Posts from the ‘Corporate Culture’ Category

May 10

Hospitaliano

If I sit on an idea long enough, someone is eventually bound to write about it. That is the dilemma of too many thoughts, too little time. I've come to the stark realization that if I spent even two hours per night in my room with my computer and the door shut instead of sitting on a couch watching TV with my laptop, I'd get a lot more done.

What is more important, after all? Finding out what's happening on Lost, Fringe, Breaking Bad or the new Dr. Who (still not sold on him) or getting to the bottom of what goes on at Olive Garden's culinary institute?

I can now delete Olive Garden cooking school from my to-do Word document. Today, CNN investigates the important story, while a little over a week ago Jaunted was on the same beat. I knew it existed in some form because Don Francisco from Sabado Gigante was just there a few months ago.

Speaking of dubious cooking schools (we were, weren't we?) I have this vague memory, for which I can find no support online, that when Mackenzie Phillips was booted off One Day at a Time and sent to rehab, her character's disappearance was attributed to her going to a doughnut-making school. Am I losing my mind?

Hamburger University photo from McDonald's.

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Apr 22

It’s Always Cheesy in Philadelphia

I always look forward to my copy of Taste of Home. It only comes every other month and brings me a different joy than Saveur, which I intend to read but rarely get through, Bon Appetit and Food & Wine, which are skimmers or Cooking Light, the only magazine I regularly cook from even though it’s the least exciting.

Taste of Home’s foundation is every day meals, nothing wildly exotic or labor intensive with no fear of cans or packages. I could imagine the chicken & vegetable stir-fry or the apricot-glazed pork tenderloin ending up on my table if I were a child today.

I’m only on my second issue, but I’m already seeing themes emerging.

So bad it’s bad: alfredo sauce and cream cheese where they don’t really belong. In fact, there is a full page Philadelphia ad advising readers, “Make your pasta more primo when you stir in ½ cup of Philly.” There is a section on the Kraft Foods site called, “i never thought i could add Philly to..” The lowercase is supposed to make putting cream cheese in Cajun, Thai and Latin dishes to make the spice more palatable, seem innocent? And I just saw a TV ad where Paula Deen is encouraging the abuse of cream cream cheese, too. Actually, it’s a contest—I’m now going to think up the most inappropriate placement of cream cheese in a foodstuff. Caesar salad? Baked beans? Barbecue sauce?

In this issue, the soft cheese is called for in easy enchiladas, meatball sub casserole and pretty stuffed spring peas. Alfredo sauce shows up in a white chili (at least it’s not white from mayonnaise) and a chicken cordon bleu pizza invented by a teenage boy, so you kind of have to give him some props for experimenting in the kitchen.

Some things are put where they don’t belong but are genius. Yep, bacon baklava.

So bad it’s good: peanut butter brownie trifle. This dish is simply mini peanut butter cups and brownies baked with peanut butter chips interspersed with layers of instant vanilla pudding and topped with frozen whipped topping, a.k.a. Cool Whip. Just as I didn’t know that wine coolers were malt liquor, I had no idea Cool Whip wasn’t a dairy product for many years. And I would totally eat a big bowl of this trifle right now and wash it all down with a Blue Hawaiian Bartles & Jaymes.

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Apr 13

Chain Links: Oolong Blizzards

A Q&A with Unnat Varma , director marketing-KFC, Yum! Restaurants India reveals that KFC is trying to target “non-sensitive vegetarians,” the estimated 50% of Indian vegetarians who don’t eat meat but don’t mind eating in a place that serves it.

Yum! Brands already has a presence in Brazil and Chile, and they’ll be getting ten more KFCs and Pizza Huts this year.

CNN’s recently re-tuned living section has a piece on localized fast food menus. Angry commenters complain that this isn’t news and dub the author “dumbest writer ever.” Jeez, what did the Maharaja Mac ever do to you?

Localizing menus is a fine balance. Dairy Queen is expanding to Macao where they’ll serve Green tea Blizzards (oolong is being tested) of course, and no bacon for Egypt.

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Apr 8

Indovations…Sinovations

Sanjeev Chadha, chairman of PepsiCo India is big on "Indovations." Corny? I thought so until I read about the Willy Wonka-esque concept behind Slice, a mango soda. In order to appeal to the regional tastes of Indians devoted to their local mango varieties, "PepsiCo scientists combined different mango flavor notes into this one drink…Depending on your favorite variety, that's the flavor you notice when drinking it." Problem solved.

Nestle is merely trying to "Indianise" their products in order to grow the market that currently only makes up 1.5% of their total sales. No details on what this Indianizing will entail. Kulfi Drumsticks (not to be confused with saragawa, colloquially known as drumsticks in India)?

Japanese food companies are also trying to expand beyond their own borders, and they know what sells. One approach is to "capitalize on cute Asian-themed characters like koalas and pandas." Hello Kitty wine?

Sprite is more popular than Coke in China. In fact, it's the number one selling soda in the country, which is why Spritea, Sprite flavored with green tea, is only logical. (In Japan they've already added green tea to Coke and shiso to Pepsi.)

Spritea photo from Hong Kong Express.

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Mar 23

Apples to Apples

It wasn’t enough for 7-Eleven to create a magazine just for Latino construction workers, now they’ve got a line of food in the works for 7-Eleven Mexico and a few lucky Hispanic-heavy stores in the US.

“Our objective is to identify flavor profiles that Hispanics are particularly partial to and develop items in that way,” spokeswoman Margaret Chabris told Supermarket News.

Um, so chile and lime?

To me, using apple flavors for soda was a surprising Mexican preference. Sidral Mundet comes in both green and red apple. I see evidence of a green apple Jolly Rancher soda existing here, but is that really mainstream?

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Mar 20

Chains of Thailand & Malaysia

Street food and chain restaurants are two of my favorite things. Even though I’m starting with the latter I got plenty of heat stroke-inducing outdoor fare too, evidenced this nasty sunburn (yes, I wore sunscreen). Remember when kids would rub Elmer’s glue on their hands just to let it dry and peel off? That’s what 65% of my body looks like right now, even my earlobes and backs of my hands (ok, I wrote this earlier in the week—now it’s just my forearms and legs).

Sure, Asia has the chains that have penetrated all corners of the planet: McDonald’s, Starbucks and oddly, Subway, but also regional anomalies yet to grace the states with their presence. A pair of my favorites being The Manhattan Fish Market and Big Apple Coffee & Donuts. This is a near-random, non-exhaustive photo gallery or the franchises I spied during my journeys through the air conditioned malls of Bangkok and Penang.

What’s missing are the slew of sushi, tepanyaki, shabu shabu and noodle chains that had a surprisingly large presence. I am not fanatical about Japanese food in the same way I am about other Asian cuisines, which is the main reason why I’ve never been to Tokyo even though I should know better. I do plan on eventually rectifying this.

By the way, I do not have the know-how to create a proper full page slideshow with nice accompanying text. Sucking my photos from Flickr was the only way I could manage an approximation, but formatting and links captioning the original photos have been lost in this display.

Get the flash player here: http://www.adobe.com/flashplayer

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Feb 5

Coupons Are For Suckers

If there are two things Americans love, it’s chicken and free food (cupcakes must fit into the equation somewhere). We all know how well Oprah’s KFC giveaway went.

Chick-fil-A has gotten wise and all 21st century, at least in Jacksonville, Florida, where the chain has been allowing customers to reverse a free spicy chicken sandwich online to be picked-up in store.

So far, no riots have been reported.

Photo from Grub Grade

About Chains of Love

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Feb 3

Sizzlin’

I stopped myself while thinking, “How does this new Sizzler look any different from the old Sizzler?” because I have idea what a contemporary Sizzler even looks like. Do you?

While I have no issue with Applebee’s, Chili’s and their ilk, I stay away from Sizzler because it seems dated and stodgy, a most un-sexy chain. (There’s a Valentine’s idea: sexiest chains. I just got an email from Bonefish Grill announcing the restaurant, normally dinner-only, would be opening at 11:30am Sunday, February 14. To me, Sunday morning says Mother’s Day not Valentine’s Day.)

My negative Sizzler perception might have something to do with growing up with the restaurant (and liking it, in fact I loved their Malibu Chicken so much that my sister and I would recreate the dish using frozen chicken patties, lunch meat, swiss cheese and powdered hollandaise from a packet when we were in high school) while the newer chains didn’t spring up until I was an adult.

Nation’s Restaurant News has a slideshow of Sizzler’s new “Americana” look . I do suppose watching TV while dining is American, though I’m not sure about the rest of the interior, which is reminiscent of where you’d get your free breakfast at a Holiday Inn Express. I should know; I just stayed in one a few months ago in Oaxaca. Chilaquiles!

Maybe I should survey the Sizzler scene in 2010. I know the only NYC location is in Forest Hills, not so far from the Trader Joe’s that no one ever acknowledges. I’m actually a little surprised to see Malibu Chicken prominently featured on their homepage. I mean, I loved it in 1987 but I never would’ve thought they would still be selling it today. You’d think they’d at least be up to pesto and sun-dried tomatoes by now. I guess you don’t want to mess with a classic.

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Jan 10

Trimming the Pork

While incidents like the recent bombings over Malay Christians using the word Allah to describe God have challenged Malaysia’s appearance as a moderate Islamic country, there are bigger issues at hand.

Namely, the McDonald’s Chinese zodiac promotion in Singapore omitting the pig toy. Chinese ladies won’t be able to accurately complete the 12-figurine set (a cupid toy has replaced the pig) and that is not right!

For what it’s worth, no Muslims complained; it was a preemptive corporate approach. And oddly misguided since Singapore is more than three-fourths Chinese (76.8%, 13.9% Malay, 7.9% Indian). Singaporean McDonald’s are halal but I don’t know how religious dietary rules apply to non-edible charms.

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Dec 29

New Adventures of Old Christine

Yes, yes, Christine is the new Jared, losing a significant amount of weight eating fast food. Specifically, items from Taco Bell’s Fresco menu (essentially regular items minus cheese, sour cream or guacamole) helpfully labeled in small print, “not a low calorie food.”

Not a particularly fresh angle either, anti-Morgan Spurlocks abound. Deshan Woods, who lost weight by eating exclusively at McDonald’s, is just one that I had time to look up. Even the Swedes got into the debunking.

There is no secret to losing weight. Reducing calories and increasing activity are tried and true (spending an hour at the gym, then eating fried chicken will not result in weight loss—I can tell you that first hand).

Almost anyone could lose weight eating fast food daily. 2,000 calories is the number typically used as an ideal for the average woman’s daily intake (2,500 for men). If you wanted to lose a modest but healthy one pound per week you would need to shave 500 calories a day off this number.

For 1,500 calories you could scarf a Whopper (670 calories) and a Cinnabon (730) every single day and lose weight (1,400 total). You probably wouldn’t stay full and would become completely scurvy-ridden and deficient in essential nutrients. So, you could also eat zero and near-zero-calorie roughage like carrots and broccoli and use the remaining 100 calories for an apple (65 calories) or an orange (85 calories).

This is assuming you are completely sedentary. 45-minutes-to-an-hour on an elliptical trainer would probably allow you a small handful of fries (220 calories for BK value menu size, 340 for a small).

Fast food isn’t a particular weakness of mine, though I am proud of my proposed miracle diet. I do like to drink, however. Why blow hundreds of dollars on those silly juice cleanses when you could drop weight fasting on seven martinis a day (roughly 200 calories each)? Everyone knows that cleansing is about getting thin not detoxing or being healthful.

Unrelated: why do people insist on spelling lose as loose?

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Posts from the ‘Corporate Culture’ Category

Hospitaliano

It’s Always Cheesy in Philadelphia

Chain Links: Oolong Blizzards

Indovations…Sinovations

Apples to Apples

Chains of Thailand & Malaysia

Coupons Are For Suckers

Sizzlin’

Trimming the Pork

New Adventures of Old Christine

Featured

Occasional Instagramming

Yes, it’s come to this

My Other Blogs

What?

The Past Will Haunt You

Pigeonholing 101