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Aside from the annoying commercials and mediocre food, here’s another reason to stop giving your money to Olive Garden. They’re bullshitting you. To your face. Why reward them for it? Unlimited volumes of low-value bread and pasta?
As consumers, we really need to start looking at chain restaurants more critically. McDonald’s tastes the same around the world because they engineer the meals for consistency. It’s “fast food” so we accept that lack of wholesomeness in exchange for convenience. But we should also be questioning how places like Olive Garden and Red Lobster manage that same consistency from PA to Kansas to California. We live under an illusion that all sit-down restaurants with waitstaffs have big kitchens run by skilled chefs. More likely, there are huge regional facilities using corporate-designed recipes to premake and portion sauces, breadsticks, desserts, etc. They freeze and ship the food hundreds of miles to the franchises to be thawed, reheated and assembled per some laminated card full of plus signs and pictograms.
Remember, you are eating for you and your family’s nourishment – to live long, healthy lives with strong bodies and minds. Corporate restaurants are trying to turn a profit. That’s it. They’re run by executives in big cities far away and don’t know you or care about you or your community – no matter how many smiling families they put in their commercials. Twenty years from now, you’ll be suffering the effects of their cheap carbs, fat and preservatives. And Olive Garden will be long gone with your money.
I just realized it’s been exactly a month since I’ve posted anything. We really haven’t gone out much, and when we have, it’s been to our usual spots. I don’t think anyone needs to see pics of Ocean and Sette Luna for the umpteenth time. Plus, the garden is still crankin’ out veggies so we’ve been cooking a lot trying not to let anything go to waste.
We did take our pup for a walk downtown on our Friday off and tried to grab lunch at the Third Street Café. I say “tried” because the owner informed us that the Health Department has been cracking down on the presence of dogs in outdoor seating areas. He apologized and recommended The Quadrant since they don’t seem to fear any sanctions. Seems pretty ludicrous to me. Between the car exhaust, birds, and probable sidewalk urine, our 13 lb. lapdog should be the least of the Health Department’s worries.
The main reason we went downtown was to drop off my entry for the Garlic Fest poster contest. The dropoff is supposedly in the PNC Bank on N. 3rd St, but the tellers had no idea what I was talking about. Five days before the deadline and no one else had dropped an entry off? That didn’t seem right, but I was sure I was following the dropoff instructions so I put my faith in the tellers to get my entry to the right person. I’ll just have to make sure my poster is hanging with the others at the festival this Saturday Oct 2nd. The winner will be announced at 3pm. Fingers crossed. (I’ll post my design here on Wednesday after the entry deadline.)
My growing discontent with America’s food production/distribution system got yet another boost from this whole egg recall debacle. I learned about localharvest.org in a great egg article on MSN and decided to see where I could find local healthy eggs. There’s a place 3 minutes from our house!
• Just saw the new lobster sandwich at the Panera near my office in Jersey. 17 bucks! WSJ has the scoop.
• The blog’s been slow since we’ve been grillin’ more often. My new favorite cookbook.
• And we’re psyched to visit Paris next month. Got a couple strong recos to visit Berthillon. Can you decipher their specialty?
Nice little slideshow on HuffPo highlighting the best and worst seafood choices. I get so mixed up about which farmed species are safe and which aren’t.
U.S. farmed catfish= OK
Farmed salmon= very bad
Set the DVR for this new series. For anyone annoyed with American eating habits or fed up with the lack of affordable healthy foods, this should be fun to watch.
Jamie Oliver is here to start a revolution. The impassioned chef, TV personality and best-selling author is determined to take on the high statistics of obesity, heart disease and diabetes in this country, where our nation’s children are the first generation not expected to live as long as their parents. Jamie is inviting viewers to take a stand and change the way America eats, in our home kitchens, schools and workplaces, with the thought-provoking new series, “Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution,” debuting FRIDAY, MARCH 26 (9:00-10:00 p.m., ET) on the ABC Television Network.
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Needled by local naysayers, challenged by ingrained unhealthy habits and government bureaucracy, and welcomed by some of the most surprising youngsters, families and local leaders, Jamie shows how, in just a few short months, he tried to transform Huntington as a template for the entire country. The stakes? Simply the health of our country’s citizens and the legacy for its children.
Check out his prize-winning speech calling for a revolution in the way we approach food. Powerful stuff.
Learn more here.
I wasn’t expecting Emeril’s burger joint and the Carnegie Deli over at the Sands casino to open so quickly. Lehigh Valley InSite has an early review. Can’t wait to build my own gourmet burger – or at least have a pro build it to my specifications.
Got a copy of the cookbook last week and i think it turned out great! Here’s a shot of the final cover (which you won’t see on Amazon), a chapter opener and a recipe. The recipes are broken down into four seasonal chapters that correspond with the grape growing seasons and the fresh ingredients available in California wine country. It’ll make a great xmas gift – i know i’ll be giving them to any cooking-inclined family and friends.
The fork city 