Fiery Personality, Not-So-Fiery Food Thanks to reality shows like “Hell’s Kitchen” and “Top Chef” we now have a better understanding of the gigantic egos and Herculean struggles behind the world’s top restaurants. In an article titled “The Taming Of The Chef,” “The New Yorker” trails “Hell’s Kitchen” star
Gordon Ramsay—recently
named one of Britain’s “most unbearable bosses”—as he launches his latest endeavor, the London in Manhattan. The profile explores how publicity can adversely affect critics’s and partons’s perception of the food itself.
Tapping Into The Latest Water Craze In a recent ad, the bottlers of Fiji water attempted to boost the appeal of their “Natural Artesian Water” by dissing water bottled in Cleveland. Cleveland may have the last laugh. According to the “San Francisco Chronicle,” trendy restaurants are now offering customers filtered
municipal water, carbonated on-site, rather than imported water. “Our whole goal of sustainability means using as little energy as we have to,” Mike Kossa-Rienzi, general manager of Chez Panisse, tells the paper. “Shipping bottles of water from Italy doesn't make sense.”
You Are What You Eat: Sysco Whether you eat at fast-food joints or five-star restaurants, chances are you’re enjoying food supplied by Sysco. The Houston-based food retailer services 400,000 some restaurants and boasts 400,000-plus items on their wholesale catalog, including ready-made items that restaurants
merely “heat, assemble and serve.” “Slate” magazine discovers what that can mean to you, the diner.
And You May Well Be Washing It Down With “Two-Buck Chuck” This year winemaker Charles Shaw celebrates its fifth anniversary along with the 300-millionth sale of its cheaply priced wines, nicknamed “Two Buck Chuck.” The wines reportedly account for 8 percent of wines sales in California. “We're not out to gouge people,” vintner Fred Frenzied tells the Associated Press. “What I would like to see is every consumer be able to afford to have wine on the table every day and not feel insecure about it.”
Snack Cake Confidential How ‘bout a little polysorbate 60 for dessert? Sodium stearoyl lactylate? In his latest book, “Twinkie, Deconstructed,” Steve Ettlinger goes to great lengths—including to the bottom of a mine shaft to research baking soda—to decode the 39 ingredients found in America’s favorite crème-filled snack cake. Digest the book and, as “Newsweek” warns, “you will never read a label the same way again.”
Buying The World A Vitaminwater In its largest acquisition ever, Coca-Cola has purchased Glaceau, the privately held maker of Vitaminwater. The price tag? $4.1 billion. “There are simply no other privately owned brands out there which could give Coke the kind of potential Glaceau does,” industry
analyst John Sicher tells the Associated Press. “In addition, Coke can create more value by putting it into its strong international bottlers. That will further help make this deal pay off.”
Have A Coke And A Radiant Smile In other Coke news, the company has partnered with L’Oréal to bring consumers a nutriceutical tea-based beverage—currently named Lumaé—that will reportedly have skin-care benefits. According to “Brandweek,” “Lumaé is expected to target active, influential, image-conscious women over the age of 25 who embrace health and wellness.”
A Week in Chef's Whites: What the Kitchen Can Teach About Innovation. “Don’t play with your food.” It’s one of the countless corrections heard from many parents while their children sit through an agonizing meal of foods that were seemingly better suited for creating art than for consumption.
Fiery Personality, Not-So-Fiery Food Thanks to reality shows like “Hell’s Kitchen,” we now have a better understanding of the gigantic egos and Herculean struggles behind the world’s top restaurants.
