Even Keeled

We need to talk about making some changes in the afternoon shift.

Ok.

No one makes a better burger, and you’re able to keep up with the rush hour orders like no one else.  Our receipts go up 30% whenever you are on shift.

Ok.

But honestly,  the french fries are just awful.  And the attitude really is tough to deal with.   Yelling at the drive-through customers because they drive a Prious isn’t good for anyone.  We need someone more versatile.

Ok.

KFC might be hiring now.  That’s just down the road.  The pay is a little less, and well, you’re working with Chicken which is not hamburger, but the team there is more tolerant.  Maybe you should go and check them out.

Yeah, well fuck you.  I’m going to Wendy’s and we’re going to kick your ass!

Today I started my vacation, a week long bread baking course at the San Francisco Bakery Institute. I enrolled in the Artisan 1 course, a study in the execution of a perfect baguette. Along the way, we’ll learn some of the fundamentals of baking, such as the impact of modifying the amounts of flour, water, salt & yeast as well the “baker’s %”.

Should be pretty interesting. I was looking for culinary school somewhere in New York or possibly Europe, hoping to maybe combine a real vacation (away from CA) with something educational/mentally stimulating. After a quick and mildly frustrating online search, the SFBI really made a lot of sense. While not in an exotic locale (for me), it was highly reviewed and offers a myriad number of additional courses in other areas should I decide to pursue baking as another career (see earlier post on Pizza!).

We started with about 3 hours of classroom lecture on baking basics, which I actually found fairly interesting. I had a mild panic attack when we started doing some math, its been many years since I was in any institute of higher learning. Next, after lunch, we headed down into the real classroom, the kitchen, and watched as our instructor prepared a large batch of dough. The class broke into groups after and actually prepared some baguettes, which tasted pretty good.

Apparently by the end of the course, we’ll be “bread snobs” and be able to identify all kinds of traits of good and bad bread. I volunteered one of my loaves to keep for comparison come Friday.

The class is fairly small, 15 students. The distribution was kind of surprising:

6 Men, 9 Women

5 from CA, 10 from out of town (States represented: TX, GA, VA, OR, WA, HI, NY).

5 “Casual Cooks, 10 Food Industry. Of the 5 casual folks, 3 were pretty hardcore home chefs. (Myself and another women just are enrolled for fun. I sort of thought there would be more like us).

Instructor was great. Very engaging and enthusiastic. Should be a fun week.

These lobster recipes look incredible.

I’m thinking of just going out and getting some and cooking at home, though a weekend cottage in Montauk would be the perfect complimentary place setting. Forget Outstanding in the Field, how about Outstanding on the Beach!

Another article in the growing corpus of “food prices are out of control” stories, now sourdough bread is skyrocketing due to drastic increases in flour expense.  One baker claims flour has spiked 300% (from $2k to $6k/day).  Even the “complimentary” bread at the start of most meals when dining out must now be requested at many restaurants.  Guess my pizza idea is probably out of the window now…

What’s frustrating is yet again, there is no real investigative journalism associated with the sensationalistic “you won’t be able to even buy bread soon because it will cost so much” thread.

Here are the potential reasons flour costs have spiked offered in the story:

• Tight supply
• Gas prices
• Poor weather
• Small(er) harvests
• Replacement of wheat crops with corn or soybeans
• Chinese and Indian consumption of bread products
• Global increase in beef consumption (grain goes to feed the beasts)

The article closes with an uplifting chart detailing not only the year-over-year 37% increase in flour, but the 35% increase for eggs, 23% increase for milk and 19% increase for pasta.   Comments to the article run the typical gambit of republican and ethanol bashing rants. 

Know what would be fantastic?  If the author turns this into an ongoing, weekly thread exploring the cause of these price increases!  Maybe then newspapers wouldn’t be on the verge of collapse.  Here’s a recipe full of ingredients that could be used to prepare a wonderful, fresh, hot-out-the-oven story on the connecting elements driving food out of reach.

Did you know there is company, Corn Products International (CPO) that focuses exclusive on corn production worldwide?  That’s interesting…how has their stock done?  Pretty good, up more than 15% this year alone.  

What about actually researching corn production?  Total bushels produced has steadily declined from 2004 to 2006, according to the corn refiners association:

“Corn for grain production in 2007 is estimated at 13.1 billion
bushels, down 1 percent from the November forecast but 24 percent
above 2006.  The 2007 yield estimate is the second
highest on record, behind 2004, while production is the largest on
record as producers harvested the most corn acres for grain since
1933.”

Ah, but wait…corn for grain increased in 2007 (USDA).  Sinister corn at work!  Lets look at (total) wheat production,

Here’s a great breakdown by crop type over the last 3 years, again from the USDA:

                Wheat:  Production by Class, United States, 2005-2007
              ———————————————————————————-
Winter
            :   Hard      :   Soft   :   Hard       :   Soft          :    All
            :   Red       :   Red    :   White     :   White       :   White
            :———————————————————————————–
2005   : 929,820    309,021     25,279      235,009     260,288
2006   : 682,079    390,165     13,284      212,553     225,837
2007   : 961,588    357,897     21,460      175,044     196,504

            :————————————————————————————
Spring                                       
            :   Hard   :   Hard    :   Soft      :      All     :                :     Total
            :   Red     :  White   :   White   :   White  :   Durum   :
            :————————————————————————————  
2005   : 466,587     4,530      33,339      37,869      101,105     2,104,690
2006   : 432,339     6,226      21,915      28,141      53,475       1,812,036
2007   : 448,904     5,589      24,554      30,143      71,686       2,066,722

So, wheat isn’t really vanishing from farms?  WTF?  Durum wheat (used for pasta and bread) is down from 2005 levels, but up substantially from last year.  So shouldn’t there have been an increase in prices last year with a corrosponding decrease this year?  The USDA has a fantastic website with tons of data on global production and consumption of almost every agricultural good worldwide.  You can even have a report emailed to you weekly (I signed up!)

A very complex and multi-faceted issue.  The point is there needs to be thoughtful, documented understanding of why prices for the very essentials of our diet are suddenly skyrocketing in cost.    Not panic inducing headlines that don’t do anything more than create worry and offer no constructive dialogue.

As a pseudo native Seattlite, I still consider Starbucks an acceptable option for coffee.  I like their renewed customer centric, getting back to the heart and soul of the company ethos.  I also noticed they rolled out a logo refresh with the Pike Place blend introduction. 

This is pretty cool.  It’s actually a PG-13 update to the original logo, which was fairly racy:

Someone did a decent write-up on the origins of the logo and the mythology behind mermaids.  Edgy and interesting…

Every Friday we have Pizza.   Living in California, this means every Friday we are frustrated there is “no good” Pizza and settle for 1 of 3 options….Amici’s which claims to be the best Pizza west of New York, a local place that has decent crust but overloads the cheese, or I roll my own.   I prefer making my own, but this requires ~2 hours prep/cooking time rendering impractical.

Meanwhile, in New York, citizens of Gotham can get wonderful, mouth watering Pizza anytime.  If Spitzer really wanted to save his career and fix a true injustice of epic proportions, he’d move to San Francisco and open a pizzeria. 

My next endeavor very well may be an “authentic-as-you-can-get-in-California-thin-New-York-style-Pizza” place.  I already have the name: Home Slice.  I’ll start with four toppings; 1) Cheese 2) Peperoni 3) Sausage 4) Mushroom.  That’s it.  You want organic free range goat cheese, quail egg and shade grown fennel?  Too fucking bad.   (I can pretty much guarantee a surly east coast attitude from the management).

I have some good ideas to help defray the operational costs as well as marketing cross-overs.  Ingredients will be sourced locally and fresh.  Nothing hipster about making it fresh, just gotta keep it real.  I’m sure the margins suck, but people said the same thing about coffee shops 4 years ago.  The renaissance in cafes has overturned that notion and put Starbucks on their heels.  Let the revolution continue…Viva La Pizza!

If you haven’t tried the new Honeycrisp apples, they are highly recommended.  The apple is a cross between a Macoun and a Honeygold (which is itself a cross between a Golden Delicious and a Haralson).   Large, crisp with a very smooth taste that doesn’t have the grainyness of a Macintosh or the bitter bite of a Granny Smith. 

Originally developed in Minnesota, many farmers in WA and elsewhere are now adding orchards to meet the growing demand.    Can probably find at your local Wholefoods through the end of the year!