Posts from the ‘Go Figure’ Category

Nov 15

Talking Turkey: Google vs Bing

Despite 44% of home cooks not cooking a Thanksgiving meal from scratch, Thanksgiving is still the most popular time of year for recipe searches, according to Google. Then again, during the holidays searches for “easy recipes” triple with pie being the top requested item. I won’t scoff; pies are definitely more time consuming than a standard weeknight recipe. I really don’t like making crust (and have given up on forming empanadas without frozen shells).

Everyone loves pie. Not surprisingly, pumpkin tops the list of Bing’s most searched pie recipes, followed by pecan, apple, chocolate and importantly, pie crust. Oddly, the top cookie recipe searched for is rice krispie. I’m not even convinced that’s a cookie, let alone a holiday cookie. Well, that was before I saw Kellogg’s Great Plains Tipi Treats and Turkey Tracks.

Even odder, Google has fondue lurking their top baking searches. I don’t associate things melted in pots with baking. Cookies, of course, are number one. I wonder if rice krispie treats also fall under this category since they’re not baked either. Maybe I’m just being too literal about what baking means these days.

Great Plains Tipi Treats photo from Kellogg’s

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Nov 1

Home Cooks, Real Cooks & Moms

Almost 40% of “Real Cooks” cook every day. I guess the remaining majority eats raw or prepared foods?

Sixty-six percent of “home cooks” will make their Thanksgiving meal from scratch this year compared to 55% last year. So, people are getting their holiday dishes from Boston Market or a can or am I misunderstanding how Americans now celebrate Thanksgiving?

Moms are finding it easier to get their families to eat fruit at restaurants (37% in 2010 vs. 29% in 2008) but they’ve been less successful with encouraging vegetable-eating when dining out (43% in 2010 vs. 45% in 2008). It makes me wonder where dads fit into the equation. I can only assume lumped in with the kiddies as “family.”

A mom’s work is never done. Getting kids to eat fruit and vegetables is “not easy,” “a constant battle,” or “impossible” according to 56% of them. Ninety percent of kids enjoy apples, though.

Thanksgiving Day Dinner photo from Merrick Pet Foods

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Oct 14

The $5.94/$41.76 Difference

According to NPD, US restaurant spending only went up a tick (.4%) in Q2 2010 with the average check being $5.94. Nowhere do they specify fast food, but otherwise I'm having a hard time seeing how such a low figure could be true. Or maybe I'm just a big spender. China had the smallest check at $2.58, and the biggest increase in spending (15.6%). Just wait until those Hong Kong McDonald's weddings sweep the mainland.

Kurt Salmon also finds that restaurant spending is down this fall, but doesn't say by how much.

Zagat clearly tracks a more affluent user. Their 2011 New York City Restaurant Survey shows that in NYC, the average check is $41.76, down a mere five cents from 2009. For the record, a whopping 81% think it's fine to take photos of food in restaurants…so there.

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Oct 3

National Coffee Day Has Come and Gone

According to Dunkin’ Donuts and CareerBuilder nurses and doctors, workers who live in the Northeast and Americans ages 18-24 need coffee the most. Thirty-seven percent drink more than two cups during the day.

The 2010 Filterfresh Coffee Report finds an even more caffeinated population with 59% drinking two-three cups of coffee a day. Also, nearly a third (32%) of the respondents would tell someone if they had coffee breath. Really?

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Sep 23

Strawberries Are For Patriots

In shocking news, the USA Rice Federation has found that 83% moms—the world’s most important demographic—serve rice as a side dish.

Perhaps, the other 17% are scared of carbs? Those are probably the whole grain-obsessed moms responsible for the 651 new whole grain products that have been launched to date in 2010, according to Mintel.

Meanwhile, Technomic finds that 52% of Americans want healthier food at convenience stores. You know that's bullshit because Fruit2day (a very reputable research firm) says that close to half of us let fruit rot in the fridge. I know I do because I generally hate it. Mangos, I don't detest, yet I still have a probably rancid one lazing around in the crisper drawer for the past two weeks.

Also, our favorite fruit is the strawberry because "Americans see themselves as having sweet, caring personalities like a strawberry." If you say so.

Image from Foodwhirl.

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Sep 10

The Most Important Meal of the Day

I only ignore my RSS feeds for six days and three breakfast-related surveys appear out of nowhere?

Breakfast is kind of a non-entity to me. Weekdays, I’ll bring fruit or a granola bar or sometimes a hard-boiled egg and eat at my desk around 11am. Boring. Weekends, I rarely get up early enough to indulge. It’s always the sore spot on vacations. I can never cram in three meals a day (and rarely get out of the hotel before 11am) so breakfast is usually scrapped for early lunch, dinner and a snack. While in the Bay Area this past weekend, I did manage to squeeze in hangtown hash, a take on the regional hangtown fry, at Sea Salt in Berkeley, and tocilog at Tselogs, a Filipino café in Daly City. Oh, I also had a scoop of Secret Breakfast ice cream, a.k.a. Jim Beam and cornflakes, at Humphry Slocombe.

According to Quaker Oats, nearly half of Americans pass on breakfast. They don’t provide much further insight, but suggesting that you turn off your mobile phone or hide it in other room while you get ready as a way to “make over your own morning routine and enjoy a healthier life” tells me that skipping breakfast is the least of this country’s problems.

Kix and SUPERVALU provide some contradictory data. The cereal brand claims that 79% of parents eat breakfast with their kids (liars) while the supermarket chain finds that 54% of children "fend for themselves in the kitchen for breakfast." Regionally, Chicago had the highest percentage of kids making their own breakfast (69%); San Diego had the fewest number of parents who serve their children breakfast before school (43%).

Photo from Panda Sashimi.

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Aug 17

Validation For My Bonefish Grill Fixation

To me, the most surprising finding from Zagat’s, “2010 Fast-Food/Full-Service Chain Restaurants Survey” is that the respondents, who I imagine to represent a typical American with at least a passing interest in food, eat at chains 10.7 times per month. My love for chains, apparently, is quite restrained (I've never been one for big public displays of affection) because more than twice a week seems quite high. And coffee/ice cream/frozen yogurt/smoothie joints are not included in that figure.

I'm partial to full-service chains over fast food because I'm classy like that (and like to drink with my meals). I would generally agree with their overall top five rated on food, facilities and service.

1.    Bonefish Grill
2.    P.F. Chang's
3.    Maggiano's
4.    Cheesecake Factory
5.    BJ's Restaurant.

Bonefish Grill, P.F. Chang's and Cheesecake Factory are some of my favorites. I nearly experienced an epiphany at Bonefish Grill while New Order’s “Love Vigilantes” played in their outdoor lounge, and once again at P.F. Chang’s when Morrissey’s “Suedehead” could be heard near the giant horse statues in front of the door. Both are suburban perfection. I don't generally eat chain Italian (though I’m willing to give Maggiano’s a try even though the only location I can think of is out in Bridgwater, New Jersey across from a Crate and Barrel) and I've never been to a BJ's and don’t know that I will. I probably won’t on half-baked principle.

My dad and his wife once took me to a peanut-shell-filled restaurant in Tigard, Oregon called BJ's Roadhouse for my 22nd birthday and I forgot my ID and wasn't even able to order an O'Douls to drown my sorrows. I don't think these BJ's are related. In fact, there's no online evidence of this eatery ever existing. If you Google BJ’s Roadhouse Tigard, you just get me speculating on this same thing a few years ago because I have a short-term blogging memory.

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Aug 16

Waste Not, Want Not

Gen Y is "greedy and wasteful" as that cat upstate who got marinated in a trunk. According to NPD's "National Eating Trends" they only make 68 meals per year using a leftover (that actually sounds high) compared to my thrifty, crotchety age group who does sad things like salvaging Cheesecake Factory salads by draining the excess dressing off the lettuce in a colander the following day (not that I would know this first-hand, of course) 14 more times annually than twenty-somethings. Millennials are also the most likely to eaten frozen or prepared foods.

Harris Interactive has found that the 18-33 group, Echo Boomers in their world, prepare the fewest meals at home. Therefore, fewer opportunities to transform leftovers. 85% do so more than once per week while 34-45s, the homebodies of the universe, hunker down in their kitchens the most (91%). I imagine this is because they are the group most bogged down with small, costly children. Oddly, it's the youngest who say they enjoy cooking the most. Maybe because only a third do it more than five times a week.

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Aug 16

Meat, Spice, Fire

Every summer I complain about the barrage of grilling-themed food magazines that land in my mailbox. So useless, I don’t have a yard. I’m in the minority, however. Lawry’s “What's Your Flavor" survey found that barbecuing outdoors is Americans’ favorite cooking method and that 63% do so all year round.

Maybe I’m just unhappy because according to additional Lawry's findings, I’m a spicy food-lover, a so-called “Self-Assured Adventurer,” when the happiest cohort, “Joyous Joiners,” prefers tart flavors.

I love it when companies get all targeted with their food marketing. Lawry's has two special sections on their site: Food For the Soul and Cocina Latina. Steak with chimichurri sauce (if there's any population that grills more than the US, it's Argentines) doesn't sound half bad, though I don' t know that I'd describe it as having "Latin flare."

Also, Fisher wants you to take a quiz to see what kind of nut you are. I'm not crazy about being a walnut.

Image from Embroidery by Jean

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Aug 12