available. My menu is limitless for the client. If they like all chicken dishes, I can make them all chicken dishes with all different preparations. If they like a variety of foods, there’s no problem, I can make it. It’s not limited by just one menu, I have a limitless menu that I can go through and just pick and choose what they like.

What do you bring when you go to someone’s house?

Amy: It depends. I have everything I need to cook and package the meals. In the beginning, it sounds daunting that I need to have a whole set of pans and knives and measuring cups and all these utensils, but you can figure out the basic items that you need. Also, most clients say, "Just use what we have here. If you need to use this stock pot, don’t carry your own here. You can just use our stock pot." It’s usually a combination between the items that I bring and the utensils and pots and pans the client has at their house.

Karen: I bring everything. I have wheeled coolers. That’s like my traveling chef. It has all my pots and pans, all my utensils, and pantry ingredients like olive oil and spices and I have a knife rack for all my knives - everything I need. Then, I do the grocery shopping the day of. When I’m supposed to arrive at a client’s home, I’ll go to the grocery store and do all the shopping and then I’ll bring everything to the house. Then, I set up and start cooking.

What is it like to work in other people’s kitchens?

Amy: Well, that’s the first thing. You go into a house and you see a kitchen and you’re like, "Oh, is this going to work?" But, you can just make it work. A lot of times, people have beautiful kitchens, but they’ve never even used it, so it’s like I’m going into a brand new kitchen when I go into this house. But most times, I just need the basics, a cook top, an oven. I usually don’t use the microwave or if I sometimes grill something for them, that’s all I need. It’s not like I need a gourmet kitchen to make their meals. It doesn’t matter what their kitchen really looks like, as long as I have working appliances.

Alice Waters has been an inspiration for Karen.

Karen: It’s interesting, and I think I’m adaptable. I think that’s why I really enjoy this. I know a lot of people that would find it hard. Sometimes when you go into a new kitchen, you have to get your bearings. "How does the stove work?" or, "The sink doesn’t work." Everything is different. But after an hour in somebody’s kitchen, I become accustomed to it and I get myself set up so I can work efficiently.

Everyone’s kitchen is different. Some I’ve worked in are really incredibly gorgeous kitchens that are like you wouldn’t want to touch anything or leave smudges anywhere. Most people’s kitchens are just like normal kitchens. All I ask is that their stove tops are working, their oven has to work, and they need a sink and clean counter space. That’s all I need. And a refrigerator, obviously.

Has the downturn in the economy affected your business?

Amy: There really hasn’t seemed to be a change for me. Once I start cooking for my clients, they see how invaluable the service is to them, because actually I’m saving them time and money by doing this service for them. A lot of times, they are buying food that is less nutritious, that’s at a take-out or at a restaurant. They are spending more money than they want on the food, or they are buying groceries at the store and since they’re so busy, they never get to make them and they are throwing out groceries before they even prepare the meal.

On average, I’m probably saving somebody between 10 and 15 hours of their time by preparing the food for them, and they know that the food is going to be there when they get home and it’s already prepared. I’m saving them shopping time, I’m saving them clean up time, and prep time. Once they try the service, they are pretty much hooked.

Karen: I started my business in November and it was kind of slow just getting started. So, I don’t really know because I have nothing to compare it to by seeing how business was a couple years ago. I think if people are busy enough and they are working, this is something they are going to do. But, I think it does cost a lot of money. I like to tell people that if they’re not cooking at home (they’re going out to eat a lot), then they’re spending a lot of money on food. People have to eat. But, I’m sure there is some sort of impact with the economy. I don’t need that many clients, because there’s just one of me. If I have three clients or four clients a week, I am set - I’m done.

How much does a meal cost?

Amy: It varies. I charge a fee for my services and then I add the grocery cost on top. Those are separate. If someone is always ordering fish and steak, that’s more expensive than the family that’s eating pasta and chicken. So, I’m not going to charge the same amount for everyone. It’s just my fee when I come to cook for them plus the cost of the groceries that I buy for them.

Karen, do your clients also pay for their own groceries?

Karen: Yes. I bill them separately for my fee and then I give them a receipt for the groceries they bought.

What about pantry basics, like olive oil or spices?

Karen: I consider that part of my pantry and so that’s built into my service - things like olive oil, butter, spices that I use.

Amy: I have a spice kit that I can bring. I can take it with me to the client’s house (like spices, olive oil, salt, pepper, that kind of thing). But if it’s a fresh good, I need to buy it the day that I go cook for the family. The cost of these items is built into my service fee.

What do you do with leftover groceries?

Amy: I’m pretty good at buying the right portions that I need, but if I have to buy a dozen eggs and I only use 8 of them, I only charge the client the prorated portion of what I’ve used and those other eggs come home with me or I ask the client, "Do you want me just to leave these for you?" Some clients just say, "You know what, we’ll just keep that half a bag of rice and we’ll cook it at another time" or they say, "Just take it home with you" and I just prorate the cost to them. Sometimes with dry goods, such as rices and spices and pasta, a client will have a space dedicated in their pantry for me and I keep track of what I have at their house. The next time I cook for the client, I don’t have to go buy something. There’s different ways you can handle that situation.

Karen: That depends on the client. Sometimes I do try to buy in bulk because if I need a cup of rice, I can’t just buy a cup of rice. If it’s something like pasta or any pantry ingredients, some clients don’t want to have any of that in their house. They’ll just say, "Take it home." Something that’s unopened that I didn’t use, I’ll just put it in their pantry for next time. But my clients pay for groceries, so they own it. They’re their groceries.

Do you have any advice for someone who is just starting out as a personal chef?

Amy: Do some research on the internet. There are different personal chef organizations that can help you get started. I joined the Personal Chefs Network . They have a free forum online where you can ask questions. One of the most beneficial experiences I had was when I worked in a gourmet café. It gave me confidence to start my own business and make a career of it.

It’s fun. It’s one of those jobs that I finally found something that I really love to do. It doesn’t even feel like work to me.

What’s the Personal Chefs Network?

Amy: The Personal Chefs Network is an organization that has about 600 chefs that belong to it worldwide. It basically offers you support for being a personal chef.

Basically, I’m my own boss and the organization provides resources to help me find answers to any of my questions I have - anything from being ServSafe certified, insurance questions (I have to be insured as a personal chef), and recipe questions. It's a support group of personal chefs from all around the world.

That’s great.

Amy: Oh, it is great! You don’t feel so alone, because working as your own boss, sometimes you feel like you’re all by yourself and this is like your coworkers that you can rely on for answers to questions.

Karen, what advice do you have for aspiring personal chefs?

Karen: I think the biggest piece of advice and the biggest challenge for me has to be being really organized. The cooking comes easily for me (that’s something that I can do when I get in somebody’s house). The part that I have trouble with is making a list to make sure that I have all the tools I need and all the groceries that I need that day because you don’t want to be in the middle of cooking 20 portions of somebody’s food and realize you forgot something. You are in charge of this whole business because you are doing basically the bookkeeping, the marketing, and the shopping. It’s really important to be organized.

What do you do when you forget things?

Karen: I forget things almost all the time. I’ll improvise. If it’s not something I can improvise, I’ll just talk to the client and say, "I forgot this ingredient," or, "Can I borrow your blender?" It usually works out fine. It’s never like a tragedy. I’m well prepared enough that everything I really need is in my kit, all ready in my car. I guess you should be flexible as well as being really organized.

Amy: Sometimes, I forget to bring something or the client doesn’t have something that I need, and I’ll just have to improvise and try to figure out the best way to create their meal for them.

What is your culinary background?

Amy: I am self-taught. I have always liked to cook since I was probably ten or twelve years old. I started out watching Julia Child and The French Chef and went from there. I just cooked for my family and my friends and really enjoyed it. I read cookbooks, Bon Appetite, and Gourmet magazine - anything I could get my hands on.

I just taught myself and little-by-little got the confidence to go out and tell other people, "I’ll cook for you."

Karen: I’m mostly self-taught. I’ve worked in restaurants since I was 17 (all over, front and back of the house). I decided after college that I really loved food and wanted to go to cooking school and I looked into cooking schools, but it just wasn’t the right time for me to do that. The schools I was looking at (we were living in South Florida) were in New York or elsewhere, so I just got jobs working in restaurant kitchens and kind learned on the job. I did that for a while. Then, I started selling wine because that was something I was really interested in, so I did that for a couple of years too.

How did you decide to become a personal chef?

Amy admires Ina Garten's recipes. She used them as the basis for many of the dishes at the gourmet cafe where she used to work.

Amy: I’ve always liked cooking. I was a commercial real estate appraiser for about 10 years, then I took some time off for having my kids. After my kids started grade school, I decided I would like to do something else. I was working at a small gourmet café and was trying to find something different that would fit in with my family where I could still work and cook.

I actually found the Personal Chefs Network and just started reading about being a personal chef. I found out that it could fit in well with my lifestyle. I can cook for other families during the day and still have time for my family at night when they are home.

Karen, how did you decide to become a personal chef?

Karen: I was ready to do something. I’ve done dinner parties over the years for friends or fundraising events. My youngest, my son, started first grade and he was going to school all day, and I knew that I wanted to start getting back working. It’s been about ten years since I really worked outside the home and did something.

I’ve always been involved in food and cooking and I initially thought, "How could I do dinner parties?" because that’s what I was doing. I love doing dinner parties like up to twelve people where I design the menu, the table, and do the flowers - the whole thing. That’s how I found out about this whole personal chef thing. I didn’t even know what it was. I thought that this could work for me, because I could make my own hours. I employ myself. I get to be creative and so far, it’s been good.

Do you often cook for yourself?

Amy: Yes. This is how it all started. I would make so much food for my family that I would be passing it out to friends, and I needed someone else to cook for. This is a good way for me to share my love of food with other people. I also keep a blog about the meals I prepare for my family. Hopefully it will help people who do like to cook but have a hard time figuring out what to make for dinner. That’s the central focus of my blog - that they can go there and find dinner ideas that may be a little bit different than they are used to, but still easy to prepare.

I have three kids who are all active in sports and activities and my husband and I need to get them where they need to go. But it is also important for us to still have a family dinner. I like to provide that for my family. I like to also tell other people how you can make a good family meal - maybe something a little different, and it does not take four hours to prepare it. 30 minutes and you’re done and you’re sitting down.

Karen: Some days it’s really long - if I’m cooking five meals for a client I’ll be gone for six hours or more - so I’ll come home and be really tired but also, because I’m in that work mode, I’ll just start cooking something. I still cook.

Do you make yourself the same kinds of meals at home that you make your clients?

Amy: Yes, pretty much. Sometimes I practice recipes that I make for my clients on my family to see if they would like them. Because a lot of my clients have a similar makeup as my family, I’m always practicing new recipes and trying things out.

Karen: I think the way that I cook at home is a little different from the way I cook for clients, just because of the types of meals that are going to present well after being in the refrigerator (something that they can assemble - you can’t do seafood that well). I don’t like to freeze fish.

There’s certain ways of cooking that I wouldn’t do for clients. I love to do real simple things at home with fresh vegetables on top, like kind of serve a one dish thing. When I cook for clients, I get a chance to think more about what I’m cooking, as opposed to, "What are we having for dinner tonight?" That’s more how I cook at home. I throw together a meal.

What’s you’re favorite meal to prepare?

Amy: Well, my favorite meal is a seafood boil: mussels, clams, lobsters, sausage, red potatoes, fresh corn on the cob - that kind of thing. We’ve already had it twice [this week on vacation]. We’ve eaten so much seafood here, it’s crazy. Last night, we had 15 pounds of lobster and I just made them into lobster rolls for lunch today.

Karen: The way I love to cook is Mediterranean, Asian, Latin kinds of foods (really big flavors, but freshly made). I use a lot of whole grains and vegetables and lean protein and things like that.

There’s not a favorite thing you make?

Karen: Not really. I have favorite flavors. I love Mediterranean food and I love spicy, Middle Eastern food. I use a lot of spices in my cooking, and fresh herbs. That’s really important to me, but I love to cook everything.

Tell me about your blogs.

Amy: Oh, I love doing the blog. I’m on vacation now. I’ve gotten some recipes from my family that I’ve put on there. It's interesting to see people from all over the world reading my blog and commenting. It’s nice when someone says, "I made that recipe you had on your blog. It was really good. Thanks for the recipe."

I like helping other people try new recipes. Making something a little different doesn't need to be an overwhelming task. A little planning goes a long way. My blog provides the recipes and reviews from my family. Hopefully, my readers will give a few new recipes a try.

Karen: One thing I want to pursue more is food writing. A couple of years ago, my friend Alanna called me. I hadn’t read it before, but she had a blog. I didn’t really know what a blog was and I kind thought about it and was thinking of pitching an idea for a column to a local newspaper. I thought, "Why don’t I just start a blog? That way I can just write whenever I want to and I can sort of start practicing and working on my writing and cooking."

I started the blog and it’s become a habit. I can’t devote that much time to it, but I have joined this other world of people. It’s amazing how many food bloggers there are. It blows my mind. With my blog, I want to show the way I cook because, obviously, everything that’s on my blog is something I do cook. But, I want it to be recipes that are easy and appealing to people. Sometimes I think that might hinder me in terms of posting more. If I posted everything I cook, you wouldn’t want to look at it, probably. I like it to look good and be appealing.

Has it helped with your food writing like you thought it would?

Karen: Oh, I think definitely. I think the self-editing part can be hard. My husband’s an editor and sometimes he’ll look over a post after it’s up there and he’ll say, "You spelled this wrong," or, "Change that." I think that part is hard, but I think not having any restrictions on what you write (you really can talk about anything you want) has been a good exercise, definitely.

If you could interview one person about food, who would it be?

Amy: I would like to interview Julia Child, but that would be kind of difficult now. She was a big influence on me. I actually got to meet her once at a cookbook signing. She told me to follow my dream.

I might also want to interview Ina Garten. Her recipes were the basis of my cooking when I started cooking at the gourmet market. I like her straightforward style of cooking with easily accessible ingredients. She makes preparing great food easy.

Karen: I always really revered Alice Waters. She’s the person that really got me interested in cooking the way that I love to cook with fresh ingredients. She was sort of my inspiration way back when I first became interested in food.

Emily McDonald, The Picnic Site

2008-09-01T07:58:00.000-07:00

Emily McDonald is an expert on picnics. She runs The Picnic Site, a site that (as you might guess) tells you everything you might want to know about picnics. Emily lives in the south of England, on the Hampshire/West Sussex border, which she says is the perfect place for a picnic. Get your picnic basket ready because after this interview, I bet you'll be ready to head outside and enjoy the day.

Emily McDonald doing one of her favorite activities - picnicking!

Why picnics?

Well, I love cooking. We travel around a lot and so I find I'm making picnics quite often. When I wanted to make a website, I brainstormed topics and picnics sort of came out trumps! I also remember thinking they were difficult when I had a young family.

I always got in a bit of a panic when we decided to have one, and so I thought I'd help others who maybe feel this way. There are lots of cooking sites on the Web, and when I started out, not so many about picnics - now more though!

What's the first picnic you can remember being on?

Newcastle beach, County Down, Northern Ireland with my sister and parents and another family. I must have been about eight. I know there were others before that because I've seen photos, but I don’t actually remember them. I remember playing in the sand dunes, after eating, which I found enormous fun. I also remember a family picnic when my uncle and aunt visited from Canada - that was in a park somewhere. I've since been to Canada and picnicked there!

Did you picnic a lot as a kid?

I guess. We didn't have a lot of money, so picnics were a cheap and exciting way of having a day out. Then, when I was a teenager, I used to go camping or picnicking with friends.

What makes a meal a picnic?

Just not sitting at the table in the dining room or kitchen - I'm about to write a page on the site about a desk picnic - basically a packed lunch! I suppose that most people would say it has to be outdoors, but is that really necessary? Kids enjoy a picnic on the floor with a blanket if it’s a rainy day. In the dictionary, however, it does say it's an al fresco meal.

Would you say that any packed lunch not eaten at a table is a picnic?

Well, I would probably not always describe it as such, but it could be!

What’s your best picnic story?

The picnic I remember the most is when my husband and I first got together and I had to meet his kids (then 3 and 11). I decided to make a picnic. We'd take them out once we'd picked them up from their mother. I remember cooking chicken drumsticks among other things, but it isn't the food that I remember.

My husband was rather unpracticed at looking after the 3 year old (a girl) and when he helped her do a "wee wee" they managed to get her knickers soaking wet. We drove home with them attached to the car aerial to dry before we handed her back to her mum. Now, I look after our granddaughters (4 and 5) when we take them out!

Another picnic I remember well was when my husband and I had a romantic meal in Windsor Great Park and then I had to drop him off at the airport. I had a car crash on the way back and ended up in hospital with all sorts of broken bits! Firemen cut me out the wreckage - I like firemen! Nothing to do with picnics really, I'm afraid!

I'm fine, now, but maybe that broke my ears, too!

Was your hearing fine before then?

Yes, but it has just got gradually worse and worse - could be the loud music I listened to as a teenager, too! My mum is 82 and can hear better than me.

Emily recommends keeping your picnic simple: bread, cheese, wine, and fruit.

What advice do you have for a person going on his or her first picnic?

Keep it simple - bread, cheese, and a nice bottle of wine - maybe some fruit. It depends what sort of picnic really - just partner, or kids. Kids would want different things, but always keep it simple. The kids won't be much interested in the food anyway - they want to run around and play.

Simple, but with quite strong flavours because outside food needs to compete with the al fresco sensations such as the smell of grass or sea, wind or sun. etc.

Is there any food that is a definite picnic no-no?

You should always be careful with things that will spoil easily and create harmful bacteria - such as mayonnaise. But, with today’s modern cool boxes, it is easier to keep things fresh. Things that break easily too are difficult - like meringues. Even chocolate - loved on a picnic - obviously can be horrid if it melts all over the place!

Some cheese is better than others. A runny Brie or Camembert can be wonderful, whereas a hard cheese can sweat and be nasty. I'm sure there are others - I'll think of them when we sign off!

A picnic backpack is a great item if you are going to walk to your picnic.

What's the easiest way to keep things cool?

Keep food in the fridge so that the food is cold before you start. Then, wrap in wet newspaper if appropriate - then a cool box with lots of ice or ice packs. Don't keep opening it at the picnic site. Know what you have in each box and try and only open once or twice at the moment you need it - just before eating.

Water bottles can be frozen and used to keep things cold as well as to drink when they melt. I was warned by someone that this might be toxic and put a warning up on my site. Then, I was told that this was a hoax e-mail and it isn't toxic so I'm still hoping that this is true! Anyway, I do it!

I live in the UK and we don't have a big problem with heat! Other countries may need to be even more careful.

Do you prefer a cool box (cooler) to a classic picnic basket?

I use both - a cooler for things that have to be kept cold, but a classic basket or hamper for bread, fruit, and of course the plates and cutlery, condiments, and napkins can be in the basket. Also, it depends on the transportation. Is it by bicycle, by backpack, or in the car? There are so many variables.

Some picnic sets are in backpacks so that you can walk carrying the picnic and then eat before you walk home again!

This handy gadget, WineStem, lets you easily keep your wine glasses upright.

What is your favorite picnic accessory?

Corkscrew!

Seriously, there is a great little gadget that you stick in the ground which holds your picnic wine glass so you don't lose a drop! Obviously, you can use it for non-alcoholic drinks as well.

Also, a cushion - you have to be comfortable when you eat! We don’t always have foldable table and chairs along with us, so waterproof blanket and cushions.

What do you do about bugs?

Swear! But, apart from that, I take covers to keep food safe from flies and wasps. Ants can be a problem sometimes and they say it helps to draw a line around the tablecloth or blanket with talcum powder - that is supposed to keep them away. But, I must admit I've never done it.

I also have on my patio a thing called a Waspinator! It looks like a wasp's nest and so the wasps don't come near - it does seem to work fairly well. You could take it on a picnic and hang it in a nearby tree - it's very light. I found it at a camping show.

What about garbage?

Always take a garbage bag to clear everything away, and then put it in a convenient garbage bin or take it home. I also take extra plastic bags and paper towels to wrap dirty plates and cutlery in before replacing in the basket.

What do you like most about picnics vs. a meal at a table?

Just being outside - whether in a field, park, or on a beach - you're close to nature. It's just fun! Maybe more relaxing - slower pace. But, I also love giving dinner parties round the table.

Here in the UK there are only a few weeks a year when a sunny picnic is possible and then you never know whether it might rain or not. We are having the worst August in my living memory so I think very few Brits will be picnicking this month!

If you love picnics, you have to be prepared with wellies, macs, umbrellas, etc. Not everybody's cup of tea, I admit! But hey, it keeps you smiling - you have to laugh or you'd cry with our weather sometimes!

Excuse me being an American - but what are wellies and a macs?

A wellington boot (rubber boot) and a macintosh (raincoat).

Thanks!

Funny language, isn’t it?!

Is the picnic site your full-time job now?

Well, I couldn't possibly describe it as a full-time job, but I don't work in the traditional sense anymore, so I guess it's my part-time job! It's more fun than a job. I'd never do it if I saw it as a job. I just love adding to it and getting comments and messages from visitors.

I made the site like "painting by numbers" - just followed instructions and had no idea what I was doing really! It's just grown.

I don't pay anyone to do anything. Correction - I have just paid someone to set up my USA eBay site. I did the UK one myself but couldn't quite get my head around it again to do the USA one.

If you could interview one person about food, who would it be?

Lots of modern day chefs I'd love to talk to, but perhaps Mrs. Beeton would be interesting from a picnic point of view - way back then picnics were sooooo different!

Who's Mrs. Beeton?

An English writer who wrote one of the very first cookbooks of all time, including how to make picnics - in those days (Victorian I guess) picnics were a very lavish affair which must have been so much trouble for all the kitchen staff.

She wrote a book of household management including a picnic menu for 40 people - I can quote some of it: A joint of cold roast beef, a joint of cold boiled beef, 2 ribs of lamb, 2 shoulders of lamb, 4 roast fowls, 2 roast ducks, 1 ham, 1 tongue, 2 veal-and-ham pies, 2 pigeon pies, 6 medium-sized lobsters, 18 lettuces, stewed fruit well sweetened and put into glass bottles, well corked, 2 dozen fruit turnovers, 4 dozen cheese cakes, 2 cold cabinet puddings in moulds, a few jam puffs, 1 large cold Christmas pudding (this must be good)... and so on!

Text from Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management.

These English picnics then became part of colonial life all over the world in the days of servants - who were sent ahead to prepare tents and get the provisions all ready! Those were the days!

Now, with no servants to hand, I have to go and think about what I'm going to cook for dinner tonight!

Jonathan Bloom, Wasted Food, Part 2

2008-08-21T11:06:00.000-07:00

This is the second part of a two part interview with Jonathan Bloom of Wasted Food. Be sure to start reading with Part 1.

In this part, Jonathan talks about what individuals and food companies can do to help reduce food waste.

Is "when in doubt throw it out" always the correct approach? Jonathan says, "No."
Photo from Wasted Food.

It says on your blog that somewhere between a quarter and a half of all the food in the U.S. is wasted. What makes the number so high?

Even the low end is pretty extraordinary. Those are estimates by two researchers in the field. There hasn’t been a definitive study like they did in the U.K. (that essentially said a third of all the U.K. food wasn’t eaten).

How does it get so high? Basically, at every stage of the food chain, some food is lost. Oftentimes, it’s unavoidable - whether it’s due to weather or maybe quirks in demand at a restaurant. It's everywhere from the fields (where certain crops aren’t harvested), shipping losses on the highway (from poor handling, or maybe lack of refrigeration in the trucks). Something goes awry - food sits out on the dock too long in the hot sun being unloaded, or mistakes happen in the kitchen, that kind of thing. There are all these ways that food can be lost even before it gets to our plates. Then once it does get into our homes and to our plates, we have shown over and over again, we’re not very efficient, that we don’t value food as much as I think we should.

How do you think our food waste compares to the general waste in the country? Is it on a similar curve?

Yeah, I’d say you could measure along the other waste streams and that food waste is a symptom of our excess. It fits in with the others. We like big things - whether it’s houses or cars or portions at restaurants. That’s one factor that leads to a lot of waste. But, about 18% of our waste stream (what actually hits the landfill) is food. So, it’s pretty significant.

What should we do with all the food that we are now wasting?

I guess, first off, we could do a whole lot better job at minimizing all that waste. There’s a variety of ways to do that, but once that food is going to be thrown out, I’d like to see it go to landfills only as a last resort. There’s a hierarchy of uses that the EPA has come up with and if you’re not going to feed humans with food, next down would be feeding animals. Then, if you can’t do that, composting it, and - while it's not on the hierarchy - using it to create energy - I’d say that should come even before composting. Anyway, the main point is to prevent it from going to landfills where it’s rotting and releasing methane, which is a greenhouse gas speeds global warming. Methane is more than 20 times as harmful as CO₂.

Is methane not produced if you compost?

The main difference is that when you compost, it’s aerobic. The air mixes in and that prevents the reaction that creates methane, which happens when it goes anaerobic, like in a landfill.

What are some of the ways that we can minimize waste?

There’s a whole long list. I would recommend people take a step back and think about their own habits and what they do on a day-to-day or weekly basis, how they interact with food. But after that, more practically, I usually give 5 tips, most of the time, for how to minimize food waste.

Number one would be planning your meals ahead before you go shopping and being realistic when you do that. A lot of people will have an idealized view of their eating habits and buy all kinds of fresh foods, thinking of all the wonderful homemade meals they’ll make. They get out of work at seven and just don’t have time to do that. That fresh food is forgotten in favor of take-out.

Second would be to make a detailed shopping list after you plan those meals and then stick to it when you’re in the supermarket. That’s easier said than done, given all the impulse options at supermarkets. But, it’s worth trying.

Third would be to serve sensible portions to whoever you’re serving - your family or yourself.

Fourth would be to save the leftovers from the meal. Think about all the work you put into that meal. There’s no reason not to take advantage of your effort, time, and money.

Number five would be to actually eat the leftovers that you save. Most people are pretty good at saving them, but that’s only half the battle.

I find that even when I plan ahead, a lot of times I find the product I want comes in a larger-sized package than I can use. What do you recommend in that case?

Do you live alone?

I live with my husband.

Okay, so two people. Yeah, the bulk purchasing conundrum - it’s a challenge. I think a lot of stores are oriented around large families, which makes purchasing for smaller households difficult.

A couple of ideas would be to try and find a place where you can determine the amount of each item that you’re buying. Choose a store that has a deli counter where you can ask for a half pound of salami instead of having to buy the package of a pound or two pounds. Find a store where they sell individual produce that’s not shrink-wrapped into these time bombs of food waste. Also, if that doesn’t work, you can always share something with a neighbor or a friend. Go shopping together and split things up or work out an arrangement where two people go in together on certain items.

What one change could people make that would have the biggest impact?

That’s a good question. I would say, serve reasonable size portions. That would also minimize the obesity crisis, or at least help it. That one step could kind of kill two birds with one stone. When I say sensible portions or reasonable portions, obviously that’s different for each person. But, I do think folks should keep in mind that plates are a lot larger than they used to be and that you can always take more. Why start out with a mound?

Is there a direct connection between food waste and obesity?

Yeah, perversely, they are fairly linked. I think that it’s a strange situation where we're wasting tons of food and also having people becoming increasingly obese. Without going into too much on that topic, it just seems like the increased availability of foods that aren’t good for you is partly to blame. Then, the foods that are by and large better for you are fresher foods that do tend to go bad quickly. It makes some sense, but it’s also really perverse.

There is a difference between "best by" and "sell by". If it's "sell by", you have more time to consume the product.
Photo from Flickr user slambo_42.

What about expiration dates?

Well, it’s an interesting topic and a much discussed one. There are many kinds of dates on packaging. If it’s “sell by”, there’s a fair amount of time built in there for you to bring it home and enjoy. If it’s “use before” or “best by” or “consume before”, there isn’t quite as much time. In each case, there is a fair amount of caution built into that date because food companies are aware of the possibility of being sued and they are aware that to a certain extent, once the product leaves their hands, it’s out of their control. They don’t know if you’re going to go to the supermarket and then leave the food in your car for four hours or whether you’re going to bring it home in a cooler.

There are a lot of variables that they have to account for. I would advise people to know that there is that caution built in and then to use their sense of smell and sight and taste. Trust your senses to know when something is good or bad.

Don’t just throw it out?

Yeah, I would say that's probably not the best idea. Although, I did get a take-out container once that had a sticker with the phrase, “When in doubt, throw it out.” I found that pretty offensive, coming from where I do.

It’s not like it’s a malicious thing. It’s coming from a good place - that no one wants anyone to get sick, but I guess I find it flawed thinking. Just because it rhymes doesn’t mean it makes sense.

We talked a lot about things that individuals can do. What can companies and restaurants do?

There are a lot of food waste groups out there that are starting. I’m a member a food diversion task force in North Carolina whose goal is to divert food from landfills. The committee brings together retail foods, people from restaurants and supermarkets, composters, and hauling companies. There’s a nice symbiotic relationship that’s waiting to happen, but a lot of times it’s the lack of communication or lack of transportation or lack of effort to actually separate food out from the regular waste stream that’s preventing this success story from happening. So, the answer would be for restaurants and supermarkets and convention centers and hotels to separate the organic fraction of their waste stream and to send it to a composter or to look into waste-to-energy options.

Do you know what percentage of restaurants are doing this sort of thing around the country?

There isn’t a great number on restaurants per se, it’s kind of hard to tally. They do track the amount of each segment of waste that’s recycled and so, in this case, 2% of food waste is recycled (i.e. composted), so there is plenty of room for improvement!

If you could interview one person about food, who would it be?

I kind of already did interview the person I wanted to interview the most.

Who was that?

Joel Berg, who was the former food recovery coordinator in the Clinton administration (and he worked in the Department of Agriculture). He’s basically the one guy in the federal government who was in charge of getting farmers to try to donate food and trying to get food banks in touch with agricultural operations - trying to recover excess food. It was great to hear about his work and why the position was eliminated at the end of the Clinton administration/beginning of the Bush administration. It was a politics as usual story. That’s a boring answer, though, because there’s plenty of other people I’d like to talk to.

I guess the other person I’d love to talk to would be Barack Obama to ask him about his views on the topic and to selflessly offer my services as the next food recovery coordinator, should he win the election in November. A distant second would be John McCain for the same reasons.

Jonathan Bloom, Wasted Food, Part 1

2008-08-20T21:22:00.001-07:00

Jonathan Bloom writes the food blog Wasted Food. He is also writing a book on wasted food in America. In this two part interview, Jonathan talks about how he became interested in wasted food, how it has affected his life, and what individuals and companies can do to create less food waste.

Jonathan Bloom has discovered that an occupational hazard of being a food waste expert is that dinner parties can get a bit awkward.

How did you get interested in the topic of wasted food?

I come from a background and a family of appreciating food. Growing up, in my nuclear family, we’d all have dinner together every night and go out to eat a fair amount. Sometimes, we even planned vacations loosely around where we’d end up eating. I have that love of food ingrained in me.

When I started working as a journalist, I gravitated towards food, and then more specifically food waste. Volunteering at a food bank in D.C. called D.C. Central Kitchen really opened my eyes to how much food isn’t eaten in this country. As a journalism student at the time (I was getting a Master’s in journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), that was a topic I latched onto and have been working on ever since.

What was it that you saw at D.C. Central Kitchen that motivated you to action?

Just looking at the bulk donations and talking to some of the people working there, I figured out where the food was coming from and that it was really nice stuff. It was food that would have otherwise been thrown out if there wasn't a food recovery group in that area. Seeing a real positive, progressive organization like D.C. Central Kitchen made me think about all the places that don’t have a group like that in their area and all the food in that area that would be thrown away. Specifically, it was ribs and meat and really high quality stuff that restaurants and hotels would be donating that they wouldn’t have a use for - either stuff they had prepared and didn’t serve or excess that they had ordered and wouldn’t be able to serve in time before it would go bad.

On your blog, you talk about how when you first became interested in food waste, you took a job in a supermarket for a little while. How did that come about and what was that like?

I hadn’t had much luck talking to supermarket people about this issue and I wanted to learn more about it. Fresh out of journalism school, I thought, “Hey, let’s get out and see things from the inside.” It was a good experience - hard work - and it was definitely tiring working in the produce department. It’s a lot of time on your feet, like most service economy jobs. But, it was definitely eye-opening and gave me a lot of insight into how supermarkets think about their business and how waste is just a cost of doing business. The other thing that really stood out for me was that individual pieces of produce were just commodities - it’s not a pear, it’s just one unit at $3/pound.

They wouldn’t think twice about throwing out that pear. It’s not seen as something that’s grown by someone to feed someone, it’s seen as an opportunity to make money. If they can’t sell it to make money, they’ll throw it out without a second thought. They know that to have their stores be viewed as the paragon of freshness at all times, a lot of food won’t get used. Some of the progressive companies will donate the excess, but a lot of them won’t.

Are you now doing this project full-time?

I also have a job working for a renewable energy company that is looking to build facilities that create energy from food waste. I write the blog and have been working on the book in addition to that.

That sounds like a perfect fit.

Yeah, it was something that was almost too good to be true. I was real excited when I saw that opportunity.

As you’ve done research on food waste, what have been some of the surprising things that you’ve learned?

Well, I guess the most surprising thing that I’ve learned is just how prevalent and omnipresent food waste is. I’ve tried to look at all aspects of the food chain and there really isn’t a part of that food chain that doesn’t have waste built into it. People always ask me, “Where is the biggest example or the most glaring example of food waste?” I never point out one specific place because I think that would kind of do a disservice to the issue and also I’m not sure that there is such a place. I usually say it’s everywhere.

Is that what’s surprising to you?

I hadn’t considered it really. These days the issue of food waste is coming to the forefront a bit more. But the last two years that I’ve been looking at it, it’s almost like this giant topic that everyone refuses to even discuss.

I remember reading this article in the New York Times about a labor shortage in California with the pear crop. They had these pictures of these really distraught farmers and piles of pears that didn’t get picked at the right time, so they just have to be composted or tilled under. It never once addressed the issue that this was a food that wouldn’t be eaten or that these beautiful pears would just become fertilizer, basically, at best, or compost.

The picture totally told that story but the words didn’t. I think it’s a topic or issue that is in the back of people’s minds. Many people have these questions and have always wondered about what happens to that half plate of food that they declined to take home from the restaurant. I’ve just been trying to answer that question for people on the blog.

Have you changed your personal habits a lot in the past two years?

I definitely have. I guess I’d be a hypocrite if I didn’t. Not to say that I’m perfect or anything (some food waste is going to be inevitable), but I’ve definitely become better at planning and making detailed shopping lists, and I can play it pretty close to the zero waste line.

Jonathan warns that packaged vegetables often lead to waste, joking that that bagged spinach seems to go bad about two hours after opening.
Photo from Flickr user Nickster 2000.

What do you find is the hardest food to not waste?

I guess it’s probably produce. I don’t end up cooking a lot of meat. I’m sort of a lazy vegetarian or a vegetarian out of laziness in some ways. When I do eat meat, it’s usually when I go out to eat. But, things like lettuce and cucumbers (salad ingredients) sometimes don’t end up getting used.

Sometimes store selection will push me into waste. I was trying to buy spinach for a recipe and the fresh spinach they had just didn’t look good, so I ended up buying a bag of spinach (which I hate because that has a half-life of about two hours after you open it). So, that’s just one of those things that happen. I try to avoid it, but I’m not perfect. No one is.

What have you gotten out of writing the blog?

A lot of things. I guess, primarily, a sense of purpose and community - a purpose to spread the word. I don’t know that too many other people are out there doing that and that’s partly why I’ve grown so fond of it. I think it’s an area of need and I did see an opportunity to shed light on a topic that few others were discussing. On a day-to-day basis, I get some kicks out of the stories I find or people send me.

It’s definitely a little bit awkward at times to go to dinner parties or family functions or any kind of gathering involving food. It’s not something that I try to wear at all times, but I find it’s something people have a hard time ignoring. Sometimes I worry that people see me as this big wagging finger of scolding and I show up everywhere looking to snicker and poke and prod and scold people for wasting food. That’s not exactly my outlook, just a tiny bit.

Do you give people advice when you go to their homes?

No, I definitely do not give unsolicited advice. It’s sort of like a job, one that doesn’t pay. I try to leave work behind in my social life. But, it comes up a fair amount.

Tell me about your upcoming book.

The book is in the works. It’s not imminent. I’m talking to publishers now. There’s a process that has to happen. I wouldn’t expect it within the next year, unfortunately, but hopefully soon after that. From what I hear, there’s about a year, sometimes less, but publishers take a while after you hand in the manuscript to work on all the stuff that they have to do. I’m not close to handing in the manuscript. In terms of what’s going to be in it, it’ll be a light-hearted romp through the world of food waste.

Will it be a similar style to your blog?

Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking. I say that sort of tongue-in-cheek, the light-hearted romp through food waste. That is kind of the approach I take. I realize that now, I do feel strongly about this issue and I think there’s a great chance to effect change and get people to cut down on this real issue, cut down on this real problem of food waste. But, I realize that no one wants to be lectured.

Continue to Part 2

The Moms' Guide to Meal Makeovers Winners

2008-08-19T07:15:00.001-07:00

The winners of the Moms' Guide to Meal Makeovers are:

Donna
Gil

Congrats! Your books will be on their way soon! Thanks again to Janice Bissex and Liz Weiss, The Meal Makeover Moms, for offering up the free books!

If you did not win and are still interested in the book, you can buy a copy on Amazon.

Lisa Baer, Baer Design Group

2008-08-17T19:52:00.000-07:00

Lisa Baer is the president of Baer Design Group and president of the Chicago chapter of Women in Packaging. In this interview, Lisa talks about the process of package design and branding of food products.

Immediately after Lisa got off of the phone with me, she discovered that Guy Fieri from Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives was outside of her office. She, of course, had to get a photo!

What is your professional background?

I have owned the Baer Design Group for thirteen years. We are a branding and packaging firm and we have a focus on food packaging. We do a lot of coming up with product names, tag lines, telling branding stories and creating all the graphics that go on the packaging to get them sold at the shop level.

I don’t do any of the design. I have a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree so I have a great understanding of the art but I do the sales and account development, meeting clients, and talking with my clients - that kind of thing.

When we opened our firm, we had some creative background in packaging and we had a couple clients right in the food packaging area and we worked on it ever since.

Why did you decide to have a focus on food packaging?

My mother studied cooking in France. She was a cooking teacher and a food writer and editor. So, I spent a lot of time around food, a lot of time around chefs, going to big restaurants, and being drug around to specialty farmer’s markets and Italian sections of town. Growing up with a foodie, I was exposed to it quite a bit.

What goes into the packaging decisions on a food product?

I think food packaging is unique from other packaging that we do that’s non-food oriented because we really have to have enough trust with someone that you don’t know to be able to put something into their mouth. There really has to be a visual and verbal understanding on the packaging of what you’re going to get; a really good description of what’s in the package and what you might need to do with it. You have to spend a lot of time visually on how to sell it and make it really taste good. I think that’s where some of the packaging fails. It seems like that taste sense may be forgotten. We spend a lot of time matching visual cues and words with what is actually in the box.

What do you mean by the packaging making it taste good?

Making sure that we really deliver the message of what it’s going to taste like - to meet someone’s expectations of what it’s going to be like, what it’s going to taste like, either with photographs, with illustrations, or with great descriptive words. Because, they have to purchase it before they are actually going to taste it or eat it.

What makes a really good package?

I think simplicity is something to consider. Clients will come to you with many, many benefits of their product. One of our biggest things that we do is help clients sort out what the biggest benefit of their product is, what we can play up in the front to get it sold, and then how to structure and organize the other benefits that there are.

We do a lot of natural and organic packaging. There are some obvious advantages there and it’s an obvious trend. But sometimes there are other benefits, other uses, even health benefits that your client will want to incorporate into the package, but you just have to put it in the right order.

I think that a good package has that sexy, sell image right away. It draws you in and makes you want to read more about it, learn more about it, and get it in your cart.

What kinds of trends have you seen over the time of your business?

When we first started about 13 years ago, natural and organic was definitely a newer trend. We were exposed to a lot of work in that area. We had done some natural and organic packaging. We’d also done some work for Blooming Prairie, which is a big distributor of natural products. So, I got a really good understanding of how this movement came to be, starting with the smaller food co-ops (really as a smaller micro-trend), and then building into the mainstream as Whole Foods kind of grabbed hold of the world and everybody started to take it much more seriously.

That trend is still going strong. In the past two years, we’ve got the green packaging trend. I don’t think it should even be called a trend. I think its here to stay. Most of our clients are coming in with not only their marketing agenda, but trying to be as friendly to the environment as possible. Some brands stake their whole positioning on the green packaging and how green their product is. Others are really starting to listen. Our more mainstream grocery store clients are asking about materials and what they can do to make better use of what they use and treat the environment much more friendly.

Last year, Wal-Mart put out their scorecard where they asked their vendors to look at their packaging and reduce their packaging. I think it spread very quickly beyond that.

What are some things that you’ve done to make packaging more green?

There are a couple of things that you can do. Smart structural design can make things more efficient. You can really use less packaging. Less packaging plus smart design can equal lighter weight and more in a shipment, which would use less fuel, which would essentially really reduce your cost.

We have seen a lot of attempts to use recycled paper board and tin. Actually, we’ve been using a lot of tin. It’s the ultimate recyclable metal. It can always be melted down and used again.

We’re seeing from the packaging on the shelves to the shipping containers a lot of change being made. It’s being taken really seriously and I have to say it’s exciting and it’s fun to be a part of.

Are there any other trends that you see moving into the future?

I think we’re all getting much more sophisticated about our food. I think that people are much more comfortable with different ingredients, flavors, than they were - much more accepting of trying new things. You just take a look at any tea shelf, for instance, there is just about every flavor you can come up with in your head. I think people are willing to explore that, and I think there is a new level of sophistication out there in food packaging.

How does that willingness to explore new things come into play in the packaging?

I think it really can help a whole line offer some different varieties, keeping your customers interested. Even if they may not buy it this time, they know that it’s out there and they'll come back. Keeping them interested with your brand all the time, I think, is always a good thing.

What is the connection between the packaging and the overall branding of the product?

Usually, the retail packaging is all you have at the shelf level. We don’t have the benefit of print ads. We don’t have a salesman standing there. Sometimes, you can use some shelf advertising but, primarily, the front of that box is all you have and, generally, you have three or four seconds to get your message out and become interesting and attractive to someone. So, I think it’s very key.

Some people in the industry don’t think it’s as important as I do. But I think that when you’re in the store, we have a group of people making decisions and there’s an opportunity to persuade them or dissuade them as they’re going down the aisle. So, you really have to take the front of your box extremely seriously. If they’re drawn in, they’ll pick it up, they will read.

I do see that consumers are spending a lot more time reading labels and getting interested in that, so you have to make sure you draw them in and get them to pick that up. That’s really all you have at the shelf level. As we all know, we’re inundated with messages through the Web, through TV, and radio. It takes a lot of advertising to get through, so there are some unique opportunities at the store level.

Lisa used a wedding picture of her own grandmother for Frontier Soups International Collection Italian wedding soup package.

What has been the most rewarding packaging that you’ve worked on?

I always love to see our packaging with great designs selling for a client. It’s very rewarding in itself. We’ve launched a couple of brands. One is the Sommer’s Organic meat line. They were able to take off at one single trade show and meet all their sales goals and get into the distribution that they wanted to - based on the image that we created. That was extremely rewarding. It’s always good to see your customers being successful. I see it on the shelf at Trader Joe’s when I do my own grocery shopping.

Recently, we just launched an international collection of soup mixes where we talked about travel. It has some nice travel images and it has some unique people on it. The Hungarian goulash has a great image of a woman in traditional Hungarian wear from the early 1900’s. For the Italian soup, we were searching for a great image of the Italian bride (because it's Italian wedding soup) and our creative team was really struggling to find a great image. It just so happened that my grandmother is Italian and we have this great wedding picture of her and it was actually used for the front of the packaging. It’s rewarding for my family to be able to go out and take a look at her. It definitely worked out. We showed it to the client; they loved it! Then, I let in on that it really was my grandmother and that we couldn’t come up with anything else. It’s fun. We have a good time.

It’s good to be in the food industry and sometimes you get to eat your clients’ stuff. Right now we’re doing a lot of meat packaging, so we don’t eat too much. But in the past, I’ve gone to a new client meeting where I’ve come back with a 5 lb. bucket of chocolate and things like that.

I end up doing a lot of plant tours and spending a lot of time with my clients, really understanding their whole process. My love of that probably started with Mr. Rogers and his factory tours when I was small, but I still enjoy going through their plants and understanding how things are done, how things are made, how things are taken care of.

Lazy Days Tea tried a completely new way of marketing tea.

Has there been any product that has been particularly challenging?

I think being a business owner in itself has its own unique challenges. As far as a food product, at this point, I feel like we’re up for any challenge. Sometimes its fun. It’s probably most challenging when we get a client that wants to kind of go against the grain and do something in their own unique way.

We recently created a line of tea called Lazy Days Tea. It was a new product line, beautiful teas in tins. She wanted to come in and be this anti-coffee and really have a completely different method. We started out by looking at the industry, seeing what’s going on.

We surveyed about 200 tea products and found a few different categories. There were some high design categories, there were real stuffy, stuffy conservative categories, and we found some that were just driven by health benefits that claimed weight loss and all kinds of things (their packaging was real medicinal looking). But, she really wanted to come in as something for the tea drinker.

If you’re a tea drinker, you don’t drink coffee. It causes coffee gut rot and all bad breath. She also wanted to bring in men.

We came up with great names that were just not out there in the industry, like BFF, best friends forever, is a tea name and this great name, Cup of Jane, where we have a girl kind of spitting her tea out. We have a guy in a hammock and some other images that just were really not out there. It is challenging and exciting to work on something when somebody has an idea that they want to go in a different direction than everybody else. That was challenging and successful, but fun to work on. We even went so far to give out tattoos that said “Spout it Loud” at the tea show. It really stood out in what is a kind of stuffy and conservative industry and it’s becoming pretty popular, but still finds a way to stand out. It was cute and fun and it worked really well.

Do you do a lot of product testing before bringing a product to the market?

It really depends. We do a lot of new concept work. When someone’s coming up with a totally new product, we’ll create a new image (a new brand story) as part of the new product development process. Some of those things end up not working out. There are some things that we really work on in concept, that just end up being test dummies.

Do you have a testing team that you bring in to run tests?

We don’t. That would be something that we would have done with a marketing research firm. Some clients do old fashioned taste testing with staff or with friends. The clients have their own unique way of handling some of that. Sometimes the product is ready to go, already formulated before we get there, and sometimes it's happening side-by-side while we’re working.

Thinking outside of your company, what do you think is the best food package on the market right now?

There is so much I look at everyday. I recently was at a trade show and I looked at Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day, it’s a line of cleaning products that you can find in Whole Foods and Target. She does a really nice job with her image, her branding. The way she’s got her products branded, if you like the lavender scent, you can find the lavender dish soap, the lavender laundry soap, and the lavender wipes in a category instead of having all the dish soap lined up together. If you want your whole house to smell like a certain scent, you can go through your whole cleaning area and do it that way.

She’s done a really nice job with her image, her brand, and her product line. It all relates. The packaging is really consistent. I do see that as really challenging for companies and I like to see when it’s really consistent and ties together. That is one that I think has done really well.

There’s a new little product that I just found where I think the packaging is really well done. You may not have heard of it. It’s called Mary’s Gone Crackers. They are more health-oriented. I think that they’re no flour, lots of seeds. Maybe there might be some rice flour. They really did a nice job with their packaging. It’s got a beautiful design. There’s a cut-away in the box so you can actually see some product.

There’s a new line of Plum baby food products that was really well done. Its packaging is beautiful. It’s got some nice photography on it that is more baby-driven than the traditional big pictures of food on plates and food in big cups, so that’s really nicely done as well.

Can you say what brand that is?

Plum.

I thought you were saying that was the flavor.

Oh no, I know, it’s Plum. I’ve seen it in a couple of design trade magazines and I’ve seen it on the shelf. It looks really nice. There is so much that this is a difficult question. There are a lot of nice designs, a lot of nice packaging. I think the people who do it really well are the ones who are consistent in the way that all their products relate to each other. Once you’ve got that consumer trust and they can find your product right away, it becomes a much easier sale and you get to go back and try something else.

Tell me a little bit about the Women In Packaging Group.

I’m president of the Chicago chapter. I think this is my third year. We actually have people that come from Michigan because there’s a big school of packaging there at Michigan State University with a great packaging program.

We have a great group of women and actually our focus originally (when the organization started several years ago) was to help women specifically in the packaging industry that was once pretty heavily male-dominated. Right now, actually, when we have events, we’re about 50% men and 50% women.

We have a great group of people in the Chicago area that work in all aspects of the packaging industry. We have branding firms and packaging firms, like ours. We have people who are in the packaging manufacturing area (for instance, someone from a paper board packaging company and a plastics packaging company). We have people that are just from traditional CPG (consumer product goods) companies. There is a great mix of people who are looking to network, to grow their network, to really understand all aspects of the packaging world and what’s going on.

We offer meetings where we try to offer some cutting edge information. We’ve been having green packaging events once a year where we bring several people to talk about what green packaging is. Last year, we tried to articulate what that means: how you do it, how you can make changes, how these changes are starting to come to be, what materials may be available in the next few years that we can use, and how we can incorporate those into our work. Those have been some of our most highly attended events. We’re all just trying to make sure we know as much as we can about it.

I think there’s a very healthy market in food and in packaging in general in the Chicago area. It's nice to be able to come out and network and really meet people. It’s been an extremely valuable network for me. We do have a blog where we highlight stories and highlight things that we’re talking about. We also highlight some members on there. Whenever I need the answer to a question or whenever there’s a discussion, I have a great network of people in all different areas to talk to.

How many members are there?

Right now, about 35. But our meetings can be a little bit higher in attendance, depending on what there is.

If you could interview one person about food, who would it be?

I probably would have said Julia Child, but it’s too late for that. You know, maybe Paul Newman. I’m so intrigued by what he and his daughter have done with their organic food line. Probably sounds like a funny answer. But, I’m really impressed with their products and the work that they’ve been doing and it would be great to talk with them about their food line.

You know, for someone who’s made their money as an actor, his food line is really good. I think, probably, the first time I bought it, I may have been motivated by the benefit of doing something charitable, but I’ve gone back for more for years. Their Italian dressing is one of the best ones on the shelf. It just really is. It tastes really good and it would be good to talk with him about his relationship with food and running a company.

Janice Bissex and Liz Weiss, The Meal Makeover Moms, Part 2

2008-08-13T10:44:00.000-07:00

This is the final part of a two part interview with Janice Bissex and Liz Weiss, otherwise known as The Meal Makeover Moms. Be sure to start reading with part 1. In this part, the moms share some tricks on getting kids to eat healthful food.

Leave a comment on part 1 or part 2 of this interview for a chance to win a copy of The Moms' Guide to Meal Makeovers! If you comment on each post, you will be entered twice! I will randomly draw two winners on Tuesday, August 19th.

Kids liked the bell pepper in these confetti chicken wraps better when it was cut in little pieces.

What makes the recipes kid-friendly?

Janice: Familiarity (kids tend to like things that they’ve seen before) and flavor (something that tastes good). We’re not afraid to use a little bit of salt or a little bit of sugar to make things a little sweet or a little salty (just to pump up the taste), but we keep it in that healthy zone. Also, we add textures.

Here’s a classic example: One of the recipes in our book, The Moms’ Guide To Meal Makeovers, is confetti chicken wraps. We sauté up an orange bell pepper and then we add the chicken and the beans and the cheese and the salsa and the seasoning and we put it into a wrap.

When we first made the chicken wraps, the bell pepper was sliced into thin strips and sautéed. That grossed the kids out, so the second time around, when we continued our makeover, we chopped up that bell pepper into small, little pieces and we sautéed the bell pepper. It blended in much better with the cheesy, gooey filling. This is a makeover of the fast food chicken burrito and, because we altered the texture just a little bit, we took out the “yuck factor” and we made it kid-friendly.

Do you have a panel of kid testers?

Janice: Oh, yes. I have two daughters and Liz has two sons. We also have a lot of neighborhood children who act as our taste testers. When the kids get off the bus, I often say, “You want to come over for a couple of minutes? I have some new recipes I need you to try.” If the kids all say, “Eww, yuck, we don’t like this,” then we go back to the drawing board, or the stove, and we try again.

Liz: I have four girls who live next door to me, so when we were testing recipes for the book (and now we have a weekly radio podcast called Cooking With the Moms), I ran next door. My boys, obviously, are the front line. They are the first panel members.

We always want to make sure. We know we’re not going to get 100% because somebody might hate peas, so forget it, there’s no hope. But, in general, we’ll distribute our recipe around and make sure kids like it.

Do you find that there are some recipes that go over better with different age groups?

Janice: I think so. Caroline, she’s the 16 year old, is a little bit more adventurous and might try more things than the 8 year old would. I think overall our recipes are really geared for the whole age spectrum of kids.

Liz: And I also think, for my boys, Simon is probably a little more open-minded than Josh, the younger one. I think when you become a teenager, you become a little defiant and more independent. So, for him it’s a, “I’m not going to eat that. I’m mad at Mom today,” kind of thing.

Janice: My daughter’s never mad at me.

Liz played a psychologist to get her son to try the tofu spinach pie.

Liz: We made tofu spinach pie. A friend of mine had sent me a recipe and it required a makeover so it was healthy - it was bland and boring and there was too much spinach in this tofu spinach pie. It grossed her kids out. So, we gave the recipe a makeover and we made it much more kid-friendly.

My son, Simon, and his friend ate it like there was no tomorrow and when I asked Josh to try it, he looked at it and said, “I’m not trying that.” I said, “Josh, come on, buddy.” Of course, he ate the entire thing and loved it. So, it’s just a matter of playing a little bit of psychologist once in a while with the kids.

Janice and I have been talking about it, and we have a lot of strategies for getting the picky eaters to take that first bite. When they do, quite often, you have them hooked. It’s really just that first bite.

Tell me about that. What are some strategies?

Janice: One strategy that we implemented was that we developed a recipe reviewer chart. We ask our children to be recipe tasters and we say, “Okay, here’s the new recipe. Here’s the little chart on a piece of paper.” There are three columns: a smiley face, a neutral face, and a sad face. Then, the child gets to taste the food and then check off their opinion of it. Now they feel like they are big shot tasters, and you can reward them. After 5 or 10 tastes or reviews of a new food, they get a prize.

Money?

Liz: You can pay them if you want to, like a quarter, and you can fill up a jar. It really depends on how old your child is. This is a great strategy. I think it’s worked best for Leah, she’s the youngest among the four kids, and she’s probably the most finicky among the four. She does love to try stuff because she knows it’s for the book or the podcast or the blog, but it just gives them that little empowerment.

We’re redoing our website in a few weeks, and that tasting chart will be on there for free. People can download it and print it off. That’s one way to get picky eaters to try new foods.

Another is blindfolded taste testing. I’ve done it with my two boys and two of their buddies, where you sit them around the kitchen table and you blindfold them. It’s really a fun game.

You do one item versus another. The one time we did this, it was for whole grains. It was right after the USDA came out with their new dietary guidelines and whole grains were all the rage. Let’s face it, kids essentially don’t eat enough whole grains. Everybody from Goldfish crackers to Fig Newtons to Pepperidge Farms little mini-bagels was coming out with a whole wheat version. So, we did the before/after.

We’d have them taste the white bagel and the whole wheat bagel, “Which did you like better?” and we would make them raise their hands. Now, they’re blindfolded, so there was no peer pressure. Josh, my 13 year old, at the time was 11. His friend, Eric, was over.

Now, Eric is just the coolest kid. Well, every time I was like, "What was your favorite?” Eric would raise his hand on whole wheat. Afterwards, I said, “Eric, you liked the whole wheat Goldfish better," or the whole wheat Fig Newtons, or the whole wheat pasta blend better. He’d be like, “Oh come on, come on.”

It’s a fun way to get rid of peer pressure, but then again you have the peers support one another: “Oh my gosh, Eric, you like the whole wheat the best.” It’s just fun and it takes the heat off everybody and you become more playful with the whole nutrition thing and you get them to buy into good nutrition. We’re not about sneaking or deceiving. We’re about getting kids to want to eat the good stuff.

Janice: In our first book, we had a strategy called the “No Thank You Bite.” That is also pretty effective with younger kids. You say, “You just need to take one bite of a food and then you have the power to say, ‘No, thank you, I don’t want to eat anymore,' or, 'I’d like some more please.'” They just need that one bite and then they have the power. They can control that. They can say that they don’t want to eat any more and you have to be okay with that.

Liz: And a lot of husbands need the "No Thank You Bite" as well. We have heard from our Moms' Club members around the country who say, “Hey, I’m using this to help my husband eat better.”

When you make these changes in your home, does it affect the choices your kids make when they are outside of your home?

Liz: When Simon, the younger one, comes home from a play date, he’ll say, “I had this and this, but we also had carrots and strawberries.” Whereas Josh, again he’s the 13 year old (and it really depends on your kid's personality), is very independent and he’s also very 13. Defiant. So, I’ll say when I unleash him into the world...

Janice: ...he grabs all the candy.

Liz: He does not eat a healthy diet. However, he does feel bad, physically, if he doesn’t eat well. I’ll say, “Ya know, remember those salads you love.” He’s a huge salad eater. I think he has the knowledge. He went to the beach with a friend last night and they ate beach food. I was like, “What did you have?” The first thing he said to me was, “Oh we had fruit. There were some watermelon slices up there at the beach.” So, he’s aware of it.

I think once you lay the groundwork, even though they may have a few defiant years, they’ll go back to it, because they like it. They like the way the good stuff tastes and they physically feel better. I do remind him. I say, “You’re very active now. But boy when you get older, you’re not going to be able to eat that three foot long candy bar. You know, its just not going to be a good thing, buddy.” You think I’m joking, but I’m really not.

What about your kids, Janice?

Janice: Well, I do think they, for the most part, eat a pretty healthy diet. You know, I find some candy wrappers when they go out and they have some candy. But that’s okay. We both agree. In our first book, again, we have what I call the 90-10 rule: if you eat healthy about 90% of the time, there’s room for treats, there’s room for a root beer float, or a piece of candy, or a lollipop, or whatever it may be that the kids want as a special treat. It’s okay because they’ve had some whole grains, they’ve had some vegetables and fruit, and you’ve packed some sliced up watermelon or pineapple cubes in their lunch, and some baby carrots with ranch dressing. You can feel good that they’ve had the basics of their diet. Again, you can fit in some of these, what we call not-so-healthy foods, once in a while.

Liz: And the other thing we do, we offer our kids treats. We just happen to make them a lot healthier, and here’s one example: this week, the theme of our radio podcast is going to be frozen treats, and we have a sundae makeover.

We make an ice cream sundae, but what we do is use low fat frozen yogurt (to me it tastes just like ice cream) and we get a reasonable portion - we do a scoop (it’s a third of a cup). Then, surrounding the scoop, we have strawberries that we’ve sliced up, and we top it with some chopped toasted pecans. Then, we drizzle caramel syrup and chocolate syrup over the sundae. Even though you’re drizzling it, when you drizzle, you don’t really end up with a lot of syrup. It's enough where it's covering the berries and the frozen yogurt, and every single bite is like, “Wow!” You’re getting all those flavors - the strawberries, the nuts, the cold frozen yogurt, and the caramel.

I have to tell you, they’re getting calcium, they’re getting the vitamin C from the strawberries, they’re getting the good nutrients, the good healthy fats from the pecans. That’s not a disaster. It’s a small, kid-friendly sized sundae. It’s a big treat. But, it also has a lot of good nutrition woven in.

With more and more dads in the kitchen these days, do you find that you have men that follow you as well?

Janice: Oh yes, we do. We get email. Greg, from Minnesota, emails us a lot. I think it’s still more women and moms that email us, but we certainly know of a subsection of our fan base that is dads. I know a lot of dads who use our book. Our book is geared towards people who don’t have a high level of culinary knowledge. Our recipes are pretty straightforward. They use everyday items and so I think that that’s something that also appeals to dads who may not be as comfortable in the kitchen.

What about couples without children and singles? Can they use your book?

Janice: Oh yeah. I mean, my parents, their kids are all gone. I have a sister who does not have children who cooks out of our book all the time. She is always emailing me saying, "I tried this recipe. It was great. What should I make for my party on Saturday night? What do you recommend?" It’s a gift that I’ve given to my nieces when they graduate from high school, when they go off to college, and do cooking, and have their own apartment. It’s a good resource for them as well.

If you could get Americans to just make one change to their diet, what would it be?

Liz: I would say eat more fruits and vegetables.

Janice: I would definitely say that. The whole grain thing is really big, too. It’s been shown that people just don’t eat enough whole grains and there are so many great nutrients in whole grains - vitamin E and magnesium and all that important stuff - just eating real food.

Liz: It’s all this processed, packaged stuff that’s killing people - the soft drinks, the juice drinks (which are really not juice), the bags of finely refined starchy, nutritionally dead snack foods that provide no nutrients whatsoever. Eat real food and enjoy.

Janice: Enjoy your food. Sit down and enjoy your food. Eat when you’re hungry; stop when you’re full. What a novel concept!

You’re not a three meal a day person?

Janice: Oh gosh, no. I probably eat 6 meals a day.

Liz: A lot of snacking in between meals.

Half time Taco Chili is a staple in Janice's home. She sends her kids to school with it.

What are your favorite recipes?

Janice: That’s a good question.

Liz: I would say the one I make the most, probably, is our banana chocolate chip muffins. I have that at home right now. It’s a great snack food. It’s a great little treat.

Janice: I would have to say the Halftime Taco Chili is my family’s favorite. I made it pretty much every Sunday last winter. If there’s a football game, a Patriots game, and we have friends over, it’s a good recipe for a crowd. My girls love it. It’s a great chili recipe.

What’s in there?

Janice: Oh, its got the lean ground beef, a couple of carrots that are shredded up, and its got an onion, crushed tomatoes, black-eyed peas or pinto beans, and its got the hominy (you can use corn if you can’t find hominy, but its really kind of fun with the hominy). Just some spices, chili spices, cumin, a little garlic powder, then you sprinkle some reduced-fat shredded cheddar cheese on the top when you serve it, or a little sour cream for Leah (she’s the sour cream queen). Nobody that I’ve served this to hasn’t raved about this. Honestly, I love it too. I have leftovers for lunch the next day. Don’t dump it into the lunchbox, put it into a thermos first.

Janice loves history and highly recommends The Big Oyster.

If you could interview one person about food, who would it be?

Janice: I would interview Julia Child. That would be kind of hard. I’m just finishing reading her book, My Life in France, and I’ve met her several times. I just think she’s just such a passionate woman and I really would enjoy sitting down and interviewing her.

Liz: I think there’s no one person I would interview, but I would love to interview somebody who came to this country in the 1600’s, literally, because I want to know what it was like when you walked on the shore and looked in the water and saw all that life and looked up in the sky and looked around you: what on earth was it like? I just think that would be amazing.

The reason I say it now (maybe I’ll change my mind next week) is that I’m just finishing up this Mark Kurlansky book, The Big Oyster, which is just fascinating. It’s all about New York and the oystering spree and the Dutch settling the region. I’d heard him on the radio on NPR with Chris Schlesinger (a big chef in the Boston area), and I was just like, "Oh my gosh. I have got to read that book." For a year, I’ve wanted to read it, and I finally did. I would highly recommend it. I’ve always been into history and how food has evolved over the years. It would be so cool to go back in time and talk to one of those people.

Janice: Of course, neither of us could actually do these interviews. Everyone’s dead.

Janice Bissex and Liz Weiss, The Meal Makeover Moms, Part 1

2008-08-11T16:00:00.000-07:00

Janice Bissex and Liz Weiss, otherwise known as The Meal Makeover Moms, teach moms about how prepare nutritious foods for their families. They do so through their book (The Moms' Guide to Meal Makeovers), their website, and even a weekly podcast. In this two part interview, the moms reveal what they do to make over meals, share how they became the Meal Makeover Moms, and provide some tricks for moms looking for ways to get their kids to eat healthful food.

Leave a comment on part 1 or part 2 of this interview for a chance to win a copy of The Moms' Guide to Meal Makeovers! If you comment on each post, you will be entered twice! I will randomly draw two winners on Tuesday, August 19th.

Janice and Liz doing one of their podcasts.

What is a meal makeover?

Liz: That’s a good question.

Janice: It’s basically taking family favorite recipes and making them over to be healthier, kid-friendly, tasty, and easy to make. That’s what we do as the Meal Makeover Moms. That’s our goal.

Liz: We know that families struggle to eat a healthy diet. So, as dieticians and moms, we’re not sitting here saying, “You need to eat a perfect diet.” What we’re saying is, “Eat your favorites, but make them healthier.” You’ve got to keep them kid-friendly and like Janice said, you've got to make them taste great because that’s the number one priority.

Janice and I are both classically trained in the culinary arts, so we understand food. But, we also understand nutrition and that’s really the top priority because we know that kids don’t eat a healthy diet these days. We incorporate nutritious ingredients into everything we make. We don’t sneak them in, we incorporate them.

How did you two end up working together and becoming the Meal Makeover Moms?

Liz: I was working in Atlanta and I was a producer and reporter for the daily nutrition segment and the weekend program "On The Menu." It doesn’t air on CNN any more but this was back in 1987-1992 that I did that. I had a great experience there covering nutrition stories and food stories around the country.

I was at a conference, at a breakfast meeting, and sitting at my table was Janice. She, it turns out, was working for the U.S. Senate in Washington, D.C., as their dietician, making sure that the dining rooms for the U.S. Senate had healthy offerings and working with the senators and their wives on getting rid of those big bellies, I guess. Janice, is that right?

Janice: Yeah, sort of.

Liz: And you can’t reveal what John McCain ate or Ted Kennedy, or anything?

Janice: Nope.

Liz: I thought she had the coolest job and I wanted to interview her for CNN but they wouldn’t let us in. The White House doesn’t let you in. I don’t know why. Anyway, Janice and I just became friendly and when I moved back up to Boston, I looked her up.

From there, we got to talking one day. She had kids, I had kids. I mean, years went by, and we were talking about how we can’t walk two feet on the playground without a mom stopping us and saying, “What do you give your kids for dinner? All my kids eat is mac n' cheese and Chicken Nuggets. I don’t know what to do.” This is back in the year 2000 or 2001 when obesity was just starting to make front page news - when the epidemic was really getting a lot of publicity.

It was very apparent that kids were eating an abysmal diet and parents had absolutely no idea what to feed their children and the school lunch was really bad. I mean, they were selling the worst foods. This was before a lot of attention was paid to this. We just said, “My gosh, we’ve got to write a book,” because we were successful feeding our kids and we wanted to help other moms and dads.

How long did it take to get the book written?

Liz: It wasn’t really that long once we had a lunch together and really talked about it.

Janice: And at first, I thought, “Oh, she’s out of her mind. I can’t imagine writing a book.” And then, I thought about it some more and said, “You know what? Maybe she’s on to something.” So, it took us probably a year. We wrote a proposal and got an agent and went to New York and met with publishers. It probably took a year to a year and a half of research and recipe testing and a lot of back and forth before the book was written.

Liz: And then we launched mealmakeovermoms.com as a companion website. We really took our book and we married it with the site so that people didn’t just have the book as a resource, but they had the website where they could communicate with us. We get emails all the time. In fact, right before our call with you, I started crafting a response to a mom who emailed us about our podcast. We’re constantly reaching out, building our platform, and being a resource for parents. We get a lot of questions and we answer every single one of them personally.

Janice: We started the blog about a year and a half ago, I’d say. Then, we started the podcast just a couple of months ago. So, we’re just sort of trying to expand our region - get our message out to more moms and dads and caregivers.

Liz: We’ve got cooking videos on the website. We’re really trying to take advantage of what the Internet has to offer and all the new technologies.

Grab-and-Go Granola Bars
Makes 16 Bars

These bars are perfect as an on-the-go breakfast, lunch box snack, or dessert.

1 cup Mom’s Best Naturals quick oats
1 cup Mom’s Best Naturals Toasted Wheat-fuls
1 cup walnuts
1 ½ cups dried fruit (we like a combination of dried apricots, dried plums, dried cherries, and dried cranberries)
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
1/3 cup honey
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly oil or coat an 8 x 8-inch baking pan with nonstick cooking spray and set aside.
Place the oats, cereal, walnuts, dried fruit, cinnamon, and salt in a food processor and pulse until the mixture is finely chopped (the dried fruit should be the size of a dried pea or lentil).
In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, honey, and vanilla. Add the oatmeal mixture and chocolate chips and stir to combine. Transfer to the baking pan and flatten down gently with the back of a spoon or spatula to spread evenly.
Bake 18 to 20 minutes until the edges turn golden brown and the bars are done. Let bars cool completely in pan before slicing and serving.

TIP: These bars freeze really well. So, if you have leftovers, wrap individual portions in plastic baggies or aluminum foil and freeze.

Nutrition Information per Serving: 170 calories, 7g fat (1.5g saturated, 0.7g omega-3), 85mg sodium, 26g carbohydrate, 3g fiber, 3g protein

Do you each still have independent jobs outside of this?

Janice: No. It’s a full time job.

Liz: We do consulting work on the side, we write for magazines, and we’re doing consulting work with Mom’s Best Naturals, a cereal company. It’s really been a great partnership for us. We do recipe development for them; we’ve done some media work for them where we’re able to communicate with the public about the fact that there’s a lot of so-called healthy and natural products out there but they aren’t necessarily nutritious or affordable.

The greatest thing about Mom’s Best Naturals cereals is they come in a family-size box and so you pay a lot less but you get more because they’re all whole grain (which is a huge thing for us) and very nutritious. They also take cereals kids love and give them a makeover, which is like what we do, by adding the whole grains.

We’ve connected with them and we’ve got some really awesome recipes. In fact, I would say the hardest recipe we’ve ever developed was our Grab ‘n’ Go granola bar [see recipe to the right], a homemade granola bar. It took us like 10 tries.

Talk about taste testing! We had a lot of neighborhood kids try it and we used Mom’s Best Naturals Shredded Wheat in that recipe and their oats. The other thing we love about them is it’s all about sustainability with that company. They use wind power to power the plant so the cereals are made from the energy from wind farms. They have a guy (we met him) who works for them on staff who actually is all about sustainability and reconfigured how they pack boxes so it’s more efficient when they are traveling around the country. It’s really cool stuff.

I think a lot of families today are eating with the environment in mind, not just kids and nutrition...

Janice: ...and cost.

When you created the recipes for the book, how did you divide the responsibilities?

Liz: That’s a great question. We actually started doing stuff individually at home and we realized that was just not going to work because I would say to Janice, “Well, why don’t you do this?” And she’d say to me, “Why did you do that? How many did it serve?” And I’m like, “Well, in my family….” So we decided we’re going to do all recipe testing together. We’d sit down, we’d brainstorm, and then we’d get cooking. We rarely get it right the first time. We often will do 2 or 3 times, or 10 times in the case of those Grab n’ Go granola bars. But, it’s much better when we’re together.

What we do is we sit down, type up the recipe, and Janice does nutrition analysis. She’s doing the math piece and I’m doing the writing piece. At that point, I’ll write a little intro, we’re sitting in the office together, and I’ll say, “Oh, how should I say…..” and we’d go back and forth. That’s where we divide and conquer, but together we do the cooking.

Have you grown to be really close friends?

Liz: We hate each other. [laughing]

Janice: When its 11:00 at night and I’m still working and we’re emailing back and forth, that’s really when I don’t like her very much at all.

Liz: Yeah, the podcast getting edited. You have to edit that thing and that takes a while.

Janice: But when we’re eating an avocado for lunch with olive oil, then it’s a little bit easier.

Continue to Part 2

Debby Fortune, Fortune PR, Part 2

2008-08-11T10:41:00.000-07:00

This is the final part of a two part interview with Debby Fortune of Fortune PR. Be sure to start reading with part 1. In this part, Debby talks about trends in food PR.

Amy's Kitchen has grown with the trend of increased interest in natural and organic foods.

What trends have you seen over the years?

We’ve been doing this for 22 years and over the years, the changes we’ve seen and the economic waves that we’ve ridden have been really interesting to observe and look back on. I’ve experienced the growth in natural and organic foods, and that’s been very exciting. I’ve sort of shifted over the years from gourmet products to more organic and natural, and it works for me, personally. It’s also where the growth in the food industry is. It’s something I feel really good about.

We’ve ridden so many economic waves (particularly in the West), including the dot-com booms and busts that we’ve been through and the horror of 9/11. It definitely took its toll on the San Francisco Bay area as a tourist destination because of the economy and people being afraid to fly during 2001, 2002, and 2003. It took a while for things to recover, and that really hit the restaurant industry hard because San Francisco is such a big tourist destination.

It’s really bizarre - the organic and natural foods continue to grow, grow, grow and I see absolutely no slowdown, but the economy is definitely affecting the restaurant industry and my husband is feeling that a bit. It’s interesting - in the high-end sector or the really low-end or street food sector, it doesn’t seem to be affecting anything. But, it’s in the middle where it hurts the most. Who knows, you just never know how it’s going to go.

We’re just really grateful that we’ve been able to build a business that continues to grow and thrive and the natural and organic stuff is really my bread and butter.

Living in Berkeley, we’re about as crazy foodie lefty as you can get. We have two organic farmers' markets every week, one on Tuesday and one on Saturday, so we can do all of our shopping that way. They all come from local farms - it’s just a dream come true. We couldn’t have it much better.

The growth of a company like Amy’s Kitchen, which is one of my biggest clients, is really a mirror of the industry. It’s mirrored the growth of Whole Foods - the growth of awareness about organic foods. Amy’s is such a great company with such delicious foods. They’ve gone from a small company that probably had a very loyal vegetarian following to a company that everybody loves because their food tastes so great, it’s so good for you, and you can just about buy them everywhere now. It's been very exciting to see them grow.

Annie Chun's is helping to introduce sprouted rice to Americans.

What are some of the other clients that you’ve been able to see grow?

Another company that has been a really fun ride for me is Annie Chun’s. It’s an Asian food company. Annie is Korean and she started this company literally at the farmers' market in Marin County with about $500. She started making sauces about 12 years ago. She has now grown it into a hugely successful (all kinds of Asian foods) company. She, of course, has her Korean roots, but she also has Japanese-style sauces and Chinese-style sauces.

She does rices now. They are amazing. She has a sprouted brown rice that she brought in from Korea. Americans don’t even know about sprouted grains and this is a great introduction for Americans to try sprouted brown rice. It’s absolutely delicious. It’s very hard to make yourself. If you’ve ever tried to sprout something, it takes like 24 to 48 hours to do it. This is already made and it takes one minute in the microwave to warm up and it is amazingly good.

She also did some groundbreaking packaging with completely compostable, biodegradable bowls. Those instant soup bowl products are so popular and so many of them are in plastics. They are hard to get rid of, and filling up landfills. They’ve created a bowl and a tray that are made primarily of corn starch and they work just as well in the microwave. They are really only made for one use, but then you can chop them up and put them in your compost heap. She won an EPA award for that. I know they are looking at how much more of that they can do.

Watching them grow has been very exciting. They are in just about every grocery store in the U.S. now too - Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods. Growing from a tiny, little local California company to a nationally known brand is pretty exciting.

There have been other companies that have done that too - like Thai Kitchen. I think the growth is in the American awareness of Asian food, beyond just the Chinese food (which is sort of American-Chinese food that we all like) - just seeing people experience Korean, Japanese, Thai, and Vietnamese. There is certainly a huge amount of that in the West, but I am traveling a lot more around the U.S. and I’m seeing that everywhere you can get it.

Americans are becoming really adventurous eaters and with the growth of our Asian population here, there’s just a huge growth in awareness of delicious, wonderful, healthful Asian food. Korean food is one of the new frontiers for Americans. They are trying kim chi, Korean-style sauces, and Korean BBQ. It’s pretty exciting, too.

My specialty is working with small companies that have their name on the door - they are usually the name of the owner, like Amy’s or Annie Chun’s, and working with them as they grow into a big company. One of the first companies I ever worked with was a company called Aidells Sausage, which was Bruce Aidell. I worked for him for many years - helping him promote the business. He’s since sold it, but the brand is very strong and it’s in just about every Costco or grocery store around the country.

He’s one of the local Bay Area legendary foodies. He’s married to Nancy Oakes, another Bay Area legendary foodie. She owns Boulevard Restaurant in San Francisco. They are the ultimate food couple - that’s for sure.

People are passionate about what they do and we just help spread the word about what they do.

A little, tiny company that I’m working with right now is called Amano Chocolate. I have a feeling about this guy. He’s going to be really famous some day. His chocolate is extraordinary. He’s doing things with chocolate that nobody else is doing. The guy just does every single phase from knowing the farmers, sourcing the beans, traveling to Madagascar, South America, and Ghana, hand-picking the beans that he wants - building wonderful relationships with the farmers and then bringing it back and making it in his own little tiny plant. He’s customized all his equipment to make these single-origin unbelievable chocolate bars.

We think Art Pollard is a rising star in the chocolate world and it’s very exciting to see what’s happening with Amano Chocolate. Chocolate is like the new coffee. People went nuts about coffee and learned about how to grind their own beans at home and use coffee from all over the world. Now everyone is looking at chocolate in new ways (single origin flavors, different styles of making it) - it’s not your grandma’s Hershey's bar anymore. It’s all different. All these little chocolate shops have popped up over the last couple of years. Chocolate is a new big wave. [Related link: Art Pollard’s interview.]

Everywhere we go we like to eat the local food. I’ve turned my two sons into total foodies – it’s hilarious. I’ve never seen people so obsessed with food.

Have you ever done anything strange or unusual to promote a product?

I did more crazy, fun, wacko things before I had my company, when I worked for public television. We did a lot of events, so we did a lot of crazy, fun things around events. Those were my crazy days. We had C&H sugar sponsor an event. We hired this young artist to create dancing sugar cube costumes for tap dancers. They tap danced their way through to support this dessert delight event.

We had another Valentine’s event that had to do with sweets and chocolate and we had these amazing giant hearts made by a fabricator. They were just plain, then we sent the hearts out to celebrities who decorated them and sent them back to us. We auctioned them off - Julia Child did one, Huey Lewis and the News did one, and Mr. Rogers did one. We had these cool hearts hanging in the windows of a local department store and we auctioned them off at a benefit for the public TV station.

We did a lot more fun, creative stuff like that. With the food products, I don’t really need to do much crazy stuff because these delicious products - they’re really the news. It’s all about how good they taste and how healthful they’re made.

Do you have to personally really love a product in order to represent the company?

Oh my gosh, yes! Having done this now for 22 years, there were leaner times when we first started that I probably took on a few things that I didn’t really love. I learned my lesson. I’m very, very picky about who I will work with. It has to taste good and I have to really believe in it and feel that the writers that I’ve developed relationships with will like it. If you can’t really believe in it, I just can’t do it. I know if you work at a big agency, you can’t always be so picky. But, I have really reached that stage that if I can’t believe in it and it doesn’t taste good, I can’t do it.

It’s got to be a really good product I can really get behind. Even if it’s a little bit crazy, it still has to taste good or have some really good redeeming qualities: be fun, be innovative, be delicious -have some really good reason to be. I think we have a great selection of clients right now that all have wonderful aspects to them, whatever it may be - mostly natural and organic. But, there are some that are purely fun entertainment and deliciousness and that’s okay, too, because you have to have a little of that in your life.

If you could interview one person about food, who would it be?

People in the food world are so accessible that you could can call them up and talk to them. You really stumped me. I think it would have to be someone who is dead - someone really famous who’s dead. I think it would have to be Auguste Escoffier. He lived so long ago and is so famous. Here’s a crazy reason why. I just got invited to join this organization called Les Dames d' Escoffier. It’s really cool. I am very honored. They have local chapters. It's women in the culinary arts – they do really good work. I’m going to learn a lot more about it when I go to the induction ceremony at Boulevard Restaurant.

It’s named for, and in honor of, Auguste Escoffier. I’d like to meet and interview him and find out more about him since he died a long time ago. He died in the 1930’s, I think. He did some major stuff with French cooking.