Category: Food

The More Things Change The More They Stay The Same

Quarantine has been challenging for most of the world’s population. The global effort to eradicate and immobilize the novel corona virus has been unprecedented. People all over the world have quarantined themselves for months to reduce the spread of the virus. Healthcare workers have been working around the clock.

Needless to say, those of us who have been quarantined have definitely not been as challenged as the front-line healthcare workers, and the essential workers that keep our nation’s food/electric/gasoline/medicine/etc/etc chain operational. (THANK YOU ALL!!) But being locked inside for months with one’s family, even if you love and like them, is challenging.  

Many of us are working the jobs we have always worked and adding an additional job of being a 4th grade teacher, or a kindergarten teacher, of both. Many of us have lost our jobs. Some are trapped at home with an abusive partner or an abusive parent. And even in the best of situations, we’re humans, we miss having contact with other human beings. Needless to say, the entire world is suffering through stress that was unimaginable 6 months ago. We are all currently leading very different lives.

But one thing has remained the same for me and my family… we don’t go to the store. Period.

It started four or five years ago. After Seattle, Southern California was the second, or third site Amazon rolled out Amazon Fresh. Soon after, all of the local grocery stores followed suit with a delivery option of their own. As one of the stock holders of WebVan when it went belly-up, I’ve been anticipating in-home grocery deliveries since the Dot-com bubble burst. With my wife and I being very busy professionals with two young children, we quickly became early adopters of this new service. In our lives, time was/is the most valuable commodity, so soon, we began switching most other shopping to in-home delivery as well.

With all the talk about reopening the economy, talking heads are forgetting one important thing

Consumers will only act if they feel safe to act. Period. This means wide spread testing. Currently, the testing in the United States, per capita, is laughable. South Korea got to where they are through extensive testing. Instead, we used our resources to bail out Fortune 500 companies that have been using their last bail out to enrich C-suite executives.

This is an opportunity for Corporate America to flex their innovative muscle. All companies need to meet the consumer where the consumer is, not the other way around.

Emirates is testing all people before flights. American airlines could do that, but they haven’t.

We live in a densely populated area, near the country’s busiest port, and a busy warehouse district, that made efficient grocery delivery an option, but that’s no reason why it can’t be an option everywhere, including rural America. There’s a reason why grocery stores are big, well-light, and well-stocked, because that’s what the consumer wanted. Now the consumer wants something else. So it’s time for industries to meet their consumers where they are. Many have made this adjustment, but some have not. Yet.

The leaders of Carmax learned a valuable lesson around the turn of the century with regards to their massive dealerships (Gwinnett, Laurel, etc, super-sized stores). They were very difficult to make profitable, so they rolled out more of their smaller stores.

There’s a wise saying among traders… It’s very difficult to predict the future. Being a Futurist is a tough gig. Most of the time they try to pad their stats by making many predictions, and like a broken clock, they will get a few calls correct. But even though predicting the future is almost impossible, this prediction seems to be low-hanging fruit.

Either during this pandemic or soon afterwards, grocery stores, and other merchants, are going to maintain a smaller retail footprint, and use warehouse-to-door delivery more and more. Also, it doesn’t take Nostradamus to see that the check-out person will be replaced at an even quicker rate by automated checkout. This trend has been coming for many years, and the Covid-19 pandemic has poured gasoline on it.

More and more industries will be geared for delivery, which is fine with me. I detest the retail store experience. Parking during the Christmas season—no thank you. Pushing a broken, squeaky cart—no thank you. We are a delivery-only family, in the past, present, and the future. Won’t you join us corporate America?

Lessons From The Salad Bowl

Salinas Valley is the part of California tucked in between Monterey and Carmel, commonly referred to as “The Salad Bowl”. It’s named that because of the high volume of food it produces for all Americans. It’s a beautiful place that I’ve visited several times.

This week, I spent a lot of time driving through the fields while the workers were harvesting, giving me an eye opening front row seat to their process.

Wow, they sure did have a lot of short workers. I’m sure they weren’t children, just short adults. Right?

They were also covered head to toe. Every worker tries to protect as much skin as possible. Temperatures can be breezy and cold, or reach the high 90’s, it doesn’t matter. The safety from the chemicals is what matters. Even still, the average lifespan of these workers is only 49 years.

But, I’m sure those chemicals have nothing to do with it, right?

I’m sure those same chemicals are “good” for you and your family to eat?

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While I was watching these workers give their life for the food on our table, social media (both here and England) filled up with enough hate speech to make a person lose their appetite. What troubles me most about certain populist movements and the intensely nationalistic rhetoric that flourishes is how the conversation of “us versus them” ALWAYS focuses on the weakest among us.

You’re mad that “illegals” have taken a mythical job that you weren’t offered, and that you wouldn’t do, and that you would die from doing before turning 50? And you want to be mad about it, fine. But, why be mad at the person who’s barely surviving? Why blame the person who travels to work packed into a 40 year old school bus pulling port-a-potties that will later remove their own feces.

 “Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.” – Matthew 25:45

Be angry at the actual root of the problem. Who’s REALLY responsible for illegal employment in this country? The 16 year old working the field for a slave’s wage or the multi-billion dollar, multi-national corporation with a fleet of attorneys and lobbyists?

Between the amount of produce being grown with nasty fracked water and this trip through The Salad Bowl, I have further committed to buying from my local farmers and to growing even more of our own produce.

The Farmers Market Jerk of the Week

I’ve always had a deep affection for local farmers markets. For the past seven years, I’ve spent nearly every Saturday morning perusing mine. As an entrepreneur, I also view the experience as a refresher course on point of purchase marketing and consumer etiquette. Fortunately, I live in one of the sunniest places on the planet (Southern California), making it possible to people and produce watch 51 weeks a year (off Christmas week).

While the long growing seasons provide ample fruits and vegetables, our market also offers plenty of crafts and activities to keep every generation in the family happy. There’s a miniature train ride, popsicles, kettle corn, and balloon animals for the kids. Handmade aprons, jewelry, tamales, and a plethora of artisanal culinary delights for the adults.

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Over the years, I’ve gotten to know every farmer that my family purchases from and many of the customers as well. We’ve developed a level of familiarity that when we skip a week, our absence is often asked about.  To have a mutually beneficial shopping relationship with pleasant people is a breath of fresh air in today’s retail environment where customer service has been forgotten.

But just like produce, a few bad apples can spoil an entire shopping experience. Today, I saw the ultimate farmers market bad apple.

No, I’m not referring to the crowd of foodies taking up half a stall debating which type of radish tastes the most tart, or the young lady who scarfed down an entire plate of samples, only to scurry away when the farmer turned around to help another customer, or the woman pushing a cart that took up 99% of the aisle. We all encounter these types of behaviors on a regular basis. Most only deserve a shrug and a nod to human idiosyncrasies.

I’m writing about the gentleman who didn’t correct the arithmetic mistake made on his purchase of: one bag of green beans, two heads of kale, three avocados, and two bunches of carrots. The twinkle in his eye, his body language, and the single dollar he put back into his pocket told me he definitely knew his total was seventeen, not the sixteen dollars he was charged.

One dollar.

These particular farmers (husband, wife, and daughter) wake up at 5:00 a.m. on Saturday so they can finish harvesting and load their truck. They drive over an hour to our neighborhood, where they will spend the next five hours baking in the sun. They deliver some of the least expensive organic food to their customers before driving home and repackaging their unsold produce. Their fifteen hour day is repeated six days a week, as they attend markets throughout Orange and LA counties.

Not wanting to cause a scene, but wanting to keep my farmers market karma intact, I paid for my veggies, and handed Maria an extra two dollars. “I’ll pick up another head of lettuce on my way out,” I said.

Oops, I forgot the lettuce.

Mary and her family see close to a thousand customers a day. Yes, they’re only performing basic math, but even simple subtraction gets difficult when you’re tired and have several customers simultaneously pulling at you.

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I try to be a good customer; I don’t molest each piece of fruit before putting it back. I’m efficient and courteous while filling my bags. But, I often rely on their arithmetic. I tell them what I bought, and they tell me how much I owe them. It’s simple laziness on my part. Next week, I’ll give them the purchase total right after telling them what I bought. It’s a small change that will probably go unnoticed. But, if it takes just a small burden off of people who do so much for me and my family, then bring on the addition and subtraction.

Human contact has been removed from many of our economic transactions these days. But it’s the personal relationship element, the sense of doing what’s right for your customer and fellow man, that allows lifestyle businesses to remain successful, and for growth companies to scale while remaining true to their core. It’s also what keeps people from being jerks at your local farmers market.

Nick Tahou was a Culinary Genius

“There is no sincerer love than the love of food.”— George Bernard Shaw

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It’s impossible to say which trip was the best, but a person never forgets his first time.

It was well past 2 a.m. during my first month of college. I was pledging my fraternity at the time, and too many of us piled into the house secretary’s car for my inaugural trip to the food mecca of Rochester. We didn’t take his vehicle because he was sober. In fact, I’m certain someone else drove. We took his car because he had a station wagon that could hold the most people. Since I was a low-life pledge, I had the pleasure of riding in the far back, stuffed in like a sardine.

After a fifteen minute commute from the suburb of Henrietta, home of R.I.T., we arrived in downtown Rochester. The sardine station wagon was immediately greeted by a slew of pimps and prostitutes. They were more than entertaining, with most of them having tongues as sharp as their pimp’s knives. Our group of drunk and loud Alpha males traded verbal compliments and insults with them as we waited to jam ourselves into an already crowded restaurant.

Tahous downtown location
Tahous downtown location

I was shocked at the number of people waiting to get food at three in the morning. But I soon learned that this level of crowd was normal for this time of the morning. Finally, after only a ten or fifteen minute wait our “plates” were served. Ever since that first bite, it has been a love affair that has lasted over two decades. If I was ever on Death Row, the answer to the final meal question is a simple one.

The Garbage Plate™ combines simple ingredients with a few exceptional ones to make an unforgettable culinary treat. While there were several individual noteworthy items (Tahou hots are fantastic) on Tahou’s menu, the real star was the world renowned Garbage Plate™.

A cheeseburger plate
A cheeseburger plate

The standard building blocks of the Garbage Plate™ are macaroni salad and home fries (the potatoes are cut slightly larger than a nickel).  Customers can choose two sides from: home fries, French fries, macaroni salad, and baked beans. The building blocks are topped with several options, but the two most popular are two cheese burgers (topped with white cheddar) or hots, and then covered with the most glorious meat sauce ever created, with just a dash of mustard and white onion sprinkled on top. While there were hundreds of combinations, there is something magical about the mixture of starchy potatoes and the creamy mac salad that offsets the grease infusion of two cheeseburgers that truly brings the Garbage Plate™ to life.

The Tahou legacy in Rochester lives on. But, unfortunately, new ordinances limit establishments from being open 24/7, and the death of Nick in 1997 still reverberates throughout the organization.

Since I now live over 2,000 miles from my treasured culinary treat, I’m forced to prepare it myself. These days, I’m also on a very limited carbohydrate diet, so the Garbage Plate™ is strictly a cheat day meal for me.

Homemade Plate Ingredients
Homemade Plate Ingredients

Lightly coat a pot or pan with Olive or Avocado Oil. I use a full size Le Creuset pot because I find the depth of the dish reduces splatter when I blend the ingredients. Add the onions and sauté for a few minutes. Add the hamburger and all of the spices. Once you have browned the meat, add the water, brown sugar, and tomato paste. Simmer for 15 minutes.

Use an immersion blender to finely chop the sauce. You’ll probably need to add a bit more water during the blending process.

Simmer for another 45 minutes to an hour, periodically adding a touch of water if necessary. You want it to be soggy, not soupy. I simmer it for several hours because the aroma fills me with an immense amount of joy.

Tahou Sauce Recipe

  •     1 medium onion, chopped
  •     1 pound ground beef
  •     1 cup water
  •     1/4 cup tomato paste
  •     1 tablespoon brown sugar
  •     1 teaspoon black pepper
  •     1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
  •     1 teaspoon chili powder
  •     1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
  •     3/4 teaspoon allspice
  •     1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
  •     1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
  •     1/4 teaspoon salt
  •     1 clove garlic, diced or pressed through a garlic press

Don’t forget about the bread. I prefer a fresh baked loaf of Italian, cut thin. But, if you want to be authentic, you can leave the loaf out until it hardens to Tahou-level stiffness.

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Lastly, you could use another hot sauce besides Red Hot™ to top off your plate. I never will, and you really shouldn’t, but one could.

Thank you Nick, your masterpiece still lives on in the hearts and stomachs of thousands of your followers.

Enjoy.