Irena Chalmers

Nearly all women have cravings for specific foods, yet only 68% of men experience similar desires. If you’re a woman, a craving for chocolate may not be entirely in your head. Chocolate is a close second (after ice cream) for many women. It is less so for men.

There may be reasons why women yearn for pickles during pregnancy or candy bars to ward off PMS blues. A premenstrual increase in the metabolic rate consumes an estimated 150 calories a day; cravings for ice cream and other dairy products and for sweets, (including chocolate and fruit), satisfies the body’s need for calcium and calories during pregnancy.

The Asian equivalent of this could be a yearning for sweet-and-sour spareribs, because the vinegar used in the recipe leaches calcium from the rib bones into the meat, where it is available for her growing fetus.

Some cravings might have a nutritional basis, while others may result from powerful emotional needs. Professor Adam Drewnowski, director of the Nutritional Sciences Program of the University of Washington, theorized that foods high in fat and sugar stimulate the brain to produce endorphins, the “high” experienced by runners that results in a feeling of calm and well-being.

It is comforting to soothe the pain of a lost job, lost love, or mournful anxiety with a candy bar. Sometimes, nothing else will work. But when facing a long period of deprivation, it may be wise  to heed the advice of the experts and choose from lower-calorie alternatives.

(Though there is fat chance that that will happen: when a person is invited to choose between a fat chance and a slim chance, this usually means there is virtually no chance at all.)

Laughing gas makes chocolate taste ‘chocolatey’. Attendees at The Institute of Food Technologists‘ annual conference were startled to receive the information from UK scientists that nitrous oxide, pumped under pressure into liquid chocolate, produces a more intense cocoa flavor.

The testers also found that the gas caused the chocolate to melt more rapidly in the mouth. “Bubbles are undervalued as a food ingredient,” reported lead researcher, Keshavan Niranjan.

Clearly this kind of research will be no laughing matter to the candy men. For them, going to work can sometimes be a barrel of fun.

Chocolate and the bubbly? I endorse this type of food experimentation.

Filed under: food science, food trends on June 22nd, 2010 | No Comments »

The daily life in a restaurant provides a cliff-hanging plot, composed of a series of collisions between fiction and nonfiction. Within the span of a single frenzied Saturday evening, the chef transmogrifies from a wounded, howling victim — a bellowing, raging bull before experiencing a total mutation into a triumphant matador, preening, bowing and heel clicking around the ring to the (real or imaginary) thunderous applause of the assembled multitude.

Where else, but in the fact-filled fantasy food world, can a lad who excelled at peeling potatoes and washing dishes have presidents and prime ministers on their knees begging for a table?

Where else but in the food omnimedia could a poor girl from the wrong side of the tracks grow up to become Martha the Magnificent, the cool billionaire? 

What about Rachael Ray, the EVOO (Extra Virgin Olive Oil) media hottie? At the age 37, she signed a $6 million book contract. In her spare time, her launched a magazine while her talk show bubbled on the front burner. Chowhound pegged Rachael’s annual earnings at multi-millions two years ago. Since then she’s started making real money.

Wolfgang Puck is an entrepreneur too. His annual take-home pay hovers around  $16 million. His launching pad was — pizza! Since opening Spago, his first restaurant in West Hollywood in 1982, he has invented 12 fine dining establishments and 34 casual restaurants. He is a force of nature.

So is Mario Batali, who, even  in short pants, approached NASCAR’s licensing division, a thriving publishing wing and a fan base of 75 million people. Many of these same fans snap up Mario’s cookbook Mario Tailgates NASCAR Style and his cookware the way foodies devour the beef cheek ravioli at his restaurants, Babbo.

The secret? Batali and NASCAR fans share a deep infatuation with all things pork.

Daniel Boulud is among the notable chefs who have taken up home cooking. The New York Times reports that he “commands upwards of $2,000 a person plus travel expenses,” when he  agrees to cook dinner  —  in a client’s home. Dish washing is included.

Certain chefs exert a strong, ethical influence over the entire food universe far disproportionate to their relatively small numbers. Yet their top-tier restaurants must struggle to differentiate themselves from bistros, family restaurants, fast food emporia and less costly, (cheap!), places to eat.

They succeed by extolling the quality and provenance of their ingredients. They forge alliances with small producers, who supply superior ingredients. They become betrothed to the food media, who provide them with favorable press coverage and shower them with awards.

The powerful triumvirate of restaurateur, organic grower and print, broadcast and television media influences the opinions — and purchasing decisions of millions of consumers.

Chefs are also holding hands with advocacy organizations and community leaders. Under the crusading banner of Alice Waters, Jamie Oliver and Michelle the O-So-Bama, they are teaching little children how to grow and cook their own food.

Astute politicians have long known that this kind of activity carries a lot of weight with teachers and parents — who vote. Naturally, chefs become a sustainable band of merry men in the ‘hood.

“The environment affects everything from the ground up,” said Stephan Pyles, chef and owner of Routh’s Street Cafe in Dallas, who cooked at a benefit for the Chesapeake Bay in Baltimore. He says, “Chefs have been working with organics for a long time and, certainly, trying to clean up the water where fish come from makes perfect sense. It’s strange it  took us so long to make the correlation.”

Meanwhile, Jasper White, chef and owner of Summer Shack in Boston, MA, is working to clean up Boston Harbor.

We’re still waiting to learn the names of the chef or chefs who will champion the restoration of the bounty of the Gulf of Mexico.

Thus, the role of the chef  becomes both evolutionary and ‘creationionary’ with high notes, that touch on magic and science, fiction and nonfiction, teaching and learning.

So sign up for culinary school. See the world. Get rich. Pray the moving finger will point to you.

Filed under: culinary legends, food commentary on June 17th, 2010 | 4 Comments »

Of all living things that inhabit the earth, humans are the only species who lack the ability to control appetite.

The mechanism to do so is built into our brains, yet it is largely ignored because we tend to feel we are entitled to eat what we want to eat. Now! This minute!

Deep inside the brain, within a tiny area of the hypothalamus, there is a gland that secretes Neuropeptide Y. It is this chemical that stimulates appetite and controls our weight. Most scientists agree that it is Neuropeptide Y that urges us to eat, and its direct opposite, cholecystokinin, or CCK, that tells us when we have had enough and suggests that we stop.

In the laboratory, that would seem to be the beginning and the end of the matter, but it doesn’t begin to explain why we think we are hungry so soon after eating Chinese food.

Perhaps this is because we don’t feel the meal has ended properly if there is no dessert — the orange at the bottom of the bag of Chinese take-out food in no way equates with the slice of cheesecake we were rather hoping for.

When we are deprived of our regular pattern of eating, we become quite distressed and crave it all the more. We find ourselves opening the refrigerator door a dozen times in the faint hope that the cheesecake will somehow put in an appearance. This is why attempts to force changes in our diet cause such distress.

If only we could get at the hypothalamus and turn it on or off like an electric light bulb, we would be able to resist temptation.

Don’t think for a moment that researchers aren’t trying to discover ways to manipulate this little gland, this naughty neurotransmitter, that forces us to eat a carton of ice cream when what we really wanted was a tofu sandwich. So far, success has been elusive.

Physiology and biochemistry are only two of the many factors that influence our appetite. Genetics is a key player. So is noise. Play loud music and we eat faster. Seated in a brightly-lit restaurant, we almost certainly will eat more.

We eat more in the comfort and company of family and friends, and less in the presence of strangers. Emotional trauma suppresses appetite; short-term tension, on the other hand, can make us ravenously hungry.

When women fall in love they tend to eat less. Men behave oppositely. Go figure.

Filed under: food commentary, food science on June 3rd, 2010 | No Comments »

Creativity. What is it? And, why is it important? What is the spark that makes one person become a giraffe, and stand head and shoulders above all others?

We tend to think creative people are great artists and musicians like Picasso and Mozart, not those who build things like Alfred Portale’s food pyramids. When we come to praise famous men, we might have forgotten their names, but not their creations.

Are not Jell-O, Spaghetti-O’s and Oreos of equal importance to the invention of tuxedoes, Trivial Pursuits and teabags?

A creative genius is one who doesn’t stop with salt and pepper, but marches on to discover the delights of salt and caramel and sea salt brownies.

A creative person challenges conventional wisdom, though, admittedly, this is very risky business. Through the ages those who challenged established beliefs were persecuted. Mao Tse-Tung controlled the world’s most populous country. After years of suppressing all new ideas, he seemed to do an about face in a new program he called, “Let a thousand ideas bloom.” He encouraged opinions to be voiced by the people.  Those, who spoke up, were promptly imprisoned or executed.

This cynical approach can be compared with employees, who are encouraged to express their ideas but their suggestions are customarily ignored, and those, who dare to make them and are routinely demoted or terminated. They are viewed as trouble-makers.

Meet the person, who crosses his arms across his chest and glowers at anyone and who proposes a new way of doing things, and you’ve collided with the grouch, who stifles creativity.

We all see things differently: three people walk past a tree. The first is a gardener. He knows the botanical name of the tree. The second person is a poet. He writes a sonnet to the tree. The third one is a logger. He cuts down the tree.

The first tenet of intelligence is to see a problem as an opportunity. Staff turnover, for instance. Everyone knows this is a big problem.

How can you get the ones you want to stay–and stop griping? Listen to them, perhaps? Give them a nicer family meal?  Provide them with neater uniforms. Think up random acts of kindness. Invite an employee to bring in their significant other for a complimentary dinner.

Some employees love their employers because they love them.

Hard times bring about interesting solutions. It was during an economic slump in 1997 that a group of restaurateurs got together and came up with the concept of the $19.97 prix fixe lunch. The idea caught fire, and continues to attract new business.

Similarly during these hard economic times, there has been an explosion of mobile food carts. Specialties include: organic hot dogs, grass-fed beef burgers, vegan sausages, fusion tacos, sushi and saki, and dozens of other offerings. Some trucks are fueled with recycled french fry oil.

Inventive chefs have re-conceived everything from burgers and pot pies to rice pudding and bread pudding, but it is Ferran Adria, Grant Achatz and Heston Blumenthal, who have gone where others fear to tread. We can confidently anticipate that legions of synchronous swimmers will soon start splashing into these sparkling waters.

The inventor of a thousand cupcakes attracts legions of also-runners but it is the one, who is first on the stage that gets the spotlight. He is the leader. Others are followers.

There are architects who build buildings, and artisans who paint them. There are those, who invent clocks while others are capable only of telling the time. There are those, who know the difference between an idea — and a big idea.

And those, who know how to present an idea as a fully formed proposal, anticipating the reaction of others and being ready with answers to the inevitable questions.

It is said: “The organizations that survive are not the ones with the deepest pockets, but with the ones who use their workforce to become nimble.  Statistical evidence reveals the climate for creativity in organizations is directly attributed to the behavior of the leader.”

A creative person sees a problem and recognizes it as an opportunity to do something that hasn’t been done before. Often the inventor is described as a crackpot or a visionary, which is perceived by some to be more or less the same thing. Their idea is orphaned until it works, and suddenly it has a thousand fathers. (Remind me again, who invented the Internet?)

Who dreamed up the idea of molecular tags that can be read by scanners at the supermarket check out counter? The tags identify the specific variety of a fruit or vegetable, its weight and price.

Who invented the soy inks that change color when the food inside the container is contaminated?

Who thought of making the bar code shrink in size as the package reaches its expiration date?

I love the idea of the self-heating can. Pull a tab like the one on a soda can, and the coffee or tea or soup within will heat almost instantly.

Isn’t it clever to have a martini menu; to impose an image of the bride and groom on the top of the wedding cake; to offer a cheese course, (that necessitates the ordering of another glass of wine), and thus significantly increases the amount of the check — and the tip — and the profitability of the restaurant?

It builds traffic to have a series of special events throughout the year: an asparagus and strawberry festival; a lobster festival; an oyster and champagne feast. On tax day, could one, would one offer a 10% “rebate” on every check? On Thanksgiving Day, why not send the guests home with a platter of composed “leftovers,” and a homemade pie?

During the holidays, invite a group of bell ringers and add traditional Christmas gloggs and eggnogs to the bar offerings, to paste a sticker under one of the cappuccino cups that entitles everyone at the table to a free dinner. Send a limo for the guests of honor, mail an invitation to the newly-engaged couple or a baby gift when the birth announcement appears in the newspaper.

It’s good to send a dinner voucher to all the hotel concierges, who recommend your restaurant. It’s good to support two or three selected charities rather than trying to pollinate every flower. It’s good to give dinner guests a muffin for their breakfast. It’s particularly good to ask yourself, “What more can I give?”

Creative food served with warm hospitality results in the sweet smell of success.

Filed under: food commentary on May 10th, 2010 | 5 Comments »

God created the world in six days. Six is considered a lucky number in China. Get Your Kicks on Route 66. Ben and Jerry said the ‘90’s were the ’60s standing on their head. Seriously?! Six is a really important number. We should get to know more about six because it is a “decider” digit.

Every day we have to make decisions. Should I wear this or that? Go out? Stay in? Go to this restaurant or that one? Do I want the steak [cooked] rare or medium rare? Pepper? Blue cheese or vinaigrette? Smooth or chunky?  Small, medium or large? With or without? Regular or decaf? Law school, medical school or culinary school?

In order to survive, we have to narrow our choices. Otherwise, we’ll go crazy. If we decide to write a cookbook based on the Chicken Dishes of the World, we will drown. It would be far easier to compile the Chicken Dishes of Chicago.

Sheena S. Iyengar, the S.T. Lee Professor of Business at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business, is among the world’s experts on the subject of decision making. She delves into the relationship between how we choose and who we are: why we are so often disappointed by our choices; how much control we really have over our everyday choices; how we choose when our options are practically unlimited; whether we should ever let others choose for us, and if so, whom and why.

(Iyengar’s book, The Art of Choosing, is now available. Will we buy it? Yes we will! But on Kindle, through Amazon, at a local book store?)

I mention the distinguished professor because her most famous (at least to me) study, concerned the number ’six’. The version I discovered concerns heuristics. Iyengar says this is: “a commonsense rule intended to increase the probability of solving some problem of or relating to or using a general formulation that serves to guide investigation.”

Google searches are organized using a certain set of heuristics. It was on Google that I discovered a strawberry jam theory that goes like this. A customer wants a pot of strawberry jam so she “googles” it.  Up pops 1,500,000 strawberry jam references in less than 60 seconds: where to buy it, how to make it, etc.–all based on Google’s unique heuristics.

• One site offers 12 different kinds of strawberry jam. The customer is immediately exhausted. Twelve choices is six too many so she clicks to another site.
• Here only three kinds of strawberry jam are offered. Hmm. The customer decides this company is way too small. (If I give them my credit card number, they’ll probably steal my identity — and I’ll never receive the jam.)
• Click. And Eureka! Here are six kinds of strawberry jam. I think I’ll place my order this company. I submit my order. Done, and done.

This seemingly totally irrelevant stuff is actually valuable information. If a fast food restaurant offers more than six choices, the line slows and everyone quickly gets grumpy. If a bakery offers six kinds of cup cakes, the buyer will buy at least one, maybe all six. Offer six bagels, and we’ll buy ‘em all even if we had planned to buy only one.

In their book, Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts, the authors Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson explain why we create fictions that absolve us of responsibility, restoring our belief that we are smart, moral, and right—a belief that often keeps us on a course that is dumb, immoral, and wrong.

(Many dumb, immoral and wrongheaded people end up running huge enterprises and even hold high political positions or having their own TV shows, so being dumb, immoral and wrong certainly has its perks.)

Many chefs are wise, honest and smart. They’ve figured out that it is shrewd to offer six choices on the menu, particularly on holiday menus. For Easter, there must be: lamb, ham, a fish, a vegetarian dish and two other selections. For Thanksgiving, the menu should be turkey, turkey, turkey, more turkey, no turkey and one other choice. Keeping the number of choices to six means there is briefer interrogation of the server — “Is the turkey fresh; can I have the gravy on the side?” — the tables keep turning, and the reservations are honored on time.

Prix fixe menus with six choices work well too–particularly when guests are less interested in intricate preparations and more concerned about how much time they have before returning to work or getting to the theatre on time.

Linda Duke, the CEO of Duke Marketing, says promotional sentences should be only six words long (or actually, short). Any more, and readers lose interest. She urges restaurateurs to try describing their restaurant this way: “Ask yourself what makes your restaurant different? Define what you do best? Now try expressing your entire philosophy with six words. Great food. Great service. Finger-licking good — (though not too great if you have sanitized hands).”

Ultimately, you must choose your own slogan. As William James, leader of the philosophical movement of Pragmatism, thoughtfully observed, “When you have to make a choice and don’t make it, that is in itself a choice.”

Will you ‘deep six‘ this commentary, ‘take the road less traveled’ or when it ‘comes to a fork in the road, take it’?

You decide.

Filed under: food commentary, food trends on March 15th, 2010 | 1 Comment »

I teach a professional food writing course at the CIA (Culinary Institute of America). Last week I asked the students to list the ten flavors they could not live without. I am constantly delighted with their responses like this from Lindsley Marsh, one of my current students:

Ten flavors I could never, ever, live without (not in any particular order):

1. Goat cheese – what could be better than this tangy, creamy, spreadable substance? Fresh goat cheese melts beautifully and can be used in savory as well as sweet preparations. High quality goat cheese is best spread on toasted bread with a bit of extra virgin olive oil and cracked pepper.
2. Beets – my mother’s gentleman caller always tells me that beets taste like dirt. Well, if this is true, they taste like the best-flavored dirt imaginable. Earthy and vibrant, beets are not only healthful but can be as sweet as candy.
3. Golden raspberries – the best berry I’ve ever encountered was a golden raspberry in the middle of a beautiful Oregon summer. For best results, allow berries to briefly warm in the sun before consuming.
4. Coarse-grind corn meal – coarse-ground corn meal, when cooked slowly in milk and finished with butter and cheese, has the amazing ability to seem like polenta and corn pudding at the same time. Additionally, its texture is astoundingly addictive.
5. Scallops – never before have I encountered such subtle sweet flavors in the flesh of an animal. Fresh scallops have an oceanic sweetness that is undeniably delicious and are extraordinarily versatile. Whether poached in tomato broth, lightly sautéed in butter or heavily seared in a cast iron pan, scallops are truly wonderful to eat.
6. Chicken skin – absolutely nothing compares to the crispy, well-seasoned exterior of a roasted chicken or sautéed breast. Savory, fatty, and salty; what’s there not to love?
7. White anchovies – what I love most about white anchovies are their extraordinary porcelain color. They are mild, tender, and much less bony than their brown counterparts and impart a salty, savory quality to their accompaniments. White anchovies are excellent in tomato based sauces with capers and olives, in crude herb salsas or simply eaten with toast and roasted garlic.
8. Cornichon pickles – they’re bite sized and the perfect combination of crunchy, tart and sweet. I could eat an entire jar of cornichon pickles without anything else, but they are fabulous served with pâté or incorporated into remoulade or tartar sauce.
9. Duck – perhaps my favorite thing to do on Sundays is purchase a duck, confit the legs, sauté the breasts and roast the bones for dark stock. A good size duck in the grocery store costs all of $14 or $15 and will lend itself useful for a variety of preparations.
   

   Sun Tea

10. Sun tea – my grandfather, who lives in sunny Los Angeles, practically thrives on sun tea in the summertime. Tea bags are placed in cool water and allowed to steep in the sun for hours on end. Sugar is added near midday, and by nightfall the tea is perfectly brewed. I prefer to drink sun tea while it is still slightly warm from the heat of the earth, but it is equally refreshing chilled and served with a thin slice of lemon.

Filed under: food commentary on March 11th, 2010 | 2 Comments »