By Kevin Finch on August 31, 2009
The last time I was driving through Vancouver WA I went out of my way to find a Burgerville location. I was hungry (not all that surprising), but I specifically sought out Burgerville because of all I’d heard about how the company cares… for its customers, for the environment, and for its employees. For a number of years the company has purchased premium ingredients and they try to celebrate local foods.
After a visit I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a fast food chain with a more obvious commitment to minimizing their environmental impact. Clearly this makes for great marketing in the current cultural climate that celebrates all things green, but I believe Burgerville decided they cared before it was a marketing home-run.
Then today I came across an article in the Wall Street Journal praising Burgerville for not only offering health care to their employees, but for paying 90% of the premiums for any employee working 20 hours or more a week. This doubled the cost to the company of their health insurance in 2005, but the company feels the end result has been great for employees and also positive for their bottom line.
The Wall Street Journal article notes that fewer than half of restaurant chains report that they provide any kind of health insurance and those that do typically pay less than half of the premium costs and limit enrollment to only employees working more than 30 hours a week. Given this, Burgerville’s choice is that much more striking.
The impact has been equally striking. Typically, very few restaurant employees enroll in company health plans even if they are offered. This is due to the prohibitive cost of the plans even when the company kicks in half the money. Burgerville before the change typified this generalization. Only 3% of their hourly workers were enrolled in the company plan. Contrast this to now. Today 98% of the hourly workers and 97% of the salaried employees have opted into the plan.
Equally striking is the apparent direct link to employee retention. In 2005, Burgerville’s employee turnover was 128%. In 2006, after the company chose to cover 90% of the premiums, the turnover rate plummeted to 54%.
Overall sales and average ticket prices both increased at the same time. While it might be simplistic to suggest that this was only due to the gutsy move in health care, it seems reasonable to suggest that this move contributed to both increases.
This probably means there will be plenty of Walla Walla onion rings waiting for me next time I’m in the Portland/Vancouver area along with a burger made from beef that is 100% antibiotic and hormone free.
Posted in culture, dining, travel | Tagged burgers, Burgerville, Burgerville USA, employee retention, employee turnover, fast food, fast food industry, heath insurance, local food, onion rings, Portland OR, sustainable food, Vancouver WA, Wall Street Journal article, Walla Walla onions |
By Kevin Finch on August 29, 2009
Fried rice might sound a bit odd for breakfast, but this morning I was playing around with ways to use up some leftover shredded cabbage and start the day with some protein. The result was simple and curiously satisfying as an unusual breakfast dish. It ended up getting bonus points for also using up some quinoa and rice in the refrigerator.
QUINOA?! You may not stock quinoa in your kitchen currently, but if you don’t, that is the place to start. Pronouced ‘KEEN-WAH,’ it is a leafy herb that grown in the Andes that produces an abundance of seeds. Part of the reason quinoa is remarkable is that it can be grown on rocky and hard packed soils where nothing else will grow, and the nutritional profile is impressive. It is low in sugar and starch and high in fiber and unsaturated fats. It contains many essential vitamins and minerals as well as fifty percent more protein than wheat, rice and barley and this protein is high quality with a critical balance of the amino acids that are needed by the human body. Quinoa has bragging rights in the vegetable world for containing the amino acid lysine which normally found in meat, fish and eggs. It also provides phosphorous, calcium, iron, vitamin E and several of the B vitamins.
Here endeth the nutritional lesson and beginneth the recipe. Amen.
CRANKED PROTEIN BREAKFAST FRIED RICE
Ingredients
1 tablespoon butter or sesame oil
1-2 cups thinly shredded cabbage
dash of salt
1 ½ cups leftover quinoa and rice mixture (see note below)
several dashes of soy sauce to taste
2 eggs, beaten
Directions
Melt butter in non-stick skillet and add cabbage and dash of salt. Cook for 1-2 minutes.
Stir in quinoa and rice and season with soy sauce to taste.
Add in the beaten eggs and cook, stirring constantly until the eggs are cooked to your liking.
2-3 servings
Note
In an effort to cut back on carbohydrates and bump up proteins, we have been cooking up a mixture of half rice, half quinoa for a side at dinner using the same proportions and cooking times we would for straight rice. This breakfast fried rice is a delicious way to use up leftovers as well as get both vegetables and protein from both the eggs and quinoa at start of the day.
I originally just made this by ‘feel’ so the specific measurements above are kitchen ‘guesstimates’ once it turned out well. Let me know what you think.
Posted in cooking | Tagged breakfast, breakfast fried rice, cabbage, eggs, fried rice, left-overs, nutrition, protein, quinoa, recipes |
By Kevin Finch on August 28, 2009
For a change of pace… can you explain what is going on in this picture?
Literal or creative answers welcome. Bonus points for noting one thing missing in the photograph.
Posted in play | Tagged bathroom, duct tape, toilet |
By Kevin Finch on August 27, 2009
Seattle, WA: Wine flights typically are wine tastings where you receive small amounts of multiple wines in order help those new to wine begin to make distinctions or for the more experienced who are interested in learning more about the wines of a specific region, a particular vintage, or one varietal. Yet my sister… a brilliant cook and consummate interior designer… appears to have decided to play around with the idea of a wine flight.
And I guess she considered these particular bottles something of a flight risk.
Posted in play, wine | Tagged bird cage, Kimberly Crispeno, Seattle WA, wine flight, wine tasting |
By Kevin Finch on August 25, 2009
Kalispell MT: Some of my favorite English authors met regularly in an Oxford pub. It seems that the western equivalent of such a meeting would take place in an old saloon. And instead of asking for a pint, you should order a pitcher of beer and the barkeep would slide it across the bar full enough that a bit sloshes out.
In my western recreation of literary community, the mugs should be so cold that a little of the foam around the edge of your first glass turns to ice.
Since it is a saloon, it should be dark. Any picture would turn out grainy and washed out, and ideally there would be sawdust on the floor and years of names carved into your table in the corner.
The author in question this past weekend was Leif Peterson rather than Lewis or Tolkien or Williams, and you’ll find both his short stories (Normal Like Us) and his first published novel (Catherine Wheels) compelling and full of memorable characters that will stick with you long after you’ve met them on the page. Leif writes the kind of people who you want to meet and talk with, people who would invariably have something worthwhile to say. Not all of them would make great friends, but almost every one would be a good bet for conversation at a party and a few are guaranteed to make the night unforgettable.
The beer, by the way, was Beltian White from Harvest Moon in Belt MT. And the bar? Any of you who know Montana can probably guess.
Posted in culture, drinks | Tagged author, beer, Belgian ale, Belt MT, Beltian White, Catherine Wheels, great fiction, Harvest Moon Brewing Company, Inklings, Leif Peterson, Normal Like Us, novel, Oxford, short stories |
By Kevin Finch on August 24, 2009
Polson, MT: A tip from a friend in Spokane sent me out Highway 35 to hook up along the east side of Flathead Lake. The mission? Taste the smoked Prime Rib at the East Shore Smoke House. It was out of my way, but the friend in question has opened and managed more restaurants than some people will visit in their lives. If he suggests a place, I’m willing to go out of my way.
The low-slung Smoke House now looks nothing like the pale blue building that used to house a German restaurant before Jim Bassett bought the property. “I don’t think there is a single thing in the restaurant that you can see that we haven’t redone,” Jim says with a grin. “I didn’t intend to do this much. Originally I planned to just open a hambuger joint.”
I, for one, am delighted Jim got carried away. The restaurant… both inside and out… invites you to forget what is beyond the gate and settle in for a meal in a space designed to be both visually intriguing and down-home comfortable.
There is bar and dining area outside and both are completely enclosed with tall log slab fences. The eating area offers welcome shade in the summer – much of it from trees and bushes carefully built around rather than removed. In fact, if you spend any time looking around before you dive into the menu, you’ll notice careful details and quality everywhere. The corrugated metal up in the eves was salvaged locally with Jim and his family digging much of it out of the ground where it was buried. And Jim designed and built just about every light fixture in the restaurant.
In addition to using this steer skull, he created another wall fixture using the old boiler door from the Lake City Home Bakery in Polson. Next time I come I might ask to sit inside near said boiler fixture for reasons of pure nostalgia. I worked as a short-order cook at the bakery during high school, and occasionally had to venture down in the basement near the old boiler for supplies.
Yet all the architectural love in the world can’t keep a restaurant open if the food is forgettable. Thankfully, Jim and his staff seem to know this.
Bassett did his homework for the barbecue, and Chef J.R. Daniels is turning out some great, straightforward food that begs for a cult following. Three days out and I’m already wishing I’d smuggled out several bottles of the their house-made rum barbecue sauce. It provides a sweet-savory counterpoint to the each of the meats I tried. This included their (1) chicken (2) chopped pork and (3) St. Louis style ribs as well as (4) their smoked Prime Rib. All four were cooked perfectly, still moist, and touched with a distinctive smoky tang.
The prime rib sandwich ($13.95) comes with whipped cream horseradish sauce, but the barbecue sauce was close enough to addictive that I felt compelled to slather it on the Prime Rib as well as on the chopped pork and St. Louis style rib.
The spot probably isn’t the place to host a convention for vegetarians, but feel free to drag along a couple friends who are avoiding charred beast. There are several good options absent the meat even if the most compelling culinary reasons to show up come out of the smoker. I plan to try the brisket next time, convince someone with me to order the smoked Prime Rib so I can steal a bite or two, and then I plan to turn my attention to the generous number of microbrews offered on tap.
Posted in dining, drinks, travel | Tagged barbecue, BBQ, East Shore Smoke House, Flathead Lake, Flathead Lake restaurants, Flathead Valley, J.R. Daniels, Jim Bassett, Lake City Home Bakery, Montana restaurants, rum bbq sauce, smoked chicken, smoked Prime Rib |
By Kevin Finch on August 21, 2009
St. Regis Travel Center Edition: Western Montana travel kitsch seems to lean heavily on huckleberries and outhouses for the local items, but a number of more generic items also caught my eye in the food-related kitsch category. Weigh in with which of the items you think should take top honors.
Entry #1: “Chili Makins” that claim to not to contribute to global warm or ozone depletion.
Entry #2: Silicone bakeware with a conscience. “Let them eat cake” takes on new meaning.
Entry #3: Ice cube nostagia for the early video game addict.
Entry #4: Possibly the strangest of the items in the expansive local huckleberry line-up.
Entry #5: For the butter challenged who appreciate single season, single action gadgets, comes the Butter Boy. I believe it runs on ethanol.
Entry #6: When just a state-branded shot glass won’t do, go for the one with the miniature bear camped inside.
Entry #7: The Celene Dion soundtrack is optional.
And our final St. Regis Travel Center entry, #8: The moose-chugger bottle holder.
Your votes please.
Posted in culture, drinks, kitsch, travel | Tagged Butter Boy, coffee, Gin & Titonic, huckleberries, Ice Invaders, Montana, outhouse, Peace of Cake, St Regis, travel kitsch, western Montana |
By Kevin Finch on August 21, 2009
I tend to be a bit incredulous on my way to the bathroom at most travel centers. Why? It is the nick-nacks offered for sale.
Yesterday though I decided to take a more studied approach to travel center commerce. On the way from Spokane over to my parents home on Flathead Lake, I determined to try find the MOST OUTRAGEOUS food-related item offered for sale wherever we stopped to visit the loo. I did just this, took pictures, and intend to let you vote on what you think should be #1. Yet just the idea of looking for the most outrageous item on display gave me a new clinical distance that offered up general observations as well as some real kitsch contenders.
Observations First: Travel kitsch tends to fall into categories. There are all the locally-branded items from tee-shirts to mugs and shot glasses. My favorite in this category yesterday was the Montana mug trying to impersonate a tree trunk.
Most of this seems to be made in China, but is intended to evoke a sense of place far far from Shanghai. Second there are all the vanity items embossed with your name. My son Peter’s name is always available on key chains, pens, pipe bombs and the like. Daughter Megan’s name is equally popular. It is only our third child, Brendan, who is left out. Apparently there are enough Brandons in the world to justify a print run, but the Brendans are out of luck.
The third category is the humor category: items intended to make you laugh enough to forget you have no place to put said sign or item when you get home. For some reason a high percentage of the travel kitsch in the humor category seems to skew toward the crude.
Fourth comes the cheap home decor category with a line up of items destined to gather dust on mantle pieces (much of it with a country/folk/old fashioned feel).
Fifth are the toys guaranteed not to break only until at least the next exit on the Interstate.
Sixth: jewelery.
Seventh: unique local items… often food like hot sauce, jams, candy, and a pancake mix supposedly made by Aunt Alice. In the case of western Montana, apparently the critical ingredient is a huckleberry. Maybe in Minnesota it is a walleye trout.
What I’m curious about at the moment is what categories I might have missed. The specific kitsch from St. Regis should show up for comment soon, but right now let me know what classic travel kitsch categories I’m missing.
Posted in kitsch, play, travel | Tagged Flathead Lake, kitsch, Montana, travel kitsch, vanity items |
By Kevin Finch on August 20, 2009
Spokane WA: I confess to being on a coast to coast gnocchi kick this summer. It started with an ethereal version at Eleven Madison Park in NYC at the very end of May and included an almost polenta-like baked example at Tavolata in Seattle. There have been several other fine variations along the way.
Yesterday I returned to Santé for a second run at Jeremy Hansen’s take on this Italian classic. It is almost as different from both Eleven Madison Park’s and Tavolata’s as to be in a separate category, but it simply wonderful and one of the best entrees in downtown Spokane at $10.
Don’t count on it fitting well into a Weight Watchers plan, but please don’t let this stop you. Bring a friend or two and share it along with a few other dishes: problem solved. Sharing also means you’ll get to try a bit more on Hansen’s menu as a bonus.
Posted in dining | Tagged Eleven Madison Park, gnocchi, Jeremy Hansen, Sante, Spokane restaurants, Spokane WA, Tavolata, Weight Watchers |
By Kevin Finch on August 19, 2009
I’m not a rabid reality show fan. In fact, most of the reality show phenomenon makes me groan and remember why I like books. More thought. No need to BLEEP every third word. Characters I actually like.
That said, I have watched a fair amount of Top Chef. For one we actual got Bravo with our minimum cable package until the world went HD. Two, I am somewhat obsessed with food. Hell’s Kitchen strikes me as idiotic… an excuse for the notoriously short-tempered Gordon Ramsey to scream and humiliate aspiring chefs. But Top Chef takes a somewhat less brutal approach and can be entertaining to watch.
This season of Top Chef, which aired its first episode tonight, is filmed in Las Vegas and features two Seattle chefs, Ashley Merriman and Robin Leventhal. Score two for the Northwest. Yet the way I heard about the new season line-up was in a email from Kevin Gillespie, the executive chef at the Woodfire Grill in Atlanta.
I met Kevin during his brief stint here in Spokane. He came to town to take the helm at Luna only to have that position not work out… quite definitively. Then while deciding on his next big move (back to Atlanta) he logged some kitchen time at Bin 98 Twenty up on north Nevada.
We met at Quillisascut Farm in February of 2008 during a weekend when local chefs gathered to talk about developing a sustainable local food system.
He and his wife later helped out on a restaurant review locally before they moved back home to Atlanta. I hadn’t heard from him until about a month ago when he sent me a note about his upcoming Top Chef appearance.
So tonight we headed over to friends who still get Bravo to watch episode one. It will air again next Wednesday night so I’ll not give a blow by blow, but let me say this much: Gillespie gets some significant air time and puts it to good use.
Posted in culture, dining | Tagged Ashley Merriman, Atlanta, Bin 98 Twenty, Bravo, Gordon Ramsey, Hell's Kitchen, Kevin Gillespie, Las Vegas, Luna, Quillisascut, Quillisascut Farm, reality TV, Robin Leventhal, Seattle chefs, Top Chef, Top Chef Las Vegas, Top Chef Season Six, Woodfire Grill, Woodfire Grill Atlanta |
By Kevin Finch on August 19, 2009
Does one of these new wine cubbys at the Rocket Market on Spokane’s South Hill have your name on it?
Wine guru Carl Carlsteen says they are just about ready to launch their wine-of-the-month club, and soon these cubbies will be home to specially selected wines each month. Details are still being finalized, but if your tastes in wine match Carlsteen’s passion and palate you might want to consider joining the club and score a cubby.
Posted in drinks, wine | Tagged Carl Carlsteen, Rocket Market, Spokane WA, wine, wine of the month club |
By Kevin Finch on August 18, 2009
I had a great chicken salad sandwich today.
The spot? Christ Kitchen on Monroe. If you’ve been around a while, you might remember the site as the former home of Taco Time. Now the building houses something unique – an organization dedicated to offering hope to women in poverty. They started with dry soup mixes with kitschy catchy names, but now offer more… including a great chicken salad sandwich with crunch from pecans and celery and sweet from Crasins. A layer of sprouts is another welcome addition.
If you have a favorite chicken salad sandwich, let me know about it. And stop in at the Kitchen any weekday but Thursday from 11 am to 1 pm to see how theirs measures up.
Posted in dining | Tagged chicken salad sandwich, Christ Kitchen, Spokane, Spokane restaurants, Taco Time |
